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Gloomhaven Grand Festival

Created by Cephalofair

We invite you to join the celebration and check out the latest in the city of Gloomhaven. From Gloomhaven: Buttons & Bugs, Gloomhaven: The Role Playing Game, Miniatures of Gloomhaven, Gloomhaven: Second Edition and more, there is something for everyone.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

March Update: Lunar New Year and Playing Cards
10 days ago – Tue, Mar 03, 2026 at 12:24:35 PM

Good day! I hope you are all doing well. We are in for a bit of a shorter update this month, as expected, with both our RPG and Miniature factories just now returning from the Lunar New Year break,  We have re-engaged with both factories this week and will briefly summarize below the current and next steps!

Minis

We’ve just heard back from our Miniature factory that they have returned to office and are eager to pick up where we left off! Price and our production team are actually currently in Kentucky attending GAMA (Game Manufacturer’s Association) and met with our factory team to align on next steps and set expectations that mold production is kicking off to high gear ASAP. Good conversations were had and clear goals set for packaging, production, and our intended involvement in quality assurance. We really look forward to providing you insights, photos, and video of the mass production process once it’s formally underway.



RPG

Our internal production team has been spending the entirety of this Lunar New Year window making sure all final efforts on the RPG book are accounted for and underway for a quick kick-off with our factory. As mentioned above, Price (& Arch, & Layne) flew out early to Kentucky for a full week of in-person co-working and collaboration on the project to make sure that continued conversations with our manufacturers will be productive and effective.

Tomorrow, they have a scheduled meeting with our factory to make sure all formalities are out of the way, contracts are signed, deposits are made, and pre-press is ready to begin.

Barring any emergencies, we anticipate this is the month we will finally begin pre-press and begin reviewing/approving digital proofs!

One of the fun last steps of the project this window has allowed us time to finalize direction for our own deck of Gloomhaven playing cards! These will not only serve as a fully functional set of playing cards, but include beautiful artwork from Alexander Eilichev & Dat Phan, as well as optional graphical elements that will support Gloomhaven: RPG gameplay should you choose to use them instead of the Deluxe Card Set. (Although, ANY standard deck of 52 cards + Jokers will work!)

This deck of Gloomhaven: Playing cards will be available both with the RPG pledge manager and later on www.cephalofair.com.



Community Spotlight

This month I am giving a huge shout-out to Youtuber UcGXanathos21, who posts videos of him playing Frosthaven and Gloomhaven digital at very hard difficulty. Most impressive to me is his recent video with the world record speedrun for completing Gloomhaven Digital on +2 difficulty. You know how it took you and your group over a year to play through Gloomhaven? This guy did it in an hour and 21 minutes, and, just to reiterate, he did it on +2 difficulty.

I know how much time and dedication goes into perfecting a speed run—way, way, way more than what you see in the actual video—so stuff like this completely blows me away. If nothing else, at least watch the first two scenarios (or the Slave Pens at 1:07:15, which is just wild) and marvel at the expertise.



And that is the update for you. Like I said, we’ll have much more for you next  month once we get into molding on the miniatures and proofing on the RPG. Catch you then!

February update: moving ever closer to production
about 1 month ago – Tue, Feb 03, 2026 at 02:25:59 PM

Good day! I hope you’ve had a good month, because we’ve been hard at work moving this project closer to completion! We don’t have any big updates or reveals for you this time around, but are happy to share our usual progress reports on where things are.

Let’s get to it!

Minis



On the miniatures front, we saw completion of Gloomhaven and Gloomhaven: Summons pre-production steps, pushing those SKUs into mold ready status! Only a few models remain on the Frosthaven & Frosthaven: Summons front, but the required revisions are known and in progress with our factory so we anticipate completion there any day now.

As our factory heads into their Lunar New Year break, we have been taking parallel steps with them to make sure we're set up for success to officially begin/continue molding across all SKUs on their return.

One of these necessary steps was the production of white wax samples of every miniature in their full quantities (I.e. groups of x4, x6, x10, etc) for the physical layout configuration of the vac trays in which these models will be packaged.



Another step has been auditing our final production quantities, product dimensions, and mold counts to validate our final production costs on the complete project. While we worked closely with our factory to price these products back at their inception, several variables are dependent on us reaching this final phase were we know the final parts-per-model, molds per projects, packaging dimensions, tray+lid quantities, etc. (This doesn't impact the price tag applied to this project, but has impacts on final retail and distribution pricing.)

We recognize this project has taken significantly more time than intended and estimated, and that a timeline for delivery is something we owe our backers, and we intend to shore up our final production timelines upon their return from their Lunar New Year break. There have been multiple surprises and lessons learned along the way, and challenges working with a new-to-us manufacturer and their workflow requirements, and for all the above we take full ownership.

Given the scale of this project, and the number of multi-piece models that will require sub-assembly, there are still a few too many variables in front of us to calculate our tentative fulfillment window, but we feel confident we're close to doing that with our factory partner and are putting pressure on them to help us make those commitments.


RPG

Things continue to move along at a good pace on the RPG. At this point, we are out of the trenches on page-to-page tinkering on the book. We’ve implemented all changes from the latest editing pass and are finishing up the final art integration, which was a gigantic lift from Arch. By the end of the week we will begin finalizing all page referencing efforts, which includes the table of contents and index.

We have also been finishing up graphic design on all other outstanding components of the deluxe box, such as the box itself, character sheets, and modifier cards.

All in all, if everything goes well getting the final quote from the manufacturer, we are still on track to start proofing and production on the other side of the Lunar New Year, which is very exciting. Once we can get into that, we can start getting you more concrete timeline information on the pledge manager opening and fulfillment windows.



Community Spotlight

This month I wanted to give a shout-out to Reddit user mremm3000 for their truly amazing MagHex scenario builds. I can’t imagine the work that goes into printing, painting, and assembling all of these layouts, but as they say in their post, the hobby “easily becomes a never-ending story.” I wish them all the good will in their continued endeavors, and know that we are all very impressed!



And that’s what we have for February. Have a great month, and we’ll catch you again in March!

January update: new year, new deluxe RPG box
2 months ago – Tue, Jan 06, 2026 at 02:31:38 PM

Good day! And a happy new year! It is a new year, and we are very much looking forward to concluding all outstanding elements of this project—the RPG and the miniatures—in 2026. We don't have specific timelines yet, as previously discussed, but as production gets closer, we will keep you updated on what we can confidently report.

One question that has been popping up more in the comments is when we will be reopening the pledge manager? We’ve still got some behind-the-scenes work to do before that is ready, but our intent there is to not reopen the pledge manager until the next wave is actually in production, so you’ll hear more news on that as we get closer to actual production on the RPG. Now let's get on to the updates!

Minis



We made a good amount of progress leading into the holidays and are proud to say the Gloomhaven core box has completed 100% of it's digital modification approvals, and we expect red wax sample to wrap up this month there as well.

Our full attention is on the remaining models across summons (Gloomhaven & Frosthaven) and the Frosthaven core box. For these few remaining models, our work is really done and fully submitted, we're just waiting on those models to be completed in their next steps at the factory side.

We're also now able to start engaging the factory on larger mass production steps such as molding timelines and production proofing ahead of mass production. January is an important month to give our factory our attention, ahead of Lunar New Year, so that's our plan and course of action internally here at Cephalofair.


RPG

Thanks to everyone who took a look at the full text preview PDF and provided feedback. It was greatly appreciated! We'll be using all of that feedback, along with our own internal editing review to make final changes to the RPG text. Once that is done, we'll implement the table of contents, index, and fix all page references. Meanwhile, we'll be finishing up art integration in the book as well as graphic design of all additional elements, like the cards and packaging.

One of the big elements we've been working on with the packaging is the deluxe edition box. We showed you an early mock-up of the box during crowdfunding, but now that card counts and page numbers have been finalized, we're getting down to the exact dimensions on how it will all fit together.


The current RPG deluxe box render (above) is our latest rendering of the intended production based on final component counts and assembly instructions. Most notable from previous renders is the addition of a second folding wall/lid to the front side of the box. The side wall (front) will fold up and connect magnetically to the side wall of the “cigar box” storage space at the top of the box. The top lid/latch will then fold down and similarly attach to the closed side wall, also magnetically. This is something we determined will give greater structural integrity and prevent components from sliding and forcing open the folding lid if it simply came up and over.

The “cigar box” top is something we intend to be a usable storage space for players (gloom masters especially) who would like a special place to keep other game components (board game map tiles, miniatures, standees, tokens, etc) handy for their current/next RPG sessions.

Beneath the “cigar box,” we have a shelf for the Mercenary Company pad, the Character Sheet pad, and the GM screen.

Beneath this will be a shelf for the full Rulebook.

And finally, two shelves for card tomes, which contain all of RPG system cards, which you can see below:


These two tomes contain four trays of RPG components, including:
  • 16 Class Ability Decks with Tuckboxes
  • 16 Class Advance Modifier Decks (under the ability decks)
  • 1 Ancestry Ability Deck (All Ancestries Combined)
  • 1 Misc. Modifier Deck (i.e. Curse/Bless)
  • 6 Player Modifier Decks with Tuckboxes
  • 1 GM Modifier Deck
  • 6 Elemental Bookmarks

IMPORTANT “WORK IN PROGRESS” PRODUCTION NOTES:
Class ability decks: To pre-emptively answer your question, yes, these are designed to fit sleeved cards. Our intent for these Class Ability tuckboxes is that they will be large enough to hold your sleeved class and ancestry cards required to play your character, providing you with a storage compartment for your character during an ongoing campaign.

Class modifier decks: As an intended bonus for backers, there will be two additional general player modifier decks than we originally communicated, meaning the deluxe edition can now accommodate up to six players in addition to the gloom master. These general decks (standard 20 card array) will also come in tuckboxes and enough room for both sleeves and advanced modifier cards as your character levels up and unlocks more cards via perks and temporary effects.

Elemental bookmarks: We are exploring with our factory having dedicated wells for the elemental bookmarks, and there appears to be enough room within the card tomes/trays to do so. We’re also taking careful consideration here to track needed changes to the bookmark size/length to ensure they won’t cover important gloom master facing information/charts/tables on the inside of the GM Screen.

Card tomes: The “card tomes” as originally conceived and depicted here, are essentially just that: two giant closing books of cards in card wells. The goal here is an internal vacuum formed plastic card trays with sturdy gameboard/cardboard exterior covers. 

The class advanced modifier decks nest in card wells below their respective class ability deck tuckboxes, with the ability tuckboxes firmly clicking into place above them to act as a lid. The two sides of the tome would then clamshell together snuggly.

We still need to vet with the factory whether this approach will work well with the ability tuckboxes staying in place and in good condition above their modifier deck counterparts. If not, we may explore additional lids to cover the card tome contents or pivot to four individual trays rather than two clamshell books.

Regardless, we and our factory feel confident in our ability to test and execute on whichever method ends up providing the best player usability and recognize this is our biggest area of uncertainty in production as we move forward with pre-press sampling. 

This week we are providing our updated production specifications, as well as these 3D renders with accurate dimensions, to our factory and allow them the necessary time to review and make the needed determinations on their part. This will occur concurrently with all our other efforts outlined above.

Community Spotlight

Our shout-out for the community spotlight this month is Boardiacs, who has a great series of Youtube videos on painting Gloomhaven/Frosthaven miniatures. Particularly impressive to me are Andreea's paints of all six Buttons & Bugs miniatures, which are, as I'm sure you are aware, very tiny. But the level of detail is remarkable, and you can watch even watch the videos at extra high speed as shorts.



That's going to do it for this month. Expect more fervent, continued progress on both projects in our update next month. Catch you then!

December update: full RPG text and miniatures progress
3 months ago – Tue, Dec 09, 2025 at 07:06:33 PM

Good day! Welcome to another monthly update. The big news here is that we are ready to share with you a full preview PDF of the RPG text, which is 345 pages of material for you to peruse. I want to get to that without too much ado, but we’ve also got some miniatures updates to share with you, so let’s start with that.

Miniatures


We are down to just a handful of outstanding efforts on the larger products in the miniatures line, and are continuing to put as many resources as we can to get pre-production for all these miniatures across the finish line. At this point we are awaiting 10 remaining digital modifications from our factory. These are primarily several multi-piece models that have taken more back-and-forth to achieve the right balance of detail and structural integrity. Mostly a couple bosses, some algox/inox, and lurkers. In addition to those 10 models we're waiting on final draft digital modifications we have 8 digital revisions that have been approved and for which we are waiting on physical red wax samples (making 18 in total). To make absolutely sure we're responding quickly to our factory partners, and assisting them directly in the modification process, we've contracted some additional help internally on our end. We are putting daily pressure on our factory and communicating with them about our expectations about being pencils down with pre-production efforts and heading into molds ASAP. This is the main priority for those who are working on it, and we expect to continue making this level of progress over the next month as we head into the mold-making process.



RPG

And here we are! Before I provide a link to the PDF, let’s talk about a couple things.

  • First, let me explain what this actually is—the full text of the RPG in the intended layout of the book, but with most art elements removed. A lot of the art integration is still in progress, but we wanted to get the text for you as soon as we could, so this is the solution we settled on. The intention of this as presented is that you can use it to actually try out the system, and to that end, you’ll also find a blank character sheet at the back of the book as well as a full art-filled version of the pre-written adventure chapter so that you should have no trouble running it.
  • Why did we want to get this in front of you? Well, you’ve been waiting a long time for this, and we also wanted to demonstrate where we’ve come with the project. But the other reason is that we want feedback! Now that the text layout is completed, we’ll be going through everything again in a final editing pass, but we’ve already been looking at this text for years, and sometimes it’s good to get fresh eyes on things—a lot of fresh eyes. So if you find something out of place as you’re looking through the book—a typo, a confusing bit of text, a layout error—please let us know by filling out this feedback form.
  • What’s still missing? The art, of course, as discussed above. But you’ll also see a lot of page references with “p.XX”, and that’s normal at this stage as well. Only once we are sure that no more text will be moving (i.e. all other text edits finished) will we go through and fill out the page references. That is also when we will do the table of contents and indexing, which are also still missing at this stage. Everything else should be there, so have at it and let us know what you think!

With all that said, here’s the link:

FULL RPG TEXT PDF

(It's a big boy—you may have to download it.)

What happens next? The goal is to complete all outstanding layout and editing efforts over the next month, which is when we can start engaging with the factory and figure out timelines regarding production and fulfillment.

Community spotlight

This month for the community spotlight, I wanted to shout out AmDirt—a Youtube channel that does live-plays as well as podcasts that discuss their sessions with more analysis. Detty and Gaz just recently started a playthrough of the new edition of Gloomhaven (which is a great place to pick up the series) after playing through Frosthaven and Crimson Scales (so there’s a lot of back content if you want to deep-dive, including 122 podcast episodes). They are an entertaining and incredibly positive part of the community, and I wish them success in their continued adventures (and for Gaz’s luck to turn around at some point)!



EU Mercenary Pack Fulfillment

I wanted to address this as well, as we expected to ship these out on Dec. 1, and that hasn’t happened yet. When it was clear that the shipping hadn’t begun, we began reaching out to the fulfillment company, but haven’t yet received a clear response. We will be meeting with them this week to resolve whatever is needed and will be updating the webpage when we know more.

_______

And finally, I just wanted to let you know I was the Storytime speaker at PAX Unplugged last month! If you want to learn more about the early days of Gloomhaven and my design career, you can check the presentation below.


That will do it for the update, then. I hope you enjoy the RPG text, and please use the feedback form if you have any input. Thanks, and I’ll catch you next month, January 6!

December update postponed one week
3 months ago – Tue, Dec 02, 2025 at 12:29:06 PM

Good day! It's the first Tuesday of the month, and we've been working on an update for you, but with the holiday weekend, I didn't quite get together everything I wanted to share with you, so I've decided the best thing to do is postpone the update a week.

I apologize for the delay, but the next update is going to be good, with significant miniature progress and news, plus we will be ready to share the complete text of the RPG!

So I will catch you next week with that, and then we will resume our regular first Tuesday of the month schedule for updates.