New Cover by Claudia is finished!

I've been meaning to blog about the progress of the campaign sooner; with 23 days left to go we're at $2340 - just $60 shy of the last stretch goal of $2400. I'm very, very pleased to have gotten this level of support with the crowdfunding, because I'm glad to have gotten the chance to really make backing this campaign worthwhile.

I'm also very pleased to have gotten a chance to work with the amazing Claudia Cangini. She pulled out all the stops in producing a new cover:

Art by Claudia Cangini, CLICK FOR LARGER VIEW

She worked very hard to include reflect so many of the setting details in the cover. I love the rich patterning and colors. And I'm really happy with how the knight on the front cover turned out; it was very important to me that the cover feature a heroic-looking POC that didn't just look like "angry black dude". It would be easy to fall into stereotypical ways of depicting these characters, and that would just be the worst.

Wow! Time for a second stretch goal!

I'm thrilled to have met the first stretch goal as of today! Claudia Cangini does amazing work and I absolutely can't wait to see what she will come up with. I've already started working with her and I hope to be able to showcase something before the campaign ends.

I'll admit that it's been decidedly strange hiring an artist to do an illustration for me, as usually the shoe is on the other foot. However, I'll admit that full color work is something of a weakness of mine - which is one of the big reasons why I chose to illustrate the new edition of Thou Art But A Warrior in black and white pencils. And stylistically, I think that Claudia's work will fit very well with the illustrations already done for the interior. So this is yet another reason to be grateful for this crowdfunding campaign; I wouldn't have been able to afford an artist of Claudia's caliber without it.

Of course, since the first stretch goal has been met, it's time to introduce a new stretch goal:

$1800: Set of 4 illustrated post cards with key phrase reference

Polaris is a bit of a weird system in that you don't have your character sheet sitting in front of you, like you would with most games. Rather, it sits in the middle of the table for everyone to reference. And the beauty of the system is that it works pretty well, as there aren't a lot of things to look at on the character sheets - since they're more to define relationships between characters than anything else.

What I have found, however, is that it's very useful for each player to have a reference of what the key phrases that drive play are and when they can use them. I've played games where there has been one sheet sitting in the middle of the table, and it always involves a lot of passing things around. So I thought a neat incentive would be a set of 4 (the optimal number of players) cards with illustrations from the new edition on one side and a reference on the other:

I'm a big fan of crowdfunding models where stretch goals mean that everybody gets additional goodies! And with personal budgets a bit tighter because of the new baby, none of this would be possible without the support of campaign backers, so I really want to make this as awesome as possible for people who contribute to the campaign. Call it a thank you to people who are stepping up to contribute.

Campaign funded, 1st stretch goal announced!

It's hard to believe how quickly we met the initial funding goal. After talking about publishing a second edition for several years, I wasn't too anxious about raising enough money to fund printing a second edition - but I certainly didn't expect to meet my initial goal in just over twelve hours! I am immensely grateful to everyone who has helped me reach this point, and to everyone who has backed the campaign already.

But we've still got 44 days to go, so I thought I'd make things more exciting with a few stretch goals. The first of which being:

$1500: New full-color cover by Claudia Cangini

Claudia Cangini is an amazingly talented artist who does absolutely beautiful work:

Artwork used with permission, click for larger view

If this campaign reaches the first stretch goal, I'm very excited to announce that Claudia will be doing a new cover for the new edition. Additionally, backers at the Caliph level will receive full-color prints of Claudia's new artwork. Please help meet this goal, as Fred Hick's gorgeous layout deserves an equally gorgeous cover!

Claudia has done some amazing artwork for some high-profile indie titles in the last few years, including the new edition of Meguey Baker's 1001 Nights and the Italian translation of Dogs In the Vineyard.  While I had fun doing the interior illustrations, full-color work has always been something I have struggled with, and it's important to me to have as beautiful a book as possible. It's also important to me to help support other women working in the gaming industry.

I can't wait to meet this goal to see what she comes up with!