The Name of the Wind Art Deck by Elodin Enterprises is a beautiful deck of cards meticulously hand-illustrated by fantasy artist, Echo Chernik. The decks feature characters from The Name of the Wind, the first Kingkiller Chronicle novel. Author Pat Rothfuss and Echo have been fans of each others’ work for ages, and while they’ve brushed up against each other before, this is the first time they’ve been able to team up to bring something beautiful into the world.
The Kickstarter project is seeking $25k and is currently 661% funded! Here are 5 things you should know about the Name of the Wind Art Deck.
1. Standard and Alternate Decks. Fairly early in the process, Pat and Echo realized they had a problem. A standard deck of cards only has 12 face cards and 2 jokers, but they had more characters they wanted to feature. After tossing a few ideas back and forth the team decided to produce two full decks in each card back (a “standard” and “alternate” deck). As the campaign grows and the project hit more stretch goals, Echo will produce additional art for the alternate decks with the hope of eventually upgrading all face cards for the alternate decks for two completely different sets of face cards. That means with the card backs the same, backers can swap out face cards between the two decks and build a deck with more of their favorite characters and art.
2. The Kickstarter Exclusive Chandrian Decks. Anyone who has read Pat’s The Name of the Wind knows that the Chandrian aren’t someone you should mention lightly. This set of decks will feature not only a different card back featuring the draccus and other iconography from the book but will have members of the Chandrian as unique jokers not found in the two Selas decks. Cinder is already revealed with Haliax schedule as a stretch goal.
3. First Kickstarter by Elodin Enterprises. While Pat has partnered with other creators to be a part of previous Kickstarters in the past, this is the first Kickstarter we have run in-house here at Elodin Enterprises.
4. How Pat and Echo ended up deciding to work together. On his blog, Pat posted a great story of how he and Echo ended up deciding to work together which resulted in this incredible project. We won’t do it justice if we retell it here on Kardify. Head over to Pat’s blog post for the full story here!
5. Cameo appearances. Echo is creating beautiful art prints that match the style of the decks where backers who select one of these limited tiers will get to work with Echo to include their likeness in the print. The first in the series features Wil and Sim laughing while Kvothe entertains with his “Jackass, Jackass!” song. In the background, Ambrose flirts with a student, oblivious to the song being played nearby. One of the Stretch Goals will be to create a second work of art in the same series featuring “The Eolian”. The Eolian scene will have cameos for backers in the audience, as well as one backer who will be vying for their talent pipes. An additional special backer will be the barmaid tending to Wil’s drink.
There will be four decks on offer in the Kickstarter campaign, the Selas Collection (Standard and Alternate decks) and the Kickstarter Exclusive, Chandrian Collection (Standard and Alternate decks). Both will be printed by the Expert Playing Card Co. Pledge starts from $15 and add-on such as uncut sheets, original art-prints and bundles are available.
