Grab your stake and join the adventure! Order your copy of Land of Vampires: Slipping into Shadow, a full-length duet 5e campaign AND support our creation of Part Two: Risen Retribution, for even more fun in Steymhorod!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
The Books are HERE!!!
6 months ago
– Wed, Jul 31, 2024 at 10:48:56 AM
Hello wonderful backers,
I hope this message finds you well! This is an update I have been very much looking forward to being able to send which is that the books are here! (And by that I mean arrived within the last 20 minutes or so. You could say I've been looking forward to this moment all day! 😉)
It will be a couple more days before Jonathan and I ship, and I will send a second update out to be on the lookout for tracking numbers. Just like the other parts of this Kickstarter, we've never done this before, so there may be a couple wrinkles in the process we haven't anticipated. I believe the tracking number email will come from BackerKit, where you confirmed your address if you're receiving physical rewards, but I'll confirm that in the follow-up message.
We'll be sure to take some pictures along the way to share with you also! At each stage of this process, I get mushy all over again but truly, thank you so much for being part of this journey with us! It was a strangely specific dream-come-true to put six boxes of books I helped create on our gaming table today, and I find it so poetic and fitting that the same table that saw mine and Jonathan's adventures through Steymhorod the first time around is now going to be the site from which we send out your books to enable your adventures!
Land of Vampires Part Two update
While we're here, I thought I'd throw in an LoV part two update. I am finalizing the Rasonov chapter and Jonathan is making really good progress on the Barasov chapter. (Barasov is a favorite of ours so we're particularly excited about that one!) It's been extra fun as we've been tossing some ideas back and forth as I'm writing for Barasov at the moment as I finish up the fourth novel in my Age of Azuria high fantasy series!
Like I mentioned in the last update, Part Two: Risen Retribution is going to be nice and long. We're still hoping to fulfill that in December rather than October, but I'll be able to update you as we get closer.
Thank you again for your support! More soon!
💚 Beth
Great news! Print fulfillment here we come! (Plus a Player's Guide to Azuria announcement + LoV Part Two Update)
7 months ago
– Thu, Jul 11, 2024 at 06:23:55 AM
Hello wonderful backers!
I have the best news for you today, with possibly the exception of when I got to announce that the digital copies were ready and available in Backerkit—we are getting ready to ship!
Addresses Lock July 15th
If you've ordered a physical copy of Land of Vampires, Adventuring Companions, or Witches, Fae, & Foes, please take a moment to double-check your shipping address, especially if it's changed. On Saturday, I'll be sending out the address lock notification, and addresses will lock on Monday, July 15th.
The updated print copies of Land of Vampires look so good, and we absolutely cannot wait to get them in your hands! To fix the issues from the first print proofs, we had to change the headings from colored to black in the print copies, but the effect is still dramatic and clear.
If you haven't placed a print order yet and want to, now is the time!
I am hoping we can keep the preorder available for LoV Part Two even after we process the print copies, but I need to see how that will work out. We're still trying to determine how we'll handle print fulfillment moving forward after we get these lovely packages shipped out to you, whether it's something we want to keep managing ourselves or not. But this is the best price for print products for the foreseeable future!
Player's Guide to Azuria update
I've gotten a few questions about the Player's Guide to Azuria, which has been very exciting as I wasn't sure how popular that title would be. If you pledged to the Kickstarter, you'll be getting a copy of that PDF for free when it's ready.
I am still in the process of putting together the Player's Guide and am balancing that with a couple different projects, including writing Land of Vampires Part Two. My goal is to have that title ready by mid-August. I know you want to have details about Azuria ready for your player so they can start designing their character. For those of you with the digital edition, there is a section on Azuria in the introduction that you can share with your player to help them design their character.
Secondly, while I'm putting together the Player's Guide, if there are specific questions you have for character design, I thought the comments of this post might be a great place to leave your questions and we can talk character design and world details there! You'll also find world details on WorldofAzuria.com.
Jonathan and I have been adventuring in Azuria for six years now (wow!), and it is such a fun and special fantasy world. We are so excited to share more of it with you in the weeks, months, and years to come!
Land of Vampires Part Two: Risen Retribution update
My other big update for you today is about the fulfillment on LoV Part Two. This is one of those good news-bad news situations, but good-news-leaning! When we first added Part Two to the Kickstarter earlier this year, we weren't totally sure how long it would end up being. Getting into the design now, it's bigger and more involved than we thought—I think it will end up being close to Part One in size. There are fewer chapters, but the chapters themselves are a good deal longer.
In order to bring this larger project into being, we'll need more time than I had originally thought. Our first target goal was October for PDF fulfillment, but we need to push that back to December. I hope this doesn't inconvenience anyone—I know delays aren't super fun, but I also know it will be totally worth it to make Part Two as detailed and awesome as it can be! We are releasing preview chapters over on our Patreon so we can playtest as we go, similar to how we created Land of Vampires Part One!
Part of me cannot believe that we've reached this place of ordering and sending out print copies! We're both really tactile gamers, so the physical copies really resonate with us. We've tucked our own physical copies onto our shelves next to our other gaming books which feels so special!
Thank you, once again, for going on this journey with us! We wish you so many amazing adventures!
💚 Beth
Print Proofs are HERE!!! (and they're lovely!)
7 months ago
– Thu, Jun 20, 2024 at 09:54:27 AM
Hello, wonderful backers!
I keep hoping I will find the words to express how excited I am to share with you THE PRINTS FOR LAND OF VAMPIRES ARE HERE but I decided that a mix of a picture, a video, and all caps would have to suffice for the time being.
Anyway, I am THRILLED to announce that we have the print proofs for Land of Vampires in now! It was such a special experience for me and Jonathan to be able to go through the books! They turned out beautifully (with one problem, but we'll get to that)—I'm really happy with the print quality, and the pictures inside have a slight sheen to them which adds to the vibrancy! You can see that at least briefly in the video below, and they're even lovelier in person I think you're going to be really happy!
Book preview link:
For myself, one of the things I was most delighted with was the size. The books are just under 200 pages, and I wasn't quite sure how that combined with the page thickness would feel in the hand (I'm a very tactile person), but it's perfect! It's around the PHB or Monster Manual's size in thickness.
The Adventuring Companions prints came out really well also! We use a different printer for the smaller books, and I'll be placing our order with them soon, but there's one additional tweak I want to make to Witches, Fae, and Foes before we do that.
the next phase
So here's the not-so-great news: While almost everything about the LoV prints came out beautifully, there's a weird problem with the headings and any colored font. We're not sure what happened, but those spots are difficult to read, and it's affected the stat block printings as well though the sidebars look great.
I'm working with the printers to figure out what exactly the problem is and what I'll need to do to fix it, but once I have, I'll be back in touch with a more definitive timeline for fulfillment.
I know this isn't the 100% perfect news we were hoping for, but in the meantime, I hope those of you who have ordered the PDFs are enjoying them, and I also hope you enjoy the preview video!
Happy gaming!
💚 Beth
At long last: Print copies update!
8 months ago
– Fri, Jun 07, 2024 at 01:22:41 PM
Greetings, wonderful duet-ing friends,
Happy Friday, one and all!
In today's lovely update, we're covering maps downloads and an update on print copies!!! Also an update on Land of Vampires Part Two!
Digital Updates
A little over a week ago, I sent out the PDFs for Land of Vampires: Slipping into Shadow, so for those with digital copies in your order, make sure to download yours!
Since then, I have completed and uploaded the maps download for all digital and physical orders of Land of Vampires part one. The first version of this file was missing a couple maps, the second had a bonus zip file of the first version, but the file that's there now should have everything you need!
Print Updates
Pictured above, my assistant Mystra (upper right corner) who wanted to help compile the books for compiling the print copies! She somehow kept dodging her head being in the picture, so I have dainty paws for you instead.
I am super excited to have a print copies update for you! As you all know, we needed the digital copies to be set before we could tackle the print editions, but as of this afternoon, I have ordered the print proofs for the Adventuring Companions supplement and an updated copy of Witches, Fae, and Foes!
I have also submitted the cover and interior to the printer for Land of Vampires (aaahhhh!!!) and, as soon as I get the digital proofs back from them and can approve them, I'll be ordering those print proofs!
In other words, we have entered the very exciting "Beth sends digital files out into the world and they return to her in physical form" phase of print production! (A very important precursor to the much-anticipated "Beth receives things in physical form and then gets to send them to you in physical form!" which I'm very much looking forward to!)
I do not want to comment yet on the for-certain fulfillment timeline on the prints because I need to make sure the proofs are right first. If they look good, then we can go ahead and order prints for fulfillment!
On a quick personal note, I can tell you that I have been looking forward to getting a copy of this campaign in the mail for years now, and I can hardly wait to see Jonathan's face when he opens it and sees it for the first time! I still so vividly remember opening the box that held my first printed copy of my first novel, Buried Heroes, and just this overwhelming feeling of a lifelong dream coming true—"I'm a real author!" It was unspeakably special, and I want him to get to experience that same feeling. We love that so many people have gotten to tell so many stories together because of our digital products, but there's nothing like holding them in your hands to make them feel real!
Land of Vampires Part Two: Risen Retribution
That's right, the adventure is not over! The journey is just beginning! (Or at least a new phase of your journey begins!)
There also aren't definitive dates attached to this particular update, but I have the arc for LoV Part Two set up and sketched out for development over the rest of the summer. The Rasonov chapter is nearly finished and will be released as a reward on our Patreon later this month! (Our patrons are super helpful with giving us playtesting feedback as we go, and LoV Part One wouldn't exist without them!)
Right now, the plan is for six-ish chapters, though these are longer than the LoV Slipping into Shadow chapters as they're more location-based and include several different story arcs within each location. What I am hoping for is that GMs could use parts of chapters alongside the chapters in Part One if, say, your PC really wanted to go to Barasov, and you'd still have plenty left to do in Part Two to make the next stage of your adventure fun and meaningful.
Where I would love feedback from those who are planning to play/have already pre-ordered Part Two is your degree of interest between higher-level challenges within the chapters verses mid-level arcs/challenges. As a player, I really like lower- and mid-tier play, while Jonathan likes to see his character advancing. I enjoy the creative problem solving of the lower tiers a lot (level 1 through somewhere between 7 and 9). Obviously each duet-ing table is going to be different, and we all need to scale our duets for our specific PCs anyway, but if you do have preferences you'd like to voice, I would like to take them into consideration while I'm designing.
In summary:
We hope you're enjoying the PDFs of Land of Vampires!!!
You can download your maps zip drive when you're ready :)
And in the next couple weeks, look forward to more print updates and pictures/videos of the reveals! We want them to be really spectacular for you!
Finally, LoV Part Two: Risen Retribution is in the early stages of coming into being! (It's also available for preorder if you've been meaning to add it!)
Wishing you all the best! Thank you for going on this adventure with us!
💚 Beth
Here it comes!!! Digital download for full Land of Vampires campaign ready now!
8 months ago
– Thu, May 30, 2024 at 11:24:38 AM
Dearest backers,
There are so many times in my life where I'm grateful that I'm a writer rather than an actor or musician or any number of performance-based art forms that, at the pinnacle moment of achievement, entail that you, the artist, are in front of others instead of, hypothetically, happy-sobbing in front of your computer. (Yes, you read that right—we have moved beyond happy crying and also yes, the dogs have come to check on me!)
To put it even more plainly, this is one of those happy-sobbing moments, and it's one that we've been building toward for literal years.
But I won't keep you in suspense any longer:
The digital edition of Land of Vampires: Slipping into Shadow is READY!!!
In fact, as you're reading this, BackerKit is working on distribution, so if your order is complete, payment confirmed, and you ordered the digital edition of LoV, you should have received or soon be receiving a notification about your download being ready!
Before we get carried away, I haven't finished the maps download yet—I wanted to focus my energy and stamina on getting the campaign all the way finished first, but I will have the maps around to you next week at the latest!
Genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, I don't know that I'll ever find the words to thank you for your support of me and Jonathan, of D&D Duet, and of the dream this campaign started as. I honestly can't believe how many lives have been touched—none more so than my own—by the simple act of Jonathan designing a campaign for me so we could play together. A whole world, just for two.
For those waiting on print editions, I am hoping to have some proofs in over the next couple weeks and then we'll start shipping! You will also receive the maps download file when it's ready.
And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go happy-sob some more and marvel at the power of stories and storytelling and the blessing of having an amazing audience of gamers and storytellers who believe in you and are willing to put their support behind a project.
