Updated Backer List: Please Check
almost 6 years ago – Wed, Jun 06, 2018 at 01:27:44 PM

I have downloaded your elected names from the survey responses (those I  have) and included them in the backer list as follows.

Please check to see if your name is there as you intend it to be.

If not, let me know, but no news is good news for me. Only reach out if:

(a) You have filled out the survey, AND

(b) Your name isn't how you wish it to appear

There are some odd characters that show up in this image which I'm purging right now; don't worry about those.

Progress Report: Hopefully two weeks to file submission
almost 6 years ago – Mon, Jun 04, 2018 at 06:02:08 PM

Hey team, it's Monday, so it's time for another update.

Lots of preproduction work is headed into the final stages. Right now, the entire book is assembled, and is undergoing proofreading. Lots of small glitches being found by the team, which is understandable in a work this long.

Layout wise, Michael did his style unification pass, and helped clean up some stragglers. Some running titles got fixed, the ToC and Index now are ordered properly. All the boxes use the same style, that sort of thing.

Artwork is proceeding, and as the commissions come in I'm slotting them into their respective spaces. I'm using some stock art to fill in some of the blanks and I'm fairly happy with where the art density is going to wind up.

Last week I sent a wire transfer to the printer securing the order for 1,500 copies of Dragon Heresy with a 40% deposit. I also finished the cover and submitted that for checking.

 If it's accepted, they'll start the quality control on the cover, which will involve some "wet proofs" where they actually MAKE the cover.

Hopefully I'll have all my first-round commissioned art in by the end of this week, and then I'll finish inserting that, see what spaces I have left, and check the budget. After the files go out, I'll do first a preliminary and then a final accounting for you guys of "where did the money go?" so that you can see the disposition of project funds.

Shields

A quick note on the top-tier rewards. Three of the five shields have been delivered. Of the last two, one requires some special wood. That being said, here are some fun images:

Backerkit

There are still (only!) four people with physical copies of the books that need to fill out surveys for shipping, and I'll be sending them personal nudges.

Otherwise, most cards are charged, most money is in, and the names for the backer list are going to get cross-checked this week.

I've also started to send out files for those that got PDF copies of certain add-ons. The Bogie Map pack and Guardians files went out today. Lost Hall will go out Real Soon Now and likewise with Dungeon Grappling - I'm going to take the opportunity to make a few errata fixes in the files before they go out.

Target Dates

As is my habit, here are the dates I'm shooting for:

• June 9: Primary "Wave 1" art all in and in the book
• June 16: All art complete
• June 16: All proofing complete
• June 17: Interior files submitted to printer
• June 18: PDF of Dragon Heresy distributed; Dungeon Grappling Distributed; Lost Hall of Tyr distributed
• Sept 10: Giant box of books arrives in MN
• Oct 10: all rewards arrived

It's not as far ahead of schedule as I prefer, but I've never done an offset print run, and as the last 10 minutes of the campaign showed, my needs changed at the last minute!

That's where we stand. I'll do what I can to pull in the schedule where possible, but a lot of it isn't in my hands!

The Home Stretch: PDF and Print Finalization
almost 6 years ago – Mon, May 28, 2018 at 09:36:59 PM

Where We Stand   

A quick status update this Memorial Day. 

Dragon Heresy is at 283 pages of a 288 page allowance. That means that there's room to play with things if I have to, and if we come down to the final moment and I still have that left, I may well add a few backgrounds to the existing list to pad it out.

I chose a printer and will be sending them their initial payment this week, probably tomorrow, but there’s no rush here. We're doing GREAT for schedule thus far; I'd love to keep it that way. 

Note that "the home stretch" is something like three months long, due to shipping schedules. Still - it is the home stretch. It's just a long one.

Art Status

I have seen sketches for many of the items, and several final items have been submitted. That’s not bad considering there are still two weeks until the art deadline. Right now the monster section is still in need of some pieces. 

Layout and Editing Status

The indexing and ToC are complete and reasonably sensible. Some of the entries suffer from an excess of vagueness. Etera is followed by dozens of page references with no context, for example. I'm not sure that's terribly useful. I'd rather look for the two or three IMPORTANT subtopics and hit those explicitly than just two dozen page numbers. 

For editing, the page count and subject matter is done with the first pass. Now it's a massive spell-check, typo-check, and grammar check. Ensuring that all sentences make sense, no missing words or phrases, etc. This is a word-for-word read with an eye for detail. 

The last thing that really needs doing is putting in hyperlinks for references. I'm a bit bummed that there doesn't SEEM to be a way of automatically linking the index pages as bookmarks, but I'm not done looking yet. The ToC bookmarks work fine. I suppose if you're in Interactive mode you can just search or go to the right page. So really it's the cross-references that need doing. I'll take care of that. 

The only other layout task is style unification That should really take care of it. Other than art, proofing, and the index topic tweak - especially proofreading - we're ready to go to print. If we can get the layering and the hyperlinks/references in place, we're ready for final PDF distribution. 

As I noted: things are looking strong. I will push a penultimate file next week – probably next Sunday. Since I will be ordering 1,500 books, and only shipping out 250 of them or so, it's important to me to catch all the typos I can, and as backers, you can help me with that. Digital files are easy to update with typo fixes. Print copies . . . not so much.

Shields

Six backers pledged for shields. One has his already. Two more are in the final stages, and may well be finished today, certainly by the end of the week. The final three I’ll start on soon; I need to get the proper size poplar for one of the shields, and the other is already laid up as a blank. Those were promised in October along with the print books; safe to say that they’ll be in everyone’s hands by the end of June. 

Finishing Up

That's really looking like it. I pushed through the Backerkit closure yesterday, as promised. there are still about 3-4 folks pending settlement of funds/cards, and I'll gently ping you privately over the next few days. 

The remainder is really just following through with finalization of the PDF and getting the print files - cover and interior - off to the printer. Then y'all won't see/hear much for a few weeks at a time, as the QC process goes through a few stages of proofing and approvals, with the process designed to have the books "on the boat" six weeks after I submit the files, which I'm targeting for June 16. They're designed to show up in MN five or six weeks after THAT, which will be the week of Sept 3-7 if things go well.

US Media Mail usually takes about two weeks after that, maximum. So print copies should be in folks' hands by Sept 22.

International Backers will follow a slightly different path. When the books are done, a few 10-book boxes will be shipped to Korea. That'll take about a week. Then the fine folks at Dice Latte will put them in the post to all of the "not-the-USA" destinations. Depending on the speed of that method, it's possible that they'll arrive before the US books even show up on my doorstop. We shall see - this is a bit of an adventure for me as well.

Backerkit Surveys Close THIS WEEKEND
almost 6 years ago – Thu, May 24, 2018 at 06:08:24 PM

Backerkit Surveys: Close Sunday Morning

The first point of important news is that the Backerkit Surveys will be locked down on Sunday. Probably Sunday morning.

• There are only 13 backers at the Thegn or higher level that have not completed the survey.
• The Berserker and under folks already have their rewards, so that's fine
• Two of the 13 are my in-laws, and I know their names. And where they live. So that's fine.
• That leaves six Thegns and four Jarl/Styðja pledges. 

So it's not bad! I will lock 'em down and charge the cards, and then gather and process the data.

Layout and Finalization

Last night I finished up what I think is the final layout. Everything that needs to be in the book is in the book. I got the ToC issues figured out, and now they auto-update. I've tried to index the hell out of it. I've got a pronunciation glossary for the nordic-derived terms. There's a monster index and a spell index for easy reference. There's a blank character sheet.

The total book lays out to 283 pages against a 288 page target.

That means once I get all my art inserted, which should be June 9-11, if I still have those same pages, I will likely insert four pages of extra Backgrounds, or possibly stick gnomes in there, since they're cool (no, really!) and push the book up to within a page of the limit.

I've got a cover template from the printer. I've recreated the cover in the new template, and though I have a few graphics to fix, it's ready.

Now the Proofreading

This is the biggest thing that needs doing between now and sending it to the printer in three weeks. Anyone that wants to help who backed at the Thegn and higher level - ping me on Discord or by email. I'll send you the PDF and a detail read would be lovely.

If I get lots of responses, I'll just blast out the file.

Shield: Delivered!

I got a real test of my build-and-ship method for the shields. One backer asked that I finish his shield early as a gift, and I got it done, packed it up, and got it to him yesterday (Wednesday). Arrived in one piece. It's pretty.

Coming Soon

Now that the bullk of the work is done, I can start to feather in other projects. The most pressing is that I will be launching another Kickstarter, this time for the Powered by GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Roleplaying Game, by Steve Jackson Games.

This is a rare and awesome third-party license for a GURPS-based product, and the goal is to launch the KS in mid-June, finish it up in early to mid July, and have everything ready to go in August.

The project is "Hall of Judgment," a conversion of the Etera-based Lost Hall of Tyr to the purposefully-generic Dungeon Fantasy RPG.

But it won't just be a quick translation. I'm expanding the details on the town of Isfjall, located in Northwestern Torengar. I'm adding a definite overland travel option instead of the "poof, you're there!" pathway that was suitable for a convention scenario but not for a campaign. The encounters, each literally scripted to highlight a certain aspect of the Dungeon Grappling book it was built to support, will be de-scripted for better free-form play. And of course each monster will get its own stat page and writeup, but for DFRPG.

Then, of course, I'll take the rewritten scenario and convert it to Dragon Heresy. One of many supporting projects I hope to make.

Take care!

Intermediate PDF distribution
almost 6 years ago – Sun, May 20, 2018 at 04:11:22 PM

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