Our Kickstarter Campaign

Our kickstarter is now LIVE!!!. For your convenience we have also included our kickstarter information here. Click the LIVE link to accesss our official kickstarter page.

Brynn and I (Diane) are trying to self-publish our book. Widower's Web has been our mutual baby for many years. It is the first book of five, with the second mostly written. These comprise The Chronicles of Mercryan. With changes on the horizon freeing up our time, we're ready to devote more effort towards bringing this full work to all that wish to share this world with us.

War changes the lives of everyone. Jerenau Degrav hoped to do just that as he led his armies north. Once a good man, he had long ago abandoned his nation and people. Betrayal transformed his vision of the world. It rotted and sabotaged its future. With new eyes, crafted by pain and sorrow, he recognized the imminent destruction all around him. If he could harness that, lock it all underneath one banner; one goddess, he could remove all reason for conflict. Perhaps he could find peace there.

Book 1 of the Chronicles of Mercryan follows a myriad of strangers as their lives get tangled up in the web of Jerenau’s war. Dwarves, elves, humans, there is no distinction given when swords are drawn and arrows fired. Battle will spur them and to battle they will unite, be it for good or ill. They will all change.

For a sampling of our prologue to get a little more feel for the story, please read it Here.

The Chronicles of Mercryan is a series of Fantasy novels set in a world called Mercryan. Mercryan is home to some familiar fantasy faces, like elves, dwarves, humans, and dragons, but other creatures, such as virakus and schnen, call Mercryan home as well. This world has two suns, four grand high gods and a pantheon of lesser gods. Mercryan's recorded history begins with a war amongst the grand high gods. Inferne, progenitor of the humans, allied with Titan, god of the dwarves, and Memidia, goddess of elves, to go to war against Nocturna, goddess of the schnen. The war was a catastrophe for the mortal denizens of Mercryan. All would have been wiped from the world had it not been for the sacrifice of the grand high mother Goddess, Ilysea. Her loss and the subsequent wrath of the grand high father God, Lucid, ended the war. After punishing his children, Inferne, Titan, Memidia, and Nocturna, Lucid departed from this realm.

The first book of the Chronicles of Mercryan begins over a thousand years after the Cataclysm. The world has been divided into various kingdoms, the result of mortal wars and time. The first two books span a year, while the last three books begin twenty years later. This means the first two function almost as a duo, but set the stage for the final three. The plot-line involves a lot of characters and because of this we have chosen a few characters that we journey through the eyes of.

This is our first kickstarter project, though we’ve funded several hoping to get a grasp on how it all works. We’ve pulled together a lot of our mutual talents. Brynn is a digital artist and some of her work can be seen in the trailer. Unfortunately the rendering for the video we uploaded here doesn’t quite do her justice. A clearer trailer can be seen at: Widower's Web Trailer . Her talents are mostly for landscapes, objects, and locations. Unfortunately, our desired cover art requires an artist that can do people so at this time we are uncertain with who we will be making our cover. We have several artists that we have reached out to and part of the funding will go to hiring one. In our researching we discovered that most cover artists use stock photos/imaging manipulation and we’re not the fondest of this for our cover. Currently we have three different artists we’ve reached out to and if we need to yet further find more we will to find the look we’re looking for.

Self-publishing does require a lot of formatting and editing. We are learning the proper formats as we work with createspace and ingramsparks for the book. We plan to run all paperbacks through amazon's createspace, while the hardcovers through ingramsparks. This will be a bit time consuming as the work is 106k words. We did discover that hardcovers are an expensive thing to produce. It was rather surprising. We love the idea of having one though, so only through this kickstarter will they be available as a limited run. Roughly half of the goal expense is due to the production and shipment of the hardcovers.

Outside the regular story in its many forms we tried to brainstorm further incentives. We dreamed rather big and our initial list included some time consuming products like a virtual tour of some of the major locations of Mercryan. We also looked into canvas maps of various sizes and sculpy figurines. Realistically we couldn't do all this, especially with this being our very first kickstarter. Through experience with other people's projects it feels like time frames and budgets can get really out of hand. Not wanting to bite off more than we can chew we cut out the stuff we knew might be a problem from the git-go and went for things that were very do-able.

Digital Wallpaper

We're going to offer a range of sizing for desktops using our cover art. The range will include a 4k version. We'll also add a digital shot from the end of the trailer as a desktop wallpaper as well. We do not have a cover to show at this time, but hope to soon.

Meanwhile... enjoy this!

This is not a representation of the quality of image that will be used in the digital wallpaper. In fact this will not be included at all. This is Diane's fault.

World Map Bookmark

Thinking a world map as a bookmark might actually be more useful than just a giant map for the wall, we will offer post-card sized fully colored prints of the map. you can not only hold your place in the book, but maybe find where you are at in Mercryan at the same time!

Limited Edition Signed Hardcover

Maybe a bit self-explanatory, but we need to emphasize that these are Kickstarter only. There will be no other hardcovers of this book outside this edition. Unless future stretch goals load in a few more, there will be 115 and 115 only. (for those that math, the 2 missing hardcovers are our own copies o.o) If through some unforeseen miracle we become famous (insert maniacal laughter here) we end up big and a publisher shows up and brow beats us for a hardcover run, we will ensure that these editions remain unique. We will run a poll later on through our campaign if we see a good showing for these as to whether it is desired that they are numbered. Numbering would prioritize first highest priced tiers down, followed by date of backing. This means 1-3 are reserved for God tier unless there are no Gods.

Choose a Minor Character Name

There will be a bit of subjectivity to this. There are specific races with name stylings to consider, but we have a wide world with a good deal of flexibility. Those that back tiers that include this reward will work closely with both Brynn and Diane to find an appropriate character for the backer's choice. The appearance rate of the characters rewarded from this tier is dependent upon the number of backers. This means the appearance of the named character could appear maybe once or twice in the book or vary up to having multiple scenes. We will attempt to give characters that have an impactful scene priority to filling these pledges. There are a myriad of races and genders available.

Choose a Major Character Name

This has the furthest reaching impact for Mercryan, as most major characters appear in all 5 books. We have selected 2 heros and 2 villains that we have set aside for this tier. The heroes: a female elf maiden, last name is set but first name available for changes (briefly featured in trailer); a male elf mage (featured in the trailer). The villains: a female dwarf mage; a male human soldier (briefly featured in the trailer). First pledged gets first pick. Only the female elf has a restriction as she has a family name that ties in to other characters.

The Making of Mercryan Video

You'd be surprised how much has gone into making this world and the story that lives in it. Originally started as a text based role playing game, there's quite a bit to talk about when discussing everything that has gone into Mercryan and its various changes. The video will include sketches and the process we went through in designing our story as well as how we put together the trailer. At one point we played with a sugar-cube model! (We greatly regret we did not take a picture of that...)

Special Acknowledgement

God tier backers will be listed by the name they desire in the acknowledgement section of all copies of the book

+$1000: Digital Walkthrough

This is an interactive virtual tour of the Jerenau's chambers and the city of Myreth. A small portion of Jerenau's chamber is featured in the trailer. The game engine is Unity and it'll be available through Steam. This will be added to all Mage Tier and higher backers. If unlocked, Priest tier and higher will receive Beta access during development. Will include reveals of deeper lore as you explore, as well as additional details that might not be found in the book. Hoping for a 2019 release, but original rewards are our highest priority.

+$2000: Digital Walkthrough+

An additional location added. The Dwarven Port Fortress Gantwynn. This will be an upgrade to the previous stretch goal. This reward will likely release in 2020 as the set is quite massive and the lore to discover more in-depth

+$3000: Audiobook Version

If we make it this far above our goals we will go the extra mile in hiring voice actors and create an audiobook version. This would be a great deal of work beyond our current scope and therefore if this stretch goal is met the release of this version will not be this calendar year. Definitely in the following year. All backers from Mage Tier and higher will have this reward added.

The Players of Mercryan the TBRPG

All of you that journeyed with me back then in the late 90's deserve thanks and mention. Very special shout out though to both Deus Immortale and Tristan. They gave me permission to retain their characters for writing this series and it wouldn't be the same or as good without Joshua and Tragos.

Our Beta Readers

That would be Mary Short, Irene Peterson, Michelle Housman, Brian Bailey, and Lisa King. Love you all!

Composer and Musical Performer

Mary Short assisted in composing the soundtrack to the trailer and then performed the piece.

Copy Editor

Irene Peterson

Trailer Images

IgnitusDragimoore assisted in images for the trailer.

Diane's Husband

Patience of a saint.

Special Mention

Eska. She has been very supportive as we've tried to finish preparations for this kickstarter.