Patreon Changes Coming March 5th! (Probably!)

Since the beginning of the year as I've been shaving down my responsibilities to the most important ones, I've had a number of patrons asking that I trim down my Patreon responsibilities as well. (You guys are awesome.) So I've done a little audit and I'm doing a few small changes so that it’s sustainable for me to fulfill while also ensuring I maintain the expectations of all of you who have been with me for the long haul.

The short version is, nothing will change for those already pledging, but you will see some tier changes and some rewards going away for all future patrons, and I wanted to announce it before flipping the switch!

In theory, I want to have this Patreon flipped over to the new system before Vancoufur this weekend, so I'm going to TRY to get this all done and out the door on Friday this week. However, there's still a lot to do  for Vancoufur, and I bet that afterwards I'm gonna be pretty darn dead, so if I don't make the deadline, I'll be updating the Patreon on the following Friday, March 12.

That's enough of that! Let's talk changes!

Summary of Changes

Ask the Cast: Removed

(EDITED TO ADD -- sorry, forgot about this, lol. I'm scattered lately.) As I have been doing this for anyone on the Discord server instead of reserving it for just patrons, I'm removing it as a reward! Keep in mind, you can continue to ask the questions anywho.

Tales from Treehollow Bonus Comic Schedule

I was moving the due dates around on this prior, but I'm putting it back to the 5th of each month. Even though the delivery is likely later in the month, it's a lot easier on me for a lot of reasons to have the due date for qualifying for the comic on the 5th.

More Info: Pledge at least $5+ before Midnight Pacific on the 5th of every month to make the cutoff for that month’s Tales from Treehollow bonus comic. After 1 month post-publish, the comic will be available for patrons to purchase in the shop (via code). After 3 months post-publish, each Tales from Treehollow comic will be made available in the Tamberlane shop for purchase for $5 each. As always, these shop purchases are split with the artist!

$50 “Coyote Captain” tier is becoming “Coyote Commander”

Currently, all $50 get background cameos. However, I have more  cameos than I can keep up with, so future $50 cameos are going away. 

$100 “Possum President” is becoming “VIP: Very Important Possum” 

After the switch flips, all $100+ folks will be able to submit their characters to be featured in the background of the comic, rather than the Story Important cameos that used to be on these tiers. Rather than earn 2 pages of cameo a year, I've slightly altered the cadence to earn another page of cameo once every 6 months. 

These cameos are also a part of the $250 Abroad Resident tier.

(All Tiers) More Custom Emotes Now Available as A Lifetime Reward! Plus: Emote Slots on the Foxglove Comics Discord!

It was already true (although poorly advertised) that you get 1 custom emote/sticker (and the art file) once you hit $1,000 spent lifetime on the Tamberlane Patreon. I generally have done these VERY rarely, and they're asked for quite frequently, so this was my way of giving back.

However, as it turns out, I love doing emotes for you guys. I caught up (almost) with the emotes on my queue and was kinda sad I didn't have more to do. They're great little bits of work I can do in between other things, and I can knock them out pretty quickly. 

There was one other sticking point: the emotes are currently tied to our Discord, and not everyone who pledges here wants to be on our Discord, or even Discord at all. So I worked out a new system.

You now get a custom emote for every $1k spent! Not just the first $1k! As before, you can ask for it to be formatted for Telegram, Discord, Twitch, or anything else you'd like -- and you get the full resolution file as well!

These don't have to be connected to the Discord! However, folks pledging at $50+ who have reached this milestone get 1 slot on the Foxglove Comics Discord to have one of these custom emotes uploaded and added to our community. Residents of Abroad ($250) get 2 emote slots instead!

And... that's it! Everything is pretty much as I like it otherwise. It runs smoothly, I can fulfill rewards on time, and y'all are getting lots of value. Plus there was very little out of the rewards that y'all didn't think was worth the effort, and I think that's cool.

There are a few other things I'm working on in conjunction with this: a less wordy welcome message/rewards index, a smoother front page experience, better tagging, and so on -- but these things will come probably in bits and pieces after the switch is thrown. We'll see.

TL;DR:

• $1k per emoji, which don't have to be on Discord
• Website will be updated to show pledge amounts in 1k increments
• New $50 has no cameo, old $50 unpublished still accrue background cameo 
• New $100 has background cameo, old $100 unpublished accrue story cameo
• New $250 has background cameo, am not making an old $250 because it's so limited and technically it has always inherited its cameo from the $100 tier.
• You can never pledge to the old unpublished tiers if you leave them

And now for QUESTIONS!

Q: If I’m Already A Patron, Do I Need to Do Anything?

Nope! These changes will apply to all future patrons and those who wish to upgrade their pledge to receive the rewards specified at a higher tier. And again to reiterate: any lifetime-based rewards or cameos promised under previous guidelines will still be honored based on prior pledge agreements.

Q: How do I get a Discord/whatever emote?

You qualify for these retroactively so if you have already spent, say, $3,000 on the Tamberlane Patreon, you get 3 icons. Huzzah!!

To see if you belong to this most excellent group, check out Tamberlane's front page and scroll down to the Special Thanks section. If your name is listed in a special color, you can apply for this!

(If you have since stopped pledging, but you still donated over the threshold over your lifetime, you are welcome to take advantage of this still!)

Fill out this form! It's going to be edited a little bit to reflect a lot of these changes by the end of the week, but the core of it is sound.

Need ideas? Check out this amazing Emote Menu I put together! You of course aren't limited to these emotes -- the possibilities are endless, so long as your request is PG13 or below. But do note that if you do want your emote on the Foxglove Discord, these are emotes that do not currently strongly overlap with existing ones.

If you want to swap out your icon for the Discord server, there will be a form for that made available by time the Patreon is edited. Existing emotes on our server will stay there until such a time as their patron wants them removed or swapped out.

As a reminder, you do not need to be a part of the Discord, nor to utilize them on Discord, to take advantage of this reward.

PLEASE NOTE: These are not done on any particular timeline, and more done in small bursts as I have time. Every week on Thursdays I tend to focus on work for Patrons, and if I don't have commissions to get done, I usually work on these. It's because of this loose schedule that I can offer these at all. Thank you for understanding!

Q: If I upgrade to a cameo tier before the changes happen, do I get a cameo under the old rules?

Yes! 

Please keep in mind that the strength of a cameo in the story often correlates with the length of time the person has pledged at a cameo tier. The current cameo tiers are going to be unpublished on Patreon when the changes go live, allowing current pledgers to stay where they are and keeping new folk from accessing it. That means that if you ever drop that cameo tier, you will no longer be able to rejoin it and accrue the same benefits. 

All of the benefits you've already accrued at that time will apply, but if you join one of the revamped cameo tiers later, all further benefits will be for Background Character pages instead of Speaking Character pages.

Thank you for your continued support, and as always, if there’s something you’re unclear about, feel free to ask and I’ll be more than happy to clarify. Mwah! Thanks all!