NarDec Update - June 2025

Hey everyone! ZoranTheWizard here to let you know how things are going with Narrative Declaration!

First, some fun news.

Peppin Plush, maybe? Would you get one? More about this in the future.

Adjusting our PDFs, and Book update.

When we started this project, supporting our shows with PDF and game content was a huge goal in our minds. We wanted to flex our creative muscles and allow you, the viewer, to also experience the world as we play through it. Maintaining the Rotgrind PDFs is something we really want to keep doing, but life has gotten in the way. And after a long meeting, this is what we have to share.

First off, the person who should get a resounding applause for helping us make these PDFs happen is ToTellStories. They have busted their butt off month after month, year after year, to create high quality PDFs for barely any compensation (Believe me, I tried to pay em'). Just out of pure love and support, they made a lot of things happen here at Narrative Declaration. They’re responsible for Rotgrind’s looks, logo, and so much more. Sadly, however, they have fallen ill with long covid, potentially, for the rest of their life. For now, they’re struggling to help in the capacity they could in the past. This means that as much as they want to keep kicking butt at the PDFs, they can’t do it as frequently or as quickly as they could before. The health of our friends and family always comes first.

The other unfortunate truth is that OnCallGM and I are the only ones with just enough time to keep making the PDF content. OnCallGM is now extremely busy with their position as Associate Publisher at Paizo (John Paizo), while I am constantly busy maintaining and running operations as “CEO” here at Narrative Declaration. At the same time, on top finding times to livestream and make YouTube content to help offset costs inside ND and out.

Sadly, we must shelve the Rotgrind Bestiary Book project for the time being. After a long and honest discussion, we found that we could make the book happen, but in reality, it would only be me and OnCallGM contributing to the book, and knowing that we both are the only ones who really know how to structure and balance in PF2E’s systems within our group. Bringing in random help would mean a lot of backtracking and follow ups, so that amount of overhead isn’t realistic. And as much as we wanted to make it happen, we didn’t want to compromise its quality. Even a Kickstarter would add a ton of overhead and responsibility we can’t tackle right now.

In addition to shelving the book, we’re also adjusting our approach to PDFs, maps, and other assets. Our mentality with this content is to make it its own ordeal, instead of bundling it up like we do with Episode Asset packs. If you see a monster we made for the Rotgrind show, it’ll have its own PDF or post. If we make a map, it’ll be its own post. The PDFs themselves may be a lot simpler due to ToTellStories not being able to help as much anymore.

We will also be changing our release timeline with PDFs to “when we can make them,” due to this.

With ToTellStories’ health, along with my lack of time and OnCallGM’s, we found it extremely difficult to stick to a consistent schedule. And we apologize massively for that.

The 15$ tier will still remain up for those wanting access to the PDFs, along with others that do get made when they can. However, please note that PDFs will be released at a slower pace than before until we can raise additional funds to hire someone to assist with processing these PDFs.

Our goal is to still make books and PDFs, but due to these circumstances, we have to prioritize other avenues (like shows & merch) to raise enough capital to get enough help with our PDFs.

Summary: Book project is shelved, ToTellStories who help make the PDFs happen is struck with illness and can’t produce to the schedule, PDFs are now scheduled to come out when we can make them, no longer on a fixed monthly schedule.

The Dream Goal

The dream goal for Narrative Declaration is to become more involved in the TTRPG industry. There is a scene in my head that plays for it. This involves us having a NarDec booth at GenCon, allowing you all to come meet with us, talk to us, and play games with us, all while picking up Rotgrind-centric books and materials to enhance your own games.

Although the PDFs have taken a step back, for now, that dream is still within our sights. And gosh darnit, I am going to still do what I can to make it a reality.

Covid may still be lashing out from the past to mess with us still, but we're gonna get back up and KICK SOME ASS!

Notice of Vacation Schedules

This is an advanced notice on when OnCallGM and I will be out.

Several of our players have been out and about themselves, either on vacation or for other reasons, so that’s why there have been gaps in our streaming schedule.

OnCallGM will be out for a good chunk of June due to work and some well-earned vacation. Rotgrind streams will be out for June 17th and June 25th. In addition, the week of GenCon and after OnCallGM will be out. Which is around July 30th to August 4th.

I (Zoran) will also be at GenCon for a few days, but I will also be gone for the entire month of August. I have an opportunity to take an actual vacation for once, so I am extremely excited to take it. In addition, I will be away for some personal family business. Meaning for all of August, I will not be around. So there will be no livestreams for the month. But, don’t worry, Rotgrind and Kingmaker episodes should still be coming out as scheduled.

Expanding our Exclusive shows to be available on YouTube membership

Along with our various meetings and asking all of you via polls, we’re now going to upload Kingmaker and future shows that will be exclusive to Patreon to also be available via YouTube membership.

One of our biggest concerns, however, is the potential devaluation of Patreon. As with YouTube membership, we do not receive as much revenue from a YouTube member as we do from a Patreon Subscriber.

YouTube takes a 70/30 split (our way) from the sub. So if you sub for $5.00 USD, we only get $3.50. (After fees and taxes, we only get like 2.00 but blah blah blah)

With Patreon, from your $5.00 USD sub, they take 8%, meaning we get $4.60.

It adds up significantly when you multiply it by thousands. So, we want to ensure we’re not taking a hit for no reason. We will still retain Patreon as the de facto way to access everything as soon as we can upload it physically (VODs, obviously, get delayed for obvious reasons).

To fix this, we could do a price increase. However, that’s something I’m doing my best to avoid, as I understand it’s hard out there for many people. And having something else increase in price for them just doesn’t sit right with me. We will only implement a price increase if, from a business perspective, it is necessary to maintain operations.

The plan is to stagger the release of Kingmaker episodes on YouTube’s membership platform while keeping Patreon ahead of the release schedule.

When we eventually offer another paid-only adventure, we will ensure that Patreon is the exclusive place where you can access our content first.

As much as we’d like to release all of Kingmaker's episodes immediately on YouTube membership (or even for free later), we’d be taking a massive hit to our finances, which would require us to let go of several staff members if that occurred. So, please understand why we have to adopt these strategies to keep our GMs, Artists, Editors, and players fed.

And so with that, thank you for your continued support!
We're busting our tails in the background, and we're hoping to get some exciting new content to you all soon!

• ZoranTheWizard