Hail, everyone!
It’s been a little over two weeks since the campaign closed, and I wanted to send a progress update before the end of the month.
The short version: the stretc...
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Flaming Hand
21 days ago
THANK YOU—AND NOW TO WORK!
Good morning everyone! ☕️
What a ride. The dust is still settling over here, and I wanted to write to say thank you—genuinely, deeply—for making this campaign what it was. W...
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Flaming Hand
23 days ago
FINAL STRETCH GOAL + CONCEPT ART IN PLEDGES!
Twenty, twenty, twenty-four hours to go 🎶
(ok, maybe just a few more hours than that: the campaign ends at 7p ET tomorrow!)
To kick things off today, we just added someth...
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Flaming Hand
25 days ago
BOING BOING FEATURE on MÖRKTASTIC BEASTS ⚔️
Happy Monday!
Boing Boing published an interview with me and Max Moon on this project today. We talked about the ekphrastic process behind the book, what makes Mörk Borg ...
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Flaming Hand
about 1 month ago
SUPERNATURAL DEATH CULTS, ALIEN TAXONOMIES, AND THE EKPHRASTIC METHOD
One of the unexpected developments in writing this book was seeing how all these works began to reveal something larger than any individual creature. That's what happened in ...
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Flaming Hand
about 1 month ago
JUSTINE JONES UNLOCKED! PLUS: OUR FINAL TWO STRETCH GOALS
She's in! Justine Jones is now part of Mörktastic Beasts and I could not be more excited about it.
For those of you just getting to know her work—Justine is an illustrator ...
It’s been a little over two weeks since the campaign closed, and I wanted to send a progress update before the end of the month.
The short version: the stretch goal art is underway, the Pledge Manager has been submitted to BackerKit for review, and the book continues to take shape behind the scenes.
⚔️ Stretch Goal Art
The new artwork is already beginning to come in. Caustic has submitted four final pieces so far and is working on the remaining illustrations now. Saprophrial has submitted concept art for all four pieces, and the direction is looking excellent. Johan Nohr and Justine Jones are both scheduled to complete their pieces over the next few weeks.
As final art arrives, I’ll begin writing the lore for each new creature and handing those entries off to Max for stats. This is one of the best parts of the process: that moment when the image stops being only an image and begins to reveal its name, its history, its temperament, its appetite.
We’ll share backer-only previews as pieces are finalized!
⚔️ Pledge Manager
We have also submitted the Pledge Manager to BackerKit for review. Once BackerKit approves it, a smoke test will go out to a small random cohort of backers first. That gives us a chance to shake out any bugs, confusing settings, shipping oddities, or strange edge cases before opening it up to everyone.
Assuming that goes smoothly, the full Pledge Manager will follow shortly after. We expect that to happen over the next week or two.
Once it’s live, you’ll be able to confirm your pledge, update your shipping information, select add-ons, and make any final adjustments. We’ll give everyone enough time to complete it before locking orders and finalizing print quantities.
⚔️ Where Things Stand
Right now, the main workstreams are moving in parallel:
Stretch goal art is in progress.
Lore and stats will begin rolling as final pieces arrive.
The Pledge Manager is in BackerKit review.
We are still targeting October fulfillment, and nothing in the current timeline has changed that expectation. If anything shifts, we’ll let you know clearly.
⚔️ Preorders
Preorders remain open for anyone who missed the campaign, and will stay open as long as the pledge manager is live.
That’s the update for now. The next major milestone will be the Pledge Manager going live, followed by more finished art and backer-only previews as the new creatures arrive.
Thank you again for making this project possible. It means a great deal to be able to build a book like this the way we believe it should be built: artist-first, strange as hell, and made with real care.
(ok, maybe just a few more hours than that: the campaign ends at 7p ET tomorrow!)
To kick things off today, we just added something special to the Reliquary Edition: every copy now includes an original piece of concept art by Nathan Reidt, hand-drawn in ink and graphite. These are one-of-a-kind works on paper—not prints, not reproductions. If you've been on the fence about the Reliquary, this might be the thing that pushes you over. There are very few left.
We also unlocked our $35K stretch goal yesterday: black trim stain all around, and metallic foil stamping on interior pages. The book keeps getting more beautiful and we keep being grateful!
Now the final stretch: we're $4K away from our final stretch goal. At $40K, Joe Keinberger paints an apocalyptic panoramic battle scene across the front and back endpapers of every copy. We have one day left to make it happen.
Share the campaign. Tag someone. Send the link to your group chat. Whatever you've got—today's the day!
While we wait for the world—uh, I mean, the campaign—to end, come hangout in the Flaming Hand Discord.
What a ride. The dust is still settling over here, and I wanted to write to say thank you—genuinely, deeply—for making this campaign what it was. We raised just shy of $40K from all of you, which is wild, and every one of those dollars represents somebody choosing to believe in a weird, lovingly crafted, artist-first book.
The original Ekphrastic Beasts launched in 2020, which is the same year Mörk Borg came out. We've been dreaming about making a Mörk Borg version of this book for years (in fact, that's part of what brought Max and I together under the Flaming Hand banner). To finally get to do it—with so much additional new art in the lineup, no less—feels like one of those projects that was always going to happen, it just had to wait until we were ready for it.
⚔️ Unlocked Stretch Goals
The Apotheotic Arena Zine: a monster hunting arena game written by Max, free with every pledge 🤘
Eight new creatures illustrated by Caustic 🤘
Four new creatures illustrated by Saprophrial 🤘
Three new creatures illustrated by Johan Nohr 🤘
Three new creatures illustrated by Justine Jones 🤘
Physical upgrades: silk ribbon marker, pink headbands and footbands, black trim stain, and metallic foil stamping on interior pages 🤘
The book started at 150+ pages and has grown to over 220—more than twice the length of the Mörk Borg core rulebook. This is going to be a chonky beast!
⚔️ Overview of the Next Steps
The stretch goal artists get to work on their new illustrations. We'll post backer-only previews as pieces come in
I begin writing lore for each new illustration as it lands in my inbox, and hand them off to Max for stats
Finish layout and proofing
Finalize production specs
File in with with the book printer, the poster shop, and with the Campbell-Logan Bindery for the handmade Reliquary Editions
Distribute digital files
Receive inventory at the warehouse
Begin fulfillment
Doesn't sound like much when I list it out, but each of those bullets contains a whole hidden ecosystem of smaller tasks. We'll keep you posted as things move, and are currently targeting an October fulfillment date.
⚔️ Pledge Manager
We're aiming to open the Pledge Manager by the end of next week, and hoping to lock orders around the beginning of May so we can finalize our print runs.
⚔️ Preorders
Preorders are live right now for anyone you know who's experiencing FOMO—note that the Apotheotic Arena Zine is no longer free with preorders and is available only as an add-on.
Monthly updates from here on out, sometimes more when there's something exciting to share. If you want to hang out between updates, we're always over on Discord—a great place to chat with other backers, ask questions, or just lurk the threads on occult, doom, and other high weirdness.
Thank you again. Truly. More soon!
"For beauty is nothing but the beginning of terror, which we are still just able to endure." —Rilke
Boing Boing published an interview with me and Max Moon on this project today. We talked about the ekphrastic process behind the book, what makes Mörk Borg a natural home for these creatures, and the larger ideas driving Flaming Hand as a project. If you've been looking for a way to explain this book to someone who hasn't seen it yet, this is a pretty good link to share:
The campaign ends on Thursday. Sharing this kind of coverage in the final stretch genuinely helps—if you've got a group chat, a Discord server, or a friend who'd be into it, we'd appreciate the signal boost!
One of the unexpected developments in writing this book was seeing how all these works began to reveal something larger than any individual creature. That's what happened in a very explicit way with Nathan Reidt's art.
Reidt's pieces are distinctly fleshy, alien, and biological in a way that felt connected—like they all belonged to the same ecosystem. So rather than treat each illustration as a standalone monster, I looked at the full body of his work for the book and asked: what if these are all species within a single alien civilization? From there I discovered the Xivvians—interdimensional organisms with their own biology, ecology, caste hierarchy, reproductive cycles, and cosmic agenda. Every one of Reidt's creatures lives among them, from the massive qhor'ox at the throbbing heart of each hive to the lowly xiks who attend their ohlaex masters. There are death cults, there are lamplighters—undead proto-humans sent back across the void to prepare our world for annihilation—and there is an alien world of peristaltic tunnels, membranous chambers, and noxious clouds that you can explore or simply let haunt the edges of your campaign.
For me, this is the ekphrastic method at its most expansive—where the art didn't illustrate the lore, but rather the art led me to an entire world.
If you've played Mörk Borg you already know one of the things that makes it great: it gives you just enough to ignite your imagination and trusts you to build the connective tissue yourself. That's the same philosophy behind the lore in Mörktastic Beasts. We give you the creatures, a taste of the mythology, and the stats—you decide where they live, how your players encounter them, and where they die. The xivvians could be lurking beneath a dying city, seeping through a rift at the edge of your map, or manipulating the machinations of the wretched royalty. Are the Xivvian Lamplighters a kind of Proto-Wickhead? Your game, your players, your encounters will yield the truth.!
That's already happening, by the way. I've gotten emails from backers who are homebrewing Mörk Borg campaigns around creatures from the book—and one person is building an entire adventure around the Xivvian mythology. That's exactly what this book is for.
~Janaka
Backers: the full spread draft for one of these Xivvians is below. Take a look and let us know what you think!
