December Update
6 months ago
– Fri, Dec 05, 2025 at 08:42:06 PM
Apologies, I posted this update on the wrong project! It's late here. Just a quick update as we plug along. Our hope is to have the PDF to you by the end of the month, but with the holidays coming up it may not be until January. We do have more to show you though, in the next few minutes you'll get an e-mail from BackerKit with the final section on the Forge Boons. These boons are included in the book and also come in the card deck.
I'm also dropping in some new art. Thanks you for your patience!
Updated Timeline
8 months ago
– Mon, Oct 06, 2025 at 12:39:16 PM
Hi friends,
Thanks again for your patience and support as we keep things moving with Treasures From The Astral Forge. Delays are unfortunate and never fun, but we wanted to give you an updated timeline of where we are at.
Our current plan is to have the PDF of the book ready to deliver before Christmas. Once everyone has a chance to look it over during the holidays, we'll proceed with producing the physical rewards in January.
The reason for the late delivery is largely just a matter of this project taking our team of two more time than we had initially planned. While most of our books are make with a large team, we tried something new this time around and it's just been much slower going than we had hoped. to keep things moving forward, I've pushed back my entire publishing timeline to focus on wrapping up fulfillment on this and another ongoing project. Outside of one smaller project that's already written and ready to go, we'll hold off on any future crowdfunding efforts until we can get the PDF delivered and start the physical reward fulfillment process.
July Update
10 months ago
– Mon, Jul 28, 2025 at 10:05:34 AM
As I mentioned last time, we have polished up Chapter 1 by finishing the rest of the writing and editing, while also taking your feedback into account. You should have already received a notification from BackerKit that the final version of Chapter 1 is ready, and boy is it a beauty. Here are a few spreads, including the new map of the Forge itself.
We've also got a few of the new illustrations recently completed by Matt! This will be by far the most visually stunning book we've put together.
Release Schedule
To be up front, we are behind on this project and won't be able to release it by our target of August. This is due to a few factors, some in our control and some not. We are directly impacted by the tariff issues, as there are not any feasible options for printing the card decks outside of China based on the volume we need.
The bigger issue however is that as a two person project, it's taken us longer than anticipated to both illustrate the items and write the mechanics. That's on us, but we're working at a breakneck pace to get this out to you. We'll have an updated tameline in the August update. Thanks for your patience!
June Update
11 months ago
– Fri, Jun 27, 2025 at 02:43:49 PM
Hi friends,
You should be receiving e-mails from BackerKit as we speak with a link to the next beta test document. We've finished the text and mechanics for the Astral Forge itself, which is an important part of the first chapter of the book. It is worth noting what this draft doesn't include are the guides to navigating the Astral Sea, finding the forge, as well as tables for adventure ideas.
In addition to polishing up the text, we've also commissioned the forge map from our friend Saga Mackenzie, who has done many maps across several of our projects. I expect to share the map with you and the completed chapter in our July update.
The update includes the layout of the forge itself, background on the Forgemaster, and stat blocks for all of the denizens of the forge. We love feedback, so look it over and less know if anything jumps out at you - good or bad!
Timeline
We are still hard at work on the book and have made good progress so far. The reality of making this man illustrations has us a little farther behind than we would like, but I'm excited to keep showing off what we have as we move towards the finish line.
Tariffs are still an issue for us, especially given the challenges of printing boxed sets of cards outside of China. We'll in "wait and see" mode on what those taxes will mean, but we've explored several options when it comes to printing the books themselves in other countries. None of this will effect delivery of digital rewards, of course!
May Update
about 1 year ago
– Mon, May 19, 2025 at 11:54:02 AM
Hi friends,
My apologies for the wait between updates. A lot of my effort of the last few months has been exploring different options for this and other projects due to the tariff situation. While printing books is generally possible outside of China, finding realistic options for the card decks has been more of an issue.
Thankfully, there has been some headway on tariff negotiations, and I'm hopeful they will drop further by the time we're ready to print.
The other positive news is that we're mostly in "no news is good news" territory on this project. Writing and illustration is still ongoing, and we believe we're on track to deliver on time. That said, we're going to provide more new art and sample items in future updates, just to show off our progress.
Item Sets
One of the fun things we're doing with Treasures From the Astral Forge is borrowing from some of our favorite video games by including item sets. These are sets of three magical items that are fleshed out and useful on their, but also come with additional bonuses when a character attunes to all three at once.
For example, the Pompeja Set includes a dagger, short sword, and armor that each have powers of their own. When the three are combined, each item gains an additional bonus that fits with the overall theme.
