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Happy Monday everyone — and happy Memorial Day to all the American folks! Hope everyone is having a good rest and celebration today.
We Hit 7K members on Patreon!
Thank you to everyone who has joined, including those on the free tier. Every single person here is appreciated and it genuinely means a lot to all of us.
Peppin Plush — Pre-Order Closes June 12th
Just a reminder that the Peppin plush is still available for pre-order. The window closes on June 12th at 12PM Pacific — after that, it's gone for good. This is the last Kingmaker merch that will ever be made. If you want one, now is the time. I've already pre-ordered a few extra for myself so I can give some away at conventions if the opportunity ever comes up.
I'll be reaching out to the manufacturer to get the current pre-order numbers — we're genuinely curious how many people have jumped in, and it's good data for us going forward.
https://youtooz.com/products/peppin-plush-9-inch
Show Updates
WarHams: A Chaos Odyssey (Black Crusade)
No Black Crusade recording today — Thurston is just getting back from his trip and I want to give him time to readjust before we throw him back into it. We've rescheduled to Thursday the 28th instead.
Jers has been doing a great job on the Black Crusade art and should be in good shape through our schedule. He's moving soon so I want to make sure we plan around that, but we do have a break week in June on the 15th which should help.
Rotgrind
We have a Rotgrind recording this Wednesday and the stream on the 27th.
Skelly has been working on assets for the new arc — she had to knock out some quick Rotgrind pieces alongside the Season of Ghosts character art. Bless her heart, she's doing a fantastic job.
The PDF drop this week will be a Lizardfolk pack — I'm compiling all the Lizardfolk variants from Orin's arc into one big collection. You'll get the standard ones, the caster variants, the rotten versions, all of it in one batch. That should be out Tuesday or Wednesday.
Tales of Bravos — Whisperwood
Big update: the show has a name. I gave the group a list of options, everyone voted, and Whisperwood won. I might add something to it like "Journey into Whisperwood" but for now Whisperwood is what we're going with. Let me know in the comments if you love it, hate it, or if you're aware of something else with that name I should know about — I searched around and didn't find any conflicts but you never know.
Here's the full Season of Ghosts / Whisperwood update:
June schedule for test sessions: June 6th, June 13th, and then June 27th will be our very first official recording and first live stream. June 20th is both my birthday and Horatius has stuff pre-planned, so we're using that as a skip week.
I want to apologize for how long it's taken to get here. The beginning of this year threw us a lot of surprises we weren't expecting, and I take responsibility for some of the delays on my end. You guys deserve better and I'm working hard to make sure this first episode is as strong as it can be.
Everyone has confirmed they're good with the schedule. I'll be reconfirming with the full group today just to make sure we're all locked in and no surprises come up.
The Triumph system post is going out today with a banner Mikura made for it — thank you Mikura, it looks great! The post will also list which campaigns are currently using the system. For Rotgrind, I talked to the crew and they want to keep things as they are for now. Whisperwood will be the first show to use both the Triumph and Complication systems.
I'll also be recording short videos today showing how the Triumph and Complication systems work in the module so you can see what it actually looks like before the show starts.
The chat integration module is mostly working but the real test will be a live stream environment — you can only do so much local testing. There may be a random Narrative Declaration test stream where I just ask everyone to hop in and start chatting so we can stress test it. I'll give you a heads up when that happens.
Regarding the Patreon API integration for tier-based priority — it is being a nightmare. Me and Stan have been losing our minds over it. Still working on it.
To answer Alexander's question from the comments: you'll be able to start submitting Triumphs and Complications for Whisperwood soon! I'll make sure that's all clearly outlined in the posts going out today.
To answer Brian's question about raw vs. edited: I'll be putting up a poll today or tomorrow to get everyone's input on what you prefer for Whisperwood. My instinct as a producer is to always deliver a polished product, but if the majority of you want raw and uncut I'll work with EzeDoesIt to figure out what's feasible. What I won't do is ask him to edit it twice — that's not fair to him. So it'll need to be one or the other.
Other Updates
Marketing is in a really good place — I've got clips queued and pre-scheduled across our social platforms for most of the year. Now shifting focus to more recent content and pushing the animated shorts more broadly.
Mikura's recent animation went out last Saturday and has been doing really well. Keep sharing them if you enjoy them — you're free to share anything we put out on your socials. Just don't steal or re-monetize it, obviously.
The fan art has been incredible lately. Chaos Odyssey fan art especially has been making us all giddy whenever we see it. Shoutout to Powderedbycaffeine for the Byzantine fan art — I got distracted looking at it while recording.
I'm also thinking about doing some behind-the-scenes content — desk setup, what my desktop looks like when a show is running, the tools I use to make everything work. Let me know in the comments if that's something you'd be interested in seeing.
Convention thoughts: I'd genuinely love to do a booth at some point. Budget is currently concentrated on the team, but I miss getting to see you all in person. Going to conventions and hearing directly from fans who love the shows does something for morale that no comment section ever can. It's on my radar for the future.
Thank You
Lots happening this week — Triumph system launch, PDF drop, recordings later in the week, and a ton of background production work. We're building toward something really exciting with Whisperwood and I want it to be something you're all proud of too.
Love you all so much. Stay safe out there and I'll see you next week!
— Zoran & the Narrative Declaration Team