No Honor Among Thieves: Daring Heists and Sudden Betrayal

Ask Me Anything
about 8 years ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 06:11:59 PM

Hello, friend.

This morning I'm going to be running an AmA (Ask Me Anything) thread over on Reddit's /r/boardgames forum. I'm going to be alternating my time between that and preparing stretch goals for if we pass $40k, which is looking like a definite possibility this morning.

You can find the Reddit thread here. Ask me anything, really.

Cheers,

Adam

Clink In Your Pocket: Metal Coins Unlocked
about 8 years ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 06:11:49 PM

Every thief knows it's about that clink. That jingle, that shine. That weight in your purse that brings a swagger to your step.

You gotta get that metal, if you know what I'm saying. And guess what?

All copies of the game bought on Kickstarter will include metal coins instead of plastic. I'm also going to work to make these coins available for purchase as an upgrade pack for people who buy the retail version after the campaign, but for you backing the project now, they don't cost any extra.

Now, with that big four-oh stretch goal reached, there's nothing more on the track. Or is there?

We've only got eight and a half hours to go in the campaign, so I don't know how many of these we'll reach, but I figured you'd want a little something just in case we did.

Thanks for coming with me this far.

Cheers,

Adam

That Silken Feel: Cards Upgrade Unlocked
about 8 years ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 06:06:32 PM

Not quite three hours after we got the metal coins unlocked, we've hit the first of the new set of stretch goals.

What does it mean by "cards upgrade," you wonder? Is it ivorycore cardstock? Linen finish? Will they be waterproof? Will they be coated in synthetic diamond, thus making them virtually indestructible and waterproof? There's no way to know for sure, because I'm still talking with my manufacturer about final prices on different potential upgrades. What I do know is, they'll be sturdier and better quality than they were before.

In other news, on the advice of Leif in the comments (hey, Leif!) I've added The Gallery add-on as an additional pledge tier, both in case people want the digital art book by itself and to let people know further up the page that the add-ons exist, since right now they're kind of lurking down near the shipping information on the main campaign page and people who are just backing might not know about the additional doodads and whatsits that they can add to their pledge. I've also added a BROKER level for distributors and retailers--I actually did that last night, and forgot to mention it until now. Too much other exciting things were happening, I guess.

Anyway! Onward and upward, to the next stretch goal: the box upgrade.

Cheers,

Adam

There's A Killer In Town
about 8 years ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 12:25:48 AM

We've passed the $35,000 mark, which means the last Legendary Thief on the stretch goal track has been added to the game. The killer has come to town, and the streets are silent in his wake.

They call him the Poisoner, the Dollmaker, and the Bloody Eye. From Sav Altulas to the Grey City to the endless alleys of Vien-Au herself, his name conjures fear from even the most hardened of hearts. His are the deeds that are whispered of in the darkest of nights, when the shadows press in from all sides and every flicker of movement seems like the point of a knife seen too late from the corner of your eye. The wanted posters do not describe his crimes in detail, leaving the full extent of his depravity vague so as not to incite panic, and where the official word leaves off whispered rumor and unwholesome conjecture is only too happy to fill in the blanks. In the popular imagination he is larger than life, half-demon or soulless or driven mad by black magic. There are many dark stories told about the former toymaker called Skeeve Redeye, and the truth is worse than all of them.

He is in the city, now. The streets know this, though they couldn’t tell you how they know. Everywhere you go, you hear word of his passing. A beggar vanished from his corner and was found in an empty warehouse, strung from the rafters by wires, limbs posed in a grim parody of a dance. A judge was found bound within in a strange clockwork contraption that killed him when he blinked. A child stabbed a merchant with a poisoned knife, crying that the man with the red eyes told her to do it. Everywhere the streets are quiet, citizens walking hunched and in numbers, eyes moving constantly. The City Watch has tightened their patrols, keeping to the market and the high quarter for fear of what they might find elsewhere.

And in the dark the thieves move with care, and loosen their knives in their sheathes, though they know that if they stumble upon the Poisoner it will do no good. They say he can turn into mist, that he cannot be killed by mortal hands. They say that the dead are found with blood running from their eyes and no other marks upon them. They say he is a demon brought forth to punish the sins and folly of mankind. The thieves go about their business warily, and fearfully, for they know that the night is not wholly theirs for as long as he walks their streets.

The one in the shadows has seen the lifeless bodies crying bloody tears. They have seen the mannequins that the Dollmaker leaves behind, poised in caricatures of life where his living victims once were. And they have seen the empty houses, locked and shuttered after the Bloody Eye has passed by, their occupants vanished into gruesome rumor, leaving behind all the valuables that Redeye has never expressed any interest in.

In the mind of the cloaked figure, a terrible plan begins to come together. It is a hideous thing, a crime against humanity and decency as well as the law; but the thieves’ code of honor was broken long ago, and now every advantage must be pressed until it bleeds. The game has gotten more dangerous, and the most dangerous man of them all is Skeeve Redeye. Time to use that.

He’s not part of the crew. Not exactly. But they follow him nonetheless, these poor, stupid thieves, torn between fear of the monster in their midst and the commands of the mastermind who brought them through so many successful heists together. They creep through the mist he trails behind him, wearing goggles and masks to filter out the poison, feeling their fingers go numb despite their precautions. They walk unopposed through mansions and courthouses, into galleries of priceless treasures abandoned by their guards, the only living things in a land of silence.

The plan works, but it works in fear. None of them know when the Poisoner might appear from the mist with a knife and a pair of bloodshot eyes. None of them know when they might vanish into the dark, leaving behind nothing but a faint whispered cry. This is not a partnership that can last forever, and the one in the shadows never intended it to.

But they see Redeye’s crimson mark every day, now, until it seems like the man must be everywhere. Or, perhaps worse, must be following them. As the days go by and the mist gets thicker, the one in the shadows slowly comes to realize that the choice of whether or not they continue to work with the Bloody Eye may not be entirely up to them...

The next stretch goal will add five cards to the game, in the form of the Animal Companions Pack. These helpful creatures provide a little extra assistance to a crew that takes care of them, but be careful--they do have their own limitations, and are a bit more fragile than the human thieves you're used to working with.

Cheers,

Adam

Hear Them Roar
about 8 years ago – Tue, Sep 27, 2016 at 12:22:33 AM

With $36,000 in the campaign, we've hit yet another stretch goal!

This stretch goal adds five new Character cards to the game, in the form of five animal companions for your thieving crew. These creatures do not count towards the character limit when you assign characters to overcome defense cards, but cannot be sent out alone, and are more vulnerable than their human counterparts--if they would be arrested they're killed instead, and you can't use scheme cards to boost their abilities.

The Animal Companions Pack contains the following promo cards:

• Loyal Hound: 1 Muscle
• Trained Monkey: 1 Tinker
• Talking Parrot: 1 Lies
• Sinister Blackbird: 1 Stealth
• Untrained Monkey: When this card is sent on a heist, pick a skill and roll a die. Untrained Monkey has points in that skill equal to the number of daggers rolled. On an X, Untrained Monkey counts as -1 of that skill.

Next up is the big one, at $40,000: metal coins. If you'd asked me a week ago if we were going to make that particular stretch goal, I'd have told you I doubted it, but the way things are going now I think it's very much in reach. I would be perfectly pleased to have those old doubts proven wrong.

Cheers,

Adam