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I found a nice treat on MCG's webstore! - https://www.montecookgames.com/store/product/its-only-magic/ There's a nifty preview of It's Only Magic for download there... Huzzah!
PROJECT UPDATE
Charles Ryan
CREATOR
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Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
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3 days ago
Project Update: Check out this Excerpt of "Ghosts of Ironsaddle" from Adventures in the Cypher System!
Hello, backers—
In our last update we showed off some page spreads from It’s Only Magic. We’re excited to let you know that title is now off to press. We expect to receive it in June and to begin fulfillment shortly thereafter!
But that’s not all. The next book, Adventures in the Cypher System, isn’t far behind. It’s through editing and is now well into the layout phase. To give you a taste of what’s inside, we have excerpt from one of the adventures, “Ghosts of Ironsaddle,” by Bruce R. Cordell.
Bounty Hunting
The adventure begins with the PCs about three days’ ride into sparsely inhabited regions, on the lookout for cursed beasts, hoping to collect on cursed beast bounties. (If you’d prefer an alternate reason for the PCs’ to be out and about and their subsequent encounter with the ghost town of Ironsaddle, update the situation according to your game’s circumstances.)
Cursed Beasts: Cursed beasts are a fusion of two or more different beasts stitched together with dire sorcery, or creatures that time would’ve been better off forgetting. Sometimes called “cryptids” by alchemists, cursed beasts include chupacabras, jackalopes, grizzly bulls, deathtumblers, quetzalsaurs, and nightcrawlers, among others.
Bounties Offered: Most western towns offer a bounty on cursed beasts, sometimes because their parts are useful to alchemists, but more often because cursed beasts are scourges and the fewer of them, the better.
However, the PCs have a deal with an alchemist named Huyen Reeves, who promised she’ll pay the characters five times the standard bounty for chupacabra quills, nightcrawler egg sacs, grizzly bull pelts, and quetzalsaur wings.
Standard Bounties and Rewards
- Nightcrawler egg sac $10 (moderate)
- Chupacabra quills (10) $50 (moderate x5)
- Grizzly bull pelt $150 (expensive)
- Quetzalsaur wing $300 (expensive)
What PCs Know About Cursed Beasts
If PCs ask what they know about any specific cursed beast, refer to the following.
Chupacabra: Part huge dog, part crocodile, and quilled like a porcupine. PCs found one as a mummified corpse and harvested what quills they could (see Tally So Far).
Grizzly Bulls: Rumored to be a bison magically crossed with a grizzly bear. Filled with demonic rage. No PC has seen one.
Nightcrawlers: These huge worms are a dozen or more feet (3.6 m) in length. They prey upon those sleeping rough or under scant shelter, pulling them down beneath the ground. No PC has seen one.
Quetzalsaur: Pulled out of time by cursed magic, this giraffe-sized flying monstrosity has an elongated, spike-shaped face and a 40-foot (12 m) wingspan. No PC has seen one, and they probably hope not to.
---
Tally So Far: The characters have successfully gathered the 10 chupacabra quills (from an air-mummified chupacabra corpse), which are carefully stored in a game bag.
Thanks to their deal with the alchemist who’s agreed to pay extra, that’s about $300 (one expensive item’s worth of bounties). To pay off their various debts and/or satisfy their specific needs, they’ll have to do much better.
Harsh Landscape: The dry creek bed beneath PCs’ mounts is uneven, with sandy soil broken up by rocks and boulders. Scents of pine and warmed stone fill the air. To the north, rocky outcrops lead into a series of jagged, bleached badlands. A wide plain of scrub brush and rocky outcrops borders the PCs’ route to the south. Ahead, the storm-wreathed heads of low mountains brood, but the weather in the arroyo is clear and dry.
Choice of Cryptids
The PCs see a couple of potentially lucrative signs; this excerpt focuses on evidence of nightcrawlers in the area.
Nightcrawler Castings: Choose a PC; they notice something resembling a termite mound. Ask that character to make a difficulty 4 Intellect-based roll for cryptid lore. A success means they realize the lumpy spire of tubular, compacted soil is probably a nightcrawler casting, given its large size—3 feet (1 m) tall—and it’s sulfuric odor. If PCs investigate directly, the find the texture is crumbly and airy, collapsing with a light touch. This reveals some partly digested animal bones mixed in with the rest.
Following up, PCs discover that additional castings are visible to the north, popping up with more frequency in the canyons between the jagged, bleached badlands. Given the number of castings visible farther into the canyon, PCs suspect a whole clew of nightcrawlers (4–6 individuals) must have moved through the area recently.
Tracking the Nightcrawlers
PCs could choose to hunt the nightcrawlers for their egg sacs.
Tracking The Crawlers to their Burrow: It’s a routine task to track the crawlers into a canyon. The canyon sides rise about 50 feet (15 m) high on average, though sometimes much higher, and are topped by scraggly pines. The trail of castings peters out about a mile into the canyon, though the canyon continues. If PCs take a moment to look around, they notice a 3 1/2-foot (106 cm) diameter tunnel on one canyon wall concealed by a thick growth of thistle.
Tunnel in the Canyon Wall
If PCs attempt to determine how recent the castings outside the tunnel are, a successful difficulty 4 Intellect-based roll for cryptid lore reveals the freshest ones are probably from about a half-hour before sunrise.
If PCs decide to wait outside the tunnel in hopes of ambushing a nightcrawler, a couple emerge when twilight arrives, but they attempt to retreat back into their warren if attacked.
Nightcrawlers resemble 20-foot (6 m) long earthworms. Their skin is a stitchwork of hide stripped off past prey, all somehow still animate, but voiceless.
GM intrusion: The bitten character is caught in the nightcrawler’s mouth until they succeed on a Might roll as their action to escape. Caught targets take damage automatically each round and their physical tasks are hindered (including their escape task).
Nightcrawler Warren
The narrow tunnel in the canyon wall descends steeply, curving downward some 40 feet (12 m) into pitch darkness. Human-sized creatures could crawl through single-file, but the narrow confines hinder all their physical tasks. If PCs have light or can see in the dark, they see the tunnel opens into a natural cave some 60 feet (18 m) in diameter. The floor is covered in loose soil redolent of sulfuric acid (it’s made of collapsed castings). Besides the entrance tunnel leading from the canyon the PCs used, four other tunnels lead off toward other subterranean locations.
Warren Defense: At any one time, about four adult nightcrawlers rest in the warren, and (as a GM intrusion) two more adults arrive to reinforce those already in conflict within a couple of rounds. Six voracious nightcrawler young (level 2) are also present in the warren.
The nightcrawlers vigorously defend their warren, chasing after retreating PCs, or if the PCs prove the stronger, defending it to the death (though the last couple attempt to escape through side tunnels).
GM intrusion (group): Two more adult nightcrawlers arrive to reinforce those already in conflict.
Exploring Nightcrawler Tunnels: If the PCs want to explore the warren’s side tunnels (or they feel overwhelmed and need to flee in that direction, and/or you decide the time is right), the characters encounter the wandering ghost town of Ironsaddle in a subterranean vault about half a mile (800 m) deeper; see Discovered by a Ghost Town (found in Adventures in The Cyphers System). Otherwise, they don’t find much and eventually find other exits to the surface.
See you at Gen Con?
"Ghosts of Ironsaddle" is one of our Gen Con adventures—so if you’re headed to Indianapolis for the Best Four Days in Gaming, sign up for a session. Or just drop by the MCG room (#132 on Hoosier Concourse—close to the main entrance to the exhibit hall) and say Howdy!
Thanks again for your support!
—Team MCG
Thanks again for your support!
—Team MCG
Past Backer
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Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
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Seriously I hate the bestiary with its fold out pages, and would not have backed it if that was stated in the kickstarter. I really wish there had been a option for a refund for it.
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Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
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I'm sorry, I know this has been asked. Other people have asked but often they have jumped straight to rudeness, I'm going to try to remain as polite and respectful as possible. But I'm not clear on what's going on. The Starter Set's coming "basic rules, pregenerated characters, and introductory adventures." I'm pretty sure that the basic rules are already out there. And pregens seem like something that wouldn't be too difficult for the game's developers to come up with. So is it the adventures we're waiting on? I'm not trying to be a dick, it just feels like this is something you guys could have sent out by now. I'm just hoping somebody can explain some of the processes that have gone on, and presumably still ongoing, between the time the campaign ended, and the time it it's ready for dispatch. Were there some major unforeseen setbacks?
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What is the status on all of the physical and digital rewards? I received The Cypher System Rulebook and Rust & Redemption book but I am still missing the following: 🧰 Cypher System Starter Set in print 📄 Cypher System Rulebook in PDF 📙 It's Only Magic in print 📄 It's Only Magic in PDF
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Why am I walking into local game stores and finding copies of rust and redemption, when I haven't even gotten my pledge yet? Makes me rethink backing anything else from MCG anytime in the future. Super delayed delivery of your backers, but retail sales happening? That's some pretty shady and terrible treatment of your backers.
PROJECT UPDATE
Charles Ryan
CREATOR
Past Backer
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Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Silver Tier
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about 1 month ago
Project Update: A Peek at It's Only Magic, an Awesome Online Character Builder, and More!
Hello, backers—
Things are moving quickly for the Cypher System, and for your rewards. Just a couple of weeks after fulfillment of the Cypher System Bestiary, It’s Only Magic is in proofing now, and heads to press soon. We’re going to give you a peek inside, but first, here are a couple of other bits of exciting Cypher System news:
The Cypher System Character Builder Is Now Live
We’ve been working on an exciting suite of free online tools to make your Cypher System games even easier to play and run, and this week we unveiled something super cool: the Cypher System Character Builder.
Build, store, advance, maintain, edit, and even share Cypher System characters online with this free tool. There are multiple modes for creating characters—the Guided mode, in particular, is super fast and easy. It takes you through the process step-by-step. You can build a character in literally three or four minutes.
And when you’re done, generate a form-fillable PDF character sheet, export it to a VTT, or simply play your character right from the Character Builder.
The Character Builder includes all the character options from the Cypher System Rulebook plus all of our existing genre books—The Stars Are Fire, Godforsaken, We Are All Mad Here, Stay Alive!, Claim the Sky, and even Rust and Redemption. So you have thousands of character options from a huge range of genres. Build virtually any character you can imagine!
Did we mention it’s free? And available right now?
Last Call for Knights of Dust and Neon!
Have you received your copy of the Cypher System Bestiary (if it was among your rewards)? If so, you could do us a huge favor by posting a photo or two on social media, showing off this gorgeous book. It’s on pre-order now (and will be out later this month), but perhaps more importantly, we’d love your help getting the word out about the Cypher System and our current campaign: Knights of Dust and Neon.
We’re currently funding two more genre books plus a really cool new Cypher System setting—but the campaign ends this week, so time is running out.
Remember, as a backer of this campaign, if you return to back Knights of Dust and Neon you’ll get a super-exclusive gift added to your rewards: a set of all-new foil-stamped XP cards to add to your Cypher System XP Deck. If you received the foil-stamped deck as a backer of this campaign, you know how stunningly beautiful the cards turned out. There is no other way to get these new cards, and they’re exclusive just for you. Don’t miss the chance to grab them—check out the campaign now!
And Now a Look at It’s Only Magic
As we mentioned above, It’s Only Magic is now in proofing, and will go to press in a matter of weeks! Here’s a look inside:
We’re really excited about this hefty genre book covering every aspect of modern magic.
The final rewards of this campaign continue to march toward conclusion, too. We’ll give you a look at the Adventures in the Cypher System adventure book in our next update—and maybe even be able to show off a production copy of the Cypher System Starter Set.
It's a really exciting time to be a fan of the Cypher System!
Now that we’ve taken you through all the exciting news, why not take a few minutes to give the new Character Builder a try? And don’t forget to share your thoughts on it, and the Cypher System Bestiary, online before Knights of Dust and Neon comes to a close this week!
Thanks again for your support!
—Team MCG
PROJECT UPDATE
Charles Ryan
CREATOR
Past Backer
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Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Silver Tier
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about 2 months ago
Project Update: XP Deck, Bestiary, and Other Fantastic News!
Hello, backers—
We have a bunch of great news to share with you today!
We have a bunch of great news to share with you today!
We’re Fulfilling Decks and the Bestiary!
If you backed for the Cypher System XP Deck or the Cypher System Bestiary, great news: they're fulfilling now. Check your email for redemption instructions.
The same goes for the foil promo deck. If you signed up to be notified of the campaign, or backed in the first 48 hours, you’re getting this reward for free! Again, redemption instructions are in that email.
Photos don’t do these cards justice—you really have to hold them in your hands to truly appreciate their magnificence. If you missed out on this promo (or if you’re getting these cards, and want even more), we have great news. We’re currently running the Knights of Dust and Neon campaign for new Cypher System books and other cool items. As an Adventures in the Cypher System backer, if you also back Knights of Dust and Neon, we’ll add another mini-deck of five new foil-stamped XP cards to your rewards!
You don’t have to do anything to claim them—just back the Knights of Dust and Neon campaign at any pledge level, and as a returning Adventures in the Cypher System backer, the mini-deck will be yours. This is an exclusive offer just for backers of this campaign—nobody else will be able to claim these new foil-stamped cards.
The Cypher System Bestiary turned out spectacularly—we can’t wait for you to have it!
Character Builder Is Testing Now
In our last update we talked a bit about the new suite of Cypher Tools we’ve recently unveiled. Key among these is the new Character Builder, a free online tool for creating, storing, advancing, modifying, and using Cypher System characters. This week it entered a brief closed test with about 50 or so users. We’re continuing to make tweaks based on their feedback, but overall it’s been an amazing success. The public launch is not far off!
Join Us on Knights of Dust and Neon
We’ve already mentioned it above, but it’s worth repeating: the Knights of Dust and Neon campaign is now live, and it’s going gangbusters. We’ve funded two new genre books—cyberpunk and weird west—along with a really cool new campaign setting. Plus a gorgeous GM Campaign Journal, a kick-ass set of premium metal dice, and immersive and useful extras for the books.
And as we mentioned above, as an Adventures in the Cypher System backer, your rewards will include another, all-new mini-deck of foil XP cards, automatically, as an exclusive thank-you for returning!
Thanks again for your support!
—Team MCG
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#104807 [email protected] I haven't received any rewards, please check.
Past Backer
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Gold Tier
This user is a top contributor to this community!
Past Backer
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Bronze Tier
This user contributed to this community!
I haven't recieved my coupon for rust and redemption. Can you please assist? The emails for backerkit and MCG shop are the same. Backer #3875, Confirmation #105300. Thanks!
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I am waiting for the Beastiary and It's only Magic, Any updates?
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I haven't seen anything yet for my R&R reward. I use email [email protected]. I am backer number 96568
PROJECT UPDATE
Charles Ryan
CREATOR
Past Backer
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Silver Tier
This user contributed to this community!
3 months ago
Project Update: Starter Set, Decks, a Cool Character Builder, and More!
Hello, backers—
If Rust and Redemption was among your rewards, we hope you’re enjoying it! It’s been getting some great press, and Cypher System players everywhere seem to really like it. We hope (and believe) you’ll love It’s Only Magic, the Cypher System Bestiary, and other forthcoming rewards just as much!
Speaking of those rewards, we have quite the load of exciting news to share. Let’s start with an unboxing of the Cypher System Starter Set.
A Look at the Starter Set
That’s a pre-production copy. The Cypher System Starter Set has been in manufacturing for several weeks now. A boxed product like this takes longer to make than a book, and it’s produced overseas, so it takes considerable time to reach us once it’s ready. We don’t expect to fulfill the Starter Set before May—possibly June; GM intrusions are almost the norm with international freight these days. But we thought you’d like to see how nicely it’s shaping up. We couldn’t be happier with how it’s turning out!
The XP Deck—and the Foil Deck
Now how about this:
That’s the Cypher System XP Deck on the left. And it’s not a pre-production copy, either—it’s the real deal! The full shipment is scheduled to reach our US warehouse in about a week, and we’ll fulfill shortly thereafter. (But see what we have to say about the Cypher System Bestiary, below, before you rush off to redeem it.)
And look at those cards on the right! Those are the special foil-stamped promo cards for backers who signed up to be notified of the campaign, or backed in the first 48 hours. It’s hard to capture in a photograph just how stunning these are in real life. Look out—once you get these cards, you’re going to want to just sit around the house all day, granting and spending XP!
If they’re among your rewards—or perhaps even more importantly, if they aren’t—read on. We have a really cool offer for you below!
Other Rewards
Before that offer, though, some news about other rewards:
- The Cypher System Bestiary is on press now, and is almost done with its production run. We anticipate it will reach our warehouses in about two weeks—very shortly after we receive the Cypher System XP Deck. If you’re receiving both rewards, you can save yourself some shipping if you wait until both items are available before redeeming them.
- It’s Only Magic has moved through editing, and is now in layout. We’ll give you a peek at it in our next update. And here’s some more cool news: we’ve added a second campaign setting to this tome, increasing its page count from 224 to 240 pages. That’s more magic at no additional cost! Again, we’ll have additional details in the next update.
Cypher Tools and Other News
At the heart of this toolset is the new Character Builder, which launches next month. Build a Cypher System character in minutes—this powerful tool takes you through the process quickly and efficiently. You can store and update your character throughout your campaign. There’s even a massive library of pregens, if you need to get playing right now!
Other tools include the Creature Index, available now. Looking for just the right creature for your next encounter? There are so many choices—especially since everything in the Cypher System is compatible. The Creature Index makes it easy to find the perfect creature for your needs—just choose your criteria. It already includes content from the forthcoming Cypher System Bestiary!
And in other news, content from Rust and Redemption has already been added to the Cypher System Reference Document, making it available to third-party creators who want to build post-apocalyptic-themed adventures, settings, or even complete Cypher System-based games under the Cypher System Open License. (You heard it here first—we haven’t even announced this CSRD update to the public yet!)
More Cypher System Awesomeness—and a Special Offer Just for You!
The Cypher System is on fire, with all this exciting news—and there’s more to come! Speaking of which, we have a special offer for you:
If you’re getting the promo foil-stamped XP mini-deck we just showed you, we guarantee that once you see those cards, you’ll want more. And if you missed out on that opportunity? All the more reason to get your hands on some!
If you’re getting the promo foil-stamped XP mini-deck we just showed you, we guarantee that once you see those cards, you’ll want more. And if you missed out on that opportunity? All the more reason to get your hands on some!
So we have a special offer, exclusively for you—backers of this campaign. In a few weeks we’re launching the Knights of Dust and Neon crowdfunding campaign, with exciting new Cypher System supplements. If you back it, we’ll add a mini-deck of five new foil-stamped XP cards to your rewards—automagically! You don’t have to do anything to claim them—just back the Knights of Dust and Neon campaign at any pledge level, and as a returning Adventures in the Cypher System backer, the mini-deck will be yours! This is an exclusive offer just for backers of this campaign—nobody else will be able to claim these new foil-stamped cards.
(We’re also offering a special reward for gamers who sign up to be notified when the campaign launches. If you sign up, and you’re a returning backer from this campaign, you’ll get both promo items!)
So what are you waiting for? Sign up to be notified when Knights of Dust and Neon launches!
Thanks again for your support!
—Team MCG
Past Backer
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
Previously backed this creator's crowdfunding project
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Any updates on when the Starter Set will be shipped? Thanks!
