There’s been significant progress since then.

All Books

One note: I do need to go through all the books and put in active hyperlinks. These are not required to get the book to print, so I tend to do this last, even AFTER the files are sent to the printer. For most of the books, this isn’t a big deal. For Vampire Hunter Belladonna, this will be rather more challenging, as I suspect that there will be well over 500 hyperlinks.

Castle Ironskull

As far as I can tell, this one’s done and ready to export as both the cover and the interior pages. SJG has received a PDF file with what I call a u-code, which is a title followed by u20190811 or something like that, which is the date of the last revision. It means it’s retail ready.

Crown of Eternity

There are two tweaks to the maps that have been suggested but not yet implemented. One (marking a secret door that got dropped from one of the maps) is required. The other is optional but I’ll probably do it anyway. Even so: this one’s got all art and is ready to go as well, pending final read-through and checks.

Citadel of Ice

All errata, art, and changes in place. Ready for retail.

Curse of the Pirate King

This got the errata and some final checks as well, and other than VHB was the one with the most yet to do. But over the last few days, it got done, and this too is ready to go pending hyperlinks and a final formatting check.

Vampire Hunter Belladonna

I sent the preliminary file, with Glynn’s maps, and one piece of interior art by new-to-me artist Teresa Guido, to 50 people for testing and comments. This is even beyond the 10 or so folks at the Master and Commander/League and Legion levels that saw it first of all. Some feedback has come in already, and I expect more over the next few days.

The artists are starting to contact me for reviewing final drawings, and the WIP I’ve seen thus far is a whole lot of fun.

Beyond that, we got a very full weekend of fixes and tweaks done, and the file seems pretty close to ready. Well, other than 500 or so hyperlinks and the pending internal art. That’s supposed to come in by Aug 15, in time for spooling the printer-worthy files in time to send them to Latvia on Sunday night, August 18.

Die-Cut Counters and PDF File of Same

As noted in the previous update, these are ready to print, with file art uploaded. The PDF is out in your hands, if you ordered it.

Decks of Destiny PDF and Cards

This was very deliberately left for last. There are 210 individual counters from the five adventures, and from those I will pick 63 hopefully-unique samples and fill out Wizard- or Creature-style cards for all: 3.5×5″, and using the layout from DoD which was provided by SJG. They’re cool that way.

I have no-background greyscale art ready for import into the cards, and I purchased the required stock art so that I can properly make use of the layout. Now I just need to pick my victims and get crackin’ from a stats transfer perspective.

This is a boring sample (and the art is old art, and the color tag is wrong) of the DoD styel cards, complete with the GB logo making up the final hit on the hit point tracker.

Spooling the PDF and prepping the cards is basically the same task, so these two will also finish together. It is, however, the major item not done, and I’ll be turning my effort to completing this one this week.

Parting Shot

Right now, and I really should not say this out loud, the momentum to having everything in hand August 15 is very strong. The VHB art is the only true thing that isn’t done for the books, and I informed my printer of the intent to order 1,000 each of the print copies of five adventures today via email. That’s about double what I need . . . but I have a good feeling about these.

So I see me sending printable files to Livonia on Aug 18. Figure a month to get ’em printed, a week or two to ship to the UK and get the international copies distributed, a month to get to the fulfillment center, a week to get stuff straight, and then another 2 weeks for mailing them out. So 13-14 weeks until it’s all in hand…that’s mid October.

And THAT means we’re currently steaming to an on-time delivery, with a week or two of slack time in there for good measure.