Hello Monsters,

Thanks to everyone who dropped by Onyx Path's Twitch channel on Friday to watch the interview with Matthew Dawkins. And bigger thanks to those who submitted questions for Matthew to answer! If the recording for that stream becomes available before the end of the campaign, I'll make sure we share in in a future update.

With the main Character Creation chapters out and available to backers, I want to share another recorded Twitch stream from Onyx Path. This one is a Session 0 and all about creating your character for a Monster Kingdoms game. One of my favorite ways to learn about a game is to see it in action, and watching these players build the characters for their game is a great way to gain new understanding of the ideas and rules from the book.

And if you want to play along at home while you watch, it's not a bad idea to have a character sheet to start scribbling down your ideas and choices! The Storyguide from the video (and one of the writers of the game), Chris Jones, has put together this awesome character sheet for you to use when you pick your paths!

Our journey so far...

I: The Journey Begins
II: From Magic to Death
III: The Aschelagoan and other Eaters
IV: A Kingdom of Numbers
V: Skinless in the Spearwood
VI: This Place Should Not Be

I am afraid. Master Khufu, I feel fear. I cannot stray from the path of doom, for tis my belief that all life must end, but I am now terrified of everything from here until that time.

We never left Iom. For a season we hiked through Tsul Gazar, entered the Nithera Empire, encountered people, places, monsters, and acquired treasures and Sheos even seized a crown, but it transpires everything we have lived through was an illusion. We are prisoners of Iom and my greatest source of frustration is that I do not know when this imprisonment began. Was it when we entered the kingdom? Was it when we ate the cakes? Was it when we reentered the witch’s house? Was it when Valenao stole the keys?

I do not know the truth. I know that Valenao has been mocking us all this time, leading us astray, playing us into the hands of our jailers. Every suffering and every victory has been for their amusement.

We must find our way out of here. I will study every aperture, every door, and every sigil. I will trek far from the people who smile at us and make us feel welcome. I will kill Valenao. I do not believe he knows that we know of his perfidy. If that does not end this perdition, I will slay Sheos and then Tophenni, for now I have no clue as to who is real and who is not.

If none of these methods suffice, I will end my own life, for doom is a release from torment.

Hi Monsters,

A potpourri of bits today for you. Mini monsters, if you will.

First up, let's talk about something coming later today on Onyx Path's Twitch channel. And then let's look at the Gentleman Gamer's videos about Monster Kingdoms. 

He'll be talking about Monster Kingdoms. If you've got any questions, feel free to put them in the Monster Kingdoms section of Onyx Path's Discord channel or watch live and submit them while they go!

Of course, some of your questions likely have been answered by our Draft Manuscript Preview releases of in the videos Matthew has released already. You can (and should!) check those out on Youtube:

All great stuff, as always from Matthew, and the easiest way to understand how this all comes together. 

Hello Monsters,

Let's talk about the field of battle and the forces that wage war.

Having deployed your regiment to scour the land in your name and tasked your dungeon’s workers with the construction of all manner of killing machines, you’ll inevitably want to put the fruits of your labors to good use and escalate things to a grander level. This ever-present arms race is how wars begin, and this chapter gives you all the tools you’ll need to marshal the souls of thousands onto the killing floor. This is all-out war!

Every battle consists of several warring regiments, each specifically constructed to crush the opposing forces. As these templates are not individuals; we refer to them as legions, and each unit is filled with many soldiers.


Some quick things to note before we get into the manuscript.

First up, it's amazingly expensive to ship, especially from Onyx Path's home base in the US. And that's as of today - we're all in the dark about how things will look in 2 years. We get that, but there's not much we can do at this time. Onyx Path is in a difficult space where the company is big enough that they're not saving money by fulfilling out of Rich's garage, but small enough that they haven't been able to set up ongoing international partners to handle portions of the fulfillment. So we are where we are - for now.

The best we can do at this point is to plan carefully, advise everyone up front that shipping will likely be expensive (see our projections on the main page) and only charge what it costs us when the time comes. We’ll be charging for shipping in the Pledge Manager once the books are being printed and we can deal with the actual shipping charges rather than using our best-guesses this far out. If you aren't sure you want one of the hardcover editions, you can pledge to the PDF tier now and upgrade your pledge in the Pledge Manager once we know the final shipping costs.

Over the course of this campaign, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for Monster Kingdoms, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in monster-sized sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over the next several weeks, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.

Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.

In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: https://forms.gle/TpaaPsUqJ79zD1kE6


You can use this Feedback Form to share your thoughts directly with the Monster Kingdoms creative team to help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.

Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Learn More" link on the bottom and I'll see you below the banner.

Our journey so far...

I: The Journey Begins
II: From Magic to Death
III: The Aschelagoan and other Eaters
IV: A Kingdom of Numbers
V: Skinless in the Spearwood

Dearest reader. I pen tidings from Tsul Gazar and beyond! What wonders and thrills Tophenni, Sheos, and I have encountered since the last entry in this journal. I am reminded quickly that you have not been introduced to my newest companion Valenao, but trust that I shall forge a proper doorway in my writings through which this feyborn shall enter the tale.

The exploration of Tsul Gazar was the most arduous part of my journey to date. As with all wilderness locales, the risk of beasts and magus-devouring flora was high, and in Tsul Gazar I can confirm such things are unrelenting. In this kingdom you can never know who is speaking truth and who is wearing a false face. Shapeshifters are exceedingly common here, though they would have you believe otherwise. The only hope an outsider such as myself has of survival is with someone who knows the region and the few secure outposts in clearings, trees, dry patches in swamps, and trails that take one away from nesting areas instead of into them. Rest assured, dear reader, that we stumbled into more than one nest but were quickly deterred when the smells of putrefaction or scant bodily remains of the prey dragged there reached our senses. Thankfully, Sheos is a cultist from this realm. I had assumed her an elf all this time, but once we began our path through the under- and overgrowth, her nature revealed itself as a werejaguar — a being capable of taking the form of a great cat.

Reader, I bear no prejudices. I am no imperial who believes these people belong here and those people belong there. In Draoidahaek, slavery is outlawed and freedom is a keystone of our foundation. This is why the skybound kingdom is the wisest one in all of Gewinn. Nevertheless, I concede my reservations when I discovered Sheos’s true form. She was hunting for us while we camped, and to learn more of how Tsul Gazarians track and trap their prey, I followed her, only to witness her transformation. At that point I wondered if she was leading us into an ambush, but soon my sensibilities recovered, you will be pleased to know. Myself and Tophenni caught her, bound her, interrogated and tortured her until we were certain of her loyalty. Now, no doubts wrack my mind.

Tsul Gazar is often described as “wilderness given to the wild,” and I understand the sentiment having visited. There’s a clear delineation between the forested and the jungled areas of the kingdom, though it remains a mystery to me as to how temperate woodland can so conveniently abut tropical overgrowth, unless it be down to the passage of the suns (but even then, the divide is so thin as to be remarkable). I suspect a magical contrivance, by which I mean at some point in history, great magi (likely crownbearers) divided Tsul Gazar into two forms, and though those world-movers might have expired, the remains of their work continue to stand.

Do not be mistaken, however, into thinking that Tsul Gazar is bereft of civilization. Time and again we discovered signs of habitation, standing stones marked with sigils (Sheos treated them with extreme reverence, so Tophenni and I afforded them a wide berth), and trails formed through the trees almost as if the plants moved to accommodate us. I reason that it’s possibly so. The land itself in Tsul Gazar appears to possess consciousness.

Yet our movements through Tsul Gazar did not keep us there. I had intended on finding the River Thurn and using it to access the Fork Canal, or vice versa, and thus sail northwest from this kingdom toward the Nithera Empire (I have long delayed visiting the imperial domain, as I know from verified accounts how brutally they treat spies), but it was as we were climbing free from the swamp-bound Wet Dungeon that we stumbled into something quite unlikely: a cottage with wide windows, smoke pouring through a chimney, and the smell of freshly baked treats. The three of us, now accustomed to devouring what we could catch, were immediately overcome with voracious appetites and charged into the house to kill whoever was within and eat their sweet, hot food, but entering was a gateway to a realm I hadn’t expected us to visit as yet: Iom.

Be assured, we still slew the old woman at the oven and ate the cakes she’d warmed, but now we were in another kingdom — the fabled kingdom of feyborn, curse magic, and nightmares. We could have departed the way we came, and I’m sure we would have reentered Tsul Gazar, but the chance to explore Iom was too great. Passing through the cottage and out the other side, the entire landscape had altered. We were now seeing golden and alabaster white buildings with unnatural architecture and unsettling curves. We were witness to magical fountains and disturbing beings of hideous proportion. It was as if we had entered some wicked child’s dreams. When we interacted with the locals, most of them laughed at us, some of them tried to lure us into their homes (we were not so foolish), and others just smiled and backed away. Not a one of them looked or acted in a way I deemed healthy or trustworthy.

Iom is a small kingdom compared to most others. I believe we traversed it southeast to northwest in around three days, though it’s difficult to measure time in such a realm. I have chronicled a huge number of monstrous aberrations and magical anomalies for study back in the Apprentice Warrens in Draoidahaek, and made purchases of sorcerous candies and curse candles (I will not consume or light either; they are for experimentation in a safer place than this). 

Iom was the first place I’d visited outside of Draoidahaek where the danger only became truly apparent during my departure. We found ourselves facing a cottage identical to the one through which we entered, and as Tophenni remarked, it felt as if it was inviting us to leave. Only this time, when we entered the old woman’s house, she was a monstrous, many-mawed, clutching being. She belched flames and noxious smoke, and from behind her endless giggling, snarled and glared. She hooked me in her catcher-claws, and while Tophenni attempted to free me (I note that Sheos was slow to assist), it was of no use! The old faerie creature was trying to drag me into her oven and turn me into one of her cakes, I am sure of it! But I was never afraid. I do not fear. I welcome doom in all of its forms.

It was then, at that crucial moment, that a drastically handsome feyborn goldsman burst through a stained glass window above the old woman’s fireplace and snatched the keys from her belt. I do not know what they unlocked or represented, but the old woman was so incensed that she dropped me and grabbed for the thief! Gratitude is all well and good, but I had to protect Tophenni (and even Sheos) so we took the time to flee instead of offering thanks. It was just as well, for the goldsman was fleeing in the same direction. With a laugh, this tall, chiseled feyborn rolled through the round door with us, and together we found ourselves in distant northwest Tsul Gazar. He introduced himself as Valenao, and once again I had a squad of four.

Hello Monsters,

A pretty exciting day today! It's a big chapter, one I've been eager for since the beginning and even more so since our Paths chapter last week.

All beings within the world of Monster Kingdoms possess a unique combination of powers, abilities, and advantages called edges, sceptres, and crowns. This chapter will break down each of the talent categories, their requirements, and what each one does within the world. These benefits can be as simple as granting an Enhancement or as complicated as granting access to unique abilities, status effects, Complications, and Tricks with their use.

Before we get to our download for today, a few bits of business.


We've unlocked our third Stretch Goal of the campaign! An Onyx Path classic...

So, our next target...

Since we're in the character building portion of the game, it's not a bad idea to have a character sheet to start scribbling down your ideas and choices! One of the writers on the game, Chris Jones, has put together this awesome character sheet for you to use when you pick your paths!

Over the course of this campaign, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for Monster Kingdoms, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in monster-sized sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over the next several weeks, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.

Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.

In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: https://forms.gle/TpaaPsUqJ79zD1kE6



You can use this Feedback Form to share your thoughts directly with the Monster Kingdoms creative team to help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.

Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Learn More" link on the bottom and I'll see you below the banner.