Pitch CampaignTHE LONG WAY TO TESSALY
An aging tow captain takes a fifty-light-year contract on an engine that will not survive it, because the alternative is losing the ship to the guild.
by Awaiting creator · Launched Aug 20, 2026
50 more to reach the 50-backer floor
Back this at one of three levels. Nothing is charged now. Pledges are only collected if the campaign reaches $300, which is 60% of its ask, and 50 backers, and you can change or withdraw yours until then.
You are backing a stage for perks, coins and early access. You are not buying a share of the title or any financial interest in it.
A pledge is a promise to back a campaign, not a payment and not a purchase of any financial interest. Nothing is charged unless the campaign is collected, and every campaign is approved before it opens. Full disclaimer
About this title
Synopsis
The engine in Ambrose Kell's tow ship was old when he bought her. He has rebuilt it eleven times, by hand, in ports whose names have since changed, and it still sings on the third try. Forty years of hauling other people's dead ships home has left him in arrears to the guild, and the guild has begun using the word ship the way it uses the word asset. There is one contract that clears the debt. It runs fifty light years to Tessaly, and the engine will not make Tessaly, and the nineteen-year-old he hires in the engine room has not been told that.
Who this is about
Ambrose Kell has hauled dead ships home for forty years on one engine, which he has rebuilt eleven times and which the guild inspectors have stopped pretending to certify.
What goes wrong
The guild will take the ship for arrears unless he runs a fifty-light-year tow that his engine cannot finish. He signs it, and he signs on a nineteen-year-old engineer who believes him.
What's at stake
The ship is the only thing he has made that outlasted him. The girl in the engine room did not agree to die for it and does not know she might.
Why it keeps going
Fifty light years is a great many ports, and every port offers him a way out that costs somebody else something, and a repair he cannot quite afford.
Takeaway
A man and the thing he keeps running wear out at about the same rate, and only one of them knows it.
Shelves
Themes
Story, in the creator's words
Not provided yet
Style
Not provided yet
Characters
Not provided yet
Tech stack
Not provided yet
Schedule
Not provided yet
Production plan
Not provided yet
Where your money goes
Your money goes straight to the creator to turn this pitch into a trailer. A pitch today is a poster and a logline. What the money buys is the first piece of film anyone will see.
Nothing is collected until two things are true
This campaign has to raise $300, which is 60% of its ask, and reach 50 backers. Whichever of the two happens later is the one that counts. Money without backers is one person, and backers without money is a crowd that cannot fund the thing, so a Pitch campaign needs both.
Released in stages, against delivered work
Scripts and reference sheets locked
30%Rough cut delivered
30%Pitch delivered
40%The creator has 30 days from the day this campaign closes to deliver. No part of the money is released for the campaign simply closing.
What comes next
Creator
155
Campaigns run
0
Titles on ArchTV
Delivery record
- Campaigns funded: 0
Titles at this stage are open concepts. A creator has not been attached yet, which is what the Pitch rung is for.