Silver and Gold | The Normal Tarot

F(r)iction Magazine Launch! Perilous TTRPG Launch!
over 3 years ago – Fri, Oct 23, 2020 at 03:48:03 AM

Hey everyone,

First, neither of these are paid advertisements. Neither of these are me trading promotion or pledges. These are projects I think are really cool, and I want to share. 

So Samantha Dow, the artist behind the Gold deck, has been doing some lovely, incredible illustrations for this literary journal, f(r)iction. They just sent me a couple copies to look at and they are completely beautiful. Holographic journals, very shiny, with art on every page and lovingly laid out stories.

They are in the midst of hard times with Covid (aren't we all?), so they are crowdfunding their next three issues. Their issue for next summer is the Arcana issue.

Sam reached out to them, they reached out to me, and we are now going to be providing some tarot decks to them for their Arcana issue next year. Details on that aren't finalized yet, but I'm a writer myself, been self publishing for years, and I support what they're doing. They are marrying art in such a lovely way, visual and written. It's something worth supporting.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/brinklit/friction-magazine-storytelling-brought-to-life

If you have a moment, please look at their Kickstarter, it's full of beautiful art and images, and they 100% deserve any help people can spare. 

Additionally, a friend of mine who is trying to make it in game design needs this Kickstarter he just launched to fund, and fund well. 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tabletopcrow/perilous-rpg

This is a clean TTRPG, made by someone who cares. It also has a GM Deck that can let you play GM-less, which is a really fantastic addition. The game isn't a grind, and it isn't a crunch. It relies on simple tag mechanics. The enemy has tags that you have to creatively overcome. This isn't just "I attack for 12 damage" as you slog through a million HP and resistances on a boss. This is a creative problem solving game that is played in dungeons.

Jordan (the maker) is a good guy, and he had a big print issue with his previous game that forced him to reprint it, so Perilous not only needs to succeed (it's already funded!), it needs to blow past its goal and help remind him that this is a career worth pursuing. He is the maker of For the Dungeon! and Arcana Academy, and just a breath of fresh air in the genre. 

IF you can, take a moment to look at these two projects, and give just $1 if that's what you can. Every pledge on their first days will help them stay visible and keep earning money. 

Thanks everyone!!

(PS we broke stretch goal #1, artists are making more money. We are going to break stretch goal #2, #3, #4, etc... At this point, I will just update to let you know when we add new fun things haha. That seems safer than relying on stretch goals.  As of right now, we're looking at the 101st card of the deck as a high stretch goal add on. How do you all feel about Okatsu?)

your Publishing Goblin

The Giveaway!
over 3 years ago – Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 09:30:12 PM

Hello people!!

To celebrate the funding of the campaign, we are doing a giveaway!

The giveaway will be for signed sets of the Silver and Gold decks, plus my Oracle Dice, 3 sets of everything on each social media! That means 9 lucky people will be getting the Oracular Package from Chaos tier for free, with signatures!

To get in on this, you just have to like/retweet/reblog the contest post, follow the account that posted it, and fill out the form with your name, social media handle, and email! And don't worry, after we do the drawing, you can unfollow the accounts!

We will draw 3 winners Halloween night from each 

Tumblr

Twitter

and Instagram.

Hit those links above to get in on the draw!

And yes, you can submit on all 3 drawings.

A bunch of people have been asking about a full gallery of each deck. We're looking into ways to show off all the cards in each deck without just putting up full resolution images of the cards. We're a very small operation, and we really don't want to be stolen from. For now, the large gallery images on the project are what we're doing, but I'll look into a lower resolution slideshow or something!

Thanks for being amazing!

your Publishing Goblin

Add Ons Fix!!
over 3 years ago – Tue, Oct 20, 2020 at 01:19:23 PM

This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.

WE ARE FUNDED ! Some more FAQ solutions.... GIVEAWAY! And also the decks!
over 3 years ago – Mon, Oct 19, 2020 at 02:20:51 AM

First and foremost, we are now funded. 

Throw balloons around, become blinded by confetti. It's celebration time. I feel like I always say this, but this is more than I ever imagined. When I first teamed up with the Caretaker on Furiously Prognosticating, we were looking at a 3k goal, and we got to 4k. That was incredible to me at the time, more than anything I had made. Then we talked about the normal tarot, and I was dubious. I set the goal for 5k, knowing that was all we could make. We would fund the deck in parts. We blew past the 14k we needed to do the full deck, and then hit 30k. When I set this one up, knowing we'd need 50k minimum, I was dubious. Then we blew past everything the last tarot made in its full 30 days in just 3. 

$50,000. At a time when I personally couldnt even afford to pledge on this campaign beyond the $10 tier. What a weird time to be alive. 

So first, THANK YOU.

Second, I have updated the campaign with very large pictures of very small cards. We have been going back and forth on the best way to show off the deck to you all without putting full res images of the cards up somewhere. should we actually be afraid of it being stolen? I don't know, maybe we're paranoid.

I will share those here:

Note that the gold deck is complete, while the silver deck is 1/3rd of the way to being updated from its original design. The silver areas are in bright blue so they can be more clearly seen, as the flat silver blends into the white too much. But no worries, the silver foil will pop like wow.

Comparing the cards to one another is so interesting, honestly. The silver deck was the original, and when Sam (gold artist) asked me for explanations of the cards that DIDNT HAVE AMY'S ART, I was like-- oh duh. Of course. Sam wants to do her own take without accidentally stealing designs. And yet, from the descriptions, we end up with some cards that are so, so, so similar it's incredible. #2 and #3 for sure are some, but observatory, ghost-- they are so lovely in both, with such similar yet different takes.

So let's look at a FAQ solution here:

Add ons are not showing up as an option on mobile. So that's fine, right? People can just go back to edit their pledge and add those, right? WRONG! At least, not for people who got the early bird tiers which are now all claimed. To edit their pledge, it would make them CHANGE IT for god knows what reason. I definitely don't. 

Solution: We go back to the old way. If you are in an early bird tier and cannot add any add-ons, you message me, tell me which add ons you want, and let me know if youd like to pay via paypal (in which case give me your paypal email address) or if youd like to be invoiced via my square store (to pay with a card). We will work from there.

And finally, the giveaway!

Tomorrow, I will be setting up a giveaway! 3 complete sets will be given away on Tumblr, 3 sets on Twitter, and 3 sets on Instagram. Each set will include signed books with decks of the Silver and Gold tarots, and sets of oracle dice, each book signed by all 4 of us (Myself, Caretaker, Amy, and Sam)!

The gist will be that youll have to follow the account making the post, reblog/share/retweet it, and sign up through the link with your name. 3 winners will be drawn for each social media after 2 weeks, a week before this campaign ends, so that if you're on here you can cancel your pledge since you're getting free stuff anyways! 

I've never done this before, so we'll see how it goes!

If you have additional ideas of stuff we can do, I am all ears!

Finally, let's aim for some stretch goals. Before 60k, we have two goals to unlock an extra card's art for stickers and or postcards from each deck, and at 60k, we hit the goal that lets me use a third party shipping service so things are faster and easier on the shipping front!

I am also having each artist include a 100th card with their tarot decks, a card of the Caretaker. It is not an official card in the deck, so it's more of a throwaway joker, but I thought it would be nice. : )

Thank you again for your support. let's keep sharing the project! The further it goes, the more fun stuff we can throw in like that 100th card!

Fondest regards and celebration,

your Publishing Goblin

9 hours, exceeded the entire first Kickstarter ; HOW TO DO ADD ONS
over 3 years ago – Thu, Oct 15, 2020 at 11:30:09 AM

Just wow. As of right now we are just 1,000 away from breaking the ENTIRE FUNDING on the first tarot kickstarter. I have no doubt we will break it. The first tarot ended after 30 days with $30,500 earned with the help of 449 backers. As of writing this, just nine hours in, we are at 428 backers with $29,398.

We aren't even done with the first 12 hours of this Kickstarter and we have SMOKED the first tarot kickstarter-- and good. We need 50k AT BASE to pay the artists and order the decks and prints and stickers-- all of this costs a lot of money.

And personally, I would love to see 60k+ so that I dont have to manage this next shipping fiasco, because this is about to be a lot of decks and stuff and packages and people. And I love it-- thank you!

We are all so stoked-- I had so many worries with COVID. I personally am broke, I quit my dayjob, and I know many others are in my same boat. I kept worrying that this would flop horribly and we'd have to relaunch for just one of the two decks. But you all have shown up, and I thank you for it!

We are all so thankful. This is awesome.

Some big questions, answered:

Will I show you guys the full decks? Absolutely. On the first tarot, it was still being illustrated, so I could only show so much. As of this moment, the entire gold tarot is done, and was a few weeks ago. The silver tarot is being updated from the original deck, and the artist is about 1/3rd of the way done. 

I will be sharing both in their entirety on the Kickstarter-- look for that update. The gold will go up first, along with a comparison of the first 5 cards, so you can see the similarities and differences.

Are the books different? The same? They are almost entirely going to be the same. Each book will have all the same text, but different covers, and with different interior art. The gold tarot book will use the gold tarot deck art, the silver tarot book the silver tarot deck art. Otherwise the books will be a bit updated from their first printing, as the Caretaker, the deck's original designer, has had a year to work with them and has some new thoughts.

How do I do add ons? Well this is a fun thing I just found out about myself. I am using the new feature of integrated add ons-- no more buying them AFTER the campaign. When you place your pledge, so long as you pledge for an item that has shipping (anything after the $1 pledge), you will then move to add ons, where you can add those, THEN you move on to payment method. If you are using your phone, you will have to use the desktop version of the site on your phone, because it doesn't seem to even pop up on mobile.

If you already pledged, go to the top of the campaign to the "Manage Your Pledge" option and do it there. Again, you cant do it on mobile unless you use the desktop version of the site.

I am so proud of this project-- two wonderful and skilled artists are coming together with a third artist's design and I'm just the goblin publishing the mess. Let's see if we can keep the momentum going-- please share the link around all you can. We need every last pledge, we need to break that 50k or we won't be able to bring these decks to life.  So share with your friends, family, anyone who likes tarot! 

I'll see you all again soon, as I begin to put up the galleries of the decks! If we get far enough, we will start voting on extra designs to make postcards, stickers, pins, or more! : )

So stay tuned team!

7DA,

the Publishing Goblin