Black Market Guide to Immortality

Over the course of researching for the book, Seul-ki did quite a bit of traveling, playing at game parlors in Long Xin and treating herself to the hot springs in Kyougen! We're hoping to share more slices of life scenes of the Iseung region since not everything's embroiled in righteous conflict.

Welcome to Day 6! I'm pleased to report that everyone will receive an additional 5 tracks in the OST! To better gauge what our backers want, we've reopened the OST poll. Tense moments, boss themes of specific NPCs and huge moments in our book, songs of general resting and celebration at a tavern, let us know what you most want to hear so we can tailor the soundtrack's experience to you!

Once the 75K Stretch Goal has been cleared, we'll reveal more spanning into the 100Ks! Yes, we have so much more planned.

We deeply appreciate everyone's support up till this point. 

Now, an exciting update. In order to simplify the higher pledge levels a little bit, we've updated the Deity tier a little bit. You can commission us to illustrate your OC and create a VTT token for them! We will also include them in the book, credited under your name, as well. We feel this could largely be a bit more accessible to a wider audience even as we're not working directly with you on the worldbuilding aspects.

As of now, 3 have already been snagged, with 7 left. 

Granny's gonna grab ya! If you've watched Dandadan, you'd be familiar with the funny gremlin hag, Turbo Granny, or the 100 km/hr hag. Imagine a little old lady that can keep up with you while you're speeding along the highway. A modern monster from the 50's, probably 60's, Turbo Granny was born from rumors of a speeding granny chasing after folks and causing car wrecks.

Mechanics-wise, she's a hag that's very, very, very fast. In PF2e, she's naturally Quickened and in 5e, she can haste herself. That's on top of being able to gain additional attacks by sapping others' speed, so theoretically, she can upgrade her movement to, oh... 200 ft.? Yes, some playtesting could help us make sure we don't get TOO carried away!

Godkiller Giant


After the world's birth, when the Jade Emperor won the civil war of gods for the right to govern the remainder of creation, a cloud giant challenged him to a duel to avenge her master's death. The Jade Emperor decapitated the giant, but much to everyone's surprise, the giant didn't die. So fierce was the giant's righteous wrath against a clearly mightier foe that she entered an unbelievably rare state called Godkiller.

Godkiller Giants are effectively immortal giants whose rage, will to survive, and hatred against the heavens all culminate in immortality through instantaneous evolution. Decapitation? No problem, you'll just grow another head over your stomach. Arm missing? Just fine, we'll grow one more, and another while we're at it. Whenever a godkiller giant takes damage, they gain immunity against it until the start of their next turn. Battles become a puzzle of needing diverse arrays of strong attacks. Supposedly, there's another state they can enter that channels all of their adaptive powers into raw, obscene power, just to eke out victory.

Such giants can never return to their old homes, having become embodiments of unceasing rage, even if they succeed in slaying their enemy. Rather than being any individual, the Godkiller Giant is a template that any creature with the giant type can access.



Our Discord server's gotten a lot livelier! Come join the party!

We're closing in on our 65K stretch goal! Until then, we have more previews from the book to share with you. One of the things we're most excited about with this project is to commission more such art for the fascinating concepts and designs across eastern mythologies!



Amaterasu is the highest deity of the Japanese pantheon, also the Kyougen Federation's pantheon of our setting. As the sun goddess, she ascended to the height of her pantheon as a matter of necessity when her mother, Izanami, died, and her father, Izanagi, became inconsolable. The gods of the realm of Takamagahara had separated into two clans that supported either Izanagi or Izanami. The death of the latter caused turmoil which Amaterasu acted in a gambit set up with her brothers, Tsukuyomi and Susano-O, to restore order.

Though young, she dutifully accepted a weighty responsibility earlier than expected. She bears a love for mankind and holds dear to her a wish to see the people of Kyougen achieve unity for the first time in its long history. Precocious, loving, and formidable with a fiery passion, Amaterasu is one of many deities you can expect to see in our setting!


The primordial god of water, Gonggong, felt prideful after populating his seas with fish, aboleth, merfolk, sahuagin, and other such aquatic creatures. He despised the terrestrial creatures who he believed betrayed and forgot their debt to the mother sea. To punish them and return the lands to the seas, he appointed Xiangliu, his most trustworthy minister, with the task of eradicating all life on land.

Xiangliu is a conglomerate of 9 minds sharing a single body that never acts without a quorum. Declaring themselves the Ennearchy of Gonggong, they've descended onto the world in multiple different forms, whether as a bird or snake, always with nine heads, to fulfill their master's dream. Even after their master's disappearance due to lack of faith, Xiangliu fixates on washing all terrestrial life away in a great deluge. Their schemes have created a great number of monsters native to Long Xin.


The kotoribako is a marvelous little puzzle box. It appears like a small, wooden cube with small parts that can move around. If moved around in the right direction, something miraculous might happen!

... So in truth, it's a cursed item that's designed initially to target people by ending their bloodlines, hence why it's referred to as the "child-snatching box" in legend. If anybody solves the puzzle, they're transported to a plane of existence it's connected to, usually not a very friendly one. It can be weaponized by people who are familiar with the object's curse, but would you want to keep something like this so close to you?



The Registry of Mortality is a book that the judges of the underworld keep that records the names of everyone who has ever lived. Son Wukong stole one and erased his name from it, thereby gaining technical immortality (the best kind of immortality!). If weaponized, it can be used as something of a death note by altering someone's time of death. It has a number of authorities reserved only for the deities of the underworld, but if any falls into the hands of mortals, the material plane subsequently falls into pandemonium without fail.

Good morning, everyone! We're entering Day 4 of the campaign. Again, thank you all so much for helping us get to this point. 

The Seul-ki Q&A is underway in our Discord server! For those wanting to participate, please join us as we're already taking the time to answer questions in-character. Asking questions as your own characters is very encouraged!

Once we clear this goal, we'll upgrade the soundtrack to 15 tracks! In addition, we'll be choosing another lineage to create from the favorite ancestry poll. That brings us to 2 total!

Clearing this stretch goal, we'll dive deep into the lore behind the Four Benevolent Beasts and the Four Perils.

The Four Benevolent Beasts

Based on both the Four Symbols of mythology with a bit of the Four Heavenly Kings of Buddhist faith, the Four Benevolent Beasts are Primordial Beasts that transcended their mortal bounds through their friendship with Moksaka. Each protect a cardinal direction (so north, south, east, west) and hold dominion over an element. Though deities in our setting, they descend at times of true calamity. To prepare for such an event, we'll create a statblock for each deity!

The Four Perils

Standing opposite of the Four Benevolent Beasts are the Four Perils, also holding dominion over a cardinal direction and mastery over an opposing element. The Four Perils are a partnership across the fiend spectrum: demon, daemon, and devil. They represent the fall of mankind through their own vices: greed, overconsumption, war, unchecked ambition, and a return to the chaos before the world was created.

We'll include full lair mechanics and really upgrade them as true boss monsters, giving plot hooks at various different tiers of a campaign to pursue. Whether as guardians or destroyers, the Four Beasts and the Four Perils are some of an adventurer's greatest challenges in the Iseung region.

Even after this, we still haven't reached the end of our stretch goals! There will be more to show very soon such as lore expansion, additional tracks and printable minis, and another bestiary expansion around the corner.

Good morning, welcome to Day 3 of the campaign!!

We are just centimeters away from the 50K stretch goal being unlocked. This is a good opportunity to break down the 55K stretch goal just over the horizon. But first, I'm pleased to announce that the Ascension Bundle has been upgraded! All PDFs now include BOTH 5e and PF2e versions by popular demand! This is to help meet gamers who enjoy playing both systems or are curious about one or the other.

We also have a number of new polls for backers! Your opinions will help shape which additional subclasses we include, which new lineages/heritages for core species/ancestries are adopted. Just click here to access the polls. 

With a bit of arcane potential mixed in, the Tactician shapes the battlefield with inexplicable walls to create advantages for their troops. The best part is, as they level up, they'll be able to build into the walls special backdoors passable only by them and allies. No matter where you go, you are a master of the terrain.

As you can see from the art also, new mounts and familiars have been unlocked! The mobile palanquin being one such example, it is a construct that ferries you about in absolute style. We'll add a number of special creatures that can be used as familiars.


The Er Shu is a chimera native to Long Xin. It has the head of a rabbit, body of a mouse, and antlers. Oh, and its tail can spin around, letting it fly (please don't sue us, Sega). It has the keen power to detect poisons and give its contractor as a familiar resistance against poison. Very sought after by mages and familiar enthusiasts!

 If you have any questions or comments, please reply here or email us at [email protected]. Otherwise, you can join our Discord server! Especially as the Seul-ki Q&A kicks off!

Good day, all! It's day 2 of our campaign. Even after a whirlwind day 1, we have quite a bit still left in store. We have under 100 backers remaining for the early bird Jiang-shi sticker bonus! At this rate, today's the last day for it.



Getting right to it, we have a very fun opportunity:

We will be hosting on Discord a Q&A event with Shin Seul-ki! Everyone is invited to join our Discord server and submit a question to her to receive an answer from her in-character. While we'll endeavor to answer each question, the choicest questions and answers will be showcased up on our next BackerKit updates!

Ask the author of The Black Market Guide to Immortality anything you might want! We encourage you to ask your question in-character as well.

Thanks to you all, we've beaten the 30K stretch goal in record time! I'm very pleased to share with you a bit of what we have in store here.

Fighter: Gate Guardian (5e)

This subclass of Fighter was inspired broadly by stories in The Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Based on martial techniques devoted to protecting palaces and fortresses against sieges and invasions, you are the ultimate tank, combining both offense and defense. None shall pass and so long as you stand, you'll suffer no harm to come to your friends and liege. Sometimes, the best means of achieving immortality is to be very, very good at surviving.

Psychic: Unliving Spark (PF2e)



Due to the Gate Guardian being rather similar to the Bastion archetype and shield-based feats already existing, we thought it'd be best to create both a 5e exclusive and a PF2e exclusive.

You harness through your psychic potential the initial spark of life that first fired up your consciousness since your birth or creation. With but a jolt, your spark can again galvanize a corpse to walk yet again.

As part of the Unliving Spark, we're also pleased to introduce a new subconscious mind: the Collective Singularity where your connection runs deep into the sea of souls from which all life originates from. While others' connections weaken, yours remain as strong as ever, allowing you to protect your mind in a pool of a myriad others.

Ranger: Vaultrunner (5e)



The more you adventure, the keener you began to hear the voices of forlorn objects. You consider ruins or dungeons to be a separate environment called a "Vault", an enclosed, environmental ecosystem. Drawing power from spirits innate to the environment, you heed and find lost treasures to instill them with renewed purpose. At critical junctures, you can give these spirits an explosive send-off. It's their final sacrifice, one might say.

As you increase your connection to the souls of the vault's denizens, you gain the power to move your own soul between vessels. No longer are you limited to just one body.

Animist: Voyager of Forgotten Storerooms (PF2e)

Similar in concept except you stand more on the divine side of the magical spectrum. Heeding wayward spirits and even household gods left behind in abandoned places, you imbue their vessels with mobility. You're an expert user of household tools with knowledge of both architecture and, well, objects that others would consider junk. 

After listening to some feedback from readers and gamers, we thought this would be an excellent opportunity to work more with the classic, existing species/ancestries/heritages in 5e and PF2e. That's why we're very excited to introduce:

Korpokkur Gnome (5e)/Korpokkur Pixie (PF2e)



From Ainu folklore, korpokkurs are fairies that once coexisted with the Ainu people. They're little people that lived beneath the butterbur plants (which if I can be honest are quite tall) that crafted items to trade with people for. Very shy, however, they prefer not being looked at directly. In our world, they wear magical veils and garbs that shroud their true appearances.

Gnomes, having some degree of connection to fey and wilderness, seemed appropriate to associate with the korpokkur. Their culture centered around tinkering also fit well. In PF2e, we decided to lean more into the fairy aspect by making them a pixie heritage.

Ten OST tracks!!

We increase the number of tracks from 5 to 10!! I think as we update you guys on the progress of our OST, showing you samples of completed tracks, we will continue to poll you and see what people are interested in listening to. I'm personally very excited to commission more music based around the atmosphere set in Undying Corruption. The theme of the Society of Wailing Souls in particular I feel could inspire a great deal of tension.

15 new minis!

Our collection of 3D printable minis increases to 15! All of which can be voted on. I should mention, we plan on beginning tallying up votes once we can distribute everyone's surveys. That might be the easiest way to start polling people once we have everyone's stretch goals locked in. Anyway, keep your eyes peeled for new previews of monsters because you might get to make them into a new 3d printable mini!

Cleric: Emptiness Domain (5e)/Oracle: Awakening Mystery (PF2e)



The concepts of awakening and emptiness have a great deal of overlap. Accepting emptiness is to accept that all things lack intrinsic meaning and even pain can be overcome through a higher state of being. Yours is a path that seeks to undo the delusions plaguing the world which spark suffering, fear, and hatred, hence awakening. 

Given the Void Domain exists in PF2e, we felt it would be more prudent to try our hand at creating an oracle mystery instead. 

New Chapter: Unmasking the Gods

On clearing this stretch goal, we will include in The Black Market Guide yet more forbidden secrets that will increasingly earn its spot in-world as one of the most illegal printed pieces in history. We'll delve into the cross-pollination of religions and the secret machinations of various different deities.

Community Poll: New Core Lineage/Heritage

Just as you might've seen with the Gnomish/Pixie Korpokkur, we're going to leave it to the readers to decide which of the core species/ancestries you'd like to see most given a unique lineage/heritage in the world. Orcs, Elves, Gnomes, you will be commissioning us to delve more into our research to tailor a new lineage/heritage by community demand.

This will be a community project and you'll be in on the creation process!

Wizard: School of Ceremonies (5e)/Yin-Yang Master Archetype (PF2e)



If you'd like to play something akin to a taoist master of cultivation fantasy or an onmyoji of Heian fiction, this will scratch that itch. You are not merely a spellcaster, but an officiant of the magical arts. You fashion your spells into rituals or you can imbue them on your person or a paper talisman, unlocking their powers at the proper time. All of this builds up to the Ritual of Eternity, allowing you to perform a ritual that extends particular spells' durations to states of permanency.

The PF2e side, given the presence of fulus and talismans, will draw more on those rules as we build up our archetype.

If you have any questions or comments, please reply here or email us at [email protected]. Otherwise, you can join our Discord server! Especially as the Seul-ki Q&A kicks off!