Pledge Manager is Up!
over 5 years ago – Wed, Aug 14, 2019 at 03:12:53 AM

Pledge Manager is Live

Yo yo! The pledge manager is now open!

We are sending the surveys in groups so you should receive a link in your inbox sometime today! 

For any of those out there considering becoming a late backer, you can access the pledge manager here.

If you have any questions / concerns, email us at [email protected] and we'll get back to you as soon as we can!

Processing Payments

We will be processing all payments on October 15th, 2019! So feel free to browse the pledge manager and swap around items at your leisure! 

Just know that you'll need to finalize your Wave 1 orders before then!

Silvia, The Dark Mother Cultist

All of you Day 1 Backers out there will be receiving the Silvia figure for free. She's been added to your carts already.  This means that all backers with Backer #7982 and below will get her!

For all you $1 Backers that pledged on Day 1, you'll need to upgrade to an actual pledge level and then we'll manually add her for you! We will be adding Silvia to $1 Backers in batches so if you don't see her in your cart immediately, don't sweat!

Switching/Upgrading Pledge Levels

1. When you receive the survey, click your pledge level.

2. A pop-up will appear. Click "Switch Pledge Levels?"

3. Then, switch to your preferred pledge level!

Wave 2 "Pledge Upgrades"

Many have asked if they will be able to purchase Act 2 and 3 at a later date after October 15th. The answer is yes! Everything except for the Resin Kits will be available after that date.

October 15th is our official ending of "late pledges". This means that Kickstarter discounts will no longer be in effect and the KS2 Promo Box will no longer be free with pledges.

We don't have an exact price breakdown for you now, just know that the prices you'll find right now will be the best!

New Add-Ons

Throughout the life cycle of our pledge manager, we will be adding some new stuff for you to purchase if you so choose. We're still working out exactly what that might be but we'll definitely be throwing up those Etched Dice fairly soon!

"With Swag" Shipping

We found a slight discrepancy in the Wave 1 shipping costs for both "With Swag" pledge levels. 

Because we are shipping all the Resin Kits, KS1 Promo Pack, Playmats, and the Extra Dice in this Wave, we've had to up the shipping cost on those Pledge Levels by $10 across the board.

We're really sorry if this causes any inconvenience!

Thanks and stay sexy!

1.1 Update Pack, Pledge Manager, and Etched Dice!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Aug 10, 2019 at 01:38:40 AM

1.1 Update

We've got our 1.1 Update beta information packet updated. This is our way of keeping track of what has changed. It's also serving as a way for us to show you our road map to completion. In addition to this packet we have uploaded the files we currently have available for playtest/feedback. This includes the newest Rule Book, Non-Hidden Intelligent Combatant Cards, Loyal Espers, Conduit Cards, the Disciplines Cards, Exalted Espers, Quick Reference Cards, Familiars, the new Item Upgrades, and a printout of the new token sheet. 

We will be uploading the following files on the following dates: 

8/16/19 

• Hidden Cards (avoid these if you are weary of spoilers.)
• Beta Alternate Tag Antagonists (These are all the scaling baddies that add significant difficulty to our game.)
• Non-Hidden Adventurer Cards (Specifically changes from Flight and a buff to Rook.)

8/23/19 

• Item Cards (These are for every tier and reflect every change we've made.)

8/30/19 

• Promotional Cards (These are for every promotional Card we changed released on the first Kickstarter)
• Adventure Book Changes (This sheet is included in the Update Pack and includes all the changes made to the Adventure Book. Luckily, it's very little.)
• Feedback poll posted

10/15/19 

• Feedback poll closed & final files delivered to our manufacturer

10/30/19 

• Final Document Uploaded (This will be a free all-in-one updated print and play for the Update Pack.)

Any feedback you have, or errors you find please report to [email protected].

Brooklynn will be putting out a quick video next Friday with some general information for those who do not want to read our massive document and would rather just watch or listen to a quick video that covers the general basics. 

You can find a link to the downloads here. 

Important Pledge Manager Dates!

Monday 8/12/2019

On Monday we will be sending out a pledge manager "smoke test" to a random 5% of our backers. This is to catch any issues that may occur and get feedback from a small percentage of you before we launch.

Tuesday 8/13/2019 - 10/15/2019

On this coming Tuesday we will be opening up the pledge manager to all! We will be allowing late pledges in this time frame, and for all intents and purposes, these two months will essentially be an extension of our campaign. You can expect the same discounts and the same add-ons as were offered on the campaign!

We may throw in some extra goodies throughout these two months as well. We will announce these through an update if and when we do.

After October 15th, we will be transitioning into a more formal pre-order (still using BackerKit) and the prices across the board will be going up. Production will start shortly thereafter and we will be well on our way to hitting our delivery deadlines. Product will be limited after this!

IMPORTANT: All resin kits will be unavailable for purchase after October 15th so snag them while you can!

Kickstarter Shipping Plan

As you all know, we will be shipping in two separate Waves. Wave 1 is set to deliver in May of 2020 and Wave 2 is set to deliver in December of 2021.

We've been working with BackerKit to find the best way to make this work and we've come up with a solution.

For full pledges, you will be charged for Wave 1 shipping upon checkout. You will not need to pay for Wave 2 shipping until we are preparing to ship that Wave (sometime in 2021). At that time, an add-on will be placed in your cart with the Wave 2 shipping balance. This balance will vary depending on your region and the pledge level you've backed.

Doing it this way saves us a lot of time and money in back-end development from BackerKit's programming team.

You can see all the specifics in the image below. 

 * Countries included in this region: 

Singapore, Japan, Hong Kong, Malaysia, South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, Phillipines, and Macao

** Wave 2 shipping prices are estimates and are subject to change.

Add-Ons

Our add-ons section will be broken up in to two separate categories:

1. PLEDGES

These add-ons are just additional pledge levels that include everything in their respective tier. They also include all the promo swag.

They include:

Through The Portal - $115

Returning To The Portal - $175

All 3 Acts - $275

Returning To The Portal (With Swag) - $300

Through The Portal (With Swag) - $500

Shipping for these will be charged in the same way as a regular pledge. Wave 1 up front and Wave 2 later on.

2. ADD-ONS

For these additional add-ons, we will be charging a worldwide flat rate price depending on the size of the item. You can see a visual representation below.

IMPORTANT : For simplicity, we will be charging shipping for these add-ons up front, regardless of the Wave they are being shipped on. 

Core Game / Retail Option

We've had tons of retailers ask us if we can offer any discounts on our pledge levels. The truth is, this Kickstarter campaign is the deal. The prices are already so discounted that we are unable to go lower without hurting our margin.

We are offering somewhat of a solution to this.

Included in the "ADD-ONS" category, we will have an add-on that includes the Core Game by itself for $100. Shipping for this add-on will be the same as the Through The Portal Wave 1 prices shown in the chart above. No Wave 2 shipping will be required.

IMPORTANT: This add-on will not include the KS2 Promo Box.

We've found that many retailers just want to test the market with Core Game before they really dive into everything else. This is our way of trying to offer a discount where we can.

Etched Dice

The Etched Dice from our first campaign are ready to ship! We're working out the shipping logistics with our fulfillment center now to get these moving and into the hands of the backers that purchased them!

We ended up with quite a surplus of these dice and we will most likely be throwing these up onto the pledge manager for anyone else that wants a set! These will be very limited.

Because they are already produced, the purchase of these will function like any other ecommerce store and will be shipped out immediately.

Each set of 17 dice will cost $20.

Thanks for checking our update!

Pledge Manager News and Some Other Announcements!
over 5 years ago – Tue, Jul 30, 2019 at 02:35:16 AM

Hello backers! 

Alex here.

Brooklynn and I are feeling great and are back to the game-making grind!

We keep saying it... but thank you all so much for your support! We're super excited to keep building up the Middara universe and we're committed to hitting our deadlines for delivery!

Today we just have a couple of announcements to make.

Pledge Manager

We're currently setting up the pledge manager and are working to have it open up in the next week or two. There are lots of little odds and ends to this campaign so we're making sure everything is there.

Once our pledge manager goes live, it will include all of the Kickstarter discounts that you see on the campaign... for a limited time. 

These discounts will end by the beginning of October at which point we will shift over to more of a preorder format.

We will be accepting late backers, so tell your friends if they missed the campaign!

Retail Pledges

We will be adding a pledge level to the pledge manager that is geared toward retailers. This pledge will include 2 further discounted Core Games but will include no promotional material. This will allow retailers to experiment with selling the Core Game in their stores.

To be clear, this retail pledge is still very expensive as our game is very expensive. But we've had enough retailers ask for it that we're more than happy to offer them the game at the price we must offer it at. If you have any questions about this pledge, and you also own a store, go ahead and send us an email. 

Customer Support and Social Media

Email support and social media are vitally important but are also very time-consuming. So, while the two of us continue to refine our business strategy and allocate our time appropriately, we've decided that we won't be able to respond to Kickstarter messages after this week.

We will do our best to answer all the queued up Kickstarter messages this week, but beyond that, if you have a question / comment / concern, please please email us at [email protected] instead of sending a KS message. 

Kickstarter messages can't be cataloged or organized, they're just a big mess of messages that are daunting to go through and hard to organize. 

Thanks for understanding!

BGG Tuckbags

The custom tuckbacks made by Board Game Geek are now available here!

Audiobook

The Chapter 4 audio is currently in the works and should be available on our website by the end of September! We're also going to double-down on getting that App to not suck on Android. 

That's it for today! Thanks for checking the update!

Stay modest, but still sexy.

Day 30: Writing Credits, Party Loss, a Locket to Remember, and the Emerald Jelly of Ebon Rule!
over 5 years ago – Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 01:52:22 AM

 A Special Thanks to Backers!

Brooklynn here.

Hey everyone! Me and Alex want to thank everyone who helped make this campaign special! Our small community is growing, but that's a good thing. We love seeing all the new faces and conversations. We can't wait to get this game into your hands! 

At this point we're excited to get to work on our massive project and to double-down on our promises to get this behemoth delivered in a timely fashion. 

We'll make sure to keep up our constant contact and to keep everyone in the loop as things move forward. 

Writing Credits!

We love working with different artists all around the world. Writing is an art like any other, and we appreciate the hard work that our writers have put into Middara. As you know, this project contains a monolithic amount of writing when compared to other board games. Without our writers we wouldn't be where we are today.

While Middara has always been a collaboration of many different minds and writers, we felt that it was appropriate to give a shout out to the very talented Kristopher Miles. 

I met Kristopher Miles through Brandon Sanderson's recommendation, and it's been a pleasure working with him. He has really put in work for our world and vision. Since writing the first draft for Unintentional Malum Act 1 he's written over 800,000 words and has grown considerably in his craft. 

Aspiring to write full time isn't easy. In fact, it's the opposite of easy. It's a long arduous uphill battle fraught with looming light bills and numerous nights of ramen and energy drinks. So we applaud anyone who willingly takes this path up the mountain of life and sticks with it even after the glamour wears away.  

If you're interested in checking out his accolades or reaching out yourself, go ahead and check out his website here. Kristopher has built himself a strong niche of readers and we know that he'll scale that mountain. 

All Hail Toast!

As another thank you to backers, we couldn't leave you hanging in regards to Nyx's trusty pal Toast.

As an additonal free unlock for today we're throwing Toast into the KS2 Promo Box!

He will include a Command Card, Familiar card (front / back), and Initiative Card and will be a selectable Familiar in the Assemblage tree to be used in all Adventures and Expansions.

...And who knows, there may be an Adventure for Toast to go on sometime in the future.

Backers have spoken! 

For our Day 30 unlock, we will be adding a miniature to the KS2 Promo Box for Ai Chen. 

To be clear, this miniature is part of the KS2 Promo Box and is being given away for free as part of every pledge level at the "Through the Portal" level or higher.   

Nyx had an impossible choice. But if she didn’t choose, then all three of them would die. Ai isn’t as badly hurt. She’ll survive to make it off this island. I’m not sure my wings are strong enough to carry you, Spaniard. “I’m sorry, Christopher.” She hurried over to Ai, catching her by the shoulder and dragging her towards the door. 

“I’m not.” He turned for her, tossing something glittering through the air. Nyx caught it with one hand—his locket. “Make sure my sister gets that back,” he said, drawing his sword in both hands. Then he lifted his sword, facing down the growing monstrosity in the air. It wasn’t just a few tentacles now, but a hideous torso came through next, swollen and putrescent and and hard to look at. As another tentacle leapt out for them, Christopher caught it against his sword, severing it with a single strike.

That was a mistake. The Dark Mother, or whatever part of her had made it into this realm, roared, and the Ziggurat itself shook with the force of its rage. It tore through a chunk of the ceiling with a single tentacle, and half a dozen others lurched out towards Christopher. Silvia herself vanished into its pulpy mass, one last insane laugh lost in the Dark Mother’s roar. It came from many mouths, each one at a different pitch.

Nyx didn’t watch, she ran. She passed through the opening in the wall, clutching Ai tightly, spreading her wings into a glide. Yet she had to watch—maybe the avatar of this demon would be satisfied taking her and leave the rest of the world alone.

Apparently not. Christopher swung once more, twice—but it made no difference. Once the demon focused on him, his sword might as well be plastic. A dozen tentacles wrapped around him. Nyx could hear the crunching sound that followed. There was no mystery in her mind about what had happened to him. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.

She should’ve been more worried about herself. Another moment later and the Dark Mother’s avatar appeared in the opening, shoving the stone away and lurching down towards them with another tentacle. Could she fly? Would she jump?

REMEMBER, the Dark Mother’s voice was surprisingly gentle, like the recording of someone’s mom nursing a child’s scraped knee. Except the volume had been boosted to incredible levels, echoing through her mind and shaking the building with its incredible force. I WILL REMEMBER YOU. I WILL BE WAITING.

Nyx was momentarily dazed. She stopped flapping, her grip on Ai loosened. 

Tentacles lashed out, then caught short, a hundred feet from the tower.

“Nyx, are you alright?” Ai was alert enough to hold to her arms, stopping them from getting separated in the air. “We’re tumbling, Nyx! Are you going to fly, or…?”

The pressure against her skull relaxed. Nyx felt warm blood dribbling down her nose, whipped away by the air blasting around them. Air roared in her ears, and the distant ground was now approaching much too quickly. Nyx spread her wings to catch them, angling them over the island towards the distant stony beach. There just wasn’t enough space.

“Cover your head,” Nyx yelled.

They rolled. Perhaps if Nyx had chosen more protective armor, the landing might’ve been softer. As it happened, the Frock’s magical abilities were altogether useless when gravity was the only enemy. Ai was ripped right out of her arms, and Nyx could do nothing but tuck her head and hope. She felt terrible pain in one arm as she rolled, her wing bending the wrong way. She screamed, heard Ai do the same. Then she came to a bloody stop, feet away from where the rocky shore ended.

A wave crashed in front of her, spraying dark water over them from above. Nyx moaned, too hurt to call out for help. Not that she had any magic left to summon any, even if she could’ve.

Had Ai made it? Where was Pocky? Nyx tried to scan the shore and find out, but she couldn’t even sit up. It hurt everywhere, though at least her frock had kept her from being completely scraped raw.

Something moved from nearby, dark forms stirring through jungle foliage. Nyx’s warning shout turned into a moan of pain.

Captain Salvador emerged from the jungle, a huge blunderbuss in both arms. Half a dozen well-armed privateers were at his back, weapons at the ready. “Thought you’d need rescue,” he said, gesturing towards them with two fingers. “Get the stretchers,” he barked. “And careful for neck injuries. Nice and gentle.”

We made it. Nyx slumped back to the stone, letting the merciful relief of unconsciousness finally take her.

“How is that?” Captain Salazar asked, putting aside the thick roll of bandage.

Nyx groaned, flexing her wings. Well, her good wing moved. The left was now so heavily bandaged and splinted that her back felt completely lopsided. “Like I’m constantly falling in one direction.”

“Perfect!” Captain Salazar rose, turning away. “You’re lucky as hell that break was so clean. Wings are fragile, and if it had been a nasty compound fracture… you probably know better than I do.”

Nyx nodded weakly, though she couldn’t muster any annoyance for Salazar or his crew. If it wasn’t for them, Nyx probably would’ve bled to death on the shore.

“Your friend is up with the dog,” Salazar said, pointing at the wooden ceiling above them. “And the, uh…” He shuddered, looking away. “Girl. She’ll live, but there’s nothing more I could do for her. No balm or salve I know of can regrow a missing tongue.”

Nyx nodded. “Thank you, Captain. And for agreeing to take us all the way to Elenia.”

He adjusted his cap, looking away awkwardly. “No need to thank me. We’re just doing what we were paid for.” He left, vanishing down the hall to the captain’s quarters.

Liar. You could’ve left us on the island to die. But you came for us. Nyx didn’t call him on it, she was just happy to be alive.

She found Ai Chen out near the bowsprit, resting beside a cannon with Pocky’s head in her lap. She was bruised and broken just like Nyx, with thick bandages on her face and chest. Like Nyx, one of her arms was in a cast. At least she didn’t have any broken wings.

As Nyx approached, Pocky looked up, bounding over to her in a few goofy strides. He knocked into her legs, apparently a little unbalanced on the airship, but Nyx caught him anyway. “Hi boy,” she whispered, petting him the way Ai had been doing. Was it weird? Pocky didn’t seem to think so. After a few seconds the Warp Hound seemed satisfied, and he hurried back to Ai Chen.

Nyx perched on the railing beside her. Even with her wing broken and unable to fly, Nyx just wasn’t afraid of heights anymore. Grassy farmland was far below, meaning they were probably only hours away from Elenia. 

“Hey,” Ai repeated. Silence settled between them. Not as awkward as it had been a few days ago, when they first met. The suspicion and the anger were gone.

“What are you going to do for the girl?” Ai asked, after a few minutes just sitting there. She pointed across the deck, to where Sandra sat. She was sitting near the stairs leading to the lower deck, wearing a sailor’s cloak. Her tortured face still poked out from beneath the hood, giving Nyx her first unobstructed look. 

Sandra had uncovered one eye, which constantly scanned the space around her for dangers. The other socket was sunken, and covered with a fresh length of bandage. 

“Does Elenia have magic to treat injuries like that?”

“Does Brahma?”

Ai shook her head curtly. “Nothing I know of.”

“There might be something,” Nyx said. “Arkalla is vast. Maybe there’s an esper willing to help someone like her.”

Ai reached up, squeezing her leg and fixing her with an intense glare. “Don’t you think Assemblage has done enough harm already?” 

“Any tool can be misused.” She didn’t want to argue the point. They’d shared something, escaping from the Ziggurat together. She just couldn’t muster the energy to be upset about Ai’s biases.

“What about that other girl, Tomoe. Did you see if she got out?”

You weren’t watching? Nyx shrugged in response. “She got her hands on the scroll, then… vanished. Not a warp, but… maybe similar. I don’t know. It didn’t feel like any kind of magic I’ve seen before.”

“Professor Nyx is stumped,” Ai said. “Impressive.”

Maybe before last week it would’ve been. She couldn’t get that voice out of her head. The Dark Mother had been so vast—even her speech had left a mark on Nyx’s mind. Remember. She would remember.

“It’s not a mystery I really care to solve,” Ai went on. “There’s one more thing we need to talk about.” She put out her hand, expectant. “I should probably give that locket to Lucia. It’s the least I could do, since I couldn’t actually save him.”

Nyx removed the metal locket from a pocket, holding it out. But before Ai could take it, she pulled back. “No. I’m the one who got him involved with this in the first place. His death was my responsibility.”

Ai raised an eyebrow. “You do remember what Lucia does, right?”

“She’s a Grim Deacon, I know. But I still think it’s my responsibility. I can take care of the bureaucracy.” 

Ai shrugged, then lowered her hand. “I am grateful you saved me. Us. It’s… good to know there are good people down here. All the insane things you hear about happening in Elenia… well, saw some of that too. Calling on dark gods, using Assemblage as casually as you do… well. It was good.”

“You too,” Nyx said. “I’d invite you on a tour around Elenia, but I’m guessing you’ll have places to be.”

Ai nodded. “If I’m around, I’ll look you up.”

Nyx didn’t take Ai Chen back with her to the White Spires. She had been eager to get home with their bad news, and the legal complexities of bringing a foreign diplomat/spy into one of the most secure places in all of Elenia had given her a headache. Nyx stayed with her long enough to arrange an airship home, then caught a carriage to the Spires.

Nyx found Yun in a vast upper chamber, surrounded by ledgers and minor functionaries. Still, the current de facto ruler of Elenia wasn’t spending his days hung over from the outrageous parties he threw at night, the way he’d done when he was just an important scion of the kingdom’s second royal family. It was an improvement.

Yun rose the instant he saw her, waving away a swarm of diplomats and clerks with visible relief on his face. They parted around him, and he met Nyx on the far side of the room. “Glad you made it back, professor! You, uh…” he winced. “Rough mission, huh?”

She folded her arms. “I could’ve used a few Demiurge to back me up, if that’s what you mean.” Maybe Christopher would still be alive. Then again, maybe having more people would’ve only made it harder to escape.

“Not here,” Yun said. He led her around to a secluded bookshelf, then pushed hard on one corner. A compartment opened in the wall, leading to a concealed stairwell down. “We can talk on the way to the infirmary.”

She did. Nyx explained everything she’d learned, in as much detail as she thought Yun would care about. The important part—that a terrible summoned monstrosity might still be lurking in the Ziggurat—was particularly notable, along with the map Ai Chen had made with Pocky’s help. She was a little light on details with her companions, particularly when it came to Ai Chen. There were probably rules about working so closely with representatives from an enemy nation, rules Nyx didn’t care to know and would’ve ignored anyway. What Yun didn’t know would be easier for all involved.

Yun led them through hidden passages of the White Vaults, areas Nyx had never seen marked on any map. Many were overcome with dust, lit only with failing glow stones resting on metal brackets. Rather than pass out of these secure sections of the vaults, Yun took her to a secluded sitting room, where they could speak without fear of being overheard.

Yun puffed on his vape, one hand shaking. A cloud of multicolored smoke emerged from the end, shimmering briefly from blue to gold before vanishing back into mist. He spun it around in his fingers, then slipped it back into a pocket. “Damn.”

“Damn,” she repeated. “That about covers it.”

He glanced over the map, tracing the charcoal line with one finger. “I was hoping you’d completely stop the thing, not just leave it in some tower. Did you at least kill the witch who summoned it?”

Nyx opened her mouth to answer, then hesitated. “I… I hope so. I’m not sure how anyone could live through what she did.”

Yun grumbled, pulling out his vape again and clicking his fingernail against the metal casing. “Sounds like loose ends. Loose ends give me a headache.” He took another puff, exhaling the blue-gold vapor towards her.

Nyx looked away awkwardly, not wanting to stay silent long enough for him to ask her to go back. “Letting me raid the armory was awesome, by the way. I got a frock that saved my ass more than once. I really did need the Demiurge, though. Why train secret police if you’re not going to put them to use?”

“They’re not…” Yun puffed on the crystal again, sighing with relief. “You did everything we could expect from you. More, even. You saved Enoch. And that other one, the… girl upstairs.”

“What can we do for her?” Nyx asked. “There are a few espers that might be able to help her, if she can make the right pacts.”

Yun waved a dismissive hand. “There’s magic for everything, Nyx. Fixing her body is easy. Whatever she went through… that won’t be so easy. But we can try. Maybe she’ll be able to help us repair our relationship with Kladavent. They won’t be happy their investigator won’t be going home.”

Nyx nodded gravely, her fist clenched tightly around the locket. She would still have to find a way to return that—somehow. But not right now. “What about Enoch? You said he was still here?”

“And the other one, yes.” Yun waved a hand. “They’re still in the portal infirmary—I figured if the worst happened, at least we could seal up the vault and wait for help. Tried to convince Jace to leave his friend behind, but… he wouldn’t hear of it. Guess he’s loyal.”

They weren’t far from the portal complex. They had to wait outside while security let them through the heavy vault and thick wards—wards that might’ve turned the Earth portal into a tomb, had Nyx failed. But I didn’t. Almost everybody lived.

“While you’re in there, I’d like you to explain the whole Academy thing to those kids. They didn’t get the usual lectures when they came through, for… obvious reasons.”

“I guess there’s no reason to be worried about Enoch anymore, with the ritual stopped. Did the changes reverse themselves?”

Yun coughed, looking away awkwardly. “You can see for yourself.”

Nyx followed him through the door.

The room had been transformed, though of course its occupants had been here for over a week. Abraxas cards were scattered on the floor around the hospital bed, along with a few handmade recreations of earth board games, and a pile of inoffensive books. As they came in, Jace had a book in his lap, reading aloud while a nurse changed Enoch’s bandages.

The physical changes hadn’t reversed, quite the opposite. As Nyx came in, Enoch grinned up at her, with a mouth full of needle-like teeth. His eyes were unnaturally large, and had changed to a green so bright it seemed to glow. As the nurse removed the last of Enoch’s bandages, Nyx could see the mark on his belly was still there, no longer torn like a wound. It had healed into something like a tattoo, glowing the same steady pink light of the lockbox.

“I told them that there could be, uh… some delayed changes, from the Advancement. Took some time to catch up with her. Him. Him, sorry.”

You mean you made up some bullshit so they wouldn’t freak out even more, Nyx thought.

Enoch shrugged one shoulder, adjusting the thin hospital gown he was wearing. “Just use whatever. I’m still figuring… everything out.” He looked distant, his wide eyes not looking at Nyx so much as past her. Towards the Ziggurat?

She sat down on the edge of the other hospital bed, grinning at them anyway. These kids hadn’t done anything wrong. Enoch was a victim of enemies he couldn’t even understand yet. Nyx wouldn’t hold any of this against him. How close was that ritual to finishing? You feel like a witch already. “Hey! You, uh… weren’t awake the last time I was here.”

“I told her,” Jace said. The haunted look was gone from his face, and he sounded almost casual. Relieved, even. “What you told me.”

Enoch reached over to Nyx, taking her hand with delicate fingers. His grip was feeble and shaking, but at least he still had hands instead of monstrous tentacles. “I saw you in the font,” he whispered. Enoch’s voice was high and musical, somehow cheerful as he said impossible things. “I saw you in the tower. You stopped that witch from finishing what she wanted. You saved me.”

“How?” It was the only thing she could think to ask. A stupid question—how would Enoch know? He didn’t even know magic yet. 

He shrugged again, then caught the gown as it started to slip from his shoulder, frowning at it. “I think She saw it. She…” Enoch lowered his voice to a whisper, speaking into Nyx’s ear. Now he sounded afraid. “She wants me. Wants me to join the revel. She tells me things.”

“What things?”

Enoch shook his head and let go. “It will be worse if I say.”

“Well… you don’t have to listen to it,” Nyx said. “You don’t have to do anything it wants. You get to choose.”

“I know,” Enoch said. “Thanks to you.”

Yun cleared his throat. “I’m afraid Kirien hasn’t returned with your biological father, Enoch. And Jace, obviously you don’t have relatives on Middara. But don’t worry—Elenia has measures in place. There’s an institute, and Nyx is one of the professors there. She’ll be the one making sure some Pagan ritual doesn’t kill everyone.”

Jace’s eyes went wide. “W-what?”

Enoch only seemed more confused. 

Yun laughed—he was the only one who did.

“He means that we’ve got a school to teach you things. Magic, self-defense, survival… Middara isn’t like Earth. It’s more dangerous here. The rules can be confusing. I loved the Institute so much I never left. I’m sure you’ll love it too.”

And while you’re there, I can keep an eye on you. And if she is still out there, I’ll make sure Silvia doesn’t get to finish what she started.

We hit the $2,500,000 stretch goal!
over 5 years ago – Wed, Jul 24, 2019 at 01:52:16 AM

What a way to finish the campaign!

Brooklynn and I are elated with the success of this Kickstarter campaign and want to sincerely thank you all for being a part of it. We tried some new ideas, some worked, some didn't, but we hope you enjoyed it overall. And thank you to everyone for all of your value feedback throughout the campaign.

Wow, that's crazy. $2.5 million!

For the $2.5M stretch goal we will be including 5 sets of new weapon types in the KS2 Promo Pack for free.

These Weapons include Clubs, Swallows, Sabers, Tonfas, and Consoles! 

Currently, these Weapon Types are featured only as Unique Items in Act 1 but will now be able for purchase on all Story Rounds throughout all 3 Acts in Mundane, Common, Uncommon, Rare, and beyond. For anyone unfamiliar, Unique Items are rare drops found throughout Middara and cannot usually be found in the shop.

For the one-handed Weapons (Tonfas and Sabers) there will be 2 of each Item per tier. (24 total)

For the two-handed Weapons (Consoles, Clubs, and Swallows) there will be 1 per Item tier. (18 total)

These new Weapons will allow for even more wacky combinations of builds!

THANK YOU!!

A big thanks to all involved in this project. Brooklynn and I may be the face of the company but we couldn't have done this without our team of artists, writers, collaborators, friends, family, mentors, partners, and of course, YOU, the backer.

From here on out we will be implementing our strategy to fulfill what we've promised on this campaign in the time frame that we've set.

We will continue to stay in constant touch as we always have.

Our next big updates will involve the 1.1 Update Pack on August 9th and then the opening of the pledge manager around early August as well.

Thanks again! Tomorrow the two of us are going to take our first day off in a month but we'll be back at the grindstone on Thursday!

We've got some real fun plans for the future and we're excited to take you with us.

Stay Sexy!

The Succubus Team