Art and science combine to breathe fiery life into dragons like never before! A fully-illustrated 220 page naturalists guide to dragons, based in real biology.
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.
Hello Beautiful Dragon Enthusiasts,
We’re thrilled to announce that the digital download of Dragonatomy is ready! 🎉
You have 48 hours to change or lock your order details in BackerKit. Once your order is locked, your digital copy of the book will be sent to you right away.
This is also your chance to grab any add-ons you might have missed.
Other books, extras, or upgrades are still available through BackerKit! Including A Natural History of the Fantastic my first (much older) book on the science of fantastical creatures from 2017.
As for Dragonatomy, we'll have a single page, and full-page spread editions of the book available.
The book is intended to be enjoyed with open spreads, as a lot of the art crosses the boundary of the book's center, but that doesn't work for all devices or PDF readers!
The physical book has officially entered production. 🏭 We’re waiting to hear back from our printer about the exact arrival dates.
Because our schedule pushed later than expected, we’re now bumping up against the annual holiday production and shipping bottlenecks. While we don’t yet have an exact timeline, our hope is that rewards will begin shipping out in late October.
At every step of the way, we’ll keep you updated, and we truly appreciate your patience as we navigate this stage. Bringing a book from the digital to the physical isn't easy, and you have been very supportive and patient (especially since all the extra content added months onto the original production schedule)
For those excited about the 5e companion module, it’s currently STILL being play-tested and revised to make sure it's actually fun and balanced and not just an afterthought! 🧙 Here you can see one of our extremely unethical animal testing centers.
We’ll be posting updates on that soon, our goal is to make sure the creatures and systems feel as polished and immersive as the book itself. Digital copies will be made available as soon as the content is finished, and physical copies shipped out with the final rewards.
Thank you all for your incredible support, enthusiasm, and patience. This project has grown into something truly special, and we couldn’t have done it without you.
Please feel free as always to reach out in the comments or via DMs, we've been a little slow to respond during the final phase of the book's production, but are available to fix any problems you might have and can adjust the details of your shipment or digital rewards as needed right up to the last minute.
Christopher & the Dragonatomy Team 🐉✨
Dear backers,
We are thrilled to announce that Dragonatomy is officially finished! The book is complete, the art and writing are finalized. It's being sent into production.
Check out the softcover cover design by Autumn Leiker, I feel like that always makes these sorts of things feel more REAL.
This project has been a long journey, and it could not have happened without your support. Thank you, truly, for making this dream, and these dragons, real.
The final book clocks in at
📖 250 pages ✨ with over
🎨 200 illustrations (not counting little cut-aways)
and
🐉 50 unique species 🌍
It's been a lot of work and we are really proud of it.
With all the elements finally together, the spreads are looking beautiful, and I'm so grateful for everyone's patience and support while we created the best piece of speculative biology art possible!
We’d like your input! We received a few messages from people expressing a preference for the PDF rewards to be sent with the physical book. Some of you may want to dive into your digital rewards right away, while others may prefer to wait until the physical books are mailed out so the experience is a unified reveal.
We want everyone to feel satisfied with how the rewards are rolled out, so we’re putting it to a poll:
Please let us know whether you’d like your digital copies now or would prefer to wait until the printed editions begin shipping (expected in about 1–2 months). Our preference would be to do it one way or another, but if the poll is close we'd be happy to send out digital rewards just to the people who want them.
The RPG supplement guide is "done" but still in play-testing, as we’re working carefully to ensure that the rules, mechanics, and game-guide content truly do justice to the dragons themselves and make for good gameplay. We expect these to be ready in just a few weeks. Alongside them, we’ll also be releasing more of the free animated dragons, another stretch goal we can’t wait to share.
Once again, thanks for your patience. Even though we know that the optional game guide is not something everyone wants to make use of, we're doing our best to make sure it's not an afterthought.
From the first sketches to the final pages, Dragonatomy has been built with your enthusiasm, encouragement, and belief in the project. We are so grateful to have you along for the journey.
Production is moving, shipping is on the horizon, and we’ll keep you updated every step of the way. In the meantime, please take a moment to vote in the poll so we can give you the experience you’d most enjoy.
With deepest thanks,
Topher and the Dragonatomy Team!
P.S. It seems like I confused and concerned some people with my prior update, rest assured, basically everyone's name is accounted for in the survey responses, and I've sent out new surveys to the handful of people who didn't respond. If you are worried about your name in the credits please DM me personally and I can correct it or check on it without you needing to jump through any hoops.
Hi Dragonatomists!
We’re thrilled to announce that Dragonatomy is preparing to enter production. The writing, art, and layout are being put through final editing, and soon this book will be flying off to the printer. You'll be getting your PDF shortly, and we'll have a final timeline for the physical books within 2 weeks.
Before that happens, we need your help with one important detail:
👉 Please confirm how your name will appear in the printed book. Around 92% of the backers have responded to the backerkit survey.
If your pledge includes a name in the acknowledgments, now is the time to make sure it’s exactly how you want it- whether that’s your full name, a nickname, or something more whimsical (we’ve seen some fantastic ones!). Nothing inappropriate please. Naughty names will be omitted.
We’ll be locking down acknowledgments on August 2nd, so please double-check your backer info or respond to the confirmation form/message if you haven’t already.
Thank you so much for bringing this wild, speculative guidebook to life. We can’t wait to share the final pages with you!
This is only a MINI update in the lead up to the big release one, but have some quick art too!
Some full page spreads to show off the anatomy of these incredible creatures!
I'm so excited to show off the creatures in this book! It's been a lot of work, and we are clocking in at somewhere around 250 pages (not including acknowledgements, endsheets, or anything else) and basically every page has a piece of art on it!
So many of the little touches, design flourishes, creative backgrounds, and artistic additions that make this book something unique couldn't have happened without your support and patience.
There's still lots of little editing fixes and adjustments to make, but we are so very close!
It's been a long journey, and we couldn't have done it without you! Can't wait to share.
-Chris & the Dragonatomy Team
Hey all you Dragonatomists! It's been a while!
First, thank you all again for your ongoing support and patience. Dragonatomy is still coming along beautifully, but as you know, a bit slower than planned.
The good news is, the hand healing is progressing, and I’m back at the drawing desk (gently)! Pages are steadily moving forward again, and we’re aiming to have the book done completely and send out digital rewards at the end of July, with the physical book entering manufacturing at the same time. Once printing is complete, books will ship out to you right away. This uncertainty is a delay, not a derailment, and I’m incredibly grateful for your understanding as I get back up to full speed.
We've brought a professional editor onboard for the final stretch, with experience in fiction and non-fiction ecology and biology writing, Zoe Young!
She's a great addition to the team, and is already making the book all that it can be.
In the meantime, I’d love to share a peek at some of my favorite entries from the book: the Dredge Basilisk and the Desert Leviathan
Here are Dropbox links to the (mostly completed pages)
The game guide is coming along too, along with animations of each creature. This needs some revision and testing, but our game supervisor Audrey Huang is doing a great job of creating interesting encounters and details for each creature.
Basilisks have been some of my favorite additions to the book, and we just added another to the Brush and Barrens section
We're also adding some more peculiar final dragons, a bit of last minute color and extreme biology.
Drawing inspiration from different organisms across the natural world.
Throughout Dragonatomy, you’ll find scattered quotes from fictional naturalists, field researchers, explorers, and folklorists, each offering a glimpse into how these dragons are understood, feared, or revered in their world. These excerpts are meant to bring texture and personality to the science, capturing not just anatomical detail, but human perspective: awe, superstition, field notes scribbled on windswept cliffs or torchlit taverns. Some are factual. Some are folklore. All are part of the living world these creatures inhabit.
Here's a breakdown of their characters and their perspectives throughout the book.
___________
___________
___________
Finally, we're making a last minute consideration of our quote fonts.
Can you provide your thoughts on these choices? Don't worry if you don't have a preference, but it's always great to let backers provide some insight and perspective as the book comes together.
Let me know what you think in the comments, and feel free to ask questions or request info for the next update (which I promise won't take so long)!
With gratitude (and ink-stained bandages),
Topher