DURF Expanded

Art Update!
6 months ago – Fri, Apr 03, 2026 at 05:19:06 AM

I've been crushing through 30 illustrations for the bestiary in the past few weeks. I don't think I've done this much art so consistently for such a long period during any time in my life, and I'm happy to report that I am having a blast!

Thirty is too many to post here, so I'll show off a few and will post the rest on my socials over the next few weeks. So keep an eye on those or wait until the book is finished :) Enjoy!

I'll see y'all again once I've crushed through the remaining illustrations :)

Cheers,

-Emiel

PS: My friend Jimmy Shelter is currently funding a sweet RPG called Pine Shallows. It's a mystery game inspired by The Goonies and Gravity Falls, and it is loads of fun! Go check it out!

Bestiary Sketches
7 months ago – Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 02:41:59 AM

Hey y'all!

A brief update this time. I completely forgot that this month is the annual getting-your-books-in-order-for-income-tax-month, so that took more time away from this project than I wanted. Despite that time sink, I've made good progress on the illustration front! I'm happy to state that all illustrations for the bestiary have been sketched out! I'll be inking and coloring them over the coming days!

Here are some of the sketches:

I'll write another update once I have a few color versions to show off :)

Cheers,

-Emiel

Writing done. On to editing, adventures, and art!
8 months ago – Tue, Feb 10, 2026 at 02:40:25 AM

Hey!

Quick update on the state of DURF. I finished the last bits of the draft last week and have since handed it all off to Ava for editing!

While Ava takes care of that, I've started making a dent in the great number of creatures I'll need to draw for the Bestiary and the rest of the book. The bestiary alone requires 56 different illustrations, which will take me a while to complete by myself.

It's been nice to take a break from writing and do some art again. I plan on making art for a week or two before I'll start taking some time each week to devote to the adventures for the adventure zine. Most of these are already written but they'll need some updating and expanding before they are also ready for editing :)

Anyway, here are some of the illustrations I did this week: a manticore and an etterling.

I plan on releasing a preview version of the whole book (without all the art) once Ava has done a first pass over it. I expect this to be somewhere around the start of June, but hopefully a bit earlier.

That's all for now. I'll write another update once I have made some more progress to show off :)

Cheers,

Emiel

New Year, New DURF
9 months ago – Mon, Jan 05, 2026 at 05:37:44 AM

Hey all,

I hope you had a good holiday season and wish you the best for the new year! I'm excited to keep working on DURF this year!

Since my last update, I've written a lot of the remaining appendices and tables for DURF and passed them on to Ava for editing. I've reworked the spell, magical item, and treasure tables, and reworked/signed off on a bunch of other appendices like the optional character archetypes and the "how to" chapters about dungeons and overworld creation.

Big Bestiary

I also wrapped up writing the bigger bestiary we unlocked as a stretch goal. Not all of your suggestions made it in, but I included as many as I could. Even with some of the suggestions not making it, the total monster count reached 160 (165 if you count the subtypes on the d6 table in the entry for Giant), which goes beyond the original 150 promised in the stretch goal. Which is a great for you all, but might make me curse my hubris once I have to illustrate them later this year :)

There are a handful of appendices I still need to write/rework for the main book before I can hand everything off to Ava for editing and move on to illustrating it (and start work on the adventure zine). I hope to have these remaining bits finished by the end of this month or in early February.

These remaining bits include:

• The random encounter tables need to be reworked to include the new monsters.
• Dungeon generator
• Another look at the overworld tables
• A whole slew of miscellaneous random tables regarding anything from NPCs and encounter flavor, to alchemy and spellbooks.
• Play examples
• Further reading and inspirations

Since we didn't unlock the solo rules stretch goal, I plan on taking a bit more time to go over all of the random tables and generators in the book to make sure they are useful for solo players. That way, you only need to pull a simple oracle from somewhere else to make DURF work as a solo game :)

BackerKit Pledge Manager

Most of you have filled out the pledge manager at this point. If you haven't, consider doing it now, since it only takes a few minutes and it makes sure I'll be able to get the book to you once it's done. :) If you have trouble with anything or didn't receive an email from BackerKit, shoot me a message and I'll help sort it out!

That's all for now! Thank you again for your support <3

I'll update you again once I have something new to show :)

Cheers,

Emiel

Pledge manager goes live!
11 months ago – Fri, Nov 14, 2025 at 01:36:31 AM

Hey all!

I've just sent out the first smoke test for the Backerkit pledge manager (sending out the survey to just 5% of backers) if that goes well I'll send the survey to the rest of you all.

In the Backerkit pledge manager you'll be able to pick add-ons and/or upgrade your pledge. It is also where you can let me know your shipping information.

The actual shipping costs will be calculated more closely to fulfillment. I'll update you again once I start adding those to the Backerkit, but the estimates for it can be found at the bottom of the Kickstarter campaign page :)

If everything goes well with the pledge manager, I'll distribute the digital download codes for The Electrum Archive 1 & 2 (part of the Lizard King Tier and available as add-on) this Monday.

So keep an eye on your mailbox in the coming days for an email with your invite to the pledge manager!

Thanks for your support and talk soon!

-Emiel