FEVER DREAM NEXUS

Good Cultures, Bad Backgrounds and Ugly Cults.
about 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 07, 2024 at 05:46:04 PM

Welcome Sleepwalker, sheath your sword and let's pour some tea while we chat about the things I've been getting up to since our last rest.

Things are moving on schedule for a summer finish and if my experience with Kingdoms is still accurate, printing and editing could see it at your doorstep in fall. I really appreciate everyone's patience with the book, and I'm still working to bring on more writers/artists on the project to help expedite everything. Some really cool people have pumped out fantastic pages in the last couple months but others who signed on dropped out due to other obligations. I will be sure to update you on the schedule as the ebb and flow of the book continues.

Speaking of guest writing, the first culture I'll be showing off today was penned by my good friend, editor, and Kingdoms cowriter William Kitziger:

The Liminum are extraordinarily rare, coming from strange otherworldly cities between plates. Like tectonic plates in real life, the plates in the Nexus are their own geological landmasses hiding uncountable caverns, creatures, and plant life, but the Liminum seem to have their own fungus-covered pocket so deep that no foreign expedition has ever uncovered them.

Related to the Lim via their shared dream of raising up the other cultures of the Nexus, I'm proud to show off a culture with some of my favorite art in the book. From the ancient plate of Ogre, birthed from a hateful father scrubbed from history, the Yez display undeniable proof of divinity even greater than some so called 'gods':

The tetra-armed giants find peace in helping others and stopping evil across the Nexus. Their ideals are truly an example of good that Sleepwalkers should strive for. Their page also gives a glimpse at the forgotten history of the Nexus and expands the lore behind Prince Ziggy's rise to power.

Speaking of expanding the lore, here's some more Backgrounds that showcase the kind of histories you can expect from your troubled Sleepwalkers:

As with the last page of Backgrounds I showed off, the goal is to give the Sleepwalkers a bleak history that can easily meld with their Shadows. All while being open ended enough for the possibility of two Sleepwalkers rolling the same Background to be distinct. 

Next I got some DM-sided pages to throw into your eyeballs. Once a secure checkpoint dividing the desert plate of Ful, now a debaucherous cult has taken root. Let's lose our savings at the Lock House!

The hooves of the hog god Skit has turned this place into an occult casino filled with treacherous nobility and rich foreigners completely ignorant to the schemes above them. Can the Sleepwalkers turn the tables and free Sultana Bast? Will they win big and buy a shiny new sword? You will have to find out for yourself. But the Lockhouse would be incomplete without its main draw, sole passage to the above plates through the deadly darkness of the Hallway:

Its meta, its spooky, its confusing, yep that sure is Fever Deam-core. Now don't get yourself lost, we can't have another incident scaring off the rich gambling clientele. Wait, your searching for the Sultana's parents? How about we stop that right this instant.

Annnd with the DM-side done that's going to be it for today! I just want to say that I deeply appreciate every single kind message and comment you guys leave. The support I got last update meant a lot to me with everything happening in life. I love working on this behemoth and I especially adore getting to see some of the crazy ideas Poets and Samurai have come up with recently. But I wouldn't have this platform if you guys didn't believe in me, so thank you. Now have a fantastic day and don't forget to redeem your winnings at the Lock Hold lobby before retreating to your room for the night!

The Peak of the World, Shadows, Tracks, and Delay.
over 2 years ago – Sun, Nov 05, 2023 at 04:53:00 PM

Afternoon Sleepwalkers, the Sun dreams high in the Nexus today, showing us rays of strange wilds and stranger peoples. 

I'd like to open today's update on a dower note, as some of you have noticed, there has been a longer than usual delay in communication from me. After continuous and steady progress this last year, I recently took about a month off from the book to focus on mental health after losing someone very close to me. Trying to force yourself to vomit up words or art while in the gutter of depression is a fruitless task, so I opted to take a short vacation and focus on coming back fresh and ready to really work on finishing up the book.

Upon my return back this month I decided to take a look at the progress of the book and its content is not where I want it to be, specifically the DM-side. Balancing a full time job while illustrating/writing the Nexus and also handling the Kickstarter is much more intensive than I expected. To get the book to where I want it to be content wise, I've built up a gameplan from here on out:

1. I have opted to bring on some fellow writers (including familiar faces from Kingdoms!) to help on the DM's side with fleshing out locations, cities, and encounters. In this pursuit, Ive additionally reworked how cities are written and designed going foward. Gone are the days of rambling NPC backstories and cardboard towns meant to fulfill one plot, rather, cities now feel like living breathing toolboxes to support interesting and dynamic hooks for the DM to use.

2. I have decided to pull back on the quantity of art. Originally, I aspired to fill every page of the book with art, but have found this is implausible given the current size of the team and deadlines. Some of the greatest problem areas were the Backgrounds and Shadows pages, which Ive cut back in quantity while hopefully still delivering gorgeous pages. Additionally, I've shot a couple of requests for guest art for some of the Culture pages, both to help get the book out faster and to add some much needed variety to the art styles across the Nexus!

3. Some cities and locations I've found too similar or boring are going to be reworked and re-assessed accordingly to hopefully help combat areas of content bloat. I've found on the early drawing board some of the regions simply exist to be there and do not further the themes or weird dream-like feel I want for the Nexus. 

With all of the above efforts, I am going to go ahead and move the book's delivery date back to early Summer 2024. Obviously this is a few months further than the original release of February, but as with Kingdoms, the additional time helped deliver an awesome experience that I think will more than make up for the delay

Onto more exciting matters, I have begun slowly working my way up the creative backer tiers. Poet level backers are first up currently, and you should have a message in your inbox either today, or shortly after with instructions on building a Track. After the majority of Poets are in the book, I wil continue to Samurai and then finally Daiymo. I'm looking forward to see what all of you can create, and I can't wait to workshop it together! 

Finally, to show off some recent work I've gotten done, lets take a look at Osori, the fiery mountain of plate Laki and see what the Peak of the world looks like!

Hate fills the air here, red mist clouds the sky above, and the stirring below your feet is broken only by the fruitless efforts of the Osori Nuns or lurking beasts in the underbrush. Osori looms over the city of Peak, mimicking the hateful Daiymo's spite:

Peak perfectly encapsulates the new design I am running with when designing cities, especially when compared to the city of last update, Song. It is a living, breathing, mess of intertangled plots, schemes, and citizens just trying to live their lives in a military state solely set on conquest.

Fitting the aesthetic of black and red, I also come hither to display the first look at Shadows!

Shadows represent the reason and weight behind every Sleepwalker's journey. Each of them represents the dark side of the PC, revealing their tragic history and the consequences of pushing themselves too hard. Mechanically, all of the Shadows hold the reigns on a characters breaking point. They cannot use Tracks, Bonds (friends), or interact with the Dream while in this state. 

Speaking of Tracks, let’s take a look at some we’ve been playtesting with lately:

Each Track is open ended, light weight, and intended to act as a tool for players to use and abuse in creative ways throughout the campaign. Through playtesting we’ve found that keeping these niche yet core to how the characters approach the world makes them feel extraordinarily special, and at the moment I am proud of their place in the Nexus.

Finally, to finish off this update, here is a new culture - the Dawa. 

While many of the Cultures of the Nexus are self arrogant narcissists, the Dawa flip the script. Their religion celebrates the ruination of their bodies and the inevitable deaths that loom ever-closer. They consider their minds and consciousness only a punishment for previous wrong-doings.  These sad saps can often be found on the plate of Harrow, tending to their herds on quiet pastures while they wait out their inevitable demise, supplying their sacred livestock around them with worship and offerings.

And that should about do it! Before I disappear into the Nexus to catalog more wild fables and creatures of the eternal day, I want to say thanks again for believing in me and for all of the love and support that you give me on each and every update. I hope you all have a fantastic day and may the Dream be kind to you Sleepwalker!

Revamped Nexus, the Expanse, City of Song, and Two New Cultures!
over 2 years ago – Wed, Aug 02, 2023 at 05:51:37 PM

We hope sleep's embrace has been kind to you, Dreamer. Tonight I got a buncha new places, people, encounters and cultures of the Nexus to show off!

So its been a hot minute since last update, apologies for that. The book has been moving at a steady pace, I may need to push the delivery date back to account for the new content added by stretchgoals and backer tiers but I will keep you posted as we get closer to next year. Additionally, speaking of backer tiers, I will begin sending out messages to Poets, Samurai, and Daimyo this fall to get their input, so keep an eye out for that as we finish up summer!

Lately I have been busy cracking away at the shape of the collective unconscious world of the fever dream. Much of my time has been devoted to the DM's catalogue of the various regions of the Nexus. Encounter tables and new areas have been a major focus as I work to round out a lot of the Nexus and I'm quite happy with the unique range of regions and peoples to see and get killed by.

Now lets remove the eye from the socket and hold it close to the pink desert plate of Ful to take a look at two areas in particular that expose the greed, secrets, and factions of the weird wild east.

The shifting sands are bountiful in blood and suffering, but they are also beautiful, perhaps even mesmerizing with tangled timelines and odd mysteries abound. The Expanse additionally grasps at the city of Song, a grand bazaar ruled by the Keiji Great House Ashi-Eddan.

Song, and to a greater extent Ful, definitely channel more traditional OSR scumbaggery themes than other plates. Many stories here revolve around blood, schemes, gold, and nasty handshakes below the belly of civilized folk. Its definitely my favorite place to start a new campaign in the Nexus.

To explore the people of Ful, here are two of the playable cultures across the plate:

The Xin rule the Lockhouse, a gigantic wall-city-gate-thing that stops the Stone Horde from ransacking Song and keeps a semblance of apolitical peace on Ful. They are perhaps one of the weirdest and most meta cultures of the Nexus. They are you, you are them. The separation is... transient at best. 

"Why in Angels' name are the sea-faring Balta on a desert plate?!" primarily sailing the sea of Oceas, an infamous family of Balta known as the Flints have settled an oasis estate atop the river Vaita. There they enjoy the flow as their ruthless family extracts every drop of sweat they can get from the local populace. Of course, everyone knows they don't truly belong here, and its bad enough with them missing the Father they hold dear so suddenly...

That should wrap up this update! I just wanted to say thanks again for your patience and love, I really appreciate all of those who gave their support or are simply cheering me along the way. Its an absolute joy to get the opportunity to throw weird pages your way. Have a fantastic night and don't forget to grab a Keiji blood pint on your way out!

Huge Update! Two New Cultures, Encounters, and Backgrounds!
about 3 years ago – Tue, Apr 25, 2023 at 03:33:55 PM

Afternoon Sleepwalker! Take a seat by the fire and partake in some fresh Pekan tea, we got a plethora of cool shit to show off today. 

First order of business, if you are new to the Nexus and want to snag a copy for yourself, here is a link to our preorder store on Backerkit!

Now onto the good stuff... the past two months have been nothing but grinding out art and writing for the Nexus, with the spotlight on the player-side of the book. The first brick in the wall was backgrounds. Dripping with salacious text that paints a picture in your brain, they also have to be open enough to be stretched to work with the player's story. Finding a happy medium, I opted to keep descriptions short and art provocative. 

With d66 background options I still have a long road of art ahead of me, so expect to see another page or two revealed in the coming months. 

The other half of player-focused content I've been chiseling at is the Cultures. The first are perhaps one of the oddest Cultures of the Nexus, the Relics. Barely human, made of glass and determination, Relics wage an ancient war against the Fever Dream, defying all rules of the Nexus itself to walk amongst us.

Next are the Eti, who seem much less concerned about the Fever Dream or the Nexus and probably are more focused on securing their next drink.

On the DM-side of the book, my focus has been on the Harrow plate and its themes of 'man versus nature'. Unlike other plates, swollen in their politics and House drama, Harrow is a dangerous frontier where old traditions and beasts meet for bloody consequences. 

And that's it for today! I just want to once again thank everyone who helped make the Nexus a reality, this wouldn't be possible without you. I hope you have a great rest of your week and wonderous dreams!

Thats a Wrap!
about 3 years ago – Fri, Mar 03, 2023 at 12:46:52 PM

WE DID IT!!! KICKSTARTER COMPLETE! And I can't believe we managed to destroy 8k just before the end!! I am astounded by the hype around FDN, and I'm so proud we absolutely knocked it out of the park so close to the finale! It means so much to me, every pledge, everyone that shared it, every kind message, I couldn't be more excited to get this out to you guys! You guys are the absolute best, and I'll say it just one more time: Thank you so much.

So what now? I will be doing monthly updates showing off content and development progress, so look out for those! If you want to change your pledge tier or missed the campaign, I will be adding a BackerKit in the next few days. Otherwise, feel free to continue asking questions, share my posts around, and make sure you check out my twitter for the latest news! Thanks again to everyone who believed in Fever Dream Nexus, you are my inspiration.