Thanks to the generosity of more than three-hundred backers, we're happy to announce that the first one-hundred Deluxe Heralds scholarship recipients are approved live in the BackerKit system.

We've emailed the recipients, who have begun pledging! If you applied for a scholarship by 1pm pacific time on June 2nd, you can log into BackerKit and reserve that book that this community gifted. When the Scholarship pledge level says "Access Granted" you're clear to proceed.

Currently 244 people have applied for financial assistance. In order to gift a book to every fan experiencing financial need, we would need another 387 "Fan Scholarship" add-ons. If you're in a position to contribute $10 to the fan assistance fund, we encourage you to help us provide this to every member of our community. It's our pleasure to share the costs of this program with you!

One way or another, we will make sure that every applicant receives a copy of the book. When we complete our current round of stretch goals we'll calculate what number we would need to reach to cover the difference if fan scholarship pledges can't quite get there. So we want to encourage everyone to breath, don't panic, and trust that nobody is getting left behind!

We launched the campaign on Tuesday and are approaching our final stretch goal, at $300,000. This color page will precede the songs and sheet music at the end of the book. We're calling it "The Music of Valdemar" and are still discussing the design. Stay tuned for updates as we dial in exactly how we want to celebrate the role of music within these books.

Beyond $300,000, we're looking at the spread of pledges and the level of need associated with the scholarships. In a few days we'll be ready to announce our next steps, once we've unlocked all of the art, music, extra books, and packaging that we planned to make exactly the package that we dreamed of creating.

There's been a lively discussion on the Discord and we welcome your input and ideas!

Finally, fans always leave the most extraordinary messages about their love for Misty's books when they're applying for financial assistance, and we'd like to share a few of them below. Thank you for inspiring us with your fandom!

I'm not really sure I have words? Talia got me through a really difficult part of my life. I saw myself in her struggles and hoped for a happy ending as she got.

Valdemar, and Talia particularly, kept me sane and mentally safe during university, when my family of origin rejected everything I am. Valdemar is my favourite fictional universe, and will always feel like home. Also, Misty and Larry are fantastic!

I have loved the Valdemar books since I was 11 and “borrowed” Heralds of the Queen from my sister (she never saw it again). I now own all of the novels and anthologies in that universe and they remain my comfort reads when I need a pick me up.

The Valdemar books are what got me through middle school. Whenever I was bullied I'd come home and hide in valdemar. Talia's issues made me feel like I wasn't alone and being bullied didn't make me worthless.

Mercedes Lackey’s books have all changed my life! I’ll be forever grateful for the Heralds of Valdemar. Talia’s story is my second favorite of all her stories (second only to Vanyel’s) and reading them shaped my entire childhood.

I grew up with Valdemar. I was given my first Arrows book when In eighth grade feeling a lot like a girl who wished a magic white horse would take her away. I fell into the stories and have read everything Misty has written since but Valdemar and particularly the Arrows trilogy will always be my favorites. I work as an educator now, trying to pass on the love of reading and the feeling of getting lost in a world where people try to be good, magic exists and things like lifebonds can happen. I would be honored to be considered for a copy of the book. Thank you.

It was Talia's trilogy and the cassettes (and later CDs) from Firebird arts and music that really helped shape my love of fantasy and my core identity. As I have worked to heal from severe trauma and understand my late diagnosed AuDHD, "Ground and center we begin, feel the shape inside our skin...." has been my touchstone. I would be honored to be a scholarship recipient.

This is for my husband - the greatest Mercedes Lackey fan - who has come on really difficult financial times

I read Arrows of the Queen when it was first published, and it along with the whole trilogy (and series beyond), was one of the first high fantasy series that I had read that showed queer representaiton in a very positive light. It affirmed, along side the more general messaging, that we make our own destinies and that we can be our authentic selves whiles doing so. It made me a lifelong Valdemar fan from the very begging through still today.

I started reading this series over 20 years ago when depictions of queer people were rare. This series was the first time i ever saw them. I am now a happily married queer!

This series was my first foray into Valdemar as a teen and Talia was inspiring to a young underprivileged girl in so many ways. I would be honored to have such a beautiful book to encompass this series, especially since my copes of the three are pretty sad these days from rereads and buying second hand to begin with.

I love the series and had almost all of them until we moved and the box they were in got soaked, ruining them all.

Mercedes Lackey is my absolute favorite author. It was her books about the world of Valdemar that first drew me into the genre of fantasy books. I had a very rough childhood and Valdemar allowed me a place to escape to whenever I needed it. This book is important to me not only for the stories and beauty it will contain, but for what it represents to me personally, a beacon of light in what was a dark time in my life.

As someone who was bullied all throughout highschool, The Arrows trilogy gave me a heroine I could relate to and empathize with. These books have been favorites of mine for decades, with the promise of things getting better and finding real friendship. Secondly, I'm unable to read my paper copies anymore - I can't grip open paperbacks due to tendonitis. I can, however, read hardcovers, so having a book like this would be amazing for me. (I do have them on eBook, but it is simply Not The Same.)

This series of books was really pivotal for me as a kid. I brought home AotQ from a Scholastic Book Fair at my elementary school and immediately became hooked. Losing my self in the stories made things a little easier during a difficult time in life, and I made some lifelong friends after sharing my copy (reluctantly!).

My gf got me into your series and I’d like to use this as a gift for both of us for our 7 year anniversary which may be the 8th by the time this comes out :) We’re struggling financially and as a huge fan of yours it would mean to the world to her to be able to get this. She doesn’t know I’m applying for this for her.

Thanks to over 1900 supporters, you all unlocked our sixth stretch goal in a mere forty-eight hours.

Misty and Larry were so impressed that they spent an hour brainstorming with us yesterday evening on how to make the Heralds Circuit Journal even more impressive. We're reaching out to the manufacturer today to inquire about a few more upgrades for this third book (along with Art of Heralds of Valdemar), since Misty very appropriately asked:



So we're doing that! It's now now a journal with in-world annotations, like what a Herald would reference while on circuit. While we still want you to fill each journal up with your own drawings, fanfic notes, and so on, now we're ALSO going to use it to fill in some of the fiddly world-building bits that haven't made it onto the page yet!

Those of you who backed Grandmaster probably remember the epic map that we made for the book, spending months consulting with Misty and Larry to fill in missing villages, trace journeys, and represent the locations and travels of every short story in that volume. At $250,000 we'll do the same for the Arrows trilogy.

With only $13,000 to go at the time of writing, there's an excellent chance that this map will unlock soon!

It may not be glamorous, but the packaging used for shipping your rewards can be the difference between receiving items in pristine condition and ones with slight wrinkles or tears.

This stretch goal lets us order a custom shipping box from the manufacturer that perfectly holds Deluxe Heralds, Art of Grandmaster, Herald's Circuit Journal, and any other physical items unlocked down the road. In fact, we designed all three books to fit together like a (childishly simple) puzzle, with the perfect dimensions to support each other while in transit.

If we reach this goal, we'll pre-package everything at the factory, so that it's ready to ship when it reaches our fulfillment center. We're grateful that this stretch goal is in sight -- it's exactly what we wanted for this campaign, it's what we designed for, and at this rate you all will probably have it unlocked by Monday or Tuesday.