Weekly DevDiary

Hey Critical Crew!

Time for your weekly check-in on what we've been up to this week!

• Dillon is out of the office (for a well-deserved vacation) starting today through Sunday the 22nd. We've been working around the clock to get ahead of the writing and editing, to make it so when Dillon returns he can move onto layout and formatting, and November's release will drop on it's normal date. 
• We had all sorts of artwork arriving in this past week. One of our favorites (see above on the cover) is for our upcoming Necromancer player class for this coming January! More details to come on the class as we get closer to release, but how awesome does she look so far?? 

• With that being said, one of our favorite pieces of writing from this past week comes from the statblock for "The Living Tunnel" - a massive, terrifying creature that literally remains motionless in place and waits for unsuspecting prey to walk into it's mouth as they continue on in their traveling of the Dark Below. Check out this feature and tell us this wouldn't make an epic encounter (or even an entire arc of a campaign!!)...

Lead Belly. The living tunnel’s digestive system consists of incredibly thick and difficult-to-penetrate flesh. The living tunnel is immune to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks from inside its body and is resistant to bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage from nonmagical attacks from inside its body. At the Game Master’s discretion, the digestive system of the living tunnel is so large, it can serve as a dungeon all its own, with additional creatures or structures built inside (so long as these creatures and structures are immune to acid damage or have found a way to negate the negative effects of living inside the living tunnel).

•  Spells, items, player races (yes - plural! we're bringing you two for November!), and maps went through editing this past week. One of our frequent artist collaborators (Pavel of Rudok's Tavern) brought this piece to us this past week for one of our upcoming items the Eyestalk Staff. Made from the severed stalk of an Espier (the beholder-like monster we shared last week), this staff deals a random ray effect when used (and strikes fear into those who see it being wielded against them!)

• And lastly - we're constantly getting people asking us about merch. We showed off some of our new merchandise this past summer when we were heading down to Gencon, and we have gotten an update on one of our upcoming enamel pins! Check out this first-look at the Black-Hole Tardigrade pin (from our Spelljammer-analog "Hollow Expanse" setting!) More to come on that all later on when test prints arrive

Hope everyone has an awesome weekend!

- The Critical Crafting team (minus Dillon lol)