Digital PDF Distribution Incoming
3 months ago
– Thu, Jan 15, 2026 at 02:17:52 PM
PDF Ahoy!
Hello Spiderlings! It has been a whirlwind couple weeks for us as we finalized the book. We are happy to report that v1.0 of The Widow’s Web is officially complete! DriveThruRPG is our digital fulfillment partner for the PDF. It has been submitted and we are waiting for approval on their side for listing. Once we get their nod we will be doing some test batches to make sure that folks are receiving them correctly. Afterwards, we’ll go wide. We can’t wait to put the (digital) books in your hands! This will likely all happen sometime early next week.
What’s next?!
We are putting the final touches on a few remaining assets, namely the DM Screen. We estimate this will take about 2 to 3 weeks. After that time, we will begin to submit everything to our publishing/production partner, Imago, in early February to start physical manufacturing. This part will take 4-5 months, during which we will keep you updated as we get samples and updates on timelines. We’re excited to start to get the dice, the cards, the boxes, etc. and show them to you all. From there, we will have to ship from China. As we get closer to then, we’ll update you with timelines.
A request from Karl…
During this 2 to 3 week window, we still have an opportunity to catch any pesky edits, errors, or shenanigans that may have snuck through the multitude of editing passes we’ve done to update the book before it goes to the printer. Karl has requested that if during this time you happen to stumble across any errors please email him at [email protected]. If possible, please list the page number, column (column 1 or 2) and paragraph where the error can be found.
VTT Update
One of our former victims… I mean… players… is working with us to produce the VTTs for The Widow’s Web. He started work on it earlier this week and has indicated that he should have something by the end of February. We will keep you updated on how development of the VTTs go. There are some tricky bits to encode for the VTTs so we need to leave a little bit of buffer for development. Stay tuned.
A heartfelt thank you
The team at Eight-Legged Entertainment wants to say thank you to everyone for your patience and support through this process. We’ve never self-published a ttrpg before and we’ve had to learn a lot. We are over the moon that we can soon put the (digital) book in your hands soon.
PDF in January? Looks Like it! Plus: Tariff Update. - Dec. 30th, 2025 Update
3 months ago
– Tue, Dec 30, 2025 at 03:51:32 PM
Here it (Digitally) Comes!
Copy editing, done. Volunteer reviews, done. Which means...
We can formally declare the main book text is finalized!
There are final layout and distribution tasks to button up. Then the PDF will be released before the end of January! (I was going to say in the first two weeks of Jan, which may be the case, but... we'll give ourselves a bit of buffer.)
The PDF is the digital version of the entire main book, so you can start running your own Webs for your unsuspecting players early in the new year! We're wildly excited to have these adventures out in the world, tormenting and testing champions around the globe!
Many thanks to the volunteer reviewers whose efforts uncovered errors we would have been embarrassed to have printed. We do expect there will be some mistakes we all missed, so if you spot anything in the PDF when you see it, give a shout!
Physical Stuff
After many emails with our printers and other physical product manufacturers, plus some diligent number crunching, we have (Nick has) managed to secure enough deals, discounts, and accurate product counts to make it affordable for us to print and ship the physical products DESPITE the (current) additional tariff charges!
As long as the tariff rates stay where they are (and barring any other unforeseen economic warfare) we can support the manufacture without it breaking us.
We don't have a certain enough timeline for me to report dates just yet. I should be able to announce more concrete date ranges in the next two to three months. (A lot of caveats in that last sentence, I know, but I'm twitchy about making any more inaccurate pronouncements.)
So, if things stay on this course, 2026 will be the year of the Mother Spider!
Malarachne bless you all.
Call for Reviewers! So Damn Close...- Dec. 4th, 2025 Update
4 months ago
– Thu, Dec 04, 2025 at 04:24:04 PM
The PDF release is really close now, spiders. We are wrangling the last corrections!
There's a truth about anything with a lot of fiddly bits that is released to a broad public audience (games, guide books, etc.): There will be mistakes, like missed edits, incorrect numbers, old info that wasn't replaced, etc.
We expect that to happen with our book but want to mitigate it as much as possible. To that end we're asking for volunteers to spend a couple weeks reading through our PDF before we distribute it widely.
The plan is to find 10 volunteers (that could be you!) willing to spend the time going through the text thoroughly. We'll send PDFs to them next week and the deadline for their review will be two weeks later.
Then we'd incorporate those corrections and send out the PDF to all backers (a week or two later, depending on the extent of the corrections needed).
If all goes well, that means the digital book will be in everyone's hands in January 2026.
Do you want to be a reviewer? Read on...
Review Volunteer Checklist
If interested in reviewing, please read this checklist to see if you've got what it takes! (I want you to go in eyes open, because this tome is thick).
Then, if you're still interested, email us at [email protected] by noon PT on Monday, December 8th and we'll choose 10 folks to help out. Let us know if you have experience reviewing text, but it is not required.
- The book is just over 300 pages long. It's hefty.
- You'd be looking for obvious mistakes:
- Misspellings.
- Missed words.
- Layout issues (like duplicated text, text obscured by art, etc.).
- Do monster stats “make sense.” (Do they read like RAW stat blocks.)
- Do the appendices match the main book information.
- Anything that doesn't make sense (poor, inaccurate, or wildly confusing writing).
- Inaccurate rules (when not explicitly stated that we're diverting from RAW).
- You would NOT be asked to:
- Check monster stats for accuracy (we made up most of them, so there's nothing to check against).
- Edit style.
- Edit mechanics.
Put simply, we're looking for folks to read it as though you're a GM getting ready to run the Web. While noting down and letting us know of anything you come across that makes it a rough read.
BackerKit Pre-Order Store is Up! - Special Update, Nov. 18th, 2025
4 months ago
– Tue, Nov 18, 2025 at 01:09:31 PM
We have launched our BackerKit pre-order store!
(Click on that link to take a peek, and let us know if anything is looking off.)
The BackerKit store is for anyone who did not back the project on Kickstarter. Or, if you like, you can pre-order more add-ons and such. So if you know anyone who has heard you talk about the Widow's Web and they are sad they didn't back the project, this store is the place for them.
This does not (unfortunately) mean that the PDF, digital, or physical products are ready just yet. The pre-order store is for (as the name suggestions) pre-ordering all the Widow's Web items so you'll get them as soon as the shipping and distribution begins.
And you'll note that the prices in the store are higher than they were in the Kickstarter. That's because those of y'all who backed us from the start got in at the discounted price.
So! Spread the word to anyone who'd enjoy a backstabbing good time!
Let us know if you have any issues with the store by either commenting on this update or emailing us at [email protected].
This is the first time we've done it so... hopefully it goes smoothly!
Editing Wrapping Up, Second Chance Store Coming Soon! - Nov 12th, 2025 Update
5 months ago
– Thu, Nov 13, 2025 at 11:40:57 AM
Howdy! We're rounding the bases on our editing reviews. The re-layout is done for all sections and now it's up to the group to do a read-through of those PDFs to see if there's anything we missed.
Karl also has to make sure that the tables and stat-blocks in the appendices match up. He said very clearly he wants someone else to do that, but me saying in this post that he's the one that has to do it is legally binding. (We'll see if he reads this).
Then indexing! Sexy, sexy indexing.
We've submitted the specs for most of our physical materials to the production house for prototyping and readiness. The numbers are actually encouraging, even with the tariffs, so we may have some good news soon on that front. Not gonna make any predictions, but it's a glimmer of hope.
Finally, we're on the cusp of launching our BackerKit store. As in, I'm planning to hit the go button early next week. The BackerKit store is for anyone who did not back the project on Kickstarter. Or, if you like, you can pre-order more add-ons and such. So if you know anyone who has heard you talk about the Widow's Web and they are sad they didn't back the project, this store is the place for them.
To be clear: The prices in the store are higher than in the Kickstarter, since those of y'all who backed us from the start got in at the discounted price. We love you best of all.
I'll do an out of phase update to announce the store launch, so stay tuned!
