We dragged Elaine kicking and screaming out of the viscera filled pit of Ways and Means development to talk about how things are going with the project. Contained within are her most coherent blood-flecked ramblings.

Greetings Delvers! It's been a hot second since the campaign ended and I’ve been COMMANDED AT GUNPOINT to give a quick roundup the past few weeks development. So strap in for a quick fire round of COOL SHIT that’s going into this wonderful book.

Sar's been working away like an absolute monster this whole time to make Ways and Means the most art dense and gorgeous Heart book to date. There’s a gargantuan mountain of illustrations to squeeze between the covers, and we did unlock stretch goals to include even MORE! So there's no shortage of pretty pictures to ogle at.

Below is just one of SEVEN spot pages Sar's made for the equipment chapter, which is frankly nuts if you ask me. As of writing, there’s light at the end of the parasitic train tunnel, with just a handful of larger pieces left to make and then we'll be done!
 

Not to be outdone by all the pretty pictures, we're been writing some JUICY WORDS to hurl at the page too. A lot of words, actually! The first draft of the book is due to go off to editing this week which is a huge milestone and a perfect moment to thank all our freelancers once more for all their hard work. They're all invoicing for their contributions, and thanks to YOU my dear delvers, they're all getting a SWEET SWEET bonus too.

As a treat, here's an excerpt from one of the new animal companions you can take with you on your delves, penned by Thomas Manuel:

People have a long history with horses. It goes so far back that there’s a kind of mental kinship that forms that won’t be denied. Some people will go a long way to pretend they have a horse. They'll ignore the fact that it has six legs or three eyes or a second head at the back. If they can ride it, they will and they'll vehemently deny that it's only a wretched imitation of that noble equine beast they yearn for.

But it’s not just people who have romantic notions about horses. These twisted creatures share the same delusion. Deep down, they all dream of being a noble steed — the romance of it has filtered down into their very blood via the Heart. In their minds, they’re all stallions, champions of war, unsung heroes. They want nothing more than to carry their dying owner on their back for hundreds of leagues across enemy territory to safety. On one hand, this is deeply touching. On the other hand, it’s bizarre, verging on the self-destructive — which isn’t a quality you typically want in a horse.

Apart from making sure that it knows how to synchronise all its limbs, the trick to buying a heartsblood horse is making sure to do a thorough inventory of its organs beforehand. Buyers who don't take the right precautions might find out in the worst way possible that their steed has a second kidney where their liver should be or vice versa. Every heartsblood horse is a medical miracle on the verge of not being one anymore. While there's no way to eliminate the risk of sudden and total bodily collapse, ensuring that the horse has at least one of every essential organ goes a long way in ensuring it doesn’t die in the middle of a leap across a canyon.

We've been in cahoots with all of our Make Something Horrible pledge tier backers, and I'm happy to say that everyone has come up with some TRULY HORRID arcane artefacts to add to the book. We've got powdered death you can snort for fun and profit, an unsettling ragdoll cursed with a gestalt hive consciousness you can cram your feeble mind into, and a box full of spiders that string up a lyre so you can literally play with fate!

We've ten in total going into the book, and each one is in the process of fine tuning and illustrating. So you can expect to see more from them soon!
 

We're putting the finishing touches on our pledge manager and I'm happy to announce that it should be live before the end of the week. We've put a great deal of time into it both due to the complexity and number of items you can pick up, but also because for the first time ever, we're adding community content to our offerings!

That's right, for the first time you'll be able to grab some of our favourite community expansions for Heart right from the bleeding edge of the Ways and Means pledge manager. Namely we're adding two top tier fan supplements to the offering:

Heartsong: a fanzine filled with articles covering new landscapes, heavenly delves, renowned weapons, legendary adversaries, and an entire new class - the demon-tainted Xanthous Zealots.


Ichor Drowned: a massive fan supplement featuring an alternative take on the Heart that’s flooded and bursting with new classes, landmarks, adversaries, and even vehicle rules!


There really are some amazing designers in the Heart fan community, so this is our way of shining a spotlight on their work and hopefully landing them a sweet payday too. This is a bit of an experiment for us, but we'd love to do more like this to promote community creators of Heart content in the future. So if that's something you want to see, make sure to show them your support when the pledge manager goes live!

That's all for now folks. You'll hear from us again once the pledge manager is live. If you can't contain your excitement and need people to gush with, why not pop your head in our Discord and meet some fellow delvers. I might even see you there!

C-can I go back to the pit now? I HAVE TERRIBLE THINGS TO WRITE!

- Elaine

Folks: thank you. Ways & Means has surpassed our highest hopes, and we're immensely grateful for the upswell of support. It means a lot to everyone on the team to see how Heart has captured people's, well, hearts, and to have such excitement about adding more to the universe.

What happens next is that we go quiet for a little while. We'll be working behind the scenes to set up the pledge manager for this project, which will let you edit your details and ensure you've got everything you want. We're expecting that will be ready towards the end of September, and it'll then stay open until we're ready to ship. So if there's something in particular you want to be able to add to your pledge, this is a great moment to let us know in the comments.

And, of course, we'll be cooking the book. Sar has sent over some fantastic sketches and line art just today - and we can't wait to share the final product.

Thanks, again - from everyone at RR&D.

How the time flies when you're watching a number go up. Feels like yesterday since we launched the Ways and Means crowdfunder but in the last four weeks we've raised almost £200,000 and unlocked a mountain of stretch goals which will make sure that this is the best possible version of the book.

We're now in the final 24 hours! Which means it's your last chance to pledge while the campaign is still ticking.
 

If we unlock the 200,000 bookmark stretch goal (which is looking VERY likely at the time of writing this update) only campaign backers will get the free bookmarks. Pre-orders placed after the campaign ends don't get them.

I know a number of late backers/pre-order customers for the Dagger in the Heart campaign were sad to miss out on the bookmarks from that campaign, so don't miss out and be sure to back before the campaign ends to get your free goodies.

If you're keen to celebrate the end of the campaign in style, come join in on the closing stream on Tuesday, where we'll crack open a cold one, relish in our victory, and if you ask nicely I might even be convinced to sneak you behind the scenes to peek at some content from the book that we've not revealed yet. (How do you feel about snails?)

Hopefully I'll see you there! 

- Elaine & the RRD Team

How time flies. In just a few short weeks the Ways and Means crowdfunding campaign has surpassed our expectations and overtaken our previous record for highest funded Heart campaign to date! We’ve still got seven days left on the clock too, just to show off a bit. It only seems fitting that today we take a look at the self-proclaimed master of crowds that is the Demagogue – one of the new callings that's marching its way into the Heart at the head of an angry mob.

Let’s see what Elaine Lithgow has to say about the Demagogue.

Elaine Lithgow: I’ve been running games for one group of players on and off for just shy of a decade now. They’re a fantastic bunch that always show up ready to play and dive into the world with both feet. When you’re been running games for the same players for so long, you start to spot trends in the kinds of characters they build, the stories they tell, the memes they love. We all know Ross’s character is going to end up the begrudging leader of the party, Robin’s going to end up the long suffering moral compass, Esme will adopt the first sad or weird animal that I put in front of her, and Sam’s going to play a walking joke that ends up breaking out hearts. But the player who planted the seed for the Demagogue is Dan. Why Dan in particular, I hear you ask?

Dan always starts a cult.

Doesn’t matter the setting, doesn’t matter the system, doesn’t matter the character he plays, the instant I drop that man into any fictional world, a giant invisible clock starts counting down. When that clock strikes twelve you can bet your arse his character’s standing at the head of a crowd and directing them to tear apart the foundations of my carefully crafted world – smiling as he does it.

The Demagogue calling is for all the Dans out there. They're charismatic leaders who have big dreams they can’t realise on their own. Maybe they want to found their own church, overthrow a ruling political body, or just float atop a sea of adoring followers. Whatever it is, they need bodies to do it. Lots of bodies. Of course the oppressive regime in Spire doesn’t just sit about and let Demagogues gather followers in the open – as the Calling illustration by Sar Cousins wonderfully depicts (check those cops bashing their way through the crowd). It’s no wonder that some Demagogues decide to descend into the Heart to gather power beyond the long arm (and heavy cudgels) of the law.

The Demagogue’s ability For The cause grants them a special Bond which represents their burgeoning cult/political movement/mob of sycophants. Just like a normal Bond, the Demagogue’s followers can help them recover Stress and take actions that vary in potency depending on whether they are within the follower’s expertise or home turf. Additionally, these followers can join the Demagogue on their journey, though they might wish they hadn’t. The Demagogue can gamble with their follower’s lives, by commanding them to help them with a Risky or Dangerous action. This lowers the Difficulty of the action but in return, both the Demagogue and their followers take any resulting stress.

Nothing quite like hurling your underlings into the meat grinder to achieve your goals making the ultimate sacrifice for the cause.

As you might expect, the beats for the Demagogue revolve around growing and nurturing your following, from recruiting hapless rubes to your cause, to establishing safehouses and infiltrating establishments. Everything a growing cult needs.

By the end of their Heart campaign, you can expect a Demagogue to stand tall atop a pile of their followers' corpses, reaching out with desperate blood soaked hands to grasp at their ultimate desire, whatever that might be.

That’s all for today. Remember, we’re in the home stretch now. For more updates, make sure to follow the campaign if you haven’t. In the next dev blog we’ll take a rummage through the stalls of Derelictus to see what secrets the new Equipment chapter has in store for you.

- Elaine & The RRD Team