Sands of Doom is a Fifth Edition campaign for characters level 1 to 11. A series of prophecies has foreseen the rise of an ancient evil who will bring ten cataclysmic plagues upon the land of Al’Kirat. As the first two prophecies come true, war breaks and the characters are forced to fight or face total annihilation.
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Latest Updates from Our Project:
Pre-Alpha Sands of Doom draft: Chapters 1 - 9
15 days ago
– Thu, Dec 05, 2024 at 10:43:50 AM
Hello Everyone! As promised, I have for you an early view of Chapters 1 through 9 for Sands of Doom.
What you are receiving is what I would call a Pre-Alpha version. While the content is solid, the layout is very much incomplete - sometimes non-existent. You may notice misplaced art, unnumbered maps, empty spaces, non-centered text boxes, and a lack of flourishes or decorative elements.
As I finalize the book and bring it to life, I’ve been moving content around for various reasons: removing unnecessary sections, relocating content to more relevant chapters, and setting aside material that doesn’t need to appear in the main printing (for page count purposes). The book currently exceeds 300 pages, so I’m working to condense it to a more manageable size. This is why the layout is currently super chaotic.
This process of reorganization has also introduced a few continuity errors. For example, the draft might reference a chapter that no longer exists or point to a section that has been renamed. Some sections may feel incomplete, irrelevant, or even contradictory. Have no fear, it is all part of the process. Showing a Pre-Alpha is scary because some of the content is unfinished and unpolished, but I did want to give you all a more close indication of how things are going.
What is Missing
This preview does not include the Introductory section of the book, which features the table of contents, background lore for the Anubian Empire, and a few other details. It also excludes Chapter 10, which takes characters throughout the Wasteland; Chapter 11, which returns them to Kunaten Keep; and Chapter 12, which covers the final siege and conclusion of the campaign. Additionally, some appendices are missing, including sections on time-keeping, important character lore, the Grand Bazaar shop, and the genies.
Chapter 10 is complete and currently being put together in layout. All but one of the appendices are finished but will be set to layout later, once the book's main content is finalized. I am in the final stages of proofreading and completing Chapter 12. After that, we’ll be ready to put everything into layout and begin refining the design to make it cohesive and visually polished.
Play-Testing and Direct Updates
Although the layout is scuffed and the packet is missing some important details, such as lore and boss statistics, it should still work well for those interested in playtesting the material. To support playtesting and for other reasons explained below, I will be launching a Sands of Doom Discord server.
The Kickstarter format is not great for communicating with you guys beyond doing large updates. A Discord server will allow us to have a more direct interaction between each other, so you can ask me questions about the adventure, and so I can give you guys all the materials you need for your playtests. Over time, I am also expecting the server to also become a useful resource for those of you wishing to communicate with me about shipping.
Any feedback you can give me is greatly appreciated! Anything you can provide—whether it’s about the content, art, mechanics, or battle maps—is incredibly useful. However, there are a few areas where feedback is not needed at this stage, which I will explain below.
Feedback I Do Not Need: Please avoid giving me feedback on the layout or its decorative elements. Similarly, feedback on any continuity errors you spot—such as chapters with incorrect titles, inconsistent capitalization, or names like "Lillith" being spelled with one or two "l’s" in different places—is currently not needed. Most of these issues are already noted, and focusing on them now would only distract me from more pressing matters. I am hoping to address this type of feedback at a later stage.
Thank You!
Thank you all so much for your support, and especially for your patience! Please, if possible, direct your questions to me on the Discord server so I can respond as quickly as possible. I’ll now spend the next eight hours proofreading and editing the Siege of Al’Kirat!
Great Pyramid Map
I did not have time to add the Great Pyramid map onto the layout, so here it is.
Sands of Doom - Short Update
28 days ago
– Fri, Nov 22, 2024 at 06:41:15 PM
Hello, everyone! I know many of you have been eagerly awaiting the next big update, so I wanted to take a moment to keep you apprised to how things are progressing and what you can expect in the coming days.
I know I haven’t been updating you as regularly as I should, but fear not, things have been progressing quickly behind the scenes. In the last update, I shared drafts for Chapters 1, 2, and 6. The upcoming update will include Chapters 1 through 9, while also featuring most of the new monsters, magical items, and all the spells added for the book. This content is finished and currently awaiting my layout designer to assemble it in InDesign so we can provide you with a PDF that you can see. I’m told this should be ready in roughly a week, before the end of the month. Once I get it and give it a quick review, I’ll get it into your hands.
The goal is to make this new draft functional for anyone looking to run a proper playtest of the adventure. Some details, like the full lore appendices for important characters and the book's introduction chapter, won’t be available yet. But the draft should still be fully playable.
The delay was due to massive rewrites I decided to make for Chapter 3, the first playable chapter covering levels 1 to 3. These rewrites took a lot of time to complete. To give you an idea, the chapter expanded from about 27,000 words to 44,000 words, with 90% of the latter being entirely new content. It really was a lot, but the difference is night and day, and I know you’ll love the result. To be brutally honest, adderall and copious amounts of stress have been driving me these past few months, and my YouTube channel has fallen down a cliff, but I am incredibly proud of what I have created and I can't wait to show you.
I’m only 2 or 3 days away from completely finishing Chapter 10. After that, I’ll begin work on the final chapter of the book, Chapter 12: Siege of Al’Kirat, which I estimate will take about two weeks to complete. Once that’s done, I’ll determine whether there’s room to include Chapter 11 in the book. This will depend entirely on what the page count looks like. If it doesn't fit, it may become a PDF / online exclusive part of the adventure. And with that, the main body of Sands of Doom will be complete. All that remains after that would be to finalize the appendices and the introduction, and then we’re done.
I’ll have a bigger update soon after I receive the layout for Chapters 1 through 9, which I should get shortly. In the meantime, I want to share the design we’re using for the battle maps in Sands of Doom so you can take a look. I’m thrilled with the quality and the flourish style we chose for them. Let me know your thoughts!
See you all very soon! -Fermin Caballero (MrRhexx)
Notice the high attention to detail on the shadows.
There are a lot of big-set piece encounters in Sands of Doom
Many of the big battles have side-objectives to complete
I was able to add a ton of city content for the beginning chapters
We have two large dungeons for some good delving
Sands of Doom - PDF Draft: Chapters 1 / 2/ 6
4 months ago
– Tue, Aug 20, 2024 at 02:01:14 PM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Sands of Doom - Chapters 1 & 2 PDF Download - Preview
5 months ago
– Sat, Jul 27, 2024 at 09:50:31 AM
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Quick Update - End of March / April / May Update - Sands of Doom
7 months ago
– Sun, May 26, 2024 at 11:11:02 AM
Orcs form the vanguard of the invasion
Hello everyone! Sorry about being a month late on the update. I have been on crunch time these past three months finalizing the writing on the book. Since I spend basically every waking moment I have just doing the writing, it is very difficult to do anything else :']
I am happy to announce that for the first time throughout the course of the project, I can finally see the end of the writing on the horizon. What a journey it has been. I mentioned how scared I was during the last update to give a date since it is sometimes difficult to predict, but it appears that I was correct. I will indeed be able to finish all the writing in a month's time, so by the end of June (provided life doesn't throw me a curve ball) I should be fully finished up with all of the content. The month of July will be spent proofreading and fixing any problems that arise, as well as sending all of that content over to my editor for layout. So just as I give a chapter the green light, it will be sent directly to my editor, and we will start putting it all together asap. The final deadline for all of the art is end of July, so by then my editor will be able to finalize the look of the book.
I want to get a lot of this content into your hands as soon as i can, so you can have as much time as possible to digest the adventure, analyze the structure, and be able to give feedback and criticism before we make the final printing. So what I am thinkin of doing is sending you guys the final drafts for each of the chapters just as I send them over to my editor. They won't be layed out in a pretty format of course, but it should let you see the content, and potentially the maps as well if I can attach them to the file. Like I said, this I might be able to start doing this mid-way through July. I will also make a few videos explaining each of the chapters and how to run them.
Costs. One thing I really want to do that I feel like you guys would appreciate seeing is a breakdown of the costs of the book. I want to put together a little sheet showing how much I spent on art, layout, music, battlemaps, etc; as well as how much the printing process itself costs. Might be helpful for fellas out there who could be looking to potentially make their own books to see more or less how the cost structure functions, as well as those of you who might just be interested to see where your money went in the production of the book. I know peeps love transparency in these things and I think it will be fun to show all that stuff.
Survey. I think I will be finally sending the Backerkit survey at the end of July. There, you will be able to make any final purchases you may have missed for the kickstarter, including any addon you may want to add before everything is closed down. In this survey, you will also be able to add in your Address where you want the book to be shipped to. Note that completing this survey is REQUIRED for you to receive your book and any other physical reward you selected, as i do not currently have your address, and shipping costs were not included in the original kickstarter run. In this survey, you select the shipping destination and you pay the shipping cost for the products as part of the process. Have no fear though, I will be giving you all ample reminders to complete the survey once it goes out to make sure that everyone has a chance to complete it.
Closing Thoughts
That's basically about it. Just wanted you all to get a small update on how things are going and what to expect going forward. Nothing much else say other than to keep an eye out in a month for information regarding early samples of the content. Thank you all for being so patient and so very kind. I am certain you are going to love the adventure!
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