Hi Reader,

Welcome! Please, come in. There's still a few patches of snow on the ground—winter coming in fits and starts. How are you?

Me? A weight is off my shoulders—Defy the Gods is at the printer.

You can read more about it in the breathless Kickstarter update I sent out yesterday. In fairness, I was feeling breathless. Or like I was just starting to exhale.

The printer is reviewing the files. They'll send a report by the end of the week. I'm gonna pay half the print cost soon, with an estimated print run of 1500 standard editions and 150 special editions. The number of orders for the special edition keeps going up, which is awesome—I'll take orders on those (and everything else) until December 1st.

I offered some glimpses of the new art in that Kickstarter update. But, because this is our game night, I wanted to share more of it with you! Take a look:

The Sorcerer putting on his mask is by Arthur Riel Cabezas. The sphinx hunting the winged horse is by Emory Kjelsberg. The Sword entering an Atlantean ruin is by Adel Solianik. And the many-headed leviathan is by Katrin Dirim.

There's more art too ... It won't all fit in an email, but it's all amazing.

At 312 pages, this book will be a tome:

• It has the guide to fantasy ancient Sumer, describing the world from the cosmos to weights and measures. In that chapter and others, the book is brimming with adventure ideas in the City, the Wilds, Atlantean ruins, and supernatural realms beyond. For instance, the city on crab legs that you saw in the last game night is an Atlantean ruin walking across the land, on a giant bronze automaton, trying to outrun the gods' judgment for 2,000 years. That's just one of the uncanny locations I offer for Atlantean ruins.
• It has advice for the GM—how to pace an adventure, create side characters, represent the hierarchies of the mortal and immortal forces antagonizing the adventurers, and run a World Scene. Sean's list of names for people, cities and deities is also invaluable. Some but not all this stuff is in the Quick Start.
• It has Sean's and my catalogue of creatures and enemies, complete with suggested Epithets and naturalist's notes on the creatures.
• It also has Ryan Khan's Sumerian supper—a lamb soup that he based on one of the oldest recipes in the world. I made it at home, and it's delicious! Even though it's a stretch goal, I put it in the book because I like immersing your senses of smell and taste in this world...and also encouraging you to get up from the table sometimes and eat.

The street dog and street cat are by Jaen Nighly Butler. I drew the others.

I still have so much to do:

• finish the stretch goals
• set up the game's website so people can download the character sheets
• publicize the game.

Defy the Gods is very niche. I did that on purpose. But it means I have to find everyone in that niche—basically, queer fantasy gamers—and tell all of them all about the game.

If you know someone who might like it, please send them this email! They can still pre-order the book at a steep discount at https://defy-the-gods-rpg.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders until December 1st. Thank you!

Next up for me is PAX Unplugged in Philly this weekend. I'll be there Friday through Sunday, talking about Defy the Gods and running it for people. If you're there, please come say hi! I don't have a booth, but Saturday morning at 10 am, I'll be at Games on Demand's designer meet-and-greet for an hour. My game slots for Defy the Gods are Friday 1–5 pm and Saturday 4–8 pm, also with Games on Demand.

I'm also making a prototype for the new Raccoon Sky Pirates, which I hope to playtest tonight. And I haven't forgotten the real-time card game for sword fights. I'd love to get that out there.

Even when it's slow, I'm busy! But I'm glad I could check in with you and share some of the stuff I'm so excited for in the book.

—Chrys

P.S. For the queer gamer in your life, https://defy-the-gods-rpg.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders is open until November runs out!