Hi Reader,

Welcome! Please, come in. I've put some pink daylilies in a vase for Pride month. Daylilies—pretty, but impossible to kill.

We're all saying "Happy Pride!" with extra daylily-determination this year. It's a happy Pride, but with grit. Before it was a party, Pride was a protest.

And 5,000 years before that, in a land you build at the table, it was a battlecry against the gods!

If you can't tell, I'm pumped to be re-launching Defy the Gods during Pride month. I didn't plan it this way, but it's the best kind of accident.

I just wrapped a three-session run of Defy the Gods with Tony, Sarah and Richard of Plus One EXP. You can see it on YouTube—

• ​This is where god-building starts in session 1, so you can see what a messed-up world they make.
• ​Here's just one of the places where that world comes into play, in session 3, and you can see how invested it makes the players.

If you want more context, check out the full episodes Episode 1 (character creation, world-building and World Scene), 2, and 3.

Just one more week before the Kickstarter launches. If you're excited—yay! I'm excited too. If you're non-plussed by this new campaign over a month after I asked for your pledge already—thank you for sticking with me. This has been a learning experience on an ambitious project. June 10th will be it—the last time I ask you to help me print this book. You're gonna love the results.

I'm planning better, too, setting us up for a strong opening day. I'm writing a stronger campaign story. Cris is laying out a fuller Quick Start PDF so I can share it with you. I'll post it on Itch where the shorter Quick Start is. If you download that one, Itch will email you when the new one's ready.

For the new, cooler video, I'm excited to say my old friend Yuri Lowenthal is doing the voice over! This is the same Yuri who plays Peter Parker on the Spider-Man video game series, as well as so many other indelible characters. I can't show you the video yet, but I'll post it on the Kickstarter page when it launches.

Hooray for Pride month! I'm glad Defy the Gods can be a teeny part of something bigger, getting gay-romance cooties all over people's epic fantasy. I can't wait to queer Conan the Barbarian.

This Pride, be loud, proud, visible and safe. And, when you get a few hours of peace with your friends, go topple some gods.

xoxoxo
Chrys

P.S. If you haven't already, go follow the Kickstarter here so you'll be notified when it goes live!