D&D 5e-Compatible Kickstarter Round-Up: Humblewood Tales, Iron Kingdoms, Oracle Magazine, & more!

It’s time to ready an action, because I’m back with another review of the Dungeons & Dragons and 5e-Compatible Kickstarter projects, including the gorgeous Humblewood Tales, a pair of legacy campaign settings getting a 5e update, and several affordable adventures and informative zines!

This week, I reviewed the 12 new 5e projects on Kickstarter to find the must-buys, the best values, and the most unusual concepts.

For projects with a scope that extends beyond being a single adventure or specifically-focused supplement, I review them based on the 9-point criteria I established in “What makes a good Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition official release or 5e-Compatible supplement?”

Here are links the 12 new 5e-Compatible projects out this week, all of which I review in this post:

Arcanis 5E Campaign Setting Runic Edition
The Courts & Kingdoms Tavern: 5e Drunken Supplement
Customizable, Comprehensive DND 5E Character Journal
Hag Mag: A Terrible RPG Adventure Setting for 5E – Check this out!
Humblewood Tales – Sequel to a cool campaign setting.
Iron Kingdoms: The Nightmare Empire – Affordable all-in pledge
Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying – Unusual Concept!
The Oracle RPG Magazine – Dungeon Delving – A high-quality monthly D&D magazine!
SideQuests 7: Easy Adventures for 5E Dungeons & Dragons – Check this out!
Til Death Do Us Part: Adventures With Heart For 5E – Great value!
Treasure Hoard: Volume 1 – Recommended!
Unholy Plague

Plus, there are another 14 currently-running 5e-Compatible projects that I already covered at length last week:

Curse of the Chupacabra: Epic Horror Adventure For 5e & OSR – Check this out!
A Folklore Bestiary for 5E and OSE – Recommended!
Grayshade – Dark Fantasy Novels and RPG
The Haunted Pass
In Service of the Tiger – Historical Fiction 5e
Libations – The Book of 1,000 Drinks
Loot Lemmings: A 5e Drop-and-Play Adventure
The Lost Message (5E)
Palace of the Golden Princess #1
The Rumor Broker’s Ledger of Names: An NPC Compendium
Sinister Sacrament: Cultist Quick-adventures for D&D 5e – $1 – Recommended!
Skwirl’s 5E Wild Shape Cards – Recommended!
Traveler’s Guide to the Elemental Chaos
Wyrdwich Council: A New Way To Play D&D 5e – Unusual Concept!

If any creators of those projects happen to swing by: congratulations on your awesome work! I might have a few critiques about your campaign page, but your labor of love is still an impressive effort.

Do you have an upcoming 5e-Compatible Kickstarter project? As I continue this pilot series over the next few weeks I’d be happy to check out your sample pages or give you comments on your campaign page. Just leave me a comment below or reach out to me @CrushingComics on Twitter.

Arcanis 5E Campaign Setting Runic Edition

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $15,000 reached! Kickstarter ends Wed, July 27 2022 2:00 PM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Arcanis 5E Campaign Setting describes itself as “The revised and expanded edition of the award-winning Shattered Empires campaign setting for 5E.”

Notable Pledge Levels: $30 for a PDF digital copy, $50 for a print copy + PDF, plus many other supporting materials at other levels

This campaign launched just as I hit publish on last week’s post and I’ve been dying to dissect it all week! Arcanis is a “dark world of epic fantasy” that has a heavy gods, empires, & knights vibe to it. While it includes creatures, it puts a focus on human conflict.

This appears to be “the real deal” – a fully-realized world setting that addresses every section of my “What It Includes” evaluation. This is a second edition, so the setting is already thoroughly playtested and balanced.

Ah, but here’s the rub: the rewards in the pledge levels don’t match what the pages describes at all.

The reward levels include additional books like “Forged in Magic: Reforged” and “Codex Geographica, vol. I: The Blessed Lands” plus other PDFs including Ssethregoran Empire, Codex of Adventure, Sorcerous Pacts, The Children of the Sky, and Codex of the Mind.

However, the page only mentions Add-Ons including “The Disciples of Heresy” and “The Codex of the Mind.” Also, it includes add-ons for a “Living Arcanis Organized Play” campaign that it never explains in any way. Oh, and there’s only a single page of layout included from this previously completed book.

What it includes:

Rule Sets: N/A
Game Worlds & Settings: The World of Arcanis
Adventures & Campaigns: No, but the Add-On “The Disciples of Heresy” includes a pair of adventures.
Creatures: 21 monsters
Playable Races: Unclear, but based on the setting it sounds as though this is meant primarily for humans. (The Ssethregoran Empire expansion includes reptilian races.)
Classes & Sub-Classes: “13 new cleric aspects making each one unique, 14 new Holy Champion Orders (which replace the Paladin class in Arcanis)”
Equipment & Items: weapons & armor, magic items. The “Arcanis: Forged in Magic” add-on includes 400+ items!
Spells: New types of magic, psionic system
World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: new backgrounds, combat schools, feats, secret societies

Should You Pledge? Having spent an additional half-hour reading sources other than the actual campaign, I can see this is an off-shoot adaptation of a long-running indie campaign world that supported convention live-play events that stretches back 20 years, starting in D&D 3.5 edition and D20. All of the bonus books mentioned as rewards or add-ons are additional books created as part of their conversion to 5e.

Unfortunately, this campaign is written very much for people who are already in-the-know about this very cool world. It never even pauses to describe the contents of its many books. As an outsider, it’s hard for me to understand what makes this campaign world unique and what it would be like to introduce to my players or to blend into my campaign.

I think if you’re looking for a lower-fantasy version of D&D for your group, Arcanis might be a good option.

The Courts & Kingdoms Tavern: 5e Drunken Supplement

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $250 reached! Kickstarter ends Sat, August 6 2022 7:30 PM UTC +12:00.

What is it? The Courts & Kingdoms Tavern describes itself as a “location of Fey and mischief where heroes get drunk, music is played through the night, patrons get wild and adventures start.”

Notable Pledge Levels: $5 for a PDF digital copy, $10 for PDF + digital maps, $20 for a hardcover physical copy + PDF + digital rewards

Something that jumped out at me immediately about this campaign is that it’s about a specific location and right at the top of the page it shows a beautifully detailed map of that location that is part of the campaign rewards. As always, I’m a big fans of campaigns that tell me exactly what they are about!

What it includes:

Rule Sets: N/A
Game Worlds & Settings: N/A
Adventures & Campaigns: N/A
Creatures: 12 tavern-themed monsters, plus lair actions
Playable Races: N/A
Classes & Sub-Classes: N/A
Equipment & Items: 10 magic items
Spells: N/A
World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: NPCs, maps, a “drunk meter”

Should You Pledge? I love that this campaign presents a unique value proposition of offering a deep dive into a single location. It’s not necessarily an adventure, but a tavern you can use as a home base and a recurring story hook. And, to sweeten the deal, it comes with some creatures, items, and special mechanics I think $5 for a digital copy of that feels right, but the digital maps are a huge part of this deal and makes the $10 price more attractive.

Personally, I’d be worried about the limited use of it being based on a single tavern rather than a few variations on the same map. Along those lines, I recently received the hardcover+PDF of Critit.co.uk’s Glorious Taverns, which was this but for multiple taverns for $25 digital or $40 physical. It’s one of the nicest books I’ve backed, so I’m all good on taverns at the moment.

Customizable, Comprehensive DND 5E Character Journal

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $595 not reached. Kickstarter ends Tue, August 9 2022 10:11 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? The Customizable, Comprehensive DND 5E Character Journal describes itself as “Stylish and immersive printable-at-home Character Journals for your DND 5E characters.”

Notable Pledge Levels: £6 (~$8) for a print-at-home journal for a specific class, £25 (~$30USD) for print-at-home for all classes, physical journals available only in the UK

Should You Pledge? I have to admit that the typical D&D single-page character sheets have never appealed to me. They’re just too crammed with information to be practical, and once you get into things like spells slots and exhaustible inventory items they become a mess of erasing and cross-outs.

This campaign offers the alternate solution of creating a custom booklet or binder for your character. I feel like the layout of this character journal takes things too far in the opposite direction of typical character sheets, exploding each section (like ability checks) into its own page. On the plus side, that does mean that a frequently-erased page would be easy to replace.

This feels pricey to me for a digital item, but I think for people who are stalwarts of physical play this could come in handy, especially if a group gangs together to buy the entire set of classes.

Hag Mag: A Terrible RPG Adventure Setting for 5E

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $5,000 not yet reached. Kickstarter ends Fri, August 5 2022 4:02 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Hag Mag describes itself as “a Zine-style tabletop RPG adventure setting about the fantasy genre’s most hilarious and disgusting creatures – Hags!”

Notable Pledge Levels: $10 for a PDF digital copy, $25 for a physical copy + PDF

This campaign includes a clear, itemized list of its features! It also has a unique layout that is clear and easy-to-read in black-and-white. Plus, it’s illustrated by the creator behind The Philly Tarot Deck, so it’s near and dear to my heart!

What it includes:

Rule Sets: N/A
Game Worlds & Settings: 1 adventure setting
Adventures & Campaigns: 13 adventure hooks, but the setting is the adventure
Creatures: 5 monsters
Playable Races: N/A
Classes & Sub-Classes: N/A
Equipment & Items: 10 weapons and 5 magic items
Spells: N/A
World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: random generation tables, rules for snail-racing

Should You Pledge? I really dig this idea of a supplement hyper-focused on a setting that makes great use of a single creature-type, and both the price points seem appropriate. If I hadn’t already used hags twice already in my own campaign I’d probably leap to buy it. If they continue this format to cover other creature types I’ll probably kick myself for not having a complete bookshelf of them all.

Humblewood Tales

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $10,000 reached! Kickstarter ends Fri, August 12 2022 7:01 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Humblewood Tales describes itself as “A collection of new Humblewood adventures, lore, monsters and more for 5e! What tales will you tell?”

Notable Pledge Levels: $20 for a print-and-play PDF digital copy, $50 for a hardcover physical copy + PDF, other levels include minis and a vinyl record!

This campaign shows a ton of artwork and it is all gorgeous. I downloaded their free sample adventure, and the layout is okay. I think the gutters are too tight between columns, and they present stat blocks in an unnecessarily fussy way, but neither make it unreadable. The illustrations look amazing in context.

What it includes:

Rule Sets: N/A
Game Worlds & Settings: the “mystical tree city” Alderheart (and you can buy their entire campaign setting as an add-on)
Adventures & Campaigns: 5 adventures for levels 3-8 (possibly more, with stretch goals)
Creatures: more than 30 creatures
Playable Races: N/A (but the original campaign setting includes 10!)
Classes & Sub-Classes: 3 subclasses
Equipment & Items: more than 30 magical items
Spells: N/A
World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: pre-generated characters, miniatures, music

Should You Pledge? When it comes to adventure anthologies my go-to comparison tends to be the official Candlekeep book, which is 17 compact adventures in 224 pages for $50 retail. This book is only 5 adventures, but it’s 200 pages – which leads me to believe the adventures might be slightly more detailed. Based on their sample adventure, they do a good job of offering branching solutions in a way official D&D books often don’t (i.e., “if the party defeats the guard, then A. Otherwise, continue to B.”).

I think the real draw here is the original campaign setting book, which is very well-reviewed. If you have it already, of course you’d want more adventures! If you don’t, it’s probably worth checking out the setting to see if the vibe of playable adorable animal races in a mysterious world would be a fit for your table.

Iron Kingdoms: The Nightmare Empire

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $60,000 reached! Kickstarter ends Fri, July 22 2022 8:43 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Iron Kingdoms: The Nightmare Empire describes itself as “Pirates, Sea Witches, and Iron Liches for 5e”

Notable Pledge Levels: $25 for a PDF digital copy of the main campaign setting book in this campaign, $50 for PDFs of all three books, $100 for hardcover physical copies + PDFs of all three books.

Iron Kingdoms is another legacy D20 campaign updated for 5e, and this is its 2nd expansion – focused on seafaring.

Iron Kingdoms is a steam-powered “full metal fantasy” setting recently updated to be 5e-Compatible with an initial campaign that also launched with three books – a campaign setting, a monster manual, and an adventure. This iteration focuses on their seafaring classes, monsters, and combat. The page is clear that this works as a standalone without the base materials.

Unfortunately, the original campaign setting book is already sold out (though you can buy it as a PDF).

What it includes:

Rule Sets: Sea combat
Game Worlds & Settings: An expansion for the Iron Kingdoms setting adding new environments
Adventures & Campaigns: 4 adventures in the “Tales from the Blackwater Cantina” book
Creatures: An unspecified number of new monsters
Playable Races: Unclear (this might be “ancestries” in the scope of this setting?)
Classes & Sub-Classes: “A host” of new classes and sub-classes
Equipment & Items: An unspecified amount
Spells: Unclear
World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: Unclear

Should You Pledge? This campaign looks beautiful and offers a terrific deal for a slew of content, and it claims that it stands alone even if you haven’t purchased the prior campaign.

However, it’s another campaign in the ongoing trend of relying on pre-existing knowledge of a setting for its sales pitch. While this does offer a brief description of Iron Kingdoms, it doesn’t get into any unique elements of gameplay, character options, or balance. That seems like a truly egregious unforced error considering they have an entire prior campaign with a campaign setting book to rely on for material even if this new material isn’t produced yet!

Also in the unforced error department – this campaign is up while the main campaign book is sold out and the first expansion isn’t available to purchase! (Also all of the physical reward levels in this campaign come with a bunch of plastic stuff, which I know is attractive to some backers, but I tend to avoid.)

As I look at more and more Kickstarter campaigns for this series of posts, I grow more and more cynical about the projects that market themselves solely to an existing audience and feel like they have very little to prove when it comes to showing the value of their game systems or design. For example, even though this page claims this trio of books works independently of the original campaign setting, it doesn’t enumerate if it will contain enough unique races or classes (or, how regular 5e races/classes all work as designed within this system).

I was so attracted to this campaign based on the awesome value of getting all through books plus all three PDFs for $100, but after making an initial all-in pledge I wound up spending well over an hour this week trying to get to the bottom of the details of the campaign (including leaving an unanswered comment on the KS). I’m honestly pretty angry about the entire endeavor.

I think if campaigns like this don’t want to make themselves friendly to new customers then they shouldn’t be rewarded with new customers.

Monstrous Personas for 5th Edition Roleplaying

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $1320 reached! Kickstarter ends Fri, August 5 2022 10:29 PM UTC +12:00

What is it?Monstrous Personas describes itself as “Welcome to a new rules supplement for 5e which provides a new subsystem for fusing with monsters and using their powers!”

Notable Pledge Levels: $9 for a PDF digital copy, $19 for an at-cost softcover print-on-demand copy + PDF + PDF of their air-focused setting Cloudsea.

This campaign takes a fun, inventive approach of creating multi-level system for merging with the spirits of defeated monsters. They’re also up-front that they’re limiting their scope to 30 creatures for this campaign and they list them all. For every excess $1100 pledged, they will add 10 more creatures.

We love realistic goals and limitations, and their approach makes it plain that this will easily bolt on to your 5e-Compatible campaign if you are fighting these specific monsters.

Should You Pledge? $9 for a specific rule-set that works with any campaign feels like a great bargain, but I think this is all down to how you feel about their creature list. Five of them have appeared in our campaign, and I could see another few coming along, so for us it would be worth it to add in an extra twist – even if it was just for a single adventure. However, if you have a Druid-heavy campaign, I could see them feeling that this mechanic impinges on what makes their class unique.

The Oracle RPG Magazine – Dungeon Delving

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $357 reached! Kickstarter ends Wed, July 27 2022 8:00 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? The Oracle RPG Magazine – Dungeon Delving brings a low-role-playing, high-monster-bashing original D&D dungeon aesthetic to 5e.

Notable Pledge Levels: $7 (~$9USD) for a PDF digital copy of the 52 page issue, £10 (~$12USD) for a print copy, £14 (~$17USD) for both. Add-on any of the 24 prior issues.

This is the 25th issue of an ongoing 5e-focused magazine. You can also subscribe to their Patreon to receive every issue.

There’s a lot of clear, frank answers on this campaign page. I love that one of their campaign headings is “If content is this good, how come I’ve never heard of you or the magazine?” A campaign that heads off all of my highly-skeptical questions is doing the right stuff!

What it includes:

Rule Sets: N/A
Game Worlds & Settings: N/A
Adventures & Campaigns: 1 complete adventure
Creatures: An unspecified amount, but past issues have included 3-4.
Playable Races: N/A
Classes & Sub-Classes: N/A
Equipment & Items: An unspecified amount
Spells: N/A
World-Building, Tools, Maps, & Game-Aids, etc: Dungeon maps, map assets, and dungeon-creating commentary

Should You Pledge? If you are the kind of DM (or, aspiring DM) who loves the idea of an old-school dungeon crawl, this is a super-affordable tool to add your arsenal from a group of experienced writers and editors. I wish the campaign included a glimpse of some of their hardcopy printed issues, because I’m really tempted to subscribe! I love the idea of an actual physical 5e-Compatible periodical regularly showing up at my door.

SideQuests 7: Easy Adventures for 5E Dungeons & Dragons

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $768 reached! Kickstarter ends Mon, July 25 2022 4:10 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Sidequests 7 describes itself as “The seventh collection of [five] easy oneshot modules for 5E – with 40 adventures, 100+ battlemaps, and hundreds of pages of content!”

Notable Pledge Levels: $5CAD ($4USD) for 1 sidequest in PDF digital copy, $20CAD ($16USD) for all 5 in PDF, $60CAD ($47USD) for all prior volumes (38 adventures total), $75CAB ($58USD) for all prior volumes plus maps and other supplements.

Each quest is written to work for any level, with suggested encounters for different level ranges.

Should You Pledge? If you DM a campaign that frequently needs a filler adventure or you often have guests at your table, the idea of tidy, self-contained, level-agnostic adventures is very attractive! $3-4USD per adventure feels like a reasonable price point for the sharp, professional sample layouts and maps shown on the campaign page.

However, the real temptation is to go all in at one of the higher pledge levels to get ALL the adventures they’ve made to date at a steep discount!

Til Death Do Us Part: Adventures With Heart For 5E

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $595 reached! Kickstarter ends Fri, August 5 2022 10:00 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Til Death Do Us Part describes itself as “Four 5E adventures guaranteed to tug at your players’ heart strings plus 17 other 5E booklets!”

Notable Pledge Levels: £10 (~12USD) for a PDF digital copy, £20 (~24USD) for a softcover physical copy + PDF, various additional pledge levels to ad prior volumes

Five short romantically-themed adventures, one that is level-agnostic, and the other four ranging from levels 2-9.

You can also add any (or all!) of their 17 prior “quick-starter” projects, which includes rule additions, NPCs, pets, magical items, small towns, and more.

Should You Pledge? I was somewhat tough on this company’s prior “X Marks the Spot” campaign in a prior post for being too vague about what it offered. They do a much better job here with a set of discrete adventures to focus on, and $2 per adventure is a steal. Plus, they offer several examples of actual page layout, which is bright, clean, and with plenty of white space.

I also love that they have an obvious track record of success in delivering projects immediately following their campaigns. We love a well-oiled machine of content!

Treasure Hoard: Volume 1

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $3000 not yet reached. Kickstarter ends Fri, July 29 2022 4:00 PM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Treasure Hoard: Volume 1 is “A hand-drawn zine of 100 never-before-seen magic items and weapons for 5e”

Notable Pledge Levels: $5 for a print-ready PDF digital copy, $15 for a printed copy plus individual print-read digital item cards.

Should You Pledge? I backed this campaign within five seconds of seeing the campaign page. $5 for 100 items, each hand-drawn in an adorable zine format? YES PLEASE. Plus, the items are weird. Check out their first update for an example.

Unfortunately, I think their 3k pledging goal is a little too high for a first time project that’s so homegrown – they still need another 2k with 15 days to go. I suspect that they might have picked that amount based on wanting to hit a minimum for a set print run of the zine, but considering this translates perfectly to a print-at-home option they could’ve set an extremely-low goal and then easily shattered it. (That seems to be the trend for many of these small D&D projects, which understand that a track-record of success is critical to launching more and bigger future projects.)

I’ll definitely return to back a subsequent campaign if this one doesn’t succeed.

Unholy Plague

On Kickstarter! Funding goal of $98 reached! Kickstarter ends Sun, July 24 2022 10:59 AM UTC +12:00.

What is it? Unholy Plague describes itself as “On the edge of unrest, lone voices cry out. A 5e adventure for Characters of 1st to 3rd level”

Notable Pledge Levels: £4 (~$5USD) for a PDF digital copy + $5 coupon towards a print-on-demand version

Should You Pledge? This campaign does everything a campaign for a brief early-level adventure should do. It describes its concept, it shows art and layout, and it provides a solid value for its price that includes a print option.

While a plague-centered module might feel a little on the nose given the state of the world at the moment, I like that the outline suggests this is actually about internecine cleric-vs-paladin drama.