June isn’t even half over and it’s already been a hard month. While not as violent as in the US, Alberta has been exceptionally challenged in its own way. A month ago people were screaming that they should be free to go out and protest against COVID-19 measures, now they are screaming that people shouldn’t be protesting that Black Lives Matter, to the point of even forcing several marches to be canceled out of fear for organizers and attendees safety. I wish I was surprised, but these are the same people who protested going broke “because of Greta Thunberg”, by spending more than a minimum wage worker makes in a month or more to drive their big rigs that cost more than a house around and block traffic.
But there should be something to be happy about, right? It’s pride month. Our regressive provincial government even raised the pride flag for Pride Month… and took it down in under a day. Crap. But there are still good people here, I promise. In response to that, our former Premier and official opposition leader strung a 3 story pride flag from her 15th-floor office windows, where it still remains.
Another small glimmer of positive coming from Alberta, is that after more than a year of designs and re-designs Marc Schubert, creator of the “nearly-edible-don’t-you-tell-me-I-shouldn’t-try-tasting-them” Ice Cream Dice, has launched the first volume of Pride-themed dice on Kickstarter.
Each set has been designed to show off the vibrant colours of their particular Pride flag and contains 11 dice, instead of the average polyhedral dice set:
one x D4
FOUR x D6
one x D8
one x D10
one x D% (00-90)
one x D12
TWO x D20
The five sets are based on the Asexual, Bisexual, Lesbian, Nonbinary and Pansexual Pride flags. Yes, there are other flags representing people in the LGBTQ+ community. But Marc has learned from past difficulties, and chosen to keep this and future campaigns limited to 4-5 designs. This is only VOLUME 1, so who knows what is still coming in the future.
The most notable absence is the rainbow Pride flag, but it’s not totally missing. One of the cool extra pledges in this campaign is the Big Gay D20, a handmade D20 in the original flag colours, each D20 stands 55mm, takes nine days to make, and comes with a custom wooden display box. It’s big. It’s not cheap. But, it’s damn fabulous!
Pledge levels start at $20(CDN) for a single set, plus some seriously sweet stretch goal swag. $35 gets two sets, $50 for three sets, or $75 for five sets. “Five sets” doesn’t HAVE to mean one of each set. After the campaign, you choose what set or sets you want.
Going into the higher tiers, $150 gets three sets of dice and one of two wooden “Council of 11 Pride Vault” to carry one of your sets in. The Big Gay D20 comes with a $175 pledge or as part of the $200 and $350 combination pledges.
All the timelines are provided in detail, and seem perfectly reasonable, and you’ll have everything in your hands in time to celebrate next years Pride at you gaming table.
“Humans aren’t binary. Our sexuality and gender aren’t binary. There’s a multitude of ways that we choose to express love and even that can change throughout our lifetime.
Love is the most beautiful and pure thing in the world and nobody has the right to tell anyone how, or who, to love.
These designs are the beginning of what I hope will become a complete celebration of humans and the way they choose to express love.”
–Marc Schubert
You can back Pride vol.1 on Kickstarter until July 1, 2020.
You can find Ice Cream Dice online at icecreamdice.com or on Facebook at facebook.com/IceCreamPolyhedrals.