Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. And I'm your favorite wandering
with a funny accent. And I'm what?
Again. Again.
What is here again? Hello.
The strange growth on the show. There you go.
You can't seem to Lance. No, I do think, well, I think
you're our most guested guest and I do think the combined
episodes, I don't think we've talked about anything more.
We have, we have a review. I think this is the third
interview we had a playthrough. So we're on what, like 5
Platypus episodes at this point? Yeah, I did a playthrough and
then I think meet Castle Christian did a playthrough, so.
Oh my gosh. Yeah.
And. And that.
Yeah. That one too.
Yeah. So yeah.
Wow. We did a lot of.
So yeah, it really. Wasn't that long ago?
But it feels like forever ago. Yeah, we're huge.
Fans, obviously. So thanks for coming back on.
We're obviously stoked to have you back on.
We've been talking for the past like 20 minutes, although no one
here watching knows that. So secret conversations.
I'm a big fan of the show and it's always good to be on and
and and watch and listen to your stuff.
We, we will always appreciate that, even though we'll never
believe anyone ever listens to us.
So you're here, and that means something's going on.
So for those that might have their heads in this hand, What?
What? What's going on with Clyde
Empress right now? So I'm best known for Cloud
Empress. It's an ecological science
fantasy role-playing game that uses the Mothership D100 panic
system, although it's entirely entirely stand alone.
So you can use it compatible with mothership content or it
has a free rule buck on drive through RPG you can use.
But backing in for the second Cloud Empress Kickstarter, it
launched last Tuesday. So we're about a week into the
campaign and it's going really well.
And the, I guess idea of the campaign is to continue to
expand the setting with two new setting books that we can talk
more about as well as doing a reprint of the first materials
because they've been sort of selling out, selling really well
and also listening to sort of fan requests from the first
campaign. So a lot of the reprints include
a well, they all include a new storage solution, a collector's
box in two different versions, as well as hardcover reprints
that sort of combine the previous campaign and some new
ways to make it a little bit more accessible for folks just
hopping in or wanting a concise collection on their shelf.
Yeah, you got you. We'd love a good box here on the
show. Very.
Very excited. And we're not getting one, we're
getting 2 because obviously I'm getting both even though I have
them, but I'm very excited to have them in hardback.
The the slideshow above us for those that are watching, if you
look through there, you'll see the both heart, both boxes, both
sets and gosh, they're stunning. That dark green box for the the
life and death box is absolutely beautiful, but you can obviously
see that on the Kickstarter page as well.
Go check it out. I just dropped the link into the
chat, but storage solutions always great, always have a good
box. Why was it impetus to want to
reprint the the original starter set in hardback, though?
Sure. So at some point I wanted to do
the box set it. It came up consistently that as
people were getting their copies, I would say most folks
don't have dedicated Zine storage.
Like like probably we do. So I have a whole like target
wooden box system for zines. I love zines.
They're probably my favorite TTRPG format.
Generally I love how you can throw them in a backpack and you
don't feel bad if they get scratched up or dented or
whatever. At least for me, OK, maybe you
you. I just love throwing them
around. I mean, my copy of the
Mothership book, A Pound of flesh, like is is falling apart
just 'cause I carried it around for so long.
But I wanted to do the box set so people could have a storage
solution and keep it all together.
The first Kickstarter campaign had I believe 8 scenes, a bunch
of postcards, a bunch of there's a map and a bunch of stuff.
So it was a really big amount of stuff that that is sort of
unrelated to keep a hold of. And it did come with like a bag,
but it's just like this eco friendly Ziploc bag.
So it didn't look really great. So folks really wanted a box.
One of the things I'm really committed to doing in the
campaigns is not going too far off of what I plan for.
I, as we've talked about and I think the last episode, the
delivery of the project to me is as important as the the the game
itself. It's a really big important part
to how people sort of receive the material and how they think
about Cloud Empress. So that was the number one
requested item for the first campaign was we didn't want a
box, we won a box For a while I explored this idea of doing like
a tuck box, almost like a software box that would fold
flat. So that was the first solution
that I announced and got quotes on that and it seemed like it
was reasonable. But one of the other things I'm
doing with the new campaign is moving to a external fulfillment
partner called Quartermaster Logistics which is one of these
like larger board game role-playing game fulfillment
partners for a number of reasons save my back and and you know
just create sort of a long term plan for for releasing these
games that is going to. I don't have I have stairs like
rickety stairs that I have to take up and down all these ENS
so and and there's snow in Minnesota.
So anyway all that's to say the tuck box is really really big
when they're flat. So it would have been quite a
large box that was really thin that that would have been pretty
expensive to ship despite this like low weight of of the whole
thing. So decided to do international
manufacturing and and as part of that as I was getting quotes for
international manufacturing I had at least one of my like top
one or two vendors telling me that they couldn't do scenes or
saddle stitch or whatever you want to call it staple bound
books at 60 pages. There were only a few vendors
that could do 60 page scenes that I that I was going to work
with on the first campaign. So it was one of these things
where I felt like I'd be pretty limited in terms of
manufacturing options if the campaign, you know, successfully
funded or when it funded. And so that became sort of the
impetus of like, OK, well, I know I really want to do this
box. How do we move into that in a
way that gives me options around the manufacturing side and
making sure that we're making sort of a viable product.
I did not want to go like Perfect Bound, like a soft cover
book. I don't really like that format
very much for role-playing games.
I mean it's OK, but they're pretty hard to fold open and
hold open those kinds of things. So the the idea to to do
hardcover kind of came about pretty late in the sort of
imagining of the project. And I I had always planned a
hardcover I would say, but my original plan was to do sort of
like a revised or second edition, maybe five to seven
years out and then go in with the hardcover at that point.
But the more I thought about it, the more it seemed to make sense
for this release. But also wanted to acknowledge
that the first books had just come out.
People are still buying the first books.
And so there are a couple things that I wanted to do to support
folks and make them feel like they weren't obligated to get
the hardcovers. And so the the two pieces around
that were creating the boxes so that they could fit all the
previous content. So there's one pledge called the
life and Death box, which is that green skull box that you
all might see that comes with two hardcover books, but you
could fit all of your previous stuff in that box with the two
new hardcovers. And so that's, hey, I don't want
to repurchase any content I've already bought.
There's a pledge level just for that.
And the school box is sort of the like crowdfunding promo box.
That's the sort of one that's not going to be released in the
future, at least through retail or any other you know, venues
outside of crowdfunding. And then the other thing we did
or I did was offering the the sort of best discount I could on
it. You know if any if anybody's
repurchasing content, either the starter box which contains a lot
of the materials from the first campaign or you're doing one of
the like sort of all in pledges, you're getting a A5 or $8
discount that's applied sort of at some of the like shipping
stages of things. So that was that My, you know, I
really, I don't like when when you feel like something's become
invalidated because something new come out, came out or I
don't want people to feel like this is sort of a money grab or
anything like that. It's sort of logistical
limitations in manufacturing and and feels like sort of the best
business decision in terms of like manufacturing options.
I did not realize like small detail of all of that, but I had
not realized that if I get the life and death block, when I get
to life and death block, all of my other Cloud Empress stuff
fits into that I am. Yeah that's been hard to explain
and and I think if I had a little more money or time I
could have made some nice like 3D mock up of everything like
coming together. But I do all the the graphic
design in the mock ups and stuff.
So I'm I'm still building the the 3D skill.
But yeah, the idea is that the both boxes are about 5 to 6
centimeters. I'm not sure exactly where
they're going to land, so they're going to be about half
full when you get them with the content in the game unless you
do the the all box bundle. I think those will have like.
The idea is either it's four hard covers that fit in there or
two hard covers and then your previous scenes should be about
the same size. That's awesome.
I'm. I'm super stoked for that.
I couldn't be more stoked for that.
I'm incredibly excited. Obviously I'm I'm re getting
everything because that's because I'm terrible with money.
Because, Ryan. But I think one of the things
that I think even I think even oh, because that's my name there
on the Kickstarter page. I think even one of the things I
said there specifically was like as someone who is I back a ton
of stuff and as a backer as someone who looks at games from
like multiple angles and stuff. The thought that you put into
what you make why you make it and who you're making it for is
like one of my favorite things about you and about the project.
So to specifically want to put it out there so that people
don't have to buy both and are still able to use it for its
purpose and making sure that that happens, it gets done and
it looks gorgeous is so you I guess like it's it's a very it's
consistent and consistently great to to be in the next
project and all of the things that we loved most about the
first one especially behind the scenes is just consistently
still coming through. So it's really wonderful to see.
Yeah, it's kind of an interesting place and something
I hadn't necessarily thought about, but I had this real
commitment to making things better and continually improving
and doing things pretty iterative iteratively.
So maybe now is a good time Ryan, to show I have like a
weekly scroll announcement. Not really but so one of the
things that will be happening too, I'm trying to keep changes
minimal to the original material but there's some artwork updates
that I wanted to share and so I don't know Hunter if you could
see that. So I do listen to your show and
one of the the things, the the feedback that I got that I I
agreed with was there's a lot in there but was around the the
resting piece of artwork that that seemed to not fit.
And so this is sort of the updated rest artwork that folks
will see in the the reprint and anyone who got the digital files
that will get this automatically updated.
But the idea was to kind of go back with that extra layer
Polish. The other piece, we could talk
more about it if it's helpful, but trying to come up with a
little bit more of a cohesive style with the maps in
particular. So there's an example X map I I
still like the maps from the first game.
I still think they work really well.
There were some like printing challenges in terms of the the
export files and how much I could sort of sharpen images and
text and things that probably be no one's very interested in, I
don't know. But the other piece was I got
some feedback around the usability of the maps and the
overall sort of vibe that that didn't work for some people.
So that was the other idea of trying to bring them into a more
sort of cloud and precision. And so that's part of that.
The books have been out since November, December for probably
most backers retailers in January, February.
But I've had probably six months to kind of think about how
everything went and really sort of assess, you know, is there
anything I'd like to change. And there's a couple things that
I'm, I'm making some modifications of.
And one of those, yeah, I just thought it So this is the sort
of two travelers, one of them a body hopper I discussed in
Corpse sitting and and you know, waiting their feet in the fish
with the fish and kind of having a relaxing moment in nature.
This is a great piece. I love this piece.
Yeah, it's it's gorgeous. I want to actually take the
individual art piece and blow it up for people watching.
Which one's this one? There we go.
Unlock you. This is fantastic.
And I love the having a body hopper because I mean, you know,
surprising no one in like in creepy shit.
I really love the body hopper and everything that it is, so
having a a nice big piece of that is really fantastic and I
love that like even though this person just like a like a creepy
corpse person, they're just like chilling hanging out with this,
the rest of this other guy. Yeah, so very relaxing piece,
definitely very much fits the, the, the rest page.
Yeah, it don't. So, so outside of the the maps
and the the change to the art and stuff, are there any other
big changes to the to the core books or are they mostly like
tweaks and whatnot? I I would it's I think the rule
book I'm I'm going with kind of a 1.1.
So the other thing is I'm Co locating the lore, so moving a
lot of the lore to the middle of the book.
The original idea was spreading it out so that it would make for
a more interesting reading experience.
But I think for instance that the you know which maybe someone
has mentioned in this room or virtual room having like 1-2
page spread on the imago and then another spread on the imago
like 20 pages apart doesn't really make sense.
The idea with that was to like Co locate some of the rules so
the the lores kind of being combined together and then the
other I would say big change and as a business a lot has changed
since the first campaign went live.
The context that I think is helpful for folks, folks sort of
see me now and where I'm at and and have questions and and
feedback on on some of the decision I'm making.
Not a ton, But you know, in terms of like, why didn't I just
do hardcover in the previous campaign?
Everyone's a critic, you know. Well, and it's a good, it's a
good, you know, I I think some people do have that as a stretch
goal, right, going from scene to hardcover.
My previous campaign was like $1500 and then the second
campaign did 98,000. And so I still wanted, like I
said to kind of keep with that original vision of the product
and I had all these mock ups and stuff.
So I just wasn't prepared for that level of funding and maybe
if I expected it again I I would do things differently.
But the other piece like as we talked about and and maybe a
previous podcast was that a lot of the first project was sort of
about page constraints in particular.
And so the last Voyage of the Bean Barge introductory
adventure was always intended to go with the rule book and that
was something that it just would not fit. 60 pages was sort of
the limit with our printer including the covers.
And so I had to cut it out as a separate scene.
What I ended up having is a bunch of like skews, what
they're called. And so they're individual
products that can be bundled or and sold together or sold
separately, those kinds of things.
But it when you're doing the fulfillment yourself, it doesn't
really matter. Putting, I mean it's time
intensive, but I was just putting, you know, putting 11:50
items together, whatever. But then when you work with a
fulfillment partner at at times putting that stuff together,
like each time they touch a product is like $0.40.
And so all of a sudden, like packing 6 postcards, you need
barcodes on those postcards or otherwise you have to pay
another $0.40. And then so you know it, it gets
really expensive. And so part of the idea with the
sort of new second Kickstarter is to do stuff that feels really
high quality, that's really exciting, that feels like a
dopamine rush when you open it up, it feels like sort of a
treasure chest, but also reducing the number of skews.
And so to that we'll be adding The Last Voyage of the Bean
Barge to the rule book in that hardcover sort of at the back
like like frontier scum is is the one that with the I think at
the organ train is one of my favorites.
So it has the intro inventor in there, and then the adventures
from the like year one adventure bundle or the five you know or
you know adventure pieces. Those are going to get split up
into different setting books based on where they're located
and and some other factors. I maintained that like that was
a good decision for the first project.
Like, I appreciate. First off, I also love having a
little lot of little scenes. I just put my backpack and I
take to my, like, game table. You know, like, I always
appreciate that. But I think the accessibility to
be like, I want to try Cloud Empress.
The rules are online. I can buy one of these adventure
scenes and I can have it. And then when I want more, I can
buy more. And then maybe I'll run the hex
crawl when I know that my party wants to play all of it or I can
afford to buy everything. Like I think it was a great
deal. I think this, where you are now
is a great evolution of that. I think you're heading in like a
great direction and it doesn't feel like it feels incredibly
like a genuine, like iterative process.
But I still love the original, like just bundle of scenes.
Yeah, and I like, I mean, there's a usability factor to
pulling an adventure out and just having it be a single
adventure, right? And not having to flip through a
big book and just sort of having it there.
So I still it's just interesting there's the art we receive is
always funneled through this layer of commerce and so.
We feel like that's really horrifying, but yeah.
I mean we and if it's not it, the production quality, yours
really reflects that, right. So it's still a commercial
decision unless that person has just like a bunch of talents,
but even then they've probably trained in some kind of
commercial setting or you know whatever, I mean very so unless
there's some folk artists that's you know painting on barns, but
even that becomes part of the commercial story.
So it's finding a place in that and accepting what you're making
as a product and what you're making relates to the business
decisions of your time period. It's it's sort of interesting to
be in it but then also trying to put that through the lens of
what's best for your audience and what's best for you and what
all these kinds of things. It's it's a lot to weigh in the
like goal of making a product line for example or just any
product, any kind of art. Yeah, I so about the book and
the scenes and stuff, I I definitely wore about whether I
like a big old hardback book or a bunch of little pieces.
Because like as as a collector, I love one giant, beautiful
hardback book. As a GMI, the all the little
scenes and stuff like that to me is such the like better decision
for usability. The fact that I could have like
the rule book flat in front of me and have the adventure flat
in front of me right here and not have to like try to parse
and flip and do all this stuff with this giant book.
So I I'm glad that I'm going to have both now.
That's wonderful for me. And the the the hardcovers are
all going to be around 70 pages so that's pretty small for a
hardcover. So I I still like the having a
lot of stuff. I mean that feels to me it's
sort of central to the stuff I like and and I also one of my
joys is is reading a a most books.
Like I love reading a book in like 2 to 3 settings like that's
sort of my ideal. I don't know if that's from my
ADHD or what but I just love reading through books pretty
quickly and and I'd much rather have like 3 smaller books than
one giant book. I I don't know.
Maybe I have a lot of guilt or shape or I don't know what, but
I get like halfway through and I'm like, gosh, I have a lot
more to go. I think you're in a safe space
with that one here friend I. Think.
So there's too many words, too many times in a row, and I'm
like, oh God. Yeah, no, it's really hard.
It's hard to and that's the thing that we run into a lot
here on the show. And me and Hunter always have
this constant debate and I think we switched sides a lot and then
realized that we switched and went back on yeah usability of
books layout of books like and reading it as an experience
versus reading it as a guide and like where the the where the
line is on that And my thought like I just want to rationale a
lot of times that I feel is missing.
And I also think that there's this I can't remember what it's
called but I think there might have been like a mini discourse
on it recently about like being so in your thing that you forget
that other people don't know all the stuff that you know and that
is something that we see a lot. So it's it.
It's just an interesting, like there's no answer.
It's just like how it feels right and stuff like that.
It's nice to know again though, that like that's a thought
process that you have at the books and like the reason that
it was one way the first time, the reason it's changing a
little bit this time. And like you said, having it be
an iterative process as opposed to being like, Nope, I did it
the right way. You know, you guys can just deal
with it. No, it's like I'm, I'm
listening. I'm hearing, you know, I'm
getting the feedback and I'm trying to do what's best for
everybody. So again, like it's, you know,
it's it's one of the things, it's one of the things we love
about you. So like I said, the rationale is
really important and it's nice to hear that every time you come
on. So moving on to like life and
death, tell us what is this new adventure for Cloud Empress?
Slash setting, Yeah. It's the sort of centerpiece to
the campaign, at least in my mind.
It is around these two new setting books.
Each one is going to be about the size of land of Cicadas give
or take so slightly larger because Land of Cicadas is going
to grow slightly. So each one's going to be around
like 72 pages somewhere in there.
And what I tried to do with Land of Cicadas, the first setting
book was really include a little bit of everything.
So it is tries to be sort of the quintessential setting book
because it's it's going to be paired with the rule book in the
starter box. It sort of highlights the humor
and the weirdness and also some of the horror elements that are
sort of on the edge of the game, The Rust Bucket in particular.
Folks have have read it. There's this sort of dilapidated
city that's full of some like really grotesque, horrifying
stuff sort of on the corners there.
That's not sort of central to Cloud Empress's identity, but
it's it's sort of a big part of it as well.
So with life and death, it's in the extremes and they're paired
together. They sort of also highlight this
contrast that I try to do with the games and the and the world.
So Land of the Living, which I'm Co authoring with an author
named Matson, focuses on this vibrant overgrown overflowing
with fungal and spores garden area as well as this lake that's
torn by slipstream. So time and space and it's just
like really vibrant and and growing and chaotic and there's
a lot of people there. We tried to focus in on what
sort of more specifically indigenous cultures of the
Midwest in the far far future might be like in what kind of
communities they would form. And then the other book is sort
of the total opposite in that it's the landscape underneath
one of the cloud cities that's cratered and fallen and
decimated the entire landscape. And so it's this desert of ash
and that draws on the the first land of the living Book draws on
I think a lot more explicitly. Nausicaa in particular some of
the the ways and the Nausica manga manga too.
There's some there's like a tribe of folks that live in the
fungal forest in the the Poison forest that we don't see
necessarily in the the movie with Land of the Dead.
It's like blood borne really dark stuff some fallout kind of
stuff. So it's it's if it is a recent
apocalyptic event that has happened in the world the the
setting itself. Cloud Empress takes place in
this far for future that looks really different and is sort of
in the ruins of another civilization.
But I've never really meant it to feel necessarily like
apocalyptic. It's it's always meant to be
just people living in a time period in a new way whereas this
one landed the dead book is really meant to explore the
trauma like how trauma is personified in land and and
people and in memory. So it's going to be pretty dark.
One of the other neat things about both books that I think
I've shared, but it takes these both take place two to three
months after the events of Land of Cicadas.
And one of the things that I think is I don't know, I don't
see a ton in in TTRPG setting books but you you all might
point to many more. But it's the book takes place in
a specific summer in it over a three month period and so it's
the summer of the century brood. So this is sort of the late
summer, early fall, and so it actually moves forward in time
slightly. And so you don't need to play
them in a particular order. And I think most Wardens or GMs
could easily navigate, you know, or ignore that time change with
their players. But for instance, a spike had
one of the weird like hybrid human fungal creatures that we
saw in Land of the Cicadas is back in a new way, in a new in a
new place in Land of the Living. Whereas Prince Bug, who he saw
in this horrible battlefield within Land of Cicadas, is now
in a tower in Land of the Dead in a new setting, in a new way.
And so folks get to learn more about those characters and and
what happened. Obviously, again, like there's
not a definitive story that was told in either of those books.
So you know, Wardens may have to get a little creative with with
how that all connects. But the other component to the
setting is this idea that time and space are slippery and that
memories change things and and there's some ambiguity in terms
of how reality works too. So I think it's just as easy
that these are different versions of them or versions
from another time or or you could just change their names
entirely, I don't know. So I think there's a lot of
opportunities there. But for folks that played and
read the first books, there will be some continuity between some
of the characters you see as well as probably most
importantly on the covers of both the books.
The Cloud Empress we see again in the Cloud Empress is is
making her way through the world.
And so the traveling party is still sort of following in her
footsteps and seeing what she's up to through these two books.
That's so cool. I can't tell you how much I'm
stoked for it being like, like you said, obviously not for
Sequential, but I would absolutely run this as like it's
the summer that you all meet and get together and then after the
summer you have this fall. That's amazing.
I love the fact that you bring back your characters like later
on. And I also agree like I think
the way you set this up is like, yeah, the slip makes things
weird. Like it could not technically be
nonlinear or some interpretation that gives a lot of freedom to
the the wardens to run in Hollywood.
I'm going to run it sequentially because I'm in a big nerd like
that. So along with these two, the
land of the living, land of the dead, what else is being added?
Is there anything else that's being added that you think is
substantially you'd like to talk about?
Well, the other piece too is for folks that aren't aware Cloud
Empress is a hex crawl, so it has a big hex map, and that's
how folks primarily explore the world, as well as these
adventure locations that you could run as one or two Shadow
Adventures and some introductory adventures.
The neat thing is that the books will come with a giant map.
I mean, it'll be, I don't know how big it'll be, probably 11 by
17. So it won't be much bigger in
terms of actual product that that folks got in the first
campaign, but it'll have all of these things connected in a
single landscape. And so land of cicadas will sort
of be down here. The land of the living will be
up top. And then the land of the dead
will be east of the land of cicadas W West of the land of
cicadas. So it'll be the sort of larger
landscape and effectively triple the size of the the setting at
least through hexes that we saw in the land of cicadas.
And those same hexes will be present on this map in a new
format. Cool.
I love that. I love the whole hex in this
world. Yeah.
See. It's your grand hex crawl.
So as part of the story, and you said the this, it's it's
advancing a little bit. Is your thought to every time
something comes out to slowly advance a story, or is that just
for this one? Yeah, I'm I guess there are a
lot more books planned. I think there it's meant to be a
three-part sort of trilogy, at least as I've imagined it at
this point. And so the first trilogy, the
first part of the trilogy is sort of ended with these two
books. With this four book box, the
next part of the trilogy is going to take place in the
clouds above where we're at. And so I think the idea is yes,
it'll take place with a more significant time jump forward.
I think you know I I I'm so excited about that stuff and I
try not to, you know get I want people to be excited about the
current stuff. But I think that the general
concept with that is the marriage and selection of a new
cloud Empress would be sort of the one of the big key events
that's happening in sort of the second part of the trilogy.
Now it makes sense because we all know that Cloud abandoned
their they're forced to do these.
In fact, we actually went on an adventure with Cloud on this
channel. Listen, the farmerlings stole
Cloud and that is clearly why we had to send the expedition down
there. So we could take probably.
Hours. Yeah.
Speaking of the it's the the 29th expedition that's that's
still happening, right? Is death a lot of like the
fallout from that, like in the in the in this book or is or is
there going to be a point where that's ever a part of the Cloud
Emperor storyline you want to focus on?
Or is it mostly going to be kind of like the traumas of war, not
actually looking at it directly? So the the land of the cicadas
was sort of a bigger attempt. There is like sort of a
battlefield and a war setting in the the central part.
And so that was sort of the the most direct look.
Although we will see sort of cloud linked forces in these
other areas, sort of, but they're more stragglers and this
is meant to be sort of a difficult journey to get into
these areas. And so in the case of the Land
of the Dead, it's a giant desert, It's horrible.
There's not a lot to live. It's polluted with chalk.
There's actually, I'll talk a little bit about, I forget the
name of it, but maybe it doesn't have a name at this point.
But there is sort of a wall like sort of area, like there's a
cloudling settlement with a Lord Ling that's been tasked with
keeping everyone in this area inside of it except for
scraplings that can bring goods out.
So they're still not allowed to leave necessarily, but it's sort
of this giant crater and there's a Fort on it.
And so we see a Lord Ling that's sort of been long term tasked
with sort of keeping the secrets in the wreckage of this area.
Within this, these confines, we also see the survivors of a
cloudling security force that lived in it's called Bravo City
that collapsed and fell. And so they're the only real
remaining survivors because they dipped out and hid in the center
of the city in this sort of armored area and survived the
crash, much to the dismay of the residents there.
And so the residents hunt them as ghosts while they raid, as as
bandits, any kind of travelers or relic hunters or folks that
are in the area. And so we see more of cloudland
culture, but it's a place that most people do not want to go
to, except for this, these strange dreams and this
mysterious voice that calls to master magicians.
And so magicians across the lowland waste and even in the
clouds are being called to this underground area of the city for
unknown reasons. And so that's sort of a
catalyst. And again, some Lord Lings and
folks of import from Cloudling Society will be headed that way.
But the Cloudling 29th Expedition has no value in this
area. With the Land of living.
It is pretty far past the Thickwood, which is incredibly
dangerous and so most cloudlings just aren't skillful enough to
make it that far north because of how dangerous it is.
So we still get to see touches of Cloud Links society, but it
is difficult for Cloud Links to make it this far, at least the
29th expedition, which has this sort of pomp and egotism that
that sort of prevents them from being particularly effective.
I think that, yeah, I think that's I would say too the 29th
expedition is not successful as you kind of see in in light of
Cicadas. So by the fall, they're starting
to really reconsider what's going on and and starting to
probably retreat into the clouds that we'll see again in kind of
future setting books. It's so funny because at no
point in time did I ever assume, knowing well I know about the
setting, that it wouldn't be successful.
Well, it's too. I mean you have to have some.
It's sort of this, like George Bush mission accomplished thing.
It's like, well, what what would be success look like, right?
I mean, conquering and keeping a land that doesn't want you, that
you don't have authority over. That's not all meant to be an
Iraq analogy. I'd have to think about that
through that lens. But at least for the cloud
links, as I think about them, part of it is their their goals
are are elusive and foolish, and their dreams are a big part of
the setting. And so it's this sort of magical
dream thinking to conquer this land and these aspirations from
societies long past that don't really matter, aren't effective
in the society that they live in.
Yeah, I I never. I don't know how I read it is I
never really thought that they like plan to win it like I like.
I always. It's a 2019 exit.
Strategy. It's not that there's no exit
strategy. I always read it is more of like
an incursion to, like, spend money, maybe get rid of some
political rivals, go for like a foray and then just like go
back. And then eventually, like when
enough drama has risen, we can go again.
It's a 29th one. Like they're not.
Yeah. Like that's how I always felt.
It was more like we're going to go down there, we're going to
fuck around for a little bit, then we're going to come home.
I never thought it is like go down there and like we and then
we are going to rule everything, you know, again or whatever.
That's how I always kind of viewed it more than anything.
I I don't know, I always saw it as more of like a rich people
like on the side, you know, watching the civil War kind of
thing versus like you know, actually thinking that they were
going to go down there and conquer everything.
But you know, I mean, that was just my impression of of.
Well, and I think it's it's like any war, it's players all have
their own agendas, and so we see many individual lordlings and
cloudlings going down there just to obtain a Crest and the title
so that they can personally advance.
We see Papon the Crestless who has these either greater mission
or greater message from the Emperor themselves or himself to
figure out a way to go to space. And so this is some sort of plan
to bring humanity back to space. And then we have one particular
Lord Lang, I think it's Renault the Sleepy who is a body hopper
and just sort of seems to forget the past.
And so I think for him it's more of a glorious charge and and the
fulfillment of previous dreams that he can't he he can't
remember anymore or or specifically doesn't write down
his failures in this book of his history.
So he's never sort of capturing any of his failures in his
memory because when body hoppers hop from 1 corpse to another
they lose quite a bit of their memory and and in in much to his
I think nephews chagrin I'm I'm forgetting some of the details
but much to his nephews chagrin who's his sort of boy ward he's
never tasked with writing down any of his failures or bad ideas
and so I'm leading this just horrible charge into.
Are you sure this isn't like an American satire?
Because this sounds a lot like American written history.
So. Listen, like, like, like, they
said. Mission accomplished.
So. We we did it.
We won. Let's go home now to do it again
later. So another part of this project
is the stretch goals We're we're coming up on another one we'll
talk about in a second. But two of the things that I
thought were really interesting are the emphasis Almanac, the
cloud. It was Almanac and the solo
rules the the arrivals and routines.
So what exactly is the emphasis? Almanac and.
And then tell me about the the solo, The solo pamphlet?
So the. 2024 Cloud Empress Almanac is probably something
I'm most proud of. I've been doing an expansion a
month for the last like 9 to 10 months.
I want to say I'm not exactly sure how long, and those are
slowly gotten nicer and nicer, at least in my opinion, in that
they most of them have unique artwork.
All of them have artwork. At least at this point and they
come out as a spread that folks can get as APDF download from my
Google Drive. But the idea with this was to
start to create content on a monthly basis for a couple of
reasons. One I think it it reminds people
the game exists, it gives them new things.
My audience also like or you. I mean if you subscribe you get
to vote on what I write in many cases and so or at least the
order in which I write it at other times.
So it's this other way to be in conversation with community and
and I've already seen some folks suggesting stuff and I'm like oh
like somebody asked about festivals.
So I think that's like going to be a great newsletter expansion
just a spread of festivals with some cool festival art.
So the idea is to keep Cloud Empress vibrant throughout the
time that it exists, not only in these Kickstarter projects, but
also sort of design stuff. That's stretch goals that are
exciting to get, but not a ton of work to make, at least in the
development. So we have them mostly done now
I they still need to be professionally edited and and
packaged. But I think that stretch goals
are extremely dangerous. Success is more dangerous to
Kickstarter and crowdfunding creators, I think than failure
is and so how do I make stretch goals that are achievable and
doable? The other piece that I I think a
lot about is is how do I build a business that supports me in a
way that keeps me healthy and sane and all these kinds of
things. But also how do I build
something that is accessible to folks of a variety level of
incomes. And so I think the other piece
with this is, is doing stretch goals that you feel really nice
and beautiful in your hands that are print but having really
accessible digital content. And so something like this
funeral for the Anti St. which is a new adventure is free.
I I try to give a lot of stuff out for free online and that's
part of this. You know, this could all be a
Patreon and it could be like, oh, you got to pay a certain and
I'm not knocking Patreon or people that do that, but that's
my business model is giving away a lot for free and hopes that it
will be appreciated. And then that appreciation will
turn into financial support around a few key product
releases, you know, a year, like one or two.
So that's the Almanac and folks can look at the newsletter for
most of the stuff that's going to be in there.
There's going to be like a little intro and some maybe some
extra little goodies. The other one though is I've
always sort of intended to be very solo friendly, and so that
even comes down to like the number of hexes I put and how I
arrange the map so that you can roll to find a random hex, for
example. It's sort of designed that way.
I'm really happy with the solo rolls.
They're really weird and I don't think I've they simulate instead
of simulating a lot of solo games, simulate a single person
and you're sort of the heroic adventure that's traveling the
world. With the Cloud and Priscilla
rules, you're simulating an entire traveling party.
And my biggest inspiration was The Sims.
And so you're sort of generating these personas for each of your
traveling party members, including like how they react to
disagreement. And that can set off violent
encounters sort of on their own if they have the wrong
responses, but also when and why they would leave the traveling
party. And so you have the sort of
rolling cast of characters that moves through the world to
achieve different goals and so rivals and routines.
I wanted to continue to support the solo play with some like
sort of new features again, that weren't going to be.
I'd like to do a larger like compilation of solo with
expanded content and artwork and those kinds of things at some
point, but sort of building it out piece by piece based on what
people are using and needing. But it it's two functions or
one. There's not really a way to
automate when the party rests and when they explore and when
they move through the world. Right now I think that's mostly
like a player decision and I I don't know how much solo playing
you do. When I play solo games, I
immediately go for like tropes, like I immediately start telling
this heroic story or this really trope played in story.
And so I really like solo play that's systematized and random
because it makes stories that are unexpected and I find that
really enjoyable versus when I start to write my own solo
stories or whatever, experience them.
Often times I just fall in like trope after trope after trope
and it feels like a very familiar story and I just don't
like that and and probably other people are more creative and
subversive in their own minds. But I think when you're playing
a game with yourself, having a lot of unexpected outcomes and
things that for me what I enjoy about Solo is figuring out the
puzzle of like, why someone did this in character.
Like, OK, I know they're going to make, I know they're going to
be really angry. Why?
Why did they get really angry? I know they're going to rest and
it's going to be a little unexpected.
Like why did they choose to do that?
And then that's sort of, for me, at least with Cloud Empress,
where the role-playing happens. And so that's one part.
The other pieces, that's the routines.
The Rivals piece is I got this into the odd has sort of this
rival setup that I thought was really neat.
And so it's how to generate a rival traveling party and
including motivations and sort of weirdness and what they're
carrying and who's following them.
And so it's this idea of having another version of you.
There's a lot of travelers out in the world because the Society
and the Lowland Wastes is migratory, especially in the
summer. And so who else is traveling and
why are they in conflict with you?
And sometimes that conflict could be like you're both
looking for the same thing or they're an ex lover that's kind
of mad at you and like they're, you know, they're just like, I
don't know, I don't want to make it too dark or anything, but,
you know, they're they're like they're you don't like them
anymore and so you're bumping into them in all these social
engagements. So it doesn't necessarily mean,
again with the whole vibe of Cloud Empress, that it's this
person waiting in the bushes trying to shoot you.
I think that might be the case, you know, once in a while.
But I think the the traveling rival parties are going to be
for a variety of motivations and reasons and also designing at
least that piece to be something that would be potentially
interesting and useful to folks playing in a multiplayer setting
as well. And that'll be a trifold
template. I love, I I love cloud Empress.
I love so much about Cloud Empress, but I do really
appreciate the fact that, I mean, obviously you created it
and you have an amazing understanding of the thing that
you've created, but like that whole, like your group of
friends or like new acquaintances, like traveling
through the summer together, I love that you're like solo rules
are going to keep that focused. Because yeah, I do.
I don't think like the single hero narrative would work well.
And I love that. The interplay of people and
like, yeah, figuring out what they're, why they do, the things
that they do. And the Rival system sounds like
a blast. I could see that being just a
person who doesn't like, doesn't attack you, which kind of
subverts you and tries to fuck you over every time they bump
into you or is just kind of rude.
Or like a wanderling ghost that just, like, is pissed at you and
just seems to materialize like, you know, like, hey, like, why'd
you do that? Like, why'd you kill me?
You know, something. Like I the humor is something I
always try to keep up like sort of on that, you know, another
kind of element on the edge. I think humor is it's really
dangerous to center humor at the center of things.
For me, people's sense of humor, it's just it's all over and I
don't know I well. You don't want to force it.
You want to be like an occurrence.
And I I, I try to give people like one of the the biomes is
called thick wood you know so it's just sort of on the cusp
there like if people want to mess with that they can like if
you know or Fort snack like that's that's a little bit more
on on it. But you know it's like do you
want to touch it or not. I don't know.
You know, is your group, Is that something your group's
interested in? You know, I try not to key on
jokes for people, but yeah. No Thick Wood would be the whole
episode of of Stuff over on Dragon Vane.
So absolutely. I think, I think in our Dragon
Vane campaign, there's a, I don't even know what it's
called. It's called like the Magnus
Woods or something and there's not been a single time, I
haven't called it like Magnum wood.
So thick wood would definitely get the triple C treatment on
that one. That's a lot of stuff you're
packing into a trifold pamphlet, though.
Like it's out. Like, I thought, like you could
fill a whole book with everything you were just talking
about South for just the trifold that's going to be, that's going
to be pretty dense as well, right?
Yeah, I guess the the, the for me, solo has to be really rules
light, right. I guess.
I don't know why, but that's to me it has to be.
I guess it's why is that? I don't know.
It's it's social obligation goes a long way for me in playing a
game with other people, like doing the work.
I do play a lot of solo board games now, but to take the time
to set something up and also learn it and it's not a social
experience, I think it's it's a little challenging for me.
And so I think the Rivals piece is going to be like the entire
interior spread of the pamphlet and then there'll be a cover and
then I think the back will be the routine for traveling.
So I think that's sort of how to imagine it with some little text
blurbs explaining what they what they kind of do and how to use
them. Gotcha.
I also don't want my my solo play to be that like heavily
ruled. I completely agree.
Yeah. Yeah.
Like you said if there, if, if there's other people I'm doing
stuff with the the amount of time it takes to get set up and
prepped and ready to go feels good.
But if it's just me, man, like I don't want it to be that.
I don't want an hour set up to to play with myself.
You know, one of the things you said about Cloud Empress in the
specifically about, gosh, something we said just a bit
ago, the Almanac and everything is really interesting.
I know that Karen Tui is funding right now and its campaign blew
up as well and that book has been free digitally forever,
which is super appreciative. It's great for people to play
it, and even if you look at like Wattsy's business model with
five E, they make all these adventures and all this bullshit
or whatever. But their number one seller
every year perpetually, is always a core rule book and
everything they do is designed to just sell more core rule
books. But it's really, yeah, I think
it's really intelligent. I wish more people would stop
pay walling like their core stuff, because getting the
access to the game, every time you write a new adventure,
someone's gonna go, oh that looks neat.
Oh, I need the rules to play, so I'll go get the rules.
But like like mouse shutter for example is another one where
like all of their course stuff is free.
But let me tell you what, those box hits fly off the shelves.
So it's just really intelligent for at least from our my
perspective with the number of games, the stuff that we've
reviewed and read and the accessibility aspect of it Like
value is a score on our metrics for a reason.
And having free rules and stuff is such a huge part of it, but
also is the extra content. So when you can have like right
now, you can find the core rules, you can find an
adventure, you can find all that stuff.
And if someone didn't back the first one, when they're looking
at life and death and stuff like that, like if I want to back the
first one, I can tell you right now, as soon as I saw death, I
would have bought this one too. But to check it out, I can go
get the rules now. So to me, I again, it's I I
think that's a fantastic model to always have as much digitally
free, especially in this environment financially that so
many people live in. But just in general like you're
gonna push a lot more people towards your game when your game
is accessible and then everything you put out can
continue to feedback to the beginning.
So I really, again, again, another reason we really like
the way that you're doing stuff, So we'll just say that a bunch
more times. We're big fans.
I don't know if you've caught on to this.
We're like huge fans of yours, so.
Only your 5th episode, you know. I mean, I buy vinyl, right?
So it's like, you know, I can get the vinyl on Spotify, but
it's the experience. And so I try to think about that
as like the experience of of touching something physically is
is really magical And reading for me, I mean reading, I still
read a lot in print. And so that's kind of the target
like point of sale that I'm thinking about is and and also
too I mean I think it's just gosh, what was it?
I don't know how giving value sounds like creating value for
people giving value. For the shareholders.
You know, I would say like being.
I would say being generous is probably the more human way to
say that of like. I think generosity goes both
ways. And so I think if someone is,
I'll give an example. I think cool Mini or not, I I
don't know. I play a lot of board games, but
they do these these really, they're they're one of the big,
like Kickstarter breakout companies, right?
They do these campaigns with like a ton of stretch goals that
are all like miniatures, and you get like double the amount of
miniatures if you back the stretch goals and stuff.
But there's a lot of like FOMO that's used to like you're only
have this one chance to get it and then it's going to be like
$200 more. And obviously some of that's
dictated by their manufacturing costs and the tooling charges
and all these kinds of things. But I think a lot of times the
way that they generate FOMO is not very generous to their
audience. And I think that's reflected
then in like how their audience treats them and how they talk
about the company. And it's there's not a lot of
generosity when you hear people talk about Coleman or not, for
example. And so I think that's the piece
too, that I want to build a community that feels generous to
one another and to me for my own.
I mean I can control that part but you know offering the the
discount that I think I could viably do and and still remain
soluble and and healthy and happy for the folks that you
know supporting people that support you early on is really
important to me. And and making sure like the
folks that backed hot stuff on surely like they took the
biggest risk on me and the people that backed the previous
campaign took a bigger risk, you know or whatever same amount of
risk or whatever. But you know, really supporting
the people that support you is is important provided, you know,
they're not, you know, toxic or or really holding you to
standards that are unreasonable or something like that.
And that's to where I think that's the other piece about
being really loose with like a refund policy and just like hey,
like no, this is like this isn't working.
I think I had to do that. I don't think really ever.
But I'm, I'm really open to people not buying my stuff like
if you know whatever like if it's not for you or you think
it's a bad move what I'm doing like I can tell you why we could
talk through it. It can choose some of the
rationale. But yeah, you know, like I'm
happy to fire customers too. Like, I don't know that's,
that's. Is a fine line, you know, I
mean, it's good. It's good to err on the side of
like of generosity, of creating a positive space.
But it's also good to keep in mind they're like, yeah,
absolutely fire a customer. You know, if that person's in
the comments of your your Kickstarter page saying that
because they've given you money, they also own part of your
project and you'll answer to them, you should get rid of that
person. I haven't had to do that yet, so
it's easy for me to say right like, but I.
I'm definitely like referencing a specific instance, that yeah.
But I mean, also, you might not have had to deal with that
because of the way that you've promoted and been like it's
exactly the community that you've built.
You know, like you, I mean, with the amount of money across both
projects and the number of backers that you're bringing
into both, like, it's great that you're thousands of people at
this point and haven't had to deal with that.
And that could also be part of that generosity too.
Speaking of generosity as well, your gosh, this numbers got up
since I've been sitting here watching it, But you're about, I
don't know, 490 bucks away from the next stretch goal.
And that stretch goal is, if I remember correctly, when you
stretch. And so I'm not talking to my
ass, but it's Creator fund. The Creator Fund Speaking of
generosity, So what is I know that you've previously you know
there's a part on your website about like grants and stuff but
what is the Platypus Creator Fund and what made you want to
have that as a a stressful here in this project?
So totally stole this from Possum Creek Games.
Wander Home did this. It was such a great idea so I'm
happy to do it. I haven't seen a ton of people
do this so I hope more folks see my campaign and see Possum
Creek's game and and with Wander Home I guess what it is it's
through the Kickstarter. It's not a charity.
It is a I'm commissioning someone to make something for
the world of cloud Empress through an open application
process And so I think they're going to be they were and they
are going to be like $500 grants and that's really to do pretty
much whatever you want with it. You have to sort of talk about
how you're going to use that funds.
But that could be I know artwork's expensive right.
So I wanna spend all 500 on a cover of a whatever or it could
be it's you know I just need something I need to pay some of
my bills so that I can not have to do gig work or so that I can
feel more comfortable and have the mental space to do this
writing. There's no expectation of
completing it. It would be really great.
I announce who those people are and what they're doing.
So I think the audience creates that expectation.
But you know, obviously stuff comes up, it's just sort of a
it's meant to be a grant in that someone has a good idea.
On the other piece too that isn't, it's sort of central is
this idea of trying to get the money in the hands of people
that are newer or wouldn't necessarily you know see
themselves reflected in the TTRPG industry and and really
hear from unique voices. And so that's the other kind of
piece around it is looking at one of the things I've always
tried to do with Cloud Empress is to have a really diverse team
working on it, diversity and sort of all aspects that that I
can think of. So this is another opportunity
to continue to grow that that diverse team that contributes to
Cloud Empress. And then the other piece too, I
mean that's sort of first the, the second piece of that is sort
of supporting this Cloud Empress ecosystem.
So Cloud Empress has a really I was going to say generous it's
sort of standard in the third party world but people can make
stuff with Cloud Empress and they they have the badge you
know set in the world of Cloud Empress.
So people can make content using a lot of the like overarching
themes and setting and lore and mechanisms.
So it's just sort of supporting that sort of creation as well
and it's it's really fun to hear people's ideas and and to
encourage the work. It's been it's been a good time
and and the other piece, one of the things I was really
surprised by I did some amount of surveying previous backers
about. Why did you back the project?
Like what? What are you interested in?
And part of the thing too is I'm really motivated to be community
driven and and as ethical as I can be and really try to be a
values driven publisher. And so part of that was engaging
my audience and and hearing what they wanted to support.
So how did they prioritize recycled paper versus funding
indie creators and that kind of thing?
And and by and large, the the biggest thing that they told me
was like, we want to support you as a small creator doing this
and we want to support other people who are indie creators
making artwork. And I think that can be like
surprising and humbling for me. But it it's it's really awesome
to be part of a community by and large like the the TTRPG world
that supports so many indie creators and and supports them
in taking these risks, but also wants to like further that chain
of support through folks you know even smaller than myself
making new stuff for Cloud Empress.
I do love how supportive the indie scene is.
It really is always, yeah, humbling and just astounding how
much everyone tries to prop each other up on their shoulders to
like get the everyone seen more and get the work out.
And like the. Promotion that we all do for
each other at all points in time.
It really is very lovely, you know, Especially when you're on
Twitter and you're like, well, really, something's good on
Twitter, you know? Well, I'll say too, just for me.
I've told this story maybe a couple times.
I don't think I've told it here. I hope not.
I was making the first Clad in first book.
I was selling a lot of my stuff to buy the artwork and so I I
sold a Rickenbacker bass guitar that I had for a long time to
get. You know, I think it was like
900 bucks to buy more art and I was running out of money and
there was a game jam that Sean McCoy of Tuesday Night Games
sort of kicked up, you know, or or supported on the Discord.
I think somebody else maybe came up with it, but it was this idea
called Voices of the Void where folks would create mothership
pamphlets and materials that sort of existed in world like
diegetic pamphlets and materials.
And his sort of commitment was like we'll buy 50 copies of what
everyone makes, like whatever they are, just we'll buy them
and we'll put them on the store and it'll be the swim thing.
And so I don't know what I, how I calculated it exactly but I
was like Oh my gosh. Like that's 250 bucks if I saw
it this much. And you know that's like 2
pieces of artwork that I'm not you know I that could help the
Kickstarter campaign. So I spent probably like I don't
know like probably 20 to 30 hours on this.
It was called Aniforms and it's. I should release it for free
still. Yeah.
But it's essentially about this machine that lets you put your
brain into the brain of an animal for a short amount of
time. And so it's about, Android's
starting to do this where androids are starting to upload
their consciousness into like, pigeons and bunnies and stuff,
and there's a celebrity that her brains put into a tiger and the
Tiger's abducted. And, you know, there's this
mystery thing. But yeah, anyway, I did this
whole thing for like 250 bucks, right?
So I, you know, money's so subjective in terms of what, but
for me, like a $500 would have been like so much freaking money
to to pursue my art. Like, wow, like, you know, so
but now looking at a campaign that's like close to $75,000,
like $200 isn't, you know, or $500 isn't that much to give to
somebody else to do that work. And I don't know how that makes
me sound, but it's just strange. Like a little success if you can
maintain it And again, like keep your reputation intact and keep
your Wellness intact, like your personal health and Wellness
intact, success feels like it can really steamroll.
If you build that goodwill and you you start to build an
audience that is interested in your your work it it's you know
a lot of it is still difficult, but a lot of it becomes a lot
easier and a lot less stressful when you when you people start
to get to know you a little bit and they they start to like what
you make. I think it's great that like
your take away from like coming from the point of selling your
Rickenbacker bass guitar and like doing this 30 hours work
for 250 extra bucks. Your take away from that is that
now you you're on the flip side. You're like, Oh no, I will give
somebody the opportunity to not have to sell that thing that
they have that they like, Even if it's a thing that maybe they
don't use every day but they like.
Or to put in like a ton of extra work for not a little bit.
I mean right now for be 250 bucks would be great.
But like I I think it says a lot about you as a person, your
character, that that's your take away from it.
Thanks. Yeah, I mean and and I just two
people that are in my special thanks are Sean McCoy and Luke
Gearing. Sean, because the TKG web store
like, buys a bunch of stuff and they don't.
I think that's the same with Exalted Funeral.
I I did my first scene and Exalted Funeral and Spearwitch
bought like 20 of them. And I was like 20, you know,
like, Oh my gosh, you know, and and even Exalted Funeral, I
forget who it was working there. I don't remember their name, but
they were like, oh, do you need like help paying for the print
run? Like, you know, we'll, we'll
pay, we'll help you. You know, we confront you the
money and then you can send it to us and all this kinds of
stuff. And that's just like so cool.
I think the they're a lot of the the vendors aren't like
tastemakers in the in the way that they like.
They let their audience be the tastemaker.
They do sort of take reasonable risks, right, Based on how
something looks. And you know, I don't think, I
don't know like my book where was of Wall Street, like no one
was going to buy 200 copies right away, right.
Because I was an unknown entity and the the book didn't look as
good as Cloud Empress, but just the willingness to take risks.
And and I think 2 cultures have values, right?
Like communities have values and there's a value about like
experimentation and newness and strangeness that that is so I
think built into the Zine format in particular and why I love
Zine so much. It doesn't really you know
that's the other piece too is this sort of like I don't know
going through like publisher puberty is like it doesn't make
a lot of sense for me to publish scenes as as much anymore with
the like financial level I'm at. But it's it's like kind of sad
because these are so awesome and so experimental and and amazing.
So I don't know. Yeah that's a lot there.
But I just love this this community so much and and the
the connection between creators and publishers and all those
kinds of stuff or I guess retailers maybe is a better way
to put that for Exalted Funeral and Spirit Witch and some other
folks. Igloo Tree who does fulfillment
for you know has done fulfillment for a lot of my
campaigns. Yeah, there's a lot of great
people, great stuff in the space.
I mean, Space Penguin's another one that's doing a lot of really
good stuff in the in the community as well, so.
I love Jared. Yeah.
I think it's also really nice that you got in with Mothership,
which because of Sean McCoy and stuff like that, they built up a
really fantastic support of community.
So that was a good one I think to get the foot in the door for
and kind of have a basin. So I'm sure that could only
help. And Ian use some, I'll just
shout out. I'll shout out more people.
But Ian use some of Old Breach. Old Breach fame.
I mean I'll just be like Ian like can you look at my pledge
levels, right, Like he helped me set my pledge levels for the
first campaign. You know he does some
development game development work and he looked at funeral
for the anti St. and was like these are the things that aren't
working for me and here's what should change and these kinds of
things you know totally for free.
I, I, you know, I would have paid them.
You know, I'd like don't do any more.
I always tell people like, you know, like they'll say I'll take
a look at this. I'm like please don't do
anything that, you know, you you want to charge for or just let
you know, whatever. I I try not to ever use people's
like time for free at this point in my, you know, publishing
career. But you know just like the the
generosity and willingness to help others that I don't doesn't
feel very competitive in the field.
I mean, I there's some friendly rivalries that I have that I
look at other people's work. I heard Brian Eno on a it was
like broken record or something. And he he has this attitude of
like, I heard this and I was like, damn, that's good.
Like, I wish I had thought of that.
Like that's kind of the most competitiveness.
I had it. I was just like trying to step
up my game around, you know, seeing the people around me.
But the the big thing, I talked to new creators about newer
creators. I'm so new what?
What do I know, right? But it's just doing something
unique that that has that feels identifiable and I think you can
do that at all budget levels. It it's not easy, but I think if
you're creative and you can execute something that that
feels different whereas a you know it's just putting two
things together that other people haven't put together
before, There's still space for that I think.
I hope, yeah. Absolutely.
I mean the stuff that we that that pops up on Kickstarter is
the stuff that we look at there's times where we're we're
both just like man, how has someone that had done this
before you know and every time we crack up in a new Z and it's
it's really it's really nice to see that the innovation is still
going strong. Hey, and no matter what what
your funding level and how much money you have to spend on
projects don't use fucking AI. So your last project funded and
then delivered really quickly and I love that on this one you
actually have the fulfillment map and everything As far as it
actually getting into our hands physically it says March of 2025
is that, I mean obviously that is the goal is the year what
month being now April, January, March, April.
So less than a year from the campaign to actually hopefully
have all of it in in our hands is.
That the goal? Yeah, I'm trying to be
conservative with that. I'll probably I don't know we'll
just see we'll see you know where we are.
I I last one was completed I think a lot of backers got it in
November and the campaign ended in February so whatever that is
some people you know December early January for people that
didn't fill out their pledge manager you don't got stuff lost
in the mail. The big sort of unknown for me,
I mean it is a known unknown is just what international shipping
looks like and working with a large development partner.
So even something like manufacturing took a week before
it's going to take like three to six weeks now and international
shipping freight to fulfillment hubs is going to take 6 to 8
weeks And so building that all in.
So I have I built a giant Gantt chart now, which I did before,
but it it's really important and I'm going to be working as fast
as I can again with some trying to build some healthy work like
work life balance stuff in here because this isn't my day job
and I have family. Mind blowing that this is not
your day job. Yeah, well, I, you know, the
last Kickstarter could not support someone.
You know, even a $100,000 campaign could not support.
I mean, most people living a reasonable life, unfortunately,
you know, So it's a, it's a yeah.
I mean, I I mean just mean that you're like, you're fairly good
at this. Thank you.
Well yeah I I, you know I bring project management skills and
things I do professionally into it.
But I I like doing it. It's it's what I I don't know I
I think the other piece too is my dad worked in a creative
industry growing up and owned his own business and I saw like
one how paying for your own health insurance sucks it's so
bad in America. So just think about all the
creativity and amazing things we could have if our society
supported people's health care and we didn't have to live in
this society where a single health diagnosis.
You know I guess I I forget the statistic let's let's go on a
like I'll have the the medical debt cloud Empress expansion
but. No, that's too.
We're getting too close to home there, bud.
Most, most bankruptcies are, you know, are related to medical
debt, right? And most folks who are unhoused
or or living in significant poverty have some medical debt
connection. So anyway, I wanted to have
health insurance. And I think the other piece too
is I saw how my dad like, I don't want financial success to
be tied to creative expression necessarily.
That's something I think about. But when your livelihood depends
on, like, if my livelihood started to depend on this, I
would start making probably different decisions.
Like, I don't know what I would do, but I would start really
pulling on tropes. I think in particular, like I
would do like, you know, really bring it Bloodborne, right?
Or from soccer or, you know, I don't know.
I would just start to bring in a lot more familiar elements, more
so than I already do and and probably pander a little bit
more 'cause I I'd just be so concerned about not making the
money I need to make to live. And so I think right now I do
things to bring this to a wide audience.
That's important to me and it's and.
But I I don't feel I am a little concerned.
Like I I wanted to make sure I'm feeling good about the campaign
now. But there's this risk of like
committing to this box set and then having way too few people
do it and having to eat a lot of that cost or I don't know what I
would have done. So, but yeah, I I think having
the freedom to step into and out of this work because my
livelihood doesn't depend on it, it makes it a lot healthier for
me. Yeah, I could see that.
That's very reasonable. Yeah, I mean you got to have a
balance with everything that you do and you know so many people
say, I mean so few people, so few.
I think way less people than people think live full time in
TTRPGS and have this be their only job.
Like way less people than people think.
Like I genuinely think it's less than like 3 digit number like in
the in this current especially this scene here.
But but yeah, talking about the campaign, we have 17 days left
to go. You're already at.
I mean, the campaign's got up like 3-4 hundred dollars since
since we started this, since we started this interview you're
at. Present the show.
Yeah. It's awesome.
Come. On everyone, come on in.
But getting close to 900 backers?
Getting close to 75 K? 17 days to go, you know,
Definitely already scratched on the door for for six figures.
A lot happening, a lot going on, a lot coming in the works, but
stuff is already out. Now like you said, the the we're
getting redone hardbacks but the the game is still out there.
It's still present. It's online to download.
If people are interested in the project, which they absolutely
should be, they should get all this stuff now for it.
Where can they? Like, what's your website?
Where can people find the downloads that we've talked
about for all the digital stuff online?
Like where can people find you so they can continue to follow
support and and check out Cloud Empress.
Sure. So Cloud empress.com is the
easiest place to find it. That links you to the campaign
page. Cloud Empress Life and Death.
Google search should find you the Kickstarter and then Cloud
Empress. In drive through RPG you'll find
you a lot of stuff. One thing that someone asked
about that, I guess I've decided is that once we get in, once the
campaign funds the, the broader, the broader PDF send out for
land of Cicadas will happen towards the like once orders are
locked and stuff like that. But if people e-mail me, I'll
have an announcement about it, but people can e-mail me and
I'll send you the land of cicadas.
So don't buy that if you're going to back the campaign
provided you back it at the right pledge level, right.
So there are a couple pledges that include that book, but
don't feel like you need to buy the PDF now, just back it and
then I'll there will be a message out and I'll get that to
you once the campaign's funded again, so you don't have to buy
it twice or wait a year to get that PDF if you want to start
playing now. And the other piece with the
discount I guess just for folks to know is it it's not just
people have previously pledged but also I'll have it a certain
point in the campaign. You know if you if you take a
picture of your print copy that counts too any of the previous
materials. So I guess if it's at your local
store or something you want to buy it you will get like that
credit to towards the new materials again the the
discounts for something boring to talk about what a discount
what the specifics of a discount are.
So apologies everyone but it's it's for it's for if you're re
if you're re buying anything right.
So if you're if you have the print rule book and you're
getting something with the rule book in it, you get the
discount. If you buy something with if you
bought Land of Cicadas or some of the adventures and you're
getting it again, then you get the discount.
So yeah, but cloud empress.com is probably the easiest way to
find that in the drive through RPG.
Fellow links. Awesome.
Yeah, well, listen, it is always a pleasure to have you here.
For those listening, this won't be the last time you're on.
It probably won't be the last time you're on this year.
We'll see what's going on with that, but really excited to to
continue to support such an awesome creator and excited to
see what's coming for Cloud Empress.
We'll make sure that all the links that what you said are in
the descriptions below, whether you're on podcast or VOD or
whatever it is. And I'll try to remember to put
the links to our previous episodes with the interviews,
actual plays, second actual play, all the rest of that so
that you can check out Cloud Empress and you go back to the
Kickstarter. 17 days left. If you're listening to this
before April 25th go, go back that and and I think that's
going to be it for us today. So again, thank you so much for
being here. Really appreciate it.
Great. To see you again.
And. And we'll see all of you later.
Have a good one. Bye.