This morning I am pleased to announce to all of you that the HELLCRAWL PDF is now available.
What an amazing process this project has been. 3 years ago, when I set HELLCRAWL aside, I truly never thought I would ever be able to say "You can now download the PDF and send your players to Hell!" Now, thanks to Necrotic Gnome's encouragement, today is the day!
I believe that this is our best book yet. Tim's art is amazing and I love the way he hit every speedball I threw at him out of the park. I've learned so much through this process and it has been a dream come true. I loved going back to the work I had done in the past and tweaking it, improving it. I hope you enjoy the months of work that went into this.
Fulfillment If you follow the ENNIES Emporium you'll know that I've had a hard time with fulfillment. I'm going to share this information with you because I believe some of you may want to run your own crowdfunding projects in the future. I'm lucky that I've had other people in this industry act as mentors for me. Maybe you can learn from my struggles. Fulfillment is the most arduous and difficult part of these projects. In the past I've been able to sit in a room by myself and stuff boxes and envelopes. HELLCRAWL is the largest project we've had so far so I looked into finding a fulfillment partner.
Studio 2 Originally, my plan was to work with Studio 2, who is currently our distributor for Agamemnon Press books. I like Jim and his team a lot. They charged $2 a box to pick and pack which is pretty reasonable. The problem was that a lot of boxes needed to be shipped to Studio 2. To ship a carton of books from Arizona to Tennessee costs $40 a box, so that expense racks up quickly.
But then I found a fulfillment partner here in Arizona!
Gamer's Guild I was really excited to work with Gamer's Guild. They're here in the valley, I could just drive my stuff to their warehouse and they'd handle it. We had a positive phone call in July, then we had an in person meeting at GenCon (which is funny to me, we could have held the meeting in Arizona). Then a month and a half after GenCon I finally got the fulfillment quote from them. $14 a box!
This is an absolutely deranged number and I have no clue where they came up with it. They have not responded to my messages since last week about this. This $14 a box does not include shipping by the way, it's just $14 a box on top of shipping. This would add up to about $13,000 which is wild stuff.
Where Does That Leave Us? In a way, this is an opportunity rather than a set back. I've decided, rather than pushing off responsibility for fulfillment onto another company to improve my methods and get better at it. BackerKit has a lot of great tools you just have to learn how to use them. The team at BackerKit has been amazing.
Finally, rather than pay another company I have hired Agamemnon Press's first employee Julie! Julie will help Kayla and I pack boxes and ensure speed and accuracy.
Timeline Now that you have the PDF I want you to read through it, run it, and enjoy it. Before we send it off to the printer I want you to help us stomp out any typos and provide feedback. Please use this form to provide feedback.
We will send this to the printer toward the end of October because I want to have time to go through this one more time piece by piece before we send it off. If all things go according to plan (HAHA!) I expect fulfillment to begin after Christmas. Thank you again for your support. It truly means the world to Tim and me.
Tim is finishing the last few pieces of art, which are the Deck of the Damned. This is a deck of powerful effects players can draw from every day, but doing so deals despair damage to them. This brings them ever closer to eventually becoming demons. They are bartering pieces of their soul in exchange for temporary power.
Let's take a look at some of the final full illustrations of the book.
TIMELINE
I expect the layout for HELLCRAWL to be done by the end of September. By the end of September (hopefully sooner) we will have the PDF in your hands. Then I'd like you to take some time and help us look for any typos. I'll share a google form with you so that you can provide feedback. Then we will send it + the cards to the printer in October. After that HELLCRAWL will go to our fulfillment team. The HELLCRAWL shirts are already ordered and ready to go. The Art prints are on their way from Australia.
The Painted Wastelands 5.5e
Our next project is The Painted Wastelands 5.5e, it launches October 13th. For non-5.5e fans we have a lot of options. We are producing two shirts, a dice box, some fancy dice, ectos, and a few more surprises I have to wait to announce. Make sure to follow us at https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/agamemnon-press/the-painted-wastelands-5e
The T-Shirt Pledge is designed for Agamemnon Press fans (who aren't 5.5e fans) and an opportunity to add any other items you'd like. Our past catalog will be available, and returning backers will receive a special pin, the seal of the bleeding eye. This hard enamel pin is 1.5" across and not available for purchase. It can only be earned by those who've been by our side all along. It's a small symbol of how grateful I am for all of your support. If it weren't for you, where would I be?
I wanted to take a moment and talk about our next big project The Painted Wastelands for 5e. This is something I've always talked about doing and feel now is the time for us to begin. The biggest motivator for me was my recent booth at Phoenix Fan Fusion and GenCon. I had multiple conversations with folks excited about The Painted Wastelands and it would usually go like this:
Me: Finishes excitedly talking about how you can play as a cat. Them: Is this for 5th Edition? Me: No actually, it's for Old School Essentials, which is an updated version of basic and expert D&D.
Then I just watch the light fade from their eyes. It happened a lot.
I get this sentiment. I've never really been a person who is hung up on rules and rulesets. I play Dungeon Crawl Classics, OSE, 5th Edition, Warhammer Horus Heresy (3rd Edition), Trench Crusade, Infinity, Magic the Gathering, Warhammer 40k (11th edition now!) and more. At the end of the day I've literally never said to myself "Wow those are the most amazing rules!" I usually just enjoy playing games with my friends.
For many players in our hobby, I think 5e is a gateway drug into better and more esoteric games. I don't know how many TTRPG players discover and run PirateBorg first and then go "Huh, what's this Dungeons and Dragons?" I think 5e serves an important role in this hobby. For some game groups it may be the only version they play. For others, it is an amuse-bouche before they enjoy a more complex meal of what this hobby has to offer. I want to be apart of that and help pull those players into a greater wider world.
At the end of the day, I'm not selling mechanics (this is why there is no bespoke Painted Wastelands Roleplaying Game rule system, and I have no intention of making one). I'm selling a world. 5e has a lot of interesting tools to get players more engaged and excited about the world. One of my core design realizations is players really care about their characters and their role in the world. Unless a player interacts with or touches something in the setting, it doesn't really matter to them. In the original OSE version, Merch as treasure is how I addressed getting players excited about the weird shows and bands Tim created. 5e has even more dials and options to play with using factions, backgrounds, and subclasses.
Does This Mean Agamemnon Press is Abandoning OSE?
Absolutely not. Writing for OSE is awesome and I love it. I am also in the middle of writing our 3rd Lower Ethereal Hierarchy book The Hundred Year Coast. We will bring that to backerkit as well once it's done. My current plan is to write for OSE first and then to go back and convert previous books to other rules like 5e. I'd love to see The Painted Wastelands full converted to DCC if there's an audience for it.
This project has a lot of cool stuff in it. Besides the two hardback books (Painted Wastelands Campaign Guide and Painted Wastelands Adventurer's Guide) We're also adding new add ons. We've designed a new shirt with the nightmare slayer from the Adventurer's Guide on it. I'm working with a really cool independent company called Ravenwood to make Painted Wastelands dice vaults. These are handmade items made by a small company and made in America and I am excited to show off our prototypes. I have high standards for add ons and I'm so happy I've gotten to link up with Jen and Rob.
If you're interested in our work, feel free to follow our project and get the instant preview. If you pre-register you'll get early access to our project and a 5e adventure + a set of dice. I converted a portion of Strange Tales of the Painted Wastelands to 5e.
Return Backer Reward- The Great Seal of the Bleeding Eye
There are people who have supported me from the beginning. I see their names show up again and again as I put packages together. You've been there for me when this was just a crazy dream. Now Agamemnon Press is growing and building partnerships with fulfillment companies like Gamer's Guild and distributors like Studio 2. We've won ENNIE Awards because of you. To show my gratitude I'm going to give out this item:
This 1.5" pin is something I've wanted to hand out for a while. When I go to conventions I'm always deeply humbled by the people and families who support my work or come back to my booth to see what new things we have. If you're a return backer and back the Painted Wastelands 5e you get one of these pins. They are not available for sale, they can only be earned through loyalty and service. If you see me at a convention and you've backed my stuff before, tell me so I can hand you one of these.
I'm here to give you an update on our book and how I expect our progress on HELLCRAWL.
First, the writing is done, major layout is finished, maps are done. Art is 95% done.
Tim has 5 illustrations left, 4 of which are either inked or sketched, only hasn't started yet. At the rate Tim completes artwork I expect these to be completed very soon. As for the Deck of the Damned there's 10 cards that need to be completed, but they are sketched out. The cards go pretty quickly.
So I feel safe to say that you will have a completed PDF by the end of September. We will also send this off to the printer by the end of September.
We will order everything from the printer at the same time (books, cards, devil dollars) because I know it can create big delays when they are ordered separately. It's simply better for them all to travel on the same boat. With Empire of Bones there was a delay in printing the Deck of Dead things, which lead to a month delay due to customs inspections of the ship they were on, which lead to a delay in delivering some orders. I appreciate how understanding our backers are and I will continue to be as transparent as possible with any delays and do everything in my power to prevent them.
Well well well! Look who found himself trapped in HELL! It's Tiger Wizard from Exalted Funeral! I got to meet Andrew at GenCon and had a marvelous time hanging out with him and the crew from Exalted Funeral. I've never met people so quick to treat me as an old friend. This is our chapter heading image for "Factions" and Tim was lost what to do. The image immediately jumped into my mind. We do a few of our demons from our factions arguing as they play D&D while the poor forever DM looks tormented. Tim's illustration turned out just as I thought in my mind with all sorts of fun details. I can't wait until it's colored in!
BIG ANNOUNCEMENT TOMORROW
Expect a big announcement tomorrow about our next project launching in October! Pre-Launch begins tomorrow. And one of the things I want to do is reward return backers. Something that gives me strength to go on is the knowledge that many of you have been with me since the start. Some of you have followed my work before I even started on The Painted Wastelands. You're heroes in my book. Because of that, I want to bestow upon you a great sign of our friendship. The Seal of the Bleeding Eye pin is an incentive available to return backers and return customers (if you bought through my site in the past instead of Kickstarter/BackerKit). This pin cannot be bought, it can only be earned through your continued support. It is a small token of my gratitude. Stay Tuned tomorrow for more!
I wanted to give you all a heads up that I will be locking the Pledge Manager and charging cards August 14. Tim has just a few illustrations to complete for HELLCRAWL and will be done soon. So make sure to make any changes you want to your pledge now.
Why, look what we have here! A little sketch of a certain TIGER WIZARD I know being tortured in HELL!
If you move between now and October just give me the heads up and I can update your address. Just as a reminder, the cost for shipping of European Union and Norwegian backers has gone down thanks to my new partnership with Mudknight Games.
Also, this past GenCon The Painted Wastelands Player's Guide won an ENNIE award for Best Supplement. I am grateful to everyone who voted for us and supported us. It really means the world to Tim and I that we continue to grow and share this strange world with you.
