Hey team, it’s Monday, so it’s time for another update.

Lots of preproduction work is headed into the final stages. Right now, the entire book is assembled, and is undergoing proofreading. Lots of small glitches being found by the team, which is understandable in a work this long.

Layout wise, Michael did his style unification pass, and helped clean up some stragglers. Some running titles got fixed, the ToC and Index now are ordered properly. All the boxes use the same style, that sort of thing.

Artwork is proceeding, and as the commissions come in I’m slotting them into their respective spaces. I’m using some stock art to fill in some of the blanks and I’m fairly happy with where the art density is going to wind up.

Last week I sent a wire transfer to the printer securing the order for 1,500 copies of Dragon Heresy with a 40% deposit. I also finished the cover and submitted that for checking.

If it’s accepted, they’ll start the quality control on the cover, which will involve some “wet proofs” where they actually MAKE the cover.

Hopefully I’ll have all my first-round commissioned art in by the end of this week, and then I’ll finish inserting that, see what spaces I have left, and check the budget. After the files go out, I’ll do first a preliminary and then a final accounting for you guys of “where did the money go?” so that you can see the disposition of project funds.

Shields

A quick note on the top-tier rewards. Three of the five shields have been delivered. Of the last two, one requires some special wood. That being said, here are some fun images:

Backerkit

There are still (only!) four people with physical copies of the books that need to fill out surveys for shipping, and I’ll be sending them personal nudges.

Otherwise, most cards are charged, most money is in, and the names for the backer list are going to get cross-checked this week.

I’ve also started to send out files for those that got PDF copies of certain add-ons. The Bogie Map pack and Guardians files went out today. Lost Hall will go out Real Soon Now and likewise with Dungeon Grappling – I’m going to take the opportunity to make a few errata fixes in the files before they go out.

Target Dates

As is my habit, here are the dates I’m shooting for:

• June 9: Primary “Wave 1” art all in and in the book
• June 16: All art complete
• June 16: All proofing complete
• June 17: Interior files submitted to printer
• June 18: PDF of Dragon Heresy distributed; Dungeon Grappling Distributed; Lost Hall of Tyr distributed
• Sept 10: Giant box of books arrives in MN
• Oct 10: all rewards arrived

It’s not as far ahead of schedule as I prefer, but I’ve never done an offset print run, and as the last 10 minutes of the campaign showed, my needs changed at the last minute!

That’s where we stand. I’ll do what I can to pull in the schedule where possible, but a lot of it isn’t in my hands!