The Story Engine: Lore Master's Deck

Created by The Story Engine

Lore Master's Deck is the ultimate creative jumpstarter for writers, game masters, and worldbuilders who want to fill their stories with rich, interconnected lore.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

*No more asterisks! It's allllllll here! + Live drawing with Megan McKay 🎨
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jul 19, 2023 at 09:17:39 AM

The Bridge Trifecta is here! 🥳


Our Lore Master's Deck campaign passed $400,000 overnight - and that means we've unlocked our final Bridge Expansion! The Story & World Bridge will officially ship with our CONJURE and DEVOUR pledge tiers, and is available as an add-on for anyone who wants to complete their card collection!


Getting to $400,000 means that you've unlocked all of the cards we had planned for this campaign. We can still add awesome link tokens to the deck (along with some other goodies) so keep spreading the word to help us run up the score!


Who wants to see a snake deity get chased by a God-reviewer critic?

Right this minute, we're live with artist Megan McKay who is bringing her amazing, adorable art style to create doodles in live-time with the community based off prompts from Lore Master's Deck. Join us now on the main page!



See you there!

By the powers vested in us we're launching the CONJURE 🪄 and DEVOUR 👾 tiers!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Jul 18, 2023 at 08:34:53 AM

Hi everyone! Quickie update from us today, since a few cool things have happened in the last 24 hours 🤘🏼

  • New Pledge Levels!
  • Reminder: Share for our Lore Blooper Cards
  • World Building and Breaking Livestream today at 2:30PM ET

You want it all?

You've got it all! The CONJURE and DEVOUR tiers are here!

The new CONJURE Pledge Tier is perfect for anyone who already has The Story Engine Deck and Deck of Worlds and wants to pick up the new decks, accessories, and collectibles to fill out their collection. 👉🏽 Find out more here.


The DEVOUR Pledge Level, on the other hand, is for newcomers who are ready to go all-in with The Story Engine. This tier includes everything in the CONJURE Tier, along with The Story Engine Deck and Deck of Worlds, all 15 of their respective Expansions, and all 12 Story Engine Boosters. You'll also get all three playmats,  since you'll be getting our Tell Your Story and Build Your World mats with our Weave Your Lore mat to complete the set.

This is the tier for you if you've never purchased one of our products and want to get caught up on everything you missed. The DEVOUR Pledge Level is the best price we've ever offered for our entire collection, so you don't want to miss this opportunity!

👉🏽 Find out more!

This deck has a blooper reel 🎞️

Wanna see the prompts that didn't make it? Help us spread the word! We'll release a FREE outtake PDF if 500 backers share the BackerKit campaign before we end on Friday, and we're almost 20% of the way there already!

Every backer gets us closer to another stretch goal, and we will make fools of ourselves (in writing) to provide a little extra incentive!

👉🏽 Check out the Achievement Goal here.

 Nice world. Be a shame if someone... broke it 🤭

TODAY we'll be live at 2:30pm ET! We'll be joined by special guest Jordan Shiveley, who will be helping us build a new world - and then demonstrating how you can use Lore Master's Deck to break that world to unlock a better story!

Join us on our pledge page to watch live, or catch the replays of all our livestreams on our YouTube Channel

You'll be hearing from us lots this week! The countdown is on to our Wrap Party this Friday, starting at 9PM ET! Bring your confetti poppers! 🎉🎉🎉 See you soon!

Final 5 Days + Free Outtakes PDF Goal + Going 🔴LIVE in 1 hr for TTRPG settings panel
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jul 17, 2023 at 10:03:05 AM

One week left for the Lore Master's Deck and we continue to smash through stretch goals and add new live streams and demos to our schedule.

Let's get into the updates together!

  • New community goal: if 500 backers share the project in the final week, we'll release a free PDF Master of Lost Lore Expansion
  • Stretch goal updates: deck upgrades, add-ons + a new free PDF stretch goal expansion if 500 backers share our project this week
  • Going 🔴LIVE in 1 hour:  at 2pm ET we'll be discussing how to create great tabletop RPG settings live with game designer Connor Alexander (Coyote & Crow) and artist Eren Angiolini (ArtVenturing Guild, Justice League, Critical Role)
  • Livestream schedule update:  upcoming streams on worldbuilding/worldbreaking, live-drawing lore prompts, and a huge wrap party marathon stream
  • Gen Con update: we'll be in booth block 1237 next to Nomnivore Games

New Community Goal

We want to pull out all the stops in our final 5 days, so we've created a new Community Achievement.

If 500 backers share our project during the final 5 days using the share button from our new Community Achievement, we will release a free PDF Master of Lost Lore Expansion featuring outtakes from the main deck!



Here's a social media graphic you can use to help promote the project!



Stretch Goal Updates

We just added 16 more cards to the main deck, making the deck a whopping 300 cards with 2,400 cues and billions of potential combinations!

Next up: unlocking the Lore Master's Journal and Story-Bridge Expansion!



Going 🔴LIVE in 1 Hour

At 2pm ET we'll be discussing how to create great tabletop RPG settings with game designer Connor Alexander (Coyote & Crow) and artist Eren Angiolini (ArtVenturing Guild, Justice League, Critical Role)! We'll also be using the deck to quickly live-create a setting and discuss what aspects would make for the best basis for roleplay storytelling.

You can watch live on our campaign page or catch the replay on our YouTube.



You can also check out our panelists' original tabletop creations live on Kickstarter and BackerKit.

Eren's Arcane Compendium of Characters: Take the story into your own hands, with this system-agnostic deck of TTRPG characters at https://bit.ly/arcanecompendium

Connor's Wolves: Pledge the latest game from Coyote & Crow currently on Kickstarter. Learn more and back it at https://bit.ly/3Oe2kCV


Livestream Schedule Update

We have so many great streams happening this week!

Tuesday @ 2:30pm ET: Watch "World Building and Breaking" ft. Jordan Shiveley live on our campaign page or our YouTube.



Wednesday @ 11am ET: Watch "Live-Drawing Lore Prompts" ft. Megan McKay live on our campaign page or our YouTube.



Friday @ 9pm ET: Join us for a wrap party running on our campaign page or our YouTube.




Gen Con Update

We'll have The Story Engine at Gen Con as part of booth block 1237! Find us next to Nomnivore Games, the creators of the tabletop RPG EMBERWIND (from whom all of our beautiful box art comes)

That's all for now! We'll see you live in 1 hour to talk about tabletop RPG setting creation!

$300K, New Stretch Goals, New Add-ons, New Storage, oh my!
over 1 year ago – Sat, Jul 08, 2023 at 11:25:51 AM

Hi backers!

With two weeks left of the campaign, how incredible it is to be passing the $300,000 mark, unlocking 12 stretch goals. BUT WAIT! There's more! What, you ask? Prepare for a massive update!

  • New community achievements/stretch goals revealed
  • New add-ons available
  • Storage system update
  • Updated livestream schedule

New Community Achievements (Stretch Goals!)

We've had a LOT of questions about the community achievements beyond the $350,000 horizon, and we wanted to share our newest stretch goals with you!



Currently available as an add-on, this journal will be unlocked once we pass $375,000. Designed to support any Lore Master, this tabbed journal with moveable pages is the perfect companion to keep detailed records of the incredible depths of lore that you create using the deck. Pages can be organized by card type, or clustered together to assemble elements that below to the same lore web or setting.

You all asked and we've revealed the final Bridge Expansion to complete the trinity! The Story-World Bridge Expansion helps creators combine prompts from The Story Engine Deck and Deck of Worlds to create threads and connections linking story prompts and worldbuilding prompts.

The Lore Master's Journal, Story-World Bridge Expansion, and limited-edition Bridge Expansion Collector's Box are all currently available as add-ons.

You can currently add them to your pledge. If we do not reach the goal that unlocks them, we will remove them from your pledge before the campaign and you will not be charged for them.


As your lore webs grow, you may want to link back later prompts to early prompts, or create links between separate webs of lore. Perhaps a seemingly disparate piece was part of the web all along. How do you keep track? With handy tokens! With this stretch goal, physical wooden tokens will be included in every copy of the main Lore Master's Deck for free.

New-Add Ons

In addition to add-ons being released through the stretch goals, we are also adding some new add-ons that do not need to be unlocked.

When your web grows to encompass more and more lore clusters, it can help to block off the unused text on your primary cards so you can focus on your chosen cue. Focus Sleeves are printed with an opaque pattern to block out the unused text, but a keyhole-shaped window to highlight the card type and primary cue, allowing you to weave your lore with enhanced focus.

Storage System Update

We've listened to your feedback, and have released some new storage add-ons!

First up is a continuation of our folding box line. We've added 2 new Lore Master's Deck-focused designs to the collection, which already contained 2 Deck of Worlds designs and 2 Story Engine designs. As requested, the folding boxes are now available as singles or as a set.
 


The complete set of 6 folding storage boxes is now large enough to hold all of our cards from all sets, sleeved or unsleeved.

And now the most hotly anticipated storage update: the Leviathan Storage Box!



This massive storage box holds up to 1440 cards from any of our deck systems. The box interior comes with 24 vertical trays in 3 rows of 8 molded plastic compartments. Each compartment holds 60-70 cards (1 full expansion). Compartments are spaced and have finger grooves to make identifying and drawing cards easy. Cards can be sorted by expansion, card type, or a combination of both. The box lid and bottom fit together like a standard 2-piece game box.

The 2 Leviathan Boxes are large enough to hold all cards from all our decks unsleeved together with room to spare and freedom to sort cards in a variety of ways. If you sleeve your cards, the Leviathan Boxes are designed to be the same length as the original Story Engine Deck or Deck of Worlds, and either one of those main deck boxes should be large enough to hold any overflow while fitting on a shelf of the same depth.


Check out these add-ons when you pledge!

Livestream Schedule Update

Two more weeks? Let's pack it with all the fun! We're ready to dive deeper into the Lore Master's Deck, and its expansions with you, including some special guest appearances. What's more, learn how to create settings for TTRPGs and many more cool activities. Save the dates!

We livestream right from the campaign page, which is the best way to link new potential backers to the stream and our project! You can also sign up to be notified when a stream starts on our YouTube Live page!



Missed our streams this week? No worries! You can always catch the reply on our YouTube Live page!






Okay, phew, that's everything! Told you it was a big one!

Best way to celebrate hitting $300K? Playing D&D on a Livestream! 🗡️
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jul 05, 2023 at 07:10:06 AM

We're at the halfway mark!

And boy did we do it in style! We've achieved $300K in funding, unlocking the next goal to plant a total of 3000 trees. Leaving the world a little bit better has always been a part of our core mandate, and we're glad you're here to do it with us 🌱 Read to the end of this update for more info on our commitment to sustainability.

But like the weary adventurers you're about the meet in today's D&D Campaign Livestream (starting at 11AM ET!), the hard work is just beginning! We have more stretch goals, which include adding amazing writers to punch up our deck, and bringing the deck to a whopping 300 cards!

Psssttt...did we mention there are more stretch tiers yet to be revealed? 👀 Stay tuned!



Let's play some D&D!

Last Friday, YOU, our community, helped us create the lore setting to be used in our upcoming D&D Campaign. Without further ado, let us share what Peter has created for today's session (unless you are special guests Jasmine Minoza, Jordan Shiveley or Alina Pete, in which case AVERT YOUR EYES!)

Picture this...

🌬️ On the northmost tip of the world of Rimeway sits Skycrown Glacier, a massive ice field with aeons of secrets and stories frozen within its icy depths.

✨ An experimental new form of life-and-death magic has been discovered on the glacier’s barren slopes.

🚩 One opportunistic nonprofit, the Biotaktica Foundation, has risen to power and now holds exclusive research rights over the glacier.

🧝🏽 But just outside of the control zone, in the village of Whistling Falls, one brave defector from the foundation is assembling an expedition to journey into the heart of Skycrown and drag the glacier’s deepest and darkest secrets to light.

Are you ready to embark on this treacherous journey with this motley crew, venture into the depths of Skycrown and pull back the layers of dark secrets buried there? Tune in at 11AM ET!


Sustainability at The Story Engine

From stronger cardstock to resist wear and tear, designing our decks and storage for endless reusability, and for 100% recyclability should their lifespan ever come to an end, we are constantly trying to find ways to minimize our footprint on this planet. For where shall we play games and create stories if we don't have a home?

Tree-planting charities that focus on bulk-planting without long-term plans for biodiversity, fire prevention, forest maintenance, and adequate planning can actually contribute to deforestation. We've chosen Eden Reforestation Projects as our nonprofit of choice based on a strong set of criteria.

Check out our blog about Eden Reforestation from a previous fundraiser to learn more about how their methods and impacts differ from other tree-planting charities!



Have more questions, thoughts, ideas and story inspirations?

We always love hearing from you! Leave a comment, drop us a line on socials, or better yet, see you on our livestream today at 11AM!