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HISTORIC: The Road Eternal

Created by Pub Gob Games

HISTORIC is a grimdark TTRPG run on cards, made for one-shots in a world where demonic Malefact and angelic Aeons want your souls. Outrun the annihilating sun and gather your tools and allies to kill the gods!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

November Update | The 7th Class
12 months ago – Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 12:13:19 PM

Hello friends. What's that, we didn't make our stretch goals for a 7th class? Well too bad, I paid out of pocket for more work. So let's take a look.

(And if you haven't pre-ordered this game for next year, why not? Take a look at this insane art from Salty Water, then back immediately. : ) )

October Update | ART!
about 1 year ago – Tue, Oct 14, 2025 at 11:30:28 AM

Welcome back dungeon delvers,

Okay, so right now, Salty Water has 10 final pieces lined. Once these are finished being colored, then there are just two bosses left for Salty to illustrate from the base game's art demands. Let's take a look at six of them below.


A monocle that will let you find things, not leaving things to chance! A tent and bed roll to make your rests more comfortable for everyone, which has direct benefits to your mind and body. A mysterious tapestry featuring Ensu fighting strange bipedal creatures that are neither ensu nor malefact... The Jertul Psalms, religious poetry to help restore your mind and soul on your journey. Then we see the Welver Bow, the first ranged weapon you might have seen just yet! And yes, that's a Wok for cooking, and probably for hitting things as well.


Here are two of the other finished traits, including a collector of antiquities and a faithful who follows the teaching of the Jertul faith. Traits are two-sided cards with text at the ends (not shown here of course) that give you an additional way to customize your character within a theme. I'm quite excited to see players bringing their characters to life over time and building a history of play.


And what's that, I didn't share these previously?? Well here are some of the other pieces from before. Tomes you might find while delving, a cursed collar and mask that keeps your soul captured as it restrains you, an amulet that makes you dodge most anything... until it doesn't work and the snakes that grant you impossible grace bite you! Or diplomatic action to break up arguments might serve you well... Then there's the strange bone that, when placed down, grows sinews and muscle to seal a passage, a door way, or to create a small bridge to get you where you need to go. Then there's the Jertul Break, an item for the faithful that, when broken, grants a small miracle of salvation!

In the coming weeks here, Salty will be finished with the base game's art work entirely. 
From there, we are discussing what is reasonable to add on to the end here, expanding the base game with the seventh class I wanted to add in a stretch goal, as well as adding a few more bosses, and maybe a Submerged area, which would go with the 5 others we have to give us 6 unique types of delve areas to dive into. Plus, underwater foes would be quite neat.

Once we determine what more Salty is adding art-wise, we will begin the wind down of that phase and the increase of playtesting to finalize what the game is looking like. We're still looking to manufacture and then ship early next year. My first project planned for 2026 is a tarot deck in May, and I want to have everything that's happening right now (confluence aside) shipped well before then, so we can expect HISTORIC to likely be in your hands by or in April 2026. 

I think overall, we're looking at a really impressive game full of incredible art, but I want to make sure it's playable for a good while without needing an expansion or anything like that to be repeatable. Part of that is making sure the current 10 bosses aren't one-and-dones, and have the ability to scale up for repeat visits. One of them in particular is a chase away from the boss because you can't kill it... but a second or third encounter where you actually DO try to fight it sounds really fun.

Alright, see you in November with the final work from the base game that was planned, and info on what's coming next!

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September Update | ART!!
about 1 year ago – Mon, Sep 08, 2025 at 04:25:37 PM

Hey all,

For people staying up to date on their Seven lore, I was super sick through most of August and kind of just lost 3+ weeks of work. The good news is that I'm largely fixed now! Yay modern medicine.

The cooler news is that it's been a while, so I have all kinds of art to share with you!


First off, the six 'ultimate' cards! Each class got a unique card with art for their super abilities. 
We see the Malefact Bonecutter releasing a torrent of blood in all directions that itself can be a weapon, or can make them completely gaunt and skeletal, doing AOE damage or making you a super tank depending on your path. You'll find this is a common thing here!
The Organ Eater is either gaining information from spirits of organs its consumed, or stealing their energy for a full refill of their potion juices in their bodies.
The Aeon Singer is tapping into their golden heart to power a great song from their back harp to buff allies or shift and control aeonic constructs.
The Trophy Collector is either conjuring the spirits of their tools to attack, or gather about their allies and defend them.
The Caged Wraith is using their caged soul to grasp the souls of foes to pry them out, or to link to allies and empower them.
The Maker of Hands is surrounded in a hurricane of hands, all to strike or cast spells!

These are all really neat and color coded to the class, and they got unique frames for these cards. When you draw this, you'll know!

What about a first look at a Malefact boss? These are the bone, sinew, and fleshy demons that live in the core of the world that want the Ensu to empower and raise their strange burrowing god. These creatures are horrid flesh beasts, and this one is a hunter, using its sensors and smelling tongues to find its prey-- namely you!
And an Aeonic machine, a winged eye and set of rings that has settled down on its altar of organ pipes to play its godsong. To fight this one, you'll have a short number of turns to act against it before it settles on the altar. Once it does, its power will grow massively, as will its number of attacks.


There's also a new horrid boss which, when you fight it, you'll find it's not a fight to kill the thing-- it's a fight to escape. The Bleeding Eyes is a brutal creature in the vast dark which will be a themed escape battle. To win is to not die! You can see on the cliff side, our heroes are tossed around, realizing the fight is pointless. The Maker of Hands on their motorcycle made of an aeon angel's corpse looks to be the most likely to live!


And you saw the sketch of this guy in July, but the Blackened Betrayer, an Ensu hunter who hates adventuring Ensu like yourself, looks wicked!

Potions, relics, and more! I've even got newer, more recent art, but this has been 100 things already! So I'll save some for next time. Still, admire away! Salty has made some incredible work here, and this game is going to be so overly beautiful, I don't even know what to say! Stay tuned for more art next month--

7DA
your pub gobbo

July Update | Surveys Going Out! | Art!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Jul 11, 2025 at 12:38:59 PM


Hello friends, some of you have received surveys. That was the 5% smoke test! After I send out this update, I am going to go ahead and send out the full surveys to everyone. Thanks for your patience for these to get out there. I got it all taken care of though.
Some art I'm sharing from Salty Water. But I showed these to Patreon patrons already last week I think-- so I gotta do more for ya, right? Alright. Let's take a look at something else then!


This is the sketch for the Blackened Betrayer. This is a boss that you can meet in the Burrows area, where Ensu like your characters live in peace. But most Ensu who stay in the burrow HATE your characters for leaving. It makes them more vulnerable when travelers come through. Malefact or Aeons may follow you.

This hate usually comes across as passive aggression, or as being given the cold shoulder. But sometimes, it goes further. The Blackened Betrayer has chosen to leave the Burrows himself solely to hunt your kind. If he kills every dungeon delving betrayer, then his people can be safer. This hunter has been designed by Salty Water with the same incredible attention to detail as his other characters. His design for the armor and helmet come from tibetan prayer wheels, The armor and clothing details are pulled from Mongolian armor designs. 

Just overall, the character is going to be an incredible boss.

Hope you're all having a great weekend, and talk again in August!

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The June Update | Illustrations Coming In, Timeline Update!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Jun 19, 2025 at 11:18:26 AM

Hello folks!

So it's been a month, and that's about our schedule on these updates from here on. Salty Water was waiting on me for a bit, but we have some illustrations in and are booking along on the remainder of the game.


This is the trait card for the Bulwark, which allows you to make any character a super armored one! If you want to wield two shields, or be just so armored up its ridiculous, this is the trait for you to pick. While it would go best on a character that is already tanky, you might think, it is unique on the glass cannon characters of the Wraith or Bonecutter, giving them huge survivability to go with their damage. But the bulwark would love to make you step in to defend allies, and that is something those squishy characters might not want to make use of.

And while we have already seen the class-tools of the Collector of Skulls and the Maker of Hands, their chain wrap and gilt hammer respectively, we now have the remaining class tools.
The Stoor-iron shovel of the Organ Eater, used to beat enemies over the head and dig up bodies to harvest.
The Benthine Daggers of the Caged Wraith, broken away over time but animated with their ghost blades.
The Aeon Call of the Aeon Caller, the harp made across their own torn apart wing bones which they use to call angelic horrors to their side, or to support their allies.
The Inward Knife of the Malefact Bonecutter, which they use to release their blood and bones to grow and turn into armor or weapons, or a weapon against foes in a pinch.


And then there's the Body Collector, a boss I talked about in the launch livestream. There are bosses that align with your soul's connection to the Aeons, the Malefact, The Road, but there is also this boss, which would love you to safeguard your soul by aligning it with yourself. Then it can collect a pure, undiluted essence of you. This is the latest progress piece on this boss, and it's coming along beautifully!

I have just given Salty Water another Trait, 5 Actions, and an additional Boss to illustrate next.

The Updated Timeline


That said, I'm seeing two things on the horizon here. One is how much artwork there is to get from Salty Water.
We have some 40 small illustrations to do, 6 more beyond that for the class 'ultimate' abilities we unlocked as a stretch goal, another 4-5 for the Backerkit exclusive 'booster' for the game that people got free as a first 48-hours incentive, or that you can grab in your surveys (soon) for $5, plus 9 more bosses. This is just going to take a few more months to get pulled together on the illustration front, period.

Two is how much I keep changing the game. I think there is a good chance that I change the game even more as the process goes. I'm also considering returning the dice to the game, which is a whole thing. What makes this game strong is its uniqueness from my other small box games. MANY people have told me before (after seeing the ZOETROPE system) that ZOETROPE's system would easily lend itself to any genre of game, and early on I thought I agreed. That I could reskin ZOETROPE, add a few things, and have a new game. But that's frankly not good enough for me.

For this reason, I want to push the timeline back from maybe shipping September/October, to more likely shipping January/February. This is for a couple reasons, the stuff explained above, but also because I think I want to do the naughty thing and add more to the game beyond what we funded here. To do that, I need to bring in money from other projects to make HISTORIC the game it can be, rather than just what we brought in here to fund.

I want to put in the 7th class I was considering, a dedicated healer.

I want to return the dice to the game, and in doing so, raising the price of production by almost $4 a piece. 

I want to include a few more items, and a few more bosses. 

Financially, that together will cost about $2200 in art, $4000 in extra manufacturing costs. And I'm not asking any of you to pay that here, but it means I do have to bring in the money on what else I'm doing this year to cover it.

I considered doing an expansion later, but what I find is people get expansions less, which is reasonable. So I just want the game to be full, to have all its goodies in it right away, and not need to be expanded on later. For now, we will continue with things as-is, but with the extended deadline. And if, as time goes into October, it seems the money exists for this, then we may push back to March to slide in these extra goodies.

Thanks for your patience all, I want this game to be incredible. I don't believe anything can be perfect, but there were issues in ZOETROPE and WHAT WE POSSESS that I wanted to fix in a revised edition right away, and I don't want that here. I want proper time with making sure what I bring to you is right.

Thanks everyone, talk again in July with game progress and art progress updates!

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