Friday, January 18, 2013

Funded and 1st Bonus Goal Reached

We hit our bonus goal so we will publish the Heart of the Razor (4 new adventures by Richard Pett, Owwen KC Stephens, Gary McBride, and Tom Knauss). The PDF of these adventures will be added to all the pledge levels at or above $150 and softcover print books will be added to all the pledge levels at or above $250.

All pledges may add on the Heart of the Razor Print Book w/ PDF for an additional $40 or the PDF only for an additional $20. You can specify on the survey what any additional funds to your pledge are for.

New Bonus Goals

At $82,500 we will publish the player's guide as a hardcover book.

At $85,000 we will publish the Heart of the Razor as a hardcover book.

At $87,500 we will print and publish Fire As She Bears. Roughly 48-60 full color page softcover book, this complete subsystem of ship-to-ship combat can be added to any pledge for an additional $15. 

At $90,000 we will create the D20Pro maps and the Hero Lab data files for Razor Coast. More to come on this goal.

Thank you again to our backers!

From the Words of Lou

We funded -- and made the first stretch goal the same day! I'm overjoyed. The 4 adventures in Heart of the Razor are top notch by great writers. Tons of fun, ahead.

In celebration I want to share one of my favorite opening moments in Razor Coast. It includes one of my favorite lines. Not entirely sure why it's my favorite, actually. There are scenes with more subtle awe. Razor Coast contains more striking, more startling, and more bloody scenes for sure. There are more tender moments, more heroic choices, more ass kickin' moments for sure. But something about this one, one the docs, just _brings_ me there. Cynthia Sheppard illustrated it, which always is a plus in my book, and I think -- in this book.

In general, Razor Coast read aloud text remains short and concise. This is one of Nick's longer read alouds. Here's the scene:

Anglers by trade since their long-spent youth, now worn by the waves, a gaggle of grizzled men sit hunkered down on the docks by the gangplank of an old barnacle-crusted fishing sloop. A dozen old men, sprinkled with a few younger fisher folk, huddle around a man of forty or so winters. His eyes quaver and his lips tremble as he launches into his tale:

"We's a ways out. Making hard time. The wind was ‘gainst us, and we’d just passed Beacon Island by the settlin’ in o’ dusk. That’s when the sloop gave a mighty lurch. We hit something, so the captain thought at first, but no… it felt like somethin’, well, like somethin’ hit us! Then the sloop rocked again and the cap’n feared we’d run upon the shoals, but before he could snap an order somethin’ slammed our port side hard. The captain lost his footin’ and tumbled into the deep. Never came out. That’s when I saw it, I did. Blacker than the darkness, blacker than the night’s water around us…”

“Ain’t no such thing…as a black shark,” a young man on the edge of the crowd snaps.

“Night black it were! These eyes been at crow’s nest for thirty years!” The older man snarls in retort.

“Thirty years ago t’were sharp is sure, but not so now you old sea dog. Sun on the water burned out your eyes years ago.” A few laughs answer this retort, but no real mirth flows from them.

“Batten yer hatch. What’s a guppy like yerself know from sharks? It were blacker than the heart of midnight.”

“There be no such thing!” insists the youngster.

A voice, like a knife across stone, cuts the air: “There be a black shark.”

The crowd parts to reveal an ancient man of the sea. His leathery skin stretched over his bones, he raises his right arm to silence the boy’s reply. The arm ends in a cold black iron hook. The old man’s one good hand clutches a wooden crutch, supporting his wracked frame. His leather breeches are cut off at the knees and two gnarled wooden pegs, chipped and scratched from wear, extend from the stumps of what remains of his legs. “There be a black shark.” His voice rasps once more.

A thick silence settles over the crowd then; no one wants to debate the shark’s existence any more. One of the younger fishermen even hazards a glance off the pier as if he expects a dark fin to crest the waves at any moment. With muttered excuses and leave-takings the crowd of fishermen breaks up, leaving the old man alone on the pier, his back to the dock, staring across the roiling sea.

* * *

So say it with me, folks. "There be a black shark!"

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