A system-neutral, Himalayan Buddhism-inspired sourcebook of holy sites for analog adventure games.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
T-shirt brand, fulfillment timeline & the campaign's home stretch
about 2 years ago
– Sun, Mar 10, 2024 at 11:02:56 AM
Hi, beloved backers!
I hope, wherever you are, that spring starts when it should. It's starting too early here, and I wish I could shove the little flower buds back into the ground. I guess it's ironic that people choking on convenience would end up dreading their basic myth of abundance. What a surreal time.
ANYWAY, here's a quick nuts-and-bolts update about art we're compelled to make.
T-Shirt Brand
After testing multiple brands and styles—by which I mean buying a bunch of shirts and noting the ones we actually reach for—we're officially screenprinting both of the Shrines t-shirt designs on AS Colour's CLASSIC TEE. The fabric is sturdy, soft as hell, and cut to flatter—ideal features, IMO, for a t-shirt blank.
Sadly, the women's cuts come in fewer colors, so while the Camel pictured above (I would've gone with "Marigold") is perfect for the Oracle of Malice design on the standard shirts, we'll have to swap the palette for women's. Yellow printed on black, approximating the Hallowed design, is probably the play here, but we'll absolutely stay in touch about this.
Fulfillment Timeline
After checking back in with our team and manufacturing partners, we expect to ship you Shrines sometime this August, 2024. I know the reward tiers estimate May delivery, but frankly that was silly and unreasonable whip-cracking on my part. We've still got plenty of book to make, and we simply refuse to do a shoddy job. Thank you for your patience and continued excitement as this project grows and grows.
The Home Stretch
Somehow we're down to the campaign's last five days! If you haven't backed but keep thinking about it, tossing in your sleep like a babe, the time is extremely nigh! The Hallowed Edition and both t-shirts are for-real-and-for-true Kickstarter-exclusive—which means we'll never print them again, which means regret will stalk you like a wolf if you wait for retail. Slay the wolf before it strikes and grab this awesome merch.
With gratitude and love, as always,
James
James talks design, publishing, and Buddhism on The Weekly Scroll TTRPG Podcast
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Mar 01, 2024 at 07:40:04 AM
The anatomy and design philosophies of both Shrines and SANCTUM
EM|NCD's values and ambitions as an art-haus press
A teensy-weensy touch of Buddhist metaphysics
Check out the video on YouTube below or the audio on Spotify.
Thank you, as always,
James
Gratitude for funding, plus a note on the book's utility
over 2 years ago
– Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 07:12:05 AM
Gratitude
First of all, a thousand thank-yous to everyone who backed Shrines so far. We have enough now to print, which means, no matter what, the press' first Kickstarter is a success: we're officially making a book.
How to Use This Book
"Embed these shrines in your world, expressing their mechanics through your system" is a line I wrote before any of the book's actual content, but which, over the course of development, slipped from the way I described the practical value of minimalist, system-neutral design to TTRPG players. I'd like to do a better job of that now, especially for those of you on the fence about backing.
"Internalize these 40 pages of lore, and then deploy their nuance during interactive play" is, IMO, a ridiculous proposition. It asks too much, of course, but worse it steals the joy of running and playing these games: imagination, improvisation, authorship. Your table owes nothing to printed modules or even gameplay systems that underpin its play; those things exist to serve your experience, during which they sustain their utility or quietly fall away. How many of your D&D sessions forgot about the dice? The best ones, right?
When we say that we "omit both crunch and fluff to spotlight actionable ideas," we mean that we write with purposeful restraint to provide the useful, inspiring kernels of novelty (for which experienced readers scan) and precisely nothing more—not because we don't think rich, elaborate narratives are interesting or good, but because we think they're yours to produce. That's what roleplaying is for; story is an emergent property of play. Similarly, on the mechanics front, we skip crunch because we know you're gonna repurpose these gameplay hooks anyway for your context (deeper still than which system you're running), and we trust you to do that well.
This is all to say that EM|NCD exists to support creativity; and when it comes to the volume of information in vignette-based material like Shrines, we believe that more would be much, much less.
