Dragonbond: Lords of Vaala | Get all expansions + New one

Production deposit paid. Starting after CNY
about 2 months ago – Wed, Feb 11, 2026 at 11:59:07 AM

Hello dragonbonded,

Quick update to let you know that production deposit (50% upfront) was paid on late December and the manufacturer is ready to start file verification after Chinese new year.

We were in the process of updating files with minor revisions but unfortunately some were corrupted and lost in early January. Tough luck to start the year...

Silver lining: we had a backup which had a fair amount of work already advanced. We are working on rebuilding the lost files (rulebook and saga cards) and we expect to have them ready in March after Chinese New Year is over with the factory staff back.

Also, we have received some late pledges or Backerkit surveys answered after the deadline. 
We will proceed with locking and charging cards in early March. Please double check your survey status here: https://lords-of-vaala-epic.backerkit.com

Thanks for your patience and understanding, we are committed to deliver this project as we have done with all our past projects. 

Files still in progress with translation work
5 months ago – Wed, Nov 12, 2025 at 12:57:38 PM

Hi all, 

No major news yet but still committed to deliver this project, pressing and aiming to make it in the first half of 2026. 

Prepress files are still being adjusted. Editing to make rules clearer but also layout for easier player reference with the Epic Scenarios. Translation to Spanish is due afterwards, which is much faster because it is mostly replacing text.

I've been getting quotes with other manufacturers with good production quality to reduce the printrun as well without distribution copies, which will make this expansion a very limited product. Currently in the process of reviewing miniatures + tooling so that they have an acceptable quality.

This year has brought some atypical challenges and while the tariffs scenario remains a bit uncertain, my current focus is to have the product ready to print and depart from China. I expect to face tariffs and other complications and to weather the storm, there will be flash sales/deals of past products that are Ready to Ship in most continents. You are more than welcome to join or invite a friend, these are meant to be an option for Holiday gifts. Funds raised in this Holiday season will help prepare for unforeseen logistics charges.

That's all for now, a brief update to let you know we are still here. I will be posting an update once the final English files are ready and pre-production started with the factory.

Preliminar rulebook (Receiving playtest feedback)
9 months ago – Thu, Jul 17, 2025 at 12:04:01 AM

Hello Dragonbonded,

We are still working on the rulebook files, receiving playtest reports to adjust the Epics of Valerna balance and overall experience.

As mentioned in the previous update, the delivery ETA has been pushed towards the end of the year and possibly leaning towards early 2026 depending on the freight costs, tariffs rates and other aspects.

You can join playtesting to share feedback and get your name in the credits

Here are the relevant links:

• Print and Play (version created on Jan 28th 2025)
• Preliminar Rulebook (text only, living document with comment access for everyone )
• Customer support form HERE YOU CAN REQUEST SPLIT SHIPPING

In Backerkit surveys, backers could opt-in for "Split shipping" to receive in advance any existing products before the new products (the expansion Epics of Valerna, cloth mat and marbled dice).

If you selected "Consolidated shipping" to ship everything altogether but you have changed your mind, please fill the form above and we will invoice you for shipping fees to send existing products (Base Game, Legends of Valerna, Creatures of Valerna, Scourge of Valerna, Armies of Nature & Light, Armies of Blood & Dreams, Deluxe tokens, and sleeves).

Draco Studios drastically downsized staff and operations during 2024, resulting in just me managing this specific project, juggling between my "day job" and personal life. I have prioritized project-time in adjusting rules/balance, analyzing feedback, and adding notes to the rules layout. In turn, I have failed terribly in posting an update (again). But still here, committed to deliver this project.  

I deeply appreciate if anyone is willing to help in playtest. If you want to upload full playtest reports or read them, you can find the Community Playtest report folder here

Even if you are not able to playtest with the Print and Play above, I hope you can proofread the preliminar rules  on the link above and share your thoughts!

Updated timeline

• August: Lock changes and finish rulebook layout
• September: Start production
• Late December: Freight shipping
• January-February: Start fulfillment 

Independent contractors are in charge of graphic layout and translation, so I don't expect these stages to be delayed. As you can imagine from the Print and Play, prepress files are ready except for the final rulebook and box file.

Given that operations have been reduced, there's no longer a full-time community manager behind the support email from Draco Studios, so I created the Google form from the link above to consolidate all requests and queries related to this project. I apologize if anyone has reached out and awaited response. If your request is related to this Kickstarter campaign, please fill the form and I will be checking on Fridays.

Thanks for your extraordinary patience and understanding. I'm still very much emotionally attached to this game and I find the expansion Epics of Valerna truly enriching to Lords of Vaala.

Print at home and playtest Epics of Valerna
about 1 year ago – Tue, Jan 28, 2025 at 09:24:51 PM

Dear Dragonbonded backers,

I'm happy to report back after several busy months. Between the end-of-year rush, holidays, a newborn at home, restructure at work, and the fulfillment stage of two other projects, I have to admit that it has been overwhelming — in a good way, but still...

I owe you an apology for not posting a brief status update or comment here sooner. I don't expect to have such a long period of silence again, and I apologize sincerely. I commit to being more active, even if there are no major news to share.

This update took so long because, since December, I have felt that development would be done and the print-and-play version ready to share, but changes kept coming up to polish aspects of the design.

I had the pleasure of playtesting online with two of the top Dragonbond fans and even met one of them at Essen Spiel. Thank you, A dragon hunting Person and Onyxian Herald, for playtesting!

The major news are:

• Files for the print-at-home version are ready.
• The rulebook draft is currently in progress and will be posted very soon.
• If you have your copy of the base game (and any expansions), we would greatly appreciate it if you could help us playtest. 
• Along with the rulebook, we will post a Google form that you can fill to report any game design or balancing issues, lack of clarity in the rules, or anything else.

Your feedback is invaluable to us as we work to finalize the game!

Download the Print and Play for Epics of Valerna

Timeline

In the previous update, I shared that the ETA is Q2 of 2025 but being completely honest and transparent, it currently looks like it might be more towards the end of the year.

We are committed to deliver the game experience we envision and we need your help and from other dragonbonded members in our community to help us make sure that all combinations and interactions between characters, player boards and sagas, make gameplay sense. There are just too many combinations and even more when mixing with other expansions.

The more mass playtesting and reports we get, the faster we will be ready to finalize any edits to the rules or components for clarity or fine-tuning balance. 

Split shipping still possible

As you might recall, the base game and previous expansions had their own Kickstarter campaign back in late 2021 and fulfilled in early 2023. 

We also offered split shipping as an option for our backers in North America, Europe and Australia for flat $15. 

If you are interested in receiving your base game and expansions ahead of time and not having to wait for the Epics of Valerna expansion—perhaps to join into the mass playtesting— follow these steps: 

• Send us an email to [email protected] with the subject "LoV Expedite shipping" and your current mailing address with phone number for shipping purposes.
• We will send a link to pay the $15 fee (with card).
• Once confirmed we will send the rewards that are available to split shipping.

Thanks again for your patience and support

Once again, thanks for your understanding. You deserve better communication and I will keep you posted about news in a more frequent way. 

And just to say goodbye for now (before the preliminar version of the rulebook is shared), here's a very cool sculpt of a Null-touched Fai Hydra by the talented Francesco Orru, shared today by Pam in our Discord server. 

Expedite shipping in progress + Miniatures samples
over 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 23, 2024 at 08:19:50 AM

Hello Dragonbonded!

It has been very busy months with convention season, ongoing development and logistics work, plus internal administrative changes at Draco Studios.  

While we have been around answering comments, this update is very much overdue and I apologize for that. We now enter into a stage with more constant communication. 

Here's a quick summary of what happened these past months:

• Miniatures samples received. See pictures below
• Game design and flavor text writing complete. English translation in progress.
• Expedite shipping started for existing items

Miniatures samples

We are partnering again with Panda GM to bring the new expansion to life with the same outstanding quality they delivered for the base game and previous expansions.

Since mold-making process is typically the longest part of preproduction, they suggested to start early the samples for the miniatures.

You can see all 4 below, but let's start with the first 3 before revealing the 4th one selected from the Backers' choice poll in Backerkit. 

And for the 4th miniature, chosen by backers (though a question in your Backerkit survey), we have....

The Weeping Mother!

Epics of Valerna gets a Neutral Creature, great news for the scenario card that features creatures.

These character got nearly 30% of the votes, followed closely by Oneteiras and Madranna as you can see in the next screenshot from our Backerkit dashboard:

The Weeping Mother was first featured in a Dragonbond RPG adventure with the same name, where Itza and Aellas also make an appearance. 

This makes Epics of Valerna go even better with this softcover RPG adventure, which is available in our webstore for the US, EU, and MX.

Thanks everyone for voting! As a reminder, we hope to keep Dragonbond: Lords of Vaala alive and might see more content in the future as the line grows. 

Expedite shipping

Since many articles from this campaign already exist (base game and expansions), we offered split shipping in Backerkit surveys for backers interested in getting some rewards soon and just wait for the new expansion and accessories.

Here's the general status:

• US, MX, EU, AU, Asia zone 1 and 2: Shipments from backers in these regions who added the expedite shipping add-on were dispatched some weeks ago. Most have already arrived but it is possible that a few are still in transit.
• CA: Items were just collected last week from the US and likely to arrive this week to our fulfillment partner Pick & Pack Logistics. They should arrive soon and within a couple weeks, backers in Canada who added the expedite shipping add-on should get their rewards from wave 1.
• GB: We sent the backer list to BoardGameGuru two weeks ago, we are waiting to hear back and get confirmation of shipping to backers in GB who included the expedite shipping add-on.

Frequently Asked Questions

• For support please send an email to [email protected] with the subject: "EoV Expedite shipping"
• What items are included in wave 1?
  Base Game, Scourge of Valerna, Armies of Nature & Light, Legends of Valerna, Creatures of Valerna, Armies of Blood & Dreams.
  The marbled dice, oversized cloth mat and Epics of Valerna expansion are parte of wave-2 shipping since those are out of stock and will be printed together with the new expansion.
• Can I still get expedite shipping if I changed my mind?
  Yes! Send an email to [email protected] (you should get a confirmation email from our Zendesk). Once confirmed, our team will include the cost of split shipping in your survey, charge the card on file from the Backerkit account or request payment through PayPal and share the shipping order to our fulfillment partners.
• I am outside the regions where you offered expedite shipping (US, CA, MX, GB, EU, AU, NZ, Asia zone 1 and zone 2), can I get expedite shipping?
  Yes. It is now possible. Send an email to [email protected], we will let you know the cost for you to confirm or reject. If you confirm, check the question above to understand what to expect.

Project Status

The game is starting translation to English so that we can create Print and Play files for all backers to access and begin mass playtesting, Flavor text has also been written. 

Timeline reminder about ETA

The expected delivery date is in Q2 of 2025.
The timeline graphic in the campaign description is correct and cannot be edited after the Kickstarter campaign ends.
The reward tiers have a mistake on them showing November and this was spotted a few minutes after launching the campaign, they cannot be edited after the Kickstarter campaign launches. Read more details in the FAQ from this Kickstarter project. 
 

Conventions

As mentioned at the beginning of the update, we have been busy with multiple topics, including convention season. We were present at MegaXP in Mexico City, Gen Con in the USA, and a few of us are getting ready to fly to Essen Spiel in Germany with Detestable Games. Thanks everyone for stopping by to say hi. It is always a great pleasure to meet our backers in person!

We had our best Gen Con ever in every aspect! And Lords of Vaala received a lot of enthusiasm! 

We also had a dedicated space for everything Dragonbond at MegaXP in Mexico, including the debut from the resin-cast factions for the wargame Battles of Valerna.

Come and say hi to Essen Spiel at Hall 3 Booth 3U112

——

Mass playtesting coming soon for Epics of Valerna

As mentioned above, we are getting ready for the next stage of the project and would like to invite you to join. We will be preparing Print and Play files as well as Tabletopia and TTS mods to playtest Epics of Valerna so that you can help us fine tune every aspect. There's no action needed at this stage but next update should have the info ready to participate.

Thanks again for your support! Feel free to reach out to us via email if you need support or in the Kickstarter comments too.