Accursed Update (and Something You Won't Find in the Book!)

The Accursed: World of Morden Kickstarter has hit its mid-campaign doldrums, and John Dunn and Melior Via want to give it a shot in the arm. To that end, they're knocking down the funding levels on the main stretch goals for this weekend only! As John writes:

Our goals for Accursed World of Morden are well calculated. Artwork for each book costs us about $1200. Writing and editing costs us about the same. Kickstarter takes ~10%, and we need to pay for the prints and mailing costs for backers who are getting print costs (as well as backers at premium levels). The $3000.00 figure is a pretty accurate number at the end of the day.

But, we've actually fronted a fair bit of that money already. And we really want to be able to justify creating all three of those PDFs as well as delivering the 120 page book to you (as opposed to the 60 page book we've funded so far). So, I'd like to try to incentivize things a little bit for the backers already on board as well as those considering jumping on. I think that in order to achieve those goals, we need to get some forward progress immediately.

To provide some perspective, as I write this e-mail we're at $5,069 on Friday, 1/15/2016.

So, here's the deal, I'm adding in some timed goals. I don't know if these are attainable, but let's give it a shot.

• If the project pledge total reaches $5500.00 within the next 24 hours (Saturday 1/15, lets say noon Eastern), I'll reduce the stretch goal thresholds for the ebooks to $2750. So, we'll unlock Science and Sea at $5500, and that'll move the goal for Bone and Barrow down to $8250.00.
• If the project pledge total hits $6000.00 within the next 48 hours (Sunday 1/16, again, noon Eastern), I'll reduce the stretch goals for the ebooks to $2500. So, we'd have already unlocked Science and Sea at $5000, and that'll move the goal for Bone and Barrow down to $7500.00.
• If we can somehow get the project pledge level to $7500.00 by Monday noon eastern (1/17), not only will we unlock all three ebooks, we'll add in a bonus set of three new 1-sheet adventures to all backers at the $10 level and up. (One 1-sheet each tied into the ebooks funded by this project.)

These are timed goals, specifically because I really feel that for the project to be successful, we need to see some movement now. If we can't achieve them, then we'll revert to the $3000.00 tiers that remain on the front page of the project. If you think this sounds worthwhile, please help us by sharing the project with your friends as soon as possible. We have other stretch goals that we'd like to share with you, but we can't do that until we unlock the ones we've already announced.

I have no idea what these secret stretch goals are, but everything else about Accursed has been pretty danged cool so far. I have no doubt that whatever they've got planned must be good. 

In the meantime, everything's going swimmingly on my end. John has approved the approach I want to take and it looks like it should all proceed easily (providing it gets backed).

The Outlands chapter of Bone and Barrow will be divided into four sections:

• Seaharrow: A nation of sailors and whalers -- inspired in equal parts by Melville's New England and countries of the Baltic Sea -- subjugated to the whims of cruel samurai and Nazi vikings. Features the hauntingly beautiful yuki-onna!
• Riverspring: A broken and divided land of Vampire Hunter D-inspired vampire fiefdoms and ghost-haunted valleys (with a little bit of William Tell on the side). Features the deceptive and dangerous haunters of the hills!
• Deepshadow: A realm of literal ghost towns and serpent-haunted tunnels, ruled by black magic and bandit kings in some unholy mashup of Robert E. Howard's Pictish and American frontier stories. Features the swift and grim shadow riders!
• Other Outlands: A random generator to create new Outland nations, utilizing either Accursed's double poker deck or a simple eight-sided die. Complete with a sample new Outland!

If everything above sounds good to you, please back the project! My imagination is just wild for this assignment, and I've even had to cut back on some bits and pieces I wanted to add. That might actually be a good thing for this slightly tongue-in-cheek Hindrance that you will not find in the book:

Ash Sickness [Minor Hindrance]

The ash juniper is an evergreen tree pervasive throughout Riverspring and spreading far into the surrounding lands. While its berries are used for flavoring distilled alcohols and pickled cabbage, the tree is generally considered pernicious because of how quickly it grows and the disease it brings. The Springfolk burned the forests to keep the ash juniper away from their villages, but the devastation of the Bane War means the tree now grows rampant everywhere.

From early autumn to late spring, the fine, ash-like pollen of the juniper hangs heavy in the air of Riverspring. Characters who suffer from ash sickness must make a Vigor roll every day they are exposed or gain a level of Fatigue. A dose of the Alchemical power rejuvenating draft banishes the Fatigue for an entire day.