Timelines & Expectations

Hello, my fellow Skeletons!

Welcome to the depths. 

We're utterly drowning in the support y'all have shown us. THANK YOU! We knew we had a fun little project that people might enjoy, but we expected the Funding Goals to be a slow burn over the course of a few months....not halfway completed in a few hours!

So let's set some expectations, go over the funding goals in more detail, and discuss future plans.

*Updated Nov. 2021*

Funding Goals & Timelines

• FUNDED! $200 - Character Sheets & Handouts. I hope to have these done over the weekend. The Skeleton sheets will be more like Apocalypse World playbooks. They'll walk players through character creation, teach some of the rules, and hint at the setting. I'll have a quick version out soon, and a fancier, more refined one in a few weeks. These won't be part of the main PDF but done separately in full US Letter size.
• FUNDED! $400 - Crab Outpost, Merchants, and Trade. We have dozens of items, quests, tradeables, and NPCs we want to add so players have a (relatively) safe place to rest and trade in their loot for neat toys. Expect the Outpost by next weekend. $15 supporters will see it sooner than that in our living Google Doc.
• FUNDED! $600 - Kelp Forest / Mermaid Faction. A new location, new creatures, NPCs, spells, and more all focused around the Mermaid's homeland. This one will take a while. We hope to have this done by the end of November. It will be developed right alongside the next stretch goal.
• FUNDED! $800 - Vivian’s Lament Quest. An in-depth quest of loss and love. My wife's brainchild and her primary reason for making the rest of the book! Closely related to the new Mermaid faction and Kelp Forest locations, this will be a more linear, storybook-style quest with NPCs, treasures, and a few different endings.
• FUNDED! $1000 - Sunken Barge Dungeon. A multi-room dungeon that can be repaired and used as a mobile base. I'm SO excited to work on this; while the dungeon will be a dozen or so rooms, the quest to repair the barge will send Skeletons to all corners of the depths. The reward should be well worth it; a mobile base with tons of fun toys and abilities. Again, we'll add in a simple version over the next few weeks, but I don't think it will be fully fleshed out until December.
• FUNDED! $1200 - Void Bottom / Skeleton Lore. Most of the content in the book is inspired by real-world deep-sea life. The Captain and the Dreamer were passionate about their real-world inspirations. But the Liar (me) desperately wants to include some crazier content that has NO basis in reality (we hope). I'll be adding this in various pieces, but expect it before December.
• FUNDED! $1400 - We Hire an Editor! Jared Sinclair will bring his editing talents and Troika knowledge to make the book tighter, more consistent, and just a bit weirder. Once all the text is complete, Jared will make an editing pass.
• FUNDED! $1600 - More Maps from Lucas Rolim! Includes dungeon maps of the Sunken Barge, Vivian's Lament Quests, and some other locations. Lucas works quickly! And we'll rely on his art to inspire the text and vice versa.  If this pace keeps up, we should have this unlocked and complete around December.
• FUNDED! $2000 - Online Tools/Generators/Interactive Maps. Instantly generate a Skeleton, create a unique encounter, or discover a new treasure in the silt. I've made a few random generators for other games, so you can get a good idea of what it will look like, how it will function.
• $3000 - Print Run. THE BIG ONE! We want Bones Deep to be printed as a fine hardcover book. We'll completely re-do the layout to focus on print formatting and make the artwork shine even brighter. Obviously, the navigation bars will have to go, and a lot of the art and text will be re-worked to fit on open spreads. Even if we reached this goal tomorrow, I wouldn't expect print copies to be available until early 2022. Printing takes time, shipping is insane right now, and we can't re-do the layout until all the other parts are complete.

Timeline Summary

Assuming we meet all of our Funding goals in the next few weeks, here's what you can expect:

October 2021: Crab Cabal, an underwater tavern, character sheets,

November 2021: Mermaids, Vivian's Quest

December 2021: Sunken Barge Dungeon, Void, Lore, Maps

2022: Online tools, Print run???

We wish we could just IMMEDIATELY add all the content, but we never expected so much support and love for this weird project. Thank you all from the depths of our bones.

Keep in touch!

I'm active on Twitter @davidschirduan or you can shoot us an email: technicalgrimoire@gmail.com

$15 supporters can view the Google Doc for in-progress content, leave comments, or offer up ideas. 

I'll try to do weekly DevLogs as we add things to the book, but we'll always prioritize working on the book over writing about working on the book :)