December 2021 Development Update
almost 3 years ago – Wed, Dec 15, 2021 at 10:57:18 PM

Here's our regular monthly update for this Kickstarter. We're continuing to close in on finalizing the book and working towards delivery. 

Development Progress

Here's an update on each of the chapters that are still not finalized. I expect this list to be completed by early January (other than any artwork we are waiting on).

•  I. Welcome to the Undersea World: This chapter is in final editing and needs a few artwork pieces to be completed.
•  II. An Undersea World to Explore: This chapter is in final editing, needs NPC artwork and city maps to be completed. We have commissioned the same mapmaker as the last book to create maps for the 10 most important undersea locales and expect to have those by January to place into the final layout. 
•  VI. Mounts & Vehicles: Development/editing of the vehicles section and writing up crews continues. We are in the process of commissioning artwork for the vehicles.
•  X. The Sunken City of Zuroth: This chapter is in final editing/playtesting. 

Final Layout Has Begun

The following chapters are 100% finalized and with layout or waiting for a couple of final pieces of artwork:

• Chapter III: The Undersea People 
• Chapter IV: Character Options 
• Chapter V: Equipment 
• Chapter VII: Magic Items & Spells 
• Chapter VIII: Running Undersea Adventures 
• Chapter IX: Allies & Adversaries 

A New Barbarian Subclass

The Abyssal Delver barbarian subclass is completed and the artwork (preview above) is being finalized. Everyone can download a preview PDF of this subclass here. We'd love to hear your feedback on this subclass in the comments below.

When Will I Receive My Rewards?

COVID has been challenging for everyone and our timelines have been impacted like many Kickstarters. We are working to deliver our rewards for this Kickstarter as close to our original estimate as possible. Thank you for your patience.

LOCAL PRINTERS:

Since we are using local printers, the time from when we send our final PDF to the printer and when you have it in your hands will be much faster than if we printed overseas. 

FINALIZING PRINT RUN

• We are currently working with our printers to get finalized quotes (paper prices continue to skyrocket), a locked-in date for our print run, and when the books will be delivered to our warehouse. 
• For now, we only have finalized dates for the map, poster, and stickers printing. 
• We have included estimates based on what we currently know and will update this list in January 2022.

ESTIMATED DELIVERY TIMELINES

• Quickstart (sent)
• Digital Undersea World Map (sent)
• Alpha PDF (expected end of January 2022) 
• Digital Character Art & Tokens pack (February 2022)
• Final PDF (expected late February 2022)
• Digital Map pack (expected late February 2022)
• Printed Undersea 27"x18" Map (printing January 2022, shipping with hardcover)
• Printed  27"x18" Poster (printing January 2022, shipping with hardcover)
• Monster Stickers (printing January 2022, shipping with hardcover)
• Hardcover (print TBD, ship TBD)

STRETCH GOALS

• 11 x "Added to Book" (complete)
• Undersea Themed Character Sheet PDF (sent)
• Pre-Gen Character Sheet PDFs (expected February 2022)
• Vodari Player's Companion PDF (expected March 2022)
• Additional Adventure PDF (2022)

November 2021 Development Update
about 3 years ago – Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 02:44:13 PM

Here's our regular monthly update for this Kickstarter. Final writing and development for Under the Seas of Vodari is progressing well after some difficult and unexpected work in September and October. 

Final Layout Has Begun

Final layout for Under the Seas of Vodari has begun! We've started with Chapter III: The Undersea People and will move to additional chapters from there.

Development Progress

Here are some updates on the chapters that are still being worked on as we close in on completion. I expect this list will be much shorter by our December update.

•  I. Welcome to the Undersea World: Work continues on finalizing the undersea world history, the final piece needed to complete this chapter. We have a complete timeline and we're in the process of writing it out. Artwork is currently being drawn for a trio of undersea gods who will be receiving variant logos/symbols.
•  II. An Undersea World to Explore: This chapter is completed and is currently in editing. We have commissioned the same mapmaker as the last book to create maps for the 10 most important undersea locales and expect to have those by early January to place into final layout. We are also getting artwork for a handful of key NPCs and expect to have those completed before the holidays.
•  V. Mounts & Vehicles: Development of the vehicles section and writing up crews continues. Once development is completed this month, we will move to commission maps/artwork for each vehicle.
•  VIII. Running Undersea Adventures: Development for this chapter is complete other than a new undersea diseases section we decided to add which should appear in a blog post shortly. The rest of this chapter is currently in editing.
•  IX. Allies & Adversaries: Work continues on the expected task of changing our spellcasting NPCs to match current official 5e development. Only the Deep Dreamer monster development remains and will be completed this month. Also, we're down to a handful of monsters that still require artwork and expect to have all monster artwork completed by mid-December.
•  X. The Sunken City of Zuroth: Revisions based on our playtesting continues for this level 3-5 undersea adventure.

Updates to Player Options

While development for this chapter was complete, we opened it up again for heavy development on our Path of the Wild Seas and Ancient Sorcery subclasses based on feedback and our own internal reviews. Ancient Sorcery's Arcane Device now has uses a stat block and is much more streamlined (see below). At this point, we are very happy with both. In addition, we added a new Barbarian subclass, the Path of the Abyssal Delver. These barbarians draw power from the demonic corruption of the deeps. This chapter is 100% complete and only requires artwork for the Abyssal Delver iconic before heading to layout.

Updates to Racial Traits

We updated the races to match the style of racial traits being released in the latest official 5e products as the march to 5.5e continues. Ability Score Increases, Age, Height & Weight, and Languages are no longer found in the racial traits. This character creation information has not been lost and can be found within the lore for each race and in grouped tables at the start of the chapter (see image below). We have done our best to support character creation for your undersea campaign, whether you are looking for legacy style traits or the latest trait style.

Early Access Backers Content

All Early Access backers (CA$95 Midnight Depths Diver backers and above) should have received a zip full of PDFs with the latest updates to races, subclasses, equipment, magic items/spells, and monsters via Backerkit. This update includes the new Barbarian Path of the Abyssal Delver subclass (without artwork) and the updated Path of the Wild Seas and Ancient Sorcery subclasses.

October 2021 Development Update
about 3 years ago – Tue, Oct 19, 2021 at 07:21:29 AM

During our Kickstarter, we set October 2021 as the estimated delivery for Under the Seas of Vodari. Our plan was to release a final PDF around Halloween for review by everyone. Then we would fix any typos and errata, and then send the updated PDF to the printer and backers in November. This timeline included getting all of our stretch goals into the book. A number of things have happened since the Kickstarter that have pushed our original timeline out by a few months. Our new estimated delivery of the final PDF is January 2022. 

1) D&D is currently in the process of making significant changes to racial traits and monster stat blocks. This has required multiple passes on our races and monsters to match up with the current official direction of D&D.

• We moved Ability Score Increases (ASIs) out of the traits and into a suggested ASIs table that is provided at the end of the chapter.
• We moved languages out of racial traits and added additional lore text to support languages for each of the undersea people, similar to what is seen in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight.
• We redeveloped the Aquatic Dragonborn racial traits to match the Dragonborn traits in Fizban's Treasury of Dragons. We had previously developed our Aquatic Dragonborn to work with those found in the Player's Handbook.
• We are in the process of redeveloping all of our spellcasting NPCs to follow the new style found in The Wild Beyond the Witchlight. Basically, the D&D development team is working to make spellcasting NPCs easier to run for Dungeon Masters.

2) The survey feedback/playtesting has been excellent but has taken more time than expected to complete all of the updates. As mentioned last update, we added the Karokan race, updated the Selkie Seal Skin trait, and redeveloped both of the sorcerer subclasses. Since the last update we did the following:

• Completed a full development pass on all of the subclasses with significant changes to the Circle of the Sea Druid, Dreadmask Rogue, Warden of the Ancients Fighter, and School of Bloodbinding Wizard.
• Added new spells and magic items and tweaked a few of our existing spells. 
• Added new monsters beyond our original scope and stretch goals for all four play tiers including the Leviathan and Deep Dreamer and a reprint of the Sea Dragon.
• Tweaked the selkie's Seal Skin trait (feedback in comments is appreciated).

3) We decided to add even more art to the book. 

• While we always expected to exceed the amount of art that was in The Seas of Vodari, we have pushed far beyond that. 
• The good news is that the book will have more full-page illustrations, character art, and maps than planned... but this has pushed our delivery timeline. For example, we decided at the end of the summer that this book should try to have an illustration for nearly every beast and NPC.
• We are still in the process of commissioning all of the extra maps and illustrations, which is one of the main reasons for pushing our release date.  

4) All of this additional content and extra development has delayed completing some chapters. We're playing catch up on the following sections:

•  I. Welcome to the Undersea World: We just finished writing all of the undersea god entries. Completing the history section is all that remains for this chapter.
•  II. An Undersea World to Explore: This chapter is completed and is currently in editing. We are in the process of getting maps commissioned for the 10 most important undersea locales.
•  V. Mounts & Vehicles: The mounts were completed back in the summer. Development of vehicles and weapons, and writing up crews is the focus for the rest of this month. Once development is completed by the end of October/early November we will move to commission maps/artwork for each vehicle.
•  VIII. Running Undersea Adventures: Development/writing is very close to complete. The last section that is being worked is undersea traps and it should be completed by late October.
•  IX. Allies & Adversaries: We're still working on the changes to a few spellcasting NPCs. We have two high CR monsters (Leviathan and Deep Dreamer) from the deep that are very near to completion and should be done over the next week. Also, we're in the process of commissioning the final dozen pieces of monster artwork. 
•  X. The Sunken City of Zuroth: We have completed artwork for the main NPCs. We going back in to make heavy revisions based on playtesting... and then to run another round of playtests and tweaks. 

Our two most important goals for this project are to (a) create an excellent book and (b) deliver the book as close to our estimated delivery as possible. Overall, the vast majority of writing/development for this book is complete (including revisions). We expect all writing and development to be finalized sometime in November. We'll provide an update in mid-November to let everyone know about progress and delays (if any). Thank you for your patience and we're looking forward to sharing the final book with everyone.

Support for Your Under the Seas Campaign

If anyone was depending on having the final book to support an under the seas campaign (ongoing or about to start), please reach out to [email protected]. We will do all we can to make sure you have the content you need. Also, please join our Discord community by clicking https://discord.gg/ep8C3yq.

Early Access Backers Content

Early Access backers (CA$95 Midnight Depths Diver backers and above) should expect to receive PDFs with the latest updates to races, subclasses, equipment, magic items/spells, and monsters later this month.

September 2021 Development Update
about 3 years ago – Thu, Sep 16, 2021 at 11:48:48 AM

Thanks to everyone who provided survey feedback. Due to this feedback, we took a pause to look at our completed content and make some changes and additions. Here is a quick summary of the most significant development.

Races

Overall, you told us you're happy with the racial options, including the new Karokans. The most significant changes we made in this chapter were to the Dragonborn and Selkies.

Dragonborn

• You asked for Coral Dragonborn. 
• We rebuilt the dragonborn as a full stand-alone race called Aquatic Dragonborn with Coral Dragonborn and Sea Dragonborn subraces. 
• This player option should feel familiar to anyone who looked at the Dragonborn UA pdf from a while back.

Selkies

• We updated the Seal Skin trait to provide more utility while outside of seal form. The trait now provides a +1 to AC for selkies when they are in humanoid form (or wild shaped too for druids) and wearing their seal skin as a cloak.
• While in seal form, we made it easier for selkies to change in and out of seal form by making it a bonus action. We also wanted to make the seal form a little more sturdy. We changed the calculation to 10 + DEX mod + CHA mod from the previous 12 + DEX mod in the Quickstart. This new calculation should look familiar to anyone who has played a barbarian or monk.
• Overall, these two changes should make selkies a more attractive choice for players.

Subclasses

Overall, we made some minor tweaks and changes to a handful of subclasses such as the Speargunner and Path of the Wild Seas Barbarian. The feedback on the subclasses was positive but you told us you felt like the sorcerers needed a little boost.

Ancient Magic Sorcerer

• The Arcane Device has been rewritten to simplify the device. Also, device enhancements that had to wait until level 14 are now split to unlock at 1st and more advanced stuff at 14th level.

Tidal Sorcerer

• Tidal Sorcerers now get a spell list at 1st Level.

Magic

The total number of magic items in the book has nearly tripled from what we presented in the Quickstart, increasing from 12 to 31 magic items. This includes eight Relics of the Ancients. 

Monsters

The total number of monster stat blocks in the book has increased over 50% from what we presented in the Quickstart, jumping from 40 to 62 stat blocks.

• We have two new kallidu constructs (rover and stinger) geared towards undersea encounters that are replacing the walker and crawler we reprinted from The Seas of Vodari in the Quickstart.
• Some of the new monsters include Coral Dragons, Sea Dragons (reprint from The Seas of Vodari), Mimic Sunken Ship, Lavaspitter, Hunting Lizard, Reem, and the Undying Deep. 
• All of the Under the Seas of Vodari subclasses now have NPC stat blocks too.

Please let us know what you think of these changes and additions in the comments below. Early Access backers should expect to see some of this content shortly.

Under the Seas of Vodari QS v0.5 Feedback Survey
about 3 years ago – Tue, Aug 24, 2021 at 01:58:15 AM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.