Essence: Explore, Battle, Trade - A Hero-Building Board Game

August Update 2: Games are Here!!! Fulfillment Beginning Soon
about 1 month ago – Fri, Aug 28, 2026 at 11:47:23 AM

They are here!! The games were dropped off!

Everything's in order. Pens are down, all rewards are accounted for, the new linen finish on the game board was definitely worth the upgrade. The team will be getting together this weekend to prepare packages and send out the games. Backers in the USA should start receiving your games about 2 weeks from now. International backers, likely the week after. Alongside the games, you'll also receive all of your non-book, non-poster rewards. Local Pickup people, we'll be reaching out to you in the next couple weeks to get you your rewards as well.

The book formerly known as "A Field Guide to Moltania" has been renamed "Moltania: Wake of Chasmatus" to give it more episodic potential. This was sent out for printing this week after a final push. When we receive the books in a couple weeks, we'll send them out separately. The posters are too large to fit in the game box, so we'll send those out in separate packages as well.  

All-in-all, we're expecting everything to arrive on schedule per the original Kickstarter timeline of August/September 2026! We're thrilled with our manufacturers for their quality and their timeliness. Reach out if you ever need a recommendation! 

Please also reach out for any questions about fulfillment, or to connect further. We're so excited to get Essence on so many shelves and very proud of how everything came together. Can't wait to share more!

That's all for now, just know - something's coming in the mail!!

-Cosmic Stew RPG

August Update: Production Complete, Shipping Imminent, Field Guide nearing Completion
2 months ago – Sat, Aug 01, 2026 at 12:04:13 PM

Hey everyone! 

Hope you're having a nice day. 

Thought you ought to know: Essence production is complete, and the games are on their way to New York! We're expecting to receive pallets of games the week of August 16, and we'll ship them out shortly thereafter to reclaim our living room from Yoordai's evil grasp. If everything continues to move smoothly, you'll have your hands on Essence by early September.

In other news, the Field Guide to Moltania is nearly complete, and it is... monstrous. I'm not sure what we were thinking when we said it would be just 40 pages—it's easily twice that long and counting, chock-full of content for your next tabletop adventure. 

We've been diligently mining the depths of our archives dating all the way back to the height of lockdown in 2020. Every stone has been unturned, and the canon has been upheld in pursuit of a singular and immersive anthology that does justice to the mythos of Moltania. Here's a sneak peak:

While it was originally intended to be a companion to Essence, the Field Guide has turned into a standalone visual publication in its own right, and we can't wait to share it and continue building out the world in future projects!

That's all for now, expect to hear from us again soon once the games have been secured! 

Cheers, 

Cosmic Stew RPG 

June Update: Production Nearing Completion, Locking Orders Soon
4 months ago – Sat, Jun 06, 2026 at 05:14:12 PM

Hey everyone! 

Exciting news! Mass production for Essence has an estimated completion date of June 18! We've started to receive progress photos of the final-quality assets from the manufacturer. After production is complete, we're anticipating about 45 days for shipping before we receive the games in the USA. Then we'll get straight into fulfillment. So once again, all physical rewards are still on schedule per our original campaign timeline! 

Above is one of the progress photos from our manufacturer, showing the new finish on the game board, trading the old glossy finish for matte-linen! A far cry from the paper game boards of yore:

It's crazy to think about how far Essence has come in the past few years and how many copies will soon exist!!

Wrapping up the Pledge Manager

In other news, you may receive a few emails from BackerKit over the coming weeks regarding Locking Orders, Charging Cards (shipping & tax), and Locking Delivery Addresses. We'll initiate a 48-hour notice email for each of these steps. 

The are a few straggling shipping addresses we still need to collect, but we still plan to proceed with the dates mentioned in our last update — locking existing orders on June 7 and charging cards shortly thereafter. The timing of these steps will have no effect on the fulfillment of your rewards, and if you have already completed the backer survey (most of you have - thank you!), then there is no further action required unless you'd like to review/confirm your shipping address, rewards, etc. 

As always, if you have any questions or concerns, please reach out and we are happy to help on a case-by-case basis. 

That's all for now, just wanted to share a quick heads up on the above! 

Thanks, and happy summer!

-Cosmic Stew RPG

PS - Go Knicks!!

May Update: Production, Timelines, Pledge Manager Closing Soon...
5 months ago – Wed, May 13, 2026 at 01:08:31 PM

Hey everyone!

We hope all is going well. We wanted to provide a general update on everything that's happening in the Essence world. 

Production

Essence is in mass production!! 

After extensive back and forth with the manufacturer, and the approval of a final sample, production is in full swing. To this point, we have no concerns about the production timeline, and physical rewards are all still on schedule per the campaign timeline. We are right on track for backers to receive their games/rewards by the end of summer. 

Pledge Manager

Just about everyone required has filled out the backer survey! Thank you very much, as this is helping things to run very smoothly.

Because the manufacturing process is on schedule, we went ahead and calculated shipping costs for all backers. The cost of shipping depends on your mailing address and the cumulative weight of your rewards. If you would like to review your shipping cost, you can do so by revisiting your backer survey. Final shipping costs are very close to the estimates we provided at the bottom of our campaign page. 

As we have stated before, if you live in New York City, we have initially waived your shipping cost and will attempt to coordinate with you to have your rewards hand-delivered.

Lastly, on Sunday, June 7, we will lock all existing orders on the pledge manager. This will be the last chance to pre-order Essence or edit your backer survey, so make sure you've selected all the rewards you'd like to receive by then. We'll charge cards for shipping & tax on Monday, June 8. We'll send another quick update before then as a heads up. 

A Field Guide to Moltania

The Field Guide is coming along nicely. This continues to be a fun, collaborative process while production is going on in the background. 

We originally planned for the Field Guide to be around 40 pages, but with the amount of content we're hoping to include within the sleek A5 size, it's projecting to be... substantially longer. So, we have really been prioritizing its development to have the physical version in time to ship with your games! To ensure that we deliver the most complete, highest-quality RPG book possible to all who ordered, we'll be delaying the release of the digital version to the same time as the physical version. 

Please reach out any time with questions or concerns. Always happy to hear from the community! For now, enjoy your spring—only one season away from Essence time! 

-Cosmic Stew RPG

March 2026 Update - Production, Pledge Manager, Field Guide
7 months ago – Sun, Mar 15, 2026 at 10:08:52 AM

Hello everyone!

We hope you have all been holding up well in this first quarter of another wild year. It's been two months since our last official update, so we wanted to let you know what we've been up to.

Our ongoing tasks have been managing the pledge manager and playtesting the extremes of the game to finalize the rulebook for print. We wanted to give ourselves ample time to refine the rulebook, as every bit of feedback gives great direction on how to organize the rules to make learning Essence as easy as possible! 

Production

The most important news is that the manufacturer is back from holiday and Essence is primed for imminent production.

The team is taking care to ensure that everything is thoroughly accounted for within each box. We've been rigorously tuning the details so that each game comes efficiently and elegantly packaged for ease of use and to look nice on your shelf! 

All in all, physical rewards are all on schedule per the campaign timeline, and we still plan for backers to receive their games near the end of summer. 

Pledge Manager

Thank you to everyone who has filled out the backer survey and provided a shipping address to receive your rewards. About 60% of backers have filled out the backer survey so far. As a reminder, it is essential for all backers who didn't "Pledge Without a Reward" to fill out the backer survey before the pledge manager closes. This is how we will calculate tax and obtain your shipping address for the delivery of your rewards. There are also some opportunities to give feedback and help guide us in our future endeavors. 

You should have received an email from BackerKit with a link to fill out the backer survey. It should be fairly straightforward, but if you have any questions about the backer survey, or whether you need to fill it out, please reach out to the team and we will help step by step! 

Seeing as we are getting closer to the end of manufacturing, we will be calculating shipping costs next month to be charged through the pledge manager. 

As a reminder, if you live in New York City, there is an option to avoid a shipping cost. If you'd like to explore this option, you do not need to provide a shipping address, but you do need to get in contact with us ahead of time so that we can coordinate the hand-delivery of your rewards. And don't worry, if you've already provided your shipping address, and we make contact prior to fulfillment, we can manually override your shipping cost. 

We will likely keep the pledge manager open longer than we had originally planned, with an estimated closing in May - so keep telling your friends! We will give ample notice before the pledge manager closes.

A Field Guide to Moltania

In other news, we have been thoroughly enjoying our work on A Field Guide to Moltania. If you are hoping for some context on what the Field Guide will be, check out our previously published series: The Atlas of Rong'lu, available on our Patreon page or through the Cosmic Gazetteer backer reward (which many of you received). It has felt great to memorialize the setting and flesh out the world of Essence while managing the fulfillment process. We hope that the Field Guide serves as a great companion to Essence, granting depth to the region and allowing you to be more immersed in the Cosmic Stew.

That's all for now, but please feel free to reach out with any questions or just to connect! 

Wishing you well, 

:* Cosmic Stew RPG