New Sidequest & NPC Decks Kickstarter Now Live

[InkwellIdeas]

Inkwell Ideas's new Kickstarter to make four new Sidequest Decks and four new NPC Portraits Decks is underway. The Kickstarter intends to make one new Sidequest Deck and one new NPC Portraits Deck for each of four themes: Tavern Quests/Staff & Patrons, Castle Quests/Nobles & Staff, Desert Outpost Quests/Townsfolk, and Mini-Lairs & Guardians NPCs.

Look for the PDF links on the project page to get six sample cards from each of the eight new decks!
These really are great resources for GMs whether:

• the PCs take the story in an unplanned direction
• or you want to expand them into a full adventure customized to your setting
• or if you want to set up a whole campaign or hex crawl using the plots & characters these cards provide.

In the Sidequests, each card has a map on one side and a system neutral mini-adventure outline on the other side. The outline starts with a short overview for the GM, a couple story hooks to get the adventure started, then several possible encounters move the game along. Finally most cards wrap up with one or two follow-up adventure ideas.

In our NPC Portraits Deck, each card is a character, with a portrait on one side and the character's personality and background on the other side. Interesting story hooks are sprinkled throughout each imaginative character.

 

[InkwellIdeas]

We've published a few articles related to the Kickstarter that are useful even if you're not using our cards:
What Makes an Effective NPC?
What Makes a Good Sidequest?

We're planning follow-ups to each of those, so if you have thoughts we should consider, please post them!

 

[InkwellIdeas]

Two more articles about Sidequests & NPC Decks!

• Anatomy of an NPC Portraits Deck Card
• Anatomy of a Sidequest Deck Card

 

[InkwellIdeas]

Thanks to our amazing backers, we've hit our goal and we'll be making our eight new decks--four Sidequests & four NPC Portraits Decks! Don't miss out: Click here to pledge now!

Because we want to ensure we deliver on time, we're limiting our stretch goals to just two bonus cards per deck. At $24,000, we'll add the first of these two bonus cards to each deck:

• Castle NPC Portraits Deck: A castle description generator with charts for the age, condition, special features, etc.
• Castle Sidequests Deck: Castle events (holidays, festivals, unusual things that may happen, etc.)
• Desert Outpost NPC Portraits Deck: A desert settlement description generator with charts for the age, condition, special features, etc.
• Desert Outpost Sidequests Deck: Special event ideas for the settlement or the desert.
• Mini-Lairs NPC Portraits Deck: A bonus NPC.
• Mini-Lairs Sidequest Deck: A bonus Sidequest.
• Tavern NPC Portraits Deck: List of rumors (which may become a mini-generator).
• Tavern Sidequests Deck: List of jobs (which likewise may become a mini-generator).

We'll announce the stretch goal amount for the second card to be added to each deck once we reach the first goal. But we know what it will be: The second bonus stretch goal card in each deck will be another Sidequest of NPC Portrait card

We're making several very useful RPG accessories, we hope you'll join us.

 

[InkwellIdeas]

A little less than 36 hours left! Here are some of the NPC portraits our artists (no AI) have created so far:

We've hit our first stretch goal to add a bonus card to all 8 decks, and we're trying to do a second bonus card for each deck. Click here to pledge now!

 

[InkwellIdeas]

Ending today (Oct 5) at 11pm US eastern time!
If you're still on the fence about backing our Kickstarter or you've been waiting to get around to it, here's your "round tuit":


Yesterday we did an update with a bunch of NPC Portrait thumbnails, so today I wanted to show a trove of our sidequest maps: