This one goes out to the villains, because I'm not gonna lie--I'm here for these monsters.
Have a villain! Have all of them!
When I started Southwest Gothic back in 2019, the Harvest was the only monster I had planned. I finished Book 1 in March of 2020 and was just not into the idea of editing it. You'll notice that when you read 1, it stands just fine on its own. Somewhat by accident, Book 2 happened, and I'm so glad it did. Lucio might be my favorite psycho and his arc takes up all of Book 2 and 3.
Then, comes the Messiah of Ruin, the soldier of fate and misfortune. The emotional rollercoaster of this character was some of the hardest writing I've ever had to do. We see hints of this ghoulish mess at the end of 3 and then throughout 4. The other monster in 4 is the archaic Coven of Sighs, primarily their High Priestess Delphina Abate. She thinks she's doing the right thing, which makes her hella dangerous. Also, genocide is never the right thing, you lunatic, but I digress.
Lastly, The Wraiths. Yikes. Screw these guys. They give Harvest vibes but with somehow less humanity. Book 5 opens with these spine-chilling monsters, who actually don't even speak until well into the book. They're essentially acting as a celestial clean-up crew, stealing the hearts of innocent bystanders to trudge across the desert in pursuit of their targets like perfect unhinged roombas.
These are being printed trading card style with neat star illusion film on top. Each physical backer will get one card. My hope is that on the next BackerKit campaign for Book 2, I'll be able to do another 5 of them. With 4 books left on the horizon, we might have a whole Major Arcana tarot deck worth of art to work with. Could do some cool stuff with that. :D
Digital backers who would like stretch goal goodies -- shoot me a message ([email protected]) and we will work out how to get that to you. There weren't a whole lot of you but I'm happy to get you hooked up. :)
Other news: Books are at the printer. Hopefully they'll start heading my way in the next 2 weeks. I've made lots of talisman progress--I think I'm about halfway through. I'll post an update about that soon.
