Black Market Guide to Immortality

We have unlocked the new one-shot, 10 new monsters, and a new homebrewed subclass!

Pardon my rush writing this message, but in the hopes that people see this, I'm making a risky offer: for every 3K that we make from here, we will design a new subclass or lineage/heritage based on the community polling!

These will count as last minute bonus stretch goals. Let's make this a grand finale! And again, thank you for your generosity through these tough times. This whole experience with crowdfunding, all the highs and lows, will be a lasting memory for all of us in the Nine Heavens Press team.

We're at the final several hours! And we've got about under 6K left from meeting the 120K stretch goal!

And the preview for 130K has been revealed: we're excited to put out printable monster and item cards based on what we've produced in Undying Corruption and will produce in Black Market Guide.

To give an example of what they'd look like, here is a sample from our collaborative partner, Mithral Canvas:

They would look something like this, but of course, we'd toy with the layout in our personal team.We're thinking about doing the same and folks in our livestream today. Since folks were interested in seeing cards with our monsters for easy access, we're happy to expand on that idea and include them!

To sweeten the pot, we're also happy to add another lineage/heritage of an existing ancestry/species based on results from our community polls. In other words, the top 4 will be chosen in total if we clear 130K!

Once again, we'd like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who backed us and we do not take your generosity lightly. Here's to taking this all the way home!

Preview


Goddess of Drought, Hanba. Once a water goddess and daughter of the Jade Emperor, she joined the war on his behalf against the rival deities for dominance over the heavens and the earth. She reversed her authority to overwhelm the storm and wind gods on the opposing side. The traumas of war left her as a goddess of drought, banished from the heavens to wander the earthly realms and lower planes as a bringer of drought.

Though an omen of disaster, she simply wishes for a place to belong.

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As we close out the crowdfunding campaign, I wanted to take this time to thank everyone for this successful turnout. We're grateful and delighted that there are so many people out there who are interested in seeing and playing through an East Asian setting that's been created by East Asian artists.

Your generous support really allows us to create new art as ambitiously as we have so far. It helps us make sure all of our teammates are compensated for their time and effort in a perfectly fair way. Of course, we'd also like to put out more stories just like the ones we've shared with you! So truly, thank you for helping make a difference.

As a show of our appreciation, we'll add a bonus to the upcoming 120K stretch goal:

Community Poll: New Subclass
We'll choose a total of 2 most popular classes in both our 5e and PF2e polls and design a totally new subclass based on your pick. As of now, it's looking like that would be the Gunslinger and Psychic in PF2e and the Warlock and Rogue in 5e. The choice in one version will be converted to the other version, so you're getting 2 for the price of 1.

In total, you'll be getting: 10 new monsters, 2 new subclasses, and a one-shot. Quite the bargain, if we make it!

With under 37 hours remaining, let's end this campaign with a bang!

With just 3 days left, let's sweeten the pot so we can make sure to reach $120K. We're very close now to 110K, so I think we can do it!

Here are more variant monsters that we're eager to produce if we make it:

Bakotsu (Centaur/Nightmare) After a warlord burned a centaur village allied with a rival, the clerics placed one last curse as retribution for their fates. Their collective malice brought alive their corpses as Bakotsu, skeletal centaurs engulfed in flame, that constantly regenerate in order to haunt their enemies. Ghosts that will never forgive the atrocities visited on them to be forgotten.

Blade Hag (Hag) An odd Korean monster. These hags appear in battlefields, drawn to the scent of blood, and do everything within their power to continue the fight. This could mean sneaking into a battlefield, disguised in the colors of one or the other army, and taking the first swing that lights the powder keg of war. They love discord and making contracts, serving as swordsmiths, that would corrupt well-meaning, valiant young warriors into bloodthirsty butchers.

Gu Huo Niao (Harpy) They're a variant of harpy possessed by the grief of a mother losing their young. Once a harpy is overwhelmed by this despair, they're compelled to seek out and snatch a child to raise. If they do successfully raise the child, a curious magic transforms the child into another Gu Huo Niao. Their true mother's grief at losing them can also bring to life another Gu Huo Niao, so... there's really no winning here, is there?

Luotuoshi (Dullahan) A sorcerous variant of a dullahan, it's said that they're immortals who've learned to survive without their heads. Their heads instead become a spell focus which they can intentionally sever and have fly far distances remotely. By wielding this strange connection, they can spiritually connect to multiple severed heads, using them as components for barrages of spells.

Ohachisuye (Roper) An Ainu monster born from the lingering resentments of a long abandoned house. The creature's flesh engulfs the walls of the house and uses the outside as a protective shell. Like a roper, it extends its long tendrils to keep travelers from leaving, slowly killing them while they stay the night. It's capable of using cleverer, more subtle means such as projecting illusions to invite them into what seems like an empty house.

While we're on monsters, we're also happy to share this funny little guy:



The Mo in China, or Baku in Japan, is a chimera of sorts whose sharp teeth are capable of eating both hard materials like metal or soft, intangible concepts like dreams. Many famous inns in the Iseung region got their start by domesticating Mo to eat the nightmares of their guests. If the Mo get too hungry, they're liable to also eat people's sweet dreams, leaving them feeling empty when they next wake up. It takes a skilled beast tamer to make sure a mo doesn't get carried away with their appetite.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to respond here or email us at [email protected].

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Hello, everyone! We've only got a little over 3 days left of crowdfunding to go. We're on our way to the $110K stretch goal (Undying Corruption AP season 2) and past that, the Legacy of the Wailing Souls one-shot based on encounters from this book.

We're also eager to offer something a little different for the 120K stretch goal: Variant Monsters

In our research, we've found a number of creatures that'd be difficult to stat up largely because they seem so similar to an existing creature. However, with Variant Monsters, we can offer sets of monsters that tune-up statblocks of existing creatures.

Here's a list of what we have in mind for round 1:

Overall, we'd be thrilled to have the chance to stat up creatures that normally seemed mechanically too similar to existing monsters. The twists we'll make, I think, will definitely distinguish them. Plus, naturally, we'll have a lot of new cool art to share, all made possible by your generosity.

If you have any questions or comments, feel free to reply here, email us at [email protected], or join our Discord server!