One week ago, Gaming Ballistic launched the Lost Hall of Tyr (2nd Edition) Kickstarter. It is a short campaign: 17 days, running from a week ago Friday, Dec 7 through Sunday, Dec 23. This Lost Hall 2e Kickstarter Update provides the good news, a request for help, and some further details about what’s different, and what’s coming.

Read on!

The Good News

The good news is that we funded almost immediately: by the end of Day 2, we’d passed the basic $1,300 funding goal by 40%.

That means that what used to look like this:

now looks like this:

The new maps will be executed by Glynn Seal, who deservedly won the 2018 ENnie Award Gold Medal for Best Cartography for his work on his Midderlands setting. I’m really looking forward to this upgrade, as it will bring the book up to the artistic standard it deserves.

The Campaign and The Ask

The good news is that we funded. The hard part of this is that after three days of solid growth in day-to-day pledges, the last few days have been pretty flat. There is hope, however. There are about 130 people who are currently following the project but have not yet pledged. At anywhere between $13 and $33 for these folks, that’s $1,700-$4,300.

Well. Added to the $2,150 current funding level gives a campaign finish between “short run digital printing” and “softcover offset print run!”

A lot of potential sitting there!

The Ask

If you bought Dragon Heresy during that campaign, and are one of the 200 folks that don’t have any support for it: I’d ask that you seriously consider pledging to this one. You won’t be disappointed in the results, and you’ll have direct play support for the Introductory Set. It’s a great ruleset, setting, and adventure, and the updated version of Lost Hall of Tyr plays really well.

If you’re one of the folks following, I’d ask that you pledge sooner rather than later. It will allow me to get a jump on planning the printing, and help the campaign’s velocity, which always brings in more supporters.

Finally: if you’re a current backer or follower, please share out the link. It really helps!

See more details about what’s changing below the break!

Layout Improvements and Changes

The 2nd Edition book is importing in 48 pages of new content from the Hall of Judgment mini-setting. This well-received book took the original concepts from the tournament-style adventure and just made them better. Better wilderness rules. Better monsters. More agency. More to do. More dungeons and perils. And a lot more setting information.

The town of Isfjall is loaded with details. It makes a wonderful home base or port of call to any party of adventurers living in, or visiting, a Viking-inspired town. Details on the material and social culture  come from the Sagas, history, and fantasy, creating a living world for the players to explore.

Adding to several interweaving adventuring possibilities, the layout changed from 8×10″ format for Hall of Judgment to the conventional 8.5×11″ US Letter. I re-worked the document, improving the sections on survival, as well as putting a lot more detail into some of the more dangerous monsters. Here’s a hint: if you encounter the Faerie Sorceress . . . do not expect a “balanced encounter.”

The second edition is graphically distinct from its predecessors, while still sharing lineage.

New Cover

We painted a new cover of the 2nd Edition, giving the book it’s own look reflecting the new, exciting location at the village of Logiheimli. I’ve played this scenario more than once at conventions, and it’s a great addition to the book. Juan and I wanted to reflect this addition, and the new cover depicts an action scene from that section of the adventure.

However, there are some compositional elements on this one – color saturation, positions of the main characters, and some of the poses, that we both wish to improve . . . so look for a new version of this later this weekend! We had a lot of discussion on what needed to be changed, and I’m really looking forward to the new piece, and Juan is eager to bring it to you.

Finish Strong and New Material

The coming weekend and next week will hopefully see a great acceleration in the campaign, with your help. I hope to be able to post the new Foreword to the book, by a name many of you will recognize. He’s a busy guy, though, so we’ll see!

I definitely will be sharing out the new cover. I’m very excited to see what this looks like.

Also, for those that are interested in future adventures in Torengar (known as Norðlond when it’s in the Dungeon Fantasy RPG version of the setting), I will be showing some excerpts from future work: The Citadel at Northwatch.

This adventure makes for an ideal companion to Lost Hall. With a bit of reputation and experience under their belts, the adventurers walk into the Citadel with confidence, and play a pivotal role in the events in the book. Unlike the pure quest of Lost Hall, Citadel is a true mini-setting: there are multiple interconnected event flows going on, and no set resolution to any of them. Pulling on one thread generates interactions and responses from the others . . . but how that evolves is up to you to decide.

I expect to see that coming to crowdfunding in the first quarter of 2019, after Lost Hall is settled. It launches first for the Dungeon Fantasy RPG, and from there, to Dragon Heresy.

There are also two more adventures in the works, written by two new authors, that will add further support to the setting using both systems.

This is only the beginning, and I hope you’ll help me build this setting into what it can be.