Interview - Katlyn Sol - Arcane Spectacles

Today I talk with Katlyn Sol, the Owner/Founder the best Spell Slot Trackers, Smite Trackers and Sneak Attack Trackers you can find online for D&D 5E and Pathfinder 2E. We discuss the products, the community surrounding the business, favourite projects and getting a Kickstarter started.
You can find Arcane Spectacles and their Products via the links below.

Website:
https://t.co/qcpzIAhjBU?amp=1

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/ArcaneSpectacle

Kickstarter:
https://t.co/vyboYGYr49?amp=1

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Yours Sincerely,

Adam 'Cosy' Powell

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CAST & CREW

Host: Adam Powell

Guest: Katlyn Sol - Arcane Spectacles

Sound Design: Adam Powell

Music: Epidemic Sound

Cover Art: Tim Cunningham - www.Wix.com

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Transcript

Snyder’s Return : 0:28

Hello, and welcome to snows return a tabletop role playing podcast. Today my guest is the creator of calm in the spell slot storm provides divine guidance for those who smite and also leads the way for the Pathfinders amongst us. If your character sheet confuses you, or you're more akin to that kinesthetic style of learning, then arcane spectacles has you covered. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the founder of arcanes mentors. Caitlin, Caitlin. Well, welcome to the show.

Katlyn Sol : 0:57

Thank you for having me.

Snyder’s Return : 0:58

It's it's an absolute pleasure. Before we move on to, to you and your pros, would you like to sort of tell us a little bit about yourself and and how you guys got into tabletop role playing games, which then led to where we are today?

Katlyn Sol : 1:13

Yeah, sure. So I run arcane spectacles with my husband, Jared. And we've been in the ttrpg space for a little while. We're kind of I'd say, still fresh as far as players go, I know I got very interested in this space from critical role. And I begged my husband I'm like, let's do this. Let's play let's you know, get our friends together. And so we started doing that and kind of jumped into that. I guess that's how we got our experience. We started our Etsy store. I originally I was making once like, like Harry Potter one type things and our friends kind of liked them. And I'm like, I should throw them up on Etsy and it probably won't sell But that's fine. And then we kind of started making stuff for us to use in our own d&d game. And we're like, oh, let's throw that up on the shop to like, why not? I don't know if it'll do anything. And so then the rest is history. It's actually been really exciting getting to know people more in the community and getting more involved. And it's a joy.

Snyder’s Return : 2:24

Well, yeah, that's great. And you mentioned they're making stuff and your own game. Is your own game still going on? Have you had to sort of put that to one side while you saw create your products?

Katlyn Sol : 2:35

Sure. I'd say it has kind of been on the back burner. A lot of our creative energy goes more into creating our new products and things. We still play every once in a while with our friends, and we enjoy that incredibly much and, you know, we hope to try some more systems in the future. We bought quest and we plan to hopefully plan one of those sessions we're really excited about that.

Snyder’s Return : 3:02

Sounds great. So we've mentioned products but we haven't actually explained what they are and how they can help DMS and and players out there so what is it that arcane spectacles provides as a tabletop role playing accessory peripheral? What's the best turn?

Katlyn Sol : 3:19

Yeah, we like to say we make ttrpg accessories that, you know, help you, you know, determine or I guess, work your way through difficult rule sets. And lately we've been focusing in on those spells because I was a spell caster and another friend was a spell caster. And being a new player, it was always so confusing, you know, tracking and erasing and we just didn't like it. So we wanted to have kind of a tactile way. So we utilise dice because, of course, I'm a little bit of a dice Goblin. Love those dice and we really like the idea of being able to take those dice that you love so much that are so beautiful and special to you and finding or uses for them. Because technically, you could get away with only having one set at the table and rolling in so blasphemy quickly. So you want to have all those other guys find a use forum and try to help make the game easier for people who have been playing it for a long time. And then people who are just coming into it, we've had a lot of responses about the ease that comes because it's tactile, a lot of people, you know, learn with their hands. And so it's made their lives a lot easier, which just makes us thrilled because we like the idea of making the world easier for people. So it's been a lot of fun and we have a lot of products going on in the future and we hope to just keep keep hitting at it, you know?

Snyder’s Return : 4:54

Absolutely. And so we we've mentioned it and unfortunately the the restrictions of the audio format This podcast. Could you describe what one of these spell trackers or one of the other products you put out and looks like and, and how easy they are to, to use for the user.

Katlyn Sol : 5:12

Yeah, so our original product is a spell tracker that utilises D six dice. So it uses up to 90 sixes, each D six representing the spell slot. So there's these slots that you can put the dice in, and the number on the D six determines how many spells you have left in that spot. There's a spot on the right that you can either put those D sixes that are expand in or the spell slots that are expensed. You can put those there. Some people like to use that space to store dice for specific spells like fireball is of common one. So they have that as a specific area just for the spells that they cast the most frequently, and then there's a space at the bottom that you can store your normal set of polyhedral set of dice or you can also play around with that. I mean, it's flexible so you can kind of use it for whatever you like. That's kind of our flagship product. And most recently, we've been diving into vaults and our vaults have multiple uses. The lid of the vault actually is a spell tracker. So it has nine slots. We've also made a sneak attack dice. So the lid of that is holds all your dice for your sneak attack. So it's kind of a rogue vault where the other one would be a spellcaster vaults. Inside the vault, you can hold up to three full sets of dice. And if you take the dice out, you can actually use the inside of the vault as a dice rolling tray.

Snyder’s Return : 6:46

And I remember seeing on your on your site, there's Paladin, that sort of the Paladin vault as well as if I'm not mistaken.

Katlyn Sol : 6:55

Yes, thank you can't forget about the paladins paladins you Night. Yes, we do have a paladin vault as well and we have works we do plan on coming up with us vault specific for other classes as well. Right now we're working on monk and we definitely want to make one for all the others as well it's just kind of a it's a very tough thing because you know there's so many subclasses and do you include things for those or do you try to make it inclusive for everyone, but it's been that's been really fun so we're planning on diving more into those the Paladin one is really cool because it has Lay on Hands and cleansing touch and then it really kind of captures everything that you would need to track as a paladin. So it's nice to have something that's special for those classes you don't have to try to make do with make shifting other things. You can have something that's special Just for yourself.

Snyder’s Return : 7:54

Yeah, definitely. And the paladins which is why I mentioned it is one that I've definitely got my eye on and but So those are now sort of piqued their interest. Where is it? They can go to find your product and find you on other social media platforms?

Katlyn Sol : 8:08

Yes, absolutely. So we have our Etsy shop which is arcane spectacles. You can get to it pretty easily through Etsy. We also have our Twitter which is arcane spectacle. The s does not fit unfortunately. But arcane spectacle. We are also arkin spectacles on Facebook and Instagram. We do post on there a little bit less, but we do plan on pushing that a little bit more in the future.

Snyder’s Return : 8:33

Alright, so I will make sure that links to those are down in the description below. So you mentioned sort of building up this, this sort of community around so what has that allowed you to do, or having this community and the support from the community in your products?

Katlyn Sol : 8:48

Yeah, we have really been able to develop some really good relationships and have some really cool partnerships. Right now we're partnered with paradise RPG And that is super fun. So we get to work with them a lot and interact with them. We've also have a buddy relationship starting with how I nerd. And that's really fun. And, you know, getting to join people's discords and making friends and relationships are making a lot of relationships with podcasts. So got from afar podcast, I'm just trying to remember of course, I'm gonna forget some and that's really unfortunate. But you know, waffles, maple syrup, discount dungeons, know your role. We're, you know, talking with all these wonderful people in the community. And it's really amazing to kind of hear what their struggles are as far as the game goes. And we can kind of see if we can make their lives easier by making products that help them because if they have an issue that I'm sure other people in the community would have that similar issue. So it's been really great. The friendships I think, is what makes us continue to do this. And it's definitely been the most unexpected and most rewarding part of having this little gig going on.

Snyder’s Return : 10:10

And it's great that the communities are giving back and with your support and their support to you sort of growing it and growing and enjoying this creation process as you are, what's been your, your favourite of your products to work on so far be it currently released and available or something that's maybe just around the corner.

Katlyn Sol : 10:31

Sure, I have my favourite by far is going to be our new product that we're really seeing on our Kickstarter. I'm super excited about that because we're actually diving into wood products. So everything that we make right now is 3d printed in house by us and everything and we're really excited to dive into this wonderful world of wood because the products are just beautiful and we're really excited about that. So we're making our original spell tracker out of heart. You know, kind of more exotic hardwoods like purple heart and monkey pod and Paducah and things like that. super exciting. It's also going to be lined with some really high quality vinyl, so it helps protect the dice that are inside. Super excited about that are also, again out of wood. Right now we have a health and AC tracker or health trackers in the shape of a heart. It has 3d 10 slots, so you can track all your units of health isn't in the right units anyways. We'll go over that. Yeah, we also have an armour tracker that has two d 10 slots in it and is the shape of a shield and we're actually going to make both of those out of wood as well. So we're really excited about that.

Snyder’s Return : 11:54

So a lot of this stuff that you're releasing seems to have a Dungeons and Dragons tension is there other other sort of tabletop role playing games that you you have products for? And are you looking to expand beyond those?

Katlyn Sol : 12:10

Yes, absolutely. Right. Now, we also have a tracker specific for Pathfinder two, which is really exciting. We've got a lot of good responses from that from people playing Pathfinder, that feeling like they're a little bit left out in the product world, so we're really happy to provide something for them. And like I said, we plan on playing quest. We don't know if there's a good product that's missing in that space because quest is very streamlined, which is what we're so excited about. It just having the single d 20. That you pretty much base everything off of which I just think is really cool, even though I really love all my other dice too. But definitely want to get into that. We also were very avid board game players. So we really I like the idea of making accessories for board games as well as ttrpg. So I say the world is open and we're just gonna meander through it and try to find what works best.

Snyder’s Return : 13:13

Yeah, absolutely. Sure draws its own question of what bowl games are your favourite? What are you playing at the moment?

Katlyn Sol : 13:20

Yes. So we are still working our way through gloom haven because it's such a such a beast of a game. There's so many hours and it's so much fun. So we're still working our way through that. We're also playing a lot of seventh continent, which is another game that has a lot of hours of game time. And it's kind of a almost like, choose your own path, adventure story where you have cards and you get to decide what you're doing on that card to reveal more. That's really fun, really excited for frost haven to come out. Those are kind of our bigger games. We've also gotten really into Dominion again. And Debian has a tonne of expansions it's kind of a, you know, a site called where you, you pick cards and you like make a deck and it's kind of a deck building game that's building. Yeah, yeah. So we love those. We have a few friends of course, we haven't been able to see as many friends lately as we want to. But we have a couple close friends that we see every once in a while and we've been trying to play online and stuff with them. board games are amazing.

Snyder’s Return : 14:29

Absolutely. Yeah. And a few of those you mentioned, definitely worth picking up if you've got the time to play them or the family or the friends that can come play with you. So definitely. So how do you go about the creation process because you take inspiration from say, d&d, and maybe the role the Paladin bolt or the spell slot tracker, but that's just a baseline went Is your creative side coming to say the colour schemes and all that sort of stuff? Where does that inspiration come from?

Katlyn Sol : 15:08

That is a great question. My husband, Jared is a software engineer. And so he has a little bit of experience with, you know, making websites and things and kind of graphic design in the sense of finding colour palettes that work together. But mostly it's our colour palettes and things are just our instincts and we kind of just do what we like and we hope other people like them, we usually ask our close community friends to say, Hey, does this workers is a terrible idea, and they usually point us in the right direction, which is really good to have that source of feedback. I think it's really important in this space. And mostly we just are very thoughtful and intentional. We never tried to make something that we've just put together on a whim, we Really do our research and our due diligence to try to give each product its own wife, I guess you could say. And so I think that intentionality behind everything that we do is what makes it so special.

Snyder’s Return : 16:15

And you can see it when you open up one of the products on the website, you can see the the care and the love and the attention that's been put into each and a few of them. Few the spell slot trackers have novice, is there a grading system attached to that? Or is it just something to to help those may be newer into the hobby?

Katlyn Sol : 16:38

Yes, so originally, our thought was that we were going to have this novice version. And then we were going to make this adept version, which are we have a kind of second tier. Now we have our original one that at the moment still does say novice but with the adept version, they're lined with vinyl, so it's a little bit Hire a tear, our paint process on them is a little bit more complex. So we've upgraded it. And we really tousled our idea original idea was to put a depth on it. So it's like the second tier that you could get. And then we just decided to kind of leave it off. And we've been kind of debating do we go back and take away the novice on the first one, but we really liked that idea to begin with. So we've been kind of playing around with it, but it's a very good catch. That Yeah, we did kind of think about, you know, having all these different tiers of spell checkers. In the future, we want to do a spell checker that also includes health and AC as well. So it'd be like a third higher tier a little bit bigger of a tracker, things that kind of include more things and we'd call that a different tier, but we're just not sure do you put it on there, do you not it's a hard decision.

Snyder’s Return : 18:00

I'm sure one that the pair of you will make for the best of your products and the things you saw put your love and your care into So between the tabletop role playing games on the back burner you're what must be constantly churning out 3d printer your investment into what Boise you guys do for downtime what how is it you get a break from sort of trying to or not trying to succeeding in providing these wonderful products out to tabletop role playing game players?

Katlyn Sol : 18:32

Yeah, we let's see, what do we like to do? Of course board games. We do like to play a little bit of Overwatch we've been playing lots of fall guys lately that's been a popular one. We also love hanging out with friends and playing tennis, going on walks with our dog Baxter. He's a burna doodle and he is the cutest dog ever. I'm convinced. I'm

Snyder’s Return : 18:59

I'm sorry, I burned a doodle. Yes, Bernard and poodle.

Katlyn Sol : 19:04

It is a bernese Mountain dog and poodle is an interesting combination.

Snyder’s Return : 19:10

Yeah.

Katlyn Sol : 19:12

It's great because he doesn't shed very much so, um, you know, with allergies and things, we kind of needed to have a dog that doesn't shed a tonne. So having that poodle in it's perfect because the bernese mountain dog is my dream dog. So I got I got my dream dog that sheds a little bit less, which is great.

Snyder’s Return : 19:31

That's That's fantastic. So bringing it back into the sort of the business side of things and the focus on that where is where is our case verticals heading? What is beyond the Kickstarter, what is in the future for you guys?

Katlyn Sol : 19:47

Yes, where our next big venture that we want to really tackle is helping artists and the community really thrive. So We're working with some artists to make some art to put on the spell trackers themselves. So, right now we're working with Eddie York, and he is amazing. You guys should all check him out. I'm pretty sure it's at Eddie York. He's fantastic artists. So he's created some artwork. So we plan on putting on our trackers, we also want to work in the future with people who make art for laser engraving because we also want to apply that to the wood trackers as well. So you can get some beautiful artwork as well as having this very, you know, tactile, useful object that you use in your space.

Snyder’s Return : 20:41

Sounds amazing that you know that the two variations on the designs for each of the medium is is not the right term for the 3d printing and the word. Yeah. I think that sounds great. We'll go over that sounds sounds close enough for jazz. So yeah, definitely. Something for people to go in and check out. So it's definitely worth reminding people where they can pick your stuff up, if you wouldn't mind.

Katlyn Sol : 21:07

Yes, we are arcane spectacles, you can find us at arcane spectacle without the s on Twitter, at arcane spectacles everywhere else. And you can find us at Etsy. I just put it in arcane spectacles as well, it should bring us up. That's fantastic. So,

Snyder’s Return : 21:23

Caitlin, we've covered a number of topics, but potentially there are there's something that maybe I haven't asked or or that you want to bring us or anything that you want to bring from a personal side to the interview. any topic we've not touched on that you feel strongly about.

Katlyn Sol : 21:42

Hi, that's great question. I would just say, you know, check out our Kickstarter, if this comes out around the time that we can tell you to do that. We're really excited about launching these our first product into wood and, you know, just keep checking us out because we'll constantly Be innovating. We're really excited. Our Kickstarter, we're working with diehard dice, they're going to be making us some custom 96 pluses seven set of dice for our trackers, we're really excited to be able to offer that because not everyone has 96 ready to throw into some spell slots. So we're super excited about that super excited about the future. Super excited about just continuing to work with great people in the community, our we love collaborations we love when people reach out to us to, you know, sponsor charity streams or to you know, have if they just have questions about something we just love interacting with the community. It's definitely the best part of the gig.

Snyder’s Return : 22:45

Well, that's great. And I will make sure that there are links in the description for this so people can engage with you and you with them and hopefully just continue to sort of spread the the community and The tabletop role playing love for one a bit better description, because I think is to the benefit of us all. I'd like to thank you for for sort of taking time out of your day and sort of giving me some of your time so we can discuss this amazing set of products. It's not just a product, it is multiple products that you put out. So I really appreciate appreciate you taking the time for speaking with me today.

Katlyn Sol : 23:25

Thank you so much. It's been

Snyder’s Return : 23:26

amazing. I'd love to have you back on once you get some products out and once the Kickstarter is finished, and see where you stand with your various promotions and things like that, if you'd be willing to come back on on speak to me in the future. Absolutely. Wonderful. Well, thank you very much for your time. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking to you about the spell trackers and the dice vaults and everything and I will make sure there are links to your product and your website down the description below and I will make sure I share it. everything out on social media to point people in your direction because I'm a huge fan of yours. Thank you very much. Sir. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you. Thank you for listening. If you want to know more about what's coming up in the future, get across to WWW.snydersreturn.squarespace.com where you'll find all the information and links to our Facebook page, Instagram, Discord server, Patreon, and you can find us on Twitter at Return Snyder. Hope you enjoyed this episode and we hope to bring you more content soon. Transcribed by https://otter.ai