The Deck of Beginnings

The Deck of Beginnings

A character creation tool and TTRPG inspired oracle deck
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The Deck of Beginnings is designed to be an oracle deck and character creation tool geared towards TTRPG's, with specific rules for 5E. 
This is a project that originally started as a Google doc of 21 backstory secrets to use for a homebrew campaign I started running at the end of 2022; these secrets were geared towards being tragic backstory hooks for players to use that could connect them to the world, and help give characters something to resolve. 
This then started to snowball as many of my ideas do to become a proper tool that can be used by other players and DM's.
I must admit, I do just enjoy making card deck designs, I even previously borrowed The Deck of Many Things to use as a basis to make a tarot style card deck.
The idea came that I should assign cards to these secrets so players could actually pull from the deck rather than roll a d20 and the secret is assigned a number. This then became the eternal question I have with projects of ''What more can I do with this?'' and ''How far can I take this?''
I wanted to take the character creation idea further, I wanted to allow this deck to have a variety of uses as a story telling tool. By drawing inspiration from oracle, homebrew, my own love of making the saddest and most flavourful characters possible; the deck became what it is. 
Part way into making this project it became clear I could not do this entirely as a one man show; partially because although I enjoy art and writing I'm not the best with the more technical parts of Homebrew. I also thought it would be useful to have a second pair of eyes on this project to see if it made sense outside of myself. That's why I ended up roping in my wonderful fiancé Sam. He's helping with quality control, checking my writing as well as contributing a bunch of it, as well as being the brains behind how to mechanically use the deck in world. He's also the main brains behind the boons deck. He's an experianced homebrew DM and well versed in my wild ideas and how to make them usable. Sam has been a massive help in this project already and will continue to help it take shape.
Mockup Template from yeven_Popov on Freepik
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The deck is designed to be a a tool for TTRPG players and DM's to use, to help prompt and aid story telling both within character backstories, and the unraveling of stories throughout a campaign. Each of the 26 cards will be filled with secrets and story hooks, oracle meanings, and potential character flavour.
The guide book will include suggestions and rules on how to utilise the deck, from loose inspiration to embracing it fully as both a player and a DM. With system agnostic rules when used for a charcater backstory tool and as an oracle, and specific instructions to shape characters for D&D 5E. The full guide book icluded in the full version will include rules for using the deck in world, plot hooks and story ideas, as well as rules for the decks in world gaurdian.



The cards will be standard tarot sized with rounded corners for comfortable use, and at base made with a standard tuck box. The box (or cards) may get upgraded through stretch goals depending on the success of the campaign.
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Each card has associated meanings when used for oracle, or as themes when going through character creation. The cards main feature is an associated secret, a theme that hopes to prompt your creativity, with a lot of prompting questions to help give you an idea what to do with the secret presented. 
The cards will also have a suggested Boon and Bane as part of the full guide and boons deck to help craft the ongoing effects of the past in the unfolding story.
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The Boons Deck

The boons deck is a companion deck to go with the Deck of Beginnings and full guide. The cards will feature art on one side and a description of the boons and banes on the other. These boons and banes can be used in addition to the secret to help shape the continueing effects of the past.
Mockup Template from yeven_Popov on Freepik
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Digital / Print at Home PDF's:
Gain access to the PDF copies of both the basic guide and the cards. 

The Deck: 
Get the Deck of Beginnings and card guide with how to use instructions and the oracle meanings and secrets.

Deluxe Edition: 
Get the Deck and guide, plus full guide book including stats for use in 5E games and plot hooks and story ideas for DM's. As well as the boons companion deck and all unlocked merch pieces.

Commission Slot:
Commission tier to get tarot inspired art of your original character.
Get the Deck and guide, plus full guide book including stats for use in 5E games and plot hooks and story ideas for DM's.  As well as the boons companion deck and all unlocked merch pieces.


For more examples of my work go here: https://sunfloralchaos.com/#portfolio
For full commission TOS: https://sunfloralcommissions.carrd.co/#tos

Add ons: 


Full Digital Guide: 
Get access to the full digital guide including plot hooks, boons, banes, and other associated stats for use in 5E.

The Deck of Beginnings: 
The deck and basic guide.

Full Guide (A5 book):
A copy of the full guide including plot hooks, boons, banes, and other associated stats for use in 5E.

Boons Deck:
Companion Deck with boons and banes.

Merch pieces: 
Add items I've previously made to your order. 
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£1000: Decks are funded at base and can be made. This allows me to bring the Decks to life and gives me motivation to finish this project! Boons deck will also have different art to the main cards. 

We're only going for one goal now due to slow progress. I just hope we're able to get this funded at base and still get to make it.

Even if funding fails I'm likely to continue working on it in it's most basic form (cards with oracle and secret) and with no promise of timeline.
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Currently I have most of the cards designed and a significant amount of the guides written. Throughout this campaign and then post campaign we will be working to get everything finished and in a playable state. Post campaign I will also be working to get all merch and packaging sorted to be ready to produce. 
I plan to keep backers updated throughout the entire process, letting you get a look into the Decks being made. However with a project like this, and of this size, it can be difficult to accurately predict how long things may take: so all dates are based on current estimates.

June 15th - July 15th: Funding

The campaign will run for one month and hopefully end with success and maybe even heading into stretch goals. 

July: Pre-orders

If funding is successful I will be allowing for post campaign pre-orders for people who may have missed out on the campaign or want to add additional items.

June - October:

Development and playtesting. Given the state the project is currently in, it shouldn't require too many more months of work and I hope to be able finish everything throughout summer. 

October: Production

I hope to have everything in production by the end of October, assuming that finishing the deck and playtesting goes well. Again backers will be told as things happen to be kept in the loop.

December/January: Charging for shipping and surveys

I hope to send out surveys and charge for shipping throughout December, aiming to lock orders in January so I can start packing orders to send out in the new year. 

February: Shipping (hopefully)

I will be aiming to start shipping out rewards in February but should there be any delays to this backers will be updated.
Mockup Template from yeven_Popov on Freepik
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Shipping will be charged through Backerkit survey after the campaign, this allows me to charge accurately for shipping and fully utilise the funds raised here on making the deck as amazing as possible. 

Shipping will be kept as reasonable as possible. Iam shipping from the UK and shipping to the US and Oceania will likely end up on the higher end of estimates. Due to not knowing the final dimensions of the decks it is hard to currently provide a definite estimate. 

Below are very rough estimates (rounded up) and will be subject to change: 
UK: £4
Europe: £12
USA/Oceania: £18
Rest of World: £13
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Who is Sunfloral Chaos?

Hi! I'm Jay, known better online as Sunfloral Chaos. I mostly do character art but dabble in tarot cards, and weaponry, I also design merch bits that I sell. Most of my work is TTRPG related or inspired. 

You can find me online in most places @SunfloralChaos or through my website:
https://sunfloralchaos.com

Sam, my wonderful partner who is the genius behind the technical for this project, doesn't have much of a social media presence to follow. But he has helped out in previous projects I've run and ran incredible homebrew campaigns. He has a lot of experiance with D&D homebrew and is incredibly creative.

We hope to continue making homebrew projects together and aim to have a joint social media presence one day to run these projects under, so keep an eye out for that.
Sam and I @ ACME Spring
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