Campaign Builder: Dungeons & Ruins

Thank You from the Dungeon Depths!
6 months ago – Wed, May 15, 2024 at 04:24:13 PM

Light the torches and load the spear traps, it's a major celebration for Dungeons & Ruins! 

Thank you to each and every one of you 3,674 backers! This hardcover sourcebook will be deeper, deadlier, and better-mapped because of you.

The kobolds will take a few days to recover. Just hte usual stuff, pet their lantern beetles, eating some rat-on-a-stick, basically recovering from the panic and excitement of this Kickstarter. The team will return to set up the Pledge Manager and line up the stretch goals (7 in all!).  We want this project to shine like the trigger on a favorite crossbow before it ships in February, 2025.

Here’s the timeline of upcoming events (future updates will roll out about once a month):

Pro Design Seminar This Friday

This Friday at 6 pm ET / 3 pm PT come see designers Erin Roberts (Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel), Steve Winter (Scarlet Citadel, Tomb of Annihilation, Tyranny of Dragons), and Brian Suskind (Tome of Heroes, Southlands), plus professional cartographer Tom Cartos.

A private Zoom channel will be shared soon!

Dungeon Tables on Monday

The first reward ships on Monday, May 20, when the Dungeon Tables PDF will be available to all backers. (It will arrive via Kickstarter messaging, so keep an eye on the email you use for Kickstarter.)

 Pledge Manager in June

We promise the BackerKit will go live on Monday, June 3!

Again, thank you all for your support, plus we’d like to extend an extra-special thank you to all of our designers and artists, and also our gratitude to everyone who shared, liked, and generally helped get the word out.

The Kobolds

UNLOCKED: The Regal Trove AND 48 Maps
6 months ago – Tue, May 14, 2024 at 12:36:11 PM

It's official, the Dungeons & Ruins project has blown past the $250k goal with about 24 hours remaining, and that unlocks not 1 but THREE additional rewards! Here's the quick rundown on those.

The Regal Trove Adventure

This 32-page dungeon adventure for levels 3 to 5 by designer Ben Eastman is included for all backers at the $29 level and up! Long ago, the crown jewels were stolen from the throne, and no one could determine where they were hidden. Now, though, new clues have surfaced. Can the heroes recover the regal trove before mysterious powers can thwart them? It's a great addition to Dungeons & Ruins and a great short adventure for your table!

Map Tiles: Dungeons and Map Tiles: Caves & Caverns

This unlock brings two add-ons into the mix, which you can grab here in Kickstarter (or on BackerKit) at a 28% discount for 48 maps depicting caves, caverns, and dungeons for easy use at any table. Either way, those maps will ship with your other print rewards. . . .

UNLESS you decide you want them earlier. The shipping team is trying something new: if you want to get the same 28% discount on one or both sets of Map Tiles, you can do so in June with a backer-only discount for early shipment. The Kobold Store has more details about Map Tiles: Dungeons, including the 24 map locations.

As always, thank you for your support!

The Kobolds

Advanced Treasures PDF Available Now!
7 months ago – Mon, May 06, 2024 at 02:56:58 PM

The Advanced Treasures and Worthy Rewards PDF is now available to download. This 12-page sneak peek provides previews of the different ways you can make finding loot more exciting for your treasure-hunting characters. It’s just a small sampling of the clever tricks, options, and random tables in Campaign Builder: Dungeons & Ruins for spicing up the wealth!

And as a reminder, we’re not far off from unlocking the next series of stretch goals, either. At the $250k mark, you get a complete adventure, The Regal Trove, and special exclusive pricing for two upcoming map tile sets. So watch here for more information when we cross that threshold.

Hoards for the Hordes!
7 months ago – Mon, Apr 29, 2024 at 07:18:37 AM

UNLOCKED: Advanced Treasures & Worthy Rewards!

The backers have pushed us forward and unlocked the next cool stretch goal, a nifty sneak preview called Advanced Treasures & Worthy Rewards. We've pulled together some tidbits from different sections of Dungeons & Ruins that explore in more detail how to present, hide, protect, and otherwise make interesting all the valuable loot adventurers hope to find when delving into the shadowy depths.

The preview PDF gives a sneak peak of a much larger collection of useful lists for:

• Keeping heroes on their toes while treasure hunting
• Different ways of thinking about what constitutes treasure
• Creating clues for finding hidden valuables
• Randomizing even minor trinkets to make them useful

Keep an eye out for that preview going up on the main Kickstarter page!

NEXT UP: The Regal Trove
and Backer-Exclusive Map Tile Pricing

The next stretch goal threshold you can unlock is at $250k in pledges. It includes:

• The Regal Trove: A 32-page dungeon-crawl adventure for the Tales of the Valiant system has heroes learning of the hidden vaults of a gentleman thief who has passed on, admitting after death that he stowed the stolen crown jewels within those trap-protected halls.
• Dungeon and Caves & Caverns Map Tile Sets: Backers can unlock special reduced pricing for these two new sets of Kobold Press 7" × 7" wet-, dry-, and permanent-marker-erasable map tiles. Both sets release in Summer of 2024.

WITHIN SIGHT: Kobold Guide to Dungeons and
Two Backer-Exclusive Classic Adventure Add-Ons

If you reach the $300k milestone, you unlock a great collection of goodies, including:

• Kobold Guide to Dungeons: A free PDF copy of this terrific resource for every backer at the $29 pledge level and up. From the award-winning line of Kobold Guides, it contains a collection of essays by some of the industry's most noted contributors exploring all facets of making memorable dungeons.
• TWO Exclusive Add-Ons: That's right, not one but two classic adventures from the early days of Kobold Press, freshly updated for the Tales of the Valiant RPG and made available as print add-ons exclusively for backers. These versions of The Peculiar Alchemist and Return to Castle Shadowcrag will only be available for those who back the Kickstarter; once the campaign closes, they won't be available anywhere else.

Treasure Hoards Uncovered!
7 months ago – Mon, Apr 22, 2024 at 05:08:49 PM

Because the Dungeons & Ruins project has officially reached the end of Week 1, let's take a closer look at the stretch goals backers have unlocked.

UNLOCKED: Pro Design Seminar

First up, Kobold Press will host a roundtable discussion with four award-winning designers to talk about what makes an awesome dungeon. This should be a great time for everyone!

Who: Designers Erin Roberts (Journeys Through the Radiant Citadel), Steve Winter (Scarlet Citadel, Tomb of Annihilation, Tyranny of Dragons), and Brian Suskind (Tome of Heroes, Southlands), plus professional cartographer Tom Cartos.

What: "Building Awesome Dungeons," an in-depth discussion of how to get the most out of your tunnels and corridors. It'll include lots of design tricks and tips, from both an organizational and visual perspective. The designers will share: 

• what has worked well in their own games (and a few things that DIDN'T work so well and how to fix them),
• how to organize important information to find it later, how to make great use of the 3D elements of a multi-layer dungeon or ruin, and 
• how to include plenty of features that maximize the game—and avoid those that seem like a good time but fall apart at the table. 

Whether you're new to the classic subterranean crawl or a seasoned dungeon designer, you can elevate your game.

When: Friday, May 17, 2024, at 6 pm ET / 3 pm PT

Where: Private Zoom channel (to be shared with backers after closing).

UNLOCKED: Dungeon Tables PDF

This stretch goal is a hidden gem! Clocking in at a chonk-tastic 52 pages, Dungeon Tables combines more than 50 lists for randomly generating ideas. With these tables, you can whip up anything from fresh combat wrinkles for an upcoming encounter to a memorable highlight for the next shopkeeper your adventurers meet. Whether you are planning your next session or just flat-footed in the middle of game night, you can find quick ideas to keep the game moving in Dungeon Tables. It includes:

• Dungeon dressing tables to generate details that engage all 5 senses
• Critical hit descriptions and additional effects tables for every damage type
• Town, tavern, and NPC generators to create instant social encounters
• Travel challenges and monster encounter tables for 9 different environments

Every backer who pledges at the $29 level and up gets this PDF for free! We will send download instructions for your copy after the Kickstarter campaign ends.

More Unlocks to Come!

We'll be back with more detailed info about the next set of stretch goals once they are unlocked! And maybe some thoughts about a Kickstarter exclusive.

Thank you for your support,

The Kobolds