Cult Crafter - a cult-building card game for 2-4 players

Howdy everyone!

Wahoo! We're so close! Huge thanks to everyone who has helped us get to 90% funded - I'm hoping we can push over the hump soon!

First off, thanks to everyone who's shaping the postcard pack contents - I've ushered in the top few favorites and everything else (including some other fan favorite illustrations) are now in a battle royale poll to see what else will make the cut!

Secondly, I wanted to showcase a few of the non-god cards in the event you missed the part of the Kickoff Stream (starts around 18:45) where I went through the cards in the resources deck. I think this might be a good way to also talk through more of the game mechanics and rules as well - I dunno, let me know in the comments! 

Today, I'll talk a bit about the Conspiracy Theorist and Consult the Oracle. Both of these are Event cards (as opposed to the Idol cards - the other type of resource card). 

The Conspiracy Theorist is a bit unique in that it's the only Event card that become a permanent. Idols become permanents in the game, but overall the Event cards are meant to signal some type of temporal event. The Conspiracy Theorist should really be named "Conspiracy Theorist Joins Your Cult," but that's too long of a name to fit on the card.

Basically, the Conspiracy Theorist allows you to clone another follower you own in play. All followers (besides the Saboteur and Grifter) have a tribute value of either 1, 3, or 5, so you'll want to save the Conspiracy Theorist for a higher value follower.

The other benefit is that the tinfoil hat guy is malleable - he'll also take on the aspects of the follower he's latched on to, meaning that the additional benefit is that he can help you complete a set of a specific aspect to help certain hierophants and Idols get a set bonus.

Consult the Oracle is an event card that is one of those cards you hope you draw towards the middle or end of the game. It allows you to move 1 cultist (meaning a follower or even a hierophant) from each of your sects to a different sect you own. To really optimize this, you're likely going to play this after you've started building out all three of your sects. 

Consult the Oracle is meant to simulate the knowledge a cult leader gets from consulting the All-Seeing Oracle, a decapitated witch who sees the past, present, and future all at the same time. Because the Oracle's mind exists in all timelines simultaneously, she actually doesn't know she's been reduced to just a head on a stick and therefore still hands out prophecies even though she died hundreds of years ago. 

Gameplay-wise, this card can help you move "stuck" cultists into more optimal placement. I think of Cult Crafter ultimate as a resource-management game, even though most people would classify it into trick-taking due to trying to match the aspects of your god with your cultists. I think of it as a resource-management game in that the resource is space and time - space in your hand, space in your sects, and the time via the order (no pun intended this time) in which you play cards.

The Oracle allows you to escape these space-time constraints somewhat by moving cultists around once they're played as if you too could understand the past, present, and future. 

Alright - let me know what you think about these card spotlights! Hit that "learn more" button below and drop a comment with your thoughts!

Thanks again, everyone! 

Howdy everyone! 

Just a quick update today - we're almost to the funding goal! 85% there! 

A friendly reminder - if you haven't voted in the Backer-Only poll, on your favorite dark god, please do so ASAP! 

I'll be closing the poll at noon PT tomorrow (Wednesday for me!). This will inform what art goes into the postcard sets, so be sure to weigh in! 

Thanks again and have a great one! 

-Rick

Happy Monday, my lovely cult family!

Sorry for the lapse in update - it was my 20th anniversary this weekend, so I took some time away from the computer to celebrate.

Anyway, I'm back with some updates!

I've heard from some folks about wanting the option to add on additional spots of cultist customization. Especially in lieu of me opening up the option for people to make their pets into a cultist, more folks are suddenly interested. As a new pet parent myself, I should have seen this coming, and I'm very interested in seeing if all the cultists end up being human-pet hybrids.

If you're wondering what that might look like, here's my own familiar, Mike, turned into a cultist. 


So, if you're a backer at the "Become a Cultist Level" or higher, you'll now have options to add on additional Become a Cultist pledges (a copy of the game and the custom portrait/inclusion into the game) or an "Additional portrait/name in the game."

Perfect for someone who has multiple pets and wants the whole family in the game, feel free to manage your pledge and help me make pet-cultist hybrids a thing!

We're also just over 80% funded! Thank you! Just a friendly reminder to spread the word - the sooner we back, the more backers join in, and the more freebies you're likely to find in your package!

Lastly, I talked about the First Bog Witch. I've actually written a whole essay on my definition of bog witches and why I love them, but also it was the card chosen by my collab partner Mat Lorre of Terror Box Co. to do a special version of the card that will ship to all backers who back BOTH of our projects.


Anyway, I did promise the bog witch lore would be backers only, so if you haven't backed yet, go get your copy of Cult Crafter and then come back here. 

Thanks! 

Good day, friend!

We've got roughly 18 hours left before the early bird is abruptly caught by Karrion and reduced to a pile of gooey slime and feathers and a tiny bird skeleton. That is to say, if you haven't backed Cult Crafter, now is a great time!

We're at 68% funded already (thank you! thank you!) and after opening up the Become a Cultist option human-pet hybrid portraits, we're starting to fill up those slots!

Honestly, I saved two custom slots for myself, as I was going to put my two children, Mike and Eleven, as cat-headed cultists. They were already in the physical prototype (sans beautiful cat portrait), but now I'm excited that other pet parents are upgrading their pledges and getting in on the fun. Feast your eyes on my glorious cats!! 



Besides just sharing cat photos, I also wanted to share that a bit more lore about the world that Cult Crafter is set in. Some of this will be in the lore zine, but some of this, like all good mythology, might only be pulled from fragments found in other books and stories...

The Order of the Dark Wheel is a group that goes back some of the earliest ages of humankind. In the year 666 AD, a great prophet known as the Blood Skylar proclaimed a great prophecy - that when the Seven Who Feed arrive on Earth's plane, The Doom will arrive, and all life in the universe will be extinguished.

The prophecy of The Doom is very vague, as there is debate in the occult scholarship whether The Doom is an entity, or an event, or something else entirely. However, the one commonly agreed upon fact is that the Seven Who Feed refer to the seven demonic "gods" who rule over the dimension that overlays ours - the Abyssal Void.

An interesting point is that over the centuries, there has been debate over which entities are the actual gods of the Abyssal Void, and which are just extremely strong creatures. There have also been recorded stories of fringe groups in the Order mistaking the Seven Primal Creators (the ruling supernatural entities of our world that have long since left Earth) as the Seven Who Feed. Seven and Seven, very confusing stuff.

One such controversial figure is the First Bog Witch. While some branches of the Order worship her as a god, most demonologists agree she was once a human. Or as human as any other witch might be...


Stay tuned for our next update where I'll share a bit more about the First Bog Witch, but that update will be sent out to backers only...

Thanks again,
Rick 

Howdy everyone!

Phew, thanks so much! We're already over 40% to the goal - given that for most of my prior campaigns, we would have been 100% funded already, I'm super excited!

I knew this campaign was going to be a lot more ambitious, so I'm thinking we're right on track!

That said, I'm sure your email inbox is super clogged if you've been backing other Pocketopia games, so I just wanted to thank everyone who's backed so far and share the link to the kickoff stream. You can view it here. 

Also of note from that stream - if you'd like to enter your pet as a cultist, you most definitely can, but please know that I'm definitely going to put your pet's head on a human body. Weird, but very fitting for the madness-aligned cultists. (I'm now fearful ALL the cultists will be pets with human bodies, but if that's what it'll become, 🤷‍♂️. 

One friend who just backed at the "Become a Cultist level" asked, "Can I put someone else in the game?" 

The answer is "Yes, with consent." I think it's an awesome gift idea for the tabletop gamer in your life AND I'm super weary of nonconsensual nonsense, so when we sort all this out at the end, there'll be a contract that you'll have to sign that you got the person's consent to use their likeness in the game. 

Anyway, super excited and grateful and also very, very tired, so I'll sign off for now and just thank you again!

Thanks again!
-Rick