12 to Midnight

This is an incredibly difficult article to write, so I hope you’ll extend us grace if I get the words wrong. Like the title says, we’re launching our ETU Kickstarter on Tuesday, May 5. But we also received some crushing news about the loss of our longtime friend, Jodi Black.

We got to know Clint in the early days of Pinnacle and 12 to Midnight, and by extension we were blessed to know Jodi as well. In fact, Jodi’s very first professional rpg editing job was for 12 to Midnight. Clint and Jodi have been our friends for nearly as long as there’s been a 12 to Midnight (more than 20 years, for those counting), and now we are grieving Jodi’s loss. My heart hurts for Clint and daughters Trinity and Bethany.

Yet, while we’re in the midst of grief, we’re also launching a Kickstarter for ETU. It feels strange. It feels wrong. It feels too soon. But I think it will still be strange and wrong and too soon a month from now. It might feel that way three months from now. So yes, we’re launching. And I already recognize it’s going to be especially hard because I want to share my good memories of Jodi and comfort all my friends who are also grieving, but because of the Kickstarter I have to be extra careful not to come across as ghoulishly trying to use this tragedy to gain attention. It sucks, and I desperately hope I don’t say the wrong thing at the wrong time, or even the right thing at the wrong time.

Be that as it may, the show is going on. If we still had work to do to get it ready for launch, then we’d likely delay and take proper time to grieve. But since everything is already queued up and ready to go, this time we’re launching and letting things run while offline we process these emotions.

I say “this time” because you probably know it was queued up to launch two weeks ago, but we held off in recognition of the fundraisers not just for the Blacks, but also for art director Aaron Acevedo, who still needs a liver AND heart transplant. You can still support Aaron by buying a charity bundle of fantastic Savage Worlds products on DriveThru RPG. We don’t want Aaron forgotten while supporting the Black family.

Producing an RPG is truly a team effort, so while Ed and i did the writing, there’s a whole company of people who have devoted a lot of energy into making Fresh Blood a great book. Ed and I owe it to them to do our part showing you why you should be excited about this game…and graphic novel…and extras. It’s personally important to us that we prove that their faith in us as writers, and in ETU as a game, is well deserved.

So yeah, we’re going to be on social media, and we’re going to talk up the book. We’ll still post the daily videos and the articles about ETU and Pinebox–basically doing our best to make it a successful crowdfunding campaign. Those articles and videos have already been created and scheduled to post automatically for the next couple of weeks, so the literal and emotional labor is already done. But privately, instead of the launch being a day of excitement, I expect it’s going to feel bittersweet and maybe even a little somber. I hope you’ll extend us grace–both when we act excited about the campaign, and when we don’t.

-Preston