jess

It's good for the industry any time anyone gets paid a good rate, and this was a good rate. HOWEVER, If we want royalties, bonuses, better pay, etc to become a new standard in TTRPGs, we cannot meaningfully advocate for that change without correctly understanding that it would be a change.

Clarifying my intention behind why I'm posting about this: People looking in from outside the professional TTRPG industry lack the context to know a good rate when they see it, to know what kinds of contract terms are normal, etc. I'm happy a contract that paid this much existed in TTRPGs.

It's a mix of everything, yes. I'm always advocating for increases to freelancer pay, but we can't meaningfully advocate for pay to go up if we don't accurately perceive the landscape of the industry as it surrounds us. Book prices are absolutely depressed.

Could not possibly sign that contract fast enough at $2/word

The most I have EVER been paid was 25c/word, but this was a contract for only 540 words, so the project where I received the best per word rate I've ever been offered only actually made me $135.

I have a cover credit on Pathfinder 2 Rage of Elements. I wrote 30,000 words for that book at a rate of 11c/word. I've written two adventure path volumes for Paizo, one 25,000 words and one 38,000 words, and was paid a rate of 12c/word on both. There are no bonuses or royalties.

I mainly write for Paizo. Paizo contracts, like most contracts in the TTRPG industry, are work for hire contracts. I no longer own anything I submit and have no legal claim to it. There are no royalties. I'm paid what I'm paid and ownership of the work goes fully to Paizo (or whichever other client)

The information available ($24k for 10k words) makes YB&B 1st print THE BEST freelance writing payout I've ever heard of in TTRPGs. Even the base $3k for 10k words without bonus or royalties is higher than the top rate I've ever received and, in context of TTRPGs, a rate I'd call excellent.

It's annual change the number on my socials day! If you'd like to celebrate my birthday with me, consider joining the TTRPGs for Trans Rights bundle!

or maybe tip me ko-fi.com/ilananight if you have spare coins!

I designed a faux wax sealed envelope you can print and fold at home. It self closes, no wax required. You don’t even need glue. Also it’s free.

Use it for your games and parties and stuff 💚

(some people stress bake. I do whatever this is)

no one who didn't experience it will ever understand how special that brush tool was 🥹

was it a mistake to develop a specific art style that relies on the abomination of a tool macromedia let us have when they made flash's brush tool pressure-sensitive? i guess so yes but here I am

probably half of these are png exports but fucking hell

goddamn 2100 files in my flash folder apparently

ughhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh i guess this means i need to reactivate cc by march so i can export all my illustrations out of animate and into, idk, SVGs or something???? literal decades of files

lmao no the opposite

gonna write a pf2 zine where the whole zine is 1 creature

Dust Bunny is incredible

The pledge manager for @yaniir.bsky.social's Monolith Collection hit my inbox and I went from 2 jewelry styles and 4 additional pendants to 4 jewelry styles and 8 additional pendants 😅 Did I correctly pledge what I wanted for myself? Yes. But then I realized modular jewelry makes a fabulous gift.

The shipping estimate wasn't until mid-February bc one of the games was out of stock, but my new puzzle games have arrived and they have MUCH bigger boxes that Ministry of Lost Things!

Wow, congratulations Erin!

YouTube video by Roll For Combat The D&D and Warhammer Controversy!

I'm on the Roll For Combat stream today :) www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYzQ...

Yeah, it sounds to me like the thing you should focus on communicating is less "hey, any progress?" and more "hey, I beta read some of x book y years ago and wanted to let you know I still think about your work. I look forward to when I can share it with my friends and the world."

metal were hidden from the Great Beyond and the Totum Fonts could access only 4 of their 6 elements, they became imbalanced and this imbalance (like the card from the Thoth deck warned us) was a corruption.

Totum Font is a multi-element elemental, an element of air, earth, fire, water, wood, and metal (yes Pathfinder has 6 elements). They were created by the Gods to themselves become creators as creatures of alchemy, combining base elements to create the natural world. When the planes of wood and (...)

a King and a Queen, combining fire and water. The figure is also balanced, they are comprised of all of their components in correct and equal measure to achieve and maintain equilibrium. The card warns against hiding and repressing pieces of yourself, against not living your full truth. (...)

Let me tell you about Totum Font rq. When I wrote this creature, I was thinking about Art, the 14th major arcana of the Thoth deck. When they say "art" they mean the art of alchemy, and the bifurcated figure represents admixture and combination. The figure is simultaneously male and female, (...)

Cover of upcoming Pathfinder Impossible Magic, featuring an elemental with five heads of differing elements battling the Pathfinder iconic magus, summoner, necromancer, and runesmith characters.

IS THAT MY CREATURE ON THE COVER???? I think that's the Totum Font, a creature I wrote for Monster Core 2! And they're BACK TO BE ON A COVER?! :> :> :>

A line graph showing the performance of various distributors — as invoiced by Evil Hat — between 2016 and 2025. I'll paste the data matrix in the alt text for the other image on this post, but honestly it's not easy figuring out how to alt-text a line graph like this one... follow along in the thread for some narration!

Distro 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 ACD $33,613.60 $94,409.40 $103,181.45 $79,319.25 $72,511.84 $80,754.58 $83,188.43 $113,672.50 $90,661.51 $94,542.23 Aetherworks $0.00 $5,447.20 $8,431.00 $10,852.50 $8,523.40 $9,844.30 $9,472.60 $9,170.70 $6,713.40 $5,900.10 Alliance $61,481.60 $133,904.40 $110,589.60 $116,125.96 $94,411.60 $119,744.65 $160,520.75 $161,476.00 $101,756.80 $85,366.80 Asmodee Nordics $5,836.00 $20,084.80 $9,462.00 $4,396.80 $3,012.80 $3,273.60 Asmodee UK $29,124.00 $59,082.40 $42,112.00 $49,464.80 $25,047.20 $21,559.20 $18,385.60 $24,176.40 $10,193.60 $5,631.20 Blackfire $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $17,428.00 $8,289.60 BNW $0.00 $4,853.20 $9,273.60 $8,158.80 $13,137.20 $13,725.20 $15,766.40 $28,087.20 $16,327.20 $21,874.40 Flat River $50,905.60 $153,284.80 $134,873.60 $170,128.80 $191,055.20 $199,732.80 $112,922.87 $146,095.20 $63,184.80 $41,337.60 Fun Supply $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $18,723.20 $2,961.60 $7,136.80 $2,916.00 $4,108.00 Golden $2,889.20 $5,026.80 $6,016.40 $4,137.20 $3,170.80 $3,799.60 $1,566.00 $3,931.20 $772.00 GTS $9,531.60 $35,076.80 $18,169.20 $14,574.00 $6,849.20 $8,863.20 $10,865.60 $11,768.80 $8,339.20 $2,594.00 Intrafin $0.00 $3,072.00 $11,040.00 $16,503.20 $3,883.20 Lion Rampant $5,817.20 $13,200.40 $3,990.80 $2,990.40 $6,610.00 $8,286.40 $12,516.00 $15,370.40 $15,680.00 $1,194.00 Outland $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $2,939.20 Pegasus Spiele $2,840.40 $9,006.00 $5,444.40 $4,968.40 $1,296.00 PHD $0.00 $15,252.80 $1,075.60 $770.00 $0.00 $360.00 $1,814.40 Southern Hobby $10,570.40 $21,301.60 $6,678.40 $712.00 Spiral Galaxy $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $0.00 $12,038.50 $19,521.60 $23,180.00 $33,784.80 $30,174.40 $21,448.80 Ulisses Spiele $3,153.20 $1,112.80 Universal (Canada) $0.00 $3,379.00 $13,799.60 $20,461.60 $10,471.60 $12,996.80 $17,878.80 $30,039.60 $20,206.00 $19,269.20

Hold onto your butts, data nerds. I've been looking Evil Hat's distro performance — solely based on our distro invoicing that we do through Freshbooks; we don't invoice IPR there so they aren't represented in these data.

The TLDR:

2025 was the worst year for EH's distribution in the past 10 years.

paizo: write a stat block for this lovecraft horror time monster
jess: ok let me just figure out what the monsters core beliefs are surrounding the meaning of life and what their philosophical approach to understanding reality is first and then i'll do the stat block