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

Stretch Goals Revealed —10 Days Left!
4 months ago – Mon, Nov 03, 2025 at 06:28:35 PM

Happy November, everyone! With just 10 days left in our campaign, we’re very excited to share with you the stretch goals for if (when!) we go above and beyond our fully funded mark of $17K. We have big, long-term plans for ESSENCE, so any bonus funding we receive will be put straight into expanding on our fantasy world and gaming vision. Check out our stretch goals below: 

$20K: Game Board with Linen Finish

• If we exceed our goal by $3K, each game will include a linen-finished board. A linen finish is a textured embossing applied to the board’s surface, giving it a pattern similar to fabric for a more durable, tactile, and premium feel. Travel around Moltania in style! 

$27K: World Map Poster (8” x 10”)

• If we exceed our goal by $10K, each game will include a poster map of the world ESSENCE inhabits. This map features a full view of Moltania (including Myrrh and Chasmadia), as well as the surrounding continents and lands from our deeper lore. 

$32K: Custom Painted Character Mini

• If we exceed our goal by $15K, every Signed Limited Edition backer will be able to select a character and receive a custom-painted 28mm miniature that can be used as that character's piece in-game.

$50K: 15 Additional Gear Cards

• If we exceed our goal by $33K, we’ll include at least 15 additional Gear cards in each game - further expanding the Gear deck and opening the door for new builds. 

$75K: 5th & 6th Player Expansion

• If we exceed our goal by $58K, we’ll release two new playable characters for every Signed Limited Edition backer (and available as an add-on for other tiers). These new characters will center unique play styles and include new player boards and hero, militia, and shop meeples. They will be playable in a standard 4-player game or in new expanded 5 or 6-player game formats.

$100K: Dire Roach Queen Boss Expansion

• If we exceed our goal by $83K, we’ll release a new Boss system for every Signed Limited Edition backer (and available as an add-on for other tiers). The Dire Roach Queen will dramatically change the nature of city, monster, and player interaction, offering a completely different collaborative, competitive, or solo play experience.

We want to continue to thank our backers and everyone who is helping us bring ESSENCE into the world. Please reach out to us with any questions (on our stretch plans or general questions about the game). Talk soon, and thank you so much for being a part of this journey!

⁃ Cosmic Stew RPG

Over 75% funded — Gateways of Moltania lore
4 months ago – Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 11:18:53 AM

Hey all! Jumping in with another quick update: we’re over 75% funded! With about two and a half weeks left, we’re going into overdrive to get as many eyes on ESSENCE as possible to keep up momentum. Our team is traversing New York City, Chicago, Maine, Nebraska, and more at an Isa-like pace with fliers and playtests as we explore every nook and cranny of our neighborhood gaming communities. If you know someone—a friend, family member, coworker, enemy, politician—who might be interested in a fantasy RPG board game, now’s the time to spread the word! 

Thanks again to everyone for their continued love and support. Onward to $17K… 

Now, how about a bit more lore on the great cities of ESSENCE? 

A rapid history of the Gateways of Moltania: Yoringheim and Omeyllond

Yoringheim

Population: 50,000, with a majority of Lurzians and small minority of Stonesoles

Yoringheim, once a fortified Chasmadian stronghold guarding the main gateway to the continent, fell in battle to a Myrrh invasion and subsequent eruption of Lady Chasmatus. Its shattered gates now serve as landmarks for the bustling Lurzian Lurch trade route, the city reborn as a hub for new traders and adventurers.

The collapse of the Great Gates

Yoringheim was founded long ago by Chasmadians to act as both a key trade checkpoint and military stronghold. If the southern continent of Lurzia wished to trade with Chasmadia (and, by extension, Myrrh to the North), they needed to pass through Yoringheim; no other route was feasible for long-lasting trade. The monumental Great Gates served as a stark symbol for how Moltania was perceived in the South: rich, austere, and mysterious. Still, Yoringheim itself was an immense cosmopolitan metropolis, and further north from the wall, along the prosperous river delta and mountain canyons, many Chasmadians, Lurzians, and some adventurous Myrrh folk enjoyed a sophisticated, peaceful lifestyle.

On the day of Lady Chasmatus’s eruption (and nearly a century into the great War), half of the Yoringheim’s able-bodied civilians were laying siege to the towers of Omyellond. This left Yoringheim vulnerable. Led by King Isyl from Galfanas, tens of thousands of Myrrh soldiers and woodland warriors such as the Giant Sage Sloths and Elder Tree-sirs charged down from the northwestern valley and poured through the ill-defended inner Yoringheim gates. The city was quickly seized, with citizens fleeing into the sea or perishing at the locked gates to Lurzia. 

However, keeping the city proved unexpectedly costly for King Isyl. Rusty Constructs—an industrial being being unknown to Myrrh folk—emerged from deep within the mountains in a frenzied state, wreaking havoc on entire legions of Myrrh’s army. Much of the city was caught in the crossfire, including the enormous outer Great Gates. As Myrrh’s army waited, trapped against the crumbling southern gates and running out of time, Lady Chasmatus erupted in the East. A tsunami of ash and magma of mythical proportions quickly spilled down the eastern mountains and flooded the city. The battle of Yoringheim broke down into a mad scramble to open the gates and escape into the Lurzian Plains. But King Isyl and his army were never heard from again.

An era of trade and exploration 

Now decades later, the Great Gates lay toppled in the surrounding valley, with a few Constructs frozen at the base of the destruction. Pioneers, traders, and adventurers move freely between their home continent and the Great Gates ruins via the Lurzian Lurch, a post-eruption trading route that stretches from Lurzia to Omyellond. Yoringheim sits at the heart of this road, acting as a major guild-focused settlement for supplies, equipment, and traveling parties. Very few original Chasmadians or Stonesoles remain here; of those who do, only faint memories of Yoringheim's past remain. 

Omyellond 

Population: 10,000, with a maojrity of Lurzians and small minority of Isylians and Stonesoles

Built atop a soaring forest of magical towers and ambitious trade routes, Omyellond collapsed under the weight of rebellion and a Chasmadian invasion. The eruption of Lady Chasmatus saved the former great city from complete destruction, though its scorched ruins and scattered slums now make up a modest frontier outpost that lingers like a graveyard of old power.

The toppling of a unified city

Omyellond was a glistening city of towers and megastructures that stood tall for centuries as the Gateway to Myrrh. Before the great War, architects and tycoons from Chasmadia worked with the craftspeople and sorcerers of Myrrh to construct skyscrapers that grew with the surrounding forest, sprawled out into the western valley, and extended all the way to the tops of southward mountains like grasping fingers. Entire networks of vital trade routes and lively urban neighborhoods existed high above the ground, with mountainous cloisters blending with natural and enchanted wood, rock, and metal. The nexus of political, economic, academic, and military activity also intertwined within these great columns and situated itself into a vertical hierarchy: power rose to the top, and decay sank to the bottom. 

The decade before the eruption saw a surge of ground rebellions in the city, with one capturing the attention of all Moltanians through a deep, violent, and ultimately unsuccessful ascent to the innermost cloud spire. Martial law was enacted, entire lift columns and buildings were destroyed to isolate classes, and Chasmadian trade was severed and replaced with deportations and detentions.

Chasmadian retaliation against Omyellond was swift. In less than a year, Chasmadia had positioned an invasion force in two distinct chokepoints: the western valley, with troops funneled from Peldupaik and Yoringheim, and the southern mountain cloisters, with troops from Yoringheim, Phlia, and Hedonheim. With boiling social unrest and a relatively small military, Omeyllond watched with shock and dread as the masses of troops slowly piled up to their borders. Citizens near the ground were able to quickly flee into the Eluardian Wood—toward Eslanora—while many in the hundreds of towers found themselves trapped between the invading ground force and those descending from the mountain pass. Raging battles and skirmishes took place on the various floors, platforms, and walkways of Omyellond’s gleaming skyscrapers, with Chasmadians quickly gaining and holding territory in a single day. 

Fighting ceased in an instant when Lady Chasmatus erupted, with those on the edges of the megastructures getting a front row seat to breathtaking columns of pyroclastic gas and molten ashfall. Before many had time to move, this explosive, otherworldly cloud reached the Omyellond towers and buried both Myrrh folk and Chasmadians in a vortex of crumpled white metal.  

Relics for a new frontier

A few of the strongest towers still stand in Omeyllond today. But newer residents stick to the ground, staying far away from the ominous towers that remain scorched by the mythical eruption. The city mostly exists as organized rubble, with makeshift slums, trading posts, and supply depots scattered next to the Lurzian Lurch trading route. Omyellond is a frontier for a new generation of Moltanians, a seedling for the regrowth of settlements brought in from Yoringheim and the deeper southwest. 

Thanks for reading, y'all. More updates soon!

 - Will & Cosmic Stew RPG
 

One week down! - Deep Dive into Lady Chasmatus
5 months ago – Fri, Oct 24, 2025 at 03:25:54 PM

Hey everyone! Hope you've had a great week. 

It's been solid for Cosmic Stew! 9 days in, we're sitting at a cool 73% funded. And we were just awarded the "Project we Love" badge by Kickstarter! Great progress so far, steadily climbing towards our goal. Thank you again!

Let's talk about Lady Chasmatus...

Where winning (or losing) happens

In ESSENCE, Lady Chasmatus is the hex at the center of the board that's tied to the competitive victory and defeat conditions. Players with enough Daedetic Cores (victory points) can win the game if they move onto Lady Chasmatus. Conversely, if the Aspect of Yoordai arrives at Lady Chasmatus before it is defeated, all players lose...

The creation of Daedetic Cores

In our universe, Lady Chasmatus is an active volcano in the center of Chasmadia. But prior to the time that ESSENCE takes place, Lady Chasmatus lied dormant and powered the capital city of Chasmadia as the most advanced metropolis in the known world. Within its depths, the Stonesoles coveted an ancient power source, unknown to the outside world and misunderstood by even the most attuned scholars.

The dauntless ingenuity of the Stonesoles led to the creation of Daedetic Cores: singularities of pure Daedetic energy contained in physical stasis. Daedetic Cores brought about a technological revolution the likes of which the world had never seen. 

At its peak, the city within Lady Chasmatus was burrowed deep into the mountain, and it consisted of hundreds of levels of sophisticated dwellings, lavish marketplaces, and robust industries outfitted with intricate electrical and water networks. The city flowed with unprecedented ease due to its preeminent infrastructure.

A century of war, ended in a day

When war broke out against Myrrh to the north, Lady Chasmatus closed its gates to all outsiders for a century...

Generations of ceaseless war reached a cataclysmic climax when the spontaneous eruption of Lady Chasmatus brought a sudden and absolute end to the War of Silver Brittle, shattering the Chasmadian Empire in the process. It is assumed that the entire mountain's population (roughly 500,000) died instantly. Many of the Stonesole lords from across the Empire had retreated to the capital for safety during the War, and most—if not all—of the highest nobility were among the casualties. 

                    - Download 'Gates of Chasmatus' battlemap for free on our Patreon page!

Now, in the time of ESSENCE, Chasmadia is a scattered assortment of bickering city states with no true ruler. But a great and secret power still lies dormant in the depths of Lady Chasmatus, and only one wielding great power may enter and redeem this smoldering ruin...

Have a great weekend everyone! More to come soon!

:) CSRPG

Welcome & thank you for an incredible start!
5 months ago – Sun, Oct 19, 2025 at 10:28:04 AM

Hello, dear backers! 

Thank you so much for a fantastic start to the campaign! Sitting at 60% funded, we're well on our way to being able to fully produce Essence Board Game - just as we've dreamed. Thank you for your support and for sharing with your friends. It is incredibly humbling to have so many people invested in this project's success and we can't wait to play Essence with everyone!

This is our first Kickstarter project and it's been jam packed with new experiences. Now that the dust has settled a bit, we want to provide project updates throughout the rest of the campaign and bring you more into the fantasy world where Essence is set.

First an overview: Below is the original world map. You can see little Moltania perched above the Jeronian Sea, and Lady Chasmatus standing resolute. The initial idea was for Essence to span this entire map, with Moltania filling only a small section. We quickly decided that was too ambitious and that we wouldn't be able to do justice to the stories we wanted to tell in each corner of the world.

So we zoomed in on Moltania and began to manipulate the regional map to work for the game, changing names and optimizing the geography. 

The races in Moltania are known as the "Isyl," hailing from the lush forests of Myrrh, and the "Stonesoles," hailing from volcanic and mountainous Chasmadia. Although these races are inspired by elves and dwarves, we did not want them to be elves and dwarves, because these labels come with too many preconceived notions... more on that later! 

We are thinking about integrating one of these maps into one of our stretch goals as a poster. Speaking of STRETCH GOALS, stay tuned. We'll be releasing a list of stretch goals later this week in the case that we exceed our funding goal! 

That's all for now! Please reach out with any questions about the project or to connect with us further. You can find us on Facebook or Instagram @cosmicstewrpg for more informal updates and to connect with our community. Thank you for being here!! :)

Landon & Cosmic Stew RPG