29 hours ago the UVG kickstarter launched. If you wanted to get onto the hype wagon before it made it big … uhh … it’s too late. We hit our funding goal and the book is getting made in just under eight hours.
So fast, in fact, that I barely had time to write a post for the stratometaship patreon supporters, and certainly not for this blog! Oops!
Still, it’s good. You’ve got another 58 days to check out the project, decide you do need some trpg goodness inspired by heavy metal, the Dying Earth genre, and classic Oregon Trail games.
Over the next few weeks we’re going to update everybody on shipping options, while our astonishing editing duo, the MoonRat Conspiracy, finishes going over the entire manuscript with a sharp red pen, setting it up for layout next month.
The address for all questions until March is Exalted Funeral. The stand-up indie rpg and metal distribution company, and all round great people. Do pester them, I’m sure they’ll respond!
The Backstory, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love the Kickstarter
In August 2018 I completed the manuscript and illustrations of the Ultraviolet Grasslands (UVG), a rules-light psychedelic metal trip of an rpg, from the Violet City of the Cat Lords to the Black City on the edge of space and time (review by Fear of a Black Dragon podcast).
Ever since, together with Exalted Funeral Press and with kind support from the Hydra Coöperative, we’ve been preparing to bring it to hard-back full-color printed physicality with a kickstarter. The initial plan was to launch on January 17th, after we tested partnership and printer with a limited edition run of Witchburner, my later (and shorter) module of witch-hunting in a claustrophobic little mountain town (review by Dungeons and Possums).
Now, for various reasons (printing a book over Christmas and New Year!), we took a few weeks longer to print, receive, and ship the books than initially planned. Still, we sold out the entire limited edition print-run in 3.5 days in pre-orders with no marketing spend. We were amazed by the response. We still are. Thank you!
Once all the Witchburner books were shipped and flying to their new owners, we moved ahead with the big project: the UVG kickstarter. We locked everything, put everything order … and discovered we had to wait up to a week for the review process. Thus, the slight delay and why we launched on February 13th.
Still, we started the editing process in January and we’re on schedule. I’ll be adjusting some sections and updating some content with feedback from our editors, Fiona and Jarrett of MoonRat Conspiracy, and we’ve slated layout to begin in mid-March. We also know what the layout is going to be like already, because the UVG occupies a related conceptual space to Red Sky Dead City and that ongoing patreon-backed project provided the opportunity for me to design and test the layout for the UVG hardcover.
If this tickles your fancy, go back the kickstarter now. It’s almost painless, and you’ll have until Sunday, April 14th to change your mind, because it will run for another 58 days!
Meanwhile, Luka’s Out For A Bit
Meanwhile, I’m heading off on my winter vacation till the end of February. It’s been booked a while, and we decided to launch the kickstarter rather than keeping everybody waiting longer … not least because G+ is dying. Now are the last days you can see my art, a lot of which also made it into the UVG, in its original collection.
The UVG kickstarter project is in good hands for the next two weeks. Direct all specific questions to Exalted Funeral, they’re the infrastructure half of our endeavor, after all! And if you have prayers, kind wishes, or jolly pictures to share, direct them to our editors, as they finish polishing and embettering the manuscript.
Peace, space, time, and awesome riffs to everyone out there!
2 replies on “Ultraviolet Grasslands Are Kickstarted”
Hi Luka, will the full UVG have your WTF rules with it, or use some kind of B/X clone, or use something else, or use nothing else?
It’s going to have a streamlined version of the WTF rules, which should be pretty compatible and mostly invisible.
For example, for a given challenge, it’ll just say “Easy Str Test” – and the referee can adapt that to their system. In an appendix we’re breaking down what each of those means in some systems (e.g. 5E-compatible it might be DC 10, B/X clone it might be roll 2d6 under stat).
Most of the monsters are being streamlined down to something like Ethereal Hagfish (L2, carcass-lover), and an appendix again has lists of mechanical abilities adjectives might entail.
Hope that answers your question!