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Confluence: The Living Archive

Created by Publishing Goblin, LLC

Confluence is an expansive tabletop roleplaying game of in-world artifacts and Atlases, built upon a world and a system that grows and changes as you explore. Shipping yet to be added or charged on orders-- will be adding and charging in early 2027 closer to our ship date.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

A Confluence October Update
9 months ago – Mon, Oct 27, 2025 at 11:10:14 AM



Areas in the Atlas: 

  • The Color Dome: Our layout artist got terribly sick in August and so there have been delays on the Color Dome. However, it is extremely close to finishing. As soon as it’s ready we’ll be emailing the PDF out to our Backers and posting it in our discord. 
  • The Gravity Isles have gone through their final major edit and are on to copy, markup, and layout this month. The team working on it has unfortunately had several family emergencies and a house fire, so there are again delays. 
  • Motley Coast City which we ideated last month is officially in production. It is more than doubling in size with expanded material focused on districts, and a new section for those who like to play with the black market. 
  • Project C-1019 is officially in production. We expanded the material earlier this year and now it's getting a bit more of a facelift by Sean D’souza. 

In Sujatha’s Journal: 

  • As you will see later in this newsletter, we’ve added some new faces. Rainer W. Dalton is working on Sujatha’s Journal and has some fresh ideas to make it even more player forward. We’ll have more updates in November and December. 

In the World of Mechanics:

  • The CGLA has had its final major round of editing. Thank you in particular to our playtesters over the last two years, we couldn’t have done it without you. 
  • Calibration is now going through its final edits post layout! 
  • Character Journals and Group Sheets are going into review and production in November. 
  • With a new member to mechanics, Sylvan Lawrence, we are finalizing how we want Proficiencies to function, giving us a solid way forward for the bulk of the Catalog material. You can expect to see some Proficiencies posted in the discord by the end of the year.

Adventure Modules:

  • Brighton: A Gravity Isles module that focuses on small town politics and cult mysteries has a first draft complete and is in editing. 
  • The Museum of Good Fortune: A Chrona module that focuses on exploring a museum with strange objects is in editing. 
  • The Thousand Shrines: A module that explores the shrines of the Fallen Gods is just missing its third act. 

Other Material:

  • Four Smol Inn Reviews have gone through editing. 
  • Eight Gambling Dens have been written up and are getting edited now. 


Scott (from Eerie Games) and Laya (from the Confluence Team) have been working diligently on the Fates of Those Who Dream. Laya had a death in their immediate family, and so production is taking longer than expected. Scott is working on finalizing our previous drafts.

We should still get this adventure out in November.



There have been some questions posted about the timeline from our backers. 

As we announced in August we are now set to send our material to the printer by the end of next year, 2026. It was a really hard decision to make this decision, but with our current team’s bandwidth, even including the new folks, it’s not possible to do it any faster.

Because of circumstances out of our control, our entire team from the Project Lead down are working extremely part time hours, and many of the original team members have had to step away. The team is absolutely dedicated to completing this project. We love it, and we want to make sure we give you work we are proud of. 

The team is working towards handing our backers an updated version of the core book (the CGLA), a completed copy of Calibration, a handful of Proficiencies, Specialties and Callings, and at least two completed Areas (the Color Dome and the Gravity Isles) in early January. 

We thank you for your patience and understanding.



We have several new team members joining to help us complete work across the project. We decided to bring on new folks to give us some fresh eyes on our material, breathe some new life into the work, and help us complete these final stages. We appreciate them greatly. 

We’ll be sharing them on our socials over the coming weeks so you can follow them and find out more about their work!

Rainer W. Dalton
Rainer is joining our editing team for both world and mechanics material, remodeling Sujatha’s Journal, and is slated to write the So You Want To Build It? zine. 

Sean D’souza
Sean is joining under our Creative Director Shubham to work on our world material. He’ll be helping us update our Areas, write Sujatha’s Journal, and maybe even throw in an adventure module if we can convince him. 

Sylvan Lawrence
Sylvan has come in to help us with our mechanics, focused on our Catalog. Exactly the job for a librarian. 

V.J. Harris  
V.J. Harris, who we worked with before during our Backerkit campaign, is joining us to help us with our modules and a few other odd jobs. You might see them credited on editing, writing, and marketing by the end of things. 

Did you know we have a community Discord? Join today! 

You can still pre-order Confluence! Backers will enjoy early access to content as we complete it over the next year. 

A Confluence September Update
10 months ago – Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 12:05:46 PM

Hello everyone!

Mostly copy pasting from our newsletter here, but wanted to apologize for not updating in August. If you're in any of my other projects, you probably saw that I was super ill for 3 weeks and lost most of August to that and hospital visits. I'm all good now, but it has been a bit of catchup in the time since!

As noted last time, due to losing members of our team over the last year, we have brought in new team members! There are already 4 new people on the project now, with more potentially coming. We will introduce them in the October newsletter and update!


Areas in the Atlas: 

  • The Color Dome is almost through layout and will be shared in October

  • The Gravity Isles are almost through editing

  • The Motley Coast City expansion is through ideation; we’ll be writing soon


In Sujatha’s Journal: 

  • Fallen Gods are in layout 

  • Alfira, Ajmniea, and Bacha are all being edited 


In the World of Mechanics:

  • The first batch of the Thread Deck is being edited; it will be ready in October

  • Calibration is getting its final copy edits 

  • The CGLA is in for another round of editing with further work on Threads and Wounds

  We are still on track to have material to the printer by the end of 2026. Perhaps sooner with our new team members!

As you may remember from the July Newsletter, we’ll be releasing content as it is complete (or mostly complete) to our Backers, and in our Discord. Yet in September, we’ll be sharing The Color Dome, an Area of the Atlas and Calibration.


 
During our Backerkit campaign, we partnered with Eerie Games and their game Fatebound. We are writing an adventure that combines our systems: one part of the party plays students in Fatebound, while the others play Walkers in Dream from Confluence. 

This adventure will be released in three acts. Act 1 is coming soon in late October or early November, just in time for Fatebound to get printed. It will be largely focused on the Fatebound characters and in the style of Fatebound. We have art for Act 1 and the adventure’s illustrated cover, as well as the majority of Act 1 written and ready. 

Act 2 and 3 will be released next year. We’ll have more updates soon. For now, enjoy the sneak peek of the cover by our Lead Artist Shan Bennion.
 

 
Since we have not been able to keep up with Patreon, we will be pausing our Tiers in December. Kofi Tiers are being paused now. Between now and December, we’ll continue to release backlogged content on Patreon. The Patreon and Kofi will still get Newsletter updates, and you will still be able to do one time donations via Kofi after December. But our full focus is just on the game and getting it complete!

In exciting news, some new folks are coming to help us finish up Confluence. We’ll have new team member introductions in the October Newsletter.   

Did you know we have a community Discord? Join today!

How Things Go | A Confluence July Update
12 months ago – Tue, Jul 22, 2025 at 11:25:59 AM

Hello all,

It's been a few months. Last update, April 1st, I thought we'd have an update coming up in April with a timeline estimate. But that just never became possible to make. Our team has shrunk once more, becoming ever smaller.

At this moment, we have 5 team members, with a smattering of others semi-available in some ways.

But in this time, we have expanded the Color Dome material. It was previously a small section in the Rockwater Isles location, but now it's become its own area with almost 20 pages of solid material. I've had a hand editing a lot of it and it's really great stuff, with so much material that will let you really settle into the space, know the fish available there, and find some neat secrets hidden among the world.

Calibration, our first session guide, is almost done with layout. The Confluence Guide to the Living Archive is 50% through editing-- this is our main rulebook. We made some major changes after our beta 1.5 playtesting. We have Smol's 2nd Inn Review through editing, and Patreon subscribers can see that now. Our first draft on an adventure module for "The Museum of Good Fortune" is turned in.

There's honestly quite a lot of cool stuff!

At the moment, we are bringing on some part time folks to the team to fill in gaps and keep us moving, but as we look to expand and make all our material stronger and stronger, we now have a more clear timeline of things being ready for print by the end of 2026. Now, as we bring in some new help, it's likely we will be able to push this timeline sooner. Once Colordome is through layout, we will also have a stronger idea of what's most likely as well.

The Electronic Rollout


But that doesn't mean people will have to wait until end of 2026/start of 2027 to play the game. That's just going to be the physical. As we get play material ready electronically, we will start an electronic rollout of materials to backers. This means that you'll have play access to Confluence in advance of us heading to print/manufacturing. And good thing, too, as some early elements from me (Seven) will give you access to HISTORIC, ZOETROPE, and WHAT WE POSSESS zine material to play with on the way as well!

Late 2026, Secret Halls will also be getting its crowdfunding project, and you can bet that Earth-based urban fantasy with moth children vampires, human mages, and more will have material that will be Confluence-compatible will be releasing as well. 

This makes Confluence a long term project, definitely, but it will come to life among more and more material supporting its hard-copy release. And with the Goblin's Tarot happening in May, depicting a journey across Ajurea, the world of Confluence, you'll be getting supporting materials in different modes and mediums all the way to its full release.

So there's a lot of Ajurean content to look forward to, thank you for believing in this massive game, and we're all the more excited to not just get it done, but also see it supplemented with so many awesome pieces that will make the breadth of Ajurea all the more awe-inspiring.

7DA
your pub gob

A Timeline Ahead is Forming~
over 1 year ago – Tue, Apr 01, 2025 at 10:17:09 AM



Hello Travelers of Ajurea,

In mid-march I said I'd be back with a timeline of what's ahead, but that turned out to be more complicated than expected.



March was a whirlwind. 

The biggest update is that three of our team members have had to step away from the project. They are either taking extended leave for health concerns or to take up other opportunities. 

Our main priority is always the health of our team and their continued success. However, this does mean our core team has dropped from nine to six members. To help, Seven (that's me), Publishing Goblin’s owner, is stepping in as an editor. This will mean changes to our timeline as we figure out how fast we can produce material with fewer core members. 

We are working out a new timeline (you can read about how we are further down) and we will have updates later yet in April.

Looking at Development

As for the game, we’ve been workin! 

We are playtesting with our Fatebound friends over at Eerie Games, testing out all the changes we’ve made. 

On the mechanics side, we have been updating our Proficiencies, Wounds, and so many Threads. As we work out the kinks in the system, the goal is to marry our systems together. Each worked in its own right, but they didn’t all work together. The goal of the new material is that all of our systems should work to create a cohesive experience, pulling you into the world of Ajurea. 

In settings, we’ve been writing! More than half of the Atlas has new base writing, and we’ve written an entirely new Area in the Inland subregion. We will just about double the Beta Atlas material, and we can’t wait for you all to see it. 

Our module writers, including our guest writers, have been working diligently. Maybe we’ll get some sneak peeks out in our Discord in April! For now, check out these awesome PC portraits for some of our backers here!

Looking Ahead

We have formulated a new writing process for the Atlas. We will be working Area by Area and completing them in turn, taking them all the way through layout one at a time. We’ll be working on the mechanics books, Sujatha’s Journal, and all of our other digital material at the same time. This will give us a sense of how fast we can work now, so we can set a new timeline. 

This means our Backers (you all!) will get to see the preliminary final material for the Color Dome as soon as it gets through layout in the coming months!

Much of March has been spent finding new direction after losing members of our team, a process we are still working through. We thank you for your patience as we try to get back up to speed.

If you want to see some of the back-end things, consider signing up for our Patreon or Ko-fi monthly subscription! 

Did you know we have a community Discord? Join today! 

Thanks all for your patience, we'll let you know when we've got an area fully through layout what the new timeline looks like, and then you'll be able to see that new layout work as well!

See you again soon friends,
7DA
your pub gob & Confluence Team

Pocketopia & New Games from Confluence Designers
over 1 year ago – Thu, Mar 13, 2025 at 05:08:25 PM

Hello Ajureans,

March update is still coming later this month, but I need to interrupt this broadcast to bring you Pocketopia!


From one of the Mechanics team members whose work on Confluence ended at the start of the year, we have A Land Once Magic by Viditya Voleti! This worldbuilding game is a small zine that works with a deck of playing cards to put together a world with your friends that is existing after magic has gone away. This wonderful game is already funded (got there in 5 hours of launching!), and is being published by MoreBlueberries.

Viditya was such a fantastic part of our mechanics team, and his contributions to the game are still felt even as we finalize the game without him.


And from Seven, the project owner and original ideator behind Confluence's world and worlds, comes HISTORIC, a grim-dark cardrun TTRPG made for one-shots. This game focuses on your dungeon delves with a party of unique characters, and requires no preparation before sitting down, opening the box, and getting towards play. In a world filled with creatures that want your soul, outride the annihilating sun and dive into dungeons to gain great relics, trinkets, and tools to kill the things lurking in the dark, and someday hold your weapon to the throats of gods.

As part of Pocketopia, these two projects are also partners and are offering bonus cards to anyone who backs both projects for both games.

Alright friends, back to our normal programming. Look for our March update next week.

Talk soon!

The Confluence Team