Terms of Service.

01.Agreement to terms

By accessing or using the Pepper Siege website at peppersiege.com (the "Site"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service (the "Terms"). These Terms form a binding legal agreement between you and Pepper Siege LLC, a Maryland limited liability company.

If you do not agree, do not use the Site. That's the honest deal.

02.What the site is today

Pepper Siege is in active build. The current Site serves as a brand landing page with an early access registration form and informational content about the Pepper Siege product system. The Site does not currently facilitate product sales, process payments, ship goods, or operate user accounts.

When commerce features are added, these Terms will be updated to reflect them — and material changes will be communicated to registered subscribers before taking effect.

03.Early access program

The early access program is a free, voluntary list of people who have expressed interest in Pepper Siege product launches, chef drops, or other updates.

• Registration does not guarantee product availability, pricing, or delivery timing.
• Pepper Siege may add, modify, or discontinue the early access program at any time.
• Subscribers can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email we send, or by writing to founder@peppersiege.com.
• The Reserve Ledger public display is strictly opt-in, and opt-in can be withdrawn at any time.

04.The Founding Regiment (founding-member reservations)

The Founding Regiment is a pre-launch reservation program. Reserving a rank on the Site records your interest and intended tier; no payment is taken and no card is charged at the time of reservation. Backing opens on a later date announced by Pepper Siege (“launch”), at which point reserved founders may choose to complete a purchase.

• Pre-order, not an investment. Each rank is a pre-order for goods, perks, and store credit. It is not an investment, security, equity, ownership interest, loan, or donation, and confers no financial return, profit share, dividend, or ownership of any kind.
• Store credit. Where a rank includes store credit, that credit is redeemable against your first Pepper Siege order once products are available. Store credit has no cash value except where required by law.
• Rewards and fulfillment. Physical rewards (pins, stickers, apparel, prints, seed packets) ship after backing is completed and fulfillment begins. Founder-signed jars and any consumable products ship only after Pepper Siege holds the applicable food / cottage-food license. The “Adopt-a-Plant” visit is local to Frederick, Maryland; Pepper Siege does not ship live plants across state lines. Seed packets are subject to applicable state agricultural shipping rules and may be unavailable in some jurisdictions.
• Refunds. If the first season does not ship, contributions collected at launch are refunded in full. Reward and delivery timing is a good-faith estimate, not a guarantee.
• Caps and changes. Pepper Siege may limit the number of founding ranks, per-person amounts, and availability, and may add, modify, or discontinue the program at any time before backing opens.

05.Permitted use

You may access and use the Site for personal, informational, and legitimate business purposes — for example, to learn about Pepper Siege, to submit a chef inquiry, or to register for early access.

You agree not to:

• Use the Site or any of its services in violation of any applicable law or regulation.
• Submit fraudulent, spam, automated, or abusive form submissions.
• Attempt to interfere with, disable, overload, reverse-engineer, or gain unauthorized access to the Site or any related infrastructure.
• Scrape, harvest, or otherwise collect data from the Site except as expressly permitted (public search engines indexing the Site are permitted).
• Impersonate any person or entity, or misrepresent your affiliation with Pepper Siege, any restaurant, retailer, or other third party.
• Use the Pepper Siege name, seal, logo, or brand identity in any commercial context without prior written permission.

06.Intellectual property

All content on the Site — including the Pepper Siege name, logo, seal, visual design, written copy, doctrine lines ("Flavor is the standard. Heat is the siege engine.", "War on Bland.", and similar), product system structure, variety names and framings, and any original creative assets — is the property of Pepper Siege LLC or its licensors, and is protected by U.S. and international copyright, trademark, and trade dress laws.

You may share public links to the Site and quote brief, attributed excerpts in editorial and journalistic contexts. Any other use — including commercial use, derivative work, or incorporation into your own brand or marketing — requires written permission from Pepper Siege LLC.

07.User submissions

When you submit information to Pepper Siege — via the early access form, direct email, or any other channel — you grant Pepper Siege a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that submission for the purpose of operating our services and communicating with you.

You represent that any submission you make is accurate, that it does not violate any third party's rights, and that you have the authority to submit it.

08.Third-party services and links

The Site may link to or integrate with third-party services (for example, social media platforms, hosting providers, or email delivery services). Pepper Siege does not control these third parties and is not responsible for their content, policies, or practices. Your use of any third-party service is governed by that service's own terms.

09.Disclaimers

The Site and all content on it are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Pepper Siege disclaims all warranties, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted availability.

Pepper Siege does not warrant that the Site will be free of errors, free of harmful components, or continuously available.

10.Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Pepper Siege LLC, its members, officers, employees, and agents shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages — including without limitation damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data, or other intangibles — arising out of or in connection with your use of the Site, even if Pepper Siege has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

In any event, Pepper Siege's total aggregate liability to you for any and all claims arising out of or relating to the Site shall not exceed one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100.00).

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages, so portions of this section may not apply to you.

11.Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Pepper Siege LLC and its members, officers, employees, and agents from any claim, demand, loss, liability, damage, or expense (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of your violation of these Terms, your misuse of the Site, or your violation of any law or any rights of a third party.

12.Future product sales and heat-tier acknowledgement

When product sales become available through the Site, they will be subject to additional terms covering orders, payment, shipping, returns, heat-tier acknowledgements, and — for certain extreme-heat "Arsenal" tier products — explicit acceptance and a signed waiver before fulfillment. Those additional terms will be displayed at checkout and will apply in addition to these Terms.

For all superhot-class products, including the Reserve and Arsenal tiers, the Heat Safety & Disclaimer applies and is incorporated by reference into these Terms. By purchasing or using any superhot-class product, you affirm that you have read the Heat Safety & Disclaimer and accept the assumption of risk and limitation of liability described there. Where the Heat Safety & Disclaimer and these Terms address the same subject, the more protective provision applies.

Nothing on the current Site constitutes an offer to sell product. All product availability, pricing, and specifications are subject to change without notice.

13.Modifications

Pepper Siege may update these Terms at any time by posting a revised version on the Site. If a change is material, we will provide reasonable notice — typically via email to registered subscribers and a visible notice on the Site. Your continued use of the Site after the effective date of a revised version constitutes acceptance of the changes.

14.Termination

Pepper Siege may suspend or terminate your access to the Site at any time, with or without cause, and with or without notice — for example, if we believe you have violated these Terms. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including intellectual property, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law) will survive.

15.Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maryland, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Site shall be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Frederick County, Maryland, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there.

Before filing any formal claim, you agree to first contact founder@peppersiege.com and attempt to resolve the matter informally. We will do the same.

16.Severability and entire agreement

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and Pepper Siege regarding your use of the Site.

17.Contact

Pepper Siege LLC
Frederick, Maryland, USA
founder@peppersiege.com