Category Archives: Dionysian force

Update, FAQ, and Bast With His Shirt Off

Okay, there’s been a lot happening with the kickstarter in the last couple days, so today sharing some news. That will be the first part of the blog.

People have also been asking a lot of kickstarter question, so I’m going to answer a bunch of those. That will be the second part of the blog.

I will also be sharing art, making jokes, and engaging in my usual verbosic circumlocutions. But those will just be mixed through the entirety of the blog, as opposed to being in one particular place.

As I’m writing this, the Pairs Kickstarter has just passed 150K. So….

  • The Faen Deck Is Now Available

This is actually kinda old news by this point, as it unlocked at 130K.

Still, some celebration is in order, so here’s a picture of Bast with his shirt off.

3-Bast_v2-4

(Because I love you.)

  • Now Starring Veronica Belmont and Hank Green’s Butt

After I posted my last blog I started to think about the different cards in the Faen deck. Among the most interesting of these, for me, is The Mortal Guest.

Because what sort of Fae revel would it be without a mortal guest?

Then the question becomes, who would that mortal be? A farmer? A milkmaid? A tanner? And what would those guests be doing? Dancing? Singing? Cavorting?

It occurred to me that it would be a lot more fun to have several *different* mortal guests, each behaving according to their own desire.

So I gave Veronica Belmont a call, because a while back we’d talked about her lending her likeness to a different project. She thought being a Mortal Guest in the deck sounded like fun.

What would she like to be doing at the Faerie Revel, I asked. Singing? Dancing? Cavorting with…

Cavorting, she said. Cavorting with hunky faerie boys.

I’m not sure at what point I decided to call Hank Green, but it was an easy mental step for me to take. In my opinion, someone willing to film himself seducing a tree belongs at a faerie revel.

Hank was delighted to be invited. When, in the interest of full disclosure, I explained to him that there would be some mild cavorting going on, he said he’d happily allow his mortal likeness to be seduced by faerie women, if it was required for the artistic integrity of the deck, that is.

I also explained that… well… there was going to be some gentle nudity in the deck too. Felurian would be naked, because….

At that point, Hank burst out with something along the lines of, “You can totally show my bare ass!”

In that moment, my heart grew three sizes. And I realized I wanted nothing so much in the world as to show Hank Green’s naked ass in this deck of cards.

Those were the 140K stretch goal, and the 150K goal, respectively. Nate’s preliminary sketches are *amazing.*

If any of this bothers you, you probably want to check out the FAQ below, specifically the part titled: “How Sexy is the Faen Deck Going To Be?”

  • Party at PAX

Those of you who have done a few kickstarters know there are typically some high-end donation levels up past 1000 dollars.  I’ve heard them referred to as “Patron Levels” and not only do they offer up some cool perks, but they give people a chance to throw money at a project if they *really* want to show their support.

People were asking if we were going to add a level like that, so we did. It’s for a Pairs release party during PAX in Seattle.

At that level, you get twelve decks, the coin, the bookplate…

bookplate-sketch2[3]

…and all the other goodies included in the 120 dollar level. In addition to all that, you get a swag bag full of additional swag, too.

PLUS you get two tickets to the Pairs release party with James Ernest, Shane Tyree, Paul Peterson, myself, and whatever other cool geeks we manage to round up. And, given that it’s going to be PAX weekend, there will be some awesome geeks in town.

Personally, I’m hoping Phil Foglio will be there.

We’ll eat good food, hang out, and play games. If Catan is available, I will systematically play and destroy all who dare oppose me. Maybe we’ll be playtesting tak by that point. Or corners.

If only a few tickets sell, it will be a cosy affair. If more tickets sell, we’ll upgrade to full shindig level with a bigger venue where everything will be extra fancy and we’ll have some kind of hot cheese.

So now you know.

  • FAQ:

 

Can I order internationally?

Yes, the shipping just costs a little more. Details are right on the kickstarter page.

What decks are there again? What’s been unlocked?

There’s a new graphic showing this on the Kickstarter, but let me steal it and post it up here so everyone can see without having to click through:

Card display

(Click to Embiggen)

Why don’t you have a color Modegan card yet?

Well…. that’s my fault. I picked the hardest card in the Modegan deck to work on first, The High King. There’s a lot of iconography and detail work to get right, especially as this is the first glimpse of Modeg any of you are going to have. I spent hours on it with Shane… then realized it was all wrong and we had to start over.

Shane is a saint, really. He puts up with me being a real freak.

But the result ends up being some *beautiful* art:

Cards

Rest assured you’ll be seeing a couple cool examples of the Modegan Deck before too long though.

Are we going to hit 200K and unlock the Girl Genius Phil Foglio deck?

Absolutely. The last days for a kickstarter always end up huge. We’ll hit $200K easy.

 

Why did you bring in Hank and Veronica?

Short version? I thought it would be fun.

Long answer is the same as when I brought in Neil Gaiman and Felicia Day in the NOTW deck.

Some of these decks are going to be limited edition?

Yeah. The plan is for some of the decks to be re-printed indefinitely, showing up in game stores and conventions. Odds are they’ll retail for 10-12 dollars.

Other decks won’t be re-printed. They might only be sold in a few places after the kickstarter. And when they’re gone, they’re gone.

I think it’s fairly safe to say that the core deck will stay in print. Probably the Modegan deck too. Maybe… Pirates and Barmaids too?

Honestly, I’m just guessing right now. The best thing to do right now is if you want a deck, buy it now. If you want to have a spare deck, or one to give away as a gift, you might want to buy that now too….

So… just how sexy is this Faen deck going to be?

Apparently a non-zero number of people are concerned about how risque the Faen deck is going to be.

Unfortunately, there’s no solid metric that I can give you. I can’t say something like “It’ll be PG-13” because that means different things to different people.

Instead, I’m going to tell you why you shouldn’t buy the Faen deck:

  • If the thought of seeing Felurian’s naked ass on a playing card will give you apoplexy, don’t buy the Faen deck.
  • If the thought of seeing Bast dance naked around a fire horrifies you, don’t buy the Faen deck.
  • If the sight of a bare breast will ruin your day, don’t buy the Faen deck.
  • If the thought of faeries seducing some mortal makes you uncomfortable, don’t buy the Faen deck.
  • If seeing a picture of two hunky elf dudes kissing will terribly offend you, don’t buy the Faen deck.
  • If Hank Green’s nude butt is going to freak you out, don’t buy the Faen deck.

On the other hand, if you like the thought of a deck of cards where consenting fictional characters cavort around playfully, some of them in moderate undress… well… then this deck might be for you.

Now is the deck going to be all full of nymph coochie and big wangly elf dong? No. I hope you know me better than that. (I’m saving that for my urban fantasy series.)

The Mortal Guest cards will be kinda naughty. Felurian will be naked, seen from behind. Remmen is currently wearing a loincloth and his cloak of autumn leaves. There will be hunky Fae boys with no shirts on. And that’s about it. Nobody’s going to be fucking a horse or anything. I’m not looking to do the Faerie version of Caligula here….

In brief, if you think this deck isn’t for you? It probably isn’t for you. The solution is to not buy it. That would be the right choice.

The *wrong* choice would be to buy it, unwrap it, look at it, get a magnifying class so you can see every tiny detail on the Faerie Revel card, become so angry you vomit molten bile, then have a stroke and die.

Ultimately, the choice is up to you.

I’m kinda confused about how I buy the decks I want…

Here’s how it works.

Let’s say you sign up at the 16 dollar level. You get one deck. After the kickstarter is finished, you get to pick your one deck from all the ones that have been unlocked.

If you sign up at the 42 dollar level, after the kickstarter is over you can pick out four decks. So you could grab 1 core deck, 1 princess deck, 1 Phil Foglio deck, and 1 copy of Falling, because you like the thought of playing a game where the object is to be the person who’s hitting the ground last.

Or you could buy 2 Princess decks and 2 Modegan decks.

Or you could buy 4 copies of the Faen deck, because you’re dirty.

 

But here’s the thing, once the kickstarter is over, it’s *over.* You won’t be able to add more decks after the kickstarter is closed.

Fair warning.

pat

Also posted in cool things, Nathan Taylor Art, sexy, side projects | By Pat53 Responses

On Being A Winner

Remember the David Gemmell award I talked about waaaaaay back in May?

You don’t? It’s the UK based contest. The one where I did a promotional interview after drinking too much coffee and talked about how I wanted to be Spider-Man?

Yeah. That contest. The one where the award they give out is an actual axe.

I won:

I have to say that I really approve of this trend. In the future, all awards I get should be weapons. Or a bejeweled crown. Or some manner of scepter that I can use to lord my awesomeness all over the peasantry.

The best part is that it’s actually a pretty good axe. I’ve already used it to destroy parts of our porch, and the old garage at the work house where this photo was taken.

(Click to Embiggen, If You Dare…)

And it’s not even sharpened yet. I’m thinking once I get a good edge on this, it will become my backup writing axe.

Have a great weekend everybody,

pat

Also posted in accolades, awards, being awesome | By Pat70 Responses

The Long-Awaited T-Shirt Blog

Back in June, I asked y’all if you’d like to see some Name of the Wind t-shirts.

When the answer came back a fairly resounding “Yes.” I decided to do a T-shirt design contest.

We got more designs than I expected. So many designs I knew I wasn’t going to be able to include all the ones I liked in the voting.

It took a while to sort through them all. Then we ended up having to do a bunch of secondary research as well. Apparently, if you want to sell something on your website, you need a store or somesuch thing.

I know. It’s crazy.

Anyway, we’ve finally got most of that figured out. So now we have the moment of truth. Now I’m going to ask y’all to vote on which shirts you would actually like to buy and/or wear.

You’ll notice that we’ve included a few of the designs that I initially said we were going to pass over. That’s partly there were a few persuasive blog comments and e-mails sent in. Also, Sarah and Valerie stood up for some designs. Sarah loved the little anime Kvothe with his speech bubbles, and demanded that I include him. I’m growing increasingly fond of the little guy myself.

Before you vote, a few polite requests:

  • Let’s not descend into internet jackassery here. We’re better than that. Don’t vote a bunch of times. That’s not cool.
  • If you know deep in your heart that you’re never going to buy a shirt, it would be nice if you didn’t vote. It’s not that your opinion doesn’t  matter…. It’s just that it doesn’t matter in this particular instance.
  • You can vote for two shirts. That means you should vote for the shirt that you’d really love to buy. And then the shirt that you’d love to buy if your first choice isn’t one of the ones we print.
  • When you’re voting, double check the name of the shirt to make sure you’re casting your vote correctly. The name of the shirt is ABOVE THE PICTURE. ABOVE.

Names Compilation

Dangerous to Go Alone

Denner Toothpaste

NOTW Kvothe Symbols

Lute Design

Sweets Draccus

Denner Fishing

Eolian Bar Shirt

NOTW Tree

NOTW Speech Bubbles

NOTW Fancy Design

Kingkiller

Hello My Name Is

(Note: This design will be the size of an actual name sticker.

Also, “You may have heard of me” will be printed under the sticker in smaller text, not on the back.)

Lute Hero

Choose your t-shirt!

  • Eolian Bar Shirt (20%, 2,124 Votes)
  • Kingkiller (16%, 1,727 Votes)
  • Names Compilation (13%, 1,428 Votes)
  • Denner Fishing (10%, 1,056 Votes)
  • NOTW Fancy Design (7%, 721 Votes)
  • Lute Design (6%, 642 Votes)
  • Hello My Name Is (5%, 585 Votes)
  • NOTW Tree (5%, 499 Votes)
  • Lute Hero (4%, 455 Votes)
  • Sweets Draccus (4%, 402 Votes)
  • NOTW Kvothe Symbols (4%, 398 Votes)
  • Dangerous to Go Alone (4%, 379 Votes)
  • Denner Toothpaste (2%, 207 Votes)
  • NOTW Speech Bubbles (1%, 159 Votes)

Total Voters: 6,684

Loading ... Loading ...

A few additional notes:

  • Vote soon. Tell your friends. The poll will be closing in a week.
  • We will be printing at least two different designs. Maybe three.
  • Colors are to-be-determined. (Though the sweet-eating draccus will probably be blue.)
  • T-shirts will be high-quality material, and probably cost around 20 bucks.
  • All proceeds from the t-shirt sales will go to Worldbuilders.

Later all,

pat

Edit: We will, of course, have lady-sized shirts. Because I want to do something special for all the ladies in the world.

Also posted in calling on the legions, cool things | By Pat213 Responses
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