Clearing Some Things Up and Setting a Roadmap for the Future of BËNTHIC

Thank you to everyone who's supported BËNTHIC Scoured Edition so far! It's been a real labor of love to get this far into releasing this game, and there's still so much to do. This post will be a discussion on everything that needs to get done before the full book release of the game.

The Goal of the Project

When starting BËNTHIC, I had a handful of goals. The first one and the one that led to me writing the actual game was to write the most ambitious soundtrack to a TTRPG, making a song for every location in the game. The result was an absolute beast of a soundtrack, coming in at 2 hours and 45 minutes. In order to write music for an entire TTRPG, I made the decision to split the world of BËNTHIC into 17 distinct locales, each of which has their own song. The result is essentially a full-on TTRPG roguelike. You descend 5 levels of a deep-sea trench, each of which will be a point crawl, make progress at the bottom of the trench, and repeat to do it all again.

Adventures

The greatest piece of feedback/questioning I got with the Scoured Edition is how to run it/what adventure it'll include. The locales listed in the book, while unable to be fully expanded given the free and early state of the Scoured Edition, are still included both as inspiration for a GM and to contain the game's bestiary, which is split between the different locales. The full book will have 17 full point-crawl maps for the locales, which can be randomly rolled for to chart a custom descent into the depths. That's of course a lot to ask for, especially for someone who leans more towards writing player options such as myself, and it's gonna take awhile to write all that. All 17 locales are also getting hand-drawn art, which is also going to take awhile. If the game's not even fully finished, then why did I release the book early?

Why The Scoured Edition Came Out so Early

• The writing for everything but the adventures was almost completely finished. To better manage the project in my own mind, I'd like to release stuff as it is completed so as not to become overwhelmed by all the stuff I've gotta make. The things in the Scoured Edition are essentially locked in for the official release, meaning I can focus down on the adventures.
• I wanted people to be able to play the game. A lot of Mork Borg hacks are in an ambiguous state of "In development now" with only a few gorgeous art pieces and showstopping spreads to show for a while. I don't mind, they're not frauds and they make seriously cool stuff, but I wanted to surprise people with a sheer surplus of content out of nowhere. I made a single post on reddit, then a smaller second one about the OST, then radio silence for 6 months, then the full-ass game rules out of nowhere with cover art and everything. I didn't want to create a hype train. I wanted to immediately deliver everything I was able to.
• The Scoured Edition is going to exist anyway as something to give to players. Similar to Mork Borg Barebones, I wanted to create a version with just the text that's easy to read, and also cheap to buy in print so you can get the whole table a copy.
• I wanted to stake my claim to the idea. One of my biggest bits of anxiety when working for Mork Borg and other games is that I'm worried someone else will have the same idea and make the same thing as me. It's not really a big deal, since this community is accepting of all the content anyone could ever make, but it feeds into my deep-rooted impostor syndrome and I don't like that. I don't want to dissuade people from making what they want, but if possible I'd like to make the thing the people want.

Artwork

I'm working with artist Fedmar for all the art on the project. He's really amazing at it, he's brought a style to all the art that's come out so far that looks downright gorgeous, and captures both the horror and beauty of the Antediluvian Trench. The book interior, as we've worked together to figure out, will be a monochrome black background with white text and artwork, to reflect the abyssal darkness of the game. I think the interior of the book, while maybe not the flashiest, will have a high level of function and an elegant form.

What's Finished

• All Game Writing (save adventures and minor tweaks/fixes)
• The OST, available to buy here and also on streaming services
• 3 Art Pieces
• The Scoured Edition Print-on-Demand

What Needs to Be Finished

• 17 One-Page Point Crawls
• 17 Dungeon Maps
• Any Other Miscellaneous Art Pieces
• Layout for the book proper
• Finding out how TF to handle a Kickstarter

Roadmap Over the Next Year
My current goal is to finish all writing and maybe, if things go really well, layout this year. I can almost guarantee that the full book will not be seeing print in the year of 2025. As they're completed, I'll be releasing 4 of the 17 locale point-crawls for free onto Itch, in addition to any miscellaneous ideas for classes, scenarios, items or whatever I have that won't be in the core book. I'll also post screenshots of layout as it gets made.

Crowdfunding (Money and Funding)

I have enough funds to, at the moment, fund all the art and layout and everything involving the actual book without any crowdfunding. However, to be frank, creating and distributing the physical book scares the shit out of me and I'd prefer to do anything but that on my own. At worst, I'll need to make my own kickstarter and figure out Mixam. But my current plan, hopefully if I gain enough traction, is to beg on my hands and knees for some publisher to pick up and help kickstart the book. I don't want to have to deal with the logistics of putting this book out, and  it's gonna cost money. A whole lot of money. If anyone experienced with running a crowdfunding campaign is reading this right now and can offer advice on what to do, please contact me, I'm desperate.

That should be everything. I'd also like to share this map Fedmar made for the Antediluvian Trench as a whole, which should be attached to the Itch page. He really brought the setting to life with this one, it looks so sick.