Officially licensed Evil Dead 2 Roleplaying Game Kickstarter!

That's the map of the town as found on the placemat of a local restaurant, circa 1982. I'm happy to see the easter eggs being found so quickly. Hopefully you'll have fun with the book as a whole!
So I got a few more questions:
1: Will all the new characters/monsters have artwork, or just some of them?
2: The preview of the Table of Contents (in Update #13) said the title of the final adventure was "The Ephemeral Road", but now this most recent update says the title is "Betrayal at Helsford House". Are these the same stories just with a new title, or was "Ephemeral Road" a different story that has been replaced with "Helsford House"?
 
So I got a few more questions:
1: Will all the new characters/monsters have artwork, or just some of them?
2: The preview of the Table of Contents (in Update #13) said the title of the final adventure was "The Ephemeral Road", but now this most recent update says the title is "Betrayal at Helsford House". Are these the same stories just with a new title, or was "Ephemeral Road" a different story that has been replaced with "Helsford House"?
1) Unfortunately there won't be new art for every monster. It just wasn't really feasible, although most do.
2) Same adventure, new name.
 
1) Unfortunately there won't be new art for every monster. It just wasn't really feasible, although most do.
2) Same adventure, new name.
Will all the settings of the stories have maps, or is the Campbell's Cove one the exception?
 
Will all the settings of the stories have maps, or is the Campbell's Cove one the exception?
Each of them should have some type of map, although only the first adventure includes one that's the traditional "tactical" style, which is the cabin itself. The other adventures are written a bit more theatre of the mind, story-forward with less focus on the map-based fighting. Although that's still definitely part of it.
 
Each of them should have some type of map, although only the first adventure includes one that's the traditional "tactical" style, which is the cabin itself. The other adventures are written a bit more theatre of the mind, story-forward with less focus on the map-based fighting. Although that's still definitely part of it.
Gotcha. Again, not an RPG person, so my only frame of reference is the AOD one, which had a large map with several points of interest, and detailed map of the castle. When I saw the Campbell's Cove one, I just kinda assumed that maps are kind of a standard thing for these games to have.
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DnD can have a very boardgamey approach to combat with gridded maps and measured movement, which is totally legitimate, but it can also go the way we're leaning, which appears to be how the older AoD game went too, which is a bit more conceptual.

The cabin map is the same image as we used in the boardgame, so you might have seen that. Campbell's Cove is an overhead of the town. Adventure three has a more technical schematic of the ship, and #4 you'll have to wait and see, I don't wanna spoil anything.
 
I'm hoping you find a lot to love in the book. We definitely tried to hit as many notes as possible with it: stuff for D&D players to add to any setting, hyperspecific stuff for super fans of the movies, new stuff that expands on the story and setting a bit. I tried to keep it gnarly and grungy where possible, but never not just a little silly too.

Approvals are taking quite a while, so I've taken to doing up a bit more art in the meantime. Lags are a necessary part of the process but it's gonna mean more stuff in the book in the end, if I have any say in the matter.
 
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new stuff that expands on the story and setting a bit.
So did you guys have to adhere to StudioCanal's "no breaking the canon" rule that the ED2 comic writers did, or was it always the plan to have stories that are (what I assume) unrelated to the events at the cabin?
 
So did you guys have to adhere to StudioCanal's "no breaking the canon" rule that the ED2 comic writers did, or was it always the plan to have stories that are (what I assume) unrelated to the events at the cabin?
I was not given any sort of framework, although the boardgame approval was apparently pretty easy (though before my time) and current approval is still pending. Having said that, I didn't really try to "break" canon... At least I don't think I did. We'll see, hopefully sooner than later!
 
Having said that, I didn't really try to "break" canon... At least I don't think I did.
That was the phrasing the ED2 comic writer used, meaning no doing anything within the frame of ED2 that would impact something in Army of Darkness (not like a complete catastrophic "breaking"), or trying to do something with a post-AOD Ash (which was a big no-no for them). I was just curious what the rules were (if any) they gave before you writers started crafting your stories.
 
Looking at the goofiness Space Goat was able to get away with in their comics, I can't imagine it was that stringent a rule. We stuck to the movie itself and didn't include anything explicit from the other flicks, but that was self-imposed (being a calculated assumption about the future license approval process) rather thanany sort of top-down note.
 
Looking at the goofiness Space Goat was able to get away with in their comics, I can't imagine it was that stringent a rule.
They killed an entire already-announced and partially written/drawn comic series when someone got wind that they were going to include the post-AOD version of Ash. That, and when the official Evil Dead 2 escape room was being put together, they had to set it post-ED2 but before AOD (with Ash in the time rift) specifically to work around that rule. I didn't know if they still enforced that/passed that message along to anyone that wanted to create new stories with the license.
 
They killed an entire already-announced and partially written/drawn comic series when someone got wind that they were going to include the post-AOD version of Ash. That, and when the official Evil Dead 2 escape room was being put together, they had to set it post-ED2 but before AOD (with Ash in the time rift) specifically to work around that rule. I didn't know if they still enforced that/passed that message along to anyone that wanted to create new stories with the license.
Interesting, I hadn't heard that. Was this before Space Goat imploded otherwise?

I'm wondering if the unified license (everything but AoD) has any impact on this. I don't have any insider information on that front.
 
Interesting, I hadn't heard that. Was this before Space Goat imploded otherwise?
The Kickstarter had closed, they missed the November, 2016 deadline, but things were still "in production". The comic was announced in February of 2017, so this was right before everything went downhill for them.
I'm wondering if the unified license (everything but AoD) has any impact on this.
I've been curious about that too, but we really haven't had any product come out since the unification that would make sense to test the waters with. I thought maybe you guys would be able to pull from the other entries, but I assume you're still working with whatever licensing deal was made a few years ago for the board game revival project.
 
Yeah, I enquired about opening it up but we very specifically had the ED2 license via the boardgame, despite it all being unified. That happened after, so we couldn't really cash in on it.

But I remain hopeful that it may have softened the edges a bit.
 
Yeah, I enquired about opening it up but we very specifically had the ED2 license via the boardgame, despite it all being unified. That happened after, so we couldn't really cash in on it.

But I remain hopeful that it may have softened the edges a bit.
I mean, right after that deal happened Fright Rags put out an official Evil Dead 1 shirt that has what is clearly Ash's hand from Evil Dead 2 on it, so they've been doing a little bit of experimenting with "mixing" the entries (though that's a unique case where Fright Rags already had both ED1 and 2 licenses prior to the unification). Never say never, but I guess we'll just have to see!
 
Update #17: Update On Pledge Manager
Hello Deadites!

There is not much new to report right now, but we wanted to keep everyone in the loop. Regarding the pledge manager, we are currently waiting on final approvals before we can launch and begin collecting shipping.

We know the waiting can be frustrating. At this stage it really comes down to legal steps and backend processes that are outside our hands, but everything is moving forward.

The moment we receive the green light, we will launch right away.

Thank you for your patience and support.
A new piece of art was also included, which may look familiar (along with a certain other character)...
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Update #18: Pledge Manager - Summoned!
Hello Deadites,

Chant the glory of the Necronomicon and all that is swallowing souls! The Pledge Manager is ready!

Over the next few days we'll be performing what's called a "Smoke Test" where some of you (5%), will get the pledge manager invite.

This is so we can fix anything that might be busted. Backerkit is very good at finding anything that needs updating but so far we're in great shape!

Once the smoke test is complete, we'll fire off the entire rest of the pledge manager. We'll keep the manager open for several weeks in order to collect shipping addresses, add-ons and accept more pre-orders.

We may be launching the entire manager by Monday pending the success of the smoke test.

We're one major step closer to fulfiment.

Thanks everyone!
 
I'm glad that's up!

I really have no idea how widely available this book is going to be after this, so if you're gonna want it, now's a good time!
 
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