Let us journey to Rome and Zanzibar with this standalone expansion for our Hidden Isle system! The chunky 64 page RPG zine comes with 2 new classes, 2 new cities to explore & 2 scenarios to play, full of mysterious crimes, malicious foes and magical surprises. Also plenty of stars and some of the vilest sewers you will ever experience. Become the Swindler and con Portuguese troops on the shores of Zanzibar. Or play as the Scholar and give rousing lectures to foment a riot against the greed of Rome’s cardinals.
As the tradition commands we will of course offer 48 hours early bird specials. Each physical backer will receive a free set of Sefirot prints!
Most importantly for you backers of The Hidden Isle and I’d rather mention this once too often than not often enough:
YOU CAN COMBINE AND SHIP THIS WITH YOUR HIDDEN ISLE ORDER!!
Or upgrade, if you haven’t done so. Grab another rulebook, go for an all-in bundle that also includes the Spheres of Heaven Tarot deck and our ouroboros altar cloth or go all digital, if you prefer that! Whatever you do, please visit us in Dioscoria, you will not regret the journey.
If you still have questions about this campaign, our cards or The Hidden Isle, there will be a Live session on Instagram, next Tuesday, Feb 6, at 5PM CET. I remain with the traditional invitation to jump on our socials for extended interaction and banter! Also, we’d really appreciate, if you would share this with any interested parties who might want to join the Dioscorian cause.
Stay safe and stay connected!
The Warden of Shadows
Discorian Dispatch - Swindlers, scholars and whimsical sights
10 months ago
– Thu, Jan 25, 2024 at 08:44:24 AM
Esteemed agents,
We are but a week away from our little adventure’s beginning! Exciting times! If your pulse rate isn’t elevated enough (in a good way), let's have a look at the two newly announced classes: The Swindler & The Scholar.
As you might imagine, both of them offer rather different and unconventional play styles.
The Swindler, educated at the honourable Guild of Coins, is well-versed in anything business, from straightforward negotiations to more obscure propositions such as Nice Foreign Textiles. Take a chance. Gamble. Seek risk and reward. Such is the Swindler’s way!
Or dedicate your life to studying at the Guild of the Candle and learning everything that can be known and more. Be the Scholar. Devour entire libraries and fight the demons of ignorance. For it is through learning that the follies that plague us can be kept at bay!
Each class comes with unique special skills, which shall not be revealed just yet. If you haven’t done so yet, please sign up for the campaign so that we can enjoy yet another wild ride together.
Rainy London
Now, back to our Hidden Isle business: Last week, we already proudly announced our ever-growing treasure trove of assets that are slowly making their way into the core book. Viv Tanner is creating wonderful scenes from our hubs, whimsical portraits that capture the essence of these locations.
This beautiful line of houses above us is the good city of London. But is it really good, as in good natured? A brief look into recent Dioscorian chronicles tells us a different story:
“Many come to London to seek their fortune, or escape from vagrancy after the decline of the family farm. But the city is no more merciful, and the streets are filled with beggars and the homeless. Alleyways hum with innovative criminals finding new ways to snatch, steal, purloin, or trick their way to a score. For those with a sharp mind, quick reflexes, and enough speed to outrun their debtors, London is a city brimming with opportunity.”
Sounds like a place that the Swindler might enjoy! As for our second image, just below, this would be the sometimes lesser-known, but equally majestic city of Qazvin. Discorians, of course, know this city much better than London, for it is its most powerful direct neighbour and seat of the Safavid Empire. The well-travelled chronicler Yaqub describes the city as follows:
“The streets of Qazvin are dusty and choking, the surrounding landscape arid, providing a fitting backdrop to emphasize the lush greenery of the royal gardens dotted around the city. Once a town of little import beyond its role as a desert rest stop, the arrival of the Shah has seen the city bloom with new architecture and political importance. Vast garden neighborhoods and palatial estates have sprung up in the north of the historic settlement, a remarkable feat since the entire desert region is watered by a single qanat and a handful of streams.”
Sunny Qazvin
We hope this somehow whetted your appetite and left you craving for more Dioscoria. Do read the beta version of the rulebook! And did you already sign up for The Sewers & The Stars? I shall never grow tired of asking you this question. I remain, as usual, with the traditional invitation to jump on our socials for extended interaction and banter!
Stay safe and stay connected!
The Warden of Shadows
Dioscorian Dispatch - The Sewers and The Stars
10 months ago
– Thu, Jan 18, 2024 at 08:00:11 AM
Esteemed agents,
Welcome to the year 2024. We hope that you had the chance to rest during the holidays and maybe engage in some Dioscorian adventuring with the Beta rules. There can be no adventures without a proper downtime, let this be our sermon in this trying age.
Most of our team took a break, but some of them have been very, very industrious in order to fulfil not just your orders, but also your wishes. Some of you demanded more adventures, so we looked at the availability in our team and concluded that our writers and some of our artists aren’t entirely busy, while the rest work on the still missing asset. Combine that with the upcoming Zinequest on Kickstarter and that logical result is:
Yes, we do love zines and we thought you might love them too, so we made one for you. Of course we made it also for ourselves so that we can finally tick that “Made a cool zine” box on the “Life Goals of Hopelessly Romantic RPG creators” list.
We are taking questions now….
What’s this all about?
A 64ish page zine, black and white on fancy paper, with two new hubs (Rome & Zanzibar), two new characters (The Swindler & the Scholar) and of course two adventures in said hubs.
Do I need to ship this separately, if I already backed The Hidden Isle?
No! This is the beauty of it, we figured out a way to merge this with your orders for “The Hidden Isle”. Unless you add an unsavoury amount of weight, your shipping costs should stay the same. If you move from digital to physical, you would need to pay shipping of course.
Any great early bird deals?
Certainly! For the first 48 hours, we add a free set of Sefirot prints to every zine. Are we clearing the warehouse with that? Absolutely! Is it still awesome? Free Sefirot prints, I rest my case.
Blasphemy! Is this delaying the production and shipping of The Hidden Isle??
Not at all. The art production is actually done by March already and the people working on the zine did have enough time for this little sideshow. We are still on track!
Now that we got this out of the way, back to our regular news. Bloodthirsty psychopath to some, sanguine sorcerer to others: the Siphoner has finally materialised. We actually have much, much more to show you, the artists are currently producing more than we can throw out via updates and social media postings.
Aside from this bloody reveal, we wanted to remind you that the Beta Rules (barebone, no graphics) have been available for you backers via Backerkit! And how will you get this mysterious Beta Rulebook?
You should have received a notification from BackerKit itself about the file being available, or you just need to log in to access downloads. Again, this is backers only though!
If you have not interacted with Backerkit yet, do check your emails (the one you are using for Kickstarter!), maybe also the Spam folder.
Additionally to that, some of you have requested the basic rules and printable boards for the Sefirot board game. We always had that available, but it was scattered across numerous pages and Discord channels. The almighty Zsombor created this neat page on itch.io, so that everyone can easily reach it. https://causacreations.itch.io/sefirot-the-board-game-lite
And that’s it for now. Did you already sign up for The Sewers & The Stars? You really should, if only to ease our anxiety here that this might eventually interest someone. I remain, as usual, with the traditional invitation to jump on our socials for extended interaction and banter!
Stay safe and stay connected!
The Warden of Shadows
Dioscorian Dispatch: Surprise Presents
11 months ago
– Fri, Dec 22, 2023 at 07:53:20 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Dioscorian Dispatch: Swift News Bulletin
11 months ago
– Wed, Dec 13, 2023 at 05:33:44 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
