Losing Wagers, Doubling Donations, and Playing a Beautiful Game…

So for today’s blog to make sense, you might want to go back and read the one I wrote a couple days ago.

It’s was my favorite blog I’ve written in a while, with some quite nice faerie-tale flavor in parts. So even if you don’t care much about the charity stuff I’m doing, there’s something for you to enjoy there.

For those of you who can’t be bothered, here’s the gist: A couple days ago, I wagered the community that they couldn’t raise $333,333 on my team page before I beat the Ender Dragon in Minecraft.

And… well… y’all did it. Handily.

More than that, once I posted the blog and shared it, y’all stormed so hard I didn’t even have time to hit send on a tweet I’d typed up using this graphic:

(Made by the fabulous E’lir Lisa.)

Truth is, this is exactly what I was hoping for. That people would hear the news, get excited, then come in and make it a race. Then we’d play together, have some fun, raise scads of money to feed hungry kids, and make the world a better place.

But… it kinda worked *better* than we’d anticipated. Y’all came in and just trampled things to the extent that we burned through *all* our stretch goals within hours, leaving us without more cool stuff we could immediately offer. Let alone graphics to show them off.

(Graphics like this.)

And so while it was cool, it was also a bit of a shame. We were left with nothing else to offer up despite the fact that the fundraiser is still going on and all donations are still being matched.

First off, let’s be clear. Y’all won the wager. So:

1. I’ll be reading the prologue of Doors of Stone and doing a Q&A on my Twitch Channel.
2. I’ll be showing off some of the finished pages of the The Boy That Loved The Moon.
3. I’ll be releasing a chapter of Doors of Stone into the wild. (When? I’ talk about that below.)

But it seems a shame to stop there. For one thing, I still haven’t beaten the Ender Dragon.

And also, we still needed more stretch goal prizes for the team page.

And also also, I really liked those graphics that E’lir Lisa came up with, and we barely got to use them…

So here’s what we’re doing:

(Warning, this graphic on the blog won’t be updated as frequently as over on Twitch Team Page.)

You see the stretch goals on the left? Those are going into the prize draw as soon as folks hit the donation amount.

That said, if y’all manage to hit those goals *before* I beat the Ender Dragon, I’ll donate TWO of each prize.

“But wait!” I hear you cry. “What’s that thing way down at the bottom there?

Here’s the thing, I’ve met a lot of cool folks over the years. Voice actors, comedians, musicians, audio narrators, performers, actors, puppeteers….

I think that sounds like a fun way of releasing the early peek of the book. I’m hoping some of my friends will like the idea too.

So I’m going to cast my net among my friends and see who might like to come help me read the chapter of Doors of Stone for y’all. Then, if we hit $666,666, I’ll  assemble the Geek Glitterati equivalent of the Avengers and we’ll record it for you. It might take a bit to assemble, as cool people tend to be busy, and there’s no way I’m going to ask them to do it during the fundraiser. But I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to get it done early next year. February at the latest.

Okay. We ready? Here we go.

My team page is already over $420,000.

All donations are currently being matched.

The Fundraiser runs until midnight on the 14th.

Race you to the end…

pat

Edit: 1:31 pm – In the last 12 hours, through the dark hours of night when I was mostly asleep, the team page has raised another $60,000 unlocking double sets HeroQuest and the cool, Wooden-box version of Risk from Avalon Hill. AS WELL AS two copies of the limited edition cover of of Vault of Magic from Kobold Press that I wrote a part of, personalized by me, with some of the rare D&D cards.

Y’all are amazing…