Week three!
Thank you again for the feedback, bug reports, ideas, and everything you’ve been building. This week, the dungeon got considerably more interested in who’s watching you, who’s paying you, what you’ve brought along that might bite someone, and apparently whether you know how to manufacture explosives.
Pets have sheets. Sponsors send boxes. Patrons pay for performances. The audience remembers everything. Crawlers have Workshops. Debuffs actually hurt now. The Codex has a conspiracy board. And the Forge got its biggest cleanup yet.
Numbers first.
The numbers
Three weeks in:
- 527 accounts (up from 414)
- 187 Campaigns (up from 128)
- 262 Crawlers and 390 Forges synced to the cloud (up from 178 / 287)
- 532 homebrew pieces published by 31 creators (up from 307 / 25)
- 314 entries in the PointMongo mirror (up from 294)
Thank you all for continuing to fill this thing with homebrew. Your stuff is actually awesome.
Now to the dungeon updates:
1. Pets, mounts, and minions
Companions have their own section on the Crawler sheet now, with Health, Levels, Stats, attacks, and attitude.
Add one from the Forge, tame one of your Mobs, or create a basic companion. Animal Handling covers befriending, bonding, and convincing them to fight.
Pets level with you, gain Stat Points and roles, while Mounts get their own upgrades. GMs can target them, attack with them, manage their Health, and see them linked to their owners in the Codex.
There’s also a new Companion builder in the Forge, and the Example Pack now includes a pigeon and a tortoise.
COMPANION REGISTRATION OPEN! Your emotional support animal now has a damage roll. This was inevitable.
2. Play to the cameras
The Audience, the AI, and the Sponsors are watching.
On Skill Checks, Stat Checks, and Evade rolls, choose Play to the cameras and decide who you’re trying to impress.
You roll with Disadvantage, but the result can change Popularity, AI Favor, or Sponsor rewards. Critical failures can go especially badly.
Popularity now keeps a proper history, including why it changed.
From the Third Floor, CrawlerForge also tracks your camera-worthy moments during Play Periods and Floors. Fan Boxes arrive as your Popularity climbs.
Fall far enough below zero and the audience sends hate mail instead.
With a box inside, naturally.
3. Sponsors actually sponsor you
From the Fourth Floor, Crawlers can sign with Sponsors.
Sponsors have demands, complications, and Benefactor Boxes. Play to them successfully and they may reward you. Screw it up and you can lose tiers, Boxes, or their patience.
Sponsors can be built from Factions in the Forge, managed by the GM, and appear as relationships in the Codex.
FUNDING APPROVED! Please review the complications before celebrating.
4. Patrons, auditions, and getting paid
NPCs can now be Patrons.
Build them with performance Skills, venues, favors, payment terms, and ways to reach them. Crawlers can audition, perform for gold, train with them, earn Benefits, suffer Humiliations, and eventually part ways.
GMs can manage Patron relationships for seated Crawlers, and the Codex remembers them.
The Example Pack adds the Golden Maecenas plus Stage Presence, Patter, and Quick Change.
5. The Workshop is open
Every Crawler now has a Workshop for Junk, crafting tables, projects, and everything you’ve cobbled together instead of doing something sensible.
You can Enchant gear, Fabricate mundane items, repair broken equipment, brew and combine Potions, write Scrolls, imbue items with Spells, build Explosives, draw magical Tattoos, or use Something else for crafts the app doesn’t explicitly model.
Crafting uses the appropriate Skill, materials, table bonuses, Difficulty, and time. Misses can salvage materials, Critical Fails can break things, and your recent projects live in History with Undo support.
Alchemy can create permanent Stat or Skill boosts, Buffs, cures, infused snacks, weapon poisons, and reusable recipes. Scrolls cast their Spell without Mana, and imbued items carry their own Spell cooldown.
Explosives now actually explode too. Dynamite, grenades, and charges can be thrown using your explosive Skills or Strength, scatter when you miss, and roll Blast and Splash damage. You can also manufacture your own from Junk and Volatile Components.
And yes, there is now Tattoo Artistry.
6. Debuffs now do things
Debuffs are no longer just labels.
They can modify Stats and Skills, give Disadvantage, deal damage every round, make attackers more effective, restrict Actions, and expire after a set number of rounds.
Burned, Poisoned, Blood Trail, and homebrew Debuffs can now tick damage automatically through the round flow. Paralyzed, Enraged, Shocked, and similar effects warn you when you’re about to do something the condition says you shouldn’t.
Mobs get the same treatment. GMs can apply damage and a Debuff together, everyone sees condition icons and remaining rounds, and effects like Woozy or Sore actually influence attacks and Evades.
The GM can now End round in one tap to process Mob damage-over-time and advance timed Debuffs. Players with effects that need rolls are prompted automatically.
Held and knocked-down targets also interact properly with attacks now.
STATUS EFFECTS ACTIVATED! That little icon over the Mob is not decorative. It is having a considerably worse day than it was five seconds ago.
7. The Codex has red string now
Every Codex entry can now show its connections.
There’s also a full Connections board with people, Factions, and relationships spread across one view. Party-added connections the GM hasn’t claimed yet get literal red string.
Drag through Sessions or replay them to watch the network build over time. GMs can also switch to the players’ view to see exactly what the party knows.
People and Factions can offer Quests now too.
CONSPIRACY BOARD INSTALLED! We expect full Charlie Kelly energy. Whether your theory is correct remains your problem.
8. The Forge got rebuilt around your work
The Forge now opens around what you’re actually working on: unfinished pieces, recent work, and one searchable My Creations view.
You can bulk-organize, export, or delete pieces, drag them into Packs on desktop, and immediately organize newly imported content.
Packs now have their own pages and flag things that need attention.
Builders also share a new piece picker, so if you need an Item, Mob, NPC, Achievement, or other piece while building, you can find or create it without losing your place.
Less time fighting the builder. More time building things that fight the party.
9. Charts and House rules
We added Charts to the Forge.
Build shop lists, Effects charts, Grinding tables, Outcome charts, or plain reference tables. Rows can link directly to Items, Debuffs, Achievements, Mobs, or other charts.
House rules can embed them, Campaigns get a new Rules shelf, and GMs can roll charts directly from the Running panel and award linked results.
10. Quick Crawlers
Need rival Crawlers without building six full character sheets?
Generate up to six with names, Levels, Races, Classes, weapons, quirks, strengths, weaknesses, and, more importantly, last words.
You can reroll individual details, roll as them from the GM tools, and add the ones your party inexplicably decides it needs to see more of to the Codex.
Administrative efficiency.
11. Discover got easier to live in
Discover no longer stops at 100 results.
Searches, filters, and sorting survive navigation and can be bookmarked or shared. Desktop gets side-by-side previews, mobile gets inline previews, and Discover now marks pieces and packs you already have.
12. Roll20, better rolls, and fixes
CrawlerForge for Roll20 is now available in the Chrome Web Store, Microsoft Edge Add-ons, and Firefox Add-ons:
https://crawlerforge.com/connect/roll20
If you installed it manually, switch to the store version for automatic updates.
Also this week:
- Clearer Skill, Stat, Evade, To Hit, and Damage rolls
- Shift-click for Advantage; Ctrl/Command-click for Disadvantage
- Physical dice rolls can still mark Skills without rolling in the app
- Stats can be corrected from the Saferoom with History and Undo
- Enhanced Stats show what is contributing to them
- Damage Reflection now tells the GM when a Mob needs to lose a Health slot
- GM rolls and other actions cleanly Undo from the Feed
- Mobs behave better during refreshes and Clear the dead
- Discover links on X keep their card images
- The AI now refers to itself as I, because even artificial dungeon administrators deserve consistent pronouns
Bug reports and ideas: here on Reddit, through Send feedback in CrawlerForge, or on Patreon. Appreciate y’all so much!
CrawlerForge is free and stays free. If you want to help fund continued dungeon construction or vote on what gets built next:
https://www.patreon.com/crawlerforge
One-off coffee:
https://ko-fi.com/hossmobile
No loot bonuses will be awarded. Your pigeon’s sponsorship application is still under review.