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Dark Obelisk: Berinncorte Basecamp Setting (Pathfinder/5E)

Created by J. Evans Payne

600+ page color PDF/hardcover with detailed NPCs and extended bestiary expanding the campaign setting of Berinncorte for Pathfinder/5E.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Aquilae: Bestiary of the Realm Kickstarter Launched
over 6 years ago – Fri, Sep 29, 2017 at 01:39:22 PM

TL;DR

Check out the new Kickstarter here.  

Why Do You Care?  

It will result in a crazy horde of content, usable in any game or campaign setting for Pathfinder or 5E.  

On the fence? Check out the freebie preview monster, the Skelettin, available on RPGnow (Pathfinder / 5E).  

  • ~450+ unique monsters.  
  • ~1,800+ total statblocks.  
  • Quadded Statblocks: Every single monster can be fielded in any adventure of the GM/DM's choosing: thanks to the miracle of this approach (check out the free PDF), each monster comes with 4 distinct stat blocks, covering a wide spread of difficulty levels.  
  • 3 massive PDFs.  
  • 3 massive hardcover books.  
  • ~1,400+ pages of total planned content.

 

Proof Hardcopy Previews!
over 6 years ago – Thu, Sep 28, 2017 at 05:41:48 PM

They're here!  They're huge!  They look nice and impressive!

Not only is Berinncorte Basecamp an enormously useful compendium of adventure and campaign setting content that's immediately insertable into any fantasy setting: as an added bonus, it can be used as a cudgel to beat intruders and defend your home!

My wife suggested that instead of "BB" standing for Berinncorte Basecamp, we consider the alternate moniker "Bookshelf Breaker".  

Three books arrived for my review: BB for Pathfinder, BB for 5E, and the Premium Atlas.  Fun fact: shipping weight was 12 pounds.

As a reminder, the Premium Atlas hardcover is a new product I put together, mainly because as a DM/GM I love having a separate physical book that has all my maps together.  Good news though is that once it's published, I'll send you all a discount code so you can pick one up at-cost.

Right: Without further ado, pictures.  

Spines View

With a bottle of wine for sizing comparison.  These books are like 4" thick.

Spines with wine.
Spines with wine.

BB vs. The Blight

I couldn't help myself: Here's a comparison of Berinncorte Basecamp to the recently-released The Blight by Frog God Games.  As you can see, BB is at least as big physically as Blight, so therefore it's automatically at least as good.  #aspirational #nerdGoals

BB vs. the Blight
BB vs. the Blight

Covers View

All three books side-by-side.

Covers.
Covers.

Inside the Book

Here's a good representative page.

Book interior.
Book interior.

NPC Interior

An example of an NPC page layout.

NPC example.
NPC example.

Inside the Atlas

Here's a spread of maps in the Atlas.

Atlas interior.
Atlas interior.

 

Production Update: Proofs Arriving Tomorrow
over 6 years ago – Tue, Sep 26, 2017 at 02:14:30 PM

Proof Arrival

Love, love, love getting that UPS notification: the proof hardcopies are scheduled to arrive tomorrow.  Very psyched to get my hands on them.

I'll post pix.  :)

Feedback Requested by October 2nd

This is also a good time to solicit feedback: I'll be poring through the hardcopies through the balance of the week, searching for typos and issues.  If you have any recommendations or requests for changes before I hit "go" on fulfilling the hardcovers, please get me your feedback by the end of this weekend if possible.

I realize it's a 700+ page book, so reading through it all, particularly in PDF format, takes a heck of a lot of time, but it'll only help make for a better final product.

Proof Hardcopies Ordered!
over 6 years ago – Sat, Sep 23, 2017 at 06:24:06 PM

Good news--the files finished validation with the printer, and I've at long last ordered my proof copies.  Given the delays, I expedited shipping so as to get them ASAP.

Once I've received and reviewed them, I will start hardcopy fulfillment.

Aside from a small handful of backers who for some reason didn't get the RPGnow email, I've received a lot of positive feedback from the PDF versions thus far; thanks to those who dropped me a note and I'm thrilled that folks seem to be enjoying the book thus far.

Thanks for your patience, everyone!

Publication Update: September 19th
over 6 years ago – Tue, Sep 19, 2017 at 06:07:21 PM

PDF Fulfillment

This should be complete.  If you still haven't gotten a friendly good-news note from RPGnow, please message me so I can help resolve!

Final page counts, FYI: Pathfinder 797, 5E 720.

Hardcopies

Good news is the Premium Atlas has passed printer review.  Bad news is the PFRPG and 5E versions of the book itself have not.

After two rejections of these files, I believe I've resolved the issue.  Updated files are in review now; I should be able to finally order my proof copies by Friday.

Root cause is a boring nit-pick, that the PDF guide OBS has for publishers mentions standard-weight paper, and the reality is that all color printing now uses heavyweight paper, so the resulting autocalcs for the spine layout are smaller than they should be.

Preface / Introduction Note

For those who haven't grabbed the multi-hundred-MB files or had a chance to read through them, I thought the following cribbed from the Preface of the book may be useful reading:

This is pretty nifty.  

How nifty it is to you depends on your prior exposure to Dark Obelisk 1: Berinncorte.  

If you’ve never dipped a toe into the realm of Aquilae, and the Dark Obelisk Adventure Path, then Berinncorte Basecamp will be a treasure trove of inspiration and immediately-usable content for any city setting. Dozens of NPCs, dozens of monsters, all in multiple-difficulty-range stats; over 500 complete entries of crunch. Over 70 maps. Rich detail of each and every tent, room, and dungeon level. Dozens of quests and random encounters. And so on.  

If you already have Dark Obelisk 1, particularly the Dramatis Personae & Bestiary book, you may find some of the book duplicative of the tomes you already have. That’s by design. The most straightforward reason is wanting to make Berinncorte Basecamp a standalone book, that doesn’t require use of or exposure to the other books associated with it.  

But my intent was also to make it easier to reference the content that’s part of the setting. One of the sometimes-awkward, sometimes-useful aspects of Dark Obelisk 1 is that the crunch is in a separate book from the adventure content. Berinncorte Basecamp attempts to combine the two in a single book for ease of reference.

Regardless of whether you need the somewhat-duplicative “crunch”, there’s still hundreds of pages of rich, new content to be found here, including the drop-in-anywhere Watchspire, and the standalone adventure Brushgather Farm.  

So ultimately, you may disagree with what might be considered “recycling” of some of the content. But even with that critique in mind, Berinncorte Basecamp still represents hundreds of pages of brand-new, original content. In addition, nearly every named NPC now has an illustration.  

Hopefully you find the resulting product useful for your gaming needs, regardless of your how you’re coming to it.  

Enjoy!