We debuted Monster Vault 2 on Kickstarter on Tuesday this week, and we already have so much to be excited about!
The project has already more than doubled our goal at $160,000 (and climbing). We’ve already begun unlocking stretch goals! My personal favorite out of these is the Field Guide to Monster Harvesting, but we’ve also unlocked the inclusion of MV2 in our amazing encounter builder, and we’re making a beeline for the monster deisgned by Jesse Galena at $166,000!
Now you might be thinking, “Isn’t it a little early for Monster Vault 2?” Even if you didn’t think that, you are now because I just put the idea in your head.
Well, we’ve heard that, anyway. So we wanted to break down why it’s not too soon for a new Tales of the Valant (ToV) monster book and why in fact, it’s just in time!
Reason 1: Building on Monster Vault 1
Monster Vault 2 is where our design team gets to truly flex their monster muscles since we launched the Tales of the Valiant RPG. In Monster Vault 1, the design team spent a lot of the book reinventing and revitalizing creatures that already had a history.
Monster Vault 1 is a serious 5E bestiary, there’s a reason so many creators and fans alike shout its praise. I think back to all the hours we spent on Zoom coworking, naming new, personalized creature abilities for each monster, working to make each one distinct and interesting. That was an awesome experience!
Now, Monster Vault 2 is full of new and amazing monsters that are not to be trifled with, and I’m not just talking about some of the preview art you’ve seen in the trailers and Kickstarter page. We’ve got stomach-churning creations in this book.
Take the stitch cloak, for example. It wears a cloak of literal souls and has the face of a sleep paralysis demon. That thing is terrifying in all of the right ways.
I remember when the sketch of Darhask, the Demon Lord of Spiders, came through. In the middle of a meeting, I blurted out “Oh hell yes!” I look forward to gushing over that CR20+ nightmare of a creature once the book is in my hands. I can’t even share it with you yet, but maybe you’ll thank me when you see it.
This book is filled with creatures built to strike fear into PCs. We’re past the ToV-ifying of existing monsters. A new era of originality is shining in MV2.
Download the preview PDF of Monster Vault 2 to get a glimpse!
Reason 2: Only Want 5E? You’re Golden
What happened to ToV being a 5E compatible system? Fret not my friends! Monster integration from ToV to other 5E games is seamless.
As an example, at Gen Con 2024 we ran over 400 tables, many of which used a non-ToV, 5E adventure from our amazing book of one-shots called Prepared!. (I’m excited about it, but also, the exclamation point is part of the title.)
It was a 5th-level encounter called Assault of the Steel Horde. The encounter calls for a series of ancient, marching robots with differing geometries that used four different stat blocks. (D&D calls them modrons.) I thought it would be fun to try a little experiment.
GMs and players alike were playing ToV for the first time at some of these tables, so we swapped the monsters! We benched the 5E creatures and used a variety of solodrons, dupladrons, tripladrons, and even a commander tetradon from Monster Vault 1. Would anyone notice? Would it be more work for the GM? Would it be less fun?
We ran nearly 150 tables of this adventure, and not only did no one notice, it was the highest rated adventure of the weekend! It ranked #1 in Game Experience with a 9.6/10 and our GMs ranked it 9.8/10 in ease of prep.
ToV bestiaries are flavorful and interesting, and Monster Vault 2 keeps the streak of making all of your existing 5E books relevant and easy to use!
Reason 3: Not Just a GM Kickstarter
I check in to our Discord every day to see how folks are doing and what our fans are saying. One comment I consistently see about our Kickstarter campaigns is that they are “too GM focused.” So we fixed that!
For players, we made the Field Guide to Monster Harvesting. It’s a chunky PDF meant for PCs to dig into. Crafting, especially from monster parts, is a big part of the fantasy scene these days, and with this PDF you can scratch that MMO-creature-drops fix. Don’t forget to greed any rare pieces harvested!
A last note I want to make is we’ve been playtesting these creatures for months in our Discord exclusive playtesting, which we dubbed Project: Chiron back in July 2024. Seeing the playtesters dive into each creature, pick them apart, and apply them to each playtest encounter with our fans was a blast.
We had over 500 contributors working to make these creatures the best they could be, and I’m super excited to let their hard work shine through.
If you want to get in on the next one, in 2025 our first playtest is Project: Mischief. I can’t say more about it at this time, but friends, I am ready to cause some chaos with this.
I look forward to continuing chatting with all of you and can’t wait to hear of the amazing encounters you make with this book! If you haven’t backed Monster Vault 2 yet, CLICK HERE to get it now!
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