Skeleton Key Release & the Countdown to BackerKit Launch
9 days ago
– Fri, Mar 20, 2026 at 01:13:50 PM
Dark tidings (in a good way!) dread backers! The Kobolds rise from dreamless sleep to stalk the night bearing Night Hunters news!
Skeleton Key Release
Our 175K stretch goal, Skeleton Key, from designer Jeff Stevens is ready to terrorize your table with a 1st-level dungeon crawl against night hags, undead clerics, and ravenous bone piles!
A coupon code for Skeleton Key has been sent out to all backers at the $29-tier and higher via Kickstarter Messaging, so check your inbox!
To claim your copy, log into your Kobold Store account, follow the link provided in the message, and apply the coupon code to your cart before checking out! Keep your eyes on your inbox and get ready for your first nightmarish adventure in the world of Night Hunters.
BackerKit Launch
We’re putting the finishing touches on Night Hunters on BackerKit and preparing for launch next week. All backers who have paid their pledges in full will receive a backer survey and invitation to the BackerKit as soon as we launch.
If you are paying your pledge in installments, your BackerKit survey will be sent out as soon as you’ve made your final payment, and Kickstarter updates your pledge status to Paid. We apologize for the inconvenience!
Shadow Oracle Deck Rulebook
In other production news, the Shadow Oracle deck rulebook has been laid out and gone to press!
The rulebook not only introduces a fortune-telling mechanic to your adventures, it also lays out the card meanings, and rules for Shadowjack, our fast-paced trick-taking card game for pubs, taverns, and campfires. We’ve included some excerpts from the book below to tease your divination abilities.
We Embrace Darkness!! THANK YOU!
about 1 month ago
– Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 03:18:03 PM
Hark! The crowdfunding dance is complete—the song of blood begins—the vampiric embrace is magnificent!
::WE CAN SEE THE PULSE OF YOUR BEATING HEARTS, DEAR BACKERS! Fear our tiny fangs!!::
A tremendous thank you to each and every one of you 1923 backers who are bringing Night Hunters and Night Terrors to life. You even helped us unlock the card foil upgrade for the Shadow Tarot deck at the very end.
As is tradition, the kobolds will take a few nights to recover from the drums, the hammering, the general hulabaloo of the Kickstarter. Come Monday, we’ll return to the word mines, drink some mysterious red fluids, test the pledge manager one more time, and polish the art and graphics until they positively shine like an unholy fusion of mage light and moonlight.
Going forward, expect updates once every 4 to 5 weeks, sharing some sneak peaks and details of the project as it moves through production!
Again, thank you all for your support! And a second thank you to all the amazing artists, designers, and friendly folks who shared and liked Night Hunters. There's some astonishingly rich, solid, and worthwhile player options headed your way, and a fistful of adventures that will turn your Halloween game inside out!
With a swirl of our magnificent cloaks, we depart, to ponder our gratitude.
The Kazoo-ing Kobolds
Shadow Oracle Deck Revealed
about 2 months ago
– Mon, Feb 09, 2026 at 02:25:07 PM
For longer than anyone remembers, fortuneteller or simply “tellers” have used Shadow Oracle cards to divine the future of those who ask, believe, and receive.
Now you too can use these secrets to divine the future for your characters—and to play an in-world card game!
The Shadow Oracle Deck is made up of 56 lavishly illustrated cards in full tarot size, shipped in a deluxe case with magnetic closure. A character in your game might use them to tell a fortune or play a pub game, like tarot cards in the real world, with a dark Night Hunters spin.
The cards presented here are mockups to show you how the art is progressing, and to provide a little taste of the look and feel of the Shadow Oracle.
Art of Kobold Villains
Each card features art reminiscent of Kobold Press villains such as Boslara the Sweet, who presides over the Great Chantry of the Voidmother (The Priestess), and Mammon, the arch-devil of greed (King of Coins). Those who know the Labyrinth Worldbook or Tome of Beasts 1 will recognize them, though no deep lore is required to use the deck.
The Shadow Oracle cards also depict a few of the dread villains described in Night Hunters. As two examples, consider Sardea the Vile, Ghoul Emperor, who appears as The Lord, and also consider the diabolic artist whose paintings come to grisly life, Alexander Morrello. He appears as The Artist.
Fortune Telling & Auguries
In addition to the look, the Shadow Oracle deck packs in some cool usability. If your character has proficiency with a gaming set and chooses cards, these are a frankly awesome prop.
There’s a fortune telling system for the deck that allows a character to tell the fortune of another character. The arcana cards also contain a built-in randomizer for the augury spell. Will the PCs’ next action end in Weal or Woe? Or both? Let the cards tell you!
Shadowjack
However, if you’re not the spooky type, there’s also a tricksy game you can play with the cards, called Shadowjack. It's a fast playing game, which could be played in any fantasy tavern or gambling hall. When you make that DC 10 CHA (Gaming Tools) check to distract a bored guard, you can play a quick round at the table!
Shadowjack requires knowing your opponent and reading their tells to win the best prizes. It’s easy to learn, fast to play, and everyone in your gaming group can join in.
The Shadow Oracle Deck is not the star of this Kickstarter campaign, but it’s got so much fun packed into it, that I kind of think it’ll be a breakout. It complements the Night Hunters book nicely, and it stands handsomely on its own. It’s a great value as an add-on, and makes a cool gift for a gamer.
We're happy to deal you in on the next hand...
Jeff Quick
Kobold Press senior editor, and designer of Shadowjack
Night Terrors: Adventure in Horror, Interview with a Villain, plus Murder Mansion & The Toymaker
about 2 months ago
– Fri, Jan 30, 2026 at 09:45:37 AM
As of today, five stretch goals have been unlocked! This week's update covers Night Terrors adventure collection, the dread villain interview, and designer interviews.
The Night Terrors adventure collection features 12 dark adventures built to showcase the horror of Night Hunters, challenging players and GMs alike. The editor of Night Terrors, Scott Gable, shares his thoughts on horror gaming and the adventures in Night Terrors below.
Why are we so often drawn to tales of darkness, and why is horror gaming so relentlessly compelling to some of us? Why are the adventures in Night Terrors unlike traditional heroic fantasy? Because they raise the stakes. They intentionally throw us into situations that test our assumptions, confront our beliefs, and challenge a character's will to survive—all in bite-size chunks.
A few instances: You wake up, locked in a cage with hazy memories, and once you’re escape, you must evade dogged pursuit long enough to find new gear and a defensible position. You must navigate the depravity of the ghouls’ Fleshmarket and the region’s sticky politics to rescue an influential captive while not escalating the tensions into a full-scale war. You must figure out how to stop a ritual that will breach the Void and devastate all you know and love. You must descend into Hell itself to prevent a twisted mage from auctioning off dangerous cosmic secrets. You must simply survive after becoming stuck in a strange realm while investigating a missing village.
These adventures promise to raise your blood pressure and generate thrills at the table. These are tales of oppressive odds and devastating outcomes. Your characters might very well survive, but will they be the same? Will they ever get a restful night’s sleep again? Fearsome trials forge stronger heroes and bring out the worst in villains.
Combining the adventures in Night Terrors with the tools in Night Hunters allows for the perfect mix of scares and introspection for any gaming group.
It's rare that a villain shows their teeth, their traps, or their puppet strings quite so clearly. However, we have ways of .... extracting much more information about the Dread Villains of Night Hunters—details are on the Kobold Press blog today.
If you missed last week’s Scouting Party live, find it posted today on the Kobold YouTube channel.
Tune in Friday, January 30, at 12 pm PT on YouTube to watch Scouting Party Live!
This week Kendo will interview the designers, with a baleful eye turned to the Dread Villains mechanics and related lore. This episode includes art previews as well.
That's all for this week. Thank you for your support, and we promise to put a little fear in next week's update as well.
The Kobolds, Returning to their Crypts
Week 2: Scouting Party, Player Option Details, and the World Anvil Livestream!
2 months ago
– Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 03:26:29 PM
It's official! The good folks at Kickstarter have deemed Night Hunters, the two-book horror toolkit, a “Project We Love” by Kickstarter. It's a great nod of recognition from the platform, and a sign of how this project is being embraced by the games world.
And as of today, five stretch goals have been unlocked: the dread villain tracker PDF, two adventures, and two sets of dastardly foes, one focussed on Aberrations, the second on wilderness foes.
And there's more on the horizon: foil stamping for the cards in the Shadow Oracle, and more adventurers. Your support makes it possible, but let's get some details and previews, shall we?
Kobold Press has gotten lots of questions about EXACTLY what player options are available in the Night Huntersbook. You can find some of the answers in the free Preview PDF and its table of contents, but let's go a bit deeper.
To answer some community questions, Kendo sat down with designers Celeste Conowitch and Sarah Madsen to give you the inside scoop. If you missed this first Scouting Party, you can watch it on our YouTube channel.
In this new Scouting Party video, the team dives into: What character options can you expect from Night Hunters? Get more details on the new lineages, subclasses, and fabled magic items you’ll find in the books in this YouTube summary of highlights and horrors.
And there's more! That Scouting Party also includes a deeper look at the tone, themes, and the Hunter's Arsenal that make Night Hunters unlike anything else in the world of horror RPGs.
Lead Designer Celeste Conowitch and the Kobold-in-Chief Wolfgang Baur, presented a livestream Horror Q&A with the folks at World Anvil this past Saturday, and provided both general guidance on how to run horror games effectively, and specific mechanics from the Night Hunters core books.
Dig into the world of Night Hunters, find out what scares a Kobold most, and hear about our latest foray into gothic horror and Dread Villains. It's all available on TwitchTV here.
That's it for this week. Please do share and repost the news about Night Hunters on your favorite platforms, to help us reach the next goals.
Yours in slowly building dread and anticipation,
The Kobolds
