Some Pictures from the Factory
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 03, 2022 at 05:36:16 AM

Hi friend! I hope you've had a great month. We have an update for you today that's low on talking and high on pictures, complete with some fun factory snapshots, the finalized miniatures box, and the sample of the metal tokens. So let's get into it!

A Trip to the Factory

We have begun manufacturing the miniature box. Here are some pictures of that process from the factory:

The Miniature Box Sample

Next, here is a sample of the final assembled miniature box for you to check out!

The Metal Tokens

Also, we've received the samples for the metal tokens! We're pretty happy with them. I hope you like them, too!

Progress Update

Currently, we are still progressing on the actual game. Unfortunately, lockdowns have hampered this process recently, as our main office in China is in one of the locations that have been put back into Covid lockdown. That's quite detrimental at this particular juncture as there's a lot that needs to be done in person, but hopefully, the team will be able to get back in there soon. I am also still working on the stories, which have taken longer than I hoped.

The miniature box will undoubtedly be finished before the printed components, which is not how the manufacturing process usually works for a board game. But we wanted to show you our commitment to this game and remove any remaining doubts that you will get it. Honestly, apart from our frustrations associated with it not being done yet, this project is a joy to work on, and we hope you'll find it a joy to play when you do receive it. (Albeit an incredibly weird, creepy, disturbing one.)

Anyway, that's it for this update. I hope you enjoyed the peek into the goings-on at the factory. Have a great June, and we'll talk to you again soon, my friend!

The Game Board Revealed
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 03, 2022 at 05:35:08 AM

Another month down with more progress on Dawn of Madness done! We have an update today that I've been looking forward to giving you for a long time. Just in case the title didn't give it away: the game board is finally finished! This game board features a lot of changes over the previous one and even has ramifications for other game components. So, we're going to break it down bit by bit below.

First off, though, we just received the finalized version of the miniature trays. Here is a picture of them:

The factory will soon begin production of the miniatures and miniature boxes. We'll let you know when that happens. 

Before we move on, here are pictures of the art for the top and bottom of the miniature box:

Now, let's move on to the game board!

The Game Board

You've waited a very long time for this, and we appreciate your patience. But now, at last, here it is in all its glory: the game board!

(If you'd like to see a bigger image of the game board, you can click here to see it larger.)

I honestly don't know how many iterations of the board we've gone through, but there were a LOT. Finally, though, we have something we're all pretty happy with. (I won't lie, actually: I'm thrilled with this board, and I hope you are, too.) This board is big. In fact, it's basically the biggest one we could get to fit in a roughly standard-size box. All told, it measures 900mm x 600mm (35.43in x 23.62in). 

The philosophy the team took when designing it was to (1) make it as simple to use as possible and (2) to consolidate as much into one central, easily accessible (and glanceable) place as they could. For instance, several parts of the game board were separate components in previous versions. However, to reduce fiddliness and streamline the experience as much as possible, the team worked hard to get as many elements on the actual board as was manageable in the space available, cutting clutter and fine-tuning the look until they finally got to this design. Then, of course, they still needed to make the thing creepy and atmospheric. In my (patently biased) opinion, they succeeded.

A lot is going on here, so let's break down what everything does and why. There are four areas on the game board: the mental capacity track (left), the world shard slots (center), the ending score tracks (right), and the game round track (bottom). Let's start with discussing the mental capacity track.

The Mental Capacity Track

Previously, this was along the board's right-hand side with the malformation cards (which are no longer used in the game.) The track had to shrink a bit to make room for everything else, so now it's just big enough. 

During the action phase, the mental capacity trackers' positions on the track will determine the order of the monsters' and wanderers' activations. The figure whose tracker is farthest up the track acts first and performs an action, then drops its tracker down the track a number of spaces equivalent to the amount of mental capacity the action used. The next-highest figure will then activate (even if it's the same figure again) until everyone has reached 0. Here's an example: 

In this example, the Masquerade would take an action next. (Monsters always go first because they frankly don't care about your feelings.) Then, it would drop down the track the number of mental capacity points it spent, and Catherine would take an action before dropping down the number of mental capacity points she spent. After this, players would check the track again to see who goes next, but it would likely be the Mongrel followed by Emily.

In the finalized version, players will use the mental capacity trackers as tokens instead of standees. This is because the tokens can stack, thus saving space, and are also easier to identify on the board from multiple angles. Furthermore, if you are playing with standees, this makes it harder to confuse the two -something which could have been a problem previously. 

The World Shard Slots

The meat of the game board is, of course, the world shard slots. These slots house the world shards that form much of the actual gameplay area. We'll discuss those and the world shard cards next. 

There are 16 world shard slots on the game board, which house the world shard cards that make up the shattered map of the Otherworld you're exploring. The world shard cards will be randomly placed on the slots during game setup to form the game map. (Note: There are 16 pieces of art on the game board by default: one under each slot. The world shard cards will cover them when placed, so these images won't be the actual locations you're playing on during the game.)

As with the previous version, the world shards are connected loosely by wires which show you the paths between the world shards. If a wire connects two slots, then you can travel between them. Otherwise, you will need to find another way around. This network creates a labyrinth that changes with every game session.  

There's one other thing to keep in mind with this board: this is not a standard world that you are exploring. It is a shattered, chaotic mess that used to be a person's consciousness, floating in a conscious, hungry fever dream of an abyss. (It also happens to be part of a shadowy cult's horrific experiments, which is why there's a distinctly... electrode look to everything.)

Here's a look at the game board with all of Emily's world shard cards placed on it:

You can see a better image of the board with world shards on it by clicking here.

The World Shard Cards

The wanderers will maneuver along the paths of world shards collecting domains and items, fighting against monsters, and, most importantly, diving into encounters (the core of the Dawn of Madness experience.) The world shards offer a lot of information on them, so let's break them down again in detail. 

(If you'd like to see this image in more detail, click here.)

On the cards' top-right corner is the world shard's number. Some figures and encounters will be spawned randomly on the board during the game. When this happens, the players need to roll the Otherworld die (the 16-sided die) to determine where to spawn them. The world shard numbers were directly on the game board in previous versions. However, adding them instead to the world shard cards added another layer of unpredictability to the game and kept the game board's aesthetic cleaner. (It also ensures that the world shard cards never accidentally cover up the number, and you will always know where to look for it.) 

On the cards' top-left corner are the world shard's sentience colors. Each world shard in the Otherworld is associated with its own meanings, feelings, energies, and emotions. The card's sentience colors represent these abstract concepts. Each world shard has three sentience color slots which determine what colors of domains wanderers can draw from it using a domain action. When a wanderer performs a domain action, he rolls the sentience dice according to the world shard he currently occupies and gains domains based on the die-roll results. 

The bottom of the card shows the title, description, and storybook entry number for the world shard's default encounter. These world shard encounters represent the surface-level stories for the world you're exploring. You'll have to uncover the deeper encounters hidden within the storybooks as you play.

The Game Round Track

The game round track lies along the bottom of the board, hovering over the top of a highly distressed brain. Ten round trackers will be placed on the track during the game setup in the order laid out in the central wanderer's setup instructions. (Just as a reminder, the central wanderer is the wanderer whose story you're playing through.) 

Each round tracker has a blank side and a side with an entry number. During the event phase (the first phase in a game round), the wanderers will turn to the entry number in the storybook and see what it says, then resolve any game effects it instructs players to do. Then, at the refresh end of the refresh phase (the third and final phase in a round), players will flip over the round tracker to indicate another round has passed. 

Here is a picture of the game board with ten example round trackers placed on it, as well as the round track a few rounds in, with the first four trackers flipped over. (The clock is ticking!)

In a previous update, we showed you a combo round-and-ending-track dial that players used rather than having the track on the game board. We'll have more on why that went away in the next segment. 

The Ending Score Tracks

When playing Dawn of Madness, players will gain points toward each of the current world's four possible endings. During setup, players will place each ending's score tracker on the "0" slot. Then, as the game progresses, they will score points toward the different endings within the encounters, and the scores on the tracks will advance accordingly. Once ten points have been accumulated, players will add a second tracker to the track, which will be placed on the 10 in the middle to indicate that this ending's points now number in the teens. If the first tracker travels around a second time, then another tracker will be added to the middle, reflecting that ending's points now being in the 20s, and so on. 

The right side of the above example indicates the scores for different endings partway through the game: 13 for ending A, 8 for ending B, 21 for ending C, and 6 for ending D. At this point in the game, the wanderers are about to enter the game's finale stage if they can defeat the abomination. With this in mind, they will most likely get into ending C in the finale.

Some of you may remember a previous update where we showed you a round tracker that also tracked the points for each ending. We really liked this contraption (mainly because it looked cool), but we ultimately decided to scrap it because it proved problematic for several fairly significant reasons. Firstly, it was one more thing for players to keep track of, taking up additional tablespace and mental energy. 

However, the second problem was a bigger one - quite literally. You see, we didn't want ending points to be limited to only eight or ten points (there are a lot of encounters that give you points, and limiting that would hurt the game), which meant we then had to increase the size of the dials to accommodate more points. But it wasn't just one dial we had to enlarge, but four. Finally, the size of the round tracker grew to be almost like a second game board. It was a bit like a poorly weighted, ill-shaped frisbee that could cause some real damage if a bad throw made it connect with a player's head. What's more, it still didn't offer us enough ending points, even at this gargantuan size. 

So, we were relieved when we figured out how to work the ending tracks and round track into the game board. We're sorry to see the round tracker go, but the current method's advantages are too significant to discount. This method has a few minor drawbacks, too, but it more than makes up for those with the reduction in fiddliness, table real estate, and bookkeeping that it provides. 

Well, that's it for this in-depth look at the game board! I hope you like the design we've finally settled on, and that this helps you visualize what your own games of DoM will look like in the future. Have a great week, and we'll talk with you again soon!

The DoM Samples
over 1 year ago – Tue, Sep 06, 2022 at 09:28:36 AM

Hi guys! I hope you've had a great month!

I expected to write this sooner, but receiving the samples we mentioned in the last update took a while. However, they have now arrived, and whoo boy, do we have an update for you today! Here's a sneak peek: 

While my sample is currently on the way to Gen Con, Roger was able to shoot several videos of all the various components. You will find those below (condensed into three mega-videos.)

I'm not going to waste any time talking about stuff up-front (I'll do that after the videos.) But I will give a couple of disclaimers.

• First of all, we haven't entirely finalized these components. We're still making a few minor tweaks here or there, such as color corrections, etc. (Though, by and large, we are thrilled with how these turned out.) 
• The second disclaimer is actually two points: This does not contain everything you will receive in the core game. Specifically, this sample focuses on general gameplay components and Emily's stuff. Having said that, I think it's possible you might feel the onset of component overload as you watch these videos. Don't fear, though. You will use many of these bits and bobs at particular times, and the game lets you know when that is. (There will also be a handy storage system so you won't have a hard time finding them - or putting them away.) They are not all used at once, nor do they all need to be on the table at one time. 
• The third is also two points: These videos are long, running between 7 and 14 minutes. So, expect to spend around half an hour if you want to dig into all of them. Also, the first few seconds of the first video have some of the light-bleed issues that the pictures above do. However, it gets better. I promise. 

Okay, enough talk! Let's jump into the videos!

The Sample Videos

This first video shows the punchboards, tokens, and standees.

 This second video features many of the game's cards.

 This third video looks at more cards, the wanderer dashboards, and Emily's storybook!

I hope you enjoyed the videos! Now, let's chat. =)

Diemension Games at Gen Con

First of all, I'll be at Gen Con next week! So if you'll be in Indianapolis the 4th-7th, come by and say "Hi." I'd love to meet you - or see you again! We will be at booth #2671, near the far-back upper-right corner of the convention hall. It's a walk, but hopefully, it's one you'll find worth making. 

I will be showing off Dawn of Madness as well as some stuff from our upcoming game, Celestial, and our last game, Twisted Fables. (I might even have some stuff to show for those who've been patiently awaiting news of our long-promised Deep Madness reprint!) We'll have some fun extra stuff there, too, so stop on by! (Including a book on tape. No, I didn't make a mistake in writing that: I meant exactly what I said.) 

Can't make it to Gen Con? No worries. I'll try to take lots of videos and pictures while I'm there and then post those for you, likely in our next update. I'll also have some other fun stuff to show before long, such as some merch! (I'm wearing my new Dawn of Madness shirt right now, in fact, and I'm thrilled with how it turned out.)

But enough about Gen Con. Instead, let's talk about progress.

Where We're at Now

Hopefully, you can see in this update that we're making good progress. However, we're not there yet - though we are getting closer every day. A few months ago, I mentioned there was a possibility that we wouldn't make delivery this October, but it likely wouldn't be more than a few months past that point. This is looking to be the case.

The factory has finished the production of the core game's plastic miniatures. As you can see in this update, we're also nearly there or finished on a number of the printed components. The things we still need to complete are the stories and their gameplay elements. 

Before we talk more about that, though, I don't think I've laid out properly the scope of this game or what you'll be getting. I'm sure you realize this is a big game. But in talking with some people this week, I realized you might not understand quite how big it is. 

For reference, the average story-driven core game contains one book between 40,000-70,000 words. (80,000 at the high end.) But Emily's storybook is approximately 100,000 words (I think the final count for it squeaked by just under that count.) And Emily's storybook is only 1/4 of the total content you're getting in the core game. (Which does NOT include the wave two stuff.) Let that sink in for a moment: in one book, you're getting more content than in most epic story games, and that's only a fraction of the total potential gameplay. (You don't have to uncover it all, of course. You could just play through one game and feel satisfied. But it's there if you want it.) All that said, THIS GAME IS FREAKING HUGE, and I'm not sure we've properly conveyed just how big it is before now.

So, what's the current status? Currently, Emily is 100% done, while Catherine is right around 95% done. We also have good chunks completed for Lynas and Claude, but they are where we will direct the remainder of our energies before you finally get this game. 

But why aren't I done writing yet, considering I thought (and said) I would be by this point? Well, for starters, it turns out I'm wildly optimistic, and my drive far exceeds my capacity. Another reason is that we ended up rewriting about 60% of Catherine's stories. The team just didn't feel the overall narrative was cohesive enough (and it was also very, very weird), so we went back to the drawing board on many of the story's foundational elements and reworked them. (I alluded to this in a previous update, but these are the nuts-and-bolts details of what happened.) Probably the most significant benefit from this is that Catherine went from being our most unrelatable character (for reasons) to one of our most sympathetic ones, so it was the right call to make - even if it set us back further.

So, what are we doing to mitigate this? First, the team is all-hands-on-deck for this game right now. (Some of us are currently working on it seven days a week.) We have three designers working on it, as well as several artists and others who we have contracted. And this brings me to the second thing we're doing to get this game to you faster: we're contracting additional writers to help us finish this up as quickly as possible. We probably should have done it sooner, but at least they'll be here to get us over the finish line now. (One other thing this could potentially do is help free me up to spend more time interacting with you through social media and the various outlets.) So, all-in-all, it should be a good thing.

For some reason, that feels like a strange place to end this update, but I can't think of any other news right now off the top of my head. So, I think I'll stop here. I hope you've enjoyed this update, and, as I said, we'll be back with some more cool stuff soon. We'll also start the final layout on the rulebook before long, so we'll be able to show that off to you in short order. I'm also hoping to do a live stream again for you guys at some point (a suggestion made by one of our awesome backers - thanks, Russ!), though obviously, that will be after I've recovered from Gen Con. (LOL!) 

Okay, that's it for today. Have a great August! I hope to see some of you at Gen Con next week, and I'll talk to the rest of you again soon. Bye for now!  

A Look at the Miniature Tray and New Art
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jun 06, 2022 at 03:55:27 PM

Hey guys! We have a quick update for you today, but we had some new stuff we just got in that we wanted to show you. We won't keep you for long this time since the last one was such an immense mega-update, but hopefully it'll be a cool diversion for a few minutes. Let's dive in!

Miniature Box Plastic Trays

We recently received the final test sample of the Miniature Box plastic trays and wanted to show them off to you. Now, these are 3D printed samples, so they are NOT made of the same materials as the ones you will receive in the actual product. Specifically, the final ones will have transparent plastic covers and black plastic trays. 

With that out of the way, though, let's take a look! We'll start with the wanderer tray, which features the wanderers, their malformations, and their specific terrors - as well as some colored plastic bases for the player minis.

Next, let's move on to the tray with the remaining terrors, as well as the abominations! Amazingly, they fit all of these into a single tray!

And last but not least, we have the final boss tray. Now, I want to stress that all of these trays are the same size.  I mention this because the boss tray seemed small to me in this picture for some reason, but it's actually the opposite: the tray's the same size, but the minis in it are just that big.

Now, here are all three trays stacked together with a ruler beside them. Yes, it is showing that this stack is 20cm (7.87 in) high. 

All told, the trays are about 310x310mm (12.2 inches) in length and width, and 200mm in height (7.87 inches), so this is going to be a pretty darn big box. And once again, this is just the core game minis! All told, there are 54 miniatures in this box, with each and every one being a unique sculpt.

Some New Art

Lastly, we have some new art to show you from Catherine's world! There won't be anything accompanying these images such as story content or whatever, so just sit back and enjoy. 

Okay, that's it for this update! We'll be back before too long with more DoM goodness, but until then, I hope you're doing well and staying safe. Have a great week!

Solo Update, Breaking Down Legacies, & the Current State of DoM
almost 2 years ago – Wed, May 04, 2022 at 08:57:04 PM

Hi guys! I hope you all have been having a good month and that you're staying safe no matter where you are. It certainly feels like it's been another tough one for many worldwide, but I hope you're doing as well as you can regardless of what's going on around you. 

For this update, we have several gameplay updates for you, from expanding on the legacy elements of finales and abominations to new developments with solo play. We also have a small update/statement about the state of DoM. A word of caution: this one's long, so settle in. 

The Current State of DoM 

I firstly wanted to clear the air a bit over what I think some people might be feeling about this game, so here's a breakdown of a couple of points. 

1. Is DoM in trouble? In short, no. Dawn of Madness is not in trouble. We are making consistent, constant progress on it, and it continues to take shape more and more every week. We are furthermore not in financial straights or in danger of not delivering this project. You will get this game, and we hope it will be an experience you'll never forget when you do play it. 

2. Why hasn't the game shipped yet? As mentioned last year, we had to delay the game due to a variety of factors (which we'll get into more of below.) At that time, we moved our target ship date from October 2021 to October 2022. We would have loved to ship DoM by its original targeted date, but it proved not to be feasible for the reasons listed in the next point. 

3. Why was it delayed? Our initial timeline didn't (and couldn't) take into account the major changes that we promised backers we would make during the campaign. These were not minor changes, but sweeping reworkings of most of DoM's core systems. This was the direct result of backer feedback, and the game is significantly better for the changes made to it. Because of them, the game is swifter, leaner, and more enjoyable, with mechanics that bolster the experience rather than get in the way of it. 

However, these things took a lot of time to work out so that you didn't end up with a half-baked game only good for the miniatures. Our timeline also didn't account for a global, years-long pandemic or other factors that we've had to contend with, including sickness and maternity leave. (Remember, we're not a big corporation like some companies, so when one person is out, we all feel it.) 

We have also held ourselves and our partners to the highest level of quality we're able to achieve. We see this game as a work of art and a true labor of love. So, when a story wasn't working, we rewrote it. When a game mechanic didn't flow right, we went back to the drawing board. This also doesn't mention the hundreds of pieces of art that we've commissioned (or are still commissioning) for this game. My writing of the stories has also taken longer than we initially projected (partially because of the aforementioned rewrites, but for other reasons, too.) 

Having said that, we are currently a few months over our deadline - not one or two years, as I've heard a couple of people suggest. To be clear, we will be at least a year overdue, as we stated previously. (And I realize we had a long lead time, to begin with.) But this game is coming, and it is growing closer every day.

4. What is our current timeline? We are still currently pushing for October 2022. Will we make it? Well, we still have a lot of ground to cover by that point, and we're working hard to make up for lost time. But if we don't, the delay will not be an outlandish amount longer - likely a few months at the most.

5. How can I get ahold of you? I feel really bad that I haven't been able to hang out more in the comments or on social media, and I'm going to try to be more active in both. Having said that, if you have an issue, the best way to contact us is via email. You can reach us at [email protected] and [email protected], or you can reach me specifically at [email protected]. This is far better than Kickstarter messages or comments, and also than social media. I am going to try to be more active in the community, and I truly regret that I haven't been more so. (I miss the days of the Deep Madness Reprint campaign where I could reply to every comment.) But regardless, email remains the best way to reach us. 

Part of the reason for the lack of communication in other channels is, frankly, we're working as hard as we can to catch up on this game so that we can get it out to you as quickly as possible. It's not that we don't want to chat with you guys in these places - it's just that our resources are stretched thin at the moment as we work to get this game completed for you. Thanks for your understanding on this. 

I hope that this has helped to allay concerns some backers have been feeling. This project is not trapped in development hell. It is not hopelessly troubled or broken, nor is it vaporware. Honestly, this is a game I am extremely proud of, and it's one I very much hope you enjoy when you receive it.

Now let's switch gears, and talk about something I think will make a lot of people happy.

Solo Mode Makes a Comeback

I'll admit, that headline is slightly misleading, as solo mode never really left: you just needed to do it with four wanderers instead of one.  Also, this new version is quite different from the original implementation. Still, I hope that this will serve as a good compromise for solo players who don't want to use four wanderers, or for multiplayer games that don't want to worry about managing extras.

To be perfectly clear, we still recommend playing with four wanderers for the best experience. However, if you're dead-set against doing so, we have just finished testing a new system that will allow you to pair down the number of wanderers in play. Without further ado, let's introduce the support cards!

The support cards will fill the gap left by not playing with four wanderers, allowing the game to be played with either two or three wanderers now rather than all four. Want to play solo with only two wanderers? Just add the "2 Wanderers" support cards into the game, and you'll be good to go. Want to play a single wanderer each in a two or three-player game? Just add the "2 Wanderers" or "3 Wanderers" support cards into the game and you may do precisely that.

The support cards offer wanderers various free actions during each game round. These cards will be refreshed every round, leading to different free actions that will be available each time. Furthermore, they belong to all of the wanderers rather than any specific one. Consequently, players will have to plan how to use them as a team. (Assuming you're not going solo, of course.) 

You may be wondering, if we can do games with two wanderers, then why not scale all the way back to one? Well, honestly, there are just too many parts of DoM that require interactions between multiple wanderers. It would be mighty tough to save a wanderer from the jaws of death if there isn't another one to do it. There are even endings where one kind of wanderer or the other will be essentially impotent until later on in a finale, relying on either the other wanderers or the central one to carry the load for potentially several rounds - often while the weaker ones are being hunted by something nasty. As long as there is one other wanderer present, though, and both have more actions in a game, then it will still work. 

(There's actually one other reason, too, though it's strictly a meta/story reason: there are two kinds of encounters in the game, called Reality Shards and Explorations. Reality Shards are from the central wanderer's viewpoint, while Explorations aren't. While any wanderer can do any encounter, it would be a little strange to have an outsider's perspective if there are none present. Once again, this isn't an actual gameplay thing, but just about consistency.)

Now, let's get into the legacy stuff, starting with a refresher on game stages.

Breaking Down the Stages

As we've mentioned before, games of DoM are separated into two distinct stages: the wanderer stage and the finale stage. The wanderer stage is where the meat of the game is. Here wanderers will explore the world, fight abominations and other monsters, and build toward one of four particular endings. (Though, it's no guarantee that there will be an ending if you do poorly enough. This can happen if you have died three times already and all of your malformations are on the board. If you die again with all of them still alive and kicking, you'll lose instantly.) 

Once you've reached enough points to activate a particular ending, you'll move into the finale stage. Accessing the finale stage means you're certain to get a resolution - though there's still no guarantee it will be a good one. This stage is where wanderers will fight one or more final bosses and unravel one of the potential threads laid out in the previous stage. There are legacy effects that apply at the end of both stages, which we'll discuss in the next section.

The Legacy of DoM

As we get into the "legacy effects" in DoM, let's define what we mean by legacy. DoM is NOT a legacy game in the commonly used sense. You won't destroy any cards, you won't put stickers on the game board, etc. Rather, "legacy" here refers to game effects that will follow wanderers from one session to another. Let's start with the legacy effects the abominations provide. 

At the end of the wanderer stage, wanderers will receive either a reward or a punishment based on if they did or did not kill the abomination. Here's a look at the back of Rage - Frenzy's abomination card, which highlights both the positive and negative effects: 

So, if wanderers kill the abomination, they will receive the following rewards:

• The abomination's punishment will be removed (if it was present from a previous game), and its family's lineage card will be deactivated. There'll be more about that below.
• Each wanderer will randomly draw a card from this abomination's legacy deck. These are cards with helpful abilities that you will keep for the foreseeable future. If you fight this abomination again and win the chance to draw another card, you can either choose the new card and discard your original one or keep the original and take three existence tokens instead. (In this case, you would need to spend the tokens in the finale, as existence tokens don't carry over from game to game. However, you could use them in the finale to unlock your own existence cards and upgrade your own abilities.)

And what happens if you don't kill the abomination? Well, then you'll be punished. Here's how:

• The abomination's unique punishment will activate by placing its lineage token on its family's lineage card. This punishment will then activate in every subsequent game until wanderers can deactivate it.
• If any wanderer in the game has this abomination's legacy card from a previous game, the wanderer must return the card to the box as further punishment.

Here's the Rage lineage card as an example:

You'll notice that this particular card has two abomination tokens on it. That's right: it could be possible to have more than one lineage effect active at a time. Theoretically, it would be possible to have all four activated at once if the wanderers were really on a bad streak. (The two sections are lit up to emphasize which abominations' effects are active. The actual card isn't like that.)

Of course, nothing stops you from leaving out this mechanic if you prefer to start each game with a clean slate. 

Abomination Legacy Cards

After wanderers gain legacy cards, they keep them and can use them for every subsequent game. (The only reason they would be removed would be if the wanderers failed in a subsequent game against that same abomination.) In other words, it represents (largely) permanent growth for a wanderer. Each abomination has its own legacy deck, with the cards differing quite a bit between abomination families. The difference isn't as massive between family members (they are related, after all), but they are still varied one from another. 

For example, let's look at the core game abominations: the Rages and the Masquerades. The Rages' cards focus on increasing HP, existence tokens, or sentience limits, while the Masquerades' cards emphasize domain resources. Think of it as harvesting power and energy that specifically relates to each abomination.

As mentioned above, a wanderer can only have one legacy card from any particular abomination. This is like being branded by that abomination, or perhaps being able to stomach only so much of its essence. Of course, as mentioned above, you can always trade in your current card for a different one if you defeat the same abomination again (or take those three extra existence tokens if you don't.) Apart from that, there is no other limit to how many legacy cards a wanderer can have. Go nuts slaughtering as many of those big nasties as you want.

Lastly, there are two types of legacy cards: passive ones and consumables. A passive card is always in effect and usually increases your maximum health or sentience limits. Consumables, meanwhile, can be spent to gain specific resources, such as existence tokens, domains, domain cards, etc. Having said that, they won't leave a wanderer's possession after being used. They won't be available for the rest of this game, but they will be available again in the next one. You can use multiple consumable legacy cards in a single game, but only one in a given game round. This adds another layer of strategy to the game after you've got a few games under your belt, forcing you to think about which card to use at what time.

A Finale's Legacy

After the wanderers complete a finale stage, the central wanderer will gain a finale legacy card at its conclusion. If the central wanderer has a different finale legacy card from a previous game, that card will be replaced by the new one. (If you did better this time than in a previous game, this could be a very good thing. Or, if you did worse, then it could be a mediocre thing, too.) Only the central wanderer will receive a finale legacy card at the end of the game.

Note: The next two images will feature actual finale legacy cards. The spoilers on them are extremely minor, but if you want to go in completely blind, then don't read them too closely.

There isn't a typical concept of winning or losing once you get into the finale. No matter how everything unfolds, the story will reach a conclusion (for good or bad), and each possible ending will result in a different finale legacy card. This card will alter the central wanderer's sentience values, sometimes significantly. This reflects the change the wanderer has undergone throughout the game, for better or worse. Likewise, each card has one or more special game effects on the card that harken back to your ending. 

Some tie in closely with domain cards, too, as seen above. These are often domain cards that you will start each game with (or that will replace another one.) Each will have a caption on the back of the card from one of the finale's main characters, as well. 

Okay, that's it for this update. I know this was a long one, so props to those who got all the way through it. Thanks for sticking with us, my friend, and I'll talk to you again soon.