🔴 This post was being updated LIVE as we progressed aboard the Dawnstar, toward the heart of a dying star to claim the treasure hidden within! 

After days in the quiet silt of the Beyond you are awoken by the rumbling of feet upon the deck, and the ringing of the ships bell. Something has been sighted, though you arent sure what. You leap from your bunk like the crew around you, and race up to the top deck to lay eyes upon the horizon.

There, you see it, the dying star spoken of in tales, etched upon that strange map you’ve been following all this time! It sits like a gem of brilliant hues, arcing coronas of colour ejecting from its rippling surface and radiating out into the beyond. You stand in awe, your shipmates falling silent about you as the beauty of both promise and vision washes across the deck.

But you’ve little time to bask in the wonder of such a sight, as more and more crew begin to spot something far more sinister; an ocean of debris orbits this star, the corpses of ships scattered like pebbles in the sea. You’ve seen this sort of destruction before, and you feel your heart sink before your eyes catch sight of the exact thing you expected yet hoped wouldn’t be true…

The silhouette of a massive tentacled beast moves about the star, its mass shifting the debris like the fin of a siltshark through the Beyond. The stars blink out as it obscures their light, a monster most tremendous guards this treasure it seems, and you have sailed right into its hunting grounds…

To reach the heart of this star you must make it beyond the debris and past the kraken before sailing into the star itself! A series of challenges now lie before you, each more daunting than the last. But now is not the time to fret, now is the time for action, and your first challenge is upon you!

Despite hopelessness, despite the odds stacked against you, you all rallied together to see this story through to its very end! As the Dawnstar pulls away from he collapsing heart of the star you each bear the burden of hope that carries the ship to safety. Some spoke of promises of tomorrow, others the bonds forged before today, but all spoke of the bonds built by this here crew on this here vessel.

And so with the crew inspired the Dawnstar just manages to pull away from the sable expanse behind, today shall not be the day the crew of the Dawnstar perish! Instead you succeed, and in succeeding you recover the treasure that awaited at the end of this storied journey; We only awaited our Final Roll to determine exactly how much treasure you were able to escape with, against a DC of 15 (and thanks to some incredible bartering for advantage during our closing stream)…

With our final roll a success you drag the chest aboard, crack open its gilded lid, and reveal the loot inside:

The Loot of the Kraken Tamer, hidden within the heart of a dying star and forever guarded by the very beast what gave its former own their name. This loot contains several new Kraken themed items, munitions, and ship upgrades that will be added to the book (including the ability to summon yer very own terrible tentacled beastie) along with an entirely unique Kraken Silt Sail ship! 
 
But more on our treasures in the future, for now we celebrate! Treasure won and crew safe we now close this chapter for good, but who knows what might still await the good ship Dawnstar out there on the starry expanse of the Beyond….

Ahoy Spacefarers!

It be the final week of our campaign for Lodestar: A Spacefarer’s Manual!

At over £200k funded (new stretch goals on there way) we’ve already smashed through our expectations, and our stretch goals, thanks to the incredible support of each and every backer. We are blown away by the support, and stoked to have you all with us for this adventure!

Our choose your own adventure is also heating up, as together you’ve unlocked some scurvy new additions to the book through your choices. If you want to join in now head over to the latest chapter HERE, hopefully luck remains on your side as we approach the final horizon…

We will be having a stream to celebrate the end of the campaign on Friday the 21st of November over on our Youtube channel! Aston and myself will be talking everything Lodestar, discussing art and worldbuilding, and maybe even designing some silt sails and monsters live! If you want to hop in and join the discussion with the community, or ask us any questions then keep an eye out for the stream around the time the campaign closes!

That’s all for now, thank you so much everyone who has already made this campaign our most successful to date, I can’t wait to see you all in the Beyond 💫

- Conor

Ahoy Spacefarers!

Our voyage is fast approaching its final destination, we have now surpassed £200k which means new stretch goals and more! Look for details on that and announcements regarding our end of campaign stream in the update we release tomorrow Saturday the 15th of November! Now, when we last left off the Dawnstar was facing down a hailstorm of fire from the comets raining towards its deck! In true Dawnstar fashion, you the crew have elected to try and shoot your way out of things…

You waste no time as comets begin to shatter against the hull of the Dawnstar, rushing to your positions on the gun deck. She may not be the nimblest of ships, nor the hardiest, but she makes up for both in her firepower! The crack of cannon fire rings in the void as comets begin to explode, spraying gouts of blue fire and icey dust across the darkness of the beyond like cerulean fireworks!

But there are many comets, and it will take only a single miss for one of them to punch a hole through the Dawnstar. Your crew gives it there all, rolling with advantage against a DC of 16!:

Like the pirate gun crews of legend you watch as comet after comet is pulverised by cannon fire, the Dawnstar sailing through the storm leaving a wake of glittering blue ice mixing with the swirl of the silt! As the sails drift through the dust of the comets the material seems to be imbued with an icy blue magic of some kind (🌕Icefire Sails🌕), perhaps it will prove a useful upgrade of sorts…

Regardless, this surely be a moment for the history books. The Dawnstar cruises out of the storm, trailing silt and comet dust alike. The open silt streams of the Beyond now lay before you, the final stretch before approaching voyages end, perhaps even a little time to spend as a crew without the immediate peril of looming doom and death!

You could spend the time training, making sure you’re all in ship shape condition for the challenge to come. You could spend the time studying charts and tomes, brushing up on your astronautical knowledge incase it comes in handy. Or you could spend the time resting, getting to know each other over shanties and games!

Ahoy Spacefarers!

With your ship tended to and upgrades installed, you huddled together to decide which route you should sail out of Dark Moon. There were those amongst you who favoured the slower route, and even a few who wished for the chaos of capstan teleportation, but in the end yer thirst for danger won out! And so we return to the intrepid voyage of the Dawnstar:

With your route plotted you bid farewell to the shipwright, and lower the silt sails. You travel outward of the port, and then veer down and off the main silt stream, towards a fast flowing current that winds its way through the beyond. You are travelling for but a couple of days when you start to see the first signs of the comet storm, small stragglers at its fringes that burn a bright blue and move like cannon-shot through the void. None come near to striking, but your lookout calls your attention from the crows nest and directs you to gander upon the whipping blue swarm ahead.

It looks like a dream, a cosmic shower of ice and rock, burning with an unearthly blue, the glitter of the silt piercing right through its centre. It is at this point that you see the debris, shards of burnt and pockmarked wood and metal drifting through space, a memento mori of those what braved this storm before you. Some amongst you shudder, some steel themselves, now be the time to test yer mettle!

The captain calls to batten down the hatches, and orders all to be vigilant and ready at their posts. The Dawnstar cruises ever closer, the deck now awash in the blue glow of a thousand burning rocks falling from the heavens above. Then you hear the sound, whizzing, as comets fly by closer and closer. Then small impacts, tiny burning pebbles scorch the deck like hailstones, causing the crew to cling to the cover of the masts and railings.

You are in the heat of the storm now, surrounded on all sides by the cascading walls of fiery blue bullets. Your helmsman swerves, avoiding the larger rocks as your lookout calls out their positions above and ahead. All seems to be going well, until you see a massive rogue comet burning hot as a sun and flying at an odd angle straight toward the Dawnstar! You call it to your helmsman, who swerves as hard as they can with a DC 14 saving throw:

The Dawnstar takes a massive blow to its starboard hull, dashing the crew across the deck as the ship lurches and rocks on its keel, groaning like a wounded animal. You've no time to discuss, another hit like that and it'll send all of you down to the locker for good, you must think fast and act faster!

Do you run to man the guns, hoping you might be able to shoot the oncoming comets out of the sky before they hit despite how fast they are moving? Do you look to overburn your engines, rocketing you out of harms way but potentially damaging the engines themselves? Or, do you rush to the capstan, and pull the rip cord that might allow the Dawnstar to escape the eye of this storm to a fate unknown?