Frosthaven Preorders (Q1 2023)

Guest designers Robb Rouse and Christian Wakeman, plus writing from Andy Nellis
over 4 years ago – Fri, Apr 24, 2020 at 06:28:45 PM

Hello all! It's Thursday! Normally I'd be giving you a link to the latest scenario of the community-driven campaign, but I am taking a week off because it is my birthday tomorrow, and I've been told there's going to be some special bonus content for everyone that I know nothing about. So, umm, yeah, stay tuned tomorrow for that!

What I do have for you today is two new guest designers! So, as you may know, I've done bonus scenario content for a number of media creators - No Pun Included, The Dice Tower, Man vs Meeple, The Secret Cabal - but the first people I actually approached about this was my favorite podcast, Blue Peg, Pink Peg. Bonus content is a little hard to implement with a Patreon campaign, so they opted to play the very long game (this was three years ago), and we eventually decided that I would feature their mascot, the Piranha Pig (a creature that I love) in my next game, and they would create some content centered around it. 

So that's what we did! Robb Rouse, one of the co-creators of the podcast, is teaming up with his friend Christian Wakeman, data specialist and all around intelligent board game lover, to create a series of scenarios in which these lovable creatures will tear you to pieces!

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One person we haven't talked too much about in the project yet is Andy Nellis, the professional writer I've hired to get all the scenarios written. All the writing from Gloomhaven was done by me, and while I am a perfectly adequate writer, now that Cephalofair Games has more resources, I decided "adequate" wasn't what I wanted to strive for. Plus I find writing to be very time-consuming and draining, and I figured my time could be better spent elsewhere.

I met Andy through my wife's creative writing graduate program, and I really liked his style and the tone of his work. He agreed to join on the project, and so now everybody wins! You can see his writing on three of the scenarios in the various play through videos made for Frosthaven, and the Tabletop Simulator module, but here is another excerpt from a different scenario. I chose it because I think it is generic enough as to not provide any real spoilers for the game.

"Approaching the ruins on the mountain slope, you discover a copse of carved stone, vestiges of some forgotten past. A number of broken or otherwise time-battered pillars stand in your path, and following them, you arrive at a pair of large stone doors. On them, you make out an expansive mural, still quite clear despite however many years it’s been buried. It depicts a history. It shows a village, small and wooded; then, a vast city with tall buildings and wide roads; and last there is only flame and ruin. Above these three depictions there is another set of carvings: that of man aging in reverse. First, there is an old man above the town as it’s being built, then an adult over the flourishing town, and finally a baby hanging above the flames.

"Your curiosity is too much to resist. You push on the doors, and with grinding stone and cracking rust, they give in. Peering into the entryway, it’s clear that what’s inside this place has not been well preserved. Corroded columns and scraps of metal litter the floor like an ancient junk pile. But sometimes treasure can lay hidden in unlikely places.

"Ten steps is as far as you get. Far enough for the coldness of this ruin to seep into your skin and then the ground stirs. Those scraps of metal which you took for junk lurch upward, filled suddenly with life, and a slew of dented metal faces turn towards you, ancient automatons. They don’t seem like much of a threat, these ruined things, but there are a lot of them and there’s no knowing how deep this room goes."

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#TeamAlgox is within 20 points! How is it this close?

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Here is your Hatchet puzzle solution.

And then another tricky puzzle for the Voidwarden. The Hatchet barely survived that last fight, and now she's got to carry him out of the next one, after she has him do all the work of killing the monsters, of course.

Focus on Broken Token, more community-driven content, and guest designer Paul Grogan
over 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 01:25:50 AM

Hello! The first thing I want to do today, because a lot of you have been asking for it and anticipating it, is provide you some more information on the Broken Token wooden insert. Now, the components for Frosthaven aren't yet set in stone, plus everyone at Broken Token is working from home because of the pandemic, so we don't have a lot of specific information on what it will look like, but I asked them from all the information they could provide, and they shot this video:

If you still have any unanswered questions, Greg Spence, the CEO, has agreed to hang out in the comments section of this update to answer anything he can.

One other thing to mention about the insert is that we wanted to do some special engraving on it exclusive to the Kickstarter. So if you bought the insert through this project, you'd get something a little extra as a thank you. We've got designers working on what those engravings would be, and we'll probably end up with multiple designs and ask you all for which one you like best. So look out for that in the next week!

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And we still have two big announcements to talk about! I know I've mentioned it before, but first I just wanted to highlight the fact that there is a new community-driven campaign going on right now, and you can vote on what happens next in the story (it's actually a pretty close vote at the moment!). The reason I am bringing it up, though, is that I'd like to announce there's going to be even more community-driven content in the future!

As a show of gratitude for the success of this Kickstarter, I am committing myself to running another community-driven series of scenarios for Frosthaven specifically. Now obviously once you get the game, there will be a lot of core content to play, but some time after it is delivered, I'll run this extra campaign as well. If you're not sure what a community-driven campaign looks like, you can check out a previous one on BoardGameGeek.

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And that brings us to today's guest designer announcement, Paul Grogan of Gaming Rules! I could talk for a while about all the adventures Paul and I have been through together, but I'll just give you some of his pertinent credentials. He has actually been playing Gloomhaven longer than almost anyone else. He received one of the first production copies of the game to use for his superlative rules video, and has been playing ever since. He's also been playing a lot of Gloomhaven Digital recently on his channel, so it's probably safe to call him a Gloomhaven expert.

He'll also be doing the rules video for Frosthaven, which I'm excited about! You can check out his Patreon if you want to learn more, or watch his latest vlog for, among other things, some info on how to win a copy of Frosthaven.

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Both #TeamAlgox and #TeamUnfettered were fighting hard yesterday, picking up major points. My favorite, though, has to be this thread written entirely in binary.

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On to the puzzle! Here is a solution for the Demolitionist punching a Savvas to death.

And now we have another Hatchet conundrum, this time with no favorite axe to rely on! (Note that there is a water hex underneath each eel, as they can only move in water.)

Focus on map tile art and guest designer Efka Bladukas
over 4 years ago – Thu, Apr 23, 2020 at 12:29:14 AM

Hello, hello! You may notice this update is going up a little early, and that is because right now I am playing Frosthaven on TTS with the folks from Shut Up and Sit Down on their Twitch channel. You should definitely join us. At this point, I don't have much more info than that, but I'm going to lobby pretty hard to play as the Necromancer, so you all can heckle me if I screw up my publicly proclaimed favorite class. Or cheer me on - it's up to you.

Aaaand, I have other exciting content creator news! Not only is wonderful human being Efka Bladukas joining the guest designer roster, his video review series No Pun Included is also launching a Patreon campaign today. So, first of all, if you don't watch No Pun Included, you absolutely should. And then once you inevitably fall in love with it, you should consider supporting them on Patreon.

Efka was one of the first people to come to mind when I started thinking about guest designers. I knew he would do a great job, because he already has done great work on three side scenarios we created together for No Pun Included's previous Kickstarter fundraisers (one is even available to play for free). Efka is a great writer and has great ideas, so I'm looking forward to working with him again.

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All right, so what I want to do now is, instead of throwing a bunch more words at you, throw some art at you instead. You may have seen this images on the main page and in videos, but I wanted to give them their proper glory.

We got in contact with David Demaret initially to work on the map tile art for Jaws of the Lion based on the strength of his art from previous games like Batman: Gotham City Chronicles and Claustrophobia 1643. He knocked it out of the park. 

And so we hired him to work on the map tiles in Frosthaven as well. Map tiles can be a little trickier than full scenario art, because they have to be versatile for numerous scenarios and augmented by overlay tiles. We haven't gotten a lot of art done yet, as Jaws of the Lion wrapped up fairly recently, but still, I think he's killing it with what he has done. 

In addition to creating new environments, David is also doing all new art for the old tiles that will be used in Frosthaven.

Some of these may be a little dark for actual play, but don't worry, we'll make sure everything is color corrected appropriately.

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All right, once again I must apologize for the puzzle yesterday. I didn't give the Red Guard enough health and had to adjust it in the middle of the day, but here is the solution when the Red Guard is able to start at the proper 10 health.

And now the Demolitionist returns! And this situation looks very familiar... How will she handle it? It probably involves punching things.

Highlight on the Banner Spear cosplay and guest designer Tom Heath
over 4 years ago – Tue, Apr 21, 2020 at 02:50:11 AM

Hello to everyone! I hope your weekend went well! Yesterday we shot past the $8 million mark, which is wild, so thank you for that. We're currently the 11th most funded Kickstarter in history, and I'm sure we'll break into the top 10 before too long, which is a huge accomplishment to be a part of!

Today I wanted to turn the update over to Monica Paprocki from Geeks A Gogo, who did the Banner Spear cosplay for us at PAX Unplugged and whom we've hired to bring more Frosthaven characters to life in the future. She has provided this video to share, which I found very interesting:

If you want to see more of Monica and Geeks A Gogo, you can check out the Facebook group.

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But, of course, we also have another important announcement. Tom Heath of Slickdrips is joining the guest designer roster! Tom has been a big advocate of my games over the years and currently ranks Gloomhaven as his favorite game. Through his Youtube channel, he makes incredible videos that give people a great feeling for how to play a multitude of games. I think this is important work, especially in this current climate where it is harder than ever to get together with people to play games.

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And now I want to share with you Tatiana Quigley's final piece in her three-part series on the starting characters of Frosthaven. Here the Blinkblade is stealing some decidedly non-vegan cookies from the Deathwalker.

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#TeamAlgox is coming back! #TeamUnfettered cannot rest on their laurels!

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Finally for today, we have the solution to the tricky Diviner puzzle. Sorry if the rules on the attack modifier decks were a little unclear. Basically, if you had to draw a card after you shuffled a deck, you were doing something wrong.

 And then we return to the mercenaries of the Jaws of the Lion for a second round of puzzles. Here the Red Guard faces a truly overwhelming number of enemies. How can he possibly kill them all?

The History of Frosthaven
over 4 years ago – Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 11:31:34 PM

All right, in the new tradition of Sunday Lore Discussions, which is not something that was planned, but I like doing it, we're going to delve into the history of Frosthaven itself. Don't worry, Frosthaven is only 5 years old, so it should take too much time.

Last week we kind of already went into the religious mandate of growth and expansion that led to the founding of Frosthaven, which occurred 5 years ago. Previous to that, expeditions had been sent north, and they had always deemed the land too inhospitable, if they came back at all. Year after year, however, the pressure to expand continued to grow. Eventually, the Merchant's Guild decided it would be worth the gamble to potentially discover untapped resources and have another port to the eastern ocean that was closer by land to the capital of White Oak. There were also rumors that the small Quatryl contingent of the Merchant's Guild lobbied heavily for northern expansion, as well, citing something about ancient ruins in the area.

And so the Merchant's Guild invested a huge amount of gold in setting up a proper outpost in the north as a foothold for their expansion. They sent 300 soldiers and workers north with 40 wagon carts full of food, supplies and building materials. Over the course of that summer, they continued to support the community with additional supplies as they built up the town. There had been a few scuffles with the native races, but they had been fended off easily.

When the winter came, the Imperial Pass froze over cutting Frosthaven off from the capital. This came as no surprise. The Guild was confident the town could survive the winter on its own. They did not expect what was to come.

Over the winter, the Algox struck hard. After a few exploratory raids when the town first appeared, they decided to wait until winter to launch their assaults. By the time the pass reopened at the end of winter, the town was in shambles and most of its residents were dead. And, more importantly for the Merchant's Guild, they still hadn't found anything of value up north. The Guild sent more soldiers and supplies north to support the town, but it was becoming a significant money sink, which did not sit well with the Guild members.

And this cycle continued for the next 4 years. The Guild would send soldiers and supplies, and then all progress would get erased over the winter. Each year, less and less was sent, as enthusiasm for the project waned. Frosthaven transformed from a symbol of hope into heavy weight, dragging down all involved. It became a place to send troublemakers and incompetents - a posting considered heavy punishment that you would likely not survive.

After 5 years, almost everyone from the original expedition was dead. The titles of "mayor" and "captain of the guard" had changed hands so frequently, few were willing to accept the responsibility. One soldier, however, who had been there since the beginning and seen all the horrors the north could conjure up, decided that something needed to be done - that real leadership was needed to keep alive everyone who was stuck in this outpost. The soldier, Satha, took over both roles and fought as hard as she could to keep everyone alive through one more winter.

When the pass melts once again, the Merchant's Guild will try one last time to breathe life into the dying outpost. But they won't try very hard. There has been too much unrest around sending any member of White Oak, no matter how incompetent, to die up in the north. They thought about sending prisoners and convicts, but that would likely be worse than sending nothing. No, their last resort is to hire a band of mercenaries - a sad collection of down-on-their-luck sellswords with nowhere else to go. And if that doesn't work, they'll pull the plug on the whole failed experiment, and leave everyone out there to die in the cold.