Post-Project Update #24 - Production started!
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Jan 23, 2024 at 06:19:13 AM
Hey, star dwellers!
It's been a while since the last update, so apologies for that. The truth is, however, that there is not much to update you on. That being said though, I will try to make the updates more consistent so that you are not left in the dark for too long!
First things first, this update was supposed to go out last week, but I got sick (again) and could not do all that much. Thankfully, it's just a cold that gets me in a bit more intense manner. I've been leading a much healthier lifestyle and my body is having a hard time accepting that. So, at the end of the day, it's all good news.
In regards to Starlight Arcana, here's what's up:
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All print files have been checked, rechecked, and approved. This ended up being a longer process than what we expected it to be but in the end very worth the extra time because we ended up with a much better result. Some details had to be refined in order to make sure that you all get the best possible stuff arriving at your door.
One of those things, for example, was the inclusion of the Sun and Moon art prints in ALL hardcover book orders. Since the art prints are a larger size than the hardcover book, we had to figure out a few logistics-related things to make it work well.
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LongPack is to start production soon. Production is planned to take about 2 months to fully complete and considering the fact that the factory will be closed until the 25th of February (for Chinese New Year), that means that we are looking at the end of April for the completion of the production.
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Our fulfillment partner, GamesQuest, has been actively working with us to help us plan how fulfillment will go. This includes things such as what fulfillment centers to use, how to package and send orders to backers, and a few other details. We are very happy with our choice of fulfillment partners since GamesQuest has been absolutely lovely and extremely helpful every step of the way. I cannot stress enough how alien and unfamiliar all of this is for me since this is the first time I have ever had to go through such processes. None of what I had done before could prepare me for this (which is quite sad, considering I have a bachelor's in International Business Management :')... )
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The digital PDF has also been updated and I believe you will all find the changes very much to your liking, since I have personally rewritten and improved all of the writing for the entire first part of the book (all of the Player-related parts) all the way up to (and including) the spells section.
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With all that in mind, we are in the final few steps of the project being completely finished and we honestly couldn't be happier about this. It has been a very long run for us and we have learned a lot (with new lessons detailed in each and every past update we have put out). These are all lessons that we plan on carrying forward, to our new projects, and also all of the other stuff we plan on working on.
Thank you all so much for your patience and your understanding. This is a first-time endeavor for us and your comments and your support have helped make this an absolutely one-of-a-kind experience that we will never forget.
The stars are definitely not the limit and you will find that we have so much more planned (and even things we are already working on) for the future.
Just as a teaser, here are some of the names of our upcoming projects...
and for good measure, here's a teaser...
Artwork by Dravit Malik
(In case you didn't know, sharks are my favorite animal! :D)
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Even if there is not much to report on, I will make sure we deliver at least two updates per month from now on, with at least a few teasers (like concept art) from future projects, just to keep you all on your toes and inspired for new adventures!
Until next time my starry friends,
May Starlight guide your way!
~Kelfecil
Post-Project Update #23 - New Timeline + Dice!
almost 3 years ago
– Sat, Dec 16, 2023 at 05:06:02 PM
Hey, explorer of the Sea of Stars!
This is the last update for 2023. Today we will be sharing with you photos of the Starlight Arcana dice set and we will also talk about the new production+fulfillment timeline.
So let's get to it!
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The Starlight Dice
The proof print package arrived a few weeks ago and we were able to showcase everything that was in it in the last update but the dice set was unfortunately not in there.
LongPack, being the nice and very communicative printing partner that they are, sent us another package with the new and updated version of the dice we chose to be in the Starlight Arcana Quickstart Box!
This is how the dice looked before the change (THE OLD VERSION):
This is how the dice look after the change (THE NEW VERSION):
As you can see, the dice went from being very bland and simple to extremely pretty with a lot of depth to them. There is this mysterious and sparkly space-y vibe to them when they are hit by any kind of light while they remain dark and nebula-ish while in darker situations.
We are really, REALLY happy with how they turned out and we cannot wait to get them all delivered to you!
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New Production+Fulfillment Timeline
With all of the proof prints in our hands and all of our concerns and questions answered, we are ready to move to production. Before we do that though, we have to deliver the final and newly updated print files to our printing partner.
This is where it gets a bit tricky though. Someone even mentioned in a comment that hoping to deliver all of the physical goods before the start of summer sounds like a very ambitious endeavor. While that may be true, we still intend to try our best to deliver things as fast as possible.
Since production will not start until the start of February (because of the holidays and how they are affecting some of the dates) we have decided to take advantage of that time and further edit the whole book so that the end quality can be even higher.
A lot of the book was designed by myself (Kelf) and written by my co-writer, Arthur. Due to the limited amount of time we had to create a lot of the parts in the book and due to my condition (not being able to see well enough for at least a year), it was nearly impossible to fully edit the book and rewrite all of the parts that did not read as well as I would like them to read in English.
Arthur is a Brazilian writer and English is not his first language. Therefore, a lot of the text may require polishing and is not up to the standards that I would like it to be when it comes to the content I publish and generally put out there. Working on that, however, was always in the plans since I knew that I would fully edit and rewrite most of the book myself so that it could meet the high standards that I always set. We, just, simply could not do that before for various reasons (my condition being one of them).
For that reason, we have decided to now take advantage of the extra time we have been given in order to finalize some of the editing and rewriting parts before sending it out to be mass-produced.
This also means that there is a chance that the timeline might be pushed back a little bit. That is, of course, only in the case that the editing + rewriting takes a little bit longer than expected. So far, the process has been seamless and on track with our planning so we are quite confident that we will not have any other hiccups (just like we haven't for a while now).
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The main things to take into account right now are:
- PDF and VTT versions of Starlight Arcana have been published and will be improved and updated in the months to come.
- The proof prints of all physical stuff have all been approved and fixes/changes have been made.
- Final print files are being prepared to be delivered. Specifically, the only thing left to be finished is the editing/rewriting of many parts of the book. Everything else is ready.
- Fulfillment plans have been communicated with GamesQuest and will be finalized soon after we go into mass production.
Some considerations:
- It is important to remember that we are a tiny team that has only a limited amount of people to work on things, even while working full-time. Dusky Cat, Ori, Arthur, and I are actually working non-stop on Starlight Arcana and are trying our best to finish things in a specific order of importance (Starlight Arcana stuff and then Soulfrost Reliquary stuff) just because we value backers (the people who believed in us and helped us create these projects). With small teams though, also come situations like someone being sick for a week and therefore making a small extra and unexpected delay.
- Chinese New Year may impact the production timeline. This could very well be an extra 1-2 months delay.
- GamesQuest is busy with lots of Kickstarter projects so there is a chance that the fulfillment of our projects falls around the same time as another one they are handling so that could increase the time it takes for the pledges to reach all of our backers.
- Other unexpected events that are just out of our hands (you never know, maybe another pandemic? We hope not...)
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It is important to note that with all of the above in mind, once we deliver the final print files, the project is really in the hands of our printing and fulfillment partners. We will try to monitor the process and update you every step of the way, but we really cannot do more than that.
We thank you for your patience and hope to see you all enjoy flipping through the huge tome that is Starlight Arcana sooner than later!
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Questions? Support?
If you have any questions or need any help with handling your pledge, then please reach out. This is most definitely the best time to do that because we have been locking orders and only accepting very few new ones. Our time and focus are all on going into mass production so although the Pledge Manager is still open, we will slowly stop handling new requests for address changes and other related things after a while.
The BackerKit support team is of course also there to help you with anything you might need so do not hesitate to open a ticket in case you need help with something.
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Thank you all once again for your patience and your support! We hope your upcoming holiday time will be absolutely stellar and that the new year finds you with a smile on your face and a star in the sky waiting for you to make a wish that will come true.
Remember that you are all absolutely awesome and... until next time...
May Starlight guide your way, my friends!
~Kelf
Post-Project Update #22 - Pre-Production Copy is here!
almost 3 years ago
– Tue, Nov 28, 2023 at 04:43:18 AM
Hey, adventurers of the vast Sea of Stars!
First and foremost, thank you to all of you who believed in our work and helped us fund our latest Kickstarter project; Soulfrost Reliquary. We couldn't have done it without you and now the frigid halls and the terrible secrets of the ancient lich, Kez'arul, will finally be explored!
Secondly, we have some long-awaited and amazing news to share with you; the PROOF COPY of Starlight Arcana is finally here!
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Pre-Production (Proof) Copy
We of course took some nice shots of the content so that we can showcase some of it to you.
Before we go to the photos though, here are some quick acknowledgments about the proof copy and what we will be addressing before we go into mass production for the project:
- We were informed that the book will have better binding than the one we received and that LongPack, unfortunately, sent us the wrong one. We were told that we could either wait for another shipment on it and/or get a high-quality video for it. We have opted for a video of them for now so that we can move on to production a bit faster.
- The ribbon will be a nicer purple color instead. They could not put it in the proof copy because they apparently did not have any stock of it and they would only bring some of it when we decide to go into mass production. This was communicated with color codes, so we are quite confident it will look good. A bit disappointing to not be able to see it up close, but the ribbon color is the least of our worries since printing quality and some other things are far more important.
- The dice were unfortunately not ready and therefore we do not have them yet. We were told that we could either wait for another shipment on it and/or get a high-quality video for it. We have opted for a video of them for now so that we can move on to production a bit faster.
- There was a misunderstanding with the thickness of the GM Screen and what we received is in no way what we want the final one to feel like in terms of how sturdy and thick it needs to be. The colors on the GM Screen however were very good and we're very happy with the printing on it.
- The printed maps are all super bright and vivid and we are extremely pleased with the printing quality. These are some of the best I have personally seen and I am more than happy with the final result.
- Some fixes are required in the ordering of pages in the main book. For example, the index page of the monster menagerie that has a table of contents for the whole monster menagerie has one mistake in terms of numbering.
- The tarot cards are spectacular and although the tuckbox for them had to be quite small (therefore making it a bit less sturdy), we are actually very happy with it because it works really well. The cards themselves feel very good to hold and shuffle and with or without sleeves they look stunning. Dusky Cat was actually a bit worried that some of her more "non-traditional" (at least for printing) color palettes would look weird printed but LongPack did a great job with those.
- The character sheets, the Quickstart booklet, and the box are all great. We were asked to make the character sheets and the booklet a bit smaller and now they are kind of "swimming" inside the quickstart box but that is kind of ok since the box can now be used to store all sorts of TTRPG-related things more easily.
- The Art Prints are huge, bright, and awesome. We are super happy with the print quality of them.
- Just a couple of artworks need some tweaking color-wise in order to print a bit better. To be honest, this is the one thing we knew we would have to most definitely fix and it is one of the main reasons why we even do this whole "proof copy" kind of thing before going into mass production.
I might be missing a couple of points, but that's more or less the main idea and the core impressions we got from our couple of hours of looking through the proof copy materials.
Now... Enjoy the showcase!
The Book
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The Maps
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The Tuck box with Tarot Cards
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The Character Sheets (+a filled-out one for a premade character that comes with the quickstart box)
(small mistake in the class specified)
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The Art Prints
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Family Pics
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Quick Preview Video
REMINDER: We will be getting the dice later on and we will have a video to show you for those too.
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What is the next step?
The ball is now, of course, back in our court and we will be working on things as fast as we possibly can so that we can give LongPack all of our feedback on the proof copy. This also includes communicating with them to make sure that we have everything figured out and that everything is looking exactly like we want it to look before we go into mass production.
We are expecting to start mass production in no more than 2 weeks but as always, we cannot possibly know if there will be any other reasons for delays. Considering the fact that we are going into December in just a couple of days and everyone is going on holiday, we are expecting at least some kind of delays in some way or form.
In any case, we are hoping that we will be doing fulfillment for all the physical stuff before the start of the summer of 2024.
I know that is quite some time away, but we learned the hard way to always give the most delayed estimate, just in case.
All that being said though, we have learned a lot about all of these processes and we are much more prepared to produce and fulfill future projects much faster. Soulfrost Reliquary is actually proof of that since we will be ready to distribute the PDF in only a couple of months after the KS campaign's end!
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Questions? Support?
If you have any questions or need any help with handling your pledge, then please reach out. This is most definitely the best time to do that because we have been locking orders and only accepting very few new ones. Our time and focus are all on going into mass production so although the Pledge Manager is still open, we will slowly stop handling new requests for address changes and other related things after a while.
The BackerKit support team is of course also there to help you with anything you might need so do not hesitate to open a ticket in case you need help with something.
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I just wanted to say once again; thank you all so much for your support. Finally being able to hold this big CHONK of a book in my hands was a dream come true for me. This would not have been possible without all of your help.
Thank you also for your patience as we have learned so much through this project and have traversed many a strange obstacle to get where we are now. We do not plan on stopping and we are learning more and more with every step we take.
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Future project?!
One of the things we DID learn is that we need to do more pre-launch marketing and also give both new and older followers reasons to follow our projects (beyond the fact that they are awesome of course!)
So with that in mind, we are introducing discounts and bonus content to all pre-launch followers of our next project; Sirensong.
Click on this LINK or on the image below to find out more!
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Our next update will be in 1 to 2 weeks when we will be announcing that we are going into mass production of the physical content. We will most hopefully have high-quality videos of some of the materials to show you as well, so stay tuned!
Until the next time...
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
Post-Project Update #21 - Some news and lessons learned!
almost 3 years ago
– Tue, Oct 24, 2023 at 11:46:39 AM
Hey, spellcasters!
We, unfortunately, do not have a lot of news to share on Starlight Arcana except for a couple of things.
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Proof Prints!
The proof prints are on their way! That means that full production & manufacturing will begin in no more than a week (or max two weeks)!
We are super excited to get a hold of the physical book and all the other awesome things and we will try to get pictures of everything as promised so that we can share them with you through an update!
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Updated PDF!
The updated PDF is ready and all I have to do is upload it. Expect it to be available for download through your digital rewards on BackerKit in the next 24 hours!
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Soulfrost Reliquary almost funded?!
We are close to being funded with our new project! We are close to 90%!
You know how much we love to do artwork showcases and since we are running another project at the moment (Soulfrost Reliquary), we wanted to share some of the awesome artwork that we just posted in an update over there, so that you can see what we have been working on!
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As mentioned on the main campaign page, every single spell will have its own unique piece of artwork making each spell card unique and a lot cooler!
Here is some awesome stuff prepared for this showcase by our fantastic art director, Dusky Cat! As always, all artworks were made by our lead illustrator, ALGOYO!
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Lessons we have learned from Soulfrost Reliquary's launch
We are super happy to be close to getting funded with Soulfrost Reliquary and the truth is that although we expected that the campaign would do better, we learned a lot from running this project.
You know that I have been absolutely honest about every single thing, every step of the way be it with the Starlight Arcana project or other things that have been ongoing (such as the OGL situation) so I figured that this is a good time to talk about Soulfrost Reliquary and the lessons we have learned from it.
While we are EXTREMELY happy with how the project came out (marketing, presentation, preparation, speed to produce and deliver it since it's already 99% ready, etc.) we unfortunately did not account for a few things that ended up making it much less of a "hit" as Starlight Arcana was.
A few important things were:
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It's important that we fully deliver all physical content to all backers for previous projects before we run another project. Even though we can no longer control, in any way whatsoever, the speed at which printing & fulfillment happen now, there are still a lot of people who care about having something completely finished before they go into another project. There are tons of examples of publishers and creators that make 2nd and 3rd projects before they fully deliver the first one, but we have now made the promise to always fully deliver before we ever start another one in the future. If anything, it at least helps us have peace of mind as creators.
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People like generic-looking fantasy stuff instead of niche things like comic-style stuff. This is not a personal opinion by the way, but rather an observation and a well-researched fact that we arrived at after lots of looking around and properly digging into things. We found that niche styles like the one we have for Soulfrost Reliquary, although they are awesome, original, and much more unique, will, unfortunately, not have the same rate of success as other projects. This point is a rather disheartening one of course, especially considering how much we absolutely love and prefer ALGOYO's style to the more generic stuff we usually see out there. The truth is, however, that even if this was a MORK BORG module, it would still suffer greatly due to the look and due to the next point, which is...
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Reach matters more than anything in the world. It does not matter how awesome the thing you have created is because if you do not have the reach to get people's eyes on it, then your project will sink without ever even making a splash. This is just the state of the world and more importantly the state of the industry. Be it that it is something that sounds bad or not, at the end of the day it's just business. If you want to do business in this industry, you have to keep up and do the right kind of moves, be it a TikTok meme dance or an over-the-top "thirsty" advertisement. We do not like this sort of marketing approach, but we will adapt, as best as we can, in order to keep up with the growth we want to achieve for our future projects' success. The point about "reach" is most probably the most important one out of all of the ones listed here.
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Less physical, more digital. In the future, we plan on delivering a lot more digital rewards. The reason is that we simply cannot keep making this amount of (albeit awesome) physical content if we cannot reach more than 1,000 backers on a project. We need to be realistic and deliver absolutely amazing stuff as we best can. Focusing on the digital and delivering the experiences that we can deliver will be our primary focus with the physical stuff being more "boutique" and unique for a select few backers that wish to have those. We will most definitely still offer a hardcover book but a lot of other things will probably be much harder to make in the future (such as spell cards, cardboard tokens + standees, etc.). As cool as those may be, it might not be very smart, business-wise, for us to make those and offer them through our campaigns.
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Our friends are our strength. I repeatedly say that none of this would have been possible if it weren't for the amazing people I work with and also for all of our awesome collaborators. Starlight Arcana had an amazing start because lots of our creator friends posted about it. With Soulfrost Reliquary, we made the wrong decision of launching a bit too early and therefore weren't able to spread the word as much as we wanted to. In the future, we will make sure we take our time with spreading the word before launching a campaign.
With all of these things in mind, we are moving forward with great determination and lots of excitement for all the other awesome projects that we are preparing to bring to Kickstarter.
Thank you once again for being here with us for this amazing journey and we really hope that Starlight Arcana will be as magical as you all wanted it to be. Starlight Arcana was made first with love and doing "business" was only secondary to everything else. That being said, we are still learning from all the things that we do and we will always strive to do better and most importantly; keep communicating openly with all of you!
Thank you!
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If you would like to support Soulfrost Reliquary, then click the link below to check out the campaign!
Heck, we even made a full soundtrack for it with 7 tracks!
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Don't forget that you can always join us in our little community on Discord!
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Until the next update then!
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
Soulfrost Reliquary is LIVE! (+some news)
about 3 years ago
– Mon, Oct 16, 2023 at 10:30:01 AM
Hey starlight travelers!
Today's update has one main focus which is announcing our new, just-launched, campaign:
SOULFROST RELIQUARY - A Grand 5E Adventure - NOW LIVE
We are super happy to finally be live with this as we have eagerly been waiting to launch our next campaign. If you have been following these updates, then you know how hard we have been working to make sure Starlight Arcana's production & fulfillment are going smoothly, as well as how much we want to do things right with our next campaign.
We will be delivering the final PDF for Soulfrost Reliquary within 3 months of the live campaign's completion.
Make sure you check out the campaign's page to find out more!
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Starlight Arcana PDF Improvements
We really mean it when we say that we take all feedback seriously. Some of your feedback actually pointed out something we had planned but ended up completely forgetting. We take pride in the organization and management of the projects we run, but that does not mean we are not human so we naturally make mistakes or in this case; forget things.
We are now fully aware of the fact that we forgot to put an interactive table of contents in the PDF and for that reason, we are actively preparing the next update of the digital file that will have a properly functional table of contents (which you can click to go directly to a specific section).
Thank you so much for communicating this with us and please do not hesitate to poke us about other stuff as well. As always, our Discord server is the best place to leave feedback (I check it regularly and reply quite fast to comments).
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Another Starlight Arcana PDF Improvement?
Another thing that was brought to our attention was that some backers would really like to have the option to split the PDF in a way that they can have something that has information that is meant only for players. This way, they do risk spoiling stuff for their players when handing over their pad or laptop to check up on things.
We are working on that as well and we will let you know how that goes soon enough. It really should not be that difficult to create, but we will know more once we start figuring it out.
This also means that there will be bookmarks on the side so that you can more easily navigate through the pages of the book (that means that you don't have to go to the table of contents every time).
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Production & Fulfillment Update
We read a comment that kind of surprised us, considering the amount of updates and communication we provide for the state of the project so I want to really emphasize on the following:
We are currently waiting on the PHYSICAL PROOF PRINTS for the project and once those arrive and we "ok" them, we will go directly to manufacturing all of the stuff.
We are unfortunately UNABLE to speed up this process in any way whatsoever on our side. We have said this from the very beginning that the stages of production & fulfillment are completely out of our hands. Any step that requires our input is immediately handled in a matter of hours (as soon as we get an update or an e-mail reply from our partners).
We thank you for your understanding and please know that if we could, we would put the book on your tables right now. Alas, these processes take time.
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That is all for today!
We are eagerly waiting for the physical proof prints to arrive so that we can take pictures of everything and show you all the awesome stuff you will be getting!
We are planning a few other cool things after SFR and I just wanted to let you know that support for Starlight Arcana does not stop because of any other projects. We are very serious about keeping up with the support for all of our projects.
Thank you all so much once again for making this dream of a book come true. Every day that passes by is another day closer to getting to hold it in our hands and we cannot wait for you to do the same!
Until next time...
May Starlight guide your way my friends!
~Kelf
