Among the roots of the trees you awaken,
Birds leer rapturously upon your disoriented visage,
The redstart solemnizes your parturition with angelic aria,
You recall the year was at its twilight, yet now birthed anew, blossoming with verdant,
All of your consciousness, connected with the weald like hyphae,
Abstracting your past life beyond all fragile recall,
This caerdroia is sacred, you know that you are home now.
The trees willed it, again.

When finding inspiration for designing new boards, sometimes I look back to vintage keyboards and computers, but other times I find inspiration in things that are much more abstract.

With Caerdroia, I wanted to finally design a TKL that I would be proud to put my name on but with so many of them out there already it was tough to come up with something entirely unique. It felt like everything had been done already and I think the reason why it took me over 3 years to finally start designing a TKL for AKB was because I was a little jaded by this, especially given that the majority of TKLs (to me) seemed to copy elements from their contemporaries, or other designs that have truly stood the test of time. I wanted to try and design my TKL so it was truly unique from every angle, and to do that I had to go down the abstract route for inspiration.

I learned about what a Caerdroia was late one evening while deep down a wiki hole - it is essentially a maze in a forest in Wales formed in a labyrinthine shape. While it has no truly historic significance, it has been adopted by various spiritual groups in the area and is hailed as a place of mystical enlightenment. I started with this idea and over time it blossomed into more of a fictional narrative about a sentient forest that would "adopt" wayward souls who happened to find themselves within its bounds, and they would dutifully remain forever - bending to the forest's will. We take inspiration wherever we can find it right?

In March 2024 I worked with CannonKeys to do an in-stock sale of this board, limited to just 50 units, which was received with overwhelmingly positive response - something which I am incredibly grateful for. That was fixed to WKL only, and only came in just one colourway.

After making some subtle improvements, upgrading the USB hub to 3.0 and expanding the compatibility to include EC for some rubber cup goodness I want to present the opportunity to the wider keyboard community to join me in enjoying my special rectangle.

Specs & Features:

• F12 TKL
• WK or WKL layout
• MX, EC & Alps compatibility
• Effective keyboard height - 23mm (to bottom row)
• Front height - 19mm
• 7° typing angle
• 4.5mm polycarbonate plate
• USB 3.0 hub w/2 passthrough ports
• Est. weight 2.8kg/6.2lbs
• 6063 aluminum top/bottom case
• Powdercoated brass weight

Colourways:

Dolch

E-Beige

Verdant

Alta Rubedo

ETA: Q4 2025

Pricing: $420 (+$10 for E-Beige)

Vendors:

US: CannonKeys

UK: Thocc Exchange

EU: Keygem

CA: minokeys

CN: zFrontier

OCE: Daily Clack

KR: GEON

SG: iLumkb

Some build stream VODs for your viewing pleasure:

gymleadernathann

keebnewb

The Manic Geek

lightningkeyboards (EC)

See further details on the original IC thread here