It has been a while since I've posted here, but I wanted to give a quick update on the state of Thieves of the Tome. In interest of not burying the lead: I've decided on a publishing route! ToT will officially be a part of Zinequest 2025. You can sign up to be notified by the prelaunch page now. I expect the zine to be in the 15000-20000 word range, around 64 pages long, and in perfect bound A5 full color glory! Page counts are of course subject to change.

I also want to update on what I've been working on the past few months. Since releasing the demo itch, I've taken my game to a few different venues to do public play-testing, including free RPG day at my FLGS and Pax East. Feedback has been very helpful so far, and I've further refined all player facing rules. It's now moving into time for blind playtesting, so I have begun recruiting GMs for that. If you're interested, please join the discord, and we can give you more info there.

I've also finished all writing for the game at this point. This includes an additional chapter on lore of the Tomealities, a chapter on GMing the game (using a book), and 3 modules. These chapters will not release as part of the free public demo, but will be present during playtesting and the kickstarter, so if you want early access for free, join the discord and help me run games!

Meanwhile, I've been working with other game designers to do heavy editing of the text for clarity. Eric Swanson of Goblinville, Rebel Crown, and Narrative Dynamics is editing the game page by page, and I am extremely grateful for his work. I've also recieved mentorship from Chris O'neill of Ninth Level Games through Unplugged's tabletop mentorship program. Thanks to  their enthusiasm and mentorship, I've decided to launch the game with full rules through Zinequest.

Part of launching a physical edition means getting serious about production quality. With that in mind, I have been pumping out art, and experimenting with layout. Once editing and play-testing is done, it's layout time. My goal is to be finished with all that stuff before even starting the kickstarter campaign!

So what can you look forward to in the immediate future: I will soon be updating the demo with more art and layout, as well as corrections generated from my editing work with Eric.

In the meantime, please enjoy some more art: