Shrines: Sites of Reverence & Power

Fulfillment Complete / Final Discord Invite / Do You Like the Book?
25 days ago – Sat, Jul 25, 2026 at 01:22:37 PM

Venerators,

Fulfillment Complete

I'm pretty sure that, if I have your shipping funds and info, I have shipped your rewards. If you still don't have what you paid for, please tell me. My spreadsheet's version-control has gotten gnarly enough now that random stragglers are certainly possible, but I don't see any on my end. DM me if I'm wrong, and I'll get you what you're due.

Thank you for the thousandth time for supporting our work.

I'm going to stop thinking about this project now. I am Frodo on the slopes of Mt. Doom, which means of course "I'm glad to be with you, Kickstarter backers. Here, at the end of all things."

Final Discord Invite

We built a nice little community on Discord over the course of this campaign. I like those people very much and look forward to discussing art and making games with them for as long as possible.

You all remain more than welcome.

Sooo... Do You Like It?

Most of you have had the book now for a bit, so naturally I want to know how it's landing on your gaming and bedside tables.

Please share with me your thoughts!

You can do it in the comments or messages here, at the Discord link above, or more personally at my email: jamespianka at gmail dot com.

If you love it, you know I wanna know; if you hate it, you know I wanna know why. Shrines ended up being a very specific book for, I think, a very specific readership, and the assumptions that we made along the way could easily be wrong.

Please help guide EM|NCD's next work with insight about its first.

Thank you again, and with all my love,

James Pianka / Empty Mountain (Nothing Can Die)

Wrapping Up + (Two!) New Project Previews
3 months ago – Sun, May 31, 2026 at 01:30:13 PM

Venerators,

A small, almost-final wave went out last week, bringing this Kickstarter to inches from its end.

If you completed your survey and paid for shipping, I have shipped your rewards.

A thousand thank-yous to everyone who backed the campaign, read these updates, and generally stayed with me from what turned out to be a barely-started manuscript to a printed, now delivered book. It was a very long haul, but I'm proud of the outcome and happy to have connected with you all, so I expect to do this all again soon (implementing a few critical lessons, of course).

Staying in Touch

If you've read and/or played with your books and have thoughts, or if you just wanna be pals, please don't hesitate to connect with me through one of the following:

• The press
  • Instagram
  • Discord
• Me personally
  • Instagram
  • Bluesky

New Project Previews

I'm working on no fewer than three followup projects already (because I have more ideas than sense and also loathe myself), and I want you guys to see those previews first.

Let's do that here, right now, for two of those three projects. Please note that both of these are very WIP, and I have no idea which we'll finish first.

The Aphelion

First up is The Aphelion, or what we're calling an "All-Wizards TTRPG" with...

• Open-ended, West Marches-style campaigns
• Magical scholarship as character progression
• Time-stopped metaphysical combat

The basic player fantasy here is that the world is old, but civilization is new, and as an order of magi you're the first to seek, codify, and weild its secrets. We're talking magic as naturalism here, which is to say hyper-rationality in our mysticism and fantastical academic discourse as gameplay progression.

Imagine if the Bene Gesserit fought like Dr. Strange, with encounters playing out like counterspell wars in Magic: the Gathering; or if the maesters in A Song of Ice & Fire left The Citadel to adventure on their own, returning to assert how crystal caves or waterfalls impact theoretical math.

A simple ashcan edition is likely how we'll likely start.

Tile-Based Analog Game Console (Untitled)

This year I made a small, solo map-drawing game called Kill the Wizard in the vein of Twelve Years and MIRU, and in doing so I realized that I don't actually want to draw. Months later, at a local art market, a vendor put a lightweight, laser-etched wooden tile in my hand as a "business card," and I realized "Oooooh this is a board game."

Now Laura Lang (Sewer Sanctuary) and I are developing a game-agnostic fantasy tileset that would support any number of games—basically an analog RPG console.

EM|NCD could continuously release games for this as little A6 (SANCTUM-sized) booklets that utilize the same base tiles (occassionally introducing new ones). You'd randomly draw these tiles from a cloth bag and place them on a grid-painted cloth during play, tracking gameplay values with dice on little A6 worksheet cards (like the Pilgrimage one that came with Shrines), and pack it all back up into a box when you're done.

Using tiles lets us explore materiality for textured, tactile play, radically reduces friction and cognitive load for the player, and unlocks cool design space like eraser-free state changes (flipping tiles) and weighted probability ("Start play with X Forest tiles in your bag, swapping up to Y for Desolation tiles to increase difficulty").  

Here's a closer look at some of the "Feature" coins that might sit atop "Terrain" hexes:

Here's how Kill the Wizard looked when I drew the board by hand:

Notice how distinguishing content types via color enhanced readability. The tiles will need their own solution for that, which I expect to find while fabricating prototypes (color adds manufacturing cost, so we're trying other ideas first).

I'd love to ship this as a boxed starter set, including the tiles, a cloth bag, a grid-painted cloth playmat for the board, and ~3 games as A6 booklets with their worksheet cards and any special tiles they involve.

Continuously supporting this with new games sounds super realistic, rewarding, and long-term.

Incomplete Surveys

Anyway, closing out with Shrines again, BackerKit tells me that a full 35 of you have not completed your survey for shipping, shirt sizing, and/or add-ons—and an additional 3 used cards that no longer work—which means I can't ship any of those rewards! 

Eventually I'll start tracking down these 38 backers individually, but I would love to not do that, so if you're among them please complete your survey so I can ship you what you're owed.

As always, thank you and in touch,

James Pianka

Another wave shipping Wednesday
4 months ago – Mon, Apr 13, 2026 at 11:10:37 AM

Venerators,

Wednesday's Wave

I've elbowed my way to the bottom of my spreadsheet, where only the big, irregular orders remain like monsters in the mud.

Check out these bulgey 'lopes:

The Final Push

I see 15 survey responses on BackerKit that came in since I exported this spreadsheet, so I'll get those in the mail next, but 10% of the surveys remains unanswered, which means I cannot ship those backers their rewards.

If you haven't yet received your rewards, please take a moment to confirm on Backerkit that you've done all three of the following:

• Paid for shipping
• Confirmed your shipping address
• Selected your shirt size (if you ordered a shirt)

As always, please DM me here or on Discord at @jamespianka for any questions you may have or help that you may need.

In touch, and thrilled to hear your thoughts as these books arrive,

James

Orders with shirts now shipping
5 months ago – Wed, Mar 25, 2026 at 09:42:32 AM

We're closing in, y'all.

On Monday I put another wave of orders in the mail—finally hitting the shirts—and I hear that they're arriving now. Here's the All-In Hallowed Bundle as it empties from the bag:

I have many more orders to get through, but I am getting through them, so don't worry if yours doesn't land today. It cometh, hoo boy, it cometh.

In touch as always,

James

Reward tiers shipped: Hallowed Edition, The Catalog So Far (Hallowed)
6 months ago – Tue, Mar 03, 2026 at 06:00:04 AM

Venerators,

Hallowed Edition

Yesterday we shipped the following reward tiers:

• Hallowed Edition
• The Catalog So Far (Hallowed)

Behold our sparkling child.

To be clear, yesterday's wave excludes orders with t-shirts, which are next in line. I punished the most generous backers, I know. This might be a "Hardest battles for the strongest soldiers" situation as I've waded steadily deeper into these logistics.

Self-Fulfillment

Speaking of, here's what that actually* looks like.

*Not pictured: my heroic, helpful wife, who fled the camera in her pajamas and left me to pose. I'm super grateful for the effort she contributed. This would all be even later without her.

Discord

Here's a fresh link to the Discord server, as always.

One of our members just started making and performing dungeon synth, which has been a fun journey to watch. Check out his music here!

Thank you, and onward to the next wave,

James