We Now Return You To Your Regular Updates
almost 5 years ago – Sun, Jun 06, 2021 at 10:19:38 PM

What's up y'all? Brad here, Coming at you Live!

CJ, Jaron, and I have wrestled the Kickstarter Update Controls away from Snails' clutches and I am officially back in charge! 

Just wanted to pop in this Sunday and give you another progress update on Restaurants and Retail, so here goes:

General Update:

We have spent a lot of time editing in the Hall of Murka, like I said at the beginning of Lore Edits, sometimes things are good to go into the book wholesale and sometimes things require entire rewrites that take hours on end. We have been running into a lot of the latter lately BUT we do have a number of fun things to show you!

Before we get to that, on an even more big picture note: after we finish up Hall of Murka, we only have one more Mountain to go before the rest is barely molehills BABAY!!! That mountain is Walmoria, but after that it's smooth sailing through the front and backmatter bits and then off to the races with editing and THEN *gasp* the PDF will be ready!

Specific Updates: 

ALL THE ART FOR THE BOOK IS DONE! ALL OF IT! WE GOT THE LAST PIECE DONE RECENTLY AND IT LOOKS SO GOOD Y'ALL!!!!!

Here it is!

In addition to OUR LAST PIECE OF ART BEING FINISHED, I also managed to sneak a snip of the final version of one of the stores in the Hall of Murka, Dee Gem Works, because "Every Divorce begins with D"

Conclusion

As we've said many times up until now, Chromatic Gamut (WHICH HAS ALREADY HIT ITS FIRST STRETCH GOAL Y'ALL SHOULD CHECK IT OUT AHHHH) will in no way stop or slow down the production of Restaurants and Retail and hopefully this somewhat short update will go a long way to assuaging any of those kind of fears y'all may have.

Are there specific things you'd like to see in the next update? We work for you so maybe an art piece, subclass, or location tidbit you'd like to see more of? Let us know in the comments below.

Thank you again for all that you do,

Brad S.V. Roberts and Action Fiction

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! WE ALSO GOT CULTS!

We spent a good bit of the last three editing sessions talking about Cults, specifically the cults in R&R! We've got three new cults, all laid out with motivations, typical spells, and unique abilities to give to your cultic NPCs! We'll be talking about these three over the next three weeks a little more but BECUASE we're still finishing up the Hall of Murka I thought it'd be fun to give you a taste of our Cult of Kap Sayisin, A devilish spice elemental set on spreading plague and disease throughout the world of Murka!

Chromatic Gamut is Live!
almost 5 years ago – Tue, Jun 01, 2021 at 07:18:41 PM

Hey Gang it's ya Gastropod Snails!

[alt: an image of a snail zooming across the screen]

This will be the last time I post in R&R for, well, the foreseeable future. As of today the Queer-led Queer-designed satire of Fantasy New York is live on Kickstarter. Chromatic Gamut has been a stressful, nightmare-inducing wild ride that I don't think either Bailey or I would trade for the world. Getting to take the reins on a project that started off as a joke about making “The Big Book of Lesbians,” and help it become something much more meaningful and personal.

This is probably why even now, with all the data we have, the work we’ve done, and people we have gotten advice from to make Chromatic Gamut a smashing success, I'm still terrified it will fail.

[alt: Fry from Futurama drinks a cup of coffee with several empty coffee cups on the table. He looks haggard.]

But it's strange.

Over the last week or so my fear has begun to shift from what failure means for me personally. To what it means for the team of writers and designers who poured their heart and soul into the project. And what it means for the artists who are working on the project creating incredible art. I want them to see something they worked on succeed. I know the feeling of having a project you worked on get crowdfunded and I want that for them too.

It's been a genuine blast getting to write Kickstarter updates for you all. I hope you got a chuckle or two out of my antics. Brad will be taking over the posts from here. But if he ever falls ill or tragically goes missing I'll happily pop back to share more design insights with you all!

But enough of that let's get to the previews!

UP FIRST THE LEATHER DOLLAR KRAB

[alt: It's a literal crab in bondage gear with a string of pearls. A small BDSM plankton-like creature is stuck to his arm.]

No stat block for this little guy today. I mean, it exists, but I'm hiding it from you. Butt, to be honest, there's not much to him! He's a tiny crab that dwells in dungeons and his entire existence revolves around gold. He sneaks up on unsuspecting adventurers, pinches their coin purses, and then beats cheeks to the nearest hole he can squeeze into.

You know I feel like I could have chosen better wording there.

Fans of old cartoons might have already caught the reference but to be explicit about it.

[alt: a bipedal cartoon crab in a gimp suit talks to a bipedal squid with a blue mohawk and apocalyptic armor]

That's right, we made Leather Daddy Mr. Krabs canon in the Murka world. What started off as a joke in the writer’s room became one of our favorite monsters in the book. Almost like we are comedy writers or something. Weird.

BUT WHAT ABOUT ONE MORE PREVIEW, I JUST CAN'T HELP MYSELF.

**

[alt: A vertical banner that looks Medieval in its design, featuring all the colors of Pride. It has a black, and brown triangle on the top, with a white border. On either side is a light pink and light blue colored stripe and in the middle is a 6 pointed star. Each point of the star is a different color of the rainbow.]

Your eyes do not deceive you, that's a straight-up banner baby! (But not a straight banner, cause… Queer Pride). We designed the Pride Banner for the Chromatic Gamut and thought “hey wouldn't it be cool if you could like, have a real version of this to hang up? Too bad that's not possible”. CEPT IT TOTALLY IS AND WE TOTALLY BOUGHT A BUNCH and they are for sale as a very affordable add-on as soon as we launch.

That said I kinda hope you all don’t buy all of them so I can horde a bunch for myself and sleep on a pile of multi-colored glory, like a big gay dragon….

Cough.

Please buy the flags.

The Kickstarter is live and you can get there by clicking HERE. I hope you all have a wonderful June!

Thank you for all of your support! R&R updates will swing back into motion, with more samples from the book so you can really see what we’ve been working on for this expansion.

Snips, Snails, and a Kickstarter Update/
almost 5 years ago – Sat, May 29, 2021 at 04:33:41 PM

In a darkened room lit only by the harsh blue-white glow of three computer screens, a figure sleeps slumped over a keyboard surrounded by towering piles of drained coffee mugs and off-brand Lunchables. From somewhere within the mess, a phone rings, its loud weeb music startling the figure awake. Scrambling to find the phone, the towers of mugs and off-brand Lunchables go crashing to the floor.

Hello! Oh hey what’s up?

A Kickstarter update? Another one? Ok, ok I'll do it. Yes, I'll plug Chromatic Gamut. Ok, Ok, Bye.

-click-

Howdy Y’all,

it's me, Snails again. Sorry if I seem out of it this week, it's been three days since I ran out of the samples Smugglers Coffee sent me for our upcoming Kickstarter and the caffeine withdrawal is real. Could I just brew more coffee from the can of Folgers I have in the cupboard? Yes. Will I? No. What's life without overcommitting to a joke? Not one I want to live, that's for sure!

Oh yes Introductions are in order or Bailey will send frowny faces to me in Discord (HEY WE HAVE A DISCORD). I'm the Co-Project Lead and Art Director on the new Monsters of Murka expansion, Chromatic Gamut; our satirical take on New York City. I’m also a core member of Action Fiction, dog owner, and [future Snails think of a funny thing to go in this spot before we upload to kickstarter].

[alt: an image of a banana being tied in a knot and like… gyrating slightly? It’s weird]

Chromatic Gamut is our Queer-led, Queer-designed expansion for 5th edition that allows players in Magnamalous to fight back against an array of evil Tycoons and their cruel overlord, The Magnum Bull. Today I have two more sneak peeks from the book, plus a glimpse at one of the add-ons available through the Kickstarter.

BUT FIRST THIS

I wasn’t able to make it to the Action Fiction house this week due to both the rise in gas prices and the impending cicada swarm causing me to go full Howard Hughes. I hope someone remembered to feed Brad, Jaron, and CJ in the editing dungeon… I'm sure they're fine.  BUT, I still have the password to their Google account so I was able to snag some more art from the Restaurants & Retail vault for you to see.

[alt: image of a person wearing a ski-mask excitedly typing on a keyboard in a ‘hacker’ like way. A strange third hand appears to also help hack, and a fourth hand holding a banana also starts hacking.]

This first piece you may have seen before, depending on which Twitter accounts you follow, but I want to use it to illustrate something neat about the way we design our books.

 [Alt: a broken-down anthropomorphic, mechanical Donkey, Elephant, Monkey, and Crow stand in a creepy, dilapidated circus. They wave, welcomingly. It is reminiscent of something from Five Nights at Freddie’s or maybe…. A certain restaurant chain.]

This is Charlotte E. Damm’s Funzone. A location in Flavor City where you can find spooky animatronics and likely a desperate YouTuber looking for content to create. Honestly, at this point, I'm not sure which is more frightening. It's a fun reference to Chuck. E. Cheese and Five Nights at Freddie's and a meme we would be remiss not to include.

[alt: image of a broken down mechanical rat with oozing cheese on the joints, playing a pizza shaped guitar.]

This is Rattles the Pizza Rat, a new Monster in Chromatic Gamut. He’s a fun spoof of Chuck E. Cheese, FNAF, and this little fella.

[alt: a video of a real rat stumbling down some stairs with a piece of pizza in a New York subway. It’s juxtaposed over an American Flag with text that reads “Pizza Rat 2020 for President.” Yes, we know it’s 2021… or do we?]

These two things seem awfully similar right? Did we simply run out of ideas and turned to the nearest trash can to pull out old memes we've already used? Well yes, but, no.

One of our design goals with the Murka books is to make the world feel connected. So when you read Restaurants & Retail, it doesn't feel like a totally different book from the core Monsters of Murka Book. We do this by leaving references and story threads between the books.  For example, when you read Rattles’ monster entry, it will go a little something like:

Rattles the Pizza rat appears to be a mechanical mascot for a pizzeria, although no one knows what pizzeria they are meant to be advertising for. Rumor has it that the animatronic has been possessed by a vengeful spirit, searching for the pizzeria it once called home.

There’s a bit more to the lore block that I haven't included (gotta save some surprises!) But you get the basic idea. An enterprising GM could quite easily use Rattles as a story hook to lead their players to Flavor City or vice versa. We strive to include lots of little details like this so readers who really dive into the books feel rewarded.

Up next from the Vaults is a bit of an odd duck.

[alt: An image of an Asian femme with green/blue hair and a mechanical arm holding a wicked-looking guitar over her shoulder. The guitar is not only an axe, but it looks like an ax too with two blades on either end for some badass shredding. She is well dressed in a suit and pinstripe pants.]

This is the leader of the Shoplifters faction of Walmoria, Soo Chal Justice, a path of the punk barbarian and overall badass. Or at least, it's a version of her. More specifically, it's a version of her you won't see in the book. With books as large as Restaurants & Retail, there are a LOT of art pieces to get done and R&R had a pretty massive art team that was… not very organized. When I started as AD on the project, we communicated with the artists solely through Discord DM’s and Facebook messenger. Heck, our writers used to have team meetings in the community server. Don't get me wrong, I was stoked for the gig, and I’ve been a member of the team ever since. But we definitely had some growing to do.

After a couple of weeks of private messaging hell, when I thought I was going to lose my mind trying to keep my DM’s organized, that's when Jaron and I created the Action Fiction work Discord and got everything organized and running way more efficiently. As I took stock, I found that some pieces had slipped under my radar while I was scrambling and needed to be redone. There’s nothing wrong with this piece. The artist did a great job. But I failed to correctly communicate what Soo Chal was supposed to look like, and as such, we had to commission a new piece. So I thought you all might find it interesting to check out this example of what might have been. Also since Soo Chal is modeled (with permission and design approval) after Kienna Shaw we wanted to make sure we nailed the likeness.

Now onto the gay stuff! 

[alt: a full page spread of our Blood Hunter: Order of the Donor subclass for Chromatic Gamut. Including an image of Zachary Quinto saving the life of a Half-Orc.]

Behold our fabulous Blood Hunter: Order of the Donor! Historically, Queer people, especially gay men and trans individuals, have been denied the right to donate blood due to discriminatory practices from medical institutions. So we decided, fuck that! We got a class all about blood. Let's shove it down those bigotted throats! Erm… maybe not literally.

At third level, the Order of the Donor gains the ability to cure allies they can see within range of any poison or disease afflicting them and can amplify to affect multiple party members.

At 7th level, you can straight up heal an ally by expending your own hit dice! It's only once per long rest so you won't be replacing the Cleric anytime soon, but when the chips are down, you can deliver a major dose of healing to an ally, or you can be that jerk that only heals 1 hp. It's a tabletop roleplaying game, THE POWER IS YOURS.

[ alt: Captain Planet, the TV cartoon character, points at the screen and proclaims “The power is yours!”]

The last ability I'm going to highlight is a personal favorite of mine. At 18th level, you get the ability Sanguine Revival. When an ally you can see would drop to 0 hit points as a reaction you may expend half your total hit dice to heal them by the amount you roll.

Combined with Life Transference and Blood Curse of The Bereaved, the Order of the Donor makes an excellent clutch healer who can turn a losing fight on its heels.

And finally:

THE PRODUCT PREVIEW

We really wanted to go all out and partner with someone who could help us deliver a high-quality one-of-a-kind add-on.

Enter Noor and Luuk of The Speechless Bard, amazing craftspeople who make artisanal TTRPG treasures. Pop your peepers on this bad boy.

[alt: images of a leather journal with a symbol of a unicorn on it. It reads “Chromatic Gamut House Protégé]

Freaking Heck Yo! These journals are so freaking gorgeous!  You can't beat sustainable, ethically sourced, hand-worked leather like that. With replaceable paper inserts for note-taking, rainbow thread binding and quality like this your grandkid’s grandkids are going to be repping House Protégé. Though only if you act fast. These are SUPER limited. When they're gone they’re gone, after that, it's done, they will never be made or sold again so make sure to save the date June 1st for launch day.

Ah heck, I'm supposed to wrap up now and link you to the Chromatic Gamut Kickstarter page so you can be sent an email when it goes live.

Well, that's everything I hope to see you come June 1st when we launch Chromatic Gamut. Brad will be back to his bi-weekly posts starting June 4th… assuming someone remembered to unstrap him from that chair…  

OH OH, I almost forgot there will be one final Chromatic Gamut Post on June 1st for when we go live, then you won't have to listen to me ramble any more promise!  

Heheh I didn’t get this gif approved by the review board (read Brad and Bailey) either. huehuehue.

I've Hijacked the Kickstarter update, and there's nothing anyone can do to stop me!
almost 5 years ago – Fri, May 21, 2021 at 12:52:45 AM

In the darkest corner of the room, a low wailing can be heard, staring into the darkness as a chill runs down one's spine. Slowly, the darkness begins to undulate, pulsing as if powered by some fell heartbeat. Slowly, painfully a figure emerges from the darkness crawling its way through a tear in the veil of reality. Through the tear, one can see what can only be described as the absolute depths of Kickstarter prep hell.

Howdy y’all, it's your favorite sentient gastropod, Snails! I’m the art director and a designer on Chromatic Gamut and one of the core Action Fiction members! Jaron, CJ, and Brad are totally fine and I have in no way hijacked this Kickstarter update! This is all perfectly legal! 

A hand emerges from off-screen brandishing a cue card

Hmm? Oh! RIGHT! Chromatic Gamut is the latest expansion to the Monsters of Murka setting taking place in our version of New York, the project is 100% queer-led and queer designed and coming to Kickstarter June 1st. Well, now that's out of the way.

I decided Brad needed to take a break from Kickstarter updates this week and next so he doesn't have to divide his attention from editing Restaurants & Retail.  (Read as: Brad is currently strapped to a chair screaming about grammar and Walt Whitman)
 

I’ve recently moved to Ohio ( I know who the hell moves to Ohio!?) to be closer to the Action Fiction team and focus on helping the company grow! It’s been a big change from life in Seattle but I've gotten to experience some very cool things, including but not limited to a pizzeria that names all of its pizzas in puns of emo songs from the early 00’s, and I get to help keep the lads on track in the editing dungeon.

While The Lads™ are trucking along on Restaurants & Retail, I don't have anything exciting to report, unless you count arguing about the intersection of grammar and 5e mechanics as well as the minutiae of the 5e style guide as excting. Spoilers, I don't (also Jaron is constantly complaining about the quivering palm feature) . In contrast, the Chromatic Gamut team is filled with new and exciting announcements! We have started getting prototype photos for some of the special add-ons we are offering, and have mock-ups of some of the subclasses in the book that we will be using as previews! I figured if anyone deserved to see them first, it would be you all!
 

Also, I may have broken into the action fiction vault and stolen their high-tech encryption device, to bring you some never-before-seen Restaurants and Retail art!

That's all I could manage to hack out of the mainframe this time, but I'll do my best to bring you more art sneak peeks next week. 

So, without further adieu, let me introduce you to one of my favorite subclasses in Chromatic Gamut (and not just because I wrote it):

The Path of Stone Barbarian!

The Path of Stone Barbarian was a ton of fun to write and figure out the mechanics for. It's a defensive barbarian that's all about protecting its allies. Its third level feature lets it sacrifice the damage resistance from its rage and put that damage resistance on an ally nearby. Its 6th level ability Set in Stone literally covers the barbarian's body in stone and reduces the damage they take based on their wisdom score! Finally, its 14th level ability Silent Fury lets them inspire their allies to enter a barbarian rage alongside them, gaining all the benefits of a rage with none of the drawbacks, for a limited time.

Next up, how about a quick monster preview!?

The Unicorn Parrot is an… adorable? Horrifying? Adorifying? Combination of a unicorn and a parrot. Mostly designed as a fun new animal companion, flocks (herds?) of them could very easily cause problems for low-level adventurers seeking to explore the skies of Magnamalus!

Its ability to perfectly mimic any horse that it hears will absolutely come in handy for…. Um… Infiltrating… A herd of horses?

*cough*

Well, I'm pretty sure I hear the wails of the damned calling me back to my desk to work on Chromatic Gamut. But, before the chains of oblivion drag me to my doom, how about one more quick sneak peek? This is something I'm personally very excited about! It's been a bucket list item of mine since I was a small child and, thanks to Action Fiction, I get to realize that dream. How do I drag this out longer? Quick! What's 23x3!?

Heheh nice.

Brad wanted me to cut the 69 bit because it felt forced, but I'm not going to. YOU CAN'T TELL ME WHAT TO DO, BRAD, YOU'RE NOT MY REAL DAD.

THAT'S RIGHT BABY, IT’S COFFEE TIME!

Action Fiction is partnering with Smugglers Coffee to bring you an amazing Kenyan bean with a light American roast; this coffee has a delightfully refreshing taste, a scent that will perk you up in the morning, and the maximum number of coffee puns we were legally allowed to put in the title. Also, it makes an incredible iced coffee (I got to be the taste tester!). This bad boy is a super limited add-on exclusive to the Chromatic Gamut Kickstarter! We are starting with 100 units but if we crush that we can order more, and if it sells really well maybe a small series of coffees!? Maybe an Oldbucks or Flavor City blend!? Can I end more sentences with an interrogative and exclamatory!? Wasn’t there a special punctuation mark invented for that purpose called an Interrobang!? Who knows!?

So, if you want to snag a cool new Murka book and some amazing coffee with an awesome label, head on over to our Kickstarter landing page and set the page to let you know when we start!

Whoops, looks like I'm being dragged off to unending torment (read: a Kickstarter prep meeting)! See you all next week with another subclass and monster preview!

Quick-ish Update and More Videos
almost 5 years ago – Sat, May 15, 2021 at 01:37:06 PM

Howdy Y'all,

Just a quick update on our progress, we're working through The Hall of Murka currently and it's been a slow but steady journey. Not a whole lot of fun content to share with you right now on that particular front, as we don't want to necessarily spoil anything before we have to, but rest assured that it will be clerking awesome. In the meantime here are two videos about things in Flavor City, the section we just finished editing, from two of the writing team!

First Up is Luke, who is now one of the moderators in our Discord, talking about our entirely new school of magic and all the delicious chaos that he mixed into it. The transcription for this video is here. 

Next up is Strato, whose authorial voice you'll likely recognize when the adventure path comes out, talking about a flavorful faction he created that is definitely worth savoring. The transcribed version can be found by following this link:

These videos are, similar to the ones from Bailey and Snails, from an era pre-kickstarter success and as such may contain seemingly confusing information (such as the launch date of the kickstarter, and how you should back it!)

Chromatic Gamut:

I know y'all are likely tired of hearing us plug our other project, especially as we just released a video telling you how this and that one are separate, but CHROMATIC GAMUT IS LAUNCHING IN 2 WEEKS!!! Here's the link to the landing page to follow it.

Conclusion

Things continue to go well on fronts, and we are working our tails off to bring you both of these books as fast as we can. Seriously, to my knowledge nobody on the team has a tail anymore. 

With much love and appreciation as always,

Action Fiction