Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG

Happy New Year!
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 31, 2024 at 01:57:18 PM

Happy Holidays, Worldhoppers!

We hope everyone is enjoying a joyful and restful end of the year. There’s no question that 2024 was an incredible year for Brotherwise Games. We had two Kickstarter campaigns that exceeded our highest hopes. We launched the Mistborn Deckbuilding Game to rave reviews and runaway sales. We also got to celebrate with fellow Cosmere fans at Dragonsteel Nexus and read Wind and Truth.

As we cross the finish line of this awesome year, we wanted to share a few quick updates.

Cards Getting Charged Today

In our last update, we notified you that cards would be charged for the Pledge Manager at the end of the year. If you've paid for your add-ons and shipping costs on BackerKit, your card will be locked and charged today. We’ve already started locking placed orders and the actual charges take time to process, so it may not be until tomorrow before every card is charged.

No action is required today. We’ll keep the Pledge Manager open through January, but this is a good time to finalize your pledge for the Stormlight-related items. If you have any questions about your order, you can contact [email protected] for help.

Note that Backerkit customer service is off for the holidays, so if you have any issues, you may not hear back from them until Friday at the earliest.

Project Status

The Cosmere RPG team must be tapping bronze, because they’ve been working around the clock to get your Stormlight rewards ready for production! In particular, three team members have stayed busy right through the holidays: our Graphic Design Lead Gordon McAlpin, Lead Editor Laura Hirsbrunner, and Art Director Katie Payne.

As we mentioned two weeks ago, the Stormlight Handbook is fully approved and at the printers. Since then, it has gone past the “e-proof” stage and is moving to physical proofing. We’ve also handed over all files for physical items like dice and miniatures. The World Guide is just a few days away from handoff to the factory. Stonewalkers is fully laid out and just awaiting a final round of Dragonsteel review. We’re now putting the finishing touches on our softcover releases: Bridge Nine, The First Step, and Welcome to Roshar.

We couldn’t be happier with how everything is looking. In parallel with all this pre-production work for Stormlight, our designers and writers are hard at work on the Mistborn Handbook and Mistborn World Guide so we can stay on track for our 2026 delivery dates, too!

A Holiday Gift

Two of our team members, writer Meric Moir and artist Marie Seeberger, surprised our team with a short adventure during the holidays! We’d like to pass their gift on to you in the form of this lighthearted, holiday-themed scenario: Middlefest in Urithiru. 

This adventure is intended for Tier 2 characters and references some adversary profiles from the Stormlight World Guide, but if you’d like to give it a try, it would be easy to substitute some of the NPC stat blocks for ones available in the Beta Rules Preview. We should also mention that this adventure hasn’t been reviewed by Dragonsteel, but we thought it was too fun not to share.

Spreading the Word

The Cosmere community is the best fandom we know, and we’d like to call upon your power! There are two easy ways you can help the community grow by spreading the word about Cosmere games.

• The Mistborn Deckbuilding Game is already a hit, and spent most of December at #1 on the BoardGameGeek “Hotness” chart. You can help it stay strong simply by visiting our BGG page. (Positive ratings can also help it maintain its very strong score, but please only review it if you’ve actually played the game.) If you’re in the US and want this game, check your local Barnes & Noble or FLGS. A new printing will also hit stores in January, which should make it much easier to find.
   
• We’re longtime fans of EN World, a TTRPG news site and community, so we’re delighted to see that they’ve included the Cosmere RPG as a nominee for the Most Anticipated RPG of 2025. Log in to EN World to cast your vote! Please note that the game is listed alphabetically as "Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere RPG." Getting recognized by EN World could help us reach even more people, so thanks in advance for anyone who helps us rock the vote.

Always the Next Step

As fantastic as 2024 has been, we’re just as excited for 2025. In the year ahead, we’ll finally get to share the Stormlight sourcebooks with all of you, and introduce the rest of the world to the Cosmere Roleplaying Game. Thanks to every backer of this campaign for making our dreams a reality, and here’s to exploring a universe of adventure for years to come!  

Dragonsteel Nexus Recap, Progress on Stormlight Campaign Setting, and more!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Dec 18, 2024 at 09:22:07 AM

Happy Holidays, Worldhoppers! It hasn't even been a month since we last updated you here, but we couldn't wait to tell you about our time at Dragonsteel Nexus and the State of the Cosmere RPG Panel.

We also have updates on the RPG and our progress as we enter the New Year. Let's get into it!

Dragonsteel Nexus

The Brotherwise team flew to Utah for Dragonsteel Nexus at the beginning of this month, and we had an amazing experience! The RPG team hosted a creative summit the day before the convention's first day to brainstorm what's next for the Cosmere RPG, the future of the Plotweaver system, and more!

The highlight of the convention was connecting with the community. We lost count of how many people approached us to share how much fun they had playtesting the Cosmere RPG and how excited they were for the final product.

On Friday night, hundreds of people showed up at our "State of the Cosmere RPG" panel to hear a status update on the project. We gave sneak peeks at the development of the Stormlight and Mistborn Campaign Settings and even shared that the Stormlight Handbook is 100% complete and off to the printers! For all of you who couldn't make it to the show, Johnny recorded this video recap of the panel:

Thank you all for a wonderful Dragonsteel Nexus. We appreciate you so much and are proud to be part of such a positive and welcoming community—thank you for letting us make games for you!

RPG Progress

Since Nexus, the team has continued to charge forward on Stormlight work. This week, we received final Dragonsteel comments on the Stormlight World Guide, which means we're on track for our final "gold master" review meeting next Monday. Here's a peek inside!

We should be able to hand off the World Guide by the end of the calendar year, and the Stonewalkers hardcover is close behind. Bridge Nine and Welcome to Roshar are both nearly complete, the First Step is in layout, and then our final Stormlight printed products will be accessories like the maps and tokens. Thanks to our very hard-working team (including our dedicated Dragonsteel counterparts) everything is proceeding right on schedule!

Printing Partners Signed! 

As our printing partners begin work on the Stormlight Handbook, we’re excited to announce our collaboration with Longpack! Longpack has produced high-quality games and dice for years, and with their meticulous attention to detail and dedicated team, we are thrilled to have officially partnered with them for the Cosmere RPG! 

Chasmfiend Magazine added to Backerkit!

Good news! For those of you who missed it at Gen Con, Issue 1 of Chasmfiend (the official magazine of the Cosmere RPG) is available on the BackerKit pledge manager now. Chasmfiend is chock full of RPG sneak peeks and other fun articles, and at just $5 for a printed copy, you might want to add it to your Cosmere RPG Kickstarter order before cards charge later this month. Speaking of which...

Cards Getting Charged on December 31

This is just a reminder that cards are getting charged for the Pledge Manager on December 31st! If you've placed your order by the end of the year, your card will be charged at that time. The Pledge Manager will remain open through January, but this is a good time to finalize your pledge for the Stormlight-related items. If you have any questions about your order, please get in touch via [email protected].

We'll send another update in January as we approach the close date for the Pledge Manager. Until then, have a great Holiday season and a Happy New Year!

Resources List:

• The Official Cosmere RPG Discord
• BackerKit Survey
• VTT Breakdowns

The VTT Update, Dragonsteel Nexus, and What's Next
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 02:42:00 PM

Hello, Worldhoppers! In this update, we are hopping into the digital realm with VTTs! Virtual Tabletops are an entirely optional part of the Cosmere RPG experience, but can be a great way to connect with other players around the world.

Many of you have upgraded your pledge to include VTTs upon the digital release, and many of you are asking about each VTT and what it offers. So, in this update, we will explain what VTTs are and what each sponsored VTT from us will offer. This update explains everything in detail and includes a chart that notes each VTT's capabilities.

Ultimately, your VTT choice depends on your preferences regarding user experience, interface, and subscription/license models. Demos of the VTTs will be available until the digital release of the Stormlight Campaign Setting in Q2 of 2025.

We also want to discuss our plans for Dragonsteel Nexus and the progress of the RPG. This is a pretty hefty update…so let’s dive in!

What is a VTT?

VTT stands for Virtual Tabletop! VTTs are digital platforms that allow you to play tabletop roleplaying games (like the Cosmere RPG!) online with your TTRPG group. There are many VTTs online nowadays, and they all have different subscription services, capabilities, and things they’re good at. 

At the beginning of the campaign, we partnered with two VTTs: Demiplane/Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. Eventually, we unlocked the Foundry VTT stretch goal due to overwhelming support and requests from our backers! In the BackerKit Pledge Manager, you can upgrade your pledge tier or PDFs to include the “Enhanced Digital Upgrade.” This means that your PDFs will now be compatible with the software of your choice. Later on in this update, we’ll show you how to upgrade your pledge! But before that, we'd like to do overviews of each VTT option.

Foundry VTT

Foundry is a self-hosted VTT. This means that you’ll need to purchase a $50 license once to host your server. Because each server is self-hosted, Foundry is a bit different from the other VTTs, meaning that Foundry does not provide direct support like Demiplane/Roll20 and Fantasy Grounds. We are working closely with the community on this adaptation. That means some extra work on our end, which is why it wasn't something we added to the campaign until we heard such strong feedback from the community. You can expect Brotherwise official support for Foundry VTT, including simultaneous releases for new books/modules. The community team has started up a Discord server that you can join here for regular updates.

If you’d like to see a demo of the Foundry VTT from the development team, head here - if you’d like to try out the demo, you will need to purchase the license, download V 0.2.0, and set up your own server. Foundry has a lot of great resources for setting up your own server, which you can find at this link. Foundry is currently running a 20% off promotion until Tuesday, December 3rd! If you chose Foundry for your software, now is an excellent time to get the license! Only the GM needs to buy the license, and players can join the games for free.

You can also try out Foundry's Pathfinder web demo here to see the full server hosting capabilities without buying a license.

Want Foundry VTT but not sure your internet connection is up for hosting? There are plenty of hosting services available. Check out this video about hosting services.

What is Foundry good at?

Foundry is good at customization. You can add any of the MANY modules from the modding community to make it the VTT experience you want. For example, you can add a visual effects module for different abilities and time of day! The downside to Foundry is its learning curve: you will need to know how the back-end system works to use each module. If you're looking for a fully customizable experience, then Foundry may be your VTT choice.

Demiplane/Roll20

Demiplane and Roll20 were separate companies until a recent merger. Demiplane and Roll20 are both subscription-based but do different things – you will receive both if you select the Demiplane/Roll20 option in your Enhanced Upgrade! Demiplane has excellent character creation software that you can demo right now for free, and with the two joining force, you will be able to use your character sheets with Roll20 in 2025. Demiplane also has game libraries, compendiums, and ways to find an online group to play games! 

Roll20 is a web-based VTT with a straightforward platform for playing RPGs. You can use tactical maps to move your character around, roll 3D dice, and have interactive character sheets with automated tools! You can even use Roll20 in your Discord server as an Activity. Demo the Cosmere RPG on Roll20 today!

Demiplane and Roll20 are both free services with subscriptions that add additional features. You can access backed content from your Demiplane content library and listings without a subscription, and keep up to 7 characters at one time. To unlock unlimited characters and share your content with up to 24 other people, you can purchase a monthly subscription for $4.99 or an annual subscription for $47.88. Roll20 has a free subscription, but if you want to unlock some cool features, they have subscription tiers for $5.99 and $9.99 monthly.

What is Demiplane/Roll20 good at?

Demiplane and Roll20 have great automation tools throughout their platform. Demiplane lets you create your character and jump into a game with ease. Roll20 allows customization for homebrew content, and access to community modules to completely customize your experience. If you're looking for an easy-to-use, straightforward VTT, Roll20 and Demiplane may be your VTT choice!

Fantasy Grounds

Fantasy Grounds is an app-based VTT that is powerful and versatile, featuring the largest catalog of officially licensed tabletop roleplaying game content. You can host your game online with all the rules and artwork from the Cosmere RPG at your fingertips. You'll be able to spend less time preparing for your sessions, customize with updated visuals, roll 3D dice, move your characters around on a map with dynamic lighting, use cool animated assets, and much more!

You can download Fantasy Grounds on Windows, Mac, Linux, and Steam. Players can demo the playtest content simply by signing up for a free account and installing the app, while those looking to run games can choose either a Core license at $20 or an Ultimate license at $50, without a subscription or annual fees (although that option exists if you prefer to use it). The Ultimate license allows unlimited and straightforward hosting, with no need to worry about configuring firewalls or opening ports, as Fantasy Grounds does its magic to handle those technical aspects automatically.

What is Fantasy Grounds good at?

Fantasy Grounds is an excellent VTT for GMs looking for powerful automation, seamless rules integration, flexibility, and customization. With a full library of artwork, maps, portraits, and more to use from the Fantasy Grounds team, it is a great place to start for new and seasoned GMs alike. The community has created many custom mods and extensions for you to further customize your game as well. If you're looking to prep less, play more, and make the VTT experience your own, then Fantasy Grounds may be the VTT for you!

Most of these should be self-explanatory, but here are a couple of clarifications:

• The Character Level Up Wizard is an automated tool within each VTT where you can easily level up your character within their character sheet. No need to memorize the rules! The VTT will guide you through it.
• Presets Libraries are helpful for both GMs and Players alike. You'll be able to look up items, talents, and adversaries within the VTT interface, and automatically bring them into your campaign.

How to upgrade your PDFs for VTT access

Upgrading your PDFs to get VTT access is really simple! If you pledged for the Player, GM, or Collector tiers, you just need to select the respective Digital Upgrade. With these options, you'll get both the PDF and VTT upgrade.

If you want to choose individual PDFs to upgrade, select the "Digital Book VTT Upgrade" option, and you'll be prompted which book you'd like to upgrade. Additionally, if you just want VTT support for an individual item, you can select the "Single PDF or Enhanced VTT" option for $30 to get any enhanced PDF.

Dragonsteel Nexus is Nigh!

The Brotherwise and RPG team will head to Utah for Dragonsteel Nexus from December 5th to 7th! If you're going, stop by booth #507, right next to the Game Room! In addition to Stormlight Premium Miniatures and other Brotherwise games, we'll have Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game with the holofoils for sale.

Out big event for Dragonsteel Nexus is the State of the Cosmere RPG panel on Friday from 9:00PM to 10:00PM! Our intrepid team leads will share a look at some pages from the final Stormlight Handbook, share updates on the Stonewalkers adventure, show off gorgeous new art, and take you behind the scenes of Mistborn development.

We can't wait to see you very soon!

What's Next?

In addition to preparing for Dragonsteel Nexus, the Brotherwise and RPG teams have been hard at work getting all the Stormlight products finalized.

• Right now the Stormlight Handbook is complete and has been through final Dragonsteel review. We're implementing final proofreading notes before sending it to the printers.
• The Stormlight World Guide is nearly complete, just awaiting some graphic design tweaks and a couple of final illustrations. It's headed to Dragonsteel next week for final layout review.
• The Stonewalkers Adventure has been written, designed, playtested, and has been through multiple rounds of continuity review. We're still at the midpoint of art and maps for this one, but those are proceeding well.
• Bridge Nine, Welcome to Roshar, and the GM Screen are complete and just receiving final tweaks before handoff to the printer. The First Step still needs some art and layout work, but is close behind.
• Our new RPG Miniatures Set is completely sculpted, approved, engineered, and ready for tooling! (That's the process of building die-cast molds for injection molding, which generally takes at least two months.) We just issued the purchase order for those today.
• Accessories like the Plot Decks, Map Folio, and Token Packs still need some work but are on track to be complete in January. (They've been lower priority because they're faster to print than the books.)

Everything is still on track for September 2025 delivery of Stormlight products. We're also still on schedule for the Mistborn sourcebooks (due a year later). Mistborn Alpha Testing is underway, and the first two sourcebooks are about 80% drafted (but still need months of revisions, playtesting, and editing).  

Cards Getting Charged on December 31st

88% of our backers have completed their pledge manager surveys, meaning 12% of you still need to complete this process! You must put in your shipping information to receive your rewards. Can't find your survey? Head here to find it! If you need further assistance with your order, don't hesitate to contact [email protected]. 

Thanks so much for your continued support of this project. We are so excited to move into the manufacturing process for this RPG very soon! We'll put out another update closer to the New Year, but in the meantime, Happy Holidays!

Pledge Surveys Out! And FAQs.
almost 2 years ago – Thu, Oct 17, 2024 at 01:35:49 PM

Greetings Worldhoppers! 

We have officially sent out ALL pledge surveys. If you have not received yours, please contact BackerKit Support by visiting this link.

Speaking of Backerkit Support, we'd like to thank the whole team for helping with this launch AND fielding many of the help requests that have come in. We're thrilled with how smoothly the pledge manager launch has gone; they've been a big part of that. That's not to say we haven't run into any hiccups, but we are pleased to report that most of these issues were resolved quickly and without impacting anyone's surveys. Here are some of the "patch notes" of what we've adjusted and resolved: 

$1 Add On Tier: We noticed an issue where some of our $1 Add On backers were not able to enter their shipping address. This has been corrected, so if you encountered this error, please log back in to make sure to check that you have entered your shipping address. 

STL miniatures were missing from the Digital Only add on: We added the STL Miniatures to that add on and it now has all the items it should. 

Deleting campaign-purchased add-ons is now so simple! In the add-ons screen of your pledge manager survey, you will see a trash can icon. Clicking this icon will remove the item, but keep the credit so that you can add additional items! See below.

Apple IDs: We are still having some issues with backers who used Apple IDS in Kickstarter. If you are trying to contact us or Backerkit using them, please know that we cannot reply to those IDs. If you need to contact us to update your email, contact us through Kickstarter messenger or at [email protected].

FAQs

Here are answers to some  FAQs that we've been hearing:

Do I need to pay VAT if I live in a VAT-friendly zone? No! If you're in one of the VAT-friendly zones listed on the Kickstarter campaign page, we will arrange for the product to ship from within that zone and cover VAT. Conversely, if you live in a country that charges VAT/Duties but is outside of one of those zones, note that you may be charged duties when taking delivery of your rewards.

Can I get a description of what each VTT offers? We've asked our partners for succinct descriptions of what each VTT includes and offers, but if you are looking to answer your survey quickly, we recommend visiting their webpages and doing a little research. Everyone's tastes in interfaces and tools are different, and we want you to make the most informed decision you can based on your tastes.

When will you be Charging Cards and closing down the pledge manager? We're likely to charge cards in December, sometime after Dragonsteel Nexus. But... we'll likely keep the pledge manager open for a month or so after that, just in case you get the itch for something that you didn't have in your order before!

If you have any additional questions about your pledge survey, please comment in this update thread so that we can assist you! We'll be back with another update next month; thank you all for your continued support! 

Pledge Manager Emails Rolling Out!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Oct 11, 2024 at 09:35:41 AM

Happy Friday, Backers!

The Backerkit pledge manager is finalized and we've begun to send out surveys to backers. As of this morning, about 6,000 (our of 55,000) emails have gone out. We'll launch another 5,000 once this update is live, followed by increasing numbers of surveys all through next week. It's very possible you won't get your survey until the end of next week, so don't panic if you're not seeing it. Having said that, checking your spam folder is always a good idea before contacting us about missing surveys! 

As a reminder, the Backerkit pledge manager is where you'll check your items, add on anything you might have missed, and pay for shipping for all of it. So far it's been smooth sailing with no obvious issues for backers, but we did want to remind you of some things:

Using Backerkit

Matt wrote up a detailed account of how to use Backerkit in our last update. If you're new to Backerkit, we HIGHLY recommend reading the full update before going into your survey. One thing that is already tripping some people up: Your TRUE shipping costs won't show until you enter your address into the survey; you can ignore any shipping estimate that is shown before doing that.

Slip Cases

This is a reminder that ANY pledge that includes all three hard-cover Stormlight books will get those books in a decorative slip case, even if they are added on individually or in separate items. Likewise for the Mistborn books. You will NOT necessarily see the slip cases in your list of items at checkout, but rest assured, we're on top of making sure your order gets those.

Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game

You heard that right, you can order the amazing new Mistborn game in the pledge manager. Designed by famed designer John D Clair, Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game let's you play as an Allomancer in the mist-shrouded city of Luthadel. Fight other Allomancers, or team up to face the all powerful Lord Ruler! In either play mode you'll burn metals to gain powerful abilities to use in combat or facing missions.

Every copy of Mistborn: The Deckbuilding Game ordered via the pledge manager comes with an exclusive set of 5 holofoil hero promos, but there's a catch, the game won't ship until the first wave of campaign fulfillment next summer. So if you're looking to play the game sooner you may want to get the version available in stores this November 6th. Will you be able to get the holofoil promos later? Maybe, but not for some time after wave 1 fulfillment. We'll also have the game (with promos) at Dragonsteel Nexus this December if you plan on being there!

Digital Bundles and Upgrades

Every physical copy of Cosmere book or booklet includes a matching PDF (in Spanish or English; you'll choose!). But should you be looking for an enhanced digital option (e.g., a virtual tabletop experience) the pledge manager includes a number of digital bundles and upgrades that allow you to do so. These can all look very similar, so I wanted to do a quick walkthrough of them here. If you're not planning on getting any digital products, you can close this update and eagerly await your survey!

The Digital only Bundle with Enhanced Content is for backers looking for a purely digital experience. You don't need to have purchased anything else for this bundle to give you everything you need to play. You'll get access to the VTT (Virtual Tabletop) of your choice and it will include enhanced digital copies of all the core books and included content. 

Contrast the Digital Only Bundle with the Digital GM Upgrade. See that golden arrow in the image? It means that you can ONLY buy this upgrade if you've already selected the Game Master pledge tier. There's a similar upgrade option ONLY for those who have selected the Player pledge tier called the Digital Player Upgrade ($50). Each of these upgrades includes enhanced digital versions of the physical content included in that pledge level, and again, you'll choose the VTT to access them on.

Lastly, we have a couple of digital options that are more a la carte, allowing you to get just that one book you wanted in digital format:

The Single PDF or Enhanced VTT add on lets you pick just one of the core books to receive as a PDF or via the VTT of your choice. This is a great way to dip your toe into the Cosmere RPG. This add on is really intended for players who aren't getting any of the physical items offered in the campaign. Contrast that with the...

The Digital Book VTT Upgrade is there for backers who are already getting some or all of the physical books, and simply want to upgrade one of their already-included PDFs to an enhanced version. Perhaps you're already getting the Stormlight Handbook, but would love to access it on Roll20/Demiplane? This is the add on to use.

That's it! Now you just need to wait for your survey. If you've not received a survey by October 18th, we recommend first reaching out to Backerkit at their Contact Us page. If you have any other questions, feel free to reach out to us through Kickstarter DMs, or to [email protected].