Songs of the Spellbound Sea: Nautical Adventures for 5E!
Created by somanyrobots
Explore the Spellbound Sea with naval combat and ocean travel rules, 3 new classes, 20+ subclasses, 100s of spells, and more!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Machines of Bone & Blood in the Final Hours!
14 days ago
– Tue, Jul 07, 2026 at 11:11:18 AM
I wanted to drop one more update here to talk about my new project, Machines of Bone & Blood! I announced on here when it went up, but didn't go into a ton of detail; the TL;DR is that if you love Spellbound Sea, I think you'll love Machines of Bone & Blood even more.
The Theme
MB&B is all about the Ivory Empire, an island kingdom fueled by overseas colonies and led by the mysterious and frightening Silent Queen. If you've already done some adventures on the Spellbound Sea, it's a perfect tie-in to place the Ivory Empire somewhere on its edge, sending explorers and imperialist jerks out across the waves.
The Empire itself is convulsed by the Necroindustrial Revolution: a gigantic upheaval stemming from a necromantic renaissance. Dark mages have rediscovered ancient texts and used the resulting secrets to create necrofactories, massive industrial workshops containing self-operating necromachines and replacing workers with undead laborers. In response, the workers are rising up, and in the process making alliances with dreadful forces that lurk in the deepest forests.
It's a proper folk-horror-vs-industrial-horror showdown, and you can run adventures around the edges, craft a whole campaign out of the struggle, or just cherry-pick whatever content you feel like using!
The Content
The Abbess of the Rotted Hand. She seems...nice?
MB&B will have a whole range of thrilling stuff:
2 classes: the Necromancer is a 3/4 caster with dedicated resources for commanding undead minions, and the Abomination is a dedicated support that builds up frenzy before transforming into a martial monster. Each will come with 14 subclasses.
20+ subclasses: All of the base game's classes will get at least 2 new subclasses, from the College of Poetics Bard to the Circle of Bones Druid to the Industrial Soul Sorcerer. In addition, thanks to stretch goals, we've unlocked new subclasses for the Troubadour, Swashbuckler, and Bloodrager (two more Bloodrager subs if we hit the next stretch goal!).
5 new species: Awakened Trees, Bonebound laborers, Shadeborn rebels and bog-dwelling Fenwyrms can all be added to your roster! Plus we'll get one more thanks to Backer's Choice polls.
100+ spells: Mostly expanding your options for necromancy, shadow magic, and bone magic, but with some other goodies tossed in as needed to flesh out subclasses.
40+ monsters: No Necroindustrial Revolution would be complete without necroindustrial horrors! expect to see skeletal siege weapons, undying dragoons, and hulking necrotitans. Opposing them, you might find bloodsoaked unicorns, corpse-fed treants, and bone-crazed dryads.
50+ magic items and the Necrografting system: A whole range of magic items, including necrografts: powerful items that cost pieces of your soul instead of just attunement slots. All items will be craftable through both KibblesTasty and Heliana's crafting rules.
8+ adventures: That's right, adventures! One of the biggest requests I got on Spellbound Sea was prewritten adventures, to help you really explore the sea and its islands. MB&B is going to have this: a whole sequence of adventures exploring the conflict between the rebels and the necrobarons.
The Necrotic Navy: The most recent stretch goal unlocked an expansion for the Seafarer's Manual! Add undead crews, a ship's necromancer role, and undeath-themed ship upgrades. Perfect for the players who want to commandeer an Ivory Empire frigate!
The Goodies
MB&B will have a whole range of beautiful add-ons, giving you everything you need to make your dark adventures memorable. Get a beautiful deluxe cover, a gorgeous GM screen, or decks of spell and magic item cards. And you can also pick up premium battlemaps to accompany the adventures or two sets of sharp resin dice (one set with a liquid core!) to help you get into your necromancer or abomination characters!
Digital add-ons include VTT modules (Roll20, Foundry, Shard), a high-res digital art pack, and of course every copy of the book comes with an included PDF.
What's more, if you pledge through the links in this post, you'll get access to the Super-Supporter poll: a special poll to determine the final Necromancer and Abomination subs, as well as the 5th species. (Unfortunately the special poll costs $1; Kickstarter doesn't give me any way to make it free.)
Check it Out!
I would be delighted if everyone who backed Spellbound Sea headed over to take a look — we've already funded to the tune of 750% and smashed through a dozen stretch goals. But I really think MB&B will be an awesome book, and especially awesome for anybody who's enjoyed SBS. I don't want you amazing people to miss out! And if you get in on the campaign, you can help us power through more stretch goals and see how much cool stuff we can get added.
Thank you so much for the support and love you've already shown to Spellbound Sea. I hope you'll go investigate Machines of Bone & Blood — I think you'll love what you find.
Machines of Bone & Blood is Live!
about 1 month ago
– Wed, Jun 10, 2026 at 08:58:38 AM
Happy June, everybody! I've got 2 quick announcements for you all.
Physical Rewards
I reported last month that almost everybody had received their physical rewards. I'm now delighted to report that actually everybody has received their rewards! While our Middle East backers wound up delayed by a couple of months, there was recently a window allowing those packages to move.
My next project, Machines of Bone & Blood, is live! We launched yesterday to excellent success, smashing through our funding goal and the next three stretch goals all on day 1. Please check it out and consider backing if you haven't already! I'm so excited about where it is and where it's going - I think it's going to be awesome.
DONE!
2 months ago
– Thu, May 07, 2026 at 04:46:03 PM
Because this is how you get from a nautical book to a spooooky one...
Everybody's got their stuff! If you have friends, relatives, or pets who still want to get their hands on a book or any of the add-ons, you can order via https://www.somanyrobots.com/store.
As before, though, our unfortunate exception is still backers in the Middle East. Once it's possible to ship to you, I will. I think I've likely heard from everyone with missing-items or replacements problems, but do reach out if you've still got an issue I can resolve.
Digital Rewards
I pressed the "distribute" button on the Digital Art Book about an hour ago, so it should be in people's inboxes! That is the final outstanding reward, so I'm ready to close the book on this campaign. It's been a privilege getting to make stuff for you! I hope you feel good about what you got, and I hope you'll come along for the next adventure!
If anybody wants to get their hands on digital rewards, the token pack and PDF are also on sale at https://www.somanyrobots.com/store. The Roll20 and Foundry modules are now on sale in their respective stores. The Foundry module will also be available for a monthly Patreon subscription at the $12 tier (probably tomorrow, but next week for sure).
If you aren't following Machines of Bone & Blood, go check it out! Zana just finished up the cover, and it's amazing. I'm in full production mode now gearing up for that campaign to launch - it'll be Soon™. In fact, I anticipate exactly one more KS update here on Spellbound Sea, and that'll just be to announce the actual launch for MB&B.
Again, thank you all so much for your trust, your support, and your enthusiasm. Spellbound Sea has been a delightful project, and every one of you I've interacted with has been a delighftul person. I can only hope you're as happy with how it turned out as I am!
April Update: Last Push!
3 months ago
– Wed, Apr 08, 2026 at 02:33:56 PM
I bet it was this guy's job to make sure you got your books.
Happy April! Some awesome stuff to report this month.
I've heard from the last few backers in the most remote geographies; places where shipping just takes an unfortunately long time. And they've got their stuff! There are a few folks in the replacements pipeline — let me know if your physical products were damaged and I'll fix you up. In addition, everyone should have received their rewards by now (except backers in a warzone), so if you haven't gotten anything, contact me and I'll also get you fixed up. Nobody's reported missing shipments at all yet, which is surprising — there probably should be a few, just by the way these things go.
This didn't happen to your books!
Post-Campaign Sales
If you're reading this, you probably don't need post-campaign sales. But you might! There's still plenty of stock if you want to grab dice, screens, or cards, or if you want to pick up another copy of the book as a gift (or...just to have multiple? I ain't complaining.) Items are available at https://www.somanyrobots.com/store.
I sent this out last month, but I would still love more responses! This feedback is actively guiding my planning for MB&B.
This is how happy I am that you all got your books!
FoundryVTT
This week, I went through and addressed all the outstanding issues with the FoundryVTT module, including missing artwork, compendium bugs related to spell selection, and the addition of weapons and ammo as base items. I pushed up v0.10.1, which was available for just a couple of days before I took the download link back down.
Because we're ready for 1.0! I'm in the process of getting us configured for downloads via Foundry's official architecture and for sale in Foundry's official marketplace. All backers will receive codes (via Backerkit) once I've got this done — likely this week.
Digital Art Book
I received the latest draft from the designer and completed my final text pass. I've handed it over to a proofreader for one last scan; I expect to get it back next week and then send it out to folks!
Do you like K-Pop Demon Hunters? (If you're a parent, do your kids like K-Pop Demon Hunters?) Idols of the Neon Dark aims to fill that void! It offers a neon-drenched city setting and a new Idol class to enjoy (which, from the sound of it, plays something like a martial Troubadour). It'll have more subs, species, items, and other goodies, plus an 80-page adventure and a whole series of one-shots geared at younger players (i.e. your kids, parents!). Check it out!
March Update: Boooooks!
4 months ago
– Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 02:11:16 PM
Artist's impression of a backer receiving their book.
People are getting their stuff! This isn't the last update for Spellbound Sea, but we're getting pretty close.
All US products have shipped; other regions underway.
Post-campaign survey!
Check out Machines of Bone & Blood if you haven't!
Also check out Kibbles' Compendium of Artifacts and Airships!
Physical Rewards
I've been getting a steady stream of photos as excited backers get their books, which is awesome.
USA: All products have been shipped! You should have received emails with tracking data. If your order is damaged, missing, or cursed by a witch, please reach out to me (with photos if possible) and I'll work on getting that fixed.
UK/Canada/EU/Almost Everybody Else: Your products are still in the scheduling phase; they've mostly been registered with shipping services but I don't have tracking numbers back for most of them yet.
Middle East: Due to the ongoing war in the region, lots of consumer shipping is suspended. We're comparatively lucky that there aren't a lot of backers in the affected countries. But if you live in Bahrain, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Kuwait, Oman, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam, then your books are unfortunately on hold. You should get shipping notifications as normal when it goes out, but I can't give you any estimate on when that will be.
Also, I was not clear enough in the last update: while I often just say "books", this is all physical rewards. Books, screens, dice, and cards are all going out in the same packages; the only rewards that shipped separately were the ultra-premium dice, which went out long ago.
Now that we're firmly in the delivery phase, I'm working on planning for the next one! It would be a huge help if you can fill out a quick survey on how the project went, what was good, what was bad, and what you think I should do for the next one. If the survey seems too long to you, then you can just answer the first couple questions and call it good.
FoundryVTT & Digital Art Book
No exciting updates here today, just know that we're still plugging away.
This is a cross-promo I'm really happy to make, for a project you should definitely check out! KibblesTasty is one of the best creators in the business, with two successful kickstarters already under his belt, and now he's on to book 3. It'll have:
2 new classes, the Summoner and the Paragon!
30+ subclasses!
New rules for designing, modifying, and flying your own airship!
An update to his (excellent) crafting rules, adding in modular crafting and the ability to build custom artifacts!
And a whole bunch more cool stuff.
Kibbles is a friend and a mentor, and also a dang good creator, so you should absolutely give him a look. And worth mentioning that our audience overlap is very high, so if you like Spellbound Sea, odds are extremely good you'll like KCAA too.
