Jamison Stone & Satine Phoenix's Apotheosis Studio To Wind Down [UPDATED]

After being accused of abusive behaviour towards freelancers and co-workers, the game company run by D&D influencer Satine Phoenix and her husband Jamison Stone, is to enter a 'reduced capacity' mode.

After the accusations were made, Jamison Stone resigned as CEO; after a couple of weeks he was added back to the company's staff page, saying that he was never actually removed but merely taking personal time while Apotheosis Studio conducted an investigation.

In a draft of a recent statement obtained by Dicebreaker, Stone indicated that the results of this investigations were that the 'vast majority' of the accusations made were 'factually inaccurate'. He went on to discuss the ramifications of 'cancel culture', although the statement was updated to rephrase that as 'extreme changes'. Other than the initial apology to tattooist Chad Rowe, Stone has indicated that no further apologies will be forthcoming.

“The rest of the team now has completed those investigations and found that while some individuals had legitimate complaints, the vast majority of the allegations to date levelled against Jameson and others on our team have been proven to be factually inaccurate. We believe that people should be shown compassion, given the opportunity to write their wrongs and grow as individuals.”

As for the company itself, it will finish fulfilling existing Kickstarter projects. It will not be accepting requests to cancel and refund pledges for existing funded Kickstarters, and noted that most of the freelancers and contributors have been paid. When asked about the company's future, Stone said "As it stands - and I don’t know what the future will hold - it’s just a company that is there. It just exists and sells books. Some of my books, some books by other people. It will sell The Red Opera and eventually sirens. All of the people who are there are just contracted at this point."

A statement is expected to come soon from Apotheosis.

UPDATE -- Apotheosis Studio's statement has arrived:

Thank you for your patience. We have had a lot of questions about the future of Apotheosis Studios, its team, and our projects. While Jamison Stone did step down as CEO to take personal time while Apotheosis Studios did an internal investigation on the allegations brought forth by numerous individuals, we in no way claimed that we were removing Jamison from the company. Having completed our internal investigation, we have found that while some individuals had legitimate complaints, the vast majority of the allegations to date levied against Jamison and others on our team have been proven to be inaccurate. Jamison will directly address major allegations and misinformation within the month.

We at Apotheosis Studios do not support abuse in any form. We believe in accountability and the ability for everyone to reflect, learn from their mistakes, grow, and be given the opportunity to show what they’ve learned by actively being better through action. We encourage everyone to stand up for themselves in compassionate ways with the hope to make things better so no one has to live in fear. It is in this honesty that we can learn from one another and each be better for ourselves, our families, and our communities while not furthering abuse, bullying, harassment, and other dehumanizing behaviors.

Sirens: Battle of the Bards will be delayed while those who are still working on the project deal with the ramifications of the extreme changes that we have had to make due to this situation. We will be sending out merchandise that we already have in hand for US backers first. Sirens: Battle of the Bards is 90% finished and its contractors have been paid, therefore refunds will not be issued. We will provide additional updates on fulfillment as we know more.

Because there seems to have been some confusion regarding the nature of our operations, we wish to state again that payments to writers started in March 2022 and as new invoices were received, we processed them promptly. All artists and contractors who have completed their work and were authorized for billing have been paid. The only remaining work is rewrites, editing, and layout. This, as stated above, will take longer than originally planned.

For reference: we had the following number of contractors working on this project:

• Writers - 22 writers. Paid 10 cents per word
• Artists - 4. Paid monthly or per image
• Graphic Designer - 1. Paid monthly
• Layout artist - Paid monthly, even when not working on a project
• Musicians - 2. Paid promptly per song
• Sculptor - 1. Paid promptly per sculpt

The Sirens writing Deadline was Oct 31. Approval passes started in November. Unfortunately, the approval passes took longer than expected which pushed out approval for the contractors to bill by 3-4 months. Billing authorization was issued in March of 2022 and we promptly paid all invoices properly submitted to our accountant.

For this project, we provided templates for Adventure Chapters with an 8,450 words max budget. 9 of 22 chapters were over word count

• 4 over by 1000 words
• 1 over by 3700 words
• 2 over by 4750 words
• 1 over by 7000 words

Despite the fact that many chapters were over the word counts outlined the writers were paid for the overages after appropriate approval. Writers whose writing was not used were still authorized to bill us and were paid 10 cents per word.

For those of you who have reached out with constructive feedback, we greatly appreciate your support and patience. We will have further updates as more information becomes available.

Sarah Urfer

 

[Wicht]

The tax man likes to see the invoices. Doesn't matter most of the time, but the time it does matter it really matters.

Gotcha.

 

[Jd Smith1]

The tax man likes to see the invoices. Doesn't matter most of the time, but the time it does matter it really matters.

True in any nation.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I have not done any RPG freelance work where I had to submit an invoice. That just seems... weird. We're not talking major corporations here; we're talking Mom and Pop size operations. You get the gig, sign a contract, do the work, submit the work and then, hopefully, the money gets sent your way according to the dictates of the contract. I've done a few gigs where the pay never materialized, but then you just don't do work for those same again. But none of them ever asked for an invoice.

Of the hundred or so freelancers I've hired over the years, I'd say about a quarter of them sent me invoices.

 

[Eltab]

It says that freelancers who invoiced correctly were paid. The problem with some of the complaints was that pay was late, and they were not allowed to invoice until well after their work was delivered. It also qualifies that only the freelancers who invoiced correctly were paid, so anyone still complaining is to blame for not invoicing correctly.

I'm going to have to send in another Invoice for the fee to take the course on what you consider a correct Invoice. Plus you still owe me for the older Invoice you are attempting to dispute with the phrase "correctly". And you may be getting an updated corrected Invoice for previously-delivered but still-unpaid product.

Or you could just pay me what you owe and save yourself a bunch of hassle and money.

- Shortened version of my employer's Accounts Receivable department "you owe us money" boilerplate, adapted to the current situation.

 

[Gradine]

There are always going to be people more concerned with the finding out than they are about the frakking around, and they almost always turn out to be the kind that frak around a bit themselves

 

[Oncewasbenji]

To be honest it's not the accusations about pay that troubled me. It was the one about him driving a defenceless woman out into the woods with no way back under the pretence if business then propositioning her for s*x in a place she couldn't escape. So saying 'most are baseless but not saying which ones, that's the one they need to clarify independently before I'd ever choose to value their output again.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

To be honest it's not the accusations about pay that troubled me. It was the one about him driving a defenceless woman out into the woods with no way back under the pretence if business then propositioning her for s*x in a place she couldn't escape. So saying 'most are baseless but not saying which ones, that's the one they need to clarify independently before I'd ever choose to value their output again.

Yeah, not sure how this accusation keeps getting ignored or lumped in with the usual, surly “Kids these days…Bosses are supposed to be horrendous monsters. It’s good for you!” takes.

 

[John R Davis]

Invoices never occurred to me until I got one sent! Mostly seem to get them from Graphic Design folk I hired. Maybe should do this for all things in the future.

 

[mythago]

Yeah, not sure how this accusation keeps getting ignored or lumped in with the usual, surly “Kids these days…Bosses are supposed to be horrendous monsters. It’s good for you!” takes.

You were under the mistaken impression that the TTRPG hobby as a whole takes that sort of thing seriously.

 

[MGibster]

You were under the mistaken impression that the TTRPG hobby as a whole takes that sort of thing seriously.

Or that they pay attention in the first place. I'm thinking most people in the hobby don't really take a keen interest in how the sausage is made. Those of us who post messages on En World or RPG.net are outliers, but I suspect if you went into Barnes & Noble and asked someone who was buying a D&D book what they thought of Zak S., Orion Black, or Satine Phoenix you'd get a blank stare in return. And not just because some stranger person was asking them questions, but because there's a good chance they would have no idea who those people were.