Hi everyone!

Can you believe we're more than halfway through our campaign? It's been an incredible ride so far and we're immensely grateful to everyone who has joined us. 

We also know that a vast majority of Valdemar fans haven't heard this book is happening, and we're bracing ourselves for when they reach out after the campaign sobbing that they never heard about it. (True story, this happens every time.) So we're asking for your help:

 
Here's the square version of the video, featuring photos that fans shared with us, with a special guest appearance from a very special horse!

And since you all hit the stretch goal over the weekend, when we were "sleeping" and "not staying up watching the campaign," we had to wait until today for the updated stretch goal graphic. Here you go!

We've been lucky to have a number of artists from Grandmaster return for Heralds of Valdemar, as well as new artists join us to contribute to the fourteen(!) color pieces that will appear in Heralds and Art of Heralds.

Today we want to share, for the first time in their entirety, the new paintings from fantasy masters Nene Thomas and Rob Carlos!

First up, Rob's oil painting of The Assassination. If you've read the books, you'll vividly remember this moment. If not, well... consider this a <SPOILERS> tag.

Keen-eyed viewers will note that the look of the Collegium perfectly matches the Collegium map from our World of Valdemar campaign. Athena, our co-art director and fan historian, has been careful across every campaign to maintain visual continuity for characters, locations, and important items (like My Lady). It's a lot like keeping a production bible for a film production, but without the long hours, stress, and not seeing your family for months at a time. In this case, Athena worked directly with Misty and Larry on the details, even including identifying the correct bridge.




Next, we have A Desperate Journey, by Nene Thomas. In addition to Talia's appearance, we had to maintain the look of Companion barding and Herald uniforms. Thanks to guidance for Misty and Larry, Nene was able to keep accuracy for important bits while bringing her own eye and interpretation to everything else.

From a technical perspective, due to the limited palette of winter hues, this painting relies heavily on warmer backlighting to separate the foreground from the background. We think it's extraordinary!



In addition to appearing in both books, these paintings will be part of the Digital Art pack at the $25 pledge level.

While we were preparing this update, new backers unlocked the $325,000 stretch goal, which adds digital and physical book jackets to the Deluxe Heralds pledge levels. And yes, the digital dust jackets will be added to the $25 reward levels as well.

We move on from here to a new version of the Candlemark Timeline poster at $350,000. If you've read the Founding series, you'll see immediately where we have more work to do—this poster was designed before the second and third book were published!

If you haven't read that series yet, here's another <SPOILERS> tag for the details in the image.

It's Friday afternoon here and we're dropping a quick note that we've heard back from the manufacturer and we have good news!

Your pledge for Deluxe Heralds currently comes with so many unlocked stretch goals that we had to update our graphic... but that's not the news.



We're thrilled to announce that we've heard back from the manufacturer and we are upgrading the $325,000 stretch goal: the dust jacket is now a full-color, double-sided, printed element that will ship with Deluxe Heralds if we reach at least $325,000! And yes, one side will include gold-foiled text, because we wants it our precious.

Here's one of the dust jacket concepts that we're exploring (nothing is final here, this is a mockup):


The printed poster quote for the timeline is still in progress, but we now know that it is technically possible and that it can be folded to fit in the box. If prices are reasonable and if we can finish the art in time, we'll include a print edition of the timeline poster in your reward when the $350,000 pledge level is unlocked. The digital version is absolutely part of the upcoming unlock, but we hope to surprise you with a physical copy as well.

But why stop there?

We also have quotes in progress for 

Thanks to the experience of running many campaigns over the years, we know that too many ambitious stretch goals can delay fulfillment. To mitigate that and keep manufacturing on schedule, we are

This means that we've had to say no to some stretch goal requests, but we've absolutely taken note of those ideas for future campaigns.

In the meantime, if this campaign hits a bit more of a lull we'll actually be able to start sharing our planned updates about the art and music of the Heralds of Valdemar.

Thanks for your support and have a good weekend!

Hi everyone!

In this update

First and briefly, we regret to share that the Art of Grandmaster add-on (from the last campaign) is now sold out. While Grandmaster remains available as an add-on, at this rate it will likely sell out as well. These are the last available copies in our warehouse—when they're gone they're gone.

You did it: you unlocked every single stretch goal in a single week, with $300,000 raised so far.

This means that every Deluxe Heralds pledge now comes with

So yes, more stretch goals are in progress!

What we CAN announce (while we wait for a few quotes from the manufacturer) are the following new stretch goals:

Could these stretch goals turn into physical products that are included with your pledge? We'll have answers soon!

While we certainly have "official" graphics for stretch goal updates, Lindsey has been dropping her own versions of the stretch goal graphic into the Discord, often before we finish and upload ours. She's given us permission to share the Companion Emoji version of the stretch goal graphic:

We're so thrilled to share the first unlocked stretch goal painting with all of you: Care Halverson's Heroic Rescue.

If you know the books, you know the moment this represents.


Thanks to everyone who pledged to make this painting possible!