The Playtest Pack is Here! And a new product is revealed.
about 1 year ago – Tue, Mar 07, 2023 at 01:22:15 PM

It's playtest time! 

Work on the Itza’s Guide to Dragonbonding campaign continues. The Artbook is nearly finished and absolutely packed full with incredible pieces from so many talented artists. The new art for the main book is flying in daily and the writers are - well writing. And now we get to see what they have been up to!

Here is the latest Playtest Pack prepared by the wonderful Sarah Madsden. It’s 50 pages of content for you to read, test and give your feedback on. We are working on a feedback form and will send this out next week, but I wanted to get this content to you as soon as possible! We are so excited to hear your feedback. Join us over on Discord to chat through your thoughts.

Playtest Pack #1

A new RPG product…

During the campaign you voiced your wishes for more printed adventure content. So… we have listened and our Graphic Novel campaign launching next week includes a printed softback adventure featuring Itza and other characters from the comic. It’s called ‘The Weeping Mother’ and is written by our talented in house writer Bernardo Alvarez. This means that adding this product won’t delay the delivery of Itza's Guide as it’s a totally separate team.

We have even created a special tier for Gamers including:

• The Softback Graphic Novel +PDF
• ‘The Weeping Mother’. A 96-page urban mystery adventure for four 12th level players. Printed in softback.
• An Itza Necromancer D20
• Pre-generated character sheets and printed handouts
• 1 month Tribes subscription
   

And as a returning backer you also get a free Itza die when you back the campaign at any physical level.

Please follow the campaign here- we would love your continued support.

That's all for now - see you on Discord!

Pledge Manager Incoming!
about 1 year ago – Wed, Feb 08, 2023 at 02:12:20 PM

Development Update

Well, it's been a very exciting month over at Draco Gaming as we all work towards the delivery of the campaign. The writers have been furiously creating content. The drafts of the races and the creatures of Valerna are complete and in the editing phase. The classes and subclasses are coming in soon, and they have started in on the Dragons of Valerna chapter. We are hoping to have some playtest material ready to go in the next few weeks. 

New art is coming in daily and it's looking stunning! Here is a preview of some of the WIP artwork from the talented Rodrigo Gil.  

In addition our design team have started work on the layout for the Art Book, we want to make this a real exploration of the art of Dragonbond showcasing the evolution of our world through the art. Some concepts below created by the talented Heidi Chopan! 

We have chosen a manufacturing partner and booked a slot for the magic to happen and we are confident that we will be able to deliver to schedule. All being well we should be able to fulfil the digital rewards before July. 

Smoke test & Pledge Manager

The smoke test went out yesterday - thanks to all that gave us feedback. We have fixed some minor issues and the Pledge Manager is now ready to go live. 

We know most of you are already familiar with Backerkit but for those who are new to our family, here's a step by step: 

1. You'll receive an email asking you to complete your survey, the email will take you to this first tab that will ask for your general shipping details - country and state/region.

2. Once the country and state/region is confirmed, you will be asked a few questions regarding Draco Studios and the project. Here is where you can upgrade your core book to the deluxe hardcover book in the core book and game ready tiers. 

3. The favorite part for most of our backers, the addons! You will be able to pick any extra item you missed from the campaign. 

IMPORTANT NOTE - shipping will be adjusted in the next step once you add the proper shipping address.

4. Once your order is confirmed, you will be asked to add your shipping address (here is where your shipping fee will be updated at the payment stage). If you are picking up your pledge directly in Mexico City or Guadalajara, please add the preferred city and in Country choose "Local Pick Up".

5. Once your shipping address is confirmed, your balance will be updated and you will need to add your payment method. Once you add the info, click on "Place my order", your card will not be charged immediately, but once we lock orders.

And that's it! You can relax while we continue to work hard to create something wonderful. 

Dragonbond gets its own comic

As always a heartfelt thank you for supporting us and helping us to do what we love the most. Create products that bring the world of Dragonbond to life. And on that note I would love to share our next project with you. The Rise of Itza is the first Dragonbond comic and we have pulled out all the stops to make it stunning. 

If you want to read the first issue for free then sign up to our Drakha Press emails and you can immediately download and read issue 1. Let me know what you think in the comments. 

Sign up here & read the comic >>

Important OGL update!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 02:29:26 PM

Hi, fellow dragonbonded! 

I just wanted to take the time to talk about the big issue all RPG content creators are facing at the moment and that's the recent announcement from WotC about the upcoming OGL 1.1. If you haven’t heard about this yet then this is a great place to get some information and links for further reading. 

What does this mean for Itza’s Guide to Dragonbonding & Draco Studios?

While the details are still emerging it’s difficult at this stage to know exactly what this means for Itza’s Guide to Dragonbonding. However our lawyers are reviewing and we hope to have more information soon. On initial review we don’t believe that it will affect our ability to create and fulfil the Kickstarter as we planned.

However it may affect our product strategy going forward, and, like most content creators in the industry we are still looking at what this means.

What we do know is that it doesn’t affect our commitment and enthusiasm to create incredible RPG products based in the Dragonbond and Eldritch Century Universes. We have big plans for the next few years and while we may need to adapt these plans, we are still really excited for the future.

As soon as we have any more details we will update again. In the meantime if you have any questions or queries you can find us on discord 

Pledge Manager & Digital Fulfilment 

We are working hard on the pledge manager and plan to have this up and running before the end of the month. 

In the meantime we are fulfilling some of the digital rewards from the campaign - namely the Great Wyrms of Drakha PDF's, the STL bundles and Valerna: An Introduction. So check your emails! If you think you are missing your rewards, please send an email to [email protected]. We are so excited to start this journey! 

Some Epic art 

The art team keeps working on amazing art for Itza's Guide to Dragonbonding and now let us show you some WIP from Irene Aretia!

A word from Moy to our backers

It is with a heavy heart that I announce my departure from Draco Studios. I’m immensely grateful for all the support you have given our projects and I could not be more appreciative of your dedication to making Itza’s Guide to Dragonbonding a success.

It’s been a dream come true finding such an amazing community. Seeing it grow and develop is the single most meaningful achievement of my career and I’m sad to go, nevertheless, you won’t get rid of me that easily, I’ll still be lurking in Draco Studios Discord and following the projects very closely, but now from a fan perspective, so If you still want a chat about dragons or just cool stuff, look for me in there.

Moving forward you will be getting your updates in Itza’s Guide to Dragonbonding and future projects from Ana, Caroline, Tim, and all the amazing folks over at Draco Studios, I’m very relieved because they are all passionate about the amazing projects as I am.

I can’t thank Draco Studios and our backers enough for standing beside me throughout this journey; your love and dedication have been the source of inspiration for improving at my work and passion for high-fantasy products. I’ll see you in the next adventure – wherever it may lead us – and know that I will always cherish these memories of crafting something truly magical together.

Keep being awesome.

Happy Holidays, Dragonbonded! Playtest open and art preview!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Dec 21, 2022 at 07:44:15 AM

Hello Dragonbonded! 

Holidays are approaching and we want to share a festive gift with all of you as a token of our appreciation for being EPIC, here's a bust of a very festive Tetzcoatl for you to 3D print at home! 

Download your merry Tetzcoatl here 

Dragon Art!

Right now our art department is working on some amazing illustrations for the book and the handouts that you unlocked, take a look at this!

Pretty cool, uh?

Playtesting, anyone?

Brian and Sarah are working really hard to create the amazing classes/subclasses/races that you unlocked and are going to be featured in Itza's Guide to Dragonbonding, and your feedback is always welcome.

Join the discussion in our Discord Server, right now the playtesting material for the Maghyr race and the Dragon Herald Class are pinned in the #RPG-open-beta channel, along with a live doc where you can leave your feedback, and of course, you can join the discussion there with other backers and the Draco Studios Staff! 

That's it for today's update, dragonbonded, see you on the next one, and remember, stay EPIC!

That's a wrap, everyone!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 01, 2022 at 10:46:20 PM

THANK YOU, EVERYONE!!!!

3,199 backers, $311,758 collected! This has been our most successful TTRPG campaign so far and we are amazed at the great community that has been brewing around this book!

Here's one final thank you for your support, we have unlocked the final stretch goal - 4 MORE subclasses are now yours! This elevates the number of subclasses from 12 to 16!

Itza's guide to Dragonbonding is a dream come true for all of us at Draco Studios and BIG things are coming for the Dragonbond Universe. We'll keep you posted regularly about development, but let me share with you a teaser of something that you HAVE to see!

Coming to Kickstarter in March(ish)

Itza's story continues in The Rise of Itza - a new Graphic Novel from our brand new publishing brand Drakha Press. 

SIGN UP to be notified when it goes live 

But for the time being, we have to give you some important information from the current campaign, so let's get cracking!

Next steps

Now that the campaign finished, here's what will happen in the upcoming weeks:

• Kickstarter will process payments in 2 weeks. Backers with errored pledges (see below) must fix their payment within the next 7 days.
• In December, we will work on setting up Backerkit (our pledge manager) to send your surveys in January. There, you will be able to add extra items or allocate extra funds and pay for shipping fees, and let us know your mailing address (if you selected physical rewards).

Note - the preorder Backerkit store will open earlier for those who missed the campaign and want to join. 

Errored pledges

Sometimes when Kickstarter tries to take a payment there is an error. This could be due to the following reasons below: 

• Your account has insufficient funds.
• Another Kickstarter project ended on the same day: Your bank blocked the card for security by thinking it was a duplicate charge.
• Your card is incompatible with the Kickstarter US charge hub: 

If this happens you will receive an email from Kickstarter and you have 7 days to fix the issue in order to secure your pledge (and benefit from the discounts). Use the steps below: 

1. On a web browser (not in the app) go to https://www.kickstarter.com/ and log into your account.

2. You will see a red band at the top of the website saying you have an errored pledge. Click on "Fix Payment"

3. Try again with a payment source that is compatible with Kickstarter and has sufficient funds.  

4. Check this worked by refreshing the page - the red band at the top will disappear. Alternatively, try looking in your mail for confirmation.

Backers with errored pledges have 7 days to fix them. If you are not able to fix it within that time your pledge will be automatically marked as canceled. Don't worry, you will still have 2 opportunities to fix it:

• The first will be when we send the surveys. Backerkit may be able to charge your card properly.
• The next will be two months after Backerkit surveys arrive when we will be able to enable PayPal payments.

It's best to fix the issue in Kickstarter so you can receive the updates. But rest assured that your pledge info is still on record and you will have some opportunities to fix payment in the future. We will be here to provide support. 

Once again, thank you, you are all amazing! 

We'll keep you updated as much as we can, if you have any other questions, jump into discord and reach out to us!

Stay awesome, dragonbonded, see you in the next update!