Reign of the Onyx King: a One-vs-Many Card Game

Feb Update - Art is 100% COMPLETE 🎉 + playmat art vote
about 1 month ago – Tue, Feb 17, 2026 at 10:27:45 PM

It is a glorious day folks: after some serious grinding, I'm very happy to report that all the art for Reign of the Onyx King is OFFICIALLY COMPLETE 🎉🎉🎉 This update is a doozy since I managed to do FIFTY FIVE illustrations since our last update in January.

After the artwork and cards you'll be able to find the link to the playmat vote which will be open until the end of March. Plan is to get into production with everything as soon as possible.

Illustrations

Without further ado, here's the final batch of illustrations for Reign of the Onyx King.

Cards

Here are all the cards!

Playmat Vote

The time has come to cast your vote! The top 4 most voted playmats will be added on to our print run to be playmat options for backers. Voting ends on 3/31/26. 

I've curated a selection that I thought would make the best playmats, but please notify me if you have a different piece of artwork from the set that you would like to be considered.

You can vote on the playmats at the following link: https://strawpoll.com/7rnzVrX1lnO

Timeline

Our printer LongPack Games is currently on break observing the Chinese New Year. My plan is to get everything ready for a sample by the end of the month so that we can go into print by the end of March.

We're approaching the finish line folks!!! I hope that you're as excited as I am.

Best,
Jimmy

Happy New Year! 🎉 January Update
3 months ago – Mon, Jan 05, 2026 at 09:15:09 AM

🎉🎉🎉Happy New Year Everyone!!🎉🎉🎉

Just wanted to start this update by thanking you for your part in making Hero bigger and better than it’s ever been in 2025. I can’t wait for all that 2026 has in store for us.

Now let's move on to the art! We had another great month of productivity, with me finishing the illustrations for the Whispering Hills, as well as starting and finishing the art for the kingdoms of The Isle of Rav — the Crooked Roost, and Caerogwg — the Barking Reach.

Little background on the Isle of Rav: for those of you that remember the Hosh from the base game, they were all based on owls. I want each setting to change them a bit to match the environment, so this time I styled them around ravens/crows.

Hope you enjoy this month's batch!

Illustrations

Cards

And here are the cards!

Is there a favorite card for you in this batch? I'm really happy with how The Horned One, Ravnian Mage, Starhand, and Barking Beast came out, and I bet some of these would make great playmat options for us down the road. Hope you enjoyed this update!

Best,
Jimmy

December Update❄️☃️
4 months ago – Mon, Dec 08, 2025 at 09:14:09 PM

Hey all! Hope you had a great November and that your holiday season is off to a great start! 

I wanted to start by opening up with an apology. I know there are probably many of you that were hoping we would be in print by now, with games soon on the way. 

I'm sorry for how long it has been taking me to finish all of the art. I had lofty ambitions when we successfully funded, and had spent a lot of time looking into, and contacting other artists to help with the process. Unfortunately, with the tariffs being what they became, and with it being a really rough couple of years financially, that wasn't able to be a possibility. I had hoped that I could power through and take care of it myself like I did for the base game, but as it turns out the scope of Reign of the Onyx King was just way more involved artistically (and I have also gotten a higher standard for my art since 2017). 

With that being said, I'm so excited for what this game is looking like — every illustration, and every card that is finalized just brings that finished project more clearly into view, and it makes me so excited for what I'm building together with you. So I hope you'll forgive me if it's taking longer than I originally expected. Please know that I am grinding away, doing as much, as quickly, as I possibly can (without sacrificing the quality that was promised). 

I'll keep you updated if things change, but we are currently on track to finish all of the artwork by the end of February and move into print shortly after. This shouldn't delay our initial expected delivery date by too much, but I still wanted to be transparent with you.

With that being said, let's move onto the good news: this is the largest amount of art I've been able to finish in an update, and I really think it's some of the best yet. As a side note, the amount of time I was dedicating to setting up and editing the speed paints was taking time away that could be spent on finishing another illustration, so I've moved away from recording them for every single piece, and instead now do it when I know I'll be at my desk drawing for an extended stretch of time.

Illustrations

This batch includes the finished illustrations for Boremyn - the Blooming Vale, Maesfedd - the Dusk Fields, and marks the start of Llawamai's kingdom: Ruins of Arn - the Whispering Hills.

Cards

And here are the cards! (hopefully at a readable size this time with how Kickstarter compresses the images)

Llawamai and the Whispered Ones

The game of Hero has always been inspired by stories. Characters and events that inspired or stuck with me over the years. Growing up, I was constantly surrounded by the epic stories of my friends and their raids in World of Warcraft as they climbed the ranks on their server. And no member of that guild was more cemented in my mind than that of Llawamai, my friend's tank (and guild leader) for over 10 years. Llawamai's name is even "I am a wall" backwards. 

I knew when I sought out to make a tank themed character in Hero, that there was no one I would rather have it be than an homage to my good friend's character. Some people in that guild were there from the beginning, some brand new, some I never met, some I still talk to every day, and some are no longer with us. Each of the whispered ones represent a different member of that guild at it's pinnacle, and each helps this story's Llawamai in his fight against the Onyx King.

I hope you enjoyed this update and this little peak into the background of a piece of this story. I hope everyone has a safe and happy holiday season. I'll update you all again soon.

Best,
Jimmy

October Update
5 months ago – Wed, Oct 29, 2025 at 09:29:10 AM

Hey everyone! Hope you're excited for Halloween in just a couple days. Stopping in to give you the latest updates for Reign of the Onyx King:

Pledge Manager

Looks like there's still 51 of you who haven't completed your pledge manager on Backerkit. We still have plenty of time to get that finalized, but make sure to check your spam folder in case it went there so that I can get everyone's shipping information (I'll be sure to send another update reminding everyone when we vote on the playmats and are getting closer to print.)

Art!

Once again, in order to avoid making this post a wall of YouTube links, you can check out the playlist below on YouTube for any of the speedpaint videos. 

Illustrations

There are 9 kingdoms throughout the setting (and some miscellaneous neutral areas), and at this point we've finished with the Onyx King's kingdom Tir Tywyll - The Black Cliffs, Darren's home Eingion - The Last Forge, and we've started Boremyn - The Blooming Vale, home of Queen Guinevere and her loyal knights. I've tried to section the cards off into each of the kingdoms and give them specific color palettes to better associate them with their respective regions.

I've been able to make some great progress lately and I think we're well on track to have everything ready for our early 2026 release date :)

Cards

And here are the cards themselves!

That's it for now, hope you enjoy and that everyone has a great Halloween! 🎃

Best,
Jimmy

August Update - A whole bunch of art
7 months ago – Sun, Aug 17, 2025 at 12:48:42 PM

Hey there everyone! Hope that your summers have been going well. This update is just going to be a ton of art. I finished the sketches in July and have moved onto doing the main illustrations with the goal of doing one per day to keep us on schedule. It's been a lot of grinding and late nights so far, but I couldn't be happier with the results.

In order to avoid making this post a wall of YouTube links, if you're interested in seeing the speed paints for any of these you can find them over at this playlist on YouTube 

Illustrations

Without further ado, here are the latest illustrations!

Warbanner might be my favorite so far, and I'm already thinking that a couple of these would be great options for the playmats later on!

Cards

And here are the cards themselves! (I've been going region by region for the illustrations, so these are all the cards from the Onyx King's kingdom Tir Tywyll, the Black Cliffs)

Hope you enjoyed the update! Now back to drawing I go 🏃‍♂️

Best,
Jimmy