The gods are coming... + early bird preorder pricing ends TODAY
11 months ago – Mon, Mar 04, 2024 at 07:32:00 AM

Hello backers,

Thanks everyone who came out to join us for the Bridge Expansion livestream! It was so much fun to bring all 3 of our deck systems into play and build some inspired stories, worlds, and lore! You can catch the replay here.

I'm looking forward to another livestream with you this week to launch the open beta of what is definitely the fan-favourite expansion of this deck: the Master of Gods: Deities Expansion!

Join us 3pm ET on Thursday as we live-release the PDFs on our most-anticipated expansion and walk you through the creative direction behind it—and how we solved the biggest design challenge that the expansion presented! And of course, we'll be building a lore web full of deities and demigods with the chat voting on every cue and sharing their interpretations.



You can RSVP by clicking "Notify Me" in the link.

These livestreams have been so much fun, and they've actually helped us pass 100,000 views on YouTube last week! Subscribe for more demo videos and deck tips coming later this year!

Remember that you can still add-on or preorder the Deities Expansion PDF and get full access to the open beta. You can also upgrade your pledge or preorder one of the Lore Master's Deck bundles, all of which come with open beta PDF and final PDF access to complement all the physical decks in the bundle.

And you might want to do that today!

We'll be ending early bird preorder pricing TONIGHT (March 4), locking pledges on March 9, and charging chards on March 11. 

In other news...

Our multi-talented CEO Miroki Tong just released her first opera metal single! Until the Last Planet Dies by Mahjong Witch is now streaming on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube, or wherever else you get your music. Go ahead and give it a listen!



That's all for now!

IMPORTANT DETAILS: Deadlines, Locking Pledges, Charging Cards + Biggest Expansion Release Livestream
11 months ago – Tue, Feb 27, 2024 at 08:47:14 AM

Ending Early Bird Pricing + Locking Pledges + Charging Cards

• shipping charges
• taxes (where applicable)
• post-campaign add-ons
• post-campaign pledge upgrades 

The Bridges: Our Biggest Expansion Release!

So far we've been releasing one expansion (60 cards) at a time.

This Thursday we're distributing all 3 Bridge Expansions live on air, explaining the updates we made between the alpha and beta copies, and then doing a live triple-demo as we combine cards from all 3 of our deck systems to create new kinds of prompts that would otherwise be impossible.




I'll also revealing the one "joke" card I snuck into Lore Master's Deck. When I'm editing new decks and expansions, I include some cards that are funny, as long as they also provide utility or inspiration to other deck users.

But there's one cue on one card in one of the Bridge Expansions that amused me so much I kept it in, even though I wasn't sure anyone else would "get" it. We'll find out what the reaction is during the livestream!

Also, in case you missed the live launch of the Emblems Expansion, I wanted to do a quick recap. More than any other expansion, I think this demo helped deck users discover how much utility, depth, and inspiration the Emblems Expansion has that isn't obvious on first glance. Not every lore-weaver or worldbuilder thinks about the symbols in their world, but the way different groups compete to shape or control the meaning of symbols can be rich ground to grow compelling stories.



We hope to see you on Thursday for the Bridge Expansions livestream!

The mistake we ALMOST made with the Emblems Expansion + livestream TODAY!
11 months ago – Thu, Feb 22, 2024 at 06:06:09 AM

Hello backers!

I wanted to invite you all to join us live at 3pm today to launch the open beta PDF of the Emblems Expansion!



We'll be talking about the development process and reviewing design updates from the alpha, distributing PDFs live on YouTube, and then creating prompts in collaboration with the chat.

If you don't already have the Emblems Expansion PDF as part of your pledge, you can still edit your pledge and add it on or buy it from the preorder store any time between now and March 9, when we'll be locking pledges.

Thanks to everyone who tuned in to watch us launch the Namesakes Expansion last week! Some of the highlights included:

• Me sharing my biggest regret from Deck of Worlds (hint: I still get emails about it).
• A behind-the-scenes look at the challenges and opportunities of adapting Namesakes from Deck of Worlds.
• A walkthrough of the changes to the deck since the alpha demo during the BackerKit campaign.
• A live prompting session where the chat helped us create the reckoning raven, also known as the woolly raven, a bird that grows thick plumage in response to sudden environmental changes.

You can watch the replay below!

How the Emblems Expansion changed during development

1. giving people guidance about how to think divergently about symbols and images in their worlds.
2. giving people the freedom to interpret those symbols in a manner of their choosing.

• We cut down from 60 to 32 Emblem cards, and we made them their own dedicated card type so we could be deliberate about how and when to use them.
• We added 28 special variant lore cards of the 7 primary card types.
• We used symbols in place of text cues on the the primary side of the expansion's lore cards.
• To the secondary side of the lore cards, we added short cues that require players to draw Emblem cards to complete them. These offer a variety of ways to think about how symbols can connect to different elements of lore.

The mistake we ALMOST made with the Emblems Expansion

I've talked before about why I think sensitivity readers are a crucial part of the development process. We worked with three reviewers on this project, all of whom offered a bounty of insight and editorial recommendations on the main deck and expansions. Their notes and perspective helped flag potentially sensitive material and provided guidance about how writers and worldbuilders can approach that material in thoughtful and respectful ways.

The review of the Emblems Expansion was particularly revealing. We sourced a wide variety of icons, symbols, glyphs, and images for this expansion, and were careful about our selection. This included a small number of runes, including some dwarven-style runes based on Elder Futhark.

It turns out that specific Elder Futhark runes have been co-opted by white nationalist groups as either coded or overt hate iconography. While these runes are authentic pieces of culture predating these groups by thousands of years, some are currently being weaponized by white supremacists to further a deeply damaging cause.

On the advice of one of our sensitivity reviewers who flagged the algiz rune during their review (along with a couple of other symbols), we did a careful cross-examination of our symbols with the Anti-Defamation League's database of hate symbols.

Philosophically, this process raised some interesting questions: who decides what a symbol means? What happens when the meaning of a symbol changes over time? These are the questions that made the Emblems Expansion so fascinating to work on in the first place.

Practically, we knew that philosophy takes a back seat to making sure people from targeted communities feel safe and ensuring we don't inadvertently empower hate groups by deploying symbols they also use.

We cut the small number of symbols that resembled anything in the ADL's database and overall reduced the number of Elder Futhark-inspired runes, introducing instead a wider variety of runic styles. This ended up bringing more variety to the deck and improved it as a resource!

Symbols are powerful. For good and for ill, they evoke an immediate response and become containers for so many different kinds of meaning. I'm grateful we had such diligent sensitivity reviewers to help us shape the final lineup of symbols and think about how to provide guidance on using symbols in lore-weaving.

I'm excited for you all to dig into the Emblems Expansion with us today, and I hope you'll join us for the livestream!

Searching for the Archive of Endlings
11 months ago – Fri, Feb 16, 2024 at 07:38:59 AM

If you tuned in, you already know exactly how we ended up with the lore web below. (In fact, you probably influenced some of our decisions.) For the rest of you, we thought we’d give you a quick recap to run you through some of the highlights.

There have long been rumors about the Archive of Endlings – a mythical zoo that only houses creatures that no longer exist. According to the legend, the magical Owl that built the Archive is itself the last member of its species. Whenever another creature is about to go extinct, the Owl calls the endling – the last of its kind – to the Archive for protection. The endlings cannot leave (the Owl is a prisoner of its own design), but they are safe from further harm. The Archive only exists in the space between worlds, and is further guarded by an array of powerful enchantments.

How I hacked the math for the Namesake Expansion + livestream Thursday
11 months ago – Tue, Feb 13, 2024 at 07:04:06 AM

• The resolution of the great "museum" vs "archive" debate
• The start of our lore web: a mysterious conclave of griffin worshippers
• The middle of our lore web: a mythical repository where the last specimens of extinct species go when their evolutionary lines end
• The end of our lore web: a fan club of dragon-worshippers who are guarding a god-beast they may one day unleash on the world

It was such a fun stream, and we hope you'll join us for the next livestream at 3pm ET this Thursday, February 15 as we launch the open beta for the Namesakes Expansion!



I also wanted to share a little behind-the-scenes info on the Namesakes Expansion, which has changed a little bit since we unveiled the alpha during the campaign.

How I revamped the Namesakes Expansion (with math!)

The Namesakes Expansion is inspired by the Namesake card type from Deck of Worlds, which we released at the end of 2022. Namesakes are actually my favourite card type in Deck of Worlds. They provide some short text-based cues that you can combine with a Region or Landmark card to create an instantly-evocative nickname that feels like it originates within the lore of your world.



I find those cards achieve an almost alchemical reaction when people use them. Like magic, suddenly you're not just creating a boring "tower" or "swamp." You're creating "The First Tower" or the "The Swamp Where No Bird Sings." Your creative brain is waking up to ask questions about where these names come from and imagine interesting answers!

Namesakes as a dedicated card type didn't fit in the main Lore Master's Deck (although a few secondary cues do introduce nicknames and epithets). However, I saw some amazing opportunities to adapt Namesakes into an expansion. My original plan was to create 60 Namesake cards that would work much like Modifier cards, except they'd provide fragments of nicknames that could be paired with primary lore cards as in Deck of Worlds. Here are some examples of these cards from the Namesakes Expansion booklet:





However, translating Namesake cards from Deck of Worlds to Lore Master's Deck introduced some challenges and opportunities that had me rethinking how to construct the set:

• Compared to creating Namesakes for just geographical features as in Deck of Worlds, it's hard to find name fragments that work universally with the 7 primary lore card types: Factions, Figures, Events, Locations, Objects, Materials, and Creatures.
• Lore Master's Deck offers a unique opportunity to construct nicknames that combine two card types, but this would be hard to achieve using just the Namesake card format.
• A full expansion of 60 Namesake cards would outnumber the 48 Modifier cards in Lore Master's Deck. Too many Namesake draws might lead to the card type being less special and featuring too prominently in lore webs.

1. We went from 60 to 32 Namesake cards to better balance the draw ratios and focus on the very best universal cues.
2. We also converted the Namesake cards into specialized Modifier cards instead of treating them as a separate card type with its own set of rules. You can just shuffle them in with your other Modifiers and you don't need to learn any new mechanics.
3. We added 28 specially formatted lore cards to the expansion (4 each of Factions, Figures, Events, Locations, Objects, Materials, and Creatures).

This third change was the biggest one, and it's where the math comes in. This one change let us do so much more with the expansion than the alpha version was achieving. The 28 new lore cards in the Namesakes Expansion feature a primary side with cues that combine with other primary lore cards to create a new named lore element in your world.

This format essentially turns every other lore card in the entire deck system into a potential namesake for another lore element. In other words, those 28 lore cards enable 252 additional cards to act like a Namesake card would, adding tens of thousands of interesting combinations and exponentially increasing the reusability of the expansion.

Here's an example from the booklet featuring a Figure named after a cue chosen from a Location card in the main deck. In the lore of this setting, this character is known by the epithet "The Voice of the Mountain."