The month of March marks the six year anniversary of Shurtugal.com and boy have we traveled a far way over the past six years. I started Shurtugal.com as a side project of a bored teenager during winter break back in 2003, but it wasn’t until 2004 that I purchased the domain and launched what would grow to be the largest Inheritance Cycle website on the internet.
Over the past six years Shur’tugal has evolved into a community of tens of thousands of Inheritance Cycle fans spanning over one hundred countries. I’ve personally ventured on dozens of trips on behalf of Shur’tugal, representing the Inheritance fans and reporting back here on the website for all to see. I’ve devoured the words in the box dozens of times, I’ve worked on and launched over a dozen “top secret” projects, and I’ve made some amazing friends.
What Shur’tugal has grown to become was never intended or expected. Together with my amazing team of staff, we’ve made many wise decisions and have seen Shur’tugal through some of the most exciting points in our lives. I’ve made my fair share of mistakes running the website as well, but I’ve also used those mistakes to learn, grow, and mature. I’ve put the creative portion of my mind to work building new features to entertain fans in the past and continue to do so for the future. We have a lot of great plans and surprises in the works for our visitors and friends, and to celebrate our sixth anniversary, we’d like to share these plans with you. Continue reading for a sneak peak at what’s to come! With Book 4 on the horizon, we have a lot of ground to cover. We have theories to discuss, news to drool over, and friends to debate with! We have projects to launch, places to visit, and events to attend. We have movie studios to pester over making more Inheritance movies and we have publishers to commend for staying so true to the Inheritance Cycle. We have big projects to push, some of which we’d like to share with you today!
- The Q&As with Christopher Paolini will be returning very soon. Q&A 5 will be posted this week. Q&A 6 is done accepting questions — we’ll be picking through the over four hundred submitted questions and getting those off to Christopher in the near future. Our goal is to publish a new Q&A once per month without fail, with Q&A 6 landing in mid April.
- We’re bringing back Shurtycast. Long-time Shur’tugal visitors will remember Shurtycast, our award winning Inheritance Cycle podcast. In our prime (during the Eragon movie hayday), tackled all things Inheritance once every two weeks in an hour long Inheritance-themed podcast discussing the books, movies, and more. We’re bringing the show back with a number of old friends and some new ones, including some surprise interviews, news, and projects. We hope to feature a number of old and new segments on the new show! Our first episode, Shurtycast 201, was recently recorded and will be released once editing is complete.
- A new fan scrapbook for Christopher! Long-time Shur’tugal visitors will also remember our fan appreciation scrapbooks for Christopher Paolini. We allowed fans to submit letters, pictures, and fan art to be included in a stunning hand-made scrapbook sent to Christopher Paolini on behalf of his fans. The scrapbook project offered fans a way to directly interact with Christopher Paolini, the mastermind of the Inheritance Cycle, to show him their appreciation for his work, as well as share their thoughts, opinions, and more with their favorite author. The new project will offer much of the same with several new, updated twists to make the project fresh and unique.
- The Inheritance Cycle soundtrack project. Every movie has a soundtrack and we feel that every book series should have one too! We’re going to task our visitors with submitting songs they believe would fit well with a certain part of the Inheritance Cycle. In the end, the best songs for each part will be chosen and assembled as an Inheritance Cycle sound track – one for each book. The final soundtrack will be listed on Shurtugal.com and sent to Christopher Paolini for listening!
- Articles from our fans. Fans will have the unique opportunity to write articles, including opinionated editorials and theories, to be posted on the front page of Shurtugal.com, where tens of thousands of Inheritance fans can read and enjoy them! Fans who have their articles chosen to be published on the front page of Shurtugal.com will be awarded with “prizes” as a token of our appreciation.
- Four new Inheritance clothing designs! Yes, the shirt designs we previewed a few months ago are finally going to be released just in time for spring! We’ll be updating our line of offerings to include more than just shirts and hoodies!
Please note that there are no guaranteed time frames for these projects. We’re giving you a sneak peak to see what we have in store for the future, however, cannot guarantee when these projects will release.
Lastly, it is important to thank everyone who has contributed to Shur’tugal’s well-being and success over the years. These people include, but certainly are not limited to, Bob; Chris; Joelle; all Shurtugal staff, past and present; the Shurtugal Fan Fiction team, past and present, for their amazing work; the Inheritance Forum team and community, past and present, for nurturing such a large and unique community; the guys over at Shurty Chat, who have stuck around for so very long; Nick, the creative genius behind Vroengard Academy; Simon at Writers House; Judith, Linda, Dominique, Michelle, Nancy, and all of “Team Inheritance” at Random House; my family for their support, especially during Shurtugal’s early years; the fans who continue to visit Shur’tugal and who have supported us over the past six years; and of course, Christopher Paolini and the entire Paolini family, for continuously sticking by the fans and being amazing at what they do. (If I’ve forgotten anyone, it’s not because I’m not thankful!)
