Beyond the Western Deep

Oh hey, that’s right! Quin just got shot in the shoulder by Rhosyn’s crossbow like… a few in-comic days ago! He can’t actually draw his arrow!

For folks who may not remember, this is what Rhosyn was referring to when she and Quin shared their “Even?/Even.” moment earlier. We also called back to it when Quin and Dak first ran into the Sratha-din just before the chase. While Quin and Rhosyn may be cool now, the ramifications of this wound are pretty dire. Under most circumstances it would make this an impossible feat, but Quinlan knows there’s always more than one way to draw an arrow!

It’s crazy to think that the holidays are upon us and 2024 is drawing to a proper close. It’s been a heck of a year for us, getting the comic back on a publishing schedule, shipping Beyond the Western Deep: Volume 3, and lots of behind-the-scenes work on War of the Western Deep.

Actually, let’s take full stock of the year!

• We had a bit of a false start last year getting the comic back on track, but starting in the summer we were finally able to hit our stride and commit to a biweekly page schedule that’s managed to hold thus far (even during the usually tumultuous holiday season)!
• We shipped out the rewards for Beyond the Western Deep: Volume 3 to all our amazing backers and re-opened our ONLINE STORE so folks could get stuff even if they missed out!
• We recorded full VO for our War of the Western Deep demo featuring Samantha Béart (Baldur’s Gate 3) as our protagonist, Mirren, as well as Edwyn Tiong (Dust: An Elysian Tail) as our shady felis bandit.
• We exhibited the full voiced demo of War of the Western Deep at the inaugural Adventure Game Fan Fair and at PAX West to tremendous acclaim. Folks LOVED the game and we had a line so deep at PAX West that it became a proper aisle-blocker as folks slowed down to see what the hubbub was all about!

So, 2024 was a pretty great year for Western Deep, but where do we go from here? Here’s a loose list of our 2025 plans:

• We’re excited to continue and complete Volume 4 of Beyond the Western Deep!
• We’ll be reevaluating publishing and distribution at a greater scale for Beyond the Western Deep books. We want to get the books more widely distributed, and as much as we love selling direct online, the chance of stumbling on it is very low.
• War of the Western Deep will continue its development as Rachel begins to chip away at backgrounds and character portrait art for our fully featured demo (which is even longer than the PAX demo)!
• Thanks to some tweaks in our budget plan, we’ll be re-approaching funding opportunities for War of the Western Deep, and may even consider crowdfunding it in mid-to-late 2025 if things are far enough along with the demo but publisher/financing options are still as tight as they were in 2023 and 2024.

So, that’s a full plate! Looks like 2025 is going to be a busy year, and we couldn’t be happier that Western Deep is still growing and telling fun stories after all these years. Obviously this is thanks to our amazing readership, both old and new.

The best holiday gift you can ever give us is your continued readership, and we love having you as part of our little community. The SECOND-best holiday gift you can ever give us is to help spread the word about Western Deep.

Repost pages on Twitter/X and BlueSky, send curious friends and family the link to our website, lend them a copy of the book, or heck: buy them one from our online store as a gift!

Thank you all for your continued support, and we hope you all have a wonderful holiday and New Years!