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Our Golden Age: An Ultraviolet Grasslands RPG []equel

Created by Exalted Funeral

Experience fantascience roleplaying at the end of time. Escape the end of history. The eternal civilization is perfect. So say the gods, the machines. Will you defy the endless circle of awakening and forgetting? Can you kick a hole through the sky?

Latest Updates from Our Project:

From the Book Mines 4: Vastlands Guidebook Ultimate Beta + Golden Eyeburners Illegal Preview + PDFs!
over 1 year ago – Thu, Feb 27, 2025 at 12:08:46 PM

Good goldenagers, wonderful backers, fellow participants in interesting times.

The last month has been wild, hasn't it? Events, big and small, just flooding ... uh ... the zone. But we're not in them, so we'll ... ahem ... return to a gentler world, of Golden Age Gods and absolutely no impending doom.

First: From the Book Mines




So, the big news is, I suppose, that I finally gave up on any pretense of reusing old art to pad out the VLG and wrap it up faster. This is one of those unfortunate realities of backing an artist-writer: they're also answerable to the muse. In this case, the hard work of the editors, the encouragement of UVG players, the feedback of dozens of folks in the discord, all conspired with that grecian demi-deity to tell me one thing: "Forget the dang'd shortcuts. Do your best."

Thus, I'm going to do my darndest to make sure this is a work of art. Couple more weeks yet and you'll get to see the Ultimate Final V2 final-final version.

OK, I'm joking. The text is nailed down and I am adapting the last pieces of art.

—Luka,
February, 2025, Seoul, South Korea.


***
Week 24 - Feb 11–Feb 17
  • The Work: Finished the chapter spreads. Tailored more spot art. The last big section that I really need to art up is the section on powers and magics.
  • International Randomness: So, uh, did you see the Ukraine stuff?



***
Week 23 - Feb 4–Feb 10
  • The Work: Filled out the spare spreads: added the wards. More spot art.
  • International Randomness: So, uh, did you see the Gaza Riviera stuff?



***

Week 22 - Jan 28–Feb 3
  • The Work: Much of this week was a write-off. Well, aside from some art. See lunar new year. The Monday was good for setting up the new content—specifically, a spread on NPC variants. Planning to also add a spread of wards—magical defense equipment, basically. Hey, bonus content!
  • Lunar New Year: Nine days without childcare, a toddler, and a baby. Help.


***
Week 21 - Jan 21—Jan 27
  • The Work: Final revisions. A few edits required a bit of creativity, so that’s what happened.
  • VLG Art: A few filler pieces. Nothing major.
  • Small Personal Holiday: After finishing all the edits, my wife kindly allowed me to take a night off. Booked an affordable local hotel and went to hide from the world. Well, from diaper duty anyway.
  • Lunar New Year Begins: No childcare. Chaos will come.


***
Week 20 - Jan 14—Jan 20
  • The Work: Finished reviewing all the editing suggestions. Expanded a few sections per comments. The VLG is now in place for the spot art. Also found a few spreads left over for some bonus content. Have to thank the folks who’ve taken the time to review in progress versions on the discord and offer feedback as well. You’re excellent humans and your help is much appreciated.
  • VLG Art: some more new pieces.


***
Week 19 - Jan 6—Jan 13
  • The Work: Got back to work, time to tackle those 550 odd editing suggestions for the Vastlands Guidebook from the estimable Brandes Stoddard. It’s pretty slow-going, navigating the need to work with the urge to run and see what is going every time the baby makes a sound. Something nobody ever told me about home offices: it’s emotionally hard to work while your child is making sounds, even if someone else is taking care of them!
  • VLG Art: Colored some pieces, added some new pieces because I couldn’t help myself.



***

Then: Golden Eyeburners

Yep, folks, this update is a two-for-one. We got our first test batch of eyeburners a while back and now we're showing them in a case, under glass, gleaming and all.



If you'd like to add them to your pledge reach out to us at [email protected] and we can help you!


Now: PDFs Available of Previously Released Titles

PDFs of all of the previously released titles are now available to download on your BackerKit survey for those backers that purchased them as add-ons! You can access them by going to your survey here and then clicking on the "Get Your Digital Downloads" button. Here are the titles that were sent out:

  • Ultra Violet Grasslands (UVG 2E)
  • UVG 2E Referee Screen
  • UVG: Grand Map 2 
  • SDM: Eternal Return Key 
  • SDM Codex 1: MAGITECNICA
  • SDM: There, A Red Door
  • Longwinter: Visitor's Guide
  • Longwinter: Referee's Guide
  • Witchburner
  • Let Us In

Just a reminder that your survey must be locked and your card charged in order to receive the PDFs. 

---//---

Right-ho. Third person time.
  
Luka's gonna try to do the next update faster and shorter. Again. He's got this bad habit of trying to both focus on finishing the work as fast as possible and make a perfect update and then ... takes a bit too long with the updates and you get these giant updates.

Eh. If only threatening to fire him would make him work harder. But, turns out, threatening to fire folks doesn't help with longterm motivation. What a corundrum [sic].

Also, you know the drill: if you want to visit the paint-sausage factory and see Luka screaming into the electronic void as some pixels escape is oh! pixel corrall, the discord is a good spot (https://discord.gg/sEc6suMCmE). Some of y'all are already there and have been a great help in motivating the reprobate artist.

If you're the more relaxed kind of goldenager and like these "once-in-a-few-weeks" letters, then worry not. They'll keep coming till morale improves (and all the books are finished and delivered).

Till Next Time
—The Team

Pledge Manager locking Saturday and cards charged Monday
over 1 year ago – Thu, Jan 16, 2025 at 07:49:45 PM

Hello everyone!

A super quick reminder that we've reached the lock and charge week for the pledge surveys! Orders will lock this Saturday Jan 18 and cards will be charged this Monday Jan 20. 

If you have any questions or need assistance please reach out to us at [email protected].

Thanks so much!
- Exalted Funeral

New Year Greetings From the Book Mines 3: Chaoses and Improvisationses
over 1 year ago – Wed, Jan 08, 2025 at 09:46:21 AM

Good humans, fellow voyagers on the gravity-assisted rock!

Happy New Year 2025!



I'd planned to have an intermediate update around the 15th of December, but this month has been ... interesting. I lived through my first military coup attempt! Then our second daughter was born. Then the Korean president was impeached. Then the acting president was impeached. Then it was Christmas. Then my daughter and wife came home. Then there was a cataclysmic plane crash in South Korea. Then the New Year happened. And that's just right here and here.

If I saw this sequence of events in a story, I'd think the writer was putting it on a bit too thick. Bobbly (Frank is on union break), I'll just call the last three weeks "paternity-and-force-majeure" leave.



THE WEEK BY WEEK

Week 17 - Dec 23–Dec 30
  • The Work: no, not this week.
  • More Korean Drama: The acting president is impeached. A plane explodes at Muan while attempting an emergency landing. This month has been wild.
  • Baby Days: baby and mom’s homecoming. Adapting to having more humans in the household. It’s a roller-coaster (see above).


***

Week 16 - Dec 16–Dec 22
  • VLG: I think I did some editing but due to baby days I can’t exactly remembers.
  • Korean Drama: Protests ongoing.
  • Baby Days: the second baby is doing well.


***

Week 15 - Dec 9–Dec 15
  • VLG Work (Tuesday): the last chapter I wanted to revise - the other paths (additional character options) is done. Every path now has its items in a table, ordered from most to least expensive. Phew!
  • VLG Art: some lovely new tailored spot art to round out a few headers.
  • Protests: Vast protests against the president who attempted a self-coup. On Saturday the 14th the president is impeached. Drama continues.
  • T-0 Week: Baby two arrived on Friday the 13th. All went well, despite the ominous date.


***
Week 14 - Dec 2–Dec 8
  • VLG Work: implementing editor feedback to the rule section, reworking the other paths.
  • VLG Art: some lovely new tailored spot art to round out a few headers.
  • Coup Attempt: the South Korean president Soon Yool Suk ... uh ... tried to carry out a coup or autogolpe around midnight from Tuesday to Wednesday. That was certainly a thing.
  • T-1 Week: 1 week to go till baby two.



---//---

OK! That's it for _that_ update. Wow. Really, what a weird month.

And now the friendly reminder—if you want to see Luka's processed food factory floor through the perspex portals of Noö, you can join the stratometaship discord: https://discord.gg/sEc6suMCmE (link activated 2025.01.01). He checks in there basically daily, and you get to see sketches and art and ideas that never make it through to the final product.

Salutations!
—Luka (in first person now).

All Pledge Surveys Sent PLUS a Work in Progress PDF!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Dec 13, 2024 at 12:43:54 PM

Hello backers!

A quick update about the pledge manager and the first PDF!




Pledge Manager Survey


All pledge manager surveys have now been sent out to all backers. Thanks so much for your patience with that! If you have any questions or need assistance with your survey please reach out to us at [email protected].

The Pre-order Store is also now open. If you are a backer, be sure to access add-ons only through for survey as going through the pre-order store will create an additional pledge instead of accessing your original survey. 



WIP PDF


We have also sent out the first work in progress PDF of the Equipment Chapter from The Vastlands Guidebook!



All backers with The Vastlands Guidebook as part of their pledge should have received an email informing you of this file in your pledge manager survey. Please reach out to us if you need help accessing it. 

Thanks so much and Happy Holidays!

-The Exalted Funeral Crew

Updates From the Book Mines 2: Green Maps and Vastlands Copyediting
over 1 year ago – Tue, Dec 03, 2024 at 11:10:40 AM

Noble backers, kind Goldenagers,

Welcome to another thrilling update from the book mines.

Weeks 8 and 9 were pretty much spent polishing off the Green Land section. Sometimes this kind of work can get a bit unpredictable - I struggled for a long time with how to visualize the distorted space-time of the Metropolis / Portal City. When the muse finally gave me the solution, she demanded I create a map to do it justice and that, well, that took 3 or 4 days of work.

Weeks 10 and 11, by contrast, had me applying the learnings from the Green Land section to the VLG layout. The good news is ... it works! The mildly annoying news is ... it takes it's time. Anyway, having gotten that nailed down and having worked through through the initial VLG feedback, we've signed a contract with Brandes S, who also did editing on the UVG 2E. The editing pass starts ... this week. Once that’s done I’ll be able to start bolting down the final layout and adding spot art. We’ll share the revised pdf once the editing is done, but before the final spot art is finished.



***







HERE'S THE WEEK BY WEEK:

***

Week 13 - Nov 25–24
  • VLG Work: I finished off the equipment section restructuring. There was a bit more revising here than I’d initially thought. I wasn’t completely happy with how I handled upgrades in UVG, so I restructured those into separate spreads. Effectively, there’s more strange and exotic items for you to enjoy now. Later this week I'll apply the edits to the first chapter and tighten the layout there. I think we're over halfway there with this book's final layout.
  • VLG Art: I even colored a few pieces because I couldn’t help myself.
  • US Thanksgiving: Happy thanksgiving! I also took a bit of time off to spend with family.


***

Week 12 - Nov 18–24
  • VLG Work: call with Brandes on Monday to hammer out the details. Brandes edited the first chapter (character creation). Luka revised the equipment chapter to use tables and updated art. Created custom chapter footer art, so each footer will be easier to pick out in the book.
  • VLG Art: Including a few new art pieces because of course that happened.
  • Did You Know: When you update your operating system, the way some fonts render in InDesign can change, and you may have to adjust your cell style text padding by 0.35mm to keep everything neat and aligned? Yeah, I didn’t know this either.


***

Week 11 - Nov 11–17
  • VLG Tables: I’ve been working on implementing the tables from OGA within VLG. This is pretty fiddly work, which comes down to getting table, cell, paragraph and character styles all working together. However, the result is nice and consistent tables throughout the book. The layout muse taketh and giveth.
  • VLG Art: spot art, headers, test spreads, revisions.









***

Week 10 - Nov 4–10
  • OGA Work: finished the Green Land final layout test, assembled all the sections. Initial inking on final box art, incorporating the metropolis portal one map.
  • VLG Work: reviewing typohunter feedback and preparing document for copy editing.
  • News from the Printers: good news from the printers — my setup for the cover art works with the foil test, so the voidwalker covers will work exactly as I planned.
  • Foliage: went to see an ancient gingko tree




***

Week 10 - Nov 4–10
  • OGA Work: finally finished the Green Land final layout test, assembled all the sections. Initial inking on final box art, incorporating the metropolis portal one map.
  • VLG Work: reviewing typohunter feedback and preparing document for copy editing.
  • Foliage: went to see an ancient gingko tree


***

Week 9 - Oct 28 to Nov 3
  • OGA Work: challenge: how to visualize the portal city / distorted spacetime within the great Emerald City? Solution: draw a map. Problem: to do it justice takes time.
  • OGA Map: Portal One, the great spiralling city. Well, that took 3 days to draw.
  • OGA Art: the airmaker, the time ponds, the portalspace diagram, the coalem, the ministerial estates, the dispensary
  • A bit frustrating, but I didn’t finish the Green Land by Friday as I’d hoped.


***

Week 8 - Oct 21–27
  • OGA Work: Green Land stylings. Cogflower exchequer
  • VLG Work: Cleaned up resources / replenishing section


***

Pledge Manager Update

Thanks for your patience with the pledge manager! We anticipate the surveys to go out to backers this week. We will have another short update once they have all gone out. We can then start making preview PDFs available to backers via the pledge manager.

Ok, that's it for this update! This was a bit later and longer. Next one coming soon.
—Luka