Hey everyone!
It's been about a month since the last update, and with Gen Con taking up my time the rest of the week I wanted to get the next one out ahead of that (I'm not there as a vendor this year, but I will be playing a ton of RPGs and wandering around. I'll have a T-shirt with the Lone Colossus logo on it two of the days, so if you see me feel free to say hi). As with last month, things continue to proceed as planned and I haven't run into any notable delays yet.

If you're interested in having a say in which illustration from the book gets used to create the art print poster reward, be sure to check the bottom of this update for the poll for that! These art prints will be a limited run, with just a bit more than needed to fulfill backer orders, so be sure to add one to your survey if you want one!

Thanks to everyone who has already completed their pledge manager surveys! If you're part of the 3% of people who haven't, make sure to fill it out as soon as possible! The only times I've ever had backers not get their rewards it was due to them not filling out the survey. If you can't find your link in your email, you can go here to request a new one. If you use an Apple email or some other form of anonymized email, the emails from BackerKit are often blocked by the email provider/sent to spam. If you still aren't getting your link after requesting a new one, try using a different email address.

I have just a handful of trainers left to write, and then the draft of everything for the book will be complete! Chapter 1 (boons, charms, and pacts) has finished its balance edit and is now in copy editing. The remaining chapters are now in balance editing (the trainers themselves have no mechanics, so they aren't part of that edit).

Unless during layout we determine I should commission more artwork, we're down to just 10 pieces left to be completed, and at least half of those should be done in the next couple of weeks!

Work on layout continues, but we're not quite ready to share the first chapter just yet. Depending on when editing finishes up, you might get the chapter after final edits occur - just depends on how long it takes to finalize layout choices. In the meantime though, here's an unfinished example of what Jelke (the layout artist) has been working on for chapter title pages.

We're getting closer and closer to the release of the first chapter, and I can't wait to share it with you when it's ready! In the meantime, I'm starting to post artwork and teasers for the book on Pinterest (which also get shared in my Discord server as they're posted), currently at a rate of ~1/week, but probably more frequently after I find a bit more time in my schedule.

- Josh