[If you want to read about the new pledge tier, where George will illustrate a monster that you design, scroll down to the bottom of the page. Otherwise, keep reading for production updates on the new content we've unlocked.]

Good news - work on Huckleberry's unlocked Stretch Goals is already underway! While funds should start to transfer in mid-to-late November, it will actually take a minimum of 4 months to receive all of the funds due to BackerKit's Pay-Over-Time feature. Not only is PoT consumer friendly for y'all, but it covers the same period that we purposefully built into our schedule to allow for extra development. None of the extra content promised by our Stretch Goals should slow us down! *Fingers Crossed*

The campaign obviously isn't over yet, but still... Time's a wastin'! We're already moving forward with the largest chunks of development so they have plenty of time to cook and playtest. And speaking of playtests... Much of the content will be pre-released to you as beta material for playtesting! You are the greatest resource Huckleberry has and your opinions and feedback are invaluable. I want to hear what you have to say!
 
As the work progresses, I'll be sharing Hostiles, Traits, and Scenario/Chapter drafts for feedback from you. I'm incredibly excited to "open up" the development of Huckleberry and share what happens behind the curtain. And, in doing so, your help will turn Huckleberry into the best version it can be. Here's where we stand on the currently unlocked Stretch Goals and a few other odds and ends:

Hostiles - All 16 are in alpha and ready for private playtesting. The Alpha versions are by far the most important step of the process as it sets the tone and themes of each Hostile. Private playtesting is an exhaustive process and many of them will be redesigned before they're ready for public playtest. Work will be completed in batches of 4-6 stat blocks at a time, staggering the releases for easier playtesting and feedback.

Cover Art/New Spreads - Art Orders are drafted, but not finalized, for two of the spreads. They will be roll tables disguised as "Catalogue" pages, similar to the one created for Mounts (If you haven't seen it, you can find it in this update). I'm still in the brainstorming stages for the one-page spreads and cover, but should have all art orders submitted to George before the campaign ends. Work on these large pieces will hopefully finish before or at the same time as our scenario and chapter drafts, so that production doesn't become bottle-necked by dozens of art orders at the same time. We're keeping George busy this holiday season!

Player Traits - These are still in the brainstorming phase. Over the last year of Huckleberry's development, I've assembled a long list of notes and ideas to develop into new Traits, so I have plenty of material to mine. Development of traits is intensive work and requires careful balance to ensure they combine appropriately with other categories. I plan to tackle this head on when the campaign is finished and all collaborators are set on their paths.

Hole-in-the-Wall Chapter - Kienna and Dylan have sent over their chapter outline (Spoiler: it's as awesome as you've been hoping for!). There are brilliant ideas in there, not only for the amenities and locations that Maverick strongholds can offer, but also mechanics for developing B-plots in the background throughout a campaign. As is standard practice for Huckleberry, the outline was reviewed by a cultural consultant to ensure the content avoids accidental colonialist tropes/stereotypes (the draft will receive the same treatment once again). With that feedback and my own notes given, Kienna and Dylan are now onto the drafting stage.

Eren Ahn's Bounty - Eren's pitch was accepted last week and they submitted the outline today. I offered my notes, which were quite sparse in this case. Eren has been spot on with the vibes! The bounty is now at the drafting stage. It's got a fantastic hook that explores themes of alchemy, fool's gold, and foolish ambitions.

Jaime Reyes Mondragón's Bounty - Now, technically this one isn't unlocked yet. But we've got 8 days left and only $2,000 to go, so I'm feeling confident we'll get there! Jaime has submitted his pitch and outline, they've been accepted and moving onto the draft stage. It's yet another fantastic premise for a scenario--this bounty asks what Mad Cow Disease would look like when magnified by the Wyrd.

Playing Cards - George has been working hard on these all month, as you've seen by our reveals! I'm excited to say that he's finished them all, along with creating a mock-up of the tuckbox. With the exception of minor text tweaks on the box, this reward is ready to go to manufacturing.

Janus, King of Hearts won the vote! This is the final heart card to be revealed and our first glimpse at the leader of the outlaw gang we've been teasing you since Huckleberry's early days.

Janus, or Jane Twain as her reward posters call her, might have two faces but, ironically, she's as honest as they come. She'll tell you to your face when she's about to kill you and expects you to do the same--you can even choose which face. Jane doesn't talk much about her upbringing, but those around her guess she didn't always look this way. It doesn't really matter in the end, as long as you don't cross her. Jane doesn't go around lookin' to kill, but she sure ain't lookin' to avoid it either. She's mean enough to make a bar brawl look like a prayer meetin' and you're sure to be praying for a quick end by the time she's done with you.

Vote for your choice of the next reveal in the poll attached below!

You have made it very clear just how much you love George's art. Our "Design A Legend" tier, where you could create a new Legend of the Wyrd Frontier, sold out in the first hours of the campaign. If you missed that tier, you now have another chance to leave your mark on Huckleberry. We've added a new pledge where you can work with Steven to translate your favorite critter, terrifying or not-so-terrifying, into the game's mechanics. George will illustrate the monster in his iconic style, then both the mechanics and art will be included in the final version of Huckleberry. This new pledge also includes all of the rewards from the all-in "Tall Tale" tier, giving you everything we have to offer.

Well, that's all the updates I've got for now. I hope you like hearing about all the progress we've made because I'm gonna keep yelling about Huckleberry right up until the book is in your hands!

Much obliged,
Steven

Howdy!

Huckleberry continues to break through stretch goals and we've unlocked the first of our possible three scenarios! Eren came out swinging and sent me some fantastic pitches. I am very excited to greenlight their Bounty. It's a perfect complement for our existing slate. As we move through development, I'll be sure to give y'all the "Behind the Scenes" treatment. More details to come!

But enough teasing, it's time for another card reveal and the vote was overwhelmingly in favor of Mary-Katherine, the Queen of Spades. George did a deep dive into the history of playing cards, along with common nicknames for each. The Queen of Spades is also commonly referred to as the Queen of Bedposts, which was the creative spark that led to our tragic Mary-Katherine!

Mary-Katherine was born in the Fourth World where she was swept up in a fiery romance with a charming yet roguish gambler. However, the call of the Spider Woman's song was strong. Mary-Katherine migrated to the Fifth World, leaving her tumultuous life and lover behind. Her wish to settle in for a period of leisure was granted in a twisted fashion. Illness, likely a parting memento from her old flame, quickly burned through her until she was left bedridden. The effects of the Wyrd were not yet well known, so Mary-Katherine's passing raised no alarms. Unfortunately for her neighbors, her death was as short-lived as her life in the Fifth World. Mary-Katherine became the first documented Consumptive in the Wyrd Frontier.

We still have two more Stretch Goals on the board! At both $50,000 and $55,000, we will add another scenario to A Season of Avarice. Hitting those goals means we'll have 10 total Bounties for you Trailbosses!

To put that in perspective, Huckleberry's Bounty Board mechanics allow Mavericks to pursue a maximum of 6 Bounties in a Season, but realistically they will tackle 3-4 Bounties. A Season of Avarice will be packed with enough material to play a modest campaign of Huckleberry entirely on it's own. If you supplement with your own homebrew scenarios, you'll have the makings of a true western epic.

Thanks to the wild success of this campaign, a lot of doors are beginning to open up for Huckleberry. I've had talks with a VTT company that prioritizes the same narrative-first focus and strong visuals that Huckleberry strives for. I'm very excited to say that Huckleberry will be coming to Alchemy RPG!

This is obviously a huge announcement with plenty of questions to follow. We're still putting together all of the details ourselves and will have more information in future updates!

Much obliged,
Steven

I've got to be honest with you. 

We already passed my "pie in the sky" dream for Huckleberry and this campaign isn't even halfway over! I'm so excited that you joined us and your overwhelming support allows our team to go into overdrive. Games are meant to be played and our goal is to make it as easy as possible for you to get Huckleberry to the table. Even before the game's debut back in August of 2024, we were already hard at work creating a full slate of scenarios.

The goal is for a Trailboss to pick up the game and immediately have stories to tell. 'A Season of Avarice' was envisioned as the complete collection of that first wave of Huckleberry bounties released in 2025. We originally planned for our next set of bounties to go into 2026's Season bundle. But now... Well, we don't want to make you wait! 

At $45,000, $50,000, and $55,000, we are spurring our horses and accelerating the timeline. Each goal will add an all-new Bounty to 'A Season of Avarice'. We can potentially pack this book with a total of 10 Wyrd West scenarios! Critters, Folk, and everyone who's pledged for the physical 'Avarice' book will also receive digital versions of the new Bounties.

Each of these writers have worked on Huckleberry before and are committed to delivering their scenarios within this campaign's development time. These new stretch goals won't require us to push back our estimated schedule. I love when projects have a quick turnaround and I'm committed to delivering Huckleberry to you as quickly as I can!

As is Huckleberry custom, each bounty will be complete with Bounty Board posters in print and VTT options, along with a full suite of art by George Sellas, downloadable handouts, and all-new loot and hostiles. This book already has enough content packed inside to jumpstart an entire campaign, but three more scenarios will create an abundance of choice for all those greedy Trailbosses out there. Avarice is the sin of the Season, after all!

Much obliged, pardner
- Steven

When Red Sleeve was young, a swarm of undead threatened to overrun her clan’s camp. She nearly succumbed to defeat after one of the Horde mauled her right hand. Instead of retreating to perform the cleansing rituals, she swiftly amputated her hand and forearm. Red Sleeve continued to fight, lashing a machete to the remains of her forearm. The shirt sleeve of her right arm turned a deep crimson as the blood from her wound stained the garment, yet she still led her people to victory that day.

Howdy!

I have got a very special update for you today. George has offered to take us "behind the scenes" of how he creates Huckleberry's art! He's walking us step-by-step through the process he used to create our Consumptive Sanitarium two-page spread. But first, let's reveal the playing card you voted for. 

Much obliged,
- Steven

As a young infant, Bartholomew was laid low by disease. The doc said it was rabies and that Bart's father should start diggin' the grave. The disease didn't kill Bart but instead warped his features and stunted his growth. His short stature leads many to call him "Bat Boy", but the last man to do it in ear-shot now lies under Boot Hill. And Bartholomew has excellent hearing.

Who do you want to be revealed next? Poll attached below!

Let’s look at the process that went into the Consumptive Sanitarium illustration.  In the lore of Huckleberry, the Consumptives are living dead who have died from tuberculosis and come back somewhat….agitated.  Their swollen bellies are filled with acidic blood and bile, and they use it to attack your Maverick!  For this illustration, Steven asked me for an homage to zombie movies, set in an 1800s consumption sanitarium, with our Devil Maverick keeping the horde at bay with his pistols.  He asked for the Devil to be in some sort of elevated position too.

Typically, when it’s something I’m not super familiar with, the first thing I do is start collecting reference material.  Here it helped me to understand what an 1800s sanitarium looked like, how it was laid out and what kinds of details should be included.  I also wanted to find out what nurses at the time would have worn, because a nurse in 1880 doesn’t wear the same uniform as a nurse in 1960, or 2025.

Since this was a pretty crowded scene, I started with a quick and messy thumbnail sketch to establish the general layout and start deciding where I want to spot some black for visual impact and balance.  I wanted to make sure we see that the Devil is isolated and totally surrounded to create some tension and excitement.  At this point I’m not worried about drawing anything nicely.  It’s a very rough framework that helps get what I envision in my head onto the page.  It’s like one step up from stick figures.

This image will appear in the Huckleberry book as a double page spread, so I had to set it up with that format in mind.  The red box shows where the image will eventually be cropped for the book, and the red line down the center shows where the book will fold.  When composing a double page spread like this you want to make sure not to put anything important, like a character’s face, on that fold line.  The light gray box in the top right shows the general area where text will be overlayed on top of the image, so nothing important should go in that area either. All of these factors help to determine how I can compose the picture, and how I can’t.

Steven liked my initial scribble, so I moved forward drawing a cleaner rough.  At this point, it’s time to do the real work, establish the perspective, and draw solid anatomy and interesting poses and forms.  I’m a big believer in getting all that stuff figured out in the rough sketch stage because it makes the rest of the job easier.  I don’t want to get to the stage of doing the final line art and still be working things out.  So I usually spend the most time on this stage of the process.  

I work digitally, and the program I use (Paint Tool SAI) has some really handy perspective tools that let you set your horizon line and vanishing points, allowing you to draw naturally while keeping things in the correct perspective.  They’re great for scenes like this. 

I worked on the cleaner sketch in two phases, since it was a crowded scene. First I locked down the angle and perspective of the room and then sketched in the Devil.  He’s a flashy, dramatic gunslinger so he’s pulling off some behind-the-back trick shots to take out his adversaries stylishly.  He’s got a bit of Dante from Devil May Cry in him.

Next I tackled the Consumptive crowd. One special request Steven had was to include a bunch of cameos of real life players, depicted as Consumptives.  So I had some fun zombifying them for inclusion in the scene.*

I wanted to make sure to vary the poses, expressions and details to keep the crowd interesting, and leave room for some anchoring black shadows.  They help to balance the black vs white, draw the eye through the scene, and also simplify any areas where you don’t want an overwhelming amount of detail.  In the end I have a sketch that’s really well figured out and could almost pass for finished line work.

But it’s not the finished line work.  I now drop the opacity of my sketch layer way down, usually to around 20%, and start drawing the clean, finished lines on new layers on top of the sketch.  I’m not going to say I totally turn my brain off for this part, but it’s always the phase where I can put on a podcast or music and partially zone out, just enjoying drawing over the sketch because I know nothing major needs to be changed at this point.

Finally comes the color stage, and working digitally, this is typically the stage where I end up with dozens of layers so I can keep everything separate for easy manipulation.  For example, I kept all the Consumptive’s clothing and the bed sheets on the same layer since they’re basically the same dirty white color.  The Devil’s red skin is its own layer.  All the shadows get their own layer too so I can control the lighting and change it on the fly if need be.  Work smarter, not harder! I’ll sometimes do a color thumbnail, but usually not.  Even if I don’t, I typically have an idea of what I want to do with the color before I start on it.

And that’s the final result!  I hope you enjoyed this look at the process and if anyone has questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.  Thanks for coming to my Huck Talk!

-George

I know this is weird timing, but Huckleberry was given an opportunity to be offered as a Bundle of Holding! I've used BoH a ton in the past to get steep discounts on entire lines of games, so it was an honor to receive the offer. However, I was a bit hesitant. Is it fair to offer such a steep discount on our entire digital line, while people are backing the PDF right now on our crowdfunder? My first concern is being fair to you, the people who are making this wyrd west dream come true.

After consulting with a few friends and industry mentors, it ended up being a unanimous agreement to accept the offer. Bundle of Holding has a HUGE following- being featured by them could bring hundreds or even thousands of new eyes to our campaign. Even if the majority of those people don't want to back the project (they are looking for cheap PDFs after all), it could still bring hundreds of new digital-only players to Huckleberry. And that benefits everyone here.

A few extra dollars to put into stretch goals is nice, but it's more important to me that we build a community of players for Huckleberry. I want y'all to easily find fellow players online, share homebrews and hacks, join in game jams, and whatever else we can think of. Regardless of this campaign's funding total, I'm overwhelmed by the support and am wholly committed to supporting Huckleberry for the long haul. We've got so many great plans for y'all. This is just the beginning!

The first option: Cancel your pledge here and go purchase the Bundle of Holding. You'll save $12, while also receiving the three paid scenarios and two bundled scenarios that we have to offer. You won't have to wait until November for delivery, either. The PDF is finished now and there's no need for you to wait to start playing. If you have the VTT assets or another add-on, you can reduce your pledge level to the $1 add-on tier to keep them with no issues. Of course, you're always welcome to come back and pledge for a physical book after you're enamored by the PDF... ;)

The second option: Keep your pledge as-is. The extra money is greatly appreciated and continues to help us unlock stretch goals to make the game even better. Furthermore, as a thank you for your generosity, we have updated your pledge to include all of the PDFs from A Season of Avarice at no extra cost. This includes the scenarios in the Bundle of Holding, two upcoming scenarios not offered in the Bundle of Holding, and any new scenarios unlocked by stretch goals. You won't miss out on any content by choosing to stay aboard the hype train. We're glad you're riding for the brand, pardner.

It's important to note that all corebook stretch goals will be delivered to PDF owners, regardless of where they purchased their PDF. We unlocked the new Hole-in-the-Wall chapter this morning. You won't miss out on this or any other corebook unlock by choosing the Bundle of Holding.

I'm incredible grateful for your support and I'm very excited for you to get your hands on Huckleberry, regardless of the source.

Much obliged,
- Steven