Final Condition Markers Update & Cleric Coin Design Choices
over 5 years ago – Wed, Sep 23, 2020 at 10:14:07 PM

Condition Marker Update, Final (probably)

To make this easy, I've just included an exact copy of the new text and image that has been updated to the main Kickstarter story section :) 

All of our Condition/Tracking Tokens are moon-shaped and about the size of a half dollar. The crescent opening is 30 mm across so you can use this with almost any commonly-sized miniatures available; if you're using miniature bases sized 25 mm, 28 mm or 30 mm, these crescent metal tokens should be a great fit! These are 1.8 mm thick which results in reduced weight - perfect for use on your table while maintaining the high quality look of real metal tokens!

To go along with our Condition Tokens, we have created new custom images to accompany each condition word, featuring our fun little mischief loving mascot:      Moji the Gremlin!

Poor Moji tends a little over adventurous at times, but he's definitely super friendly and super helpful as well! He's helping us bring a more cohesive look to our Condition Tokens - every time you look at one of them you'll be reminded of what it means with a little visual assistance from Moji himself!

The main side of each token will feature one of the 15 most common status effects that are available in Tabletop Role-Playing Games; the reverse side will be numbered from 1 to 15. This gives you the ability to use them to either track your poisoned players, your charmed NPC's, or your unconscious baddies but it ALSO gives you the ability to number all 15 combatants (a horde of goblins (not Moji!)? a gaggle of kobolds? Maybe you're adventuring at insanely high level play and you need to know where 10 octo-tentacle-faced monstrosities are at any given time?!) individually so that you can track each of them and ease the pain of figuring it out later when they're rushing all over the map!

General Funding Update

We're FLYING towards that $13,000 stretch goal and currently only have about $500 left to reach it so keep an eye out for another update soon showing off the next currently shrouded level along with an official announcement about the 13th coin!

Hero Coin Designs Part 3: The Cleric

At first glance, the cleric coin might have some images that pop out at you and say "Hey, I'm the one based on the divine class!" On the other hand, it might be confusing and shrouded in mystery without some context. We'll start at the top, with the initial idea's that I wrestled with around the coin itself and religious iconography included (or not included) in all of my designs for coins in general. After we tackle that we'll look at the Lore that's hidden inside the design that was chosen and perhaps you'll come to appreciate the small specific details by the time we're through :)

Religious Iconography In General - I tried on purpose to skip as much of this as I could just to make sure that I'm separating the worlds of fantasy role play from true to life religions. To give all of them as much respect as possible I was aiming not to step on toes, trod on beliefs nor cast confusion or doubt that any of my fantasy style coins were copies of or parodies of existing icons. If you dig closely into some of the designs and perhaps like on the cleric coin, just glance casually and you'll see, it's almost impossible to present new symbols or shapes that have never been drawn or used before. 

Even after multiple iterations of the Cleric Coin and being absolutely sure that I had done the impossible in an acceptable way a close friend glanced at the final design and immediately pointed out that there was a giant cross of sorts in the center. That was not the intention but if you try to study expansive charts of symbols to make sure yours doesn't match any then you end up drawing random squiggles! I had to concede that it was more important to make something that just looks good AND was clearly based in a fantasy realm than to keep banging my head against a wall over every tiny detail. 

When I think of Clerics I quickly get bogged down not in the role of the cleric in the party or any particular character but in the deities themselves. Clerics to me are extremely versatile and they are the embodiment of their deities will on the material plane so much so that they wield power directly gifted to them by their gods. Squishy healers, certainly. Nigh invincible battle tanks on legs firing buff bombs on the party, often. Wall crushing power houses with wrecking balls for flails, more often than naught! Why, with so many roles available to them I'm almost willing to say an entire BOOK could be devoted to clerics and their possible roles as replacements to almost EVERY OTHER CLASS in table top RPG's! A gaggle of wizard's, glass cannons and weak willed Brainiac's! But a strike team of properly balanced Cleric's... best to answer questions and be helpful than contend with a proper Inquisition!

What was the solution then? To focus on something else besides a single type of cleric. You see, in fantasy realms deities and their chosen warriors go hand in hand and are both varied and numerous. I decided not to focus on a single deity but chose to reach into my own personal game and bring into reality something that has not been published yet BUT WILL, one day, see the printing press and perhaps grace your screen or table. A creation of pure fantasy that allows me to encompass all religions in my game worlds into a single union on the most basic of levels. Existence itself. Something that supersedes all other squabbles and goals across the cosmos.

Allow me to introduce you to The Ouroboros Wyrm of Infinity. The seeker of unity and conformity. Ouros The Pure to some, that which encircles the loose chaos of life and creation which has broken free from its grasp. Ever closing in upon the Crossing Paths upon which all life and matter exists. Chaos may have set us free and is what drives us to exist against the inevitable but with our own creations we push against the encroaching envelopment of oblivious continuity and cohesion of a blind and pure existence. All life, all matter, is an offense to Ouros. No matter where we personally began nor where we end, our paths all cross in different ways but the truth of our end remains the same. With Infinity.

And so was born the Cleric's Coin, or in my worlds, the Ourosian Currency which trades equally among all peoples that accept such things.

-Levi

Thank you all for such enthusiastic support so far in this campaign, I'm really looking forward to seeing these amazing coin sets and token packs come to life! 

Let's hit that $13k and see what's next, we've still got plenty of time to expand before we're through!

-Session Zero Games

Condition Token Update 4 & Packaging Updates
over 5 years ago – Tue, Sep 22, 2020 at 01:29:18 PM

Quick Funding Update! $11,000 passed!

That's right everybody, we just passed $11,000 so we're only $2,000 from our first stretch goal and adding a 13th coin to all Hero Coin sets! Let's keep pushing the project where we can! I'm in talks with an advertising company to make some headway and try to assist as much as I can but if we're hoping to hit as many goals as possible then you'll need to help by posting some updates or messages to your social media feeds! Thank you for helping the train down the track as we gather more speed!

Condition Token Moji's

Well, we've shown enough of the little updates, it's time to just let the cat out of the bag :) Here are all of the Moji symbols that will grace the Condition Tokens moving forward!

As you can see, nothing but trouble with this one! He means well though, so don't be too upset with him!

Packaging Updates

Previously we announced that your Hero Coins and your Condition Tokens would come with simple cloth bags and we were hesitant to say much else before the project was funded. Now that we've passed our goal I feel that it's safe to say we're looking into including some nicer boxes to store or display your coins and condition tokens in along with the cloth bags. They would mostly be retailed focused and colorful cardboard, plastic inserts, things like that but we'll be including something for general carrying as well. I can't get into details just yet but I'll tell you more about them as we make final decisions. To be clear, everyone will still get the included bags with each set of Hero Coins or Condition Tokens which are nice black cloth but I'm working on making sure you have an alternative solution if the sets were to be purchased from a retail box store.

More updates coming over the next few days, we've still got 10 coins to talk about before the end of the project and we're lagging behind slightly! Storms and power outages, BAH! 

-Session Zero Games

Updates to Condition Tokens 3 and Bard Design Choices
over 5 years ago – Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 08:09:39 PM

A Quick Note On My Situation After Hurricane Sally

As you may or may not know Session Zero Games is currently physically located in Northwest Florida and we happened to get the worst of Hurricane Sally. Thankfully it was only a category 2 storm and we had experienced (and learned from) Hurricane Michael which was category 5 in October of 2018. This time we were better prepared. The destruction was still bad for Pensacola and our surrounding area but it is recoverable and no damage was done to my family, home or business assets. We were displaced for almost 3 days and the power was restored just hours ago. Thank you for any well wishes you send this way and thank you for supporting this project as we move forward!

Condition Token Update 3 (short)

Here are a few more of the new images that will be gracing our Condition Tokens. As you can see Moji just can't seem to keep himself out of trouble!

During the next update we'll hopefully be fully funded and posting the rest of the new Moji images for the Condition Tokens! 

You can expect 1 or perhaps 2 more updates on them before the campaign is finished as we hope to show off the designs of the tokens themselves before they are sent off to the manufacturer for stamping and painting.

Hero Coin Designs Part 2: The Bard

When we were designing the Bard Coin the notion that music or melody itself was something that had to be portrayed was first and foremost in my mind. Some things are just elegant by design and the bard is by writ one of those things. Complicated, yes. Multi-layered, absolutely. With but the pluck of a cat gut, the exhalation of a carefully gathered breath or the soulful and echoing haunt of melancholic vocals, a bard's job can seem so simple and yet be so complicated all at the same time.

Buffing your party, demoralizing your enemies, making sure to have your back in the bar fight and be your face in the throne room when needed... the bard for me is a true Jack of All Trades. Not to be confused with the Rogue but easily confused as a Rogue with a flute, the bards in my stories tend to be two parts Miguel and Tulio from the Disney classic and 1 part Dandelion from The Witcher. Mix in a little sprinkle of Jack Sparrow, the obviously double roughish rouge and his euphemisms, and you've got something to really bring life to your game!

The real problem for me while physically laying out the coin was trying not to get too complicated with the design of so many different important aspects. It was far too easy to become cluttered. A few design stumbles and some reworks towards the end gave us what you see here. The lute, perhaps the most commonly recognized symbol of a musician quickly became our most prominent image. Surrounded by the magical symbols that only a select few can truly decipher and then only the most gifted of us can truly understand. Backed by the shifting melodies which move like waves through our emotions and our bodies alike and encircled by a ring of strings that with but a skillful caress could mean great things.

And thus was born the Bard coin :)

-Levi

I don't have any images of the minted Bard coins in hand yet, we saved those for after the Kickstarter due to the cost of the initial molds and the time frame we had in mind for a holiday delivery. Launching the project was priority and we're on a short track right now to hit our goals and be able to deliver on our planned schedule!

Keep an eye out for more updates as soon as we're funded, we have a new stretch goal to reach for and another to show off once our next goal becomes more clear!

Be awesome and move ever onward to greater things!

-Session Zero Games

We're FUNDED! Stretch Goal Updates and 13th coin REVEALED!
over 5 years ago – Sat, Sep 19, 2020 at 08:09:35 PM

We're officially FUNDED but we're not yet finished!

That's right, we're past our initial goal of $10,000!

That means we'll be making THOUSANDS of sets of coins for scores of people all over the planet to make their games that much more fun to play and cool to show off. Thank you all for the enormous amount of support it took to get us here and for sticking with us as we move even further forward to add additional wonderful things to this already amazing project.

What's next?

STRETCH GOALS! That's what! As we had announced previously on the project, we're revealing our new stretch goal here and on the main page for those who don't see the update. At $13,000 we'll unlock a new 13th coin FOR ALL HERO COIN SETS!

The 13th Coin! The D.O.R., or The Docent of Reliquaries! Cataloger of magic items, demystifier of the arcanically infused mundane! High Mage of Magic Items, Master Wizard of the Highest Order, Published Author of the Tome of Magical Mystery and many other important (and entertaining) works of literature! Why DOR you ask? To allow him to speak for himself... "What were you expecting? An artificer? Now my head hurts." -DOR 

To clarify, if we break that $13,000 funding goal we'll be adding this new 13th coin to ALL HERO SETS! That means if you've pledged for 5 sets of coins you'll be getting 5 sets of 13 coins. Any color option, any number of sets (including mix and match where you do NOT have to choose this coin as one of the coins you wish to receive), they'll all have 13 coins in them as a base number. We'll be giving EVERYONE that gets full sets extra coins. It can't get much better than that right? 

What's after the 13th coin?

Well, who knows what all we'll be able to unlock as we get further. In fact, in the distance, far away at the $18,000 mark, we've got a new goal in sight. It's not quite clear yet what all the details are but as you can see...

We'll have more details coming on this particular goal once we break past the upcoming $13,000 and officially add the DOR coin to all Hero Coin Sets. 

For now, keep being awesome, make sure to tell your friends who might have been hanging on the edge that we're FUNDED and $1 will get them into the BackerKit where they can have a second chance to add things to a cart AFTER the Kickstarter has ended. Last but not least... have an amazing weekend everybody! 

-Session Zero Games

Updates to Condition Tokens 2 & IMPORTANT STRAW POLL!
over 5 years ago – Tue, Sep 15, 2020 at 05:04:07 PM

Condition Token Updates

STRAW POLL AT BOTTOM, PLEASE VOTE FOR NEW COLOR OPTIONS BELOW!

As we mentioned in the last update, we're making some visual changes to the Condition Tokens and have created some custom images that will accompany each condition word. Our new icons will be based on our new fun little mischief loving mascot, Moji the Gremlin!

Poor Moji tends to be super friendly and a little over adventurous at times, as you can see. He sometimes ends up in some tough situations.

Not only is he adventurous and friendly, he likes to be super helpful as well :) That's why he's helping us bring a more cohesive look to our Condition Tokens and every time you look at one of them you'll be reminded of what it does with a little visual assistance from Moji himself!

As you can see on the original tokens the designs on "Poison" were something simple enough to understand visually and allowed us to add a little flair to the design. A classic Skull and Crossbones just makes the most sense.

You can see how small these are once stamped, they still retain their detail and the paint helps them stand out tremendously! For the sake of sharing, here is what the token looked like with no paint involved! You can see these were also slightly smaller, at only 28MM on the internal diameter before we sized them up to fit 30mm miniatures.

They were MUCH harder to read! Inverting the stamps and using paint made a lot of sense for visibility on shiny tokens with such a small scale!

The new images of Moji will simply be replacing those little skulls! Here's the new Poisoned image that we'll be using in the old original Skull and Crossbones place.

The lines are thicker, the stamp will stand out better AND we get to have a little fun with Moji while we're making the tokens look better for everyone! We'll post a few more updates as the campaign moves along so that you can see what every instance of Moji looks like and even some of (if not eventually all of) the designs that we'll be sending off to the manufacturer of each Condition Token.

General Updates

We're getting close to that funded goal, we're sitting at $7,600 out of $10,000 right now so a few more days at this rate and we'll be golden! Make sure to help spread the word to get us rushing towards the goal! Speaking of which, here's a link and an image that you can save and use if you'd like to help us out a bit :) 

With any luck we'll be funded sooner rather than later and that leaves us room to hit some stretch goals before we're done! We've got a long way to go before the project is closed!

Straw Poll

Speaking of stretch goals, it's been revealed that we're offering a 13th secret coin but we haven't announced openly yet that we're planning on adding in some new color (beyond gold, silver and copper) options for the coins somewhere down the line. Since we're not able to guarantee that we'll get to release them all and since we can't really decide ourselves, we thought we'd leave it up to you backers! 

Click the straw poll image to visit our survey and let us know which color or colors you'd like to see as options. You can pick multiple colors but it would really help if you didn't just pick all of them :) Maybe try to keep 2 of your favorites in mind?

Thank you again for your continued support and we look forward to seeing what color choices you pick!

-Session Zero Games