Hi Reader,

[heat, banging]

Welcome! Please, come in. I'll be right with you. Just need to stick this blade in the quenching bucket ... [steam, hissing] There we go.

Whew! It's sweaty in here. Put your coat wherever. No, not there, that's hot.

Why is our game night in a smithy? I've been working on Defy the Gods. Turns out, in a sword & sorcery game, there are a lot of swords. So, thank you for coming to my workshop while I continue to hammer away.

But look what I've turned out! I've scheduled the Kickstarter for Defy the Gods on March 25th. You can now sign up to be notified when it launches at https://prelaunch.hecticelectron.com. On that page, you can choose to get a set of dice for free (when the Kickstarter is fulfilled) if you pre-pledge a dollar. That will also get you into an exclusive group on Facebook, where I'm posting works-in-progress from the book—sketches, excerpts, and behind-the-scenes looks at what it takes to bring a game across the finish line.

What, is there something wrong with Facebook? Zuckerberg did what? I've been in this smithy day and night for the last (checks watch) 30 days. All the banging on bronze drowns out the news.

Publishing a game is a great excuse to avoid the world! Give it a try. 😃

But I haven't forgotten the raccoons! I have the laaast 33 Raccoon Sky Pirates box sets in stock. After that, it will exist only in PDF, print-and-play, and print-on-demand forms.

Also, hey! The Tiny Table podcast did a great series on Raccoon Sky Pirates! They played a hilarious game of it, ran a post-mortem, and interviewed me! You can hear a lot of it for free, and they have a Patreon where the interview continues.

Oh raccoons. They've upended my life for so long, I don't know what I'll do when they're all finally out the door.

I guess I'll start by sweeping up all the broken crockery.

Eventually, after Defy the Gods, when I make the "deluxe" version, I'll try to confine the raccoons to a warehouse, where paid professionals wearing thick work gloves will stuff them into boxes.

For now, though, I've got to get back to hammering on bronze.

No, leave that raccoon there. He pumps the bellows.

Cheers,
Chris

P.S. Please check out the Kickstarter's prelaunch page! And if you do the pre-pledge thing, you'll help me see how well the Kickstarter might do. And you get some nifty dice!