Her Embrace

Greetings everyone!

Alright, yes I’m really excited about this one. I wanted to get that out of the way because I’m actually quite proud of this item. I think it’s something quite unique and could be a perfect addition for any vampire centric setting that may or may not involve a dude with the initials SVZ. Items with strong theming like this just always have a special place for me.

Our patrons get early access to all of these items as well as additional formats that are easily usable in both physical and online play. Additionally they get high-res art exports, easy to use text exports, behind the scenes updates, and a lot more.

If that strikes your fancy, consider becoming a Patron 

Design notes from Matthew:

So Her Embrace, what an absolute doozy of an item to write. The initial mechanic of using your hit dice as an action was an idea that I’ve had for a long time. I had to tie that to something extremely powerful as that is an option that could be gamebreaking if not done properly. It’s like granting you a boss tier second health bar or something. You really can’t take that lightly when you’re thinking about game balance.

That’s why I decided to balance it with… SOMEHOW EVEN MORE POWER! I know that seems silly, but giving levels of devotion is a temptation to actually use the hit dice as well and it’s needed in order to make the curse function in an interesting way.

I’m not always a huge fan of cursed items, because in a lot of ways they feel like a gotcha. Handing your players something cool and then saying “Hah, I tricked you” is a bit lame to me if it’s not done in an interesting way. That’s why I like to make cursed items feel like there’s still an element of choice there. You can choose to not engage with the devotion mechanic at all, but look at all of this fun power you’re missing out on if you don’t. It doesn’t remove agency, but instead adds a choice with potentially deadly consequences.

I think about a moment where you know you’ve already failed 2 Devotion saves, but the party is facing a really tough encounter and if you just had a bit more HP you could get through it. Do you take that risk? Do you make that choice? That’s an interesting character moment for me and that’s what I like to create with curses.

Illustration notes from Fernando:

Matt’s original idea for this item was a jacket with arms embracing the wearer, but it wasn’t looking very good in the concept drawings so I asked if we could switch to bar wings instead.  We tried different jacket versions but the wings were making it too top-heavy, that’s when we decided to try making it a coat instead and that balanced things out nicely with the wings.

The extremely pale, alabaster-like wings contrast nicely with the jet black of the coat as does the red lining on it. It was still looking a bit plain and we wanted to add a vampiric element to it so I made the silver headpiece which resembles fangs.  It gave us serious Final Fantasy 14 Ascian vibes which made me double down on it and add more silver elements like the cuffs; I figured in the eternal Werewolves vs. Vampires battle it comes in handy to have some sharp silver bits on your clothes..  I also made the edge of the coat bat-like to harmonize with the wings at the top and make the silhouette more interesting.

I also want to take time to issue a huge thank you to all of our new patrons. We’ve seen a pretty great influx of folks of late and it’s really validating for Fernando and I. It makes us feel like the work we’re doing is hitting well and I love seeing the new faces pop in. We’re grateful for the support and so glad to have this awesome group of people helping us make this all work.

We highly encourage you to join our Discord server where you’ll get access to exclusive channels that have sneak peeks, behind the scenes chatter, and more.

Rewards for Patrons!

Kraken's Kohorts ($3 tier)

Kraken's Kompanions ($6 tier)

Kraken's Kollaborators ($10 Tier)

Don’t lose yourself!

- Fernando & Matthew