Asian Monsters: 90+ magnificent monsters for DnD 5E!

Backer level over 1,000! Plus new projects!
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jun 25, 2021 at 01:37:08 PM

Thanks so much to each and every one of you for helping the Asian Monsters project reach 1,000 backers faster than any previous LG Kickstarter! Each new "Quick-Starter" bestiary has been bigger than the last, with an even better response, and we thank you for making it happen, especially Garry Prose as backer #900 and Christopher Cruz as backer #1000! A few quick notes for you!

• The art order for the new aswang monsters is sent so we'll have it back in good time to add that new pair of creatures to the final book and get layout buttoned up for distribution as soon as the project ends! 
• We are already hard at work on our next project, a combination of our next bestiary book Latin American Monsters and a spectacular new campaign setting based on the myths and legends of the Taino and Arawak people of the Caribbean, Boricubos: The Lost Isles! This project has a fantastically diverse set of contributors, including nearly 20 Latinx authors and artists from across the Americas! We've had folks asking if we'd expand our bestiaries to other game systems, and this project will feature not only 5E rules but also companion versions for Pathfinder RPG and Pathfinder Second Edition! The base 5E and Pathfinder RPG versions of Boricubos are already finished in layout, but unlike our recent Quick-Starters this project will have stretch goals to make both books bigger and better, and our talented team is hard at work on the remaining core books and stretch goals too! We think this will be our biggest project yet and hope you are as excited to check it out when it launches as you have been for Asian Monsters and all the books that have come before! 
• The gamer space is full of amazing projects, and one of the biggest ones going right now is Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting, a spectacular collection of adventures, spells, feats, character options, and more built around hunting monsters and harvesting their unique parts as components to crafting amazing and powerful gear. I started playing D&D in 1981 and 1st Ed. AD&D was chock full of this kind of oddball esoterica. From dragon scales to giant sweat (not even kidding), troll blood to lich dust, phoenix feathers and nightmare hide, all of that stuff had some kind of bizarre use for crafting magic items, potions, scroll inks, and so on. Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting takes that idea into 5E, plus adds an entire monster tamer class to capture and train monsters of their own. We're in discussions with them now about collaborating on a companion product. Many of you are no doubt already backers for this project, but if any of you haven't checked it out give it a look right here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/saltybot/monsterhunting5e?ref=7fpi9h

A fantastic first 24 hours!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Jun 10, 2021 at 02:08:42 PM

In just 24 short hours, we've gone 15x our funding goal and we have so much to look forward to in the 22 days remaining! Thanks so much for your terrific support of this project, especially James Tuttle, our 400th backer! 

We are touched and at the same time super excited for you to see what's coming up next! We've got our VTT folks hard at work on getting things worked through on those ends, so hopefully things will be ready for you when the project concludes. Some of those scheduling issues are out of our hands, but we're working with our partners at Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Shard to get things moving as swiftly as possible! 

To help spread the word about Asian Monsters, I've asked our layout guy to create a 10-page FREE Preview PDF, and hopefully he's able to knock that out before he has to leave on a trip tomorrow. We'd love to share it with everyone and get them on board too! It's got the full table of contents and half a dozen monsters for people to whet their appetite, including this one!

Almost nine hours in the books and already almost 11x Funded!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 10:57:35 PM

Thanks so much to everyone for making this our best kickoff day yet for our Quickstarters this year, with a special thanks to Daniel Pogoda as backer #300! It's late and we're heading off to bed so if you have any questions post them up and we'll hit you back tomorrow! We just wanted to offer our sincere thanks for your continued support and to share our excitement at a terrific first day... well heck, not even half a day yet! We'll see how things stack up by 2:00 tomorrow afternoon! 

More Adventure Information!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 05:53:40 PM

One of our backers asked for more info on the Eastern Journey adventures, and in the interest of not cluttering the Kickstarter main page with a wall of text, I figured an update would work fine:

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ROAD TO DESTINY:

A legacy of death bears bitter fruit in the northern coastlands, as brothers long separated rise to the call of their darkling heritage. A new destiny has arisen in the west that threatens to shake the foundations of an empire half a world away, but not if Ranulfr the White Wolf and his one-eyed sibling can waylay these would-be heroes on their road to destiny! Bandits hound their steps, driving them from danger to danger, until their road reaches its bitter and bloody end – for them or their enemies!

Road to Destiny is a 36-page sandbox adventure for 2nd-level characters using the 5th edition of the world’s most famous roleplaying game. It delivers clever combats, negotiation and investigation, a delightful mix of urban and wilderness adventure possibilities, and roleplaying possibilities aplenty. The adventure can be played on its own as a self-contained campaign adventure or as part of an epic Adventure Path campaign that journeys from the northern coastlands to the Far East.

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THE BALEFUL COVEN:

Whenever adventurers toast their success after a hard-fought victory, their boots are soiled with the spilled blood of the conquered. Sometimes heroes forget that their enemies had friends and allies of their own, and families, and mothers. You may call them evil, but there is a love stronger than death, and a thirst for vengeance like no other in the heart of a mother weeping over her monstrous brood. What you called heroism, they call horror; what you called valor, they call murder. And they are coming for you, a mother witch and her deadly sisters, drawn from the far corners of the world to bring to life a nightmare world that will swallow your heroes and make them pay. Your characters thought the adventure was over, but the wrath of The Baleful Covenis just beginning.

The Baleful Coven is an adventure for characters of 6th to 7th level for the 5th Edition of the world’s most famous roleplaying game. It can be played as part of a larger saga with your heroes journeying from a traditional fantasy campaign into contact with threats from the far east or as a standalone adventure that allows GMs to show the dynamic nature of the campaign world as forces that heroes thought were defeated turn out to have allies that do not take the defeat of their kin lightly. Though set in the subpolar north, this adventure deals in a realm of dream and nightmare and is easily portable to any location in your campaign to infuse it with an air of malevolent witchery.

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UNDER FROZEN STARS: 

On an epic journey across the frozen wastes, your characters seek their destiny and that of the future empress. Yet at the top of the world, having overcome the ravening storms and dark forces arrayed against them, you discover a marvel of legend, a ruined city both ancient and alien. Surely you cannot simply pass it by without exploring it and seeing what mysteries have lain untouched for time out of mind. Then again, if the caravan tales are true, perhaps others have come not so long ago, leaving behind a mysterious treasure that may be of great aid in claiming your imperial destiny in the eastern realms.

Under Frozen Stars is a 5th Edition adventure for 8th-level characters, which can be dropped into any campaign where the heroes are exploring the frozen reaches beyond the end of civilization, whether high atop an inaccessible mountain range or at the farthest polar reaches at the top of the world, especially if your campaign bridges traditional western fantasy with the mysteries of the far east. It is a classic lost city where magic and technologies ancient and alien lie buried in the ice, forgotten by the world beyond but still filled with mechanical marvels and deadly dangers your players will never forget.

A truly beautiful beginning!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Jun 09, 2021 at 05:17:44 PM

Thanks to all of you for your fantastic support of this project, with a special tip of the cap to William Crewe as backer #1, Brandon Maier as backer #100, and William C. Pfaff as backer #200!  Every one of you is special and we appreciate you. If you have a question or request for us, don't hesitate to reach out via KS messenger and we'll reply as soon as we're able! 

We took a needed step back to revisit and revise this book before we launched this project, and it is a far better book for the time and attention it received and the excellent advise and suggestions from our cultural consultants listed on the Kickstarter page! Some of their feedback was simple and others were ultra-detailed, some positive and some negative, but all of it useful for creating a book with the quality we are proud to present! 

May every day of this Kickstarter be a delight for everyone involved! We look forward to getting our print book through approvals and sharing this lovely volume with you!