Glumdark

Pledge Manager Closing, Cards Charging, and a Note About Tariffs
12 months ago – Mon, May 05, 2025 at 11:14:51 AM

Hey everyone!

Pledge Manager locking and cards charging this week

A quick update to let you know that we are starting the process to lock orders today. You will get a notice soon that you have 48 hours to make any adjustments before your order is locked. Then after 48 hours your card on file will be charged on Wednesday 5/7. Addresses will not be locked until closer to fulfillment so you can change your address as needed*. 

If you have any questions with your pledge or need help please reach out to us at [email protected].

(*Note some change of states or countries require assistance, so just reach out to us and we can help you with that!)

Update on Tariff Impact

In order to keep the books at the current retail price we will continue with the plan of printing the books with our partner in Lithuania, Standart, as quotes we have received for the books from printers in the US are about double the cost. While books are exempt from the current reciprocal tariff, they are not from the current 20% fentanyl tariff. We will wait until closer to fulfillment to see if the tariff is still in effect and asses at that time what the impact will be, if any, on US backers. We prefer to avoid charging backers any additional funds, but we may ask for US backers only to contribute a very small optional amount (most likely less than $2) if they are able to. 

We will address this again closer to the shipping of the books. Thanks so much for your understanding with this evolving situation.

Book Progress

Look out for an update this month on the progress of the book and other deliverables. 

Thanks so much!

-EF Crew

BackerKit Pledge Manager going out this weekend!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Apr 04, 2025 at 05:48:40 PM

Hello backers!

A quick update to say we will start sending out Pledge Manager surveys today. Many of you may be familiar with the smoke test, but in case you are not, we will start to send out surveys tonight via the Smoke Test to 5% of backers. Assuming no issues with this test, the rest of the surveys will be sent on saturday. 

If you chose add-ons during the campaign you will see these populated in your carts as well as the early backer incentives. Surveys will lock and cards will be charged in about 30 days. We will post another update before they lock and carge notifying you of the exact date.

If you do not receive your survey by Monday 4/7, please reach out to us at support@[email protected]. 

Thank you so much and have a great weekend!

Exalted Funeral Team

End of March Update: What's Going On?
about 1 year ago – Wed, Mar 26, 2025 at 08:59:19 AM

And I said hey, let's catch up about Glumdark progress.

Pledge Manager

There's been a slight delay here, but we expect the Pledge Manager to be open by the end of next week. You'll from us about it again Very Soon.

Art

Vil has been cranking through the Bestiary artwork. Most of the art is already complete and the rest should be done this or early next week. I don't have to tell you it looks incredible, but I guess I am telling you that. It looks incredible. 

This would mark the end of the art production for the book and all assets!

Bookplates & Sketchplates

We're working on getting the bookplates & sketchplates printed in Brazil so that we can avoid import customs. This way Vil can sign and illustrate this stuff and then ship it to us in the states. We'll be happy when this little logistical hurdle is... hurdled. 

Index

I took the advice of Michael Downs in the comment section of our last update and used the final two pages of the book to display an index. Thanks Michael! It's both potentially-useful and hilariously dumb. Just like everything worth doing. 

Editing

While I was designing and laying out the book, I was also copy editing and wordsmithing (in InDesign) to get everything to fit as I envisioned it. I then wrote a bunch of InDesign scripts to slightly nudge and munge individual characters to mimic poor typesetting. As a result, it's totally impossible to copy the contents of the book PDF to a Word document for editing. So, our editor Walton Wood has been hard at work editing the book in hard copy. The first round of edits will be done this week and I'll be free to begin incorporating those edits.

Sundry Details

The book cover and cassette J-Card designs are very nearly complete. All that's left is to get the correct barcode / ISBN and credits in there. Small but important details remain.

Dungeon Synth

99% of what I've been doing for the past couple of months is working on the Dungeon Synth record. I'm happy to report that I'm in the final mixing process and the record is very, very nearly finished. I can now say confidently that it's 10 tracks long and clocks in just under an hour. I'm finishing up mixes in the next few days and meeting with a mastering engineer on Friday.

A few weeks ago, I started to get recordings from a friend of mine who is an incredible cellist. She also happens to be a choir director and eagerly composed choir accompaniment to many of the songs on the record, which she then recorded with the symphony choir. They also sent over a bunch of recordings of themselves crying, shouting, pouting, cowering in fear, etc, etc. So that's on the record too. 

The irony of a Christian choir contributing such compelling elements to a very satanic record is lost on precisely nobody and it tickles us all the same. I couldn't be more grateful for their contributions.

I DM'd some marathon sessions last weekend and had the Dungeon Synth album playing a lot of the time and it sounded pretty alright to me.

The album is very aware of its own form factor as a cassette tape. Which is to say that it is arranged to live on two sides of a tape with each side telling a different story. I have not yet figured out how to approach this with the streaming release, but I hope we can come up with something cool. For now, the priority is figuring out the cassette release.

What Else?

It's been cool to see folks hanging out in the Discord and creating community tables. Feel free to drop in and chat about Glumdark or the book or whatever. We're generally available and the little community there has been super friendly.

I think that's all! Leave a comment if you're curious about the progress of anything that I missed. The TL;DR is: we're on schedule and very happy with progress.

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

The Campaign is OVER. Now what?
about 1 year ago – Sat, Feb 22, 2025 at 09:31:13 AM

Now What?!

Thanks a bajillion for backing this campaign!

I'm overjoyed and it has exceeded our every expectation. So now what?

Getting in Touch

Firstly, please feel free to join the Glumdark Discord. It's not chatty, but Matt and I are always in there and happy to discuss any aspects of the book, website, project, album, etc. If your question is more Kickstarter-centric or involves backer rewards, they'll be more knowledgable at: [email protected]

Project Progress

How far along are we? Well, let's see...

The Chapter Header Images that were unlocked at the $50,000 stretch goal are already completed. I've been working with Vil during the campaign to get them done and they're already all set within the book and finalized. They look great.

The Bestiary is already fully written and edited. The initial text layout is done, though some nudging to achieve pixel perfection is going to be necessary. The bestiary art is in progress now. Vil has completed two or three of the ten different drawings and they look fantastic. We're hoping to finish the rest in the next month. 

The entire remainder of the book needs to be edited. We have a monthlong timeline in place to get the first major drafts done and our editor Walton Wood has already started the work. We're optimistic that this won't overrun our timeline.

We're also in this weird place where we have to add two extra pages to the book (book pages have to be a multiple of four for obvious sheets-of-paper reasons). Matt and I have been kicking around the idea of adding a microfiction table--ideas for which have been percolating for a while. If you have ideas for what should go in these last two pages, feel free to hit us up on Discord or leave a comment below. This is a great chance to let us know if there's a Glumdark table you always wanted to see but we haven't yet written.

Finally, production-wise, I need to finish producing the dungeon synth record. It's coming along well! It currently looks to be about 11 tracks and clocks in at just under an hour. Some friends will be recording choral arrangements next week. There's still some arrangement and recording work to do before I can begin mixing in earnest. And then I need to convince my favorite mastering engineer to come out of retirement. We have a little more time with this because the lead time with cassette manufacturing is faster than with the book.

We're also in the process of getting bookplates and sketchplates printed in Brazil so that Vil can get those done and ship them up to the states for us to finish.

Once we're done with the above, then it's time to begin proofing with the printers in Lithuania. We've obviously already started discussions with them long ago and I'm looking forward to receiving some paper samples in the mail to make final decisions on the physical aspects of things. Such as: matching the gold between ribbon, cover and endpapers to make the Limited Edition pop.

That's pretty much where we stand at the moment. I'm dedicated to getting everything completed on the quickest timeline possible for many reasons. Not least of which is my own impatience at finally holding this book in my hands. 

We'll keep you updated as everything progresses! 

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral

TWELVE HOURS LEFT to Back! The End is Extremely Nigh!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 21, 2025 at 08:12:27 AM

This is it! We're in the final 12 hours of the campaign!

This is your last chance to get the Glumdark book, cassette tape, poster, t-shirt and patch at a campaign-only discounted price. Items will still be available in Backerkit at retail price afterwards.

If you've been on the fence about it, get off there. It's not safe up there. That fence was put in years ago and it's really not strong enough to sit on. 

If you've already backed, awesome! We'll have updates tomorrow about progress and timeline. We're going to push to get the best quality book into your hands as quickly as we can.

Thanks for all the support. This has been an awesome ride!

Cheers,
CTRO + Exalted Funeral