Jamison Stone's Blog, page 19

Kickstarter "Pre-Launch Page" for The Red Opera

We have some very exciting news! Apotheosis Studios is getting ready to launch an epic 5th Edition Tabletop RPG book entitled The Red Opera on Kickstarter!

"Wait," you ask, "What is The Red Opera RPG?" Well, as the beloved Deckard Cain so eloquently put it, 'Stay awhile, and listen...'

"OK," you say, "This looks cool, but I don't know if I want to back it yet, how do I learn more?"

Well, our Kickstarter "Pre-Launch Page" is right HERE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stonejamison/the-red-opera-rpg

All you have to do is click the green "Notify Me on Launch" button and you are good to go!

BUT for those of you who want some additional details and a sneak-peek sampling of the art, here is some additional pictures and info!  

The Red Opera is an extensive, player-driven Role Playing Game Campaign designed for 5th Edition, drawing inspiration from the heavy metal DiAmorte album of the same name, centered upon the oft-overlooked and much-misunderstood class: Warlocks. Does this mean, you wonder, that all the players must be Warlocks and serve infernal and aberrative masters to partake of the story’s wonders? No, no… certainly not. All are welcome in the Shadelands, the all-new realm where the events unfold. For anyone in the Shadelands, be they adventurer, noblemen, or a thief can strike a temporary bargain with one of its many Patrons. Bring along your existing higher-tier campaign and characters following a mysterious trail, or wander the Shadelands as entirely fresh characters experiencing adventure for the first time. The Red Opera can easily be scaled to suit all tiers of play, and each of the ten acts contained within offer boundless opportunities for sidequests and improvisation.

We have so much more to say and show but want to keep this short. In sum, we are pumped to share all the cool things we have been working on at Apotheosis Studios these past months!

We will have more awesome content coming soon but in the meantime, again, please visit our "Pre-Launch Page" for The Red Opera on Kickstarter and hit the green "Notify me on Launch" HERE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stonejamison/the-red-opera-rpg

From everyone at Apotheosis Studios, we want to give you, our beloved followers a HUGE THANK YOU!

Shadow of the Moon, Leitmotifs and Themes Music

My name is Taylor Borgen, Lead sound designer for the indie game, Shadow of the Moon. I have been hard at work on the score for Shadow of the Moon, and am excited to show you all what I’ve been doing/thinking with the different leitmotif ideas I have been creating!

I’ve been working closely with Creative Director, Jamison Stone, and I'm happy with these ideas the way I’m tying things together in order to help tell the story. I'll upload the (somewhat confusing) map I’m working on for the different motivic/thematic ideas, along with an .mp3 of the piano playing each melody separately at their most basic conception. The melodies show up in the same order I wrote them out on the sheet music side of the map if you want to follow along.

Hopefully you can hear the connections between characters, settings and the general connection of melodies within each category to themselves/their character. The arrows on the back help to show how certain motifs are built off one another. For example the Tetragar Tower "Power/Darkness" is what spawned the motif for Nemesis' "Desire/control" as well as the Fallen Soldiers "Desire of power."

But the Tetragar "Power/Darkness" also ties in with the thematic ideas used for Zera/Rahu, so there is this connection of power and you can hear how its somewhat neutral in Tetragar’s motif, but the way Nemesis and the Fallen took it was darker and more sinister, while Zera/Rahu also took from it, but it was in a much more heroic positive way

Another thing being the Zera and Rahu Arkai motifs for the "Fighting Spirit", they are both very similar, Zera's being a call to the Arkai and Rahu's being the response. Eventually the themes can be tied together as one piece as she finally becomes the Shadow of the Moon!

Nemesis, the Fallen, and parts of Tetragar/Arkai's power are all going to be in a non-functional harmonic language, which creates that sinister affect and the somewhat tainted/broken ideas of power they share, whilst Zera may have some similar sounding material, however it will fall into more of a functional harmony in order to show her being able to differentiate between the light and dark(edited)

Likewise, the music for Nemesis and Fallen will often be in odd meters, and even have some poly-tonal aspects which will further create their sense of "losing humanity" or what have you. You can also hear a connection between the Rahu "Folk/Market" theme and the Fallen Soldiers "Desire" which is another way of saying, the Fallen were/are regular humans that once lived like the commoners of Rahu, but they have been tainted and in the words of Dio, "thrown away their humanity!" (lolol sorry had to include a JoJo reference.)(edited)

To give you an example of what a draft song in its final stages sounds like, here is our Rahu Castle Theme below!

There are many other connections and things I can go into detail with, but this was a short run down of some of the ideas! I think it's going to work super well once things become more finalized and clear. Stay tuned for more!

Promo Video for The Red Opera Dungeons and Dragons Warlock Campaign Book with DiAmorte

So excited to share a short promo video DiAmorte made for our upcoming Warlock Dungeons and Dragons RPG campaign book entitled The Red Opera!

Stay tuned there is oh so much more to come!

Theme of the Betrayer - The Red Opera D&D RPG Book

Very excited to share a sneak-peak illustration of our upcoming Dungeons & Dragons RPG Campaign book for Warlocks called The Red Opera!

We are super stoked about these chapter illustrations, this one is for Chapter 7, entitled The Betrayer! There are 10 chapters in total, each with its own unique story themed illustration, along with a bunch of other art for the book itself, found throughout each chapter!

If you want to see additional images as we continue development, and want to support our international team of independent artists during such a hard time in our world real lives, please join our Patreon Page HERE: https://www.patreon.com/ApotheosisStudios

Thank you and enjoy!

Video Book Review by 'The Art and Making of' YouTube Channel!

It fills me with great pride to share this newly released The Last Amazon Review by the YouTube channel 'The Art and Making of'!

As an artist, it is one's hope to have their art seen and appreciated on its own merits. We took a lot of risks with The Last Amazon and tried something wildly different and innovative in the field of graphic novel storytelling. 'The Art and Making of' truly grokked what we were trying to do, and seemed to appreciate it greatly. This is a wonderful feeling and would have been impossible without all of you!

I highly suggest you all watch this review and relish in the fact that YOU, as our Kickstarter backers, were vital in this book's creation. Without all of you, this book would not have been possible. Thank you.

So please, let's celebrate together and revel in what was created. To do so, please leave a quick comment on this video and share your thoughts, even if brief. You then can copy paste these thought into YOUR OWN honest review of our book on Goodreads.com by clicking HERE and on Amazon.com by clicking HERE. Your reviews TRULY help us and don't need to be long. (Also, if you enjoy awesome art book reviews, consider subscribing to the 'The Art and Making of' YouTube channel--it's a fantastic channel, and therefore a huge honor to be so highly reviewed!)

Thank you!

FREE Comic Book Day! May The 4th Be With You!

In celebration of May 4th, Free Comic Book Day, Apotheosis Studios is proud to present Beseeching the Queen of Comics, a free comic for not only our AWESOME community, but the whole world!

Please download a copy HERE for yourself send/share it with friends, family members, and loved ones!

Storytelling is best shared, and we truly hope you enjoy this epic comic telling the story how we co-created our upcoming convention ForeverCon with Mile High Comics, launching on Black Friday and Saturday, November 29th and 30th, 2019!

Click HERE to download Beseeching the Queen of Comics for FREE!

We hope you enjoy our comic, and of course, May the Fourth Be With You!

Sincerely,

-Jamison Stone and the Apotheosis Studios Team 

Night of the Wererabbit, a Game about Money, Monsters, and Moonshine LIVE Now on Kickstarter (Guest Post)

Guest Post by Kaylynn Duvall of MOEG GAMES

Do you like kittens that explode? Well, this is not it. 

Do you like short statured fantasy types who like to battle monsters? 

Well, we've got the monsters but no Elves or any magic (not counting Cousin Cleatus's moonshine, that could be magic or a curse). However, what we do have is plenty of liquor, bad judgment, and a whole lot of firepower!

Night of the Wererabbit is the culmination of nearly two years of development and many evenings of my brother and I cracking up over the hilarious (at least in our minds) stories and even funnier artwork.

While this is our first game we've actually developed, I think my brother and I have been creating games since our childhood. Every game we played, we changed the rules and added our own stories and pieces to make it even better. While we love games like Munchkin, Super Fight and Exploding Kittens, we find that most games don't work when you only have two players. So we wanted to take all of the things we loved about other games and make it so you can play with one friend or a group of friends.

Night of the Wererabbit is a card game for 2-5 players (unless you buy the expansion pack for up to 8 players) where your objective is to fight monsters, collect the bounties for killing them, and reach the goal of $10,000. With $10,000 you can buy whatever your redneck heart desires; A NASCAR commemorative plate collection, a new whiskey jug, or getting Uncle Maynard out of jail, anything you want, embrace your inner redneck. 

Actually, the 2-8 players is just the recommended amount of players, we've certainly played with more it just takes a little longer to play. The average play time for a game runs about 30 minutes to an hour, depending on how many players you have, so you can play it over and over again.

The story behind Night of the Wererabbit :

So people ask us where the idea came from for Night of the Wererabbit, and it goes back to when we were growing up. Our dad used to tell us stories before bed and we had a rabbit puppet that he would put pencils in its mouth for fangs and tell us tales of Vampire Bunnies and Wererabbits. Combine that with a childhood of watching all of the B Sci-Fi movies such as The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Night of the Leapus, and reading H.P. Lovecraft...and Night of the Wererabbit was born.

So why rednecks?

Well, when you watch a lot of those old monster movies, there's always the rednecks there somewhere. So we thought, what if those rednecks had to be the heroes and save the world from annihilation? Yeah, we'd probably all be doomed but it makes for a fun game filled with laughs and hilarity.

Why should you pledge to Night of the Wererabbit ?

Unlike a lot of Kickstarters, we already have the artwork finished and we've been having people test play this game for over a year, so all of the kinks are worked out. The only thing left is the production of the card game, which is where our backers come in.

If you're a fan of card games like Munchkin, you will love Night of the Wererabbit. It's a family friendly game for ages 8 and up that you can play on family game night or with friends at your local brewery.

We had a lot of fun developing this game, and it is our hope that everyone has just as much fun playing it.

So now it's time to find some friends or family member who you've got some dirt on and sit down to play this absolutely awesome and amazing game that definitely doesn't require you blackmail people to play it. 

(But seriously blackmailing people to play is something we can get behind, especially politicians with compromising photos. Even better if the photos get them to support our Kickstarter).

Night of the Wererabbit is currently available on Kickstarter!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/moeggames/night-of-the-wererabbit?

Fun Times in SaltLake at FanX!

Just a quick post about Apotheosis Studio’s recent FanX Expo booth in Salt Lake! Over Easter weekend, we were happily inundated with fellow fandom aficionados at the con while bordered by the buoyant waters of the Great Salt Lake and the snow-capped peaks of the Wasatch Range! Truly a wonderful time. (Although it was a bit strange to be out of CO for 420!)

Sarah, Eddie, and I (Jamison) drove from Boulder to Salt Lake in Sarah’s super cool Sapphire Subaru named Lucy. Along the way we rocked out primarily to Armin Van Buuren’s latest ‘A State of Trance’ radio cast, # 909. Eddie, being our resident EDM DJ was kind enough to take a break from his usual Dubstep/Trap mainstay and indulge our desire for some Trance for the trek across the Rockies. The drive was beautiful and so was the company—and when we arrived in SL, things only got better!

While at FanX we made friends, took lots of pictures, and spread the good word about ForeverCon! Additionally, we obviously also sold copies of Rune of the Apprentice and The Last Amazon. Eddie and I got a kick out of one new fan pointing out, “It’s a funny that you are selling a post apocalyptic graphic novel about Denver in Salt Lake, when our city has been clearly obliterated in your book.” I mentioned to that fan that yes, it is funny, but lucky for him, Denver is only a 8 hour drive away, so as long as he stays away from Salt Lake City proper when the nukes hit, he should not have too much trouble joining the Denver Denizens in the off chance TLA is a prophetic piece of writing. Lucky him! But I digress…

What else…? Oh yeah, we took lots of pictures!

Our next convention is May 4th Free Comic Book Day at Mile High Comics in Denver! For those local, you should TOTALLY come! For those not local, hope TLA is not prophetic ;)

ALL TLA KICKSTARTER BOOKS ARE SHIPPED!

Ladies, gentlemen, AMAZONS, Denizens of Denver, and Azureus investors, I have some wonderful news, ALL OF YOUR BOOKS HAVE SHIPPED! 

I said I would get all of the remaining orders out by this Friday, and hot damn, I kept my word! True be told, I needed to wake up at 4:30 AM yesterday and today to make it happen, but I got all of the books out! Now, there are a small handful of people I am still chasing down for shipping addresses, but that comprises 1% of all Backers. The rest of you AWESOME people should be getting your books very, very soon!

Don't worry, I will still be posting updates, and this certainly would not be long enough to be our last "farewell" update. Additionally, I still need to ship out posters to Super Backers, but that will happen over the next 2 weeks. Most importantly, though, I pushed hard to get all of your books out, and David and I are so excited to hear what you all think about The Last Amazon. 

Let us know by posting an honest review on Goodreads.com by clicking HERE and on Amazon.com by clicking HERE. You can simply copy the past the same review! Your post really helps us in the long run AND we love hearing what you all think about the book. Please post a review. Really. Thank you! 

Shipping Update, DIGITAL DOWNLOAD, and Review!

Hello fantastic backers! 

Quick, a shipping update: We have about about 20 books left to go out and these are people who filled out their surveys late. No worries about that, it just got your order bumped to the back of the line, but now your time has come! Unless something crazy happens I will have all of these books out by the end of the week. Yippee!

Next, DIGITAL DOWNLOAD! The Last Amazon Digital Download Edition includes an extensive 24 page "Making Of" section not found in the physical print versions with never before seen art and behind the scenes images from The Last Amazon creative team at Apotheosis Studios. 

In this exclusive making of section, David (the Illustrator) and I (Jamison, the author) go into detail about our thinking behind The Last Amazon and share our perspective on our own work. Click HERE to get your copy now! We really hope you enjoy the Digital Version and Making Of section!

Lastly, I am so stoked to share this awesome review of TLA by Kim Anisi for Readers' Favorite. Here is a blurb below:

"I picked up The Last Amazon by Jamison Stone because I enjoy a good comic every now and then, and the blurb of the book sounded rather compelling. It actually is hard to tell you what the story is about in just a few sentences as it's a lot more than I initially expected. The whole graphic novel (because comic isn't quite the right word) is a lot more than I expected and one of the most fascinating books I've read this year. Visually, it's absolutely outstanding and moves away from the classic comic book panel design. Each page is a new and different experience, which is great fun! 

"The story moves ahead at a fast pace, so you don't have much time to take a breather. There is a lot to absorb, and at times it can be a little overwhelming (in a very positive way). I liked that real women were used to portray the female main characters, and the digital versions just looked awesome. I also liked the small details, e.g. the cat portrayed with Danni. A lot of work must have gone into this, and the effort that has been put into this book definitely paid off. Wow!"

David and I are so glad Kim liked it! How about you guys? Please, please, PLEASE post your review on Goodreads.com HERE, and Amazon.com HERE. Thank you!