Posted November 29, 2009 at 4:10 am
Tempts Fate started as a fun way to create a donation meter. I drew a few pictures of a goblin either surviving or dying in various traps depending on how donations went. As the concept grew and Tempts became almost a comic of his own, I tried to find new ways for the whole thing to be original and fun. I started coming up with ways for readers to help Tempts along without ever donating a penny.

This all came to a screeching halt however, with my idea for a visual, play-by-post Tempts Fate game. I wrote a dungeon crawl, filled it with rooms, traps and monsters and set up a system in which readers could adventure through the crawl, gather magical gear and help Tempts fight an entire army. I drew goblin body types, hair styles, jewelry and hundreds of various weapons and armour bits each sized in a way so they could all be put together by myself in a sort of virtual paper-doll manner. My plan was to have readers email me their actions, so I could email them the game's reactions and update the picture of their character on the site. When the game, which was to be Tempts Fate's ninth adventure, launched last year, I was amazed to find that in under 48 hours, I had over a thousand character submissions with no sign of the emails slowing down. Accepting defeat, I realised that I could never handle that many characters and so I reluctantly took the Tempts Fate 9 down.

Since then, I have tried to find a cheap way to turn the game into an online automated version to allow everyone to play without me needing to manually handle each move. Those of you who have been waiting know that it hasn't been happening. One person in particular has been great with working on programming the game but as both of us have full time jobs that must take priority, it's been a very uphill battle.

I miss Tempts Fate and judging by the emails I've been getting asking when he's coming back, so do some of you. So for now, I must reluctantly shelf the game idea and let poor Tempts get back to doing what he does best, tempting fate. Maybe one day the game will happen in some form. I've still got a mountain of artwork for this project just sitting here.

When Tempts Fate 9 launched and crashed all those months ago, I had gotten some donations from readers. Since it would be unfair for those donations to go uncounted, I've transferred that money onto this Tempts adventure, giving us a bit of a head start.

Also, in the interest in doing new, interactive things with Tempts, I've added The Door to this adventure. It's a way for people to take part in helping Tempts without donating any money. I hope you guys like it.

Note: The site is still under construction, so some pages are pretty messed up. That's being worked on.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt
Posted November 26, 2009 at 9:12 pm
I have this theory about intelligence. It's an over-simplified theory but here it is...

There are three basic levels of intelligence. The first level consists of people who are not smart enough to know anything about the complexities of the universe and the deep suffering humanity has endured since its beginning. These people, unaware of the dark or disappointing aspects of existence, take blissful pleasure in small, insignificant things like a sunny day or a blueberry waffle. They spend their days with dumb looking grins on their faces, talking about unimportant, simple pleasures.

The second level of intelligence is made up of people who are smart enough to have a notable understanding of those complexities of the universe and that deep suffering that humanity has endured. With their grasp on the bleakness of existence, they see no emotion in a sunny day, knowing full well that emotions are nothing more than chemical reactions in our brains, triggered by our environment to help dictate our actions in ways that might benefit our species. They fail to see the point in that blueberry waffle, knowing that at any given time, uncounted people around the world are dying of hunger caused by corruption.

People within the third level of intelligence are also aware of these detailed and dreary points of our world. They understand the moral failure that so much of our planet endures. They know about the distant, permanently undiscovered details of the universe that are so vast and numerous, they masquerade as a great, black emptiness to our simple, mortal minds. Yet, these people who are completely aware of the dark or disappointing aspects of existence, have the extensive intelligence that is needed to take blissful pleasure in small, insignificant things like a sunny day or a blueberry waffle. They spend their days with dumb looking grins on their faces, talking about unimportant, simple pleasures.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt
Posted November 25, 2009 at 2:21 am
Working on the new site look now, expect bunches of things to not work properly for the time being.

Thanks for your patience.

~Thunt
Posted November 18, 2009 at 11:00 am
The good folks over at GeeksOn have interviewed George R.R. Martin, Gina Torres (Zoe from Firefly) and Joss Whedon, but in their latest episode, they're stuck with me.

Slow day.

Check it out.

~Thunt
Posted November 11, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Thank you to the heroes who have worked, fought and sacrificed for Canada and the rest of the world.

~Thunt
Posted November 10, 2009 at 1:14 am
The new sit layout is still being worked on and it should be up in the next day or two.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt
Posted November 5, 2009 at 10:31 am
For all of Thursday, I'm once again doing a 100% guaranteed responce to everyone and anyone who tweets at me.

Here is my Twitter account.

Also, if you haven't gotten an email from me regarding your donation yet, fear not. There are still quite a few more "GIMME LOOT" emails for me to respond to. And thank you SO much to everyone who's been donating! I hope you like the loot.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt
Posted October 22, 2009 at 11:24 pm
In order to give some much needed attention to long overdue responsibilities like recreating/updating this "mostly functional" website, finally getting the visual-play-by-post Tempts Fate 9 game up and running and building up as much of a buffer as I can, Goblins Book Four will begin here on Monday, November 9th. But fear not, on every Monday between now and November 9th, I'll be posting a bunch of my concept sketches of scenes from Book Four, some with their text included, so you can have an idea of what's coming. I won't show anything spoilery, just think of the sketches as teaser trailers.

The recreated Goblins site will look cooler and contain a bunch of new features like an RSS link, a cosplay photo section (so email me pics of you in your Goblins costumes!), D&D tools and more. I hope you like it.

So to sum up, here's the schedule...

Monday, October 26th ~ Book Four concept sketches
Monday, November 2nd ~ more Book Four concept sketches
Monday, Novemeber 9th ~ Goblins Book Four launches!

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt
Posted October 21, 2009 at 10:52 am
Well... Crumbs & Pennies. :(

I've been working my butt of on this last update, but it's taking a very long time. Too much detail. Anyways, I'll have it live as soon as it's finished. For now, I'm crawling into bed.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt
Posted October 15, 2009 at 9:12 pm
This next update is the last update of Book Three and the last update of the Brassmoon story arc. Under the vote button is a sneak peek of a panel from that update.

And to everyone who has been pre-ordering Book Two, I offer my loudest, most obnoxious thanks ever! I really appreciate the interest that you're showing in the Book. Since this is Keenspot's first experience with publishing Goblins material, they're looking at how much interest there is and using that as a gauge to see how quickly they can invest in things like Goblins plushies, animation, etc. Your pre-orders make these fun things happen faster. As a thank you, here's what I'll do...

When Book Four starts updating, I'm going to be giving this site a much needed overhaul. Things like an updated fan art page (thanks to the artists for their patience), RSS link, D&D tools etc will be added. I was going to save a map of the Goblins landscape as a bonus in my next PDF downloadable book, but if the Book Two pre-orders pass 600 (this includes orders of both the softcover & hardcover or the combo pack), I'll instead add it as a permanent part of the revamped site for free.

As always, thanks for reading.

~Thunt