Zombie Orpheus Entertainment
CREATOR
8 days ago
Project Update: Grandmaster Signature Plan
A huge thank you to the more than 1000 backers who participated in last week's poll and left thoughtful comments and ideas.
As a reminder, Misty and Larry have both experienced significant bites on their fingers from their rescue birds recently. Larry's healing is going quickly, but the bite on Misty's writing hand will require significant time, physiotherapy, and care. Misty is able to type, but cannot hold a pen without immense pain.
After consulting with all of you, chatting with the fan community on Discord, and a subsequent conversation with Misty and Larry, plus a technical discussion with our manufacturer, we have settled on the following plan:
As a reminder, Misty and Larry have both experienced significant bites on their fingers from their rescue birds recently. Larry's healing is going quickly, but the bite on Misty's writing hand will require significant time, physiotherapy, and care. Misty is able to type, but cannot hold a pen without immense pain.
After consulting with all of you, chatting with the fan community on Discord, and a subsequent conversation with Misty and Larry, plus a technical discussion with our manufacturer, we have settled on the following plan:
- The signature page in Grandmaster Deluxe will be printed on translucent vellum with black ink, featuring digital signatures in metallic blue. This will be part of the book itself. The art is below. (After initially quoting it, the manufacturer's tech team ultimately rejected foil as the heat would cause the paper stock to warp.)
- Misty and Larry will hand sign the existing signatures pages when they are physically able, as long as it takes. Those will be available as a separate single page, exclusively to backers, whenever they're done. Expect months, if not more than a year, for the hand signed page to be available. We will cover the cost of shipping those separately if we can.
- Limited signed bookplates will be available when Grandmaster ships for those who need them. We have tracked down a limited number of bookplates that Misty and Larry signed for our prior campaign, World of Valdemar. As there are some backers who have a strong and direct emotional connection to the physical signature, we will release an opt-in poll, for backers who can't wait, to reserve and receive one of these signed World of Valdemar plates when we fulfill Grandmaster. We'll release that poll when we get a count of those plates from Misty and Larry.
Based on your survey results, we hope that this will satisfy the vast majority of backers:
- the book isn't delayed any further,
- we get a cool signature page,
- the signed pages will be ready when they're ready, and
- we'll take care of as many people who need a signature now as we can. (We're anticipating that we have around 300 signed bookplates ready to go.)
If this is absolutely a non-starter for you, we will open up a refund process in September for anyone who would rather not receive the book in this form.
For everyone else, we thank you so much for your understanding and support. None of us planned for rescue birds with horrifically sharp beaks to take chunks out of fingers, but we're pivoting as best as we can to collaborate on a process that meets as many needs as possible.
IMPORTANT PERSONAL NOTE:
This is Ben writing. I booked my August vacation last year before the bird bite issue was on the horizon. My goal this summer has been to get the books to print before my departure, which I think we can just squeeze in. However, I will NOT be online for most of August (I'm hiking off-grid in New Zealand). I've asked Corvyn to monitor the support email in my absence, but please be patient if you don't hear back right away.
As with every campaign that we run, everyone will be helped as long as you keep replying to your email.
THE SIGNATURE PAGE
Pending approval from the manufacturer, here's what we expect the signature page to look like. At the recommendation of backers in the comments, we've changed from gold to metallic blue to fit the aesthetic of the book.
Misty and Larry both very graciously managed a single signature for us, despite the pain, and Larry was able to scan and send over their work.
This is a composite image. In the book, the words of the title will appear on a sheet behind the translucent signature page, making the final effect an overlay.
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