It’s time to climb the mountain again.
Time to make something new and see how it goes.
I’ve had several moments throughout the past month, realizing that I was and have been in the thick of production mode, basically all summer!
Right now, we’re in art and layout stages for the new iteration of The Epic of Dreams.
The Epic of Dreams: Keys to the Kingdom will be a free basic rules zine, fully compatible with our core rulebook. This time around, we’re going full color!
I’ve had the ultimate pleasure of working with my friends on this project, and I’m excited to show y’all what we’ve been cooking up!
Meet The Band
This time around, our production crew, aka “The Band”, consists of:
The bedazzling Derek Bizier, of The Halfling’s Hoard, on Editing
The magnanimous Vincent of Invisible Temple Games, on Graphic Design
Some silly words & 6th grade illustrations from myself
& the illustrious Viny De Wonderful on our featured Cover Art!
These guys have been putting up with me for about two months now, give or take, and somehow they STILL want to work with me!
On a more serious note, I have had such a wonderful time working with them.
Derek was a serious help providing feedback and guidance for The Basilisk Edition. Him lending his wisdom to help me condense our rules and presentation as compact as possible has been a godsend. He is a halfling with a shadow like Gandalf.
From the first Instagram post I saw from Vincents’ @ritualcuts, I knew I wanted to work with him.
The way he uses crisp lines and text, to how illustrations are woven in with text, and the way he brings each element together to make this full-clarity cohesive whole - if I didn’t at least try to get ahold of him, I knew I’d be doing the project a disservice.
Finally, my man Viny de Wonderful has always lived up to his title - both in countenance and quality of work! He did such an amazing job, really taking our Muspelhell project and elevating it above all expectation.
I’m so excited to be handing off the cover art to his capable brush!
Channeling the Miracle
One of the many lessons I learned from making the Basilisk edition was that I could “try” to do everything myself, to make the ‘right call’ for each part of presentation, art style choices, content, etc…
But! The only way for the best possible END product to come about would be if I teamed up with those whose acumen and spirit aligned with the same goal:
To make something unexpected together that I could never have done just by myself.
Keys to the Kingdom - A New Edition of the Game?!
Well, the rules in this iteration of the game are 100% compatible with The Basilisk Edition. The only difference is that we’ve updated all Dodge Checks to the term “Dodge Saves”.
In this iteration, we present all the rules content as they correspond to each of our 10 Icons. In each chapter, you first learn the Icon, its symbol and storytelling principle, and then learn about the corresponding rules.
Instead of pairing these rules sections with random tables and reference material, we’ve condensed a lot of the random tables into Circle Invocations.
You may remember our very first Circle of Adventure, shown below!
Keys to the Kingdom will feature 7 of these, to aid players of each kind in various ways;
The Circle of Hearts creates nuanced character psychologies
The Circle of Merits creates bespoke character ability suites
The Circle of Wizardry creates mystic orders and their magics
The Circle of Chaos creates battlefield landscapes, riddled with dangers
The Circle of Masks creates quick dynamic non-player characters
The Circle of Stories creates both myths and scene prompts for your Saga
The Monster Summoning Circle, well, makes monsters
We’re going balls to the wall this time around.
When I was a kid, there was no feeling like having the choice to choose between Pokemon Red & Pokemon Blue (obviously, I was a charizard boy through & through).
The Basilisk was what I lovingly refer to as our “80’s Librarian Goth Version” of the game.
Keys to the Kingdom is going to be our 70’s Technicolor Lovechild Version.
We’re also featuring 4 new Collegiate Muses in this edition, whose presence will be felt with every page turn;
Alexandria, Preserver of Sagas: Yellow, Frowning
Tiamat, Fated Nemesis: Red, Weeping
Orpheus, Pinnacle-Bound: Blue, Laughing
Yggdrasil, Dreamer Manifold: Green, Smiling
These new Muse characters will not only be your guide through the Keys to the Kingdom, but are also the emblem motif of each of our Cult of the Muse’s “Muse College” community guilds!
Our Discord community will soon become the hub for all the community-led game jams, West Marches style College Sagas, and other Muse College competitions & activities.
Make sure you’re in our Discord and check out our Muse College personality quiz to join the ranks!
Behind the Scenes, Right in Your Inbox!
My hope this Autumn is to be able to talk to you all each week, giving you new details about the forthcoming zine, right up until public release!
The Band has been really cool, and has allowed me to capture some of our dev calls for content. We’ve had some really fun development calls where we’ve playtested some of our random tables, and I’m really excited to actually SHOW you all what’s going on!
For now, here’s some of the concept art we’ve been cobbling together…
A Favor House Atlantic
Hey!
I have a favor to ask you - especially if you’ve purchased a copy of our Epic of Dreams: Basilisk Edition!
Could you write us a review on our DriveThruRPG page?
As an indie RPG developer, we really live or die by these reviews!
Even with just 3 reviews on our page, it could really help new folks find out what we’re really about. If you could share your experience;
Reading the rulebook
Your favorite aspect of our weird mechanics
Making a character or using the random tables for worldbuilding
Playing the game itself
It would be a literal Godsend! Thank you SO MUCH in advance!!!