Dark Forest: Redwall Meets 1E in a Shadowdark World

Dark Forest - Marching Right Along!
3 days ago – Mon, Mar 09, 2026 at 09:49:43 AM

Greetings, folk of the Forest!

We're happy to let you know that we've been working super hard and have made great progress with our project!

• All the writing for the main book is finally complete!
• The Founders Digest Vol. #1 is complete!
• The adventure, The Fallen Tower of Drakuur, is complete!
• All the art (save for three pieces in the Adventure) is complete!
• All the maps are complete!
• All STL minis are complete!
• The folding map is complete!
• The Mini-adventures are complete!
• The Premade Characters are complete!
• The GM screen is complete!
• And the Fumble Deck is complete!

All that is left is a full editing pass on the Adventure and the main Dark Forest book. Once the editing is complete, the printer will have everything in their hands, and I'll prep the files for PDF delivery. 

We're really close!!

Keep in mind that the printing and shipping process can take a while, so we're still looking at the end of the second quarter for delivery if everything goes smoothly. 

BackerKit Surveys

As for PDFs, we can't actually send those links until we "Lock Orders" in Backerkit. So that means... if you haven't yet completed your survey, NOW is the time to do it. We're at 93%, so there are still a whole bunch of folks who have yet to do the survey. 

If you don't complete the survey before we lock, it may mean shipping delays, and you also won't be able to adjust your pledge in the pledge manager (the only thing you can change is your shipping address). 

Only by completing your survey will you receive rewards.

We'll send out a final notice before we lock the surveys, but we're looking at about 3 weeks from now, and then we can begin fulfilling digital rewards. Our armadillo warrior friend (an extra ancestry from the Founders Digest) will not be happy if you fail!

Thank you, everyone, for your continued patience and support! We're so excited about how everything is turning out and can't wait to get it in your hands... and then... we'll grab a mug of autumn ale, kick back by the fire, and take a little rest!

Cheers!

John

Dark Forest - February Update
about 1 month ago – Mon, Feb 09, 2026 at 08:23:27 AM

Hello Abbeydwellers!

Dark Forest is moving quickly, with huge progress on all the adventure material. The starter adventure, The Fallen Tower of Drakuur, has greatly expanded from its original plan of being a 60-page intro to the world and is now almost 130 pages of adventure. There is a core story you can run, plus a large hex map to just explore the core region of Errador. The second draft is complete and will soon be sent to our editor for polishing. I'll be working on maps and finding places for illustrations (there will be fewer than originally planned because the adventure has grown so large, but I'll be working on important ones over the next 30 days).

Our goal with the adventure and all the materials is to have PDF versions ready for the end of March.  We are on track! And it's very exciting. 

Once we start getting the PDFs in your hands next month, we'll then be sending the final versions to our printer. Even more exciting!

Meanwhile, over on Backerkit we're 92% complete with our backer surveys, so if you haven't yet filled out your survey, please take a minute to find your link and fill it out. If you can't find your link email, please let us know and we'll help out.

Thank you everyone for your infinite patience as we get Dark Forest completed! It's coming along great, and we can't wait until we have all the PDFs ready. 

Huzzah!

John

Happy New Year folk of the Forest!
2 months ago – Fri, Jan 09, 2026 at 09:12:24 PM

Greetings Abbeydwellers! We hope you're having a great start to 2026! 

We've been busy here at Castle Clark, getting the Dark Forest books and add-ons completed. We're in excellent shape and on schedule with all the products. 

• Dark Forest book. The final art for the main book has just been added (by Cameron Mass), and now we're down to doing a few regional maps and the book is complete and ready to final edit. 
• The Founders Digest, Vol. 1 is fully written and laid-out in InDesign with art and maps, and has gone to our editor for the 1st pass.
• The GM Screen is complete and has been sent to the printers.
• The Mini Dungeons are complete, edited, playtested, and currently with the printers.
• The Fumble Deck is done, edited, playtested (my brother-in-law rolled 18 natural 1s in one 4-hour session last week!! No joke, every other attack was a nat 1!! lol. It was really spooky.), and at the printers.
• The Premade Characters Cards are done, playtested and survived their first dungeon and currently with the printers. 
• The Adventure Journal is done and ready for print-on-demand orders.
• The STL minis and extras are all complete and test printed (and used in combat!) except for the squirrel sage, who is still IP.
• The 12" x 12" Art Prints are ready to be ordered.

As of now, the last big things to tackle are... the starting adventure, which has been written as a 1st draft—and I'm now starting to edit and restructure for layout in InDesign—and the upgraded world map artwork. Then editing, proofing, and eliminating my seemingly endless supply of typos!

Here's a new piece from Ava-Marie Gomez for a Tier 5 spell called "Restore the Land." It's marvelous and has an old-world quality that I love.

And another piece from Andrew Beckwith. Breggin Hillspringer, one of the iconic characters in the Bestiary.

Finally, for those who chose the pay-over-time options on Kickstarter, this is new for me, but it's my understanding that your surveys will go out after Kickstarter processes and releases the funds. That could take up to two weeks. But not to worry! There's plenty of time to get your surveys in. We have good estimates on quantities we need to order from the printers, and we're working with them already to get all the art and designs in their hands. 

I can't wait until you get a chance to play Shadowdark with Dark Forest, it's incredibly fun to run as a GM. We've also put the Brewmaster through rigorous playtesting and have done a lot of balancing and changes to the rules for Concoctions. It's a super fun class, a bit of a jack of all trades, and scales well to higher levels with other classes, and it's a thematic fit in a Redwallish world (strawberry fizz anyone?). 

Finally, I don't think I've done it enough; I want to thank Kelsey Dionne for Shadowdark. The more I play, the more I sincerely appreciate what she's created. This is the kind of D&D I remember as a kid in the 80's, where your imagination is turned on, and the world drops away, and we all enter a story together as it unfolds in unexplainable ways. But in a way, it's better. It's just the right amount of rules, and anything that's missing you can answer with a bit of common sense and knowledge. So instead of constantly thinking about rules and the future, players are here and now, present and fully participating. It's magic. So between now and when Dark Forest comes to your doorstep, go and play some Shadowdark!

Cheers for now! The abbey bells are tolling bedtime!

John & Nicole

Sailing right along!
3 months ago – Wed, Dec 10, 2025 at 07:14:07 AM

Greetings abbey-dwellers!

A December update to let you know how things are going this holiday season!

Thank you to everyone who filled out their BackerKit surveys! Woohoo. We're at 80% completion. If you haven't filled in your survey, please do so when you have a spare minute. (Of course, those who opted to use Kickstarter's pay-over-time service will still need to wait till later in January before your survey email is sent out, so hold tight!) 

On the production end, we are close to finishing our 3D STL miniatures, and they are looking great! Here's a peek at our freshly printed lineup. The darkwing, hedgehog, and otter are new. These are not fully cleaned up yet, but they're looking great. We're still tweaking the mouse, squirrel, and fox. And these are all being printed on cheap bamboo filament printers at our local library for about $1.50 each. If you can print them on a resin printer, then even more detail will pop out (and easier cleanup). The otter's bow is the tough one. I really want a bow, but we'll likely need to get rid of the bowstring, as it's breaking every time. But it may print great with resin. More testing to come. We're also still unifying the stand scale to 26mm. Our sculptor is really doing a great job (she also did the sculpts for our board game Haunted Halloween which is up on Amazon.com now, woot!).

We're also working on all our extras:

• The 6 mini-adventures are all written and have been sent to Brandon, our editor. 
• The GM Screen art is done and ready for the printer
• The Premade Character Cards are done and ready for the printer.
• The Fumble Deck is done and ready for the printer.
• I'm close to completing the Founders Digest. It has expanded a bit, and I've decided to focus it on a region of the Dark Forest world called the Isles of Dread. In Redwall, pirates, sea rats, and voyages have been a big part of many of the books, so in this Founders Digest, I'll detail that region out in more detail, plus I've added yet another class, the Corsair! Both the Assassin and the Corsair classes are included in this digest. Also, the adventure that's included in the digest is based in the Isles with more rules for ship navigation. So there's a voyage with a dungeon crawl at the end. Beware the kraken, me hearties!!

We're also close to having a full draft of the adventure book, which Anthony has expanded beyond our original intent. We're trying to keep it under 100 pages, but he's created so much cool stuff that it's going to be tough. By the holidays we'll be in the InDesign layout phase and getting started on art and maps. If you didn't back this, you might want to grab it in Backerkit.

Finally, of course, the main campaign book is shaping up nicely. I keep adding more and stuff (just added 4 more monsters yesterday!) that we need in there as we develop the extras. Apart from the art, it's very close to done. 

So right now we're on track and on target for our digital and physical delivery goals. But I'll keep you updated as things progress. 

Thank you, everyone, and may you have a peaceful day of adventure!

John & Nicole

P.S. here's art for our Barrier of Bees spell. This amazing piece is by our newest artist, Ava Gomez (aka. GhostlyMetalhead) - who btw is an environmental scientist! Brilliant!

Dark Forest Tee Shirt?
3 months ago – Fri, Nov 28, 2025 at 07:37:58 AM

Greeting noble creatures of Dark Forest,

In my enthusiasm for this project I made myself a tee-shirt on Teepublic and ordered it. Then I thought, "would anyone else want one?" This is NOT part of the Kickstarter. Just a personal creation that I realized others might be excited about, and we can order them right now (mine is already on its way!) I might even get a mug, since they can put the image I chose on various products. 

https://www.teepublic.com/t-shirt/84123439-dark-forest-tee

That's all for now! Hope you're Black Friday is filled with bargains and savings!! (and save some $ for Giving Tuesday - you can probably guess the charities we always give to - animal welfare, WWF, and anti-child slavery; Redwall themes indeed! Hit me up if you need some links.)

Cheers,

John & Nicole

P.S. New art from Yuri!! (the spell description is WIP)