Enter the fantasy world of Zin Never Dies, inspired by classic animated films, fairy tale charm, and folklore darkness...
Latest Updates from Our Project:
I'm sick... (update +preview of HUSH)
11 months ago
– Wed, Jan 31, 2024 at 03:21:42 PM
I'm sick...
dramatization
It's true, I've been under the weather this month. As you can tell from this real-life picture of me (yes, that's what I look like). I hope the worst is behind me. I'm sorry for failing to meet the deadlines I set. To be honest with you, I feel awful about it and in general. Not having a very good winter here in Berlin. Each task on its own is doable, but as a pile of interdisciplinary work, it's overwhelming. But I'm going to pull through! I'm also cutting down on my expenses, because with all these delays and set backs, I don't want to ever cut into the money set aside for the printing and manufacturing rewards. Not on my watch!
Hush (adventure)
While lying in bed, I couldn't do much but illustrate, so at least the adventures will have lots of visual fun! Here are some updates regarding the contents of Hush:
40 pages long, though most runs will only require the GM to look through ~15 of them.
9 locations
11 events (not including the intro & inciting incident)
10 characters
1 spirit
13 art pieces (not including diagrams, graphics, and visualizations of information)
1 area map
1 building layout map
4 narrative sections (optional reading)
A "Quick Facts" spread about all the characters and entities in the adventure, to be used as handy reference (and to keep track of everyone's names)
All of which means this has a TON of replay value. I'm very happy with how this one came out. I've run through it 3 times now with different groups and each group saw different locations, encountered different events, and came to completely different (and opposite) conclusions on the morals of important characters. I also included something I WISH every adventure had, which is this:
A graphic that shows how characters are connected! I'm sure it's been done before, but in the adventures I've read, something like this would have helped so much. I'm a very visual learner, and with ADHD on top of that, a big square block of text is not fun. I hope you enjoy the adventure! Here's a sneak peak at Satsat, the Spirit ruling over the Domain of Hush. As you can probably tell, it likes rabbits.
Hush will be downloadable in 2-3 days. Right now I am lying in bed and going over the PDF again to make corrections, rearrange spreads & pages, and looking for typos.
Thank you to everyone for continuing to be interested in this world. It helps to know that I'm not sending content into the void. That real people will get and play and read and enjoy the art I make. It's after midnight so I'll sign off for now.
thank you
Eiko Nemo Dowme
Happy Beansmass!
almost 1 year ago
– Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 06:46:46 PM
Happy Beansmass!
Just like everyone else on the planet, tomorrow I'll be celebrating Beansmass, the universal holiday of good beans. I hope you all have a merry happy Beansmass with the best beans by your side.
2023
...has been a very challenging year, but we made it through together! Thank you for bearing with me through the delays and the setbacks. Just this past month I got to release the final edit of the book in digital form, the starter kit, the reference sheets, and the very first adventure! To everyone who is surprised by this, if your pledge tier includes the PDF of the core rule book, check your BackerKit account. That download is waiting for you right there. If it isn't and you believe it should, please message me here or on Discord and I'll check how things look on my end.
Weekly game
I'm starting a weekly ZND game over on the server. The time & other info are in the #game-ads channel. If you want to be a player, hop on over and add the time that works for you!
The quick start guide, character sheets, and reference sheets are all free to download through Gumroad links on ZinNeverDies.com. Whereas other websites have a free download button and a donate button, Gumroad just asks you to input a fair price. To download for free, just put zero. Now and again someone drops in a few dollars through there and that's always appreciated, but please don't feel bad for downloading as many free assets as you want as many times as you want!
The next releases
I still hope to get Hush out by the end of this month. It's proving especially difficult because, in addition to being the first big Adventure, it involves setting lots of precedence about how a ZND adventure is structured. Mask-A-Raid is as close to a standard adventure ZND will have, with its relatively straightforward 1-2-3 structure. Hush and Spirit Water involve larger areas with more powerful spirits, more serious threats, and a darker tone. Hush will be the darker of the two, with the potential for some nasty outcomes for the player characters and their companions. Spirit Water will be more focused on the spirit world and less on grim-dirty realism. Both feature spirits heavily. If all goes well, you'll have Hush by the 30th and Spirit Water on the second week of January.
Links
Here are the updated links to the latest versions of all the free ZND downloads:
Reminder: just put "0" as the price to download for free.
Final reminder
Almost everyone has confirmed all the details over on BackerKit, all except 22 people. If you're not sure, double-check that you did.
Feedback
If you got Mask-A-Raid I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. It's the first adventure so feedback is invaluable! Whether you skimmed it, read it, played it, or ran it, it's all valuable to me. The most effective way to do this is, as usual, on Discord.
CALLING ALL PLAYTESTERS! (also Mask-A-Raid, releases timeline, adventure structures & more!)
about 1 year ago
– Wed, Nov 22, 2023 at 12:44:15 PM
Tl;dr - If you played ZND before release, tell me by what name you want me to credit you. The final version of the pdf plus a one-shot adventure comes out this month. Thanks everyone for the help with proofreading!
I've got lots to share this month, so let's start with how we're doing on the timeline. November will see the release of the finished version of the pdf (this week), and 'Mask-A-Raid!' The one-shot mystery adventure that will start off the next batch of releases!
Proofreaders & playtesters
Thank you so much to everyone who has been assisting with proofreading. I'm just one person, so this help with spotting typos and consistency errors is AMAZING! If you spot something, please point it out on the #proofreading channel of the ZND discord server. If possible, before the end of this week.
Next is the subject of names! If you played ZND at any point before the pdf release, please write in the general/kickstarter channels of the discord server. Add how you would like to be credited. For example:
"I played with a group last year! Please credit me as HandleMcUsername28730."
I would hate for someone to miss out after helping, so do it before this weekend if possible.
Adventure
Alright, next! Mask-A-Raid! It will be a light-hearted mystery (with the standard ZND hint of darkness) fit for a group of 1 to 5 players, playable in 1~2 sessions. The structure of this adventure will be a little different from what you can expect later on. It will involve clues, witnesses, lots of accusations thrown around, and at least one very big hat.
masked detective
As for structure, ZND adventures aren't your typical adventure module. Because of the unique nature of the game, every adventure will come with the spirits and domains of the area. The GM can change their properties to suit/challenge the players' unique talents, of course. The structure will be dynamic like the mechanics of the game. What this means is that, like with Zin Towers, the game master is given lots of pieces and abilities and may do with them whatever they like. This kind of design isn't suitable for everyone, I know that. That's why I will also include several suggested courses to string all these parts together.
For example:
The adventure includes [character], [location], [spirit] and illustrates the general relationships between them. A suggested course at the back of the adventure will be: The players meet [character], who explains to them about [spirit] and [domain]. Then [character] realizes the players aren't who they thought they were, and runs away to hide in [location].
The 2 following adventures, HUSH and Spirit Water, will have a darker tone. I look forward to every single release so much! 😊
thank you
Eiko Nemo Dowme
Check your email, the ZND pdf should be there :D
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Oct 20, 2023 at 08:16:30 AM
The October 10th release was a success!
I checked again and it looks like the last of you should have gotten the pdf v.0.9 of the complete core rulebook. If you don't see it, make sure you're looking in the same email you signed up to BackerKit with when filling out your survey. Final callout to the 20 people who haven't filled out their surveys yet. All details will be locked and shipping costs will be charged at the end of this month.
Another reminder: This is version 0.9 of the ZND Core Rulebook. Please let us know about any mistakes or inconsistencies you find by posting on our discord server, also found at ZinNeverDies.com. Thank you for being lovely!
It's almost ready! It will feature 8 characters, 3 domains, 3 spirits, and 2 locations (a town, and a city), as well as an additional life-path table to establish a connection between party members. It will be released on Sunday Oct 22nd.
Eiko Nemo Dowme
thank you :D
RELEASE DATE ANNOUNCEMENT
over 1 year ago
– Sun, Sep 03, 2023 at 08:58:31 AM
October 10th!
Hey folks! I’ve got a lot to update you on, but for those interested only in the hard facts, here’s a tl;dr:
Zin Never Dies core rulebook will drop on October 10th in PDF form.
In the month that follows, I'll use player feedback to make the final corrections before the finalized version is approved for print.
Next to drop will be the Starter’s Kit on October 20th.
Once that’s out, the 3 adventure modules (Mask-A-Raid, HUSH, and Spirit Water) will drop in November & December.
Cursed domains
The world is full of angry spirits. Why are they angry? Who knows... All you can do is try to avoid them and their wrath. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always work. The core book will feature this section detailing examples of uniquely cursed domains with inexplicable effects hindering the players.
Environmental dangers
The gm guide now includes this section, an illustrated manual for presenting players with special challenges based on the environment they’re in; grassy hills, wetlands, rocky mountains, deserts, etc.
Bestiary Update
The final bestiary design will feature some “highlight” pages featuring one creature (art, description, & stats) and other pages that feature 2~3 creatures at a time. The “stat block” as we know it, used for characters & NPCs, is proving too big & clunky for critters. It simply takes up too much room on the page. This redesign fixes ‘em with a fancy “stat belt” instead.
Countries/so much art
The ‘countries’ section of the world chapter has been the most intensive art effort of the entire book, and it’s finally finished. Phew…
Misc
The book will also include an appendix featuring example copies of all character sheets (player characters, npcs, spirits, etc) and all cheat sheets.
The missing updates, the slow responses, the delayed release dates and more have led a few backers to (not unreasonably) assume that ZND is a dud; One of the many Kickstarter projects that started with good intentions but fell through. It might have been one in an alternate timeline. After all, my life has seen many changes in the past year and a half. I experienced technical issues, a family member passed away, I got through illnesses and heartbreaks, breakups and loss, I’ve moved to my own apartment, come out of the closet as both queer & transgender, my dog Zoro died (he was 16 years old and, objectively, the best boy)... This list of changes isn’t here to toot my own pity-horn but rather to show how much ZND means to me. Through all of this, when the outside world sucked and my own life seemed to be heading the same way, I had my own mountain to climb. If I can write one page today, the day will have been worth it. If I can finish one art-piece today, the day will have been worth it. If I can make one more npc, one more map, one more design… It helped me tremendously and so have all of you. And as you can tell from the descriptions of my tasks, I’m doing this on my own. The concept artists have helped me a lot, but their work has been done for months. Now it’s all me. My current workload looks something like this: writing, designing, layout, bureaucracy, art, customer support, playtesting, scheduling, and proofreading. I’ll use the last bit of free budget from the campaign to hire an assistant who will handle the details of printing correspondence with the printer company because I recently reached my limit and had a minor collapse.
