Wow it’s been a busy two weeks. Best Supporting Actors is nearly finished with fulfillment. Artifacts of Legend launches to a strong start. The Isle of Sedra gets pushed out a few months. I get stabbed unexpectedly. Peter and I wrap something up…for now.

• Best Supporting Actors went from “pending” to almost finished, as in rapid succession the books came in, the cards were finished, and GamesQuest and I worked with dispatch to get cards to the UK.
• Scorpion Labyrinth got some great cover work done.
• The overall Isle of Sedra campaign for TFT was pushed out a few months to make room for David to catch up on a few things. Launch date is now June 22 – the link will take you to a “Follow the Campaign” page and you’ll be notified when it goes live. That’s less than 2 weeks after…
• Artifacts of Legend launched on May 25 with an excellent start for a Powered by GURPS project, hitting 50% funding in 12 hours. It runs through June 10.
• Peter and I finished up an important phase of our collaboration
• I had a ton of things happen to me on the home front, including an expected MRI and unexpected cortisone injection.
• Played Felltower, where foolishly heading into a cave with one entrance had predictable results.

Gaming Ballistic Patreon

To help with ongoing funding of art and speed eventual time to delivery, Gaming Ballistic started a Patreon in January 2021. Here’s the weekly update on Patreon status.

• Membership status: 61 patrons and $435 per month.
• Special Content in May: OSE Best Supporting Actors book and cards; Artifacts of Nordlond preview; Scorpion Labyrinth playable preview. Art previews.

Currently Manufacturing/Fulfilling/Shipping

Projects where hardcopies and PDFs are going out or scheduled to do so.

• Best Supporting Actors books and cards arrived in what feels like record time.
• All packages from the US hub are in the mail. Many packages are already reporting delivered by USPS and UPS. The UK-hub books are in manufacturing, due to be delivered before June 1; the UK-hub cards are headed out by DHL to GamesQuest today.
• For a project that was projected to deliver on or before September 2023…well, we’ll be crushing that by 2-3 months. The only uncertainty are the long-pole UK-Hub items which can see odd delays.

Media

• I don’t recall if I talked about this before, but I was a guest on BlueBoxRPG’s Loremaster Arcanum segment #118, talking about unarmed combat and grappling. We yakked for nearly two hours, and it was great fun.
• Irene did a short segment about the Artifacts of Legend on TikTok!
• SJGames featured Artifacts on the Daily Illuminator on May 26.
• There’s a pretty active Artifacts thread on r/GURPS – at least it’s getting a lot of upvotes.

Crowdfunding and Product Launches

• The Artifacts of Nordlond project got shuffled to the front of the queue.
  • Launched on May 25 with a $13,000 goal.
  • The add-ons and extras are limited on this one; we will need 385-400 backers to fund. As of May 26 (about 24 hours into the campaign) we have 210.
  • The campaign itself has a discount code for 25% off all Dungeon Fantasy RPG stuff on my Shopify Store.
  • The campaign runs through June 10. Hopefully we’ll fund quickly, and then it’s just art-and-production!
• The Isle of Sedra for The Fantasy Trip should launch June 22 now, pushed to the right a bit by some Real Life stuff that the author had to deal with. We’ll be doing that back-to-back with Artifacts, but I’m not worried. Of the three books, one is basically already finished but the art, 8 weeks ahead of the KS launch date. I expect to see the next two manuscripts in hand at regular intervals and again, art will be rolling as they come in.

Product Announcements

The full Product Catalog is accurate as of Sept 3, 2022 but needs a refresh for new product and a Spring 2023 update. Look for that and dissemination of my new PbG products to all sales channels.

The Nightmare Fuel books and the VTT Module are now available in all intended formats on my shopify store!

• Serpents of Legend
• The Bugstiary
• Garden of Evil
• Nightmare Fuel Foundry VTT Module

The Best Supporting Actors book and PDF are also now available on my Shopify Store.

In Development

Writing and content creation for announced projects. Some of this may be cryptic.

Let’s see where we are on other things…

• Infinite Archipelago is happening. I have the first plan here with the TFT books David is making right now, and big plans for late summer or early fall for bringing Nordlond into the OSE and TFT as part of this line. Heck, I think I even have a logo for it.

• Delvers to Grow Companion. Some new professions. A whole bunch of new disad packages. Epic Upgrades. Everyman Adventurer modules. Who knows what else will strike me? I know what I want to do with this one. I’m hoping for this one in July 2023.

• Mission X: The contract has been fully executed and I’m very pleased with the terms.

• Let Us Rejoice! Looking at my planned releases and the work required, this is either 2024 or “as time permits” in 2023…and I hope it’s a non-crowdfund release in 2023 and time does

• Inns and Taverns; Two Warring Houses, by Douglas Cole. Systemless. 2024 is likely, and I’m probably going to solicit new authors on both.

I actively encourage prospective authors to drop me proposals having to do with any of the above projects, but bear in mind that there are guidelines and strictures that must be followed to make a sale and move from concept to final.

Wish List

I’m looking for contributions for the Infinite Archipelago. Authors must be detail oriented, capable writers who can take on projects and deliver them to specifications while still respecting the constraints of both system and setting. Some “demesnes” have been mentioned in other works before and can be considered pre-approved for the right writer:

• A realm modeled after a mix of historical and mythological “ancient egypt.” This could be an original homeland to what became The Scorpion Empire on the Isle of Sedra, or something similar. Known to be one of the origin places of the cat-folk mentioned in the Nordlondr Folk book.
• A realm loosely based on Kamakura-era Japan. Hints to this realm, called “Inthriki” in the Nordlond and Dragon Heresy materials exist, but could easily be altered to taste.
• The realm of Morevel, which was based on a mix of Hellenistic and mythical Greece with a focus on an uneasy period after totally-not-Philip-of-Macedon unified disparate states by force of arms. This one should probably be a set of idyllic, Mediterranean-climate island nation-states with lots of rowed galleys, phalanxes, heroes, and monsters.
• The neighboring nations – and we can talk about island or no, but probably yes – of Arnulf and Brionnu. These are “not Carolingian France, really” and “not Celtic Britain, we swear.” Arnulf and Brionnu were more or less created to give the Nordlondr somewhere to go raid and pillage…but that’s up for negotiation too.

Friction

Bits of news and items that put a monkey in the wrench.

• The only thing I can really complain about right now is just being super busy all the time.
• Artifacts is moving along spritely for the first day; I do wish I’d have had more time to lay the groundwork for that campaign, as I’d feel much more comfortable with more project followers.

Fair Winds

Information about things that move GB forward.

• BSA is really moving along very well.
• The Scorpion Labyrinth cover is underway and I love what Rick is doing with one of the elements
• Artifacts of Nordlond got off to a great start
• Rapid fire, I got the MRI (not rotator cuff; my cuff is actually perfectly healthy. I have a condition called “frozen shoulder” instead), then went in for a PT session and then an orthopedic appointment immediately thereafter. I like my orthopedist, and she doesn’t mess around: I entered the room with the expectation of her laying out a course of treatment. She did that, but she also whipped out a (ginormous) needle and hit me with cortisone right there in the office. She did a really good job with the poke, too.
• I got the BSA PDFs and books up on my store
• I had to re-order some OSE solos thanks to a huge wholesale order from my new favorite people.
• There’s something going on in my household that I can’t talk about yet, but it might be really good for us all
• Finally, Peter and I pushed a collaboration across a major milestone
• Speaking again of Peter, we played Felltower again and suffered a well-deserved TPK. Let me tell you The Gnoll Story.