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

July Update
9 months ago – Mon, Jul 14, 2025 at 08:49:04 PM

Hello all, hope you have been well and that you've been having a great summer so far! Today I've got some updates on the status of the game as well as some life updates.

Life Updates & Health

Since I took this year off of conventions to work on getting Reign of the Onyx King ready for print I've spent the past few months trying to improve my skills at marketing the game and all that it offers. I've been working on videos, TikToks, and advertisements trying to find what will get the game into the hands of new fans. 

These are some of my favorite sketch style ads that I've made so far:

Between filming videos, working on ads, new content, and all of the NONSTOP art to get Reign of the Onyx King ready for print, I think my body is starting to fight back a little bit 😅 Every week a new ache or pain seems to crop up — whether it be my back, my neck, my wrist, or my most recent battle with dry eyes. 

I'm trying to listen to what my body is telling me and take care of myself, while still maintaining a steady progress for the release. So far everything is still on track and going according to plan, but I'm trying to be smart with my energy to avoid getting burnt out or have my body just totally give out on me.

Art

With the mini-bosses complete I've moved on to sketching the remaining cards in the set. This process is always SUPER valuable in making the later illustrating go SO much faster and helping me be so much more efficient.

Sketches for all the remaining cards are nearly complete and these are some of my favorites so far:

I'm aiming to having all of the sketches done by the end of the month so I can start illustrating the final pieces and have everything ready for print by the end of October to keep us on schedule.

Stories

Work on the stories is continuing to go great! I just signed off on the final edits for the Onyx King's story and all that's left is Sarah's and the setting overview. They've really been coming out great and I can't wait to share them with you once we have everything together.

That's all for now and apologies for any delays on updates as I fight my body and continue to grind away at art. Know that I'm busy at work trying to deliver this game to you all as quickly as possible and can't wait to finally get it into everyone's hands.

Thanks for your continued patience and for your support and I hope you enjoy the rest of the summer!

Talk soon✌️

Best,
Jimmy

April/May Update — Art, Tariffs, and Game Plans
11 months ago – Sun, May 04, 2025 at 01:19:43 PM

PHEW 😮‍💨 I know I'm overdue for an update, but this month has been a DOOZY.

At the start of April my computer broke and was out commission for 3 weeks while I got new parts and made the necessary repairs...but we're finally back!

Tariffs

I'm sure this is at the top of everyone's mind so I wanted to address it first. Since the tariff situation has grown into such an unpredictable element, and especially with it climbing to the current 145% number, I've decide to fully hold back the funding for hiring additional artists and allocate those funds towards importing the games should the tariff situation not improve. 

Hopefully with the time we still have to get everything finished, things will improve, but if they don't, I want you to know that I'm already exploring other options.

I love the product we get from LongPack, so I would like to not change printers unless absolutely necessary, but I've already started getting some quotes from other printers as a back up. LongPack is also in the process of updating my quote and giving me a rough estimate with the current tariffs to see what things would look like.

We can talk about a game plan for shipping if the tariffs are still dire once the game is ready for print. There's always the option of removing things like gloss/foil on box to lower the per unit cost of each game and making importing everything a bit more manageable. I'd obviously like to avoid this if possible, but will ask everyone which option they prefer when we get to that point.

With art fully falling onto my plate, some things will get pushed back slightly. My current plan is to have all the art for the game finished and to start printing by the end of the Summer or middle of the Fall. That would push back the current delivery date to March of 2026. I hope that everyone understands, as the changes in production (plus being down a computer for nearly a month) have set me back a little bit.

Art

The good news is that a major art milestone is complete! The illustrations for the mini-bosses are 100% completed! Some of these are my favorite of the whole set. Hope you enjoy checking these out and I've got a collection of all of the illustrations together down below.

Below you can find the latest batch of speed paints.

Maiden of the Scales

Queen Guinevere

Legion Commander

King's Pet

Warden of the Old Path

St. Eurig, Rotwood Heretic

Legion's Phalanx

All Mini-Bosses Are Now Complete!

It's so awesome to see all 27 of the mini-bosses all lined up and completed. Do you have a favorite? Some of these are my favorite pieces I've ever made for the game and make me really excited to see the rest of the set fully completed :) After playtesting with just doodles for so long it feels really great to have some finished pieces in the card frames.

Kingdoms/Realms

In preparation of the remaining cards, I've broken down the 9 Kingdoms/Realms in the setting and assigned them each a color palette and iconography for their flags and insignias.

Breaking everything down this way helps the art process go WAY faster and will hopefully help there be some great cohesion as you should be able to at a glance recognize which cards are from which kingdoms by their colors.

The 9 Kingdoms:
Tir Tywyll, The Black Cliffs
Avalyn, The Misty Moorlands
Eingion, The Last Forge
Boremyn, The Amber Valley
Maesfedd, The Great Fields
Ruins of Arn, The Whispering Hills
Isle of Rav, The Crooked Roost
Caerogwg, The Barking Reach
Grindlehallow, The Briar Thicket

Right now I'm in the process of sketching everything out for the remaining cards. I'll post that here in our next update along with any that get finished in the meantime.

Stories

Lastly I just wanted to update everyone on the stories. The writer I've been working with has been doing an amazing job. We've signed off on Llawamai and Ias's stories and are currently working on the Onyx King's, Sarah's, and the setting overview.

I'm going to share these once they're all complete, because I think they'll be best read in the intended order.

That's all for now, and sorry again that this update got a little delayed!

Thanks for all that you do to support the game and let me know if you have any questions.

Best,
Jimmy

March Update (more art)
about 1 year ago – Tue, Mar 04, 2025 at 12:19:36 PM

Hey all, here's the latest update on Reign of the Onyx King.

Art

Our shortest month of the year and we still hit our goal! These 6 were a lot of fun to work on, and I really feel that I've gotten more comfortable with pushing the style of the game and going for a more "tarot" look for some of the illustrations.

Any that stand out to you as a favorite?

Some of these were my favorite sketches, so I was really excited to finally get to execute them. I really love how creepy the tax collector came out.

Below you can find the latest batch of speed paints.

Falron the Cruel

Stitcher Gendhal

Lady of the Black Lagoon

Hush, Royal Librarian

Syr Lanslod Lak

Tax Collector

Story

The first draft of the story for Llawamai came back and WOW let me tell you how excited I am. The writer did a great job and it makes me really excited to share everything with you. Just putting some finishing touches on the first story and moving onto the second.

I'll share the story with you all here once it's been finalized.

Shipping & Tariffs

It seems that in my last update I spoke too soon about shipping and tariffs...because a few days later I got an email from our printer to expect shipping and import fees to increase by up to 10%. With the news yesterday that tariffs to China may be increased by another 20%, I'm starting to make plans to reallocate our budget a bit.

With how much these things are subject to change right now, I'm taking some of the planned funds for additional artists and keeping it in reserve for these shipping issues should they not improve. This will require me to do more of the illustration work myself, but it's nothing that I haven't been able to do before.

Best case scenario is that these shipping rates improve and we can go back to the original game plan. As they say, prepare for the worst and hope for the best.

As always I'll let you all know as soon as I can should these plans change.

That's all for now. I hope you enjoyed this little update and the new art and I'll touch base again at the start of April.

Best,
Jimmy

February Update
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 03, 2025 at 07:58:25 AM

Hey all! Here's an update on where we're at with the Reign of the Onyx King:

Art

First month of 2025 is in the books, and we're off to a great start for the year. We're perfectly on track for all the art (if not slightly ahead). Really happy with how some of these latest ones came out. Are there any that are your favorites so far?

I've really fallen into a great rhythm with outputting these, even with a few hiccups cropping up over the course of the month. Now it would just be great if I could get a consistent stream schedule on top of that...

As soon as I finish the illustration I immediately throw it in the card frame to see how it looks. After having nothing but doodle art for years, it's really exciting and validating to finally have the finished art on the cards.

Below you can find the latest batch of speed paints.

Prince Liam 

Watcher at the Gate 

The Butcher 

The Judicator 

Morgana the Life-Binder 

King's Blacksmith 

Story

I've started working with a writer to help me with the stories for the characters and setting. Someone who can take my ideas and present them in a much more well-spoken way. 

My goal is to make the rulebook much beefier, with the back-half being chock full of all of the lore for the set (something that hearkens back to old-school video game manuals that would have character and story info in them).

We've just gotten started outlining everything that needs to be done, but I can't wait to see what he's able to come up with.

Tariffs & Shipping

I'm keeping an eye on things as best I can and don't think any of the original projections should be affected at this point. If anything changes I'll be sure to update you as soon as I'm made aware of a problem.

That's all for now! Stay safe and I'll catch up with you again in March.

Best,
Jimmy

Happy New Year! Art, art, and more art!
about 1 year ago – Mon, Jan 06, 2025 at 05:19:10 PM

Happy New Year everyone! Hope your 2025 is off to a great start. I'm still chipping away at all the art for Reign of the Onyx King, but wanted to give you this update on what I've been working on.

PAX Unplugged

At the start of December was PAX Unplugged. The show was such a blast and is always one of my favorites. Thanks to everyone that came out and said hi during the show, there were so many of you who were excited after the Kickstarter and came by to show your support.

Now that PAX Unplugged is complete, I'm going to be taking a small break from conventions in 2025 as I work on finishing everything for Reign of the Onyx King and getting it delivered to you all.

Art Updates

Other than conventions I have been busy busy working away on getting the mini-bosses illustrated. Below I have the seven completed so far, with many others in various stages of production.

My goal is to have all of the mini-bosses finished by the end of Q1 which will keep us on schedule for our print date.

Other than the mini-bosses, I'm currently in talks with other illustrators for guest illustrations in the set. These I wouldn't expect to see updates on until all the work is finalized when we are closer to print.

Speed Paints

If you'd like a little more behind the scenes at the illustration process, I've included all the speed paints for the completed mini-bosses below. I hope you enjoy these as I've finally gotten into a good groove for recording and editing them.

Also: this update was a little experiment to see if you'd prefer me to batch these updates every couple of months, or have a more regular monthly update schedule. Please let me know what you'd prefer as I don't want to be spamming people's inboxes as I continue to work over the coming months.

That's all for now, but just wanted to say thanks again as always for supporting Reign of the Onyx King and following along on this journey — and here's to a great 2025!

Best,
Jimmy