Death Love Doom: Released at Ropecon!

20 pages + detached cover with map, this is the same format as Hammers of the God/Death Frost Doom/Tower of the Stargazer, etc. Written by me.

Limited to 225 print copies (and out of that come the couple of review copies that get sent out, awards panel copies, library copies, etc., so probably 200 available for sale).

It will be released at Ropecon this weekend, then goes on sale to the rest of you the same time as Monolith does early next month. The print version will be an LotFP Store/Convention exclusive. It will not be made available through distribution or Noble Knight or whatever place you might order LotFP stuff from. The PDF version will be available from the regular vendors, but I bet it gets banned from those sites before too long.

It's basically a pseudo-historical haunted house kind of thing. It involves the Duvan'Ku. The adventure went from first concept to print in two weeks (yay team!), including playing it. Was planned to be 8 pages, ended up at 20. Probably rough around the edges, but things I work on for 6+ months still have typos and shit so probably no big difference there. 

The first thing done was the art list. I decided to turn the "sick and twisted" up to 11. Then I built an adventure around the imagery. Seriously, if things bother you, skip this one. Crossing the line was first priority. I had artists turn down the job because of the content.

Kelvin Green was the masochist that was willing to take the art job on. Here's what he had to say about the project:

If I'm lucky, you know my work already. If not, google me. The kind of thing I like to draw and the kind of thing James Raggi is known for writing are quite different in tone, so when he asked me to contribute to Death Love Doom, yes I was surprised. Very bad things happen to men, women and children in this adventure, and he wanted me to draw these very bad things? Me, with my cartoony, clean-line style?

Yet that is what I did. It's not the kind of thing I've drawn before, it's not the kind of thing I've ever thought about drawing before, and I may never draw its like again, but all of that is what made me agree; to do James' extreme descriptions justice in my own art style would be a challenge, but we don't grow if we don't challenge ourselves. That seems pretentious, but it's true; I didn't enjoy drawing some of this stuff, but I'm glad I did. I expect there to be a debate about the content, and my part in it, and I welcome that debate. I've learned much about my strengths and limitations as an artist and I've also learned much about my attitudes towards extreme and explicit art, and I will be happy to discuss all of it, because it's an important discussion to have.

Layout/Designer/Cartographer guy Jez Gordon (MR SECRET SANTICORE) had this to say about his involvement (prefaced, at Jez' request, by our opening conversation on the matter):

Raggi: How busy are you the next two weeks? I had the wild hair of an idea... I need a series of illustrations... gore/porntastic.

Gordon: How fucked up are the illustrations? as bad as the zombie fisting the disemboweled woman?

Raggi: At least, yeah...

Gordon: Zombiefistwoman is just over the line for me in terms of yuckfactor, and that's just looking at stuff. actually drawing that level of gross...

Raggi: I'm actually thinking the zombie fisting might be kind of tame compared to some of the ideas I have.

Gordon: (looking at Raggi's list of goregasm): Oh.

Raggi: If I get someone else for the art, would you be willing to do the map and layout?

Gordon: Yeah I think I'm just a little too uncomfortable with this one sorry... But send me through the map details and i'll get started tonight.

And that's how I ended up designing Death Love Doom, but not illustrating it. I was bummed that I had to turn it down, but I kept mulling over how I didn't want to spend hours and hours giving form to these horrid visions. I tend to get a little haunted by horror, it creeps into my eyeballs when I'm falling asleep and likes to party in my brainpan. So I had to say no. And it was the right thing to do... As it was I'd be thinking about some of the stuff that's in Death Love Doom when I wasn't working on it, and just feel... sick. Bits and pieces of it are hardcore. So yeah. It's not for the faint of heart, or weak of stomach, or those who think about the children. Because you really don't want to think about the children. Really. You don't.

I got through the horror by focusing on the historical aspect, and worked to reproduce as accurately as possible the location - a 17th century merchant's house outside of London. I drew heavily on the architecture of Fenton House (big thank you to James Stuart and Duncan Young for the surveillance - Hampstead is just a too far from here to make the day trip) and married that with the needs of the adventure. How far way can a scream be heard? What are the mechanics of 17th century plumbing? The sleeping habits of coachmen? Why I love doing real-world rpgs, you always learn a little bit more...

So would I do it again? Yep, you bet. As horrible as the subject matter is, it's make believe. No one was harmed in the making of this fantasy, and the fact that I still feel off thinking about some of what's in Death Love Doom is an indicator that this level of horror can't be normalised. It was, and remains, sickening.

And so it should.

... or maybe we'll get lucky and people will leave it alone if they don't appreciate this sort of thing and we won't have to play Outrage Theater again. Or maybe we're making a mountain out of a molehill and we're not actually hitting that unpredictable squicky outrage button at all. One can hope. Well, maybe you can. I'm not too hopeful. No matter how plainly I warn or how loud I yell "SICK SHIT IS HERE" somebody's going to buy it and then get very angry because there's sick shit there.

But, you know, fair warning: THERE IS SICK SHIT HERE. As part of what turned out to be a pretty good and effective adventure.

Final Push: Robert S. Conley Sandbox added as Extras, Princess Ninja Panda Taco

9 days left. Still plenty of time to get lots of stuff done if you want to.

New Perk: All $30+ contributors on funded projects will get a sandbox supplement by Robert S. Conley (Majestic Wilderlands, Points of Light 1 & 2, etc.) in print + pdf format. This is exclusive to this campaign and will not be available in any format afterwards.

Also remember that the Grab Bag level allows you to choose which adventures you want (up to 6).

All adventures come with an "OGL 3.PF" conversion in pdf by Owen K.C. Stephens.

Plus some campaigns have unique perks:

As discussed in yesterday's blog post, if you contribute to Horror Among Thieves and it doesn't fund, you will still get the adventure anyway at no charge. See the notes on the campaign page for details. If you guys could spread the word about this one...

Jennifer Steen has an added bonus for $30+ contributors to her Depths of Paranoia adventure: Princess Ninja Panda Taco! Fresh off her successful Kickstarter for Project: Ninja Panda Taco, she'll be doing a mini-supplement about an evil mastermind trying to destroy the world. Cover art on this by PNPT artist Brian Patterson.

GWAR fans should jump on the extras Dave Brockie is offering as part of his Towers Two adventure: a new $50 perk gives you a signed shirt and poster, $75 gives you that plus 2 GWAR concert tickets and a meeting with Brockie himself. Those might be worth it even without the adventure being involved...

Aeron Alfrey's Escaping Leviathan has a couple unique perks: The $40 level gets you quality prints of some of Alfrey's previous LotFP work, and  $75 gets you that and a poster.

Horror Among Thieves: If You Contribute and it Doesn't Fund, You Get It FREE

Kelvin Green’s gone nuts and he’s infected LotFP Central!

If Horror Among Thieves does NOT fund, LotFP will still be publishing the adventure. It won’t necessarily be on the same timetable as if it were to fund, but we’ll put it out.

Anyone contributing $10+ to the campaign will get the adventure PDF, WHETHER OR NOT THE CAMPAIGN FUNDS.

Anyone contributing $20+ to the campaign will get the physical book, WHETHER OR NOT THE CAMPAIGN FUNDS.

That’s right, if the campaign doesn’t fund, you get your contributed money back at the close of the campaign, and you will get the stuff anyway when it’s published. (Note that if it doesn’t fund with this campaign, books will be shipped 2nd class and it does not include any of the campaign extras.)

Spread the word. Now there really is no excuse not to fund this thing.

Adventure Campaigns Updates and New Perks, The Madness Continues!

Got about two weeks left. Still lots of work to do.

Time for more incentives!

Two new perks on Dave Brockie's adventure Towers Two:
$50 gets you the Adventure + Extras plus a GWAR shirt and poster both signed by Oderus Urungus!
$75 gets you all that plus 2 ticketsto a GWAR show, and a chance to meet Dave Brockie and get your picture taken with him.(transport to the show of course not included, not valid for festival appearances)

That $75 perk is nuts. Grab it.

Two new perks on Aeron Alfrey's adventure Escaping Leviathan:
$40 gets you the Adventure + Extras plus 5 A4-sized prints of some of Alfrey's previous work with LotFP. See below for the pieces.
$75 gets you that plus an A1 size poster (594 × 841mm) which will function both as both an art piece and a map of the interior of the Leviathan.

Jennifer Steen has been helping out with the campaigns by interviewing ALL THE DAMN PEOPLE it seems, about their non-LotFP projects and gaming life as well as their LotFP adventures. She's got her own adventure up for grabs, The Depths of Paranoia. 

Here are the interviews she's done so far (more to come most days of the week until we're done!):

Vincent Baker
Johnathan Bingham
Kevin Crawford
Kelvin Green
Richard Pett
Mike Pohjola
Jeff Sparks
Ville Vuorela
.. and me!


But Jenn's also Kickstarting her own game, Ninja Panda Taco. Three days left, 85% funded... go get it done!

Kelvin Green has made a bombshell announcement about his adventure Horror Among Thieves:
"Whether or not this campaign makes its goal, anyone who contributes at least $10 will get a pdf of the adventure; if the campaign is a success, the full weight of the Lamentations of the Flame Princess design and layout team will be thrown behind it and you’ll get the fancy pants edition detailed on the campaign page. If not, then I’ll be putting it together myself and it won’t look half as good, but you will get the full text and all the art, all the content just as if the goal had been reached. That’s my small way of showing my thanks to you for showing your support."

Vincent Baker has posted four videos answering questions about his adventure The Seclusium of Orphone:






Anna Kreider has made a long post here about her adventure We Who Are Lost.

Jeff Rients' adventure Broodmother Sky Fortress continues to be the superstar of the campaigns. Did you see the video he made talking about it?



More news soon I hope...

General Purpose Update (Of Special Interest to Brazilian Readers!)

I was interviewed by Marcelo Dior about LotFP and all the craziness I'm involved with. Listen to that here. That interview includes a from-Brazil-orders-only coupon code for 25% off on any LotFP order through July.

I've contributed four monsters and a short essay to the This Just In From GenCon crowdfunding effort to raise money for new equipment for their GenCon coverage. Check that out here.

The Monolith from beyond Space and Time has gone to the printer.

Crossing fingers but I am working to have an 8-12 page short-run adventure ready for Ropecon. Planning to print 225 copies and that's it.

The LotFP big July adventures thing keeps chugging along. Jennisodes has so far released interviews with Richard Pett, Ville Vuorela, Vincent Baker, Johnathan Bingham, and Kevin Crawford, with more to come. (oh yeah, and with meeeeee)

Interesting that there has been a huge surge in Gardening Society Memberships that can only be connected to the campaign, but they haven't all then put money down. It seems a lot of people are taking a "wait and see" attitude. As long as you don't wait too long...

I'm participating in the Indie+ online convention, specifically in the Social Responsibilities of the Self-Publisher panel at 7pm Eastern time Friday/tomorrow (that's a change from the original 10pm time). Emily Vitori and Christopher Helton are also on the panel and it will be hosted by Chris Tregenza.

(Alex Mayo will be running Death Frost Doom during that convention as well. 9pm Eastern on Friday/tomorrow. Sign up here!)

More news soon...

LotFP Goes 3.x? PF? Wha? (Plus Retailer Option)

Every contributor to a funded adventure for the adventure campaigns will receive a PDF supplement for that adventure with "OGL 3.PF" conversion notes. Owen KC Stephens of Super Genius Games will be helping out with those conversions.

(working on setting it up so I can just say the darn name but due to the "Adult Content" clause in their compatibility license, that's difficult, since two of the adventures definitely won't pass that test and I haven't asked yet about the other 17... no idea where along the Scooby Doo<-->Cannibal Holocaust continuum they're going to be!)

I've added a new perk level to further support this. For $185, $5 more than the Faithful, you get a copy of all funded adventures plus all these conversion notes in a booklet.

(I wrote to all the writers when I notified them this morning:

"Just to let you know if this comes to pass, *do not worry about it on your end*. Don't alter your plans or write with 3.5 or whatever in mind. Do what you were going to do in the LotFP/Old School/Whatever Your Plan Was freewheeling style, and let the guy converting it worry about how to adapt it.")

***

I've also added a Retailer Support perk which gives retailers an opportunity to get a pile of product at below usual wholesale costs. Probably only good for online retailers at this point, but might be good for brick-and-mortars after a few adventures fund.

Clearing Up One Thing with the Adventures Campaign

I've seen this in a few places now, just a few minutes ago as a comment in the previous post. To make it clear:

If a project does not fund, IndieGoGo will automatically refund all contributions. I don't receive any money unless a project funds.

IndieGoGo does have the option to allow someone to keep all money earned regardless of whether the funding goal is met (they just charge a higher fee), but I have not chosen that option for these campaigns.

About the Adventure Campaigns: Answers and Updates and Changes!

Well, I leave for four days (not the smartest move but it was planned in advance) and I come back to madness... my email is lit up, G+ is lit up, forums are lit up.

OK. First thing. Yes, I am crazy. And yes, this is all crazy. But I think it's crazy enough to work, or at least work enough to be worth everyone's while.

Second, there has been some mention that there isn't a lot of info about the projects, the teasers are short. I'm getting on people about that because most of them are already working on their adventures. It's insane! They're excited! I'm excited! So hopefully info will flow soon. I might have missed stuff while I've been gone, but there are a few things out there:

Jeff Rients did a video talking about his project... view that here.

Vincent Baker is talking about his project a lot on his blog... see that here.

Over a dozen of the authors for this insanity will get their own interview on the Jennisodes podcast. It won't just all be about the adventure campaign (although everyone will talk about their projects!), but about everything they do. The first two, with me and with Kevin Crawford, are up.

Most Importantly:

There is a common thread to a lot of the comments I'm seeing. You seem excited (there has been a surge in Gardening Society signups so you want to do bundles!) but unsure. "The bundle packs are risky!" And people are holding back. Waiting and seeing.

This isn't going to work if everyone waits and sees. But if people think the bundle packs are a bit of a risk now, I must listen (because I want every single adventure in this campaign funded, and failing that, enough funded!). And I will sweeten the deal, because I think the bundles are what will get all this done:

For the $160/$180 levels, you will get the following:

• A copy of every single adventure funded in these campaigns.
• NEW: All of the "Extras" sheets (my notes on each funded adventure of how I'd adapt it to my campaign) combined into a booklet with exclusive Zak S art. (These were separate perk options, but nobody chose those on a bundle level, so I will listen, and just put them at this perk level.)
• If you choose this option and it is the only adventure that funds, you get a 100€ coupon code for the LotFP store. If only the adventure you contribute to, and one other, funds, you get a 50€ coupon code.
• NEW: A copy of a 64-page adventure by me. The writing is done and it's been sitting around for a couple months waiting for its turn to go into production. This printing will be exclusive to this campaign, will only be made available to the people picking the bundle perks, and it will never be seen again in this expanded format--only in an edited 32 page format. This adventure doesn't count against the number in the previous point. (This adventure will not have a PDF version. You know how this big adventure campaign is an experiment in crowdfunding? This adventure is just as experimental as a concept.) (My new adventure will not be part of the hardcover slipcase set, although you will get a copy of the softcover with your Collector perk).

Yeah, I'm willing to risk my work going down in obscurity to help everyone else's shit get out there.

I'll update the individual campaign pages with this stuff later today or Saturday.

So how do we proceed?

The top three adventures right now in terms of funding are:

Of Unknown Provenance (Curtis/Sterns)

We Who Are Lost (Kreider - who has said to me about her adventure: "Think Paranormal Activity meets 28 Days Later meets The Seven Samurai. It's going to be all kinds of blood, madness, and horrible decisions. I'm so totally going to own this thing.")

Broodmother Sky Fortress (Rients/Robertson)

Do you want this concept to succeed? Do you want the full set of adventures? Take the leap: Pick one of these and put down bundle money on it. If it's already funded by the time you get to it, don't put any more money on that one, put your bundle money on your next favorite. Show everyone else this can be done.

If my die-hards don't step forward, there's no reason for the individual author's die-hards to do the same.

Up to you, everyone. I can only wave my arms around ranting and raving about it. :)

(Soon to come: A retailer-level perk. Monday probably.)

I Do Believe This is the Last Monolith Art Piece

... which means we're about ready for press, yes? Finally?

Anyway, this is the piece I've been waiting for.

The Campaigns are Live

So we've started.

Insane and ambitious, but it gets wildly strange and creative stuff out into the world if it works.

The campaigns and the links to them (including adventure teasers and author/artist bios):

Escaping Leviathan by Aeron Alfrey

The Seclusium of Orphone by Vincent Baker (art by Cynthia Sheppard)

Strange and Sinister Shores by Johnathan Bingham

Towers Two by Dave Brockie

The Unbegotten Citadel by Monte Cook (art by Eric Lofgren)

The House of Bone and Amber by Kevin Crawford (art by Earl Geier)

Of Unknown Provenance by Michael Curtis (art by Amos Orion Sterns)

Machinations of the Space Princess by James Desborough (art by Satine Phoenix)

Horror Among Thieves by Kelvin Green

We Who Are Lost by Anna Kreider

The Land that Exuded Evil by Cynthia Celeste Miller (art by Rowena Aitken)

Pyre by Richard Pett (art by Michael Syrigos)

I Hate Myself for What I Must Do by Mike Pohjola (art by Joel Sammallahti)

Broodmother Sky Fortress by Jeff Rients (art by Stuart Robertson)

Normal for Norfolk by Juhani Seppälä (art by Rich Longmore)

Poor Blighters by Jeff and Joel Sparks (art by Mark Allen)

The Depths of Paranoia by Jennifer Steen (art by Jason Rainville)

Red in Beak and Claw by Jukka Särkijärvi (art by Jason Rainville)

The Dreaming Plague by Ville "Burger" Vuorela (art by Juha Makkonen)

 

There is also a page set up where you can look at the progress of all 19 campaigns in one place here.

 

More information about the campaigns (Why? Why another campaign set so soon? Why this format?) can be found at the special LotFP sub-board here.

 

There will be a full-court press of publicity including a banner ad campaign and podcast interviews with many of the authors.

A note about the bundle deals:

Pembrooktonshire Gardening Society members get discounts on the bundles. Bigger discounts than the cost to become a member, actually. Want to become a member, or just see the usual benefits? Look here for info.

I really think the bundle deals are what will get projects funded. It would take 600 people going in for the PDF or 300 for the Print+PDF to get an adventure funded... but only 34 if they go for the full Faithful deal (or just 12 if going for the Collecting Faithful hardcovers+slipcase deal). But it is a bit of money and a bit risky the way the campaigns are set up, so I offer this as an incentive:

If you contribute to a project at the $160 level or greater and that project becomes the only one to fund, you will get a 100€ coupon code for the LotFP store. If that project and only one other funds, you get a 50€ coupon code. These codes will be good through the end of 2014.

Strategy?

Those wanting the full bundle ($160+ levels) should put their money on one of the top three as-yet unfunded adventures and put their money down on one of those. Get adventures funded. Getting half of them funded is better than getting them all half-funded, yes? Once something's funded, don't put any more full bundle contributions on it, get the next one done. And they'll start to add up.

(Think that's bad advice? Have a better idea? Share it at the message board here.)