10th Stretch Goal + Concept Art + Trivia
over 1 year ago
– Sat, Sep 10, 2022 at 12:39:24 AM
Hey fate readers!
We are now at 70k and at this rate, it seems like we will most definitely break through the 100k mark! But as I always like to say; better work in the present than dream of the future. We'll dream later again once we've got this book in everyone's hands!
So let's talk stretch goals!
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3rd and Final Mini-Stretch Goal UNLOCKED!
First, a few words by Tactical Master himself!
I am happy and proud to be a small part of such a great project. I'm sure players and masters will enjoy fighting and exploring the map I've designed for them. Thanks to Kelfecil for the great map idea and for the invitation. Good luck in space. To infinity and beyond!
~Tactical Master
TM is preparing a beautiful map for an awesome side adventure that you will be able to introduce to your players. In this adventure, the players will stumble upon the remnants of a ruined asteroid city. Do you dare search through the abandoned buildings? Could there be treasure? Or is something waiting for you in the shadows?
One way to find out!
Here is the work-in-progress piece for the map:
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10th Stretch Goal - Regional Maps UNLOCKED!
By reaching 70k, we unlocked a goal that I really badly wanted us to unlock. I of course want to unlock all of the stretch goals (with a very, very special one at 100k) but this one is one of my favorites just because working with the amazing Smitchell is always an absolute pleasure.
Smitchell has helped us expand the Starlight Chronicles setting through her evocative and stunning cartography. We are actually halfway done with fully making the entire map of Latakar (the base World in the Starlight Chronicles) and even once we are done, we will explore other Worlds (planets), the Souls Plane and a lot more Mini-Settings with Smitchell's help.
There's so much more to discover and so much more that we have in-store...
For Starlight Arcana, Smitchell will make the regional maps for the first areas so that your players can more easily navigate through Act 1.
Who knows... maybe at 300k we'll add regional maps for all the planets. Maybe. Just maybe...
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Next up...
More spells and this time even more thematically tied to what is inside the book! More to be revealed once we unlock this goal.
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Concept Art
Today we are showing some more art by Dusky Cat, our lead illustrator and the artist behind the Astral Tarot. You have all been asking so many questions about the Tarot Cards and the game design ideas that go with them for Starlight Arcana but we will reveal more about that at a later Stretch Goal!
One thing at a time.
For now, here are some early sketches of Alya! This is how the protagonist of the Starlight Arcana story first came to life...
Final artwork for comparison. This is the artwork for the Magician Tarot card!
(Reminder that all artworks that have been shown in updates so far are Copyright Kelfecil's Tales 2022. We want to kindly thank a concerned backer that reminded us that we should be watermarking the work-in-progress works as well as the final works that we put up on our posts. We are uploading them at lower quality, but it's still important to protect the work that our artists worked so hard to create!)
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Trivia
Destined Artifacts
A few people on the Kelfecil's Tales Discord community server have been asking me to talk about the destined artifacts a bit more. So I decided I would spill the beans on some of the design choices and the thinking that went behind creating some of the destined artifacts.
I will start with a very controversial statement; I find magical items in TTRPGs often boring and unnecessary unless they are part of a well-connected story.
I will never, for the life of me, understand GMs that use magical item decks to randomly give items to their players nor will I ever understand how there are so many products out there that cater to this supposed "need".
As a GM (be it you are a lazy one or not) part of your job is making the story fun for your players in any way you can and 90% of the time this is done in reaction to what the players are doing. While there is a lot of fun to be had that would derive from the randomness that a magical items card deck would give you, I have played TTRPGs for 20 years now and I have not, not a single time, ever spent time looking through magical items to that extent, let alone use a magical items deck. I always use magical items that are in an adventure or go with something from a recommended list.
I have also never played with another GM that ever had a magical items card deck or a whole items book or even just gave random items to us.
Maybe I just did not run into many people that cared about it but even now, when talking to other GMs that run homebrewed worlds and adventures (not necessarily write or publish them too), I find that none of them actually use other people's magical items.
They are super cool to look at and even cooler to use as inspiration to write entire stories, but unless they are part of something that perfectly fits your current point in your campaign's story, then you will not go out of your way to implement them in your games.
3rd Party Magic Item Creators
This is the reason why I like how certain 3rd party item creators make and publish items nowadays. The items come with a story and somewhat of a prompt for how you could actually use them without having to weave entirely new paths in order to have them make sense in your campaign. Rudok's Tavern, Shiny Press, Ari Pockily, Mithral Canvas are by far some of the best out there and are the perfect example since they all make unique-looking items with fantastic stories to accompany their also unique mechanics.
Keep in mind however that posting magic items or monsters is by far one of the best ways right now for a TTRPG creator to develop a following on social media (due to content that is easy to engage with from the viewer side) so you will be seeing more and more magic item creators on Instagram and other social media platforms. It is honestly extremely easy as a GM to go through any platform and just find thousands of magic items that are available for free and use them in their own campaign.
So why have more, right? I'll let you answer that one yourselves.
Adventure Writing with PreExisting Magic Items
I tend to write a lot of my adventures while inspired by the artwork I am working with. Beautiful maps, stunning tokens, and fantastic magical items. Sometimes I create narratives from scratch and then find artwork that fits my narrative while other times I get inspired and connect the dots with what I have available.
At first, connecting the dots to make narratives felt very tiring and sometimes even futile, but the more I did it, the better I got at it and the more fun it became. I can safely say that now I am able to create interesting narrative designs no matter what the dots are and where they are. So connecting magical items to a story became easy and I started using unique magical items more and more.
How does this connect to Destined Artifacts?
I explained all of the above so that you can get a good feeling of why and how I made the Destined Artifacts the way I did for Starlight Arcana. I am a narrative designer first and everything else second, so if I were to introduce something cool, it would have to be tied to the narrative that comes with the book, be it in the supplement or the campaign part of it.
I wanted to give the subclasses something even more special than just unique gameplay mechanics and a new gameplay approach. I wanted to give them a reason to continue feeling that they are in that role that they have chosen.
You become a wizard Astromancer because you love studying, understanding, and using the stars to cast spells. You become a warlock Corruptor because you have seen what the Void can do and you want to wield it for yourself, unleashing it upon your enemies in various ways. All of these things are great but can get boring and dull after a while. Just like any well-written character in a novel, you need to have reasons to care about that character, be it because of who they are, their role in the story, or their troubles. Character design goes way beyond that of course, but I'll keep it simple for the sake of avoiding writing ten more paragraphs.
Items of Great Significance
Destined Artifacts are not necessarily legendary items but can be extremely powerful nonetheless. It is always up to the GM's discretion to change them to be more or less powerful but at the end of the day, it is the story that matters to the player. Being that star-obsessed Astromancer I mentioned earlier and knowing that there once was an extremely wise and powerful Astromancer that wrote a magical tome called the "Grimoire of the Cosmos" is something that you will keep in the back of your mind at all times and when the GM drops some information that reminds you of it, you will immediately pause for a second and then tell all the other players "WAIT A MINUTE! I think I know what they are talking about!"
A Legendary Hunt
The book will have a section for each Destined Artifact after each subclass's section but will not have any sections focused on how to find those artifacts. Information on finding them is scattered throughout the campaign part of the book for the GM to use while playing through the campaign. It is much easier than you can imagine and I have made sure that dropping hints for finding destined artifacts is easy and fun.
Other Items?
There will of course be more magical items scattered throughout the worlds that you will be exploring with Starlight Arcana's campaign but the real stars of the show are the Destined Artifacts. They are generally designed in such a way that every player will be able to bring their own story flavor to the campaign without the GM having to completely rework entire parts just to fit in one new magical item.
Why only 12?
At first, I wanted to include x24 Destined Artifacts, x2 for each subclass but it quickly became apparent that this would make narrative design for the campaign story even harder because there would be far too many extra paths to develop and a lot of extra information for the GM on the pages of each act.
If I had a full narrative design team to work with, then that would be absolutely possible, but since I am designing and writing all of this on my own, I wanted to make sure I keep things realistic. Keep in mind that I do want to deliver this faster than what is planned so adding things that would take
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Social Stretch Goal Unlocks!
(Link to Social Stretch Goals and Unlocks)
x25 Twitter Retweets - Harp of Whispers Reveal
(Artwork by the amazing Anel)
Bards tell tall tales about a song weaver so powerful that she had to sing in a whispering manner just so that she does not enchant everyone around her. She would use a magical harp to accompany her beautiful voice so when she sang, her attunement to her musical instrument allowed her to whisper words and enchantments to anyone she wanted at great distances.
The song weaver one day just disappeared and so did her harp. Nobody knows what exactly happened to her or where her harp ended up. What is certain is that her legend will never be forgotten as hundreds of songs were written about her and many bards sing them across the galaxy.
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+30 Instagram Followers - Sajal's Portrait
(Artwork by the amazing Dusky Cat)
Sajal, the Cleric, is one of the main NPCs that players will get to meet while running the Starlight Arcana campaign!
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Before I close this long and full-of-information update, I want to give a quick shoutout to my good friends over at Rudok's Tavern!
I have been working with Rudok's Tavern for almost a year now and I tell you first-hand that they are just as amazing as people as they are as artists. They are actually running a card game Kickstarter right now called "WAKING SHARDS"!
I am a huge fan of board games (as you can tell by now from what I've talked about in updates) and Waking Shards immediately caught my eye because:
1) The art is absolutely stellar (link to Instagram art posts)
2) The game mechanics are quick and easy to learn and allow for very fast and tactical games on the spot (link to 1-minute gameplay explanation video)
3) The price point for x1 copy of the game is extremely good considering how expensive board games usually are on Kickstarter lately (only 18 euro!)
I have already secured my copy and hope to talk about it in a YouTube video when I receive my pledge reward. I couldn't recommend this project enough as the people behind it are creators that I know absolutely love creating amazing things and sharing them with the world.
Check Waking Shards here!
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Till the next update...
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
9th Stretch Goal + Customs + Art + Patreon
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 04:46:20 PM
Hey stellar voyagers!
65k! Which means, one more stretch goal, another mini-stretch goal and then we head into the big and final stretch goals!
We have some very special things waiting for you at the next few stretch goals!
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Customs Friendly!
I wanted to first take a moment and inform you that we have customs-friendly shipping from:
All backers within those regions and countries will receive their physical rewards with custom-friendly shipping!
For the rest of the world, we will try our best and make it better and easier for you as we progress with the campaign but until we have a solid solution for this, we do not want to mislead you by giving you any promises.
We have a plan for Australia and New Zealand as well by the way, but more on that in a future update.
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9th Stretch Goal - Starlight Familiars UNLOCKED!
Ok so, quick disclaimer here before anyone gets over-excited about this.
We are not going to make a whole pokemon-style training thing as part of the book. Although that would be absolutely awesome and I bet a lot of people would love it, this is not something that we put time into making nor does it tie well thematically with the exploration and adventure in the galaxy kind of thing we got going on with Starlight Arcana.
What this stretch goal unlock is, is basically adding some pet versions of some of the Astral monsters that are already in the book. Think of younger, cuter versions of some of the terrifying beasts you will find in the Sea of Stars, waiting for someone to take care of them as you find them alone and defenseless.
There will be stats of course for all of these creatures and ways they can help you as your very own familiar, no matter what class you are playing.
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Next up...
Some amazing Stretch Goals coming up next as we approach the 100k mark more and more to reveal the coolest of unlocks! We will talk about these more as we unlock them, one by one.
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Concept Art
For this update, we have something special! Showcasing our very own cartographer's map artwork!
Check out some of the fantastic work by Ori the Cartographer.
I have been working with Ori the Cartographer ever since my very first few releases (such as Windrider) and I feel extremely lucky to be able to work with such a talented artist. Ori has been a close collaborator for as long as I can remember writing adventures now.
She is also our graphic designer on the project so the project only looks as pretty as it does because of her. She also regularly teaches me how to not mess up graphic design material such as covers and promo images. Thank you Ori. Thank you so much. :')
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Patreon Content
I want to talk about my Patreon page not just to "promote" my content but to show you how Starlight Arcana came to be and the reason why I am even able to run this Kickstarter campaign.
For the last year and a half, I have been publishing TTRPG content non-stop as Kelfecil's Tales through Patreon and I have managed to achieve a few amazing things:
- Consistently releasing adventures, side quests, dungeon tales, supplements, mini-settings, and more every month without a pause since April 2021.
- Released 90 Adventures, 130 Side Quests, 45 Dungeon Tales, 45 Bounties, 25 Supplements, and a few other things in only a year.
- Made over 100 new modules on Roll20 in only a year.
- Became one of the content-leading adventure writers on the Foundry Bazaar Marketplace (42 modules).
And there is so much more on the horizon for Kelfecil's Tales. Next to Starlight Arcana, I have been working on system and setting agnostic sci-fi adventures and I have started releasing monthly Mini-Settings too.
If the last few updates were not enough proof of how much I love storytelling and narrative design in interactive media, then take a look at my catalog to get an idea of what exactly it is I do and why I really care about memorable stories in TTRPGs.
I really want to create new experiences, new stories that are easy to approach, and also ones that will stay with you as an experience even after you are done playing through them.
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Patreon is the only reason why I am able to run this Kickstarter today so this goes out to all the fantastic people that have been supporting me on there.
Thank you so, SO much. Starlight Arcana is only possible because of you.
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Till the next update...
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
Bonus Backer Reward - Monster Codex: The Void, Part II
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Sep 08, 2022 at 04:46:19 PM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
8th Stretch Goal + Add-Ons + More Art + Spells
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Sep 07, 2022 at 08:36:42 PM
Hey astral disciples!
Here we are, at 60k, smashing stretch goal after stretch goal!
Your feedback on the project has been absolutely fantastic and we have been trying to make a few decisions based on some of the requests that were made since we launched. So before we talk about any stretch goals, I need to mention a few things:
- We are extremely happy that the new Star Sparkle tiers are going well! It is always really heartwarming to see our followers and backers respond positively to new additions that we made based on their feedback.
- Two new Add-ons have been added to the campaign!
The question we heard the most since launch is "Will the Tarot Deck be available separately?", so we decided to add it to the add-ons list. At the same time, we wanted the Game Ready tier to still remain a better deal for people that choose to back the project at that level.
As for the FVTT module, the idea is that whoever buys it during the campaign or during the pledge manager stage, will get it at a lower price than what it will be available for after the campaign has fully ended.
(The module will be available at the price of around 40 EUR after the campaign is over.)
We really appreciate every single comment and message you leave for us and we want you to know that we are listening! So please don't stop, tell us what you think!
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8th Stretch Goal - Alien Adventure UNLOCKED!
We reached 60k so we are adding another SPECIAL adventure to the book!
I am so excited to make this one...
I am a huge fan of board games, playing at least 3 to 4 new ones every week, and I love seeing all the new mechanics, new methods of conveying narrative through tabletop games, and other things that they come with. Board games are most definitely some of my biggest inspirations and for that reason, I wanted to give tribute to one of my all-time favorite ones; Nemesis from Awaken Realms.
Nemesis is a sci-fi survival horror game that is all about cooperation and betrayal. You wake up from hibernation and you need to go and try to fix the engines, change the direction the ship is headed, and do a whole bunch of other things while your crewmates are trying to help you or sabotage your work. It's absolutely fantastic and every time we play it, we have a new story to tell. It feels more like a movie than a board game and I absolutely love every minute of it.
TTRPGs are not very far from that experience even if you have a lot of combat. Despite the tactical parts of the game you are playing, making it theatrically awesome and memorable.
So how does this all relate to Starlight Arcana? Well, as I said, I wanted to give tribute and there is no better way to do that than with an awesome alien horror-style adventure.
The adventure will have you searching through the dark corridors of a derelict galleon that you and your crew found, trying to understand just what exactly happened there. There will be special mechanics for the GM to help them play and narrate this adventure in a way that the players will fear moving forward and ways to make the players feel helpless (in contrast to the usual DnD feeling of being powerful heroes all the time).
So prepare yourselves as you are about to explore the mysterious and now derelict halls of the galleon, Ramnusia...
The adventure will of course come with a warning that it is a survival horror type of adventure and that certain themes are being used. While I like to write fiction in various different ways to evoke different emotions, it is important to always caution readers and players about what they are getting into.
(Ramnusia (Ραμνουσία in Greek) is one of the different names the goddess Nemesis (Νέμεσι in Greek) was known as.)
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Next up...
The world of Starlight Arcana has a lot of places to travel to. It would be fun if you had a cute companion to accompany you during your travels, now wouldn't it?
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Concept Art
Here's some more fantastic concept art from our Starlight artists!
This time, we are featuring our lead illustrator, Dusky Cat!
These were the initial sketches that Dusky made for the Stellar Degeneration spell.
The final result was this:
At some point, we even tested making some of the spells in a Mosaic style but we later scrapped that idea because we realized it would be too much extra work and it would not be as consistent with the rest of the things we had. That being said, the mosaic style is something that we want to return to and we are working with some fantastic artists for future content (that I cannot reveal yet!) for them!
Every time I look at Dusky Cat's work, I feel luckier and luckier to have been able to work with her and even more so to bring her on the team as a lead illustrator since her art style and quality of work are absolutely perfect for Starlight Arcana.
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Trivia
Last time we talked about a new Ancestry (The Crystalloid) and one of the subclasses (The Fate Weaver). This time, I want to talk about narrative design.
Designing a 3-Act Campaign
This section here will also be a video sooner or later on my YouTube channel where I talk about narrative design and other things, but I figured that writing a bit about it in an update might be something many of you will find interesting. I know that a lot of you want to run the Starlight Arcana campaign as GMs for your players so understanding the reasons why certain things were made a certain way is important to be able to make it your own when you are narrating and playing through the story found in the book.
The 3 Acts
I started using the 3-act method in my adventures from very early on just because I absolutely love this kind of design. The 3-act narrative usually works best with novels and other written media, but I quickly adapted it to TTRPGs in my own way so that I can help GMs in various ways.
The 3-act method in TTRPGs helps with:
- Timing your sessions better, since you know where you can start something important and finish off something else.
- Understanding the various dynamics of the story better and how certain characters and situations evolve throughout the story.
- Separating various parts of the adventure allowing GMs to quickly start from another part if they wish to or even completely skip other parts.
For Starlight Arcana, it is a little bit different, because this is a huge campaign and saying it has only 3 acts makes it sound ridiculous at first. Think about it; Rime of the Frostmaiden has 7 chapters and it is shorter than the campaign Starlight Arcana has with way fewer side adventures. So, naturally, the first question that one would ask, would be "why didn't you separate it into more chapters?"
The reason why is because of the starting points and the design of the story.
Starting Points
I found it way more important to have 3 strong starting points for GMs to choose from than to separate the entire campaign into tons of chapters. Having 3 acts allows GMs to choose what level their players can start at and with that just give them a background story to begin their campaign. There are suggested starting levels for each of the 3 acts and suggested information to give to your players in order to have the story still make sense and most importantly; have the players still care about the story.
Starting at a low level gives you the opportunity to build up the story slowly making the players care more and more about the story as they level up. If you start at level 3 or 6 though, it will be a bit harder to do that because there is less of a build-up.
For that reason, I decided to include an entire segment at the start of each act, dedicated to helping GMs who want to start their campaign from that point. The segment has things such as background lore that needs to be shared and specific scenes/encounters that need to be introduced so that the players get more involved with the story.
Story Design
It was extremely important to me that the campaign plays out in a way that it does not feel boring or forced. While designing the story and the paths it can take, I was inspired a lot by video games and more specifically RPGs like Diablo.
The campaign story of Starlight Arcana starts with a linear path, where you more or less force the players down a certain path (keep in mind that it is a TTRPG you are playing, so the players could and always will, in my experience, diverge from the written path and that is a good thing). The most important thing to keep in mind when making linear paths for narrative design is to make sure that every step of the way, the players need to be given reasons to CARE about the narrative.
In act 2, the narrative design opens up a little bit and you will be given various choices to show to your players. I say "show" because, just like with everything else in narrative design for TTRPGs, you must always keep it open since your players are the ones determining the fate of the story. This part of the campaign acts as the bridge between Act 1 and Act 3 in the way that it allows the players to slowly start realizing that their actions and what they choose to do are far more important than they initially were and that they are slowly becoming free agents and the writers of their own stories in this larger narrative.
In act 3, everything opens up completely and the players are now free to roam the galaxy. The important thing here for GMs to remember is that the main story needs to be always lurking around the corner. What I mean by that is the fact that you need to always remind the players that there is a bigger threat and something that they could potentially bring more harm the longer they take to deal with it. Introducing small encounters, various new or already known NPCs (that maybe changed over the course of the campaign), or something that reminds them of the story is extremely important since it helps the players stay in sync with the campaign's main path.
Conclusion on Narrative Design
I am planning on making a full series on YouTube, explaining each and every part of Starlight Arcana in detail, so that people who like what I have made can go even deeper into the story and the thinking behind the design of the book. I am by no means the absolute expert on this but I am very happy with the knowledge and experience I have gathered over the years that allows me to make things like Starlight Arcana and I really want to share that with the world.
I always like to make content that I know I would have loved seeing out there myself.
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Till the next update...
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
Blood Magic + New Tier + Art + Trivia!
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Sep 07, 2022 at 08:28:08 AM
Hey star hoppers!
This is going faster than any of us ever imagined it would. I have to say that I was the only one on the team that kept my expectations low but you have managed to completely stun me with the way it's going. I will seriously never stop thanking you for helping me bring my dream project to life!
NEW PLEDGE TIER! Star Sparkle and TwinStar Sparkle!
We are absolutely stunned by the reception of the Starlight Tier and there were a lot of people that wanted to support us at a higher tier for a unique reward.
Since we cannot expand the number of commissions for the Starlight tier because we want them to feel special to the 10 people that chose it and because they are a lot of work for the artist, we decided to open up a new tier between Galaxy and Starlight that will allow more people to join in and have their characters come to life through the unique token illustration style of Dusky Cat!
- Star Sparkle - Limited to 35 backers
Dusky Cat will make a token of your choice, be it a character or a monster (up to Large size) and you will receive it in digital form so that you can use it in your games. The token will come in x3 different color variants as well and with bordered versions for use in VTTs.
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Twin Star Sparkle - Limited to 15 backers
Same as with the other tier but for this one you get a small discount for commissioning x2 tokens!
If you like this style, by the way, make sure you check out Dusky Cat's Patreon Page where you will find a whole lot more such as vampires, sorcerers, zombie dragons, and many other magical creatures!
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2nd Mini-Stretch Goal UNLOCKED!
First, a few words from The Fluff Folio himself!
How could I say no to taking part in this awesome project! I’m more than honored that the mini-stretch goal my tiny creations were hiding behind got unlocked and I can’t wait to unleash them! I’ve collaborated with Kelfecil a few times before and always enjoyed the process. Not only is he able to dish out carefully tinkered content in record-breaking time but also amazes with good as well as prompt communication – no better tour guide out there to accompany you through the cosmic space and beyond!
~ Fluffy
Say hello to two absolutely mesmerizing void critters; the Void Snoop and the Void Snitch!
(These are uncolored early design sketches for the two creatures)
These little void critters will join the rest of the creatures that are in a special section of the book that explains all the little annoyances that you can throw at your players when they are traveling through the Sea of Stars (or anywhere else in the galaxy really).
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7th Stretch Goal - Blood Magic Spells UNLOCKED!
The mention of Blood Magic and other related rituals were already a big part of the theme of one of the planets so with this stretch goal unlocked, players will be able to channel the same kind of magic after they have gained enough knowledge from visiting that planet.
Blood magic relies a lot on channeling your own lifeforce or the lifeforce of others in order to cast powerful and extraordinary spells. These spells would be impossible without the use of these ancient and gruesome techniques that the Violet Elves created.
The Blood Moon world exists only because of the presence of its orbiting moon, a crimson orb floating all around it, drenching it in the colors of blood every night when it blocks the rays of Ukko's sunlight. The Violet Elves are the rulers of this planet and are not very welcoming to outsiders.
Should you find yourself there, you better be careful when the night falls and the moon is in the sky, for the blood sisters are on the hunt...
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Next up...
For now, I will give you only a small hint about this...
NEMESIS.
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Concept Art
I got quite a few people telling me that they loved the concept art section of the updates, so here you go:
This piece is an Eythereal Noble and was made by Swetha from India (StylusIsMyStyle on Instagram)!
And the final piece for comparison!
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Trivia
I asked some of you on Discord the other day what you would like to know more about and you said: Subclasses, Monsters, Spells and Ancestries, so here's a bit more information on some of those. The rest will come in a future update!
New Ancestry - The Crystalloids
Art by the amazing Bamvart.
The Crystalloids are a new alien race that I really wanted to create ever since I started designing Starlight Arcana. I find it extremely fun to make new ancestry options that are diverse and more and more different the farther you go in the galaxy.
The Crystalloids are first and foremost genderless. They are golem-like creatures made of crystalline minerals found only on their home planet.
Crystalloids are created in a magical way through the connection of two or more other crystalloids when their bond becomes strong. A uniquely mystical ritual that other creatures have yet to understand.
Crystalloids have the unique feature of being able to grow in size over time if they wish to do so. This gives them more strength but limits their mobility. Because of that, many Crystalloids choose to be big and towering individuals so that they may find work as heavy lifters across the galaxy. There are a few Crystalloids, however, that prefer to stay small and nimble so that they may hide and strike from the shadows, making use of their crystal bodies to camouflage themselves wherever they may be.
Extra Trivia: There is a whole subclass that is inspired by this ancestry; the Crystallized Path Barbarian subclass.
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The Fate Weaver Subclass
There will be an art showcase for this subclass in a future update (which I honestly cannot wait to show you because it is one of my favorite ones in the book) but for now, I can reveal a few things to you about the subclass.
The first version of the Fate Weaver subclass, written back in February 2021.
The Fate Weaver and the Astromancer subclasses are by far the most important subclasses found within Starlight Arcana and I can say that they are easily the ones I spent the most time developing.
The Fate Weaver is heavily inspired by more modern witches such as the Witches of Constantinople, Romani, and gypsy witches as well as other more enchantment and fortune-telling kind of themes.
I actually have heritage from Constantinople and my mother would tell me stories about Smyrna and Constantinople, the, often untold, tragic history of the people there in the 1880s. One of my favorite works of fiction (that has a lot of real history in it too) is "The Witches of Smyrna" by Mara Meimaridi which tells the story of Katina, a young girl from Smyrna who meets Attarti, a Turk, who agrees to teach her about magic. Through enchantments, potions, curses, and a whole other array of witchy means, she makes her way up the social ladder.
I love this part of history and how entire wars were waged based on fortunes given by people with supposed mystical abilities (such as Pythia in Delphi of ancient Greece who gave fortunes to generals and others).
This is where my narrative and game design come into play. The Fate Weavers see the Threads of Fate as they walk through the physical world. As a Fate Weaver grows in power, so does their ability to weave those threads in different ways and in turn help their allies or hinder their enemies.
As a Fate Weaver, you will be able to choose between certain paths:
- Cartomancy - Heavy use of the tarot deck to use abilities and cast spells.
- Crystallomancy - Heavy use of a crystal ball in order to cast powerful rituals.
- Hydromancy/Pyromancy - Whenever there is water or fire close to you, you are able to reweave fate easier and in ways, you otherwise could not.
- Necromancy - Speaking to the dead unlike any cleric has ever been able to do so before.
Based on all of the above, you can imagine how much work went into making the Fate Weaver subclass. I love the idea of chronomancers and I have actually homebrewed one for a game where I played one in the past, but I really wanted something more thematic and nicely tied to the narrative of the world of Starlight Arcana.
Cord Sight spell art by Anel.
I never really liked the idea of "talented magic users" since it felt like they just acquired power without ever having to work for it, so the Fate Weaver was the perfect solution to that. Fate Weavers are as much blessed as they are cursed with being able to see the threads of fate. As many have said so before me; knowing the fate of others is both a gift and a burden.
Making it a balanced subclass was also very difficult and at first most of the subclasses were actually extremely simple, following the usual design that DnD follows, but I decided to scrap that entirely and go with my gut because I did not want just another "somewhat interesting" subclass. I wanted you to pick a subclass because it speaks to you both from a thematic point of view and also from a gameplay style perspective.
Heavy inspiration was taken from various adventure and mostly cooperative board games where different characters have their own playstyle but still contribute to reaching objectives in their own special way. I really started to feel like DnD was starting to lose that feeling with what we are getting from the official products, so I wanted to completely break the habit and make things that felt different but also really fun.
A quick example of inspiration would be something as simple as the Gambler from Etherfields. There are luck-based mechanics with lots of dice rolling that everyone gets involved in but the Gambler has abilities and cards that make her lean a lot more into pushing her luck and that is something that from the very first time of playing the game, you get the feeling of being that dreamer. You are gambling your fate away with every dice roll and pushing to do even more extreme things while everyone else just hopes you won't mess up... again.
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I genuinely believe that we, as creators, should always try to push for more interesting things in our games since there is so much to draw inspiration from that it would be just remiss of us to just go with the "classic" design again just because it's the "safe route".
Keeping things interesting but also simple is what I believe in the most and I hope you will all like what I have meticulously prepared for you with Starlight Arcana.
I will talk more about my narrative and game design choices in future updates and will also reveal a bit more about the campaign and its story as it is one of the things that I am the proudest of. I always believed in making memorable stories and I hope that Starlight Arcana will be no different for you.
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Till the next update...
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
