Monsters of Murka is a hilarious new campaign setting for fifth edition DND full of comical monsters, detailed maps, parodical mayhem, and political satire! This campaign setting includes adventures for first to tenth level characters.
We were successfully funded on Kickstarter in June 2019, and we're stoked to share everything we're creating with you!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Monsters of Murka's first full-size expansion is coming to Kickstarter September 8th.
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Aug 08, 2020 at 08:08:50 AM
Restaurants and Retail is comprised of three primary locations:
• Flavor City
• Walmoria
• The Hall of Murka
BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE! It's also full of 13 new subclasses (some of which we snuck in below), and hundreds of new magic items, equipment, spells, diseases, and a bunch of other rad shit.
Flavor City
Flavor City is a magically-concealed town full of incredible food, powerful paladins, and the infamous magical saucerers—practitioners of the secret school of magic known as Gourmomancy.
Getting into Flavor City will be quite the feat, but once you're there, you're in for a treat! There's something about the layout of the town, though, and the presence of Guy Fierre, the Flavor Savior himself, which seems to imply that there may be more to this culinary wonderland. And just what the hell is a "Taste Beast" anyway?
Walmoria
Walmoria is a seemingly-innocuous storefront, magically appearing almost overnight in any settlement large enough. It plays home to Stocker Rogues, Bargain Hunter Rangers, and Company-pacted Warlocks.
The cheery-but-sterile front of the store eventually gives way to a massive underground labyrinth which seems to span the width of Murka itself. Laden with as many traps as treasures, many adventurers come here for mundane items, but the allure of magical gear proves to be too much for them. Be careful not to spend too long wandering the aisles, or you may find yourself an employee, serving the Manageri.
The Hall of Murka
The Hall of Murka lies somewhere in Midwesteros, where you can find as many Path of the Punk Barbarians as you can peaceful Urban Druids (the latter typically easily identified by the thick aroma of pannibus wafting around them).
The Hall of Murka is a combination dwelling area and collection of shops. The Hall has transferred ownership many times throughout the years (currently owned by none other than Tall Hammertoe, famed giant lumberjack), and each time a new layer of shops has been built on top of the old ones, pushing "last year's shops" deeper and deeper beneath the surface.
PAPERBACKS ARE COMING STARTING THIS WEEKEND!
over 3 years ago
– Wed, Aug 05, 2020 at 09:22:09 PM
GANG IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING.
Paperback books are shipping starting this weekend!
I just sent out a Backerkit update stating that we're locking down orders on Friday, and charging cards the same day. Our Paperback proof finally came, and they fixed the thing we needed them to fix, which means the paperbacks can start going out immediately!
What about the hardbacks?
As for the hardback books, we're now officially looking at about 7 weeks from now for hardbacks, and 9 weeks from now for the limited edition hardbacks.
Why delay the limited editions?
We just got word back from our printers (PrintNinja) and unfortunately, there was a mistake made when printing the limited editions:
Silver foil pressed instead of gold.
They mistakenly pressed silver foil instead of gold onto the limited editions. Today, the team and I sat down to decide what to do about this - our options were to accept the silver foils and get the books to you on time, or delay an additional 2 weeks on the limited edition books in order to deliver the product that we promised. We ultimately decided that it was more important to deliver what we advertised and delay by two weeks to get it 100% right.
We apologize for this one - though it was out of our hands as a mistake made at the printer, it's still part of the on-going delays that you are all facing. COVID-19 plus our own delays outlined in our previous update video with JB have made this project an unfortunate nightmare in terms of delivering on-time.
So what's new? What have you been doing all this time?
In the time we've spent waiting to ship these books, however, we've been INCREDIBLY busy. So busy, in fact, that we're launching a Kickstarter for an expansion to Monsters of Murka that rivals the size and quality of the core book. This expansion is going to be bursting at the seams with flavor, and we think you're REALLY gonna love it. More on that very soon. (And if you've been in our Discord, chances are good you already know what's got me so Fieri--err... fiery.)
Warm regards,
Jaron R. M. Johnson and the Action Fiction Faction
jrmj
Quick update - finalized paperback proof is here, which means paperback goes out SO SOON! Plus sneak peeks.
over 3 years ago
– Sat, Aug 01, 2020 at 06:44:09 AM
FINALLY, SOME GOOD FUCKIN' NEWS.
Alright, gang, so I got the paperback proof that finally has no issues. That means I'll be shipping out paperback versions of the book VERY soon (and also means we'll be charging shipping from BackerKit VERY soon).
I also wanted to get you guys a very clear and concise update on what's taken us so long to get here. For that, I will direct you to the below interview I did with JB (@DropTheDie), our layout artist and the absolute hero and savior of Monsters of Murka.
The last thing I'll leave you with here is that I am STILL waiting for the hardcover proofs. Chances are pretty good that paperback books will go out before hardback books. I should be receiving hardcover PROOFS soon, and the rest of the books are meant to follow after that. Literally the MOMENT they arrive in my home, I will be taking the following days off from my dayjob to focus on shipping them out for that entire week.
This means that we'll be charging backerkit cards for shipping soon, which means IF YOU HAVE NOT UPDATED YOUR ADDRESS IN BACKERKIT, PLEASE DO.
And the last last last thing I'll leave you with is a sneak peek at our upcoming expansion landing on Kickstarter on September first. I'll leave it to you to guess what it's all about.
WIP
First Paperback Proof Received!
almost 4 years ago
– Sun, Jun 07, 2020 at 04:38:07 PM
Hey, gang! I know a few of you have been eager for info on physical rewards, so I'm here to shed some LIGHT!
BEHOLD
Here is the first paperback proof of Monsters of Murka! The wonderful news is that the outside looks absolutely gorgeous. I couldn't be happier.
Well, that's not perfectly honest. There are a handful of things that I think could have improved this project. Lots of lessons learned. For example, I wish we would have included a subtitle of "Campaign Setting" and I wish the title contrasted more with the background. It's a little darker than I'd like in person. That's my fault, I designed the title logo myself and I am not a graphic designer by trade.
The spine looks great, and the book turned out thicker than I expected, which is a good thing to me
Check out that sweet Zelda cameo
Unfortunately for this proof, things turn somewhat sour once you open it up. See, printing a PDF is a pretty complex process, particularly because image-heavy PDFs work in many, many different layers, and will typically be compressed before being sent to a printer. Printers are also pretty particular with how they want their PDFs formatted, which can lead to some wonkiness, like this:
Transparency artifacting.
Notice the full-size image on the right looks fine. No transparency to deal with.
One major issue we're seeing in this proof is that the Printer, or the PDF, is somehow getting confused on the transparency of a lot of images. Anything that would NORMALLY have transparency, like the footer image, looks "glitched" with big sections of colored squares.
The white background is the full size and shape of the footer image, while the gold bleed squares are visual artifacts.
So, what does this mean for the book? Well, it means we'll reach back out to our layout artist and figure out if this is something *we* fix, or if this is something the printer fixes. Most likely, it's a change we'll have to make (our paperbacks are printed through DriveThruRPG's print-on-demand feature). So, we'll figure out what went wrong and rectify it.
For the hardback books, we're still working through the digital proofing phase. This basically means they're running our PDF through all of the formatting they do before it gets printed, then showing us a digital representation of how it should look before printed. But, don't worry - I'm ordering a physical proof of those books as well, to ensure that they have no issues and are as pristine as I want them to be.
Once I confirm the proof for the paperback books, they'll begin to ship almost immediately. The hardback books will follow suit, once I confirm the physical proof (once the physical proof arrives), but these books are printed in China from PrintNinja, and will take considerably longer to arrive than the print-on-demand paperback books from DriveThruRPG.
In other news, we finished our open solicitation of new writers for new Murkan expansion content, and soon we'll be uploading more expansion content to DriveThruRPG! For now, you can still get the Tiger King expansion there digitally. Expansions will likely release digitally, and we're considering whether or not we want to compile thematically consistent expansions into physical releases. We'll make that decision based on how many people demand physical release versions, and the sales figures we see.
Our upcoming expansions will focus on Restaurants and Retail - plenty of stores, taverns, and more to fill your Murkan cities! It'll also include a plethora of new magic items to purchase.
Talk to you guys soon!
SILVER Best-seller! Also, some clarification (if you haven't gotten your PDF yet, read this!)
almost 4 years ago
– Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 02:25:16 PM
I am so thrilled about this. I don't even have the capacity to share with you all the emotions I'm going through, but suffice it to say, this is friggin' awesome.
Hey, Jaron, how do I get my PDF if I was a backer?
Some folx have asked me about their PDFs. PDFs are being sent through DriveThruRPG, and the email for backers went out on 4/16. Before you reach out, please check your spam folder back to that date for an email from DriveThruRPG. This will help save time for both of us! :)
We're fulfilling PDFs through DriveThruRPG rather than, say, BackerKit or an email attachment, so that you have access not only to the PDF immediately and permanently, but you also get access to updates and errata adjustments, as well as any bonus content that we can put together for it! We've already pushed an errata update to the PDFs over on DTRPG, so this has already been super useful! Also, special shoutout to those folks who have been submitting errata they find to the Discord. That's been awesome, you all rock.
Thankfully, we've held off on sending a PDF to the printers until we were satisfied that most (or all, but let's be honest, probably not all) of the errata was caught and changes made. So, those who backed to get your print books, rest assured you are receiving the final version of the book, with all changes included.
