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:
Cards for Book+Coin orders are being charged Friday! PLUS: a deep dive into freighting and inventory—how everything gets shipped!
11 months ago
– Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 09:17:17 AM
Hey folks!
Bottom line up top: if your order is just the books and/or coin set, your order could be shipping as soon as next week. I'll be charging those cards for any remaining balances THIS FRIDAY. Please make sure your shipping addresses and cards are correct in Backerkit! The next orders to ship will be those that have these products, plus only older ones like Book One cards, totes, and non-animated pins. That's a smaller chunk of backers, but still something to be aware of if it affects you! If there are any delays with getting the warehouses to start shipping these orders, I'll post another update saying as such!
Over the last month I've had to learn a lot about international freighting. Much more than I had to with my first Kickstarter. Luckily, I have an incredible logistics team that's making this as smooth as possible.
The current challenge that I'm finishing is making sure that every region's warehouse has enough of my existing stock. That means that I need to get Book Ones, Book One cards, tote bags, and pins to new warehouses in Canada, the UK, and Australia. All other new content is shipped directly from manufacturers to these places. The main hurdle there has been juggling stock between my normal warehouse...-s. Hit Point Press, where I've historically housed my physical goods, has been shuffling its stock to another warehouse. Part of my stuff was already moved, but not all of it. That means that I've had to juggle this existing inventory across these regional warehouses from two separate ones, that also happen to be in different countries. It's been a lot of coordinating emails, freights, and parcels. Smaller shipments, like getting pins and totes from A to B, can be faster because it travels with normal (albeit large) postal orders. In either case, it's a lot of paperwork.
Whew! Okay, so my existing inventory and the last of the new books are arriving in Canada in about a week. There's also a second wave of books coming to the US from the printer at about the same time. The UK's already got theirs, and that warehouse is also serving EU orders. Once those land in the warehouses, we're going to start sending out your book/coin orders!
...except for Australia's. Australia's orders are about 5 weeks behind, because it makes way more logistical sense to ship things to the US, and then to Australia. So once those books get to the US in that second wave, a pallet of them will be slingshot right back out to Australia (including the needed older stock). Even if the books had gone directly from the printer to Australia, it only would have arrived marginally sooner, and I'd still need to send that older stock.
In case it wasn't clear before, international freight and inventory management is complicated.
The other brief hangup is that the coins are getting a very quick update made to them before arriving in the States. I needed these to have UPC stickers added on for the warehouse here, which has delayed their arrival by a bit. However, once that's finished, they're being put on an airplane and brought to the US. In this instance, air freight was only a little more expensive than typical ocean freight (rarely the case), and much faster. I wanted to make sure these coins went out ASAP since they're done. The coins are already everywhere else, though, and ready to go!
This segment of orders is about a third of the total, which is huge! It'll feel good to have them in peoples' hands soon.
That means that I'll be charging cards on Friday via Backerkit for affected backers in this segment. This charge collects any remaining balances, including shipping costs. Please make sure your addresses and cards are correct! if you need me to update your address (because it's locked), please send me a message ASAP either through Kickstarter or email [email protected]. Thank you!
Everythingelse is in production and moving along. The GM screen had a couple adjustments made to it in the last stage (material adjustments to get the right in-hand feeling) that need to be approved first, but otherwise everything else is moving along. I have an email out to my various partners to get some updated ETAs for them. They all know that I'm eager to get things shipping out to you folks, so we're all working together to make it happen. :)
The time to get things shipped will come in waves, based on who made those relevant products. The coins were made by my well-known friends at Campaign Coins, and because that's the only product they made, those are all shipping/shipped out together.
However, other items are made by different manufactures. If one manufacture makes several products, shipping any one of those products will probably wait until all of those products are ready to ship. It's way more expensive/complicated to ship multiple small shipments than it is to ship one large one.
These are the remaining items made per manufacturer, from least to most:
Using this list, I'll be able to communicate how production is going on a per-manufacturer level, which should hopefully offer some more transparency and clarity for when and why things ship. It may make sense to have the cards (and maybe the journals) ship out ahead of the rest, though, depending on what production times are. I'll continue to keep you aware of progress and timelines, and what that means for your orders.
Thank you as always for your support and patience! I hope that this update has shed some light regarding timelines and shipping—I'm doing everything in my power to get you your rewards as quickly as possible! :)
Until next time, keep on adventuring!
-g
Shipping book-only orders SOON, PLUS the last of the prototypes (ready to rock!)
12 months ago
– Mon, May 15, 2023 at 11:25:21 AM
Hey everyone! Happy Monday!
Shipping!
As the title says, I'm happy to say that I'll be shipping out orders that only have the books in them very soon! Those will be going out as soon as they're ready (within the next few weeks), so please make sure that your address and card information is correct on Backerkit! Cards will be charged and addresses locked when your segment of backer (backers of the same order contents + region) is ready.
The last of the books are currently on the water being freighted to the USA and Canada. From there, several hundred more books will continue the journey across the Pacific to Australia, which will take a few more weeks. However, once we get those books accounted for in the American and UK/European warehouses, those will be shipping out. The UK warehouse already has half of theirs and is waiting on one more shipping container to arrive.
This ship-as-available method will continue as other products arrive in warehouses. If your order includes just a book and cards, for example, your order will go out as soon as your regional warehouse also has the books and cards available. Expect updates here to reflect what's coming to warehouses next!
This approach is more complicated for me, but makes sure that you get your rewards sooner and reduces warehousing costs. About a third of all backers got just the book, so this will satisfy a huge number of you in one fell swoop! Nice!
Other Final Prototypes
Everything is virtually perfect! The final adjustments are being made as part of the final production tests and don't need to be sent to me, so you can see the last of these products in the video below!
That's it from me for now, so be sure to make sure that your Backerkit address and payment methods are good to go! You'll be getting your orders as soon as they're available from your regional warehouses!
Keep on adventuring!
-g
Final dice prototypes and a Saddlebag student film!
about 1 year ago
– Fri, Apr 14, 2023 at 11:10:37 AM
Hey folks!
I just got the latest dice prototypes in, and they look great. These represent the inclusions, colors, and treatments of both the geleton and Bulette Takes the Liar dice sets. They're not using my specific molds, which, if you'll remember, needed to be repaired, but outside of some font differences, this is what you can expect in your rewards!
On the beanie side of things, we're waiting on a revision to the latest prototype, which was much too stiff. We've identified the issues leading to this and are confident we can get it sorted out in pretty short order. Thanks for your continued patience with it! I can't wait to get these made and shipped.
On another note, I wanted to take this moment to shout out and support this really, really cool student project.
It's always so exciting when I see how these magic items inspire other artists and creators out there. I'll most often be asked if it's okay for someone to practice their 3D modeling with the items (to which I always say yes!), but it was last year that I was reached out to by a film student. They'd already made a short film recreating their RPG adventures before, and wanted to ask if they could make another one featuring their time with the Saddlebag itself.
Obviously, I said yes. Further, I sent them one of the original leather bags to use in it.
Now, the film's already been shot, and they're looking for some extra funds to go the extra mile with its post-production polish. The project only needs a bit more funding to reach that goal, and I wanted to share it with all of you! I think, together, we'll be able to help them finalize this video project, and that's really exciting!
Okay, that's it from me for now! I'll be back soon with another update, I'm sure. Talk more soon! And until then, keep on adventuring!
-g
REMINDER: Orders are locked in 24 hours!
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Apr 06, 2023 at 09:20:02 AM
Hey folks!
Just wanted to remind you all that orders are being locked in just under 24 hours at noon (Eastern time) tomorrow. Make sure you've got what you want added to your order! You'll be able to change your address or payment method up until those are locked and charged later on—I'll be sure to give you advance warning for that milestone, too.
On the production side of things, the dice are looking great, and we're finally getting to the bottom of the beanie situation. Those should be ready to get moving soon, which will mean that everything will be ready to go into production soon.
There are also two ongoing Kickstarters I want to shoutout!
Dungeons Pop is a set of three popup maps in a lovely case that can be added to with other ready-to-use popup additions. These come ready right out of the box and are filled with wimsy and charm in three archetypical [read: often-used] classic locales—taverns, ruins, and towers! I'm really excited about these!
L'arsene's Ledger is the next Kickstarter campaign from Loot Tavern featuring over 300 of their upgradable, multi-rarity magic items. If you've enjoyed the content from this Kickstarter (or have also ordered their Heliana's Guide to Monster Hunting), be sure to check this one out, too! You may even see a special Saddlebag-themed item there, too!
That's all for now! Talk more soon, and keep on adventuring!
-g
Orders are being locked and pre-orders are closing on Friday, April 7th!
about 1 year ago
– Thu, Mar 23, 2023 at 07:07:02 AM
Hey everyone! I wanted to give everyone a final deadline for updating their orders and pre-orders!
Friday, April 7th, all orders will be locked, and the pre-order store will be closed for all physical goods.
You will still be able to change your address onBackerkit in the meantime! Addresses will be locked closer to shipping, at which time I'll also charge cards for any remaining balances. Like this update, you will receive advanced notice for when you can expect these milestones.
To change your address, log into Backerkit as a Backer using the same email address you used for Kickstarter (unless you've manually changed it on Backerkit already). To make it simpler, you can search your email inbox for the Backerkit Survey link that was sent to it. You can use the link there to log in and make any final adjustments you need to.
If you have any questions about your accounts or orders, please send me a direct message here on Kickstarter so we can be sure I'll see it and can verify any information with you securely.
