Zin Never Dies: The Roleplaying Game

Unexpected developments...
2 months ago – Mon, Oct 21, 2024 at 03:09:38 PM

"Why does this Masked look so bad?"

Because I drew it with my left hand.

"Why did you draw it with your left hand?"

Because my right hand is injured.

"How was your right hand injured?"

Someone assaulted me.

"Oh"

Yeah...

Update

So yeah, without going into personal details: I got assaulted and had to go to the hospital. No permeant damage done, fortunately. Had some X-rays done and my arm is gonna be in a sling-cast-thing for a bit. Will get back to drawing and writing as soon as I get the ok from the doctor.

First Printed Book & 2nd ZND Adventure release date
3 months ago – Sun, Sep 22, 2024 at 03:36:41 PM

The Very First Copy

It's here! The first sample copy of the standard hardcover book has arrived. What a treasure.

This has been my dream for half a decade. It's unreal to have it in my hands. I can't thank you enough for helping to make this happen. I know I say it every update, but seriously thank you.

As seen above, I've made the endpapers on the inside parts of the covers 2 versions of the world map. One in Lehrean, the other in English. I want it to be easy whenever you wanna look up any specific place or get a sense of location.

Also as seen above, I decided to change the tagline from there are no fairy tales here to a roleplaying game of masks & spirits. The first tagline will still feature in some art and promo material.

Corrections

It's so much easier to make design choices with the physical book in my hands. 

• I've found a dozen technical errors so far. They were pretty easy to correct on my end. 
• The back of the book (not previously featured in the PDF) needed lots of adjustments. On the screen it looks one way, in your hands, it's a different matter. I made a few drafts of a new design and sent it off to the printers for the second print copy. Fingers crossed!
• The one thing I couldn't fix was an error on the printer's part to offset the whole book by one page. That means page 1 is in the place of page 2, 2 in the place of 3, and so on. In a novel, this isn't that big of an issue. However, in a sourcebook where no two pages are identical, it throws everything off. Most obviously in the case of page numbers and borders. These graphics, for example, are meant to be on the outside rather than in the page gutter.

None of this is a serious wrench in the works. This is what you print sample copies for, after all. The printers are being very responsive and wonderful to work with so far. I'm really glad I didn't stick with the first printers just to get the book out sooner. Things like this would no doubt have slipped through all the way to the final print.

Next Print Copy

The second print sample is being printed this week and should be in my hands ten days after it's done. In the meantime, I'm ironing out all the typos and errors I'm finding with the first version. I don't expect the back & fourth to take too long. If I'm very very lucky, this will be the last print sample needed. If I'm only regular lucky (which is still pretty lucky), we'll make little adjustments and copy 3 will be the final cut.

Will keep you posted!

Spirit Water

The 2nd ZND adventure, Spirit Water, is coming out on the 22nd of October. I'll roll out the release the same way I did with HUSH, a PDF release distributed via BackerKit emails. With just enough time for GMs to prep the adventure for Halloween, I think this one will fit just right with the Spirit World vibe. It is technically possible to go through all of Spirit Water and not engage in any combat. With that said, no one's done it yet. Creatures of this world and beings of... who knows, are tangled in a web of danger, conflict, intrigue, and guilt. Just like in HUSH, my aim is to make an adventure that will never play the same way twice. I've gotten feedback from groups who played HUSH all the way through, had a blast, and never even came into contact with one of the most important characters. The important thing for me is that someone experiencing the adventure like that shouldn't feel like they missed out. I hope I can recreate that feeling with this next ZND adventure!

Summary

Something is rotten in the lakeside town of Miksdem. A pacifist monk and a not-so pacifist monk showed up from the wilderness a couple days ago, looking over their shoulders every other breath. This morning, they were gone along with 2 lake-boats. Oh yes, and the lake was boiling.

To get to the bottom of this, you'll have to go where no one has before (and come back with all their pieces intact); The spirit world. Raza.

Every hour in Raza will drain your body, mind, and Zin until the simplest task becomes a herculean challenge. Will you find what you're looking for in this upside down realm? And if you do, will you make it back?

A mind-bending adventure for 2-8 players featuring tower-sized snakes, holy eggs, white wastes, umbrellas from another world, taxis from nowhere to nowhere else, 7-eyed beasts, and colossi in the distance. Good luck!

Till next month!
Eiko <3

The Pins Are Here!
5 months ago – Mon, Jul 22, 2024 at 03:01:45 PM

Quick update!

The enamel pins are here and they are better than I could have hoped for! My expectations were high but... wow. You're going to love them. They are on par with the highest quality enamel pins I own, and I own quite a few.

Printing!

With the help of a very gracious fellow TRPG creator (please give their wonderful stuff a look at https://www.lonecolossusgames.com ) a printer has been secured! Today I sent off all the documents needed to print a sample copy. I am jittery with excitement. I'll share pictures as soon as I can.

Hope you all have a wonderful month and many game-nights with lovely people.

With ever-increasing luminosity,
Eiko <3

4 rewards down (+bonus Enamel Pin), 1 to go!
7 months ago – Wed, May 22, 2024 at 03:05:16 PM

Hello everyone! I won't waste another update with another apology for another delay. I'll keep it short and say exactly what there is, and exactly what, at the moment. isn't.

Finished and just need to be sorted are:
1. Art prints
2. Character Sheet Bundles
3. Masked Sticker Pack

Enamel Pins

Finished, shipped, but haven't arrived yet:

1. Masked Crown Enamel Pin

2. Masked Bard Enamel Pin

Bonus Pin

I took some extra money from my own pocket and made a third pin design. This one is not for sale, at least not at the moment. I'll put it in along with the package anyone who got a pin/s in their order already. It's not gonna cost you anything extra, it's just something to show how much I appreciate you all and your patience. It features the Tsum-Mothers, one of my favorite critters from the core book, holding its precious egg. I present to you...

EGG! I'm very excited for EGG. That's what I called it in the emails with the printers too so under the official transaction the banknote they put was "for EGG." Which. I mean. That sparks joy.

Switching printers

For reasons that are honestly beyond me, I can't wait for the printer anymore. They have been slow, unresponsive, and inflexible. The clincher, though, is their refusal to print a sample copy before doing the main batch. A thing so obviously necessary, I didn't ask the other publishers about. It's the standard practice. And for good reason, too. The risk of printing 500 copies of a hardcover, full color book only to discover some technical error is simply panic-inducing. 

At this point, holding out hope is not an option. I'm sorry I didn't do this sooner.

Spirit Water

Because of all this waiting, and it being slightly easier to illustrate than write (for me, at least), Spirit Water is going to have so much art! Here are some of the pieces out of context to not ruin it. Also, interestingly enough, it's turning out much more system-agnostic than HUSH was. So depending on how far I can stretch that, I may include a small section about playing Spirit Water with other systems. Anyway, here's art!

Health

The last update was optimistic. I was just about to get on a different treatment and wanted to get you all as excited as I was. But things have not improved... In some ways, they've gotten worse. Day-to-day stuff is harder now than it was then. For a few weeks I was completely out of commission. At least I'm better than that at the moment. I'm fighting hard to not let it effect writing and illustrating. 

And one last point I wanted to bring up. There's always the fear with crowdfunding projects that the creators can't pull through. Then there's the worse fear, that they ran off with the money. Now, I know you don't think that if you've lasted this long with me, but I still feel the need to say this, to make everything; I don't have a job. For the past 2 years, ZND has been my job, and the money from the Kickstarter campaign is all the money I have. I've rationed it really carefully. I wanted to be sure I'm never letting the cost of living chip at production cost. My worst nightmare would be getting to the finish line, reaching to pay the printers, and finding out that I took too long, and there just isn't enough money left. Now is the time when one by one, I'm sending out the final payments to all these different manufacturers, and I can breath out in relief; I didn't waste it. It's enough. 

That's it. Just wanted to say it once. Thank you for letting this be my job. You're the best. And also technically my boss. So yeah, thanks boss!

Eiko

Good news! (Hush, character sheets, art-prints)
10 months ago – Wed, Mar 06, 2024 at 08:13:06 AM

Hush is now out!

40 pages of delicious adventuring potential, shot right into your email. Make sure to check the email address associated with your BackerKit account. If you ordered Hush and haven't received it, reach out on the Discord Server, please. I'll check behind the scenes and see what's up. 

Thank you all for bearing with the delays. Also, thank you everyone for the well-wishes. I've been improving slowly. Hopefully, I can ride this trend back to full function <3

Physical rewards

The time has come! Physical rewards are beginning to arrive. The art prints are the first physical reward to arrive and they came out so good! Look at them!

We did the second physical reward half manually, so we didn't have to wait for shipping. Pictured here are the almost ONE THOUSAND character sheets, NPC sheets, and spirit sheets for those who got that lovely little add-on. I never knew paper gan get so heavy.

What's left?

We are waiting for price quotas on the enamel pins, and the deluxe edition hardcovers. Then we'll print out a prototype, just to be safe (wouldn't want to print a few hundred badly formatted books). If the Great Sandworm isn't too angry at us, we'll have a physical copy of both by the time the next update rolls around.

I hope you had a wonderful February and a good first week of March. Take care of yourselves.

Eiko Nemo Dowme <3