Off to the races with the Sirens Playtest!
about 1 year ago – Fri, Feb 17, 2023 at 03:40:56 PM

Hello everyone, sorry for the late post this month. Satine and I both got sick, but just like Daniel, we are back at it again with the KS updates!

OK, off to the races with the Sirens Playtest!

Here are some of the upgrades the Sirens: Battle of the Bards book is getting:

* Updates to adventure chapters have been made so Quest Masters can access game information efficiently and quickly during gameplay.

* In the process of Fine-tuning the Fame/Renown Tracker System to integrate player choices into how the city reacts to the players over the course of the Adventure.

* In the process of rebuilding our custom Salvatan Bard character sheets to better place the Salavatan Bard Auras and Expressions.

* Developing a Party Aura and Expression Tracker so all players can utilize each other's Activated Expressions within the auras on their reactions or as described in the text.

* Developing an additional questionnaire in Session Zero for players to share with each other to develop a robust joint 3-year back story in a matter of minutes.

Lastly, here is our official soundtrack song number #3, entitled "Heist."

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1C8y6HQPyZLg2i06DWcisS28a1SZ0J6at/view?usp=share_link

Thank you, and enjoy!

January Update
over 1 year ago – Mon, Jan 09, 2023 at 08:33:06 AM

Hello Backers!

We have kicked off 2023 with a bang and have just this past week begun our Sirens: Battle of the Bards playest #1! Satine is running two groups through the playtest for round 1, and this past weekend we performed Session Zero for both groups. We will continue to run games Saturday and Sunday for the next two months. Mid-March starts playtest #2, again with two groups on Saturdays and Sundays, lasting several months.

Our players choose to be a Salvation Bard or Salvatan Bard multi-classes. Max HP. Stats: Point buy or standard array. 2 magic items: Uncommon & Rare. Each group lost important items from their character sheets that will affect their characters in the game to gain inspiration on a roll.

Saturday’s group is a Performance art group named “The Fate Crystalis”, with 2 Requiest Bards, a Geometry Bard, a Kismet (luck) Bard, and a Wordsmith Bard.

Sunday’s group is a Metal band named “Platinum Pick” with a Requiest Bard, an Akashatechnic Bard, an Orthotechnic Bard, a Wordsmith Bard, and a Geometry Bard!

The games went wonderfully, and we have already made some very helpful changes to our current draft based on user feedback! We'll keep you posted on how everything goes in future updates!

Additionally, as promised, here is our official soundtracks song number #2, entitled "Auction." 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1xqyi_JETal4bhWQ084IbbXtfmDi78lXg/view?usp=share_link

We hope you have a wonderful start to the new year!

December's Sirens: Battle of the Bards Backer Update
over 1 year ago – Thu, Dec 01, 2022 at 09:55:05 PM

Hello Backers,

Thank you for your patience. We know the delay is frustrating, and we deeply appreciate everyone’s understanding. This has been a challenging time, and we have profound gratitude to all of our Backers and community members who have reached out to us here, on Instagram, or directly—with compassion. It is deeply appreciated and greatly respected. Thank you!

As promised, Satine and I (Jamison) are working hard to finish up Sirens: Battle of the Bards and are still on track for our estimated timeline:

• Editing and Playtesting: 2-3 months.
• (December - February: Playtesting round 1)

• Re-writes, mechanic tweaks:3-4 months.      
• (March - April)

• Playtesting round 2: 1 month
• (May: Playtesting round 2)

• Developmental editing and proofreading: TBD, 1-3 months estimated.
• (June - August)

• Layout: 3 months.
• (Sept - November)

• PDF version estimated completion in 12 to 13 months.
• (December 2023 - January 2024)

• Printing and shipping timelines will then be based on external partners.
  

There is actually much more happening behind the scenes not included on the above list, and our team has been working hard these past months on some exciting things! For example, our fantastic composer Taylor Borgen has finished all Ten Chapter songs, along with two bonus songs, as well! We also had the tracks mastered by the talented AJ Sorbello, who brought them all to harmonic perfection! It was a true pleasure working with these talented musicians, and we are grateful they shared their skills with us for this project (and hopefully, many more to come!)

Click HERE to listen to the full track to our Chapter One song: “Welcome to Salvata”

We’ll be releasing a song a month in our monthly Backer Updates (in addition to other info), which will conclude with a PDF of Sirens: Battle of the Bards being released by the end of next year. (The official release of the book will still depend on our printing and shipping partners.)

Additionally, in case any of you missed it, here are our former playtest materials. These had been posted in our Discord months ago. Since that initial post, we have made many updates to our master files, not reflected below, but we wanted to share these with anyone who missed them. These materials are a great example of what to expect from the rest of the book once Satine and I finish playtesting and editing in the coming months!

Apotheosis Studios Sirens Battle of the Bards - Districts of Salvata Playtest V1.1

The Salvatan Bard Class, Expressions, and Bardic Profession Subclasses Playtest Version: 2

Apotheosis Studios Sirens Battle of the Bards - Salvatan Character Backgrounds Playtest V2.1

Additionally, while speaking of Discord, we are very excited to say that in the coming months, we also will be re-opening our Apotheosis Studios Discord Server. This won’t happen for a few months, and we are still working internally to establish the best practices for this; however, wanted to let you all know the good news!

Thanks again to those of you who have been supportive and compassionate. We know the massive delay on this project is not just frustrating but actually quite troubling to many of you. Rest assured, however, that we are sticking to our reestablished timeline to finish the project, and everyone will get their books and add-ons—albeit, sadly, very delayed.

Expect another update from us next month with more info!

Jamison, Satine, and the rest of the Apotheosis Studios team!

Updates and Estimated Completion Timeline
over 1 year ago – Tue, Aug 23, 2022 at 06:52:44 AM

Dear Backers,

Satine Phoenix and Jamison Stone here. Thank you for your patience. This has been a very challenging time. We are excited to update you about this project in a transparent way and relay the path forward to finishing Sirens: Battle of the Bards.

The following are the major items that still need to be completed for our campaign and setting book. Our main chapters and side quests need to resume their first round of playtesting and then go through their second round. Once these two rounds are completed, they will undergo another series of re-writes, mechanic tweaks, and developmental editing. After those are completed, proofreading for these sections can commence. That will then be followed by layout, where we combine our text, art, and music and place them into our chapter templates.

Due to the size of this book and the amount of editing and re-writes which still need to be done, this will not be a quick process. Additionally, our estimated timeline has been extended because we (Satine and Jamison) are now finishing this project by ourselves on weekends with minimal external help.

Estimated Timeline

• Playtesting: 2-3 months.
• Re-writes, mechanic tweaks, and developmental editing: 3-4 months.
• Proofreading: TBD, 1-3 months estimated.
• Layout: 3 months.
• PDF version estimated completion in 12 to 13 months.
• Printing and shipping timelines will then be based on external partners.

Due to the profound changes our lives have undergone, this work will be started in December 2022. This means we are looking at a rough date for our Draft PDF to be released in December 2023. We know this is not what people wish to hear, but this is a realistic timeline for what two people can accomplish on their days off work for a 300,000-word book. Starting December 2022, we (Satine and Jamison) will re-commence monthly updates that include relevant info such as merchandise, playtesting, art, music, layout samples, timeline updates, etc.

Based on recent Kickstarter comments and personal messages, we wish to reiterate the Kickstarter Community guidelines, which can be found here https://www.kickstarter.com/help/community.

Although this timeline is sad for us, we are very excited to have a viable path forward to finishing this beautiful book and getting it and our awesome Sirens: Battle of the Bards merchandise into everyone’s hands.

Satine and Jamison

Sirens and Studio Update
almost 2 years ago – Fri, Jul 08, 2022 at 12:50:35 AM

Thank you for your patience. We have had a lot of questions about the future of Apotheosis Studios, its team, and our projects. While Jamison Stone did step down as CEO to take personal time while Apotheosis Studios did an internal investigation on the allegations brought forth by numerous individuals, we in no way claimed that we were removing Jamison from the company. Having completed our internal investigation, we have found that while some individuals had legitimate complaints, the vast majority of the allegations to date levied against Jamison and others on our team have been proven to be inaccurate. Jamison will directly address major allegations and misinformation within the month.

We at Apotheosis Studios do not support abuse in any form. We believe in accountability and the ability for everyone to reflect, learn from their mistakes, grow, and be given the opportunity to show what they’ve learned by actively being better through action. We encourage everyone to stand up for themselves in compassionate ways with the hope to make things better so no one has to live in fear. It is in this honesty that we can learn from one another and each be better for ourselves, our families, and our communities while not furthering abuse, bullying, harassment, and other dehumanizing behaviors.

Sirens: Battle of the Bards will be delayed while those who are still working on the project deal with the ramifications of the extreme changes that we have had to make due to this situation. We will be sending out merchandise that we already have in hand for US backers first. Sirens: Battle of the Bards is 90% finished and its contractors have been paid, therefore refunds will not be issued. We will provide additional updates on fulfillment as we know more.

Because there seems to have been some confusion regarding the nature of our operations, we wish to state again that payments to writers started in March 2022 and as new invoices were received, we processed them promptly. All artists and contractors who have completed their work and were authorized for billing have been paid. The only remaining work is rewrites, editing, and layout. This, as stated above, will take longer than originally planned.

For reference: we had the following number of contractors working on this project:

• Writers - 22 writers. Paid 10 cents per word
• Artists - 4. Paid monthly or per image
• Graphic Designer - 1. Paid monthly
• Layout artist - Paid monthly, even when not working on a project
• Musicians - 2. Paid promptly per song
• Sculptor - 1. Paid promptly per sculpt

The Sirens writing Deadline was Oct 31. Approval passes started in November. Unfortunately, the approval passes took longer than expected which pushed out approval for the contractors to bill by 3-4 months. Billing authorization was issued in March of 2022 and we promptly paid all invoices properly submitted to our accountant.

For this project, we provided templates for Adventure Chapters with an 8,450 words max budget. 9 of 22 chapters were over word count

• 4 over by 1000 words
• 1 over by 3700 words
• 2 over by 4750 words
• 1 over by 7000 words

Despite the fact that many chapters were over the word counts outlined the writers were paid for the overages after appropriate approval. Writers whose writing was not used were still authorized to bill us and were paid 10 cents per word.

For those of you who have reached out with constructive feedback, we greatly appreciate your support and patience. We will have further updates as more information becomes available.

Sarah Urfer