Design Diary 1 (Patreon)

Hey Humblechums,

We’re trying out something new. As the creation of Humblewood 2 really ramps up, we’re going to be sharing our design diaries with you. These will have lots of little looks into what we’re up to over each month.

New Writers Join the Party

This week we brought on a few fantastic writers to help craft the continent of Wesden and the Amaranthine. Working with really creative folks and getting a wide range of perspectives is one of the joys of putting together an expansive campaign setting. 

When we onboard writers, we have to wrangle a lot of information into a manageable form for them to work from—everything from Humblewood 1 and all the plans for Humblewood 2. We built an internal wiki for writers to reference when they work on Humblewood. For example, if someone needs to know who the leader of the Humblewood Council is, they can quickly find out that it's Bitta and see her description and picture, so they can describe her accurately in a new encounter. 

We also put together templates that help make sure the different sections of the book work together consistently. The writing team and project manager Chris have been having lots of meetings with the new writers, and we're excited to have these new folks adding their voices to Humblewood.

Sneak Peek at an Upcoming Adventure 

We’ve also been working on something secret that ties into Humblewood 2. We’ll have more info for you in June, and the final product will be released to all of you in the second half of this year! For now, we can share a sneak peek.

The writing team sometimes does some pretty strange sketches…

A rough pen sketch of a long lizard-like creature clinging to a stalagmite. Labels on the drawing say "magic item glowing through skin", "purple lightning" and "stalagmite"

… but artists like Nereida Marzena Piwowar transform them into something great!

A close up of a rendered version of the same creature in color. 

We’ve also got some friendlier faces being sketched at the moment by Emory Kjelsberg!

A series of hero character sketches of a mustel (stoat) wrangler and a mapach (red panda) wizard showing different color and pose options.

Preview of Next Month's Mini

There’s more sketching going on in-house too. Victoria, our mini sculptor shared these sketches of next month’s mini:

Pencil sketches of a jaunty character in a hat from multiple angles and in different poses. 

Can you guess from this which race is going to be in the playtest for April?

Cool Animal Fact We Learned While Researching

Around 70% of the bearded vulture's diet consists of bones. 

Bearded Vulture in Flight by Giles Laurent

Also, the distinctive red-orange color on their neck and chest comes from bathing in dust. We think they look quite dashing!

What We're Listening To

Finally, here’s a playlist of music that the team has been listening to recently. These are the tunes we're working to. The theme of this month seems to be SPEED.