Downcrawl's "Even Deeper" Deck (and Cover Art!)
Even weirder prompts for your Downcrawl 2E game.
We’re only one week away from Downcrawl 2E launching on BackerKit! Getting so excited to press the big button (lol jk, I’m terrified). If you haven’t yet, you can sign up to be notified when the campaign goes live: a big first day will help the game get noticed.
In case you didn’t guess from the title, two main updates in this post: revealing the Even Deeper Deck (a second Downcrawl Deck of even weirder prompts) and the 2E rulebook’s glorious cover art!
The Even Deeper Deck
If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you might have seen my post on the Downcrawl Deck already. Briefly, the Deck makes it quick and easy to roll random results at the table, taking each item from most of the tables in the book (nearly 800 individual prompts!) and converting them into a form where you can simply draw a card to get an answer. Even better, the Deck makes the most commonly combined tables easy to mash up, by printing them on opposite card sides and color-coding them.
However, I’m excited to reveal for the first time (though I hinted at it in that earlier post)… there is another.
The Even Deeper Deck is a whole second deck of prompt cards… effectively, an entirely new set of table results for Downcrawl. And these ones get strange. They’re deliberately tuned to up the weirdness just a little bit more (as if you’re getting to a deeper, stranger subterranean layer). If you want to turn the weirdness on your underworld up to 11, the Even Deeper Deck is just the ticket.
Want your campaign to include scheming squidfolk, a worm-plagued charnelhouse, wuthering ventricles, chrome hills, ruby lodestones, or a silt-choked caldera? The Even Deeper Deck has these and many other possibilities… eight hundred new (and deliciously extra) prompt words.
The cards use the same format as the standard Downcrawl deck, which means you can mix and match them how you like: shuffle them together, or use one or the other depending on each group’s preferences. (A differently-colored highlight image helps you separate the cards again if you need to.)
How do you get the Even Deeper Deck? It’ll be an optional add-on to your Downcrawl pledge in BackerKit, so you don’t have to commit to a certain tier to get it. However, it’s a featured part a pledge tier called The Even Deeper Collection, along with a couple other cool extras that play well alongside it (and which you’ll have to wait one more week to find out about…)
Want even more cards? Then heads up: I’m planning an Early Bird Special for backers who pledge in the first 48 hours: ten extra cards for your Downcrawl Deck that won’t be available anywhere else! Make sure to sign up to be notified so you don’t miss out.
Cover Art Reveal
Here’s something you won’t have to wait for. I made an excellent decision when I decided to hire incredible artist J.P. Targete to craft some original cover art for Downcrawl 2E. J.P. has had a lot of amazing clients over the years, creating concept art for Disney and Pixar, and book covers for new editions of Zelazny's Chronicles of Amber and Asimov's Second Foundation books.
But how do you illustrate a game where you make up literally every location and fantasy species totally from scratch at the table? I gave J.P. a specific concept, a scene from a real playtest campaign: a pair of travelers overlooking a magma waterfall, with a city built into a stalactite suspended above.
I would say he delivered. Without further ado, here's the Downcrawl 2E cover art that emerged from that remit:
Wow, right?? I love the vibes this captures. Downcrawl is all about a sense of wonder and exploring fantastical places, and this really nails that. This is also just half of the full two-page spread JP created, too: you'll see glimpses of the rest of the painting inside the book and in the materials for the crowdfunding campaign. Here’s a couple peeks:
That’s it for this week! I’ll be live-streaming Solo Downcrawl again this Thursday at 5pm PT. On last week’s stream we created a living puppet named Ghost who’s hunting down the witch who used his people for kindling, hoping for sweet revenge; but promptly got embroiled in complications on a dangerous journey to the Crimson Wasteland. Typical Downcrawl. (I also posted some highlights from the stream showcasing different moves and features of the game, if you’re curious.) Find out what Ghost will get up to next on our next stream!
Thanks for reading—and when next you hear from me, Downcrawl 2E will be live!! 😱
Keeping busy,
—Aaron