A beautiful full-colour hardback book collecting all the published BEOWULF Age of Heroes 5e adventures.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
The final countdown
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 04:58:00 PM
Hello you! Thanks for joining us!
So we’re racing towards the final 24 hours, and we’re also racing through stretch goals.
We’ve knocked two down since the last update and we’re closing in on another. That’s 4 new digital packs and 3 new BEOWULF adventures added to every reward level pledge!
Add Ons
If you’re thinking of adding any add ons, now is the time to do it. We have all kinds of cool stuff available that help facilitate your BEOWULF games.
Hit 'manage my pledge' and head through the steps, and you should be offered add ons relevant to your pledge level - only physical reward tiers can add physical rewards. Sometimes this process doesnt work smoothly, but because we will be using a pledge manager, adding on the appropriate amount of funds will enable you to choose how you spend them later in the pledge manager.
Now is also the time to share the campaign far and wide and let people know there's only a day left to go!
Book Club
I realised last night I haven’t given a review of this mighty tome. I picked it up a little bit after the last campaign, having pre-ordered it. This book is 578 pages long, and is an absolute beast. It has full colour photos of every object from the Staffordshire hoard, plus all the reports from the team who conserved it across 6 years.
The hoard itself, found by a lucky metal detectorist, contained 6 kilos of artefacts, most of which appear to have been deliberately broken. These objects are catalogued in detail, with endless full colour photographs, which is invaluable to a visual artist like myself. There are also a wealth of essays placing the objects in the proper historical context.
It’s a very good read, but as a hardcover almost 3 inches thick, this is not one you can easily read in the bath, nor an impulse buy.
The Staffordshire Hoard, An Anglo-Saxon Treasure, edited by Chris Fern, Tania Dickinson and Leslie Webster, published by Society of Antiquaries of London, ISBN 9781527233508
Social Media and Discord
If you'd like to follow us on social media, and help our sharing our updates about the campaign, you can find us:
Don't forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you're a Twin Seas backer, and he'll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
That's it for now!
Jon, Jacob and the well-buried Handiwork hoardsters
THANK YOU!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 04:57:39 PM
Wow. Amazing. I'm really bowled over as I write this a few minutes in advance of the finish line. A little while ago we ran out of stretch goal graphics. I like to be prepared, and we make those ahead of time, so that as stretch goals are reached we don't have to do photoshop work over and over, nor in the middle of the night. We set them up and hope for the best.
Well, we only had them made up to £28,000, and that felt pretty reachy to be honest. I really didn't expect we'd come as far as you've taken us. Wow. I'm not crying you're crying.
So what happens next?
Well, we're definitely making a book!
Things we need to do:
• Write and layout the extra material. This is all well planned and well in hand. There's plenty of cool stuff we've thought up to slot in, and we know the space we have within the 240 page book.
• Combine the various adventures into one print file for the single volume. This is all planned out, and work has begun. The pagination fits together beautifully.
• Compose poems - I have written Dave, our poet, his brief and he can be ruminating in advance of the funds landing
• Write the text for the Twin Seas art book, edit it and lay it out
• A few bits of book-housekeeping like writing the back cover blurb and making new flyleaf images and so on.
We'll get on with all that while we await the funds from Kickstarter. This can be a bit of an awkward time - you kind backers will have be in the process of being charged, but we won't see the funds for two weeks, so we can't really pay for any of the work external to our little company until it happens. But we're in very good shape to be entirely ready for when that does happen!
I'll then order any extras we need to pay for - Story Cards, Inspiration Mats, Twin Seas Art Book, Dice trays being the main one. And we also need to reprint the BEOWULF Annual since it just sold out (again).
The pledge manage will take a little time to set up and activate, but that will all happen in due course.
Then we'll need to book our print slot. Pritning and shipping the main book is the biggest single time period involved. We've built in plenty of time, but of course I'll keep you appraised.
Discord etc
Don't forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you're a Twin Seas backer, and he'll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
We promise you one update per calendar month. I tend to like to make these worthwhile and newsy - so sometimes they'll drop early in a month if something's happened. Sometimes I'll wait until later in the month if we're in a holding pattern for something. But there will be at least one per calendar month.
Thank you
So a sincere thank you for joining us on this voyage, I've really enjoyed this campaign, and I know I speak for the whole team when I say we're bowled over by your support and kind words. Thank you.
I'm going to take a day or two to rest - Kickstarters are a pretty punishing workload, plus we just released the PDF of a|state to the wider public, so it's been a crazy time!
Thanks again, see you on Discord!
Jon
June Update - PDF is done - final checks underway, printing begins also!
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, Jun 07, 2022 at 04:48:13 PM
Hello!
Gosh it's been a busy old time (I seem to start all updates this way!).
So we have our print slot booked, and we've finished up the PDF version of The Trials of the Twin Seas. I have the completed 240 page PDF in the window next to this one.
We're going to take a couple of days to thoroughly proof it before sending it out to you. It's also UK Games Expo this weekend, and I'm travelling from tomorrow. So let's not make things extra complex by trying to deliver a PDF in less than amenable circumstances! It is however very exciting to see the book as a whole come together! Look out for the PDF early next week! It's going to look marvellous in print.
Speaking of which we have a print slot booked and won't have to endure the extraordinary waits some projects are experiencing. A bit of luck and a bit of negotiation have paid off!
Let's have a look at some new spreads - these have "Page XXs" still in place, since we don't lock those in until the very end. They shouldn't appear in the version that comes to you.
New material for Ear of Stone
Extra material for The Triple Serpent
Each adventure begins with an expanded cover, and poem by Dave Oliver
Each adventure also has a new introductory section featuring summarised vital info for the GM.
Pledge Manager
There will be a pledge manager and late pledges available soon. I'll let you know as soon as that opens.
Other Reward News!
So where are we at with all the other things?
• We've had a restock of Compasses from Campaign Coins
• BEOWULF Art Book is restocked and ready
• BEOWULF Annual is restocked and ready
• Hermit's Sanctuary is restocked and ready
• BEOWULF Miniatures are in stock
• BEOWULF Inspiration tokens are in stock
• Dice trays are ordered
• Inspiration mats are ordered
• Twin Seas Art Book is at about 50% completion - all art is selected, and I'm writing text just now
• Story Cards are all ready to be ordered - that will be a task for next week
Which all adds up to say that we have a wait of something like 8 -10 weeks for print books, and everything else will be ready to go once they arrive. We'll need to move some books and items to our various hubs, but that's all in the plan, and we'll begin moving things to the US - the longest journey - next week. Excellent.
UK Games Expo
I'll be at UK Games Expo with the Handiwork stand this weekend! We're in Hall 1, stand 228 - that's over on the left as you come in.
It'd be lovely to see some of you there! I looked (pretty hard!) into the logistics of being able to deliver existing rewards at the show, but it would have presented incredibly complex challenges to track who has had what, and then amend shipping charges accordingly. It just looks like a recipe for total mayhem. And so we've opted to keep the Kickstarter dispatch as a discrete process. But like I say, it'd be lovely to see you!
Discord
Don't forget you can join us on Discord for easier chatting with us and fellow backers!
We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you're a Twin Seas backer, and he'll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
Funds are in, first round of PDFs are out
almost 2 years ago
– Tue, May 24, 2022 at 11:18:57 AM
Hello!
Just a quick bit of house keeping today.
The funds appeared from Kickstarter finally appeared this morning (yay!), the spreadsheets have been wrangled, and all PDFs that existed before the campaign have been sent out to everyone who pledged for them.
These are:
BEOWULF Age of Heroes PDF
BEOWULF Art Book PDF
BEOWULF Annual 2022 PDF
BEOWULF STLs.
Check your spam filters! There are usually one or two glitches that occur when masses of coupons go out, but don't panic. We will of course make sure you get your PDFs/STLs if the automated systems fail us.
If you don't see an email from DrivethruRPG here's what to do:
• Firstly - check your pledge here - I do get a few requests for coupons from people who haven't completed a pledge, or haven't checked what they're due as rewards - so this is a good place to start. Make sure your payment completed too.
• Second up - check which email address you're using on Kickstarter - that's where the coupons were sent.
• Thirdly check those spam filters.
• Fourth log into your DrivethruRPG account - even if you don't have a coupon you should have a notification attached to your account, if your Kickstarter email address is linked to your Drivethru Account. Not everyone's is, but a lot are.
• Last up - if none of these work, then drop me an email ([email protected]) or message me here on KS and I'll check for you and send out new coupons as needed. Please, if you can include your kickstarter email address in communications, that really helps - for whatever reason, Kickstarter doesn't let me click your name on a message and get your details. I have to search your username in the backer list, and find your email address that way. It's quite labour intensive!
Phew! That's it!
The Twin Seas PDF
This is almost ready to go too! I anticipate delivery at the end of next week/early the week after. The extra material is almost all written - we're at about 80%. And there's lots of spare art made to help with layout. We'll start bringing it all together in layout next week. The book is planned out page by page, so it will just slot together.
We of course want to allow our poet plenty of time to create some good work, so we may send you an alpha version without poems. We'll see!
Next
Now that we have the funds on hand we'll begin production of the extras we need to make - the Twin Seas Art Book, the new inspiration mat, and the new dice tray. I'll be contacting our friends and partners who make these for us tomorrow.
Thanks as ever for your support!
Onwards!
Jon
Tuesday Update - closing in on another Digital Pack!
about 2 years ago
– Tue, Apr 19, 2022 at 08:42:05 AM
Hello and welcome new backers!
Mostly house keeping today, as we steadily close in on that next goal! We're just a few hundred pounds away from another Digital Pack!
New info on Campaign Page
We've added a new graphic on the campaign page to make it easy to see what you get as bonus content alongside whichever reward tier you have pledged for.
We'll update this as we head into this final week, so you can see at a glance what you'll get along with your pledged-for rewards. Currently that's:
2 new BEOWULF Digital Packs
1 new BEOWULF PDF adventure - the first part of our new campaign.
And those bonus items are of course in addition to the expansions we've made to the Twin Seas book itself.
New Add Ons
Last week we discovered a cache of hidden gems - a box of Limited Edition BEOWULF Age of Heroes hardcovers. Only 100 of these were made, most were taken by backers of our first campaign, and they are hard to come by - we dont sell them online currently.
We are offering three of these rare books as Add Ons to physical pledges. We are offering another 3 with original drawings by me (Jon) on the fly leaf, making them even more rare and precious. These are unique items which we are unlikely to offer again.
If you'd like to add one of these to your pledge, or indeed add on anything else, hit "Manage my pledge" and you'll be able to see a summary of yoru current pledge level, and then head onward into the Add On shop. Please be aware that Kickstarter only allows physical add ons for backers pledging at a physical reward level. I think it just keeps shipping easier from their side of things.
Book Club
Today's book is: Looking for the Lost Gods of England by Kathleen Herbert.
I'm going to feature a series of smaller books in the club this week so that we're appealing to all pockets. Not every piece of inspirational material needs to cost the earth, and I've covered many fancy books worth of saving up for already. This much more affordable book is a slender volume in a smaller format, which is none the less packed with inspirational material. At just 64 pages long, in softcover, this book packs in a lot of information, and is a great place to start gathering additional ideas for the Old Gods in specific places in your own campaigns.
Lost Gods of England concerns itself with the scant amount of evidence we have for pre-christian practice among the peoples we now call the historical Anglo Saxons. First published in 1994, it's not the most up to date work - we're learning a lot more of late, but is nonetheless a good read.
Herbert can be a divisive figure amongst historians. Her approach has been criticised in some quarters for lacking academic rigour, and favouring some more romantic notions. Not all agree on this point, and her popularity waxes and wanes. However since our purpose is to inspire our games, we are largely free from such worries. Just how much imagination we put into the private worlds of our own campaigns is entirely our own choice. And so I can heartily recommend picking this one up.
Looking for the Lost Gods of England by Kathleen Herbert, published by Anglo-Saxon Books, ISBN9781898281610
Oh! I unearthed our PDF book list from our first campaign. Almost all of these went into the reading list at the back of the BEOWULF corebook with a bunch of other titles. Might be worth a browse however. I'll update it with the new campaign books soon!
Social Media and Discord
If you'd like to follow us on social media, and help our sharing our updates about the campaign, you can find us:
Don't forget to swing by the discord for a chat! We have a nice friendly community and it’s not too fast moving, so it’s easy to join in. If you’d like to join up, point your browser at www.discord.me/handiworkgamers Give Jacob or me a shout out when you land that you're a Twin Seas backer, and he'll give you the keys to the super secret awesome backer channel.
That's it for now!
Jon, Jacob and the Handiwork Monster Slaying Squad
