Crawl! Mega-Edition, No. 1

Hey all,

Just a quick update before the campaign ends in less than 24 hours. I've been busy with IRL stuff, a job deadline, and normal existential survival crap. I have to return some books to the library and pick up some meds. All while juggling a "crowdfunder", an upper respiratory infection, and volunteer work. At least it's all good work and keeps me from doomscrolling and worrying about getting arrested for terrorism because everything I wear is black.  Speaking of wearing black, here's a rough of the new Inferno Road cover of the Crawl! Edition presented by Hobonomicon.
I'll be back with an update tomorrow after the campaign ends. But for now, I just wanted to remind you that we're in the final hours to support this project, and the last chance to get that Seekers Ov Crawl cross-collab sticker incentive with Thorin's Seekers ov the Other Worlds. 

I'll have more to share soon. Tell your friends. Share on your socials, especially on the ones I don't use like MyFace and Tik Tube, or whatever. 

We reached 300% funding in less than a week, and there's less than a week left. Amazing. There is one final bit (some writing and layout) left to do for the Mega-Edition, and it should be done before the final day. I'll then be sending it out to the printer to get a physical proof because I gotta make sure it looks good before it goes into full production. I don't foresee any problems. Once the money clears, I'll be purchasing a batch of ISBNs, packing materials, boards & bags, etc. But until then, let's talk about Van den Danderclanden.
 


Brett Miller was a player in the early days of my DCC RPG (BETA) campaign. He answered a random "looking for gamers" post in a long lost gaming forum (I can't even remember), he came over and joined the group. He remained part of the group for a couple years until he moved to New Zealand. Unknown to me at first, was he was an animator and effects supervisor at Dreamworks, as in the company that made How to Train your Dragon and Shrek. Van den Danderclanden was his wizard, and DCC's patron system inspired him to create his own patron, and that's where the first 3rd-party patron came from. His patron was his own character from the imminent future. He submitted the patron and some art to go with it, including this Aleister Crowley inspired piece:


When Crawl! fanzine no.1 was released, the spells for the patron were incomplete. There was only a loose idea for the spells, they had names and some ideas for effects. I ended up finishing the spells based on that info. The spells were completed by the time no. 3: The Magic Issue was released, and so they were included in that issue. Future prints of no.1 (starting with the "Special Edition" in 2014) included all the spells, and the complete patron was released as a free downloadable pamphlet. 

One piece of trivia worth noting was the original name of the 2nd-level patron spell, SNAFUBAR. It was originally called Cluster F**k. I thought it was funny, but I wanted to keep the zine rated PG, so I changed the name to a combination of two popular but similar acronyms, SNAFU and FUBAR. The bad word is hidden in there. I hoped to it would make up for self censorship. 

I got to visit Brett once when he was still working at Dreamworks. He signed a bunch of copies of no. 1 for me, (they're out in the wild). I got a tour of the studio, got to see the secret hidden bar, and eat some amazing world-class commissary food. Brett ended up moving to New Zealand to work for WETA, and later NVidia. You might be familiar with some of the movies he did special effects for.

There is only a week left to back both Crawl! Mega-Edition no. 1 and Thorin's Seekers ov the Other Worlds. If you back both, you'll get our cross-collab incentive: a sticker featuring Van den Danderclanden in the Lodge-in-Between. 

Heck yeah! Sorry for the delay in this update, it's been a busy weekend and I needed a day to recover.

At some point this weekend we hit 200+ backers, and at some point yesterday we hit $6K! I can't even express how awesome this is. There wasn't an "official" achievement or "stretch goal" for these milestones, but they're definitely worth mentioning. It's also 3X funding! In ONE week. That's good right? Again, this is my first. So thank you all for the support, it means a lot to me. I can't believe it's only been a week. 



Thorin had the last-minute idea of doing cross-collab of our campaigns, I'm glad I did. I almost didn't because I was actually sick with an upper-respiratory thing and things were feeling stressful. But I chatted with Thorin, and "wanted" to do it, so it was decided. And I was fine for the "online" part of the launch, and we were able to turn our fans to each other's project, so that was very cool. Someone in the chat asked what the cross-collab incentive was, and we both shrugged. This was my first crowdfunding project AND my first cross-collaboration so I didn't even know it was a thing. But Thorin had a good simple idea, and got his wife to help. And a sticker is what we got. So if you're interested in this sticker you have to back both of our projects. You got another week for mine, and two for Thorin's, Check it out: Seekers ov the Other Worlds. It's awesome.

Woo! At some point last night we passed the $5K threshold. I had a "soft" stretch-goal of adding the Soft-touch Matte finish to the standard cover at that point, which will protect the booklet a lot better than it being uncoated. So that's happening and that's cool. 
I honestly didn't think that would happen. Especially in couple days. I also didn't think we'd hit 180 (and counting) pledges. ❤️❤️❤️ (real emojiis this time). 
I have a couple ideas I want to do if we hit 6K or even 8K. I didn't think it'd hit 5K, tbh. And, also being my first crowdfunding campaign, I wanted to keep things simple. 
If you, my lovely readers, have an idea, I want to hear them. Chime in the comments. I'll stew on this over the next couple days. I'll also post a propper update soon. I want to talk about the covers. The original Van Den Danderclanden, and or course, the Doug Kovacs alternative which is proving to be carrying this campaign. People seem to love alternative covers. I underestimated the appeal, but I do understand it. Especially from a collector's perspective. 
Would people be interested in a THIRD cover option? Or am I crazy? Let me know in the comments.

Rev. Dak

Good Morning! (it's still morning in LA as I write this.)

So, that was awesome. In less than 24 hours we blasted through funding and over-doubled what was needed for this project to be funded. 150 (and counting) of you made this happen, **heart** emojis all-around. I can't express how amazing it feels to be supported by the DCC RPG community. It's been a crazy few weeks, and I never thought it would happen. This edition of Crawl! had been scratching at me for while now as it was originally supposed to launch a long time ago. I started the backerkit page-thing and it was stuck in DRAFT for TWO YEARS. I kept getting emails from BackerKit saying, "Your launch date has passed, let us know if you need any help". I would stare at that email, but I didn't feel ready. The past year had been even crazier because of the political climate and being in LA in general is really tough. It didn't help when in last June some armed masked goons invaded our city and wreaked havok to my community. I found myself volunteering with a local community self-defense coalition to provide support and mutual aid for vulnerable members of my community. This coalition was led by local chapters of the Los Angeles Tenants Union.  Learn more about them here: https://latenantsunion.org/en/


I had two ambitious pledge levels, The Collector for $150 and The Mega-Collector for $660. Thanks to three generous supporters, both tiers have been sold out. These limited tiers include copies of First Prints of two major editions of Crawl! The first original run (2012), and the first updated "Special Edition" (2014). As part of the 2012 run, I also made a super limited run of 56 Black-on-Black covers to mimic the original Limited Edition of the first prints of the Gold-Foil on Black "leather" edition of the DCC RPG rulebook. This black on black edition proved to be a hit. 50 copies were sent as a surprise to the first 50 people that pre-ordered the first issue of Crawl! fanzine. I had the rare (for me) insight to save a few copies for special occasions. I didn't know what those special occasions would be until a few charity opportunities arose. And that's where those copies ended up going. They each raised from $100 to over $500 for various fundraisers and charities. I honestly only remember two of them, one that aided relief from a major typhoon that hit the Philippines and a fundraiser to help Aaron Koelman in 2022.

The volunteer work I did for the LA Tenants Union did a bunch of good things. It got me out of the house, motivated me to do more with my time, and I met and worked with really good people. As a person that has struggled living in LA, but also being a citizen with certain privileges, I thought it would be a good idea to support my local LA Tenants Union chapter as part of this campaign. So that's why I decided to create those "Collectors" pledges and that's where the extra money will be going towards. Thanks to those that pledged for the "Collectors" tiers, I'll be donating $800 to my local chapter. This money will be used towards community support, which can include street vendor support, aiding tenant associations, and fighting illegal evictions. Your support made this happen. I recommend if you believe that housing is a right, to look into your local tenants union, and if you rent, join or start a tenants association. 

Thank you all for making this happen.

Rev. Dak