Natural Six
When a group of acquaintances from different corners of the gaming industry met up at a random pub in London on 28th June 2023, we had no clue the scale of the journey we were about to set off on. That evening, an adventuring party of six (five in person, one in spirit) hatched a plan to play Dungeons & Dragons together, and to share our love of fantastical worlds and collaborative storytelling with as many friends around the world as possible. We never could have dreamed that such an amazing community would show up and support us, and build the world of Reliquiae right along with us. Our successfully funded Kickstarter allowed us to create ten episodes, and if we may toot our collective team horn for a second, we’re really proud of them. We were able to hire a top-class studio and production team, buy the best bespoke kit for the job, pay all our incredible artists and collaborators for things like theme music, character art, maps, photography, stream assets and miniatures, and really focus on making the best experience we possibly could, for our audience and ourselves. But we’ve never been shy about the fact that our ambitions for the series, our characters and the world of Reliquiae stretch far, far beyond ten episodes. We have big ideas for this adventure, and we’re just getting started. The simple fact is, though, that making a show like ours costs money, and our first priority is securing the resources to keep it going in its current form. Thanks to friends and contacts (and, honestly, the powerhouse that is Hollie Bennett), we’re already exploring all potential revenue streams available to us. It’s no secret that there isn’t a ton of money to be made on traditional video platforms these days. Sponsored content is a huge help, and we’re really pleased with the partnerships we’ve made so far that have allowed us to stay true to our rather chaotic brand; we've been able to choose collaborations that both make sense and that we’re proud to endorse. Natural Six Merch is another avenue we’re excited to explore, but to do it well takes time and capital that we don’t have just yet. So, Patreon. What do we want to do? At its most basic level, our wish is simply to keep this show going. A lot of the up-front, one-off costs were covered by the Kickstarter - things like artwork, assets and equipment needed for production. A big chunk of ongoing costs includes paying our crew - it takes time and effort to set up the studio and deliver the multiple video and audio-only edits. But our grand plan is bigger than that. We want to offer guests, live shows, merch, playable modules, bigger set pieces and production enhancements, maybe even - one day - weekly episode releases. We know we have something special here, and we’re just so excited about the possibilities because there is so much more story to tell. Why Patreon? One of the many things we love about Natural Six and how it has grown so far is that it belongs entirely to ourselves and our community. Thanks to the support of our Kickstarter backers, we’ve been given the freedom to choose our own path - we’re able to base every single decision on making our show as good as it can possibly be. We work with our favourite contributors, we create the schedule that works best for us, we feel safe knowing those ten episodes have already been secured, and we need only listen to the opinions that matter - ours and yours. Patreon will allow us to keep this freedom, and maybe even expand on it. Being supported directly by our audience keeps creativity front and centre of everything we do. And we know that’s a huge privilege that’s not afforded to everyone, so we don’t take a single bit of it for granted. As we said above, it’s become harder and harder to make content on traditional video platforms that can actually support itself. It becomes even more difficult if you want to make that content while not having to lean into the biggest trends of the moment or be totally at the mercy of algorithms that don’t actually care about the human effort and connection behind that content. If you’ve enjoyed what we’ve created so far, just know that we’re keen to do and achieve even more, with your help and support. What does becoming a Natural Six Patron offer? We’re glad you asked! We’re offering a range of tiers based on what we think our community will love, with a wealth of content available right off the bat from episodes that have already aired. Our first tier is free for a week and then $1 from then on - the closest we could get to offering a completely free tier - and is essentially a taster menu of each of the extra formats that our higher tier offers. So, you’ll get a glimpse behind the scenes, you’ll get an Ask me Anything video, an episode of Endellion’s Diary and an episode of Klaaks the Broken Pebble, completely free, with the hope that you’ll leave wanting a bit more, and consider subscribing to a higher tier. Our next tier offers Natural Six story episodes and Action Surges, completely ad-free. Not only that, as an extra incentive you’ll get access to Action Surge immediately, enabling you to hear our thoughts, insights and theories as they were originally recorded - straight after the episodes happen. Our hope is it’ll allow our community to dive straight into the conversation around the wider story and all the fun that entails. To further enable that, this tier will also include access to a special Discord backers-only chat. Our Discord server is already a pretty amazing place to be if you haven’t joined already, and this extra channel will be reserved especially for our biggest supporters so they can theorise and speculate to their heart’s content. The third tier is where you’ll find a load of exciting extra content and a more intimate peek behind the curtain at what the cast and crew get up to outside of the main campaign. We’ll have Ask Me Anything videos where we take questions and comments from our Patreon backers, you’ll be able to see behind the scenes outtakes and extras when we forget the cameras are rolling, Hollie will share her unique perspective on everything that happens in an episode via the medium of Endellion’s Diary, and you’ll be able to join Ben for an extra audio-only adventure that takes place alongside the main campaign. There's a fourth and final tier, but this is really just for those who would like to and are comfortable enough to give a little bit of extra support. It includes everything offered in all previous tiers, plus our sincere gratitude for being so great. You're the reason we get to keep telling stories together. These offerings aren’t totally set in stone either - you can look forward to extra special episodes, edits, one-shots and other perks as we grow to reach our full potential. We'll see you in Reliquiae. Lots of love - Alex, Aoife, Ben, Doug, Harry and Hollie xx
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