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The Griffon's Saddlebag: Book 2

Created by Griffin Macaulay

The anticipated sequel with over 500 game-ready magic items, player options, settings, and more for 5e. Give out better treasure!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

The US warehouse is shipping faster by the day (700 so far this week), Dice are on schedule and looking good (pictures), and a miscommunication with Hit Point Press (you're getting orders first). Details within!
2 months ago – Wed, Jan 24, 2024 at 01:19:15 PM

Hey everyone! Good news! Here are the bullet points:

  • The US warehouse is speeding up fulfillment. More on that below, but the long and short of it is that orders are moving out faster and faster by the day, with 700 already out since Monday this week, and with rates increasing by the day.
  • The dice makers have found their groove and are on schedule for all dice to be ready and shipped to warehouses within the next 3 weeks. Shipping to warehouses is quick, and all warehouses are on mega-high alert for them to come in. The dice look great (photos below).
  • Hit Point Press put out an incorrect email blast earlier this week that revealed a miscommunication I had with them. Please know that no orders are shipping to HPP customers until after yours are shipped! I control the stock, and I'm only turning it over to their customers after the Kickstarter orders are shipped out.

If you're interested in a bit more nitty gritty or background (or wanna see dice photos), read on!

The US Warehouse is on track again

So last month, the US warehouse got three times the number of orders they had been expecting. Most Decembers they expect to ship 5-7 thousand orders, but this time they got over 17 thousand! So, needless to say, there was some significant carryover slog coming into January. To help with this influx of orders, they also needed to onboard new staff to help with fulfillment, which of course also took time away from fulfilling orders in the short term. And then, to add to the stuff happening behind the scenes, they had an emergency and were forced to switch to other urgent orders, after having started with yours on this Kickstarter. So there were a lot of factors stacking against the US warehouse this month, but they're working very hard right now to ramp back up and devote a full team's force to fulfilling your orders.

To that point, Whalebacker worked over the weekend to get through a ton of orders, and has been adding more and more people every day to the team working on fulfilling your orders. At full speed, they'll be knocking out 500+ orders a day, so they should be all caught up soon after. Your order in their queue is based on your order's complexity (how many items they need to pack). But they're moving through very quickly, so please rest assured that your orders are well underway.

The Dice are finishing on (this new) schedule

Since my last update, the dice have been coming along at an increasingly rapid pace. The manufacturer has increased its team size working on the dice and working on weekends. They are working hard to get these painted, polished, and packaged for sending to warehouses throughout the next couple weeks. Please rest assured that things are moving along smoothly now, and that my confidence in them is restored. As always, I appreciate your patience with this final hurdle: I'm just as eager as you are to get you your rewards!

I do have some new glam photos and video of the two dice sets:

The dice look great and really nail the aesthetics for both directions: the BTtL dice look secretive and foreboding, and the geleton dice look like they're cut off a block of a gelatinous cube (or about to spring to life as a geleton). The BTtL dice are smokey and scarlet, and the geleton dice have this great ripple effect throughout it that truly makes it look like an ooze. Of course, the pockmarked bone inclusions really sell it, too.

Dice are shipping to Canadian and UK warehouses soon, with US ones going out shortly thereafter. Once they arrive in each warehouse, they'll be shipping out the remaining orders posthaste. I'm in very frequent contact with them as we finish this process.

Other small warehouse hiccups are smoothed over

Australian orders are due to finish shortly. There was a inventory mixup that's been addressed after a series of phone calls and spreadsheet checking. They're waiting on a final product to come in before they can wrap up the last few orders out there. Canada also needed a couple things extra, so those have been sent to them as well. Thanks for hanging in there!

That's all from me right now! As always, please feel free to send me a message as a DM here on Kickstarter or as an email to [email protected]. Talk more soon, and until then: keep on adventuring!

-g

Some dice are in transit, refilling some stock in Australia, US orders (without dice) are being shipped!
3 months ago – Mon, Jan 08, 2024 at 02:45:52 PM

Hey everyone! I'm doing my best to continue giving you total transparency with regards to where your orders are during this fulfillment process. As always, thank you so much for your continued patience and enthusiasm while I wrangle people into action.

Cerberus, the dice manufacturer, is continuing to be slow and frustrating. This is coupled with Aetherworks, the Australian warehouse, making fulfillment errors.

Cerberus has successfully sent the dice to Aetherworks in Australia, and they are currently stocking dice for shipment to Canada and the UK simultaneously. After dice are sent to those two warehouses, they'll begin stocking the rest to go to the USA. There are many being sent to the US, so it will probably take a few weeks to amass them. Again, Cerberus has demonstrated a total inability to accurately gauge time, so I'll be continuing to hound them until they do what they're supposed to. Thank you for your patience with these: please rest assured that I'm doing my best to get them to you!

Now, Australia would be sending out final orders for remaining backers, now that they have the dice, but Aetherworks messed up enough orders ahead of Christmas that I'm forced to fly in replacement stock from the US warehouse. I have every faith that those replacement products will arrive quickly once Aetherworks can tell me what they actually need in an email: as of this morning, they've continued to be frustratingly unable to write to me with any clarity. Like with Cerberus, I'm sending frequent follow-ups to get this handled as quickly as our massive timezone differences allow.

If you're waiting on an order in Canada, the UK, Europe, or rest of the world, it's almost certainly a result of the dice not being in stock yet. Please know that they'll be shipped out as soon as they arrive in your regional warehouse.

US orders without dice are shipping now. Whalebacker has affirmed to me that you should receive an email with their name on it once your order is sent out. There are a few thousand US orders, so please hang in there while Whalebacker gets to yours. As a reminder, if your card was charged after November 22nd, please know that your order will be submitted to Whalebacker for fulfillment as soon as this current stage of orders is finished. Depending on how long it takes for Cerberus to wrap up the dice, I may skip ahead and pull those orders instead of waiting for it all. It won't make a huge dent in the number of orders remaining, but it'll get a few more of your orders out a little sooner.

As always, if you have an issue with your order, please feel free to email me at [email protected] or send a direct message to me here on Kickstarter. I'm just on the other side of a different keyboard.

Again, thank you all so much for your patience, support, and excitement for your rewards. If you post them on Instagram when they arrive, make sure to tag me in the photo!

Until next time, keep on adventuring!

-g

Wave 3 orders are in the process of being rolled out. Orders with DICE in them are delayed a couple more weeks by the dice manufacturer.
4 months ago – Fri, Dec 08, 2023 at 11:20:14 AM

Hey everyone!

Some of you have started to receive emails from your regional warehouse with address verifications, which is great! Those are, to the best of my knowledge, backers in the EU and UK without any dice in their orders. Similar US and CA orders are due to initiate shortly, too. I'm waiting to hear back about those orders in AU.

Orders going to the UK and EU (without dice) are due to start shipping next week, as soon as Monday. 

If you haven't received an email from your warehouse, you should soon! I promise that your order is in a spreadsheet: it may be delayed by 2 weeks due to the dice manufacturer, however.

The Dice Manufacturer is the Holdup

My dice manufacturer, Cerberus, is lousy with communication and estimating deadlines. They've been a consistent irritation throughout this project. Their work looks great, but their administration and communication leaves a lot to be desired. I'll be working with a new partner for future projects so this won't happen again.

Unfortunately, Cerberus's inaction ends up affecting your delivery's timeline, assuming you're getting dice in your order (either the geleton dice or the Bulette Takes the Liar set). They originally told me that the dice would be shipped out by November 18th—that's obviously come and gone, despite my very frequent emails and follow-ups. Their current timeline is to have everything finished shipping to warehouses by Christmas, if not a little before.

Warehouses should be receiving dice in this order to accommodate their timeline needs: AU (Aetherworks), UK & EU & RoW (GamesQuest), CA (Pick and Pack) and then US (Whalebacker). This will allow regions to complete their fulfillment as quickly as possible. I'm hoping that Aetherworks will get theirs within a week, followed a few days apart for each subsequent warehouse.

The good news is that warehouses know to expect these dice coming in, and should be able to ship out those orders basically immediately once the dice are received. Australia takes a few weeks off for Christmas, so I'm really trying to get them their dice first so backers get their goodies before the new year.

I'm doing everything within my power to get your orders to you before January—there are lots of emails flying around to try and make that happen. This wouldn't be a problem if not for Cerberus, so I really, really appreciate your patience and understanding as I try to corral them into action.

If your card was processed after I generated the warehouses' spreadsheets (Nov. 22), your order will go out as soon as the original Wave 3 orders are shipped. Warehouses need to go through a process each time I submit order forms, so adding them on part-way through would throw a sizable wrench in their protocols. Thanks for your patience with that: I really can't wait to get you your rewards!


As always, if you have any questions, please feel free to drop me a message here on Kickstarter. I check messages (and comments) most mornings.

Talk more soon! Keep on adventuring!

-g

Cards have been charged for shipping and any post-Kickstarter add-ons! Please make sure to correct any card errors so your order can be fulfilled!
4 months ago – Wed, Nov 15, 2023 at 02:44:09 PM

Hey everyone!

In case you missed the last update, I just charged cards on file via Backerkit for shipping! This includes anything outstanding on your account, including add-ons you chose after the Kickstarter finished.

A little under a thousand cards have returned an error, although I'm seeing them being corrected and charged over time—if you've done that, thank you! If your card wasn't charged, or if you received an email from Backerkit asking for you to correct your card on file, please make sure to do so so I can get your orders sent out in the coming weeks!

If you have issues with your order, please feel free to send me a message here on Kickstarter or via email at [email protected] so I can give you a hand. :)

For details on when you should begin to expect your order, please make sure to check out the previous update for in-depth details as to where your items are!

As always, thank you so much for the support! We're almost at the finish line!

Keep on adventuring!

-g

The final wave of shipping begins soon! Charging cards for shipping on Wednesday! Read this to know what to expect!
5 months ago – Mon, Nov 13, 2023 at 09:28:19 AM

Hey everyone!

So, as the title says, the final wave of orders will start shipping as soon as the end of this month, although it's more likely that yours will ship in December. This comes down to where you live:

  •  USA: early/mid next month
  •  Australia: end of this month
  •  Canada: end of this month, start of next *
  •  UK, EU, Rest of World (RoW): end of this month, start of next *

* Depending on expediency of GamesQuest bookkeeping. I'm anticipating start of December.

These are my best estimates based on the information I have right now and what I've been told by warehouses. I think they're good estimates, but please allow some flexibility with your delivery's ultimate delivery date as we head toward the more frantic holiday shipping season. I'll keep you posted as orders begin going out region by region.

There are four remaining shipments ongoing right now, which contain the last products I (and you) are waiting on:

  •  Saddlebag backpacks—ocean freight.
  •  Panda games products (1/2): Book Two cards (standard), journals, GM screen, key loop, animated pin, banners, bookmarks (faction + limited edition), dice bag, washi tape—ocean freight.
  •  Panda games products (2/2): special edition Book Two cards (wooden boxes, gilded)—air freight.
  •  Geleton and Bulette Takes the Liar dice—parcels by post (dice are very small!).

These shipments each go to four different locations: USA, Australia, Canada, and the UK.

  •  USA's ocean shipments are due to arrive in the first week of December.
  •  Australia's ocean shipments are already arrived/arriving this week.
  •  Canada's ocean shipments are due to arrive sometime next week.
  •  UK's ocean shipments are due to arrive sometime next week.

The air freight and parcels are TBD, but are quick to transport. They aren't a concern of mine quite yet. I'm finalizing plans and costs for those right now in another email chain as we speak.

These four shipments contain the very last items arriving at warehouses, and are the final hurdle for getting your packages mailed out! Well, that and the resulting paperwork.

I'm charging for shipping Wednesday, before everything has arrived at the warehouses, so that I can give everyone the most opportunity to fix any card errors that come up before I export the warehouse fulfillment spreadsheets sometime next week. Especially with GamesQuest-handled orders, they need time to go through their extensive due process, so I'm trying to give them plenty of advanced notice. Some of the warehouses (UK, EU, AU, and RoW) will also send you a preliminary email allowing you to verify your shipping address before they send it out, so you can keep on the lookout for that.

I'm doing everything I can to grease the wheels to make the final stages of shipping as quick as possible. Thank you for your patience!

If you haven't gotten your order yet, it's 99% because you have at least one item from the list above included in your order. If you don't think so, or you're unsure, check your order on Backerkit! If you see something wrong on Backerkit, shoot me a message here on Kickstarter and we'll get it sorted out together. :)

Thank you for the support and patience, heroes! I can't wait to get you your rewards—they're so close!

Keep on adventuring!

-g