Avantris Entertainment seems poised to beat its previous Kickstarter record. The Dungeons & Dragons actual play group raised $4 million on Kickstarter in 2023 for its folk-horror setting and adventure The Crooked Moon.
The latest Avantris project, Neon Odyssey, is a space opera trilogy for D&D using the 5e game system that’s described as “Star Wars meets Cowboy Bebop with a coat of synthwave paint.” After going live Tuesday morning, the fundraising campaign reportedly crashed the Kickstarter site, smashing through its $60,000 campaign goal in under 30 minutes and reaching $3.68 million in a matter of hours with 29 days left to go.
That kind of early momentum puts Neon Odyssey on track to become one of the biggest third-party D&D crowdfunding campaigns ever and reinforces just how massive the audience for premium, system-expanding content has become in the 5e era.
“Inspired by iconic sci-fi films, retro video games, classic animation, and synthwave nostalgia, Neon Odyssey gives players and Game Masters everything they need to chart their own cosmic destiny, including a vibrant campaign setting, cinematic space combat, new player options, alien monsters, strange worlds, bounty hunts, starships, factions, and high-stakes cosmic adventure,” the company wrote in a press release. The Space Opera Trilogy also introduces a novel space combat system, rules for vehicles, and a Machinist class while reskinning existing classes for sci-fi. It also provides more than 40 subclasses for existing D&D classes and more than 30 unique species.
