Glumdark

April Updates and Some Thoughts on Perfectionism
6 days ago – Mon, Apr 20, 2026 at 04:32:30 PM

First: The Updates

• The Glumdark Vol 4. cassette has been proofed and approved and is moving into production. So warm up those reels. 
• T-Shirts are done and in the warehouse.
• Screenprinted posters won't be UV, as we couldn't color-match. But we're looking at doing a limited edition print with wacky UV colors. This is TBD, based on pricing concerns.
• All other backer rewards are either complete or easy to complete quickly. 
• And then there's the book...

The Book

For the past few weeks, we've been in a cycle of revisions from myself to publisher to printer and back again. At each stage we've found different issues and each time an issue is found, it requires another round trip. 

Some of the issues have been absolute show-stoppers, like pagination being broken or offset errors. Others have been more subtle. I don't want to delay this book for an issue that nobody will notice, but I've also been working on it for years and want it to be as near to perfect as I can get it.

I have loved making this book, and I'm beyond grateful for the support it has gotten. But proofing something of this complexity and magnitude is not a task I'd wish upon anyone. Over 170 pages of tables, each with a unique layout, each with different numbers of items, a table of contents, an index, and a ton of different styles of text each indicating specific uses. Once you've looked it over 10,000 times, it becomes really difficult to notice any error and the impossible goal is to find every error.

After several revisions, I discovered that my InDesign paragraph styles were inconsistent across chapters. Eagle-eyed observers will notice this in the distributed PDF. I discovered it, with absolute horror, when I thought we'd arrived at a final version. After fixing this issue and scanning the entire book several times, I once again thought we'd arrived at a final version and resubmitted it to the hellish loop of revision.

And then, when reviewing the proofs once more, I found a single missing apostrophe. An "it's" missing its contraction. And it was included in one of my favorite table items in the entire book. But this was the only issue I saw. And so I made a bold choice: I would leave it. Not simply because I didn't want to go through another round of revisions, but also as a kind of symbol. A bit of grammatical wabi-sabi. An Easter egg for everyone who reads these updates. It made me feel kind of proud to let go of the idea of a perfect book. It wasn't accepting defeat, it was accepting the naturally chaotic way of the universe. It was Buddhism. 

Until the next day, when I found a few more errors and fixed them all. 

I've just submitted what I am foolishly optimistic may be the final revision. If I'm right, our printer will send me a physical proof so that we can be sure about things like our paper choice. If we're lucky and we got it right, we can schedule it for printing. 

Fingers crossed. Thank you, so much, for your patience.

Cheers,
CTRO + EF,

PS: Some folks have been asking about an updated PDF edition. I'll get to this once we've moved into production so that I don't have to do another hellish loop of revisions and uploads there as well. I've got no idea how to do interlinking in a PDF, but hopefully we can make that happen so that the PDF is more useful. Glumdark was very much designed to be used as a physical book, but we want to make the PDF as good as possible. 

March Update! The Ball is Rolling.
about 2 months ago – Wed, Mar 11, 2026 at 11:44:50 AM

March Update!

Book Progress -- The Most Important Part:

We are officially neck deep in the proofing process with our printer. We've had to make some changes to the debossed / gold foil alignment on the deluxe cover as well as dealing with some trapping issues on the interior pages of the book.

Because we've done some experimental stuff with image and text layout, it has presented some odd text registration issues, but we've mostly gotten it all sorted.

I have a new digital proof in my inbox that I'm going to be inspecting with a (digital?) microscope today and getting back to the printer with changes tomorrow. I expect to have images to share of physical proofs in our next update, which will be our final step before the books start printing. Because of our ink and paper choices, mailing a physical proof is just going to be mandatory to make sure the presentation lives up to expectations. 

Once we approve that print, we should be able to provide a semi-accurate delivery date. Because at that point we'll know when the printer can get us into their production pipeline.

Poster Progress -- Cool, and Slightly Less Important:

The above poster is being screen-printed. We had initially planned to print it with the "official" ink colors of the Glumdark logo on black paper. But in the pre-production process, we started kicking around the idea of using UV inks so that the poster would glow in black light. 

Currently, we're waiting for a digital proof of the potential UV inks. They will register as slightly more magenta, but the glow effect could be cool. We won't do it if it's too magenta. But let us know in the comments if you feel strongly one way or the other. Black light posters: cool, or not that cool?

Web Site Progress:

I always put progress on the book first, whenever there's anything I can be doing. But when there isn't, I'm putting time into writing Glumdark Space tables and working on the website. To that end:

• We've got a new table posted to the website: Saga of a Spaceling. Check it out. It's like a mini NPC generator for spacebound campaigns. 
• The Travel Location Generator now uses original art from Strega. It was the only AI-Generated art on the website and now, thankfully, it is gone. Thank god. 
• Vil is working on some new art for the upcoming Distress Beacons table. I've seen the rough draft of it, and it is awesome. Will post when that is up--soon! 

We'll be getting firm dates as soon as we know anything. 

Cheers,
CTRO+EF

Glumdark February Update! Book news and a new website.
3 months ago – Mon, Feb 02, 2026 at 01:40:52 PM

The Book

First, let's start with what matters to you most: the status of the book.

There has been a lot of back and forth about the final costs per unit for the different versions of the book. During this process, we weren't able to move into pre-production and get the first proofs done. Unfortunately, while this is happening, there isn't anything I can do to speed things up.

But we finally got the numbers we needed and should have everything signed this week. The printers have sent initial feedback on our files, so that means we're officially in pre-press.

As far as the rest of the items, many are already produced and most of the rest have been ordered. Nothing outside of the book itself should hold anything up further:

• Stickers: In warehouse!
• Patches: In production.
• Cassette: Quoted.
• Poster: Ready to order.
• T-shirts: Screen made, test print done. Ready.
• Bookplates / Sketch Plates: In warehouse.
• Art Print: Ready to order.
   

The Web Site

Perhaps because there's nothing I can personally do to get the book done faster, I've been investing my time into the Glumdark website.

Total Redesign

The site had really started to look dated with too many CTAs and tons of stripes and underlines and etc. I went through and stripped the design way down, making it much easier to navigate and use--I hope. 

Three-Dimensional Dice

The dice rolling mechanism on the Glumdark site has always been functional, but I like watching real dice roll. So I implemented dice rolling into the site.

It can be turned on or off easily in the footer. And because I didn't want to lose any snappiness, the table lands on the number before the dice finish rolling. Which always feels weirdly prescient.

This is out now! Lemme know if you find any bugs. I'm sure we've got some. 

New Art & Tables

We have multiple pieces of art commissioned for the site by Strega Wolf and of course Vil. My biggest priority is addressing the fact that the Travel Location Generator still uses icky AI art for the icons. You can tell they were made with a really early version of Midjourney back before we took a strong stance on the matter. They gotta go. 

And we've got two new tables in Beta: Lives in Space and Distress Beacons. They should both be out this week as well. We'll announce them on the Glumdark Patreon and Discord server.

Two small steps towards a Glumdark Space book?

Thanks for tuning in!

Cheers,
CTRO / EF

The Big November Update
6 months ago – Sun, Nov 09, 2025 at 11:11:49 AM

Obviously, Happy Belated Halloween

We've got a few things to report.

T-Shirt Printing is a Go

We're partnering with Pete's Print Shop in beautiful Greenpoint, Brooklyn for the t-shirt printing. Because we have to do everything the hard way, we're screenprinting these baddies and I wanted to get a sample printed for Quality Assurance Purposes.

And now: the sample is in hand. Or rather on-torso.

It's not too late to pre-order a t-shirt here!

Asset Selection is DONE

I believe I mentioned before that I had to go straight to the manufacturer to get samples of everything we needed in-hand for comparison. But it's impossible to make accurate material choices when you're just looking at pictures. All the more when you're comparing something reflective like the gold foil. It looks different in every picture.

But we did finally find some golds we like and we're pretty happy with the color matching from three different materials: paper, foil and nylon book ribbon:

With this selected, we've now made all of the material selections for the book. We're just waiting for a final full pro-forma from the printer before we press the Go button on digital and physical proofs.

I am unreasonably excited to hold the physical proof in my hands, even if it'll be unbound.

Glumdark Space is Growing

I've got some ideas for a second book. But in order to design it, we'll first have to write it. And to that end, I've returned to writing Glumdark Space tables.

To start, I beefed up the Things Found in a Derelict Space Ship to a D100.

This increases the projects I'm working on simultaneously to a number that I don't feel comfortable discussing. But I'm excited about all of them. So.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

That's all for now! Grab a shirt if dig 'em!

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

The September Update, Now in October!
7 months ago – Wed, Oct 01, 2025 at 01:55:28 PM

So Much Signing, Writing and Drawing

The sketchplates and the bookplates are done, finito, complete-o. They're already sitting in the warehouse ready to be shipped out once everything else is complete. 

I grabbed these shots of them before the rest of the signatures were complete. And we also added some more doodles, nonsense and little thank yous to each one. 

It sure took a while to write 100 different D4/D6/D8/D12/D20 tables--even if they're largely very stupid--worth it to show our gratitude though!

In order to get these done, we shipped the cards with printed borders to Vil in Brazil. He illustrated them and shipped them to me in New York and then I wrote the tables and stuck them all in my carry-on luggage to San Francisco so that Matt and I could sign everything. Then we shipped them off to the warehouse for distribution. Phew. 

Hell is DHL

For the past couple of weeks I've been trying to receive some paper samples from our printer in Lithuania. We believe this should be the last physical thing we'll have to approve before we have all of the materials selected for the book--the correct ribbons, foils, papers, debossing, etc. 

If you don't like stories about horrible customer service experiences, go ahead and skip to the end. But if you live for failed logistics operations STRAP IN.

First, I rescheduled the delivery online as I wasn't able to be at home when the package was scheduled to arrive. On the day of the rescheduled delivery, I stayed home all day and it did not arrive. 

The next day I call customer service and it tells me there’s an exception with the package and I have to resolve it at delivery.dhl.com. So I go there and it tells me there's an exception with the package and I need to call customer service. 

So I called back again and did the old, "keep repeating the word agent" trick until a human being answers. I told them it wasn't delivered and they offered to let me reschedule the delivery for the next day. They said that they could only reschedule it this way if I signed for it. I said OK, I can stay home again and sign for it.

Then the next day they called me back and said that they couldn't deliver the package unless I released the signature, meaning, not sign for it. I said I could stay home and sign for it. They said that my options were to have it returned to Lithuania or release the signature. I released the signature and scheduled it for the next day. They gave me a 2 hour delivery window.

I stay home the next day. It doesn't arrive in the 2 hour delivery window, or at all. I call the next morning and mumble "agent, agent, agent" again. This time, no luck. It tells me I have to schedule a callback and has me enter a time I want to be called back, with no indication of the time zone. A time without a time zone is literally meaningless 𐠒. So, I enter 11:30am. They say the next available callback is in 3 days. So I just hang up and call back in five minutes and someone immediately answers.

I explain the situation and they ask if I want to file a complaint. I say no, just the package. They ask if I want to just pick it up and I say yes, that's fine. They give me a location where I can pick it up and I ask if they're sure it will be there. They say no, it won't be there. So I say, well, then let's redeliver it. They ask me when and I give them a new delivery date for the following Monday.

That Monday comes. I stay home. No package. I call back the next day. Agent agent agent.This time, someone gets on the line who promises to be helpful. He says he'll call the station and the driver and ensure that it can be delivered that very day. I say great, let's do that. He puts me on hold, tells me he talked to the station and driver and that it will be delivered that day.

It doesn't come. 

To be clear, I'm not mad at the customer service agents. I've been a customer service agent--I did it for years. I'm aware that I'm over here getting a peek into hell but they live there.

Anyway, finally, FINALLY, it got delivered today. It's too soon to say exactly what the paper choice will be. But suffice it to say I'm excited about the options I received.

Next Steps

Once we get the godforsaken paper samples from DHL, we should be able to pull the trigger on just about all of the production choices--assuming that we love one of the paper samples. Which is great. 

I'll be asking for a physical proof, which will add a little time, but I don't expect it to be too much. It will be worth it for the peace of mind. 

The other physical items should be quite simple 🤞. Now that we have estimated numbers for everything, we can get those things in the hopper as well. The book will have the longest production cycle.

It's coming. But it can't come soon enough for me.

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

𐠒 Unless it's like a UNIX timestamp or something. Which is just a count of the seconds since January 1st, 1970. Hilariously, many systems store Unix timestamps as a 32-bit signed integer. The maximum value a 32-bit signed integer can hold is 2,147,483,647. Which means that we'll have another Y2K-type situation on January 19, 2038. But it might be way worse because a ton of legacy systems and firmware can't be upgraded to 64-bit. Or maybe it will be a big disappointment like last time. We'll see.