The City of Arches – A High-Fantasy 5e RPG City Sourcebook

We Did It!
12 days ago – Sat, Sep 07, 2024 at 07:11:10 AM

Thanks to you and 4,370 other awesome backers, the City of Arches is a fantastic success! We’re so excited to bring this book into your hands so you and your players can step through the streets of this ancient city and discover the adventures lying within.

Verify Your Email Address

Here’s the most important information you need to know:

You must be able to receive emails from BackerKit to get your rewards. 

Please verify that your Kickstarter email address is an email address to which you can receive emails from BackerKit. If we cannot reach you, we cannot give you your rewards.

Next Steps

It takes about three weeks for us to receive the funding from Kickstarter and for all of your pledge information to make its way into BackerKit.

Once we’ve received funding and the pledge information is in BackerKit, we’ll send digital rewards to all digital-reward backers for every book except the City of Arches PDF (which we’re still making). You’ll receive links through BackerKit to download your digital book packages for both DriveThruRPG and a direct download.

During this time, we’ll be setting up the BackerKit pledge manager so you can add other items to your pledge.

Any orders for physical books will be shipped together along with the City of Arches hardcover early to mid 2025.

Production of the City of Arches

The City of Arches sourcebook has been through editing and initial layout. We commissioned more art after we received the layout but have approximately 75% of the art already in hand. We have some extra room in the book so we’ve started writing and editing new material to add into the book – great table-usable material that will make this book valuable for years to come.

We cannot give a firm date on the City of Arches PDF release but hopefully late 2024 or early 2025. We’ll release the PDF and let everyone have a good look at it before we send it to the printer for our hardcover print run.

When we have the PDF complete, we’ll send it over to Shard for development on the Shard VTT. When that conversion is complete, we’ll send you your 50% off coupon for the Shard version of the City of Arches.

Thank You Again!

Thank you again for such a wonderful campaign. It means the world to us that you support the work we do. We can't wait to get this book into your hands.

Mike & Michelle

City of Arches on Shard Tabletop
about 1 month ago – Fri, Aug 16, 2024 at 11:12:45 AM

Hi friends! 

We’re closing in on the middle of the campaign and I want to thank all of you for your outstanding support! If you’re excited about this book, please tell your friends! Send them an email, talk about it on your favorite social media platform, share your excitement and help bring this awesome book to more people!

City of Arches on Shard Tabletop

Thanks to Hal over at Shard, the City of Arches will be on Shard Tabletop! We’re planning to sell it for $20 on Shard but every backer of the City of Arches sourcebook – either digital or physical – will get a $10 off coupon so you can pick it up on Shard for half price!

If you haven’t checked out Shard, it’s an awesome web-based virtual tabletop that includes tools for both desktop and mobile play. They support several RPGs including 2014 5e and Tales of the Valiant by Kobold Press.

The City of Arches in Shard will have the adventures and maps all loaded for your use along with all the material in the book available in the Shard compendium.

Shard Tabletop is free to play and you can even GM a campaign for free. If you want to upgrade to a subscription version, Shard is including a 50% discount on Gamemaster or Gamemaster Pro subscriptions for the first year to all backers.

We’re really excited to bring the City of Arches to Shard!

What About Other VTTs?

Porting material to other virtual tabletops is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor so right now we don’t have plans for other VTTs. If we can figure out a good cost-effective way to do so, we’ll certainly try. I don’t expect to have further news on this during the Kickstarter.

However, all of the maps in the City of Arches are designed to be easily dropped into your favorite virtual tabletop of choice whether it’s Roll20, Foundry, Fantasy Grounds, Owlbear Rodeo, or another VTT. Anyone purchasing the City of Arches will get this VTT map pack included for free!

Thank you!

Thank you again for your outstanding support for the City of Arches! Again, if you’re excited about this campaign, please spread the word!

An Awesome First Three Days!
about 1 month ago – Thu, Aug 08, 2024 at 09:49:48 AM

What a crazy and wonderful few days it’s been! The City of Arches funded in the first 48 minutes of the campaign, which is awesome! We crossed 2,000 backers last night which means we can order a healthy supply of the hardcover versions of the book for all of those who backed the hardcover and for people who learn about it later.

Your comments have been such a joy to read. We really think you’re going to love this book and we can’t wait to get it on your table.

We’ve had a couple of common questions we wanted to answer. We’ve added these to the FAQ so please check there first if you have a question and remind others to check there if you run into other people asking these questions.

When will we get PDFs of current books?

For those who back pledges or get add-ons of existing books, you'll likely get links to the digital version of those book about a month after the end of the Kickstarter. 

In order for us to send out digital rewards, we need Kickstarter to send us the funding and we need to pay off BackerKit before we can send rewards. We can then send out emails from BackerKit with direct download and DriveThruRPG links for digital products. We’ll also include the print-on-demand links for the four Fantastic books as described on the Kickstarter page.

Will the City of Arches include an EPUB version?

Yes! We love EPUB as a file format for RPG products since it formats well for screens of any size and offers much better accessibility than PDF. Building one is always a challenge but the format of the City of Arches should lend itself well to EPUB. It probably won’t be until after the PDF but we do plan to include an EPUB and all digital and physical backers for the City of Arches will get it.

Also, the four Fantastic books and Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master include EPUB versions alongside the PDFs. 

Videos!

The City of Arches Kickstarter homepage now has a video section including a video on running Golgoron Arises, the intro scenario included in the 42 page sample. I also added an awesome solo play video by Homemade Heroes using Shadowdark and Solodark! It’s really fun and worth a watch.

I plan to add a new video each week as the campaign goes forward!

Tell Your Friends!

I’m so happy that you’re excited for this project! If you want to continue to support our campaign, please tell your friends! Talk about it on Reddit and your favorite Discord servers. Post and repost messages on your favorite social media networks. Let everyone know about the book and recommend they check out the sample chapters to see if it’s for them!

Thank you again for the outstanding support! You’re going to love this book!