🐉 Results of the Survey + Next Steps of the Journey!
Hello to our amazing community!
At the end of September, we shared a major update on our book collections — Encyclopedia, Creatures, and, of course, Fateforge — along with a historical overview, future plans, and a community survey.
Today, it’s time to dive into the results!
Nearly 1,000 of you participated in the survey, and we’re incredibly grateful! Beyond answering the questions, you also left many comments, suggestions, and ideas – all of which have inspired us immensely.
Kickstarter has always been an incredible journey, shared with you, our community, since our very first campaign. Your contributions have been a cornerstone of this project, and that continues to this day! Let’s jump in, starting with the most immediate news: the upcoming Kickstarter campaign in January!
🪄 Secrets of Magic: your lore and magic toolbox
Several recurring requests emerged from your feedback:
• More lore, lore, lore!• Expanded gameplay options for your campaigns• Faster releases!
After much discussion within our team, here’s how we plan to address these moving forward, starting with the upcoming Kickstarter campaign!
Our new book is now officially titled Secrets of Magic! Just like Encyclopedia and Creatures, it opens a new collection of toolboxes for 5E—this time focused on magical lore and wonders. This book is also the seventh in the Fateforge series and will explore the world of Eana in even greater depth.
• We’ve reworked Secrets of Magic into a true toolkit centered around magic, featuring much more lore and ready-to-use gameplay options. Whether you play in Eana or another setting, this book offers plenty of new tools for players to explore the wonders of magic.
• Based on your feedback, we’ve fine-tuned the content to enhance player options, such as archetypes, potion crafting, and sublimation, as well as lore for spellcasters seeking a deeper understanding of their art.
• Highlights include expanded mage lairs, enchanting rules, new spells, and magical items. Stretch goals from the campaign will allow us to expand the book even further with additional geomagic, sublimation options, and archetypes. You can discover its key elements on the prelaunch page.
Here is the Fateforge cover by Nicola Bernardelli:
🔮 The Future of the Fateforge Collection
Your enthusiasm for more content has been heard loud and clear. However, increasing the number of yearly releases would require reshuffling our project priorities.
First of all, based on your enthusiasm, we’ve adjusted our 2025-2026 schedule to give this collection the spotlight it deserves. That said, we need to carefully manage our design timelines to ensure we present you with the most finalized projects possible, minimizing delivery delays.
The success of the January campaign will directly impact the release schedule. Your support has always been the driving force behind this studio, and the results of this campaign will shape the future of our 5E collections!
Here's what we can say about the next steps :
🎲 Echoes in the Deep: 5E Solo TTRPG & Visual Novel
We’ve been working for several months on a SOLO role-playing project for 5E, designed as both a book and a visual novel-style video game. And the project is nearing completion! The demand for a solo 5E-compatible game came through strongly in the survey, and we hope you’ll love it! While the two stories are independent, they’re interconnected, offering you a solo adventure through the underground depths of Eana’s largest city. Get ready to explore the depths of the Free City !
This project will be featured in a Kickstarter campaign and you can already sign up for the prelaunch page. The visual novel also has its own Steam page—so don’t forget to add it to your wishlist!
😈 Powers Beyond
The eighth book in the series, Powers Beyond, will complete the second tetralogy. This book reveals the secrets of Eana’s powers and their domains within the planes, from fiends to celestials, the Moons, and the Forge of Destiny – perfect for epic, high-level adventures!
Clearly, this will be a complete toolbox for feeding all your campaigns with epic new challenges! The creation of the book is well advanced, but then there will be all the translation work to do. We are going to do everything we can to bring the release date forward!
⛵️Exploring Eana!
Another key factor in reshaping Secrets of Magic and advancing Powers Beyond was your strong interest in exploring Eana and gaining more ready-to-use lore and options for your campaigns, such as the Encyclopedia and Creatures series.
This was nearly tied with another result in the French community (we’ll get to that!) and topped the charts among the English-speaking community. Across both groups, over three-quarters of respondents rated this direction highly, with scores of 8 or more out of 10.
We’re thrilled by your enthusiasm! With almost a decade of development behind us, we’ve accumulated a wealth of material about this universe, and we’d love to fulfill our original vision: exploring all the civilizations of this world.
This will undoubtedly include new volumes of Encyclopedia and Creatures. We’re also considering a smaller Atlas format, focused on specific regions and combining sections from both Encyclopedia and Creatures.
We’d love your feedback: which civilization are you most excited to discover? What format appeals to you most? A new survey is in the works to explore these ideas further.
We recognize that completing this vision will require a steady release schedule. That’s where you come in—the success of the upcoming Ulule campaign will play a decisive role in shaping Eana’s future!
📖 An Official Campaign?
Highly requested, a grand campaign ranked second in the community vote. Once again, over three-quarters of respondents gave this idea a score of 8 or more out of 10. To recap, here’s what we proposed:
"A grand, epic campaign! Will your characters ascend the legendary steps to the Fateforge? Will they face the schemes of Canker or the archdevil Antheros? Or will they embark on a great journey across Eana to uncover its mysteries? The goal is to craft an expansive campaign that makes full use of the content from the books released so far."
As of now, development on such a campaign hasn’t begun. That said, we already have about a dozen books at various stages of completion! Even so, we hear your passionate request loud and clear—it’s now a central topic in our discussions.
We’re exploring the possibility of releasing episodes through our next Kickstarter campaigns, potentially starting with January’s. However, this requires careful consideration and will depend heavily on the outcome of Secrets of Magic. This is a project where community input could play a significant role, as we’d be starting from a blank slate. That’s why our next survey will include a dedicated section to better understand your aspirations and explore what’s feasible.
🤔 Fateforge Corebooks: Revised Editions
We proposed a revised edition of the core books, Adventurers and Grimoire, but it’s clear this project gathered the least interest among both the French and English-speaking communities. While many sections of these books could benefit from updates based on our accumulated experience and community feedback, it’s clearly not a priority for you.
Several participants suggested an intriguing alternative: keeping the core books as they are but producing a standalone errata to address specific corrections. We also wanted to gauge your interest in aligning with the updates from D&D’s “2024 Edition.”
Your response is clear, and we’ll respect the community’s wishes. For now, and until further notice, no new edition of Fateforge is planned. Adventurers and Grimoire will remain the foundational books for the next cycle of the series!
🔥 Spin-offs from Fateforge: The Inner Sun and Broken Forge
The results were less conclusive, and these two projects garnered significantly less interest compared to exploring Eana or the official campaign. But what are they about?
☀️ The Inner Sun
• A hard sci-fi spin-off of Fateforge.• The pitch: Eana’s universe in the future, a space opera featuring key themes like interstellar travel via the Ateaks, the Sublime, and its evolution.• Inspirations include Stargate and Annihilation.
🔨 Broken Forge
• A post-apocalyptic urban spin-off of Fateforge• The pitch: The Fateforge and its moon Eternity have fallen onto Eana, causing catastrophic destruction. From the ashes rises NEO FREE CITY, a cosmopolitan megacity symbolizing new hope.• Inspirations include District 9, Blade Runner, and The Road.
Only 20% of respondents in the French-speaking community and 25% in the English-speaking community rated these projects 8 or higher. This falls far short of the 75% support for Eana exploration and the official campaign! Based on your comments, it’s clear that you want us to prioritize fully developing Eana and an eventual official campaign over spin-offs. And you’re right—we can’t do it all.
While it was valuable to gather your thoughts, these projects are on hold for now. We’re fully committing to Eana and exploring the possibilities for that much-anticipated official campaign!
😍 Your Favorite Books!
Let’s end with a fun statistic. For both communities, the first Encyclopedia takes the top spot! In the English-speaking community, the first volume of Creatures is the second favorite, while in the French-speaking community, it’s Encyclopedia 2: Netherworld. Interestingly, in both cases, the third spot goes to “I LOVED EVERYTHING” ^^.
These preferences align closely with your other wishes and will inspire the future direction of the series.
🗣️ A New Survey: Exploring Eana, the Official Campaign, and Beyond
We’re preparing a new survey to fine-tune our next steps with your input. In the meantime, we’re polishing Secrets of Magic ahead of the January campaign launch!
Once again, thank you so much for your passion and support, onward to the next chapter of the Fateforge saga!
— Nel, Destiny, and the entire Fateforge team
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