Friday, March 15, 2019

Kickstart Your Weekend: Queen of the Damned: Velrath's Vampires

The weekend is on the way so you know what that means! Time to Kickstart Your Weekend.  And do I have something special today!

You know my fascination obsession with the Queen of Vampires?  Well, Cass Suwinski gets me.
Here is his new Kickstarter and I hope you will find it as much fun as I do.

Queen of the Damned: Velrath's Vampires



https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tombguardians/queen-of-the-damned-velraths-vampires?ref=theotherside

Here are the Queen and some of her court.









Of course, they come unpainted, but that is expected.
I also got a chance to talk to Cass a bit.

For the benefit of the audience, could you please introduce yourself?  
My name is Cass and I'm the owner of Tomb Guardians, Inc.

How did you end up starting Tomb Guardians Miniatures?  
Tomb Guardians was started in June 2018.  After my son and I went to Origins as we do every year, my son came home and told his mom how popular our game we run every year and how many people wanted to join.  My wife the next day told me I should write the rule to our Dungeon crawl and adventure module.  I thought about it and agreed to do just that.  Unfortunately, I didn't realize how much work it takes and the depth of writing the rules.  As the rules proceeded, my wife again asked me if we had miniatures to match the characters in the game and I said no.  She then said why don't you create your own miniatures and I thought about it and thought it was a great idea.  I then reached out to some of the people I knew in the field and that lead us too Jason Wiebe, Bobby Jackson, and Patrick Keith.  Of which we hired all three to create miniatures for our company.  The first miniatures created was a set of 13 Dwarven heroes and 17 monsters.  They were released in December of 2018 to a very positive action.

Could you tell us more about the Kickstarter for Queen of the Damned - Velrath's Vampires, and your involvement with the project?  
The Vampires heroes is one of the 8 factions within our world.  Queen Velrath's was created and sculpted after my wife.  We used her wedding dress as the dress she wears. That was my thank you to my wife for her support and encouragement.  The back story too Queen Velrath was she was the wife of Telamir, the original leader of the Templars, and left the Kingdom of Rasa with him when he was expelled.  She very much desired to learn the ways of attunement with the moon’s power, but she was forbidden from learning it because she was a woman.  Angry at the snub, she started secretly exploring this herself, but instead of attuning with Wecarus, she found it much more beneficial to bask in the eerie darkened glow of Delaura.  When Telamir discovered what she was up to, she was burned as a heretic, and dumped in a nearby swamp.  But fortunately for her, Delaura was full on that evening, and with her strong attunement with it, she was reborn as the pinnacle of all undead beings, the vampire.  Since that day, she has been enlarging her undead ranks, while punishing any Templars or male citizens of Rasa by enslaving them to do her bidding.  Today her followers have strongholds in nearly every swamp in Elkarim, and they all hold a special hatred for the Templars. There are 10 Vampire heroes, Queen, Mage, Cleric, Anti-Paladin, 2 Grave Spirits and 4 male slaves.

How did you assemble sculptors and other artists for Queen of the Damned?  
I try and use the best sculptors in the world, Jason Wiebe, Bobby Jackson, and Patrick Keith along with painter Mary Profitt.  They do amazing work and keep my vision for the miniatures on key.  I couldn't ask for anything better.

Would you say Queen of the Damned - Velrath's Vampires is open to newcomers? Or is it for people with prior knowledge of Tomb Guardians' work?: 
Queen of the Damned - Velrath's Vampires is a collection of 21 28mm miniatures, of which there are 10 Vampires and 11 monster miniatures and accessory pieces.  The miniatures are cast in metal and come with a 5 year guarantee.  If someone breaks the miniature all they have to do is mail it too us and we will replace it no questions asked.   Queen of the Damned is not a game.

What has it been like working with Jason Wiebe, Bobby Jackson, Patrick Keith, and Mary Profitt?: 
All our sculptures and painters are amazing and very easy to work with.  I'm very happy to have them part of our team.

Could you describe your history with Kickstarter?:  
Tomb Guardians had one other Kickstarter last year and that was our first.  We learned a lot from that Kickstarter, unfortunately, we canceled the Kickstarter prior to its completion on December 5th, 2018.  However, even though we canceled the Kickstarter we did get an investor which allowed us to take pre-orders starting on December 7th, 2018.  This was with the understanding that the miniatures would ship in late February/early March.  We started shipping these orders 2 weeks ago and will finish those orders by the middle of March.  Offering Pre-Orders was a huge success and surpassed my expectations.

Do you plan to attend Origins this year? If so, will this be your first time at Origins after starting Tomb Guardians, and do you plan to promote your company as an exhibitor there?  
Yes, we will be at Origins, demoing our game that we are releasing in the fall.  This game is a RPG/dungeon crawl with an adventure module.  A group of players selects a party of heroes and has to accomplish certain objectives within each level of the dungeon.  We will be demoing this game all week.  More details later on the game itself, but all the miniatures we are creating will be used in our game!

AND I just got this announcement this morning.
Tomb Guardians is excited to announce that we are doubling your stretch goal awards. That means you will get 2 sets of all our stretch goals hit in our campaign! Anyone that pledges the “All In” pledge or upgrades will get not just 1 set but we will double that stretch goal set and you get 2 sets! That means if we hit all our goals you would get 22 free miniatures!!! The total set goes from 41 miniatures to a possible 63 miniatures. That works out to be $5.87 per miniature! This is an outstanding offer, you would get our Black Dragon that retails for $89.95 for $5.87!!! This offer applies to everyone, including those that have already pledged or if you upgrade your pledge. Don’t miss out on this incredible offer. We would like to thank everyone again for there support and trust in us.
Pretty cool if you ask me.
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tombguardians/queen-of-the-damned-velraths-vampires?ref=theotherside

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