Proofs have arrived, address locking, and a new campaign!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Aug 19, 2022 at 10:09:25 PM

Hello all -  

We have a book!

It feels awesome to finally hold this in hand. I cannot thank all of you enough for making this become a reality! Now that the proof has arrived, ordering of actual fulfillment should begin next week for PF2e hardcover orders - softcover proofs are still pending and 5e is still in development. Importantly, this means address will lock on Monday, August 22nd. Even if your physical product is not shipping yet, all addresses will lock at once so please double check your shipping info on BackerKit and let me know right away if you have any issues! 

5e Progress - 5.5e?

Finalizing the 5e version of the Bestiary has lagged a bit, and I am very sorry for the delay. Completing the 5e version will be my primary focus next week, and despite the delay I think the final product will be great! Some sample stat blocks are below, along with the newly designed Leshy Race and associated heritages! I am traveling this week and have not had time to check out the 5.5e playtest, but I will look into adjusting the Leshy Race into the 5.5e format as well!

New Campaign

Finally, we recently announced the launch of our next project - The Gardener's Guide to Gaming! We had put this project on hold while we finalized things with The Botanical Bestiary, but it is finally happening! This new book will again be 5e and Pathfinder 2e compatible, and offers new creatures, spells, items, ancestries, archetypes, subclasses, and so much more! We are expanding heavily from The Botanical Bestiary and bringing in new writers and artists as well. You can follow the campaign page here, with the project due to launch mid-October. Hope to see you there!

- Matt

Address locking, 5e progress, future plans
over 1 year ago – Sat, Aug 06, 2022 at 03:28:26 PM

Hello again!

Back with another major update now as things are progressing quite well! To kick things off, we get to announce the launch of Inky Cap Press, which serves as the book publisher. Our website and details are still under construction, but you can expect more plant-based TTRPG fun from Inky Cap in the future!

Errata PDF available now

The errata for the Pathfinder 2e PDF is out now on backerKit. This errata'd version was made possible thanks to dedicated backers reviewing the entire book in our discord, and contributed over 200 adjustments to make the book the best it can possibly be! If you haven't downloaded this updated version yet make sure you grab it! 

DriveThruRPG release!

We have also now released the PDF on DriveThruRPG (you can find it here)! We have been doing well on DriveThru since release, consistently in the top 5 hottest and popular titles for Pathfinder, and were this week's Pick of the Week! While I assume the Kickstarter backers don't need to purchase the PDF again on DriveThru, any effort to share the link would be greatly appreciated! The increased traffic on DriveThru is critical to the project getting some legs and lasting in the space, and so far we are on the right track.

5e Progress

Progress on the 5e version of the bestiary is coming along well. The PDF should be released next week, though the exact date remains to be seen. Dagonzo has been working hard to carve through all the conversions, and all that remains is to import the creatures and touch up the language away from the PF2e terminology. A couple of sample pages are below, so you can see the stat block formatting we will be using. As you can see, these creatures are going to be just as great in 5e as they are in PF2e!

Physical Copies and Address Locking

After just too many delays, we are finally making progress on getting the physical copies ordered. The printer I had signed on with raised their price ~20% over their initial quote without warning, so we have again switched printers, but are now locked in and will not be changing again. Samples should be arriving to me within the next two weeks, and final orders placed shortly after. This is the first warning to double check your shipping information, as we will be locking addresses once the samples arrive and the final orders are placed!

Book two?

Finally, I have been delaying official announcement of our next project while we finalize things here, but we are getting close! Keep an eye out for an announcement soon for a Kickstarter starting launching this Fall!

- Matt

Pathfinder 2e PDFs out now!
almost 2 years ago – Sun, Jul 10, 2022 at 02:56:33 AM

It is time!

It has been a year in the making but the Botanical Bestiary is finally out! We have just released the first version of the Pathfinder 2e PDF through BackerKit, so keep an eye out for an email with the download. The PDF is being sent to anyone who selected a PF2e edition of the PDF in BackerKit, and is available as a single page and double page PDF. If you encounter any problems please reach out to me here, on twitter (@TTRPGHomebrew) or in our discord.

The PDF will be updated prior to printing to address any errata or errors that are encountered in this first version, so if you notice any issues please let me know! The upside to digital is that it isn't yet etched in stone (or paper) so we can adjust as needed. That being said, I hope there are minimal changes!

Timeline update

With the PDF out, we are now focusing all efforts on finalizing the 5e PDF, which is expected soon but without a hard deadline yet. Luckily, formatting the 5e version will be much quicker than PF2e, so it is really just a matter of finishing conversions. Both PDFs will be out for about a week before submission to the printer, so the timeline for hard and softcover shipping will be updated when the 5e PDF is released. Other physical rewards (stickers and bookmarks) are ordered and will ship with the books.

Digital assets will be updated after printing begins. The leshy heritages should be on Pathbuilder well before then, as early as next week. Foundry and Roll20 packages will be put together for PF2e and 5e at the same time once printing begins.

Thank you!

Would like to end by again thanking everyone for their enthusiastic support (and patience) of this project. It has been a privilege to work on, and your support is the only reason it was possible. There is still plenty of work left to do but new projects are already underway, so keep an eye out for more plant-based fun in the future!

- Matt

Cover art reveal, sample heritages, and release timeline updates!
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jun 10, 2022 at 07:47:59 PM

Hello all - 

Hope you've had a wonderful month. Its been busy over here, both with the bestiary and regular work. We have a ton of updates this month, as this is one of the last before products start releasing! Before getting into project updates, I wanted to announce that (thanks to our pre-order store) we now have over 500 backers! Thank you all for the support in helping to bring this project to life. It has been a long journey, but it is really coming together into something special. 

Next, we are proud to be a sponsor of Rainbow Rollfest, an online festival of actual play podcasts running June 18th-19th. Be sure to check it out and enjoy some of the wonderful podcasts that make the TTRPG space so enjoyable!

Now, onto the actual project updates! As promised from last month, we have cover art, heritage previews, printing timeline updates, and more to cover, so lets get to it! As always, feel free to message me on Kickstarter/Twitter/Discord, or leave a comment here if you have any questions. 

Timeline Update

A lot has happened on this front over the last two weeks. To give some background, the campaign was originally budgeted around using an online POD site for printing. However, since the project launched some concerns about the print quality have arose, as have prices due to supply chain issues. This has made the printer less appealing, and I attempted to pivot to a printer in the States back in April. What was initially quoted as a two-week turn around from that company become a 6-8 week timeline. While not completely unexpected, it was a frustrating delay to receive this late in the process. However, a new option has become available, and I am now planning to use a printer local to me that, while significantly more expensive, is quoting a 10 day turn around from PDF submission to printing, and since I can drive to them to pick the books (and proofs) there is much less shipping delay!

In addition, we will be releasing the PDFs before the printed book is ready. The PDFs are still expected this month (fingers crossed) for the Pathfinder 2e version, while the 5e version is going to lag slightly as we finish up the conversion process. My current expectation is to send an update one week before the PDFs are ready, then one week after the PDFs are out I will incorporate any additional feedback into a final round of edits and send the files for proofing to the printer. I am hesitant to give an exact date until things are more finalized, but tentatively  I expect the Pathfinder PDFs to release in two weeks, with the books printed in mid-July. The 5e version will then have PDFs by mid-July and printed by the end of July. I will again do my best to keep all of you in the loop about our timeline and expectations.

Cover art reveal!

Sita has finished the cover art, and it is stunning! It really highlights the variety of leshies in the book, as well as how bright and vibrant the bestiary is. As a reminder, this will be provided as a mobile background when the digital assets release (likely with and without the title and names). 

Sample Heritages

We've also generated a sample (3 out of 10) leshy heritages for preview/playtest/just for fun. The remaining heritages will become available when the book releases, and all ten will be available on Pathbuilder at the same time!  

Page dressing and layout

We have made great improvements in the stat block design, page dressings, and page layout since the initial conception. Below we have a sample that was presented on the original kickstarter page next to the latest design. This new version has a brighter background  to allow the art and text to "pop" more, as well as a better flow of information, better edge work, and page numbers in the dandelion flower! It feels greatly improved all around, so I hope you enjoy!

That should be all for now. I will back with another update soon to announce the PDF release times, so stay tuned!

- Matt

Heritages complete, and a new team member!
almost 2 years ago – Tue, May 03, 2022 at 06:33:44 PM

Hello!

We have a few exciting pieces of news for this month's update. First, as you all hopefully saw we have locked BackerKit orders and charged cards. This means that changes to the orders can no longer be made, but if you need to change your shipping information that is still possible through your BackerKit account. It also means that we now have firm counts on the number of books we will be ordering and for which formats. For those interested in production numbers, we are looking at 116 hardcover, 72 softcover, and 291 PDFs for Pathfinder2e, as well as 71 hardcover, 33 softcover, and 171 PDFs for 5e! The pre-order store also brought in over 100 new backers and another $5,000 towards the campaign. This is absolutely amazing and is going to allow us to do even more great things with the bestiary. Speaking of....

New team member!

We have officially contracted a new team member, Dagonzo from Night Owl Odysseys, to work on the conversion from Pathfinder 2e to 5e. Dagonzo has a ton of experience putting out awesome 5e content (often illustrated by Sita) and is going to help make sure the 5e versions of our beloved leshies are every bit as wonderful as their PF2e counterparts. This will also speed up the conversion process quite a bit, and will help us keep our release timeline. You can check out Dagonzo's work on twitter @nightowlodysseys and in our discord channel!

Heritages are complete!

Another major milestone down, as last week I received the completed leshy heritages from Linda Zayas-Palmer. And they are GREAT! We will have more teasers and information coming out once the heritages are formatted, but for now let's just say I've never wanted to play a leshy more (and from me that is a high bar!). As a reminder the new heritages will be Bonsai, Cat-tail, Coffee, Driftwood, Lichen, Pepper, Rose, Onion, Petrified, and Tumbleweed, and all will be available on Pathbuilder when the book releases!

Next steps

There is still much to do, but we are getting close to the end. The cover art is tentatively planned to be finished next week, leaving just formatting and conversion of 5e stat blocks remaining. We are also incorporating feedback on from our playtest creatures into the stat blocks before finalizing them, along with minor tweaks to formatting. Our tentative timeline for release remains this summer, but we will provide updates on actual dates as they become available. 

As always, feel free to message me on Kickstarter/Twitter/Discord, or leave a comment here if you have any questions. Thank you all so much for bringing this project to life, and I hope you love having it as much as I have loved making it.

- Matt