April Update: Progress Report
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Mar 27, 2023 at 02:13:58 PM

April Update

Hey, folks! As we're entering April, I wanted to get this message out early. We're making excellent progress with the book. In fact, we have a full rough draft of it finished, including Arc 6 which was unlocked as a stretch goal! It's pending proofreading and by the end of April, I'm hoping to have the 5e hardcover book in its entirety finally fleshed out. This will put us on schedule to completing it within our promised time frame. 

The start of the year has also been very busy for our team and we've had some members take a leave due to other responsibilities. This shouldn't affect our schedule too much, but I just wanted to be forthcoming about some unexpected challenges. 

We worked a bit more on the one-shot adventure to send it off to Games Unbound so they could run it at PAX East, so there is a bit of a delay with the Pathfinder 2e playtest document. However, this gave us a chance to tighten and proofread material. 

Jeremy Blum (who, as it was announced, is writing for Paizo's upcoming Tian Xia setting books and Seasons of Ghosts!) did an excellent job enhancing what we've already put together through his editing. I think everyone will be very impressed with it.

This Month's To-Do

Aside from proofreading, I'm going to look into seeing if we can't get the stickers and enamel pins at least printed and sent out early. If I can handle the small deliveries myself without it really adding to folks' financial burden, I'd like to give that a try. We'll have more on that in a future update. The art team will continue work on battle maps and some final illustrations for the unlocked bonus arc. Speaking of which!

This is the Yagwang, an undeath-themed fiend whose design was made possible through your continuing support! She's a fiend whose existence represents the decay of all matter and life. In a cacophony, she preaches of peace through oblivion and that life's true value is found only in its end. A sworn adversary of druids, the famished luminescence she emits drains water in it touches. 

We'll continue our hard work going into the next month and hopefully will have more to share then!

March Update: Free 5e One-Shot Release, Pathfinder 2e playtest in progress
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Feb 28, 2023 at 11:20:20 AM

Good day, everyone!

It's been about a month, so we thought it's time to fill you in on what we've been working on. Aside from the following, the final arc of Undying Corruption is about, say, 2/3 finished in its rough draft form. There has been a long way to go, but we thank you for your patience. We should have a more complete draft of the book in its entirety come April minus progress in the graphics side. Some unexpected delays aside (largely since I hadn't factored in how long preparing the playtest material might take), we're still about on schedule.

Dirge for My Bygone Days

We've completed Dirge for My Bygone Days, a setting-compatible one-shot adventure, for early preview and playtesting. A downloadable copy has been sent to all backers and everyone who preordered from us through BackerKit (just like the 5e playtest). It incorporates a lot of ideas and themes touched on in the playtest document. We'll also be releasing the one-shot for free through drivethrurpg and itch.io, but all backers/preorder customers will receive an early preview. 

I just ran the adventure with some players in our group Discord server and it's been a solid success. Completed it in three hours of game time, so it would take you a solid session to run it in its entirety. 

Please check out our undead-themed adventure using some monsters we've statted up for the book! A Pathfinder 2e version will also be available following the playtest release for that system.

If you get to running it, please let me know how everything went! We're also going to release a set of premade characters in time to help more easily situate players into the world of Danguk. So look forward to them in a coming launch! 

Pathfinder 2e Playtest

Just to keep you in the loop about what's happening, all monsters we've converted have been put organized neatly into the WIP document so far. I wanted to tweak the ancestries and classes a little more while we had the time and they're being looked over by a professional editor and writer, Jeremy Blum/Pixel Grotto, familiar with game development and Pathfinder 2e. We're intent on making sure our product is as strong as it can be when ready for these soft releases, so we've taken a little bit of time to work on them. You can look forward to a release later toward the middle or end of March. 

Until then, definitely keep up with us at Nine Heavens Press on Twitter. We're posting conversions of 5e monsters that we've revealed weekly!

Shipping Update

Quick bit of shipping news, but we're looking to partner with White Squirrel for domestic deliveries in the United States. This changes the shipping fees for the States to around $8.00 or $9.00 USD depending on state to state distances. Regardless, I think these are the best rates we could secure for the moment. We'll begin collecting shipping costs later down the line once we're able to solidify a delivery date. For now, no need to worry, but this has been our progress so far. 

Playtest Doc 1.0 sent! And other news
almost 2 years ago – Wed, Feb 01, 2023 at 09:33:27 AM

Playtest Document Distributed Through BackerKit

Good morning!

We've begun distributing our playtest pdf through BackerKit. We're looking into how to distribute these neatly to those who preordered through BackerKit, but every Kickstarter backer who confirmed their order/locked down their payment will receive a copy. That is 1198 backers with about 116 that haven't answered, so overall, we're in a good place.

The playtest document includes setting info, a primer to Korean culture, cosmology and gods, races/ancestries, subclasses/archetypes, and our Tactician homebrew class. We also have backgrounds, weapons/magic items, and statblocks for monsters. The list isn't comprehensive and will be expanded on by the final draft, but we feel this is sufficient for playtest data so far.

If you have any comments regarding playtest material, some data for how your group did with the content, please hit us up at [email protected]. Your comments will very much help shape any final decisions on mechanics and verbiage. You can also join our Discord server here:

We're still working on the Pathfinder 2e playtest document. They will be sent out by the end of this month with our next update.

Shipping Update

In other news, we're gathering more shipping estimates from our partners:

We've partnered with DiceLatte, a Seoul-based Korean comics and game store to handle distribution. It seems like they've offered in-store pick up, so we will also put that on offer for folks in Korea to save on shipping costs. North American rates are still subject to change as we're still in discussion with a fulfillment company on our end, but we'll have those ready hopefully by the next update.

Media Update

URGE TV uploaded a video showcasing our Roguish Naraka Prosecutor archetype!!

Really grateful for their review on the subclass. Lots of good ideas on how to edit this class, but overall it seems like it's got potential. We're looking to maybe balance the 13th level benefits a little more and buff up the Frightened somehow (since a lot of creatures do end up getting immunity against that).

You can also check out Stellaluna's 3-part series based on an adventure from our book, Paradise in Bloom, here! It was great fun and you get to see a preview of one of my really favorite scenarios.

OGL Matters

With WotC's pledge to leave OGL 1.0 in place, we at Nine Heavens Press are extremely relieved we will be able to go ahead with Undying Corruption as it is. Beyond its impact to the 3PP community at large, we were extremely concerned with the change in dynamics between us and the company whose game's rulesets we're borrowing from. While this is thankfully in the past and we were always committed to fulfilling our promise to release this game in 5e, we're now looking forward to diversify the content we put out by expanding into other games where possible. Already, we've been delving into Pathfinder 2e as part of our stretch goal, but the experience has been overall enjoyable and you can expect to see more from us there.

In particular, when I'm not working on the book, I've been at work on expansions to PF2e classes that we couldn't convert our material into and some new races/ancestries for both editions. They will be released separately from this project. Still, for how things are now, we couldn't be happier with how the OGL matter was settled.

Happy New Year! Progress Report
about 2 years ago – Thu, Jan 05, 2023 at 12:29:22 AM

Hey everyone, happy new year! We hope you've all had a wonderful holidays to start off 2023 well and rested.

I've been keeping busy with two big tasks by the next update: 1) making sure the playtest document is ready to go and 2) getting everyone an estimate for shipping. On the first count, the contents of the document have been set up. The additional time enabled us to convert 5e material into Pathfinder 2e, so you will be privy to playtesting content for both systems. We should be able to complete the document before or around the end of the month as mentioned.

Speaking of, we've been posting on Twitter weekly some samples of our converted stat blocks! These are for 5e stat blocks that have already been publicly revealed, so it's only fair we make sure we can catch up with Pathfinder content. Again, we've partnered with James Beck of Eldritch Osiris Games to ensure we get the mechanics just right.

All that's left is making sure everything is together in a neat, visually-appealing layout.

On the second matter, we've been working hard through November and December to contact fulfillment companies to compare and contrast rates. Our priority here is to guarantee our fulfillment partner can deliver excellent service and the best rates for those services. So far, we're looking to sign on with DiceLatte in Korea and GamesQuest for the Europe, the EU, and Australia. The latter is a VAT-licensed company. We're still in communication with North American fulfillment companies, but we do have estimates from GamesQuest on their shipping costs:

I should also note that if the package contains over three items, there will be a 40 cent fee for any additional item. These are initial rates subject to change based on current conversion rates (made from pound to dollars) and the inclusion of any separate rates, but we wanted to show you the data we're looking at so far. Regarding Korea, Dice Latte is a cafe that sells American comics, roleplaying games, and more and they've handled similar fulfillment in the past. We will share their estimates in the following update.

We appreciate your patience through all the deliberation as we, again, make sure we can forge arrangements with lasting partners that can provide both the best service and the ideal rates for those services.

Paradise in Bloom

All that aside, Nine Heavens Press is sponsoring Stellaluna's Twitch channel who will be playing through a level 8 three episode mini-series these coming Fridays! Paradise in Bloom is an adventure from the book which we will see played through by an all Korean cast! Be sure to join us in the coming days as they fix the fallout of a dragon god's demise!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact [email protected], comment or message me on Kickstarter, or reach us at our Discord server:

Orders Locking 12/1 and more
about 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 30, 2022 at 09:24:02 AM

Hello, everyone! We've got some reminders of some upcoming dates and progress reports.

Locking Orders

Just a reminder that orders will be locking December 1st (you will have 48 hours after to finalize any add-ons and until next year before orders are sent out to edit your address). Also, for those who bought anything additional through BackerKit, all cards will be charged December 8th. If any issues arise, please definitely let me know so we can see what went wrong.

So far, 72% of backers have completed their surveys. If you need your survey resent, you can request it here at: https://undyingcorruption.backerkit.com/

If you don't complete your survey in this period, have no fear. Preorders will still be up and I'll be periodically locking orders and surveys as they come in, so you're totally fine.

Softcover Player's Guide edition UNLOCKED!

With 60 sales, we've unlocked the softcover Player's Guide for purchase through BackerKit! I must stress, everyone will receive the PDF copy for free with any purchase of the book (whether physical or digital). This is just for folks who want a physical book to refer to at their convenience. While we set 100 as our initial goal, I think we should be able to make it before books are sent for print. 100 was the minimum ask largely since it'll allow us to qualify for discounts by volume.

Regardless, your support will enable us to spruce up the Player's Guide to make an even more spectacular product!

Playtest Progress

Material is being compiled for the playtest. Much of the 5e side is completed, which saved a decent bit of hassle. I just had to go through the mechanics and text to do another round of proofreading before being transferred into InDesign. The most time-consuming aspect of our work right now is by far the PF2e side. We're working hard trying to make sure we have all ancestries, classes, and monsters ready to be sent out alongside the 5e material. That's partially why we requested for this additional time.

We're on track to release the playtest material through BackerKit sometime mid to late January. We're putting in a big team effort to make sure we can get this going. For Korean language backers, we will also have a Korean language version of the playtest material ready too. I can't guarantee we'll have it ready at the same time, but make no mistake that it is in production.

Shout-Out

As an aside, I really wanted to take the opportunity to share the Kickstarter for "The Dark Side of Seoul" comic on Kickstarter. Shawn Morrissey, the writer, is a heritage guide who lives in Korea and leads the different cultural tours around Seoul. He's also a regular at DCC Cafe, a comics and TRPG store in Korea and hosts a podcast and YouTube channel (also called Dark Side of Seoul) that delves into ghost stories, folktales, history, and true crime. Park Ji yun, the artist, works professionally in Korea.

The first book is already available on their website and I highly recommend you check it out! They're very well-versed in the material and the books will give you a bit of a taste into the country's mythology.

You can join our Discord server here! Also if you have any further questions, you can either message me through Kickstarter or contact us at [email protected].