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XDM: X-treme Dungeon Mastery, 2nd Edition

Created by Howard Tayler

The Cure for the Common Game

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Project Complete!
about 1 year ago – Mon, Feb 27, 2023 at 01:32:46 PM

Greetings Backers!

I'm happy to announce that this project is now complete. We shipped out the final 15 packages last Friday. If for any reason you have not gotten the items you ordered, please email [email protected] and I'll make sure you get your order. 

Keeping in Touch

1. If you want to know about our future Kickstarter projects, then login to your Kickstarter account and follow Howard Tayler or Sandra Tayler (or both) on Kickstarter. The Kickstarter system will alert you when we  have new projects available. We also have a mailing list where we'll send out emails when we launch a new project. If you don't want those emails, just hit unsubscribe and we won't bother you again. 

2. If you want updates on Schlock Mercenary, Hypernode Media, or things  relating to Howard and Sandra, we recommend that you opt in to our mailing list.

3. If you want more frequent updates, you can find us on twitter (@howardtayler, @sandratayler). Hypernode Media and Sandra each have a patreon which provides bonus materials only available via that platform. The Hypernode Media Patreon. Sandra's Patreon.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns feel free to email [email protected] and we'll help you.

Thank you for backing our project and for your patience while we  finally delivered things to you! 

Sandra and Howard

Shipping Update
about 1 year ago – Thu, Feb 02, 2023 at 07:41:58 PM

Greetings Backers,

Here is the update on the current status of shipping. 

Summary: 2090/2162 orders shipped, 6 unanswered surveys, 59 orders left to ship. Only 53 orders left to sketch.

  • Level 2 Physical Book: 838/842 shipped (4 unanswered surveys)
  • Level 7 Book, Bookplate, Sketch: 189/223 shipped (1 unanswered survey)
  • Legendary XDM: 67/93 shipped (1 unanswered survey)
  • Legendary Seat at the Table: 5/6 Shipped
  • Pre-orders: 168/168 Shipped Complete!
  • Level 5 Book + Bookplate: 260/260 shipped Complete!
  • Tavern Keeper Retailer Package: 10/10 Shipped Complete!
  • Level 1 XDM gets a PDF: 500/505 shipped (5 unanswered surveys) Complete!
  • Level 1a XDM gets Audiobook: 5/6 shipped (1 unanswered survey)      NOTE: Audiobooks are still yet to be delivered! These orders are    marked   shipped because they don't have associated packages.
  • Level 0 NPC: 28/28 Complete!
  • No Reward: 3/3 Complete!

The sketches slowed down because the ones Howard had on the table were things that required looking up a reference picture and doing mental composing before putting ink to page.  Fortunately there are only about ten more of those. After that the remainder of the stack is artist choice, which means the drawings should go faster. 

Thank you for your patience while we get these last sketch editions completed and delivered. Thank you also for spreading the word. We've seen quite a lot of sales in our store in the past few weeks and since we haven't done any advertising we can only attribute it to word of mouth from people who already have the book and are enjoying it. THANK YOU!

Your next update will be the week of February 27 - March 3 and we're really hoping that will be the final update where everything is marked complete.

All the best,

The XDM2e Team

Status Report #30
about 1 year ago – Sun, Jan 08, 2023 at 06:43:17 PM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: The audiobook is complete! If you have an audiobook in your order check your email for download links. Howard has 74 sketches left to draw. Your next update will be the week of Jan 30- Feb 3 or when Howard finishes all the sketches.

If you missed getting a hardback book and  want one, or realized it    is a perfect gift and you know who to give it  to, the books are now    available in our online store: https://shop.schlockmercenary.com/collections/x-treme-dungeon-mastery

If you missed getting an audiobook and you want one, you can get it from Audible and I hope to have it available in our store soon.

Full Status Report

Deliverables List

This is the comprehensive list of things we owe to you as part of this project.

  • XDM2e Hardback book: Complete!
  • XDM2e PDF: Complete!
  • XDM2e audiobook: Complete!
  • Signed Bookplates: Complete!
  • Desktop Backgrounds:  Complete!
  • Sketches in books (or on separate  papers): In process!
  • PDF of printable character stand ups:  Complete!
  • Quest for the Tavern PDF: Complete!
  • Attack on Santa's Workshop PDF: Complete!
  • Game with Tracy for the 6 backers who picked that level: Complete!
  • Streamed book Illustrations: Complete! And now you can watch bonus streams of Howard sketching in books.  Howard's Twitch

The Details

Getting the audiobook recorded went far more quickly than I expected once I got connected with the ACX system. Within 48 hours of posting the project, I had 50 auditions to listen to. I was thrilled to offer the job to Mikael Narramore. He dove right in and got the whole project done inside of two weeks. 

Howard's work on sketch editions has been much interrupted by the ALI Kickstarter and then the holidays. He's still working his way through them. If you're needing yours sooner, please do email and we'll pull it to the front of the list.

Thank you all again for your trust in us while we take care of the last few things that we owe to you.

Sandra Tayler and the XDM2e team

Quick Update on XDM2e
over 1 year ago – Sun, Dec 04, 2022 at 07:10:28 AM

Greetings Backers!

I've had a very long couple of workdays, but I wanted to make sure you got your update on schedule, so I'll keep this quick and provide a fuller update after that holidays (Sometime in the week of January 2-6).

TL;DR: We only have 82 more packages to ship. Sandra has taken some steps toward getting the audiobook recorded. 

Action item: If you are one of the remaining 82 sketched books and would like your order in time for the holiday, please email [email protected] and we'll pull your sketch to the front of the line. 

X-treme Dungeon Mastery makes a good gift. You can order it here: https://shop.schlockmercenary.com/collections/x-treme-dungeon-mastery

Details

Howard has been juggling a convention, deliverables for another Kickstarter, recuperation time, and family holidays, so he hasn't worked as fast as he wants to on the sketches, but we are making some progress. As mentioned above, if you have a need to get your book sooner, (for holiday gifting or anything else) please email [email protected] and we can get it done. 

I ran into a series of stupid roadblocks while questing to get the audiobook made. I signed up for ACX, but step one to request narration samples is "claiming" your book from Amazon's listings. Only the version of the book available as an ebook is the first edition. 

So obviously I should just upload one of the ePubs that we have. Only all of the images were showing up broken. This was quite frustrating because the images showed fine on other ebook readers. I finally figured out that we'd created our ePubs using .tiff files and Kindle readers only know how to show JPEG. 

This triggered a 16 hour journey of me learning eBook formatting, replacing 240 images, linking 293 footnotes, and learning table of contents. Yes, I could have contracted with someone else to have it done, but all of the ones I know have very busy schedules and I was in a hurry. Also, I need to learn this stuff. We have other projects where me knowing how to assemble an eBook is going to make a huge difference in what we can accomplish. 

End result: XDM2e is currently uploaded and waiting to be approved by Amazon. As soon as it is live, I will be able to "claim" the title and start the process of seeking an audiobook narrator. I'm going to look for one who is a close match to Tracy's voice. Going through this process is also a useful learning experience for me. 

My goal is to have the narrator under contract before the end of December. 

Thank you so much for backing our project and for sticking with us as we finish out the last important details.

The XDM2e Team

Status Report #29 and Shipping Report #8
over 1 year ago – Fri, Nov 11, 2022 at 01:13:05 AM

Greetings Backers,

TL;DR: We've made good progress on the remaining sketches, only 98 more to go! Sandra is in process to hire an audiobook narrator. Next update the week of Nov 28- Dec 2.

If you missed getting a hardback book and  want one, or realized it   is a perfect gift and you know who to give it  to, the books are now   available in our online store:

https://shop.schlockmercenary.com/collections/x-treme-dungeon-mastery

Shipping Update

Summary: 2030/2162 orders shipped, 14 unanswered surveys, 118 orders left to ship. Only 98 orders left to sketch.

  • Level 2 Physical Book: 835/842 shipped (5 unanswered surveys)
  • Level 7 Book, Bookplate, Sketch: 145/223 shipped (2 unanswered surveys)
  • Legendary XDM: 56/93 shipped (1 unanswered survey)
  • Legendary Seat at the Table: 5/6 Shipped
  • Pre-orders: 167/168 Shipped
  • Level 5 Book + Bookplate: 260/260 shipped Complete!
  • Tavern Keeper Retailer Package: 10/10 Shipped Complete!
  • Level 1 XDM gets a PDF: 500/505 shipped (5 unanswered surveys) Complete!
  • Level 1a XDM gets Audiobook: 5/6 shipped (1 unanswered survey)     NOTE: Audiobooks are still yet to be delivered! These orders are   marked   shipped because they don't have associated packages.
  • Level 0 NPC: 28/28 Complete!
  • No Reward: 3/3 Complete!

Full Status Report

Deliverables List

This is the comprehensive list of things we owe to you as part of this project.

  • XDM2e Hardback book: Complete!
  • XDM2e PDF: Complete!
  • XDM2e audiobook: In process
  • Signed Bookplates: Complete!
  • Desktop Backgrounds:  Complete!
  • Sketches in books (or on separate  papers): In process!
  • PDF of printable character stand ups:  Complete!
  • Quest for the Tavern PDF: Complete!
  • Attack on Santa's Workshop PDF: Complete!
  • Game with Tracy for the 6 backers who picked that level: Complete!
  • Streamed book Illustrations: Complete! And now you can watch bonus streams of Howard sketching in books.  Howard's Twitch

The Details

We've had several quietly productive weeks where Howard was able to get sketching done. We're optimistic that we can have them all out the door by the end of November.  However our optimism is tempered by the fact that we're attending Dragonsteel Con on Monday and Tuesday of next week. Also the week after that is Thanksgiving. Any sort of schedule disruption slows us down, but we'll get them all done and sent.

Speaking of distractions, next week is the final week for fundingA Little Immortality: Schlock Mercenary Book 17. We're really excited by how well this project has done and we only have a few more goals we're stretching to reach.  If  you've never read the Schlock Mercenary comic,  each book is a stand alone story, so you can just jump on with this one.  We'll have the same level of updating and customer support as we've  provided for this campaign. Become a backer here:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/howardtayler/a-little-immortality-schlock-mercenary-book-17

That's it for now! Your next update will be the week of  November 28-Dec 2.

Thank you all again for your trust in us while we take care of the last few things that we owe to you.

Sandra Tayler and the XDM2e team