2nd Wave Preorders; 2nd Kickstarter Announcement
almost 2 years ago – Mon, Jan 16, 2023 at 10:58:15 AM

Hey Folks-

2nd Wave Preorders Available!

A lot of people have asked if there'd be another chance to get the physical books from the Kickstarter. Well, here is that chance! This is the remaining books I have left over, so once these are gone, we may or may not see more. Stock is per region (based on the warehouse). UK/EU/ROW books items are very limited. I may adjust stock slightly upwards over time as I need to reserve less copies.

PLEASE FOR THE LOVE ALL THAT IS SACRED ORDER THE CORRECT SKU FOR YOUR REGION.

You can order them through Backerkit HERE!

Books will ship generally within a week from being ordered, but bear with me - this is not a fancy storefront, and a mostly manual process on my side after getting the preorder. For a variety of reasons I have not opted to set up a more permeant storefront at this time (see the OGL apocalypse; I will be putting a longer post on my future plans as a 3rd party content creator in a public post over on my patreon later this week).

I do not currently want to move away from 5e, and am exploring the options of what I will do, but I will talk about that in much more depth later this week. Stay tuned.

One thing I can talk about though...

2nd Kickstarter?

The 2nd Kickstarter is coming; you can follow that here! It is planned to go live at the end of the month!

Obviously my plans are in flux and changing due to the current events, but if at all possible, I want to get you folks the rest of my classes into print ASAP, under the OGL 1.0a where you can buy it and own it forever - something that can be part of 5e as long as you want to play it, or there for your whenever you come back to it in the future.

I'll be blunt, this is not the Kickstarter I expected to launch this year; it will not contain the card based battle system (something that can viably done outside of the OGL 1.0a if necessary), but will have all the work I have done that could be considered OGL dependent: 4 classes (Warlord, Warden, Spellblade, and Occultist), dozens of subclasses, active martial feats and dozes of other feats, and hundreds of spells all into a more polished and permeant form.

We have entered an age of uncertainty with 3rd party content; pending future announcements, I may have to delay or cancel, but if it goes live, it's because I'll be fairly confident that I can get it done and out - it's a much streamlined book (mostly of already complete content) for that very reason (somewhat shorter than the first one, but with even more character options, clocking in at 200-250 pages without the crafting system).

It'll be a year, folks, but I think we can find our way through it regardless of what a certain Crazed Cabal of Coastal Casters does with licensing rituals.

All the best,

-Kibbles

US/CA Books Shipping! December/January Update
almost 2 years ago – Tue, Jan 03, 2023 at 07:21:40 PM

Hey Folks-

This is going to be a short update, and many of you had the news by the time I did, but US/CA books are at the warehouse, and have started to ship out.

This is the last region to fulfill, but there's still some outstanding books in other regions, so I'll go through the breakdown:

•  US/CA: Shipping now. Expect books to arrive in the next week or two. If you haven't gotten your notification don't panic quite yet, it'll take them probably a week or two to ship all of them out (though they seem to be making good progress!)
   
•  EU/UK: All books of round 1 were shipped, but books where there was an issue with delivery will go out in round 2 in the next week or so; sorry these have been delayed with the holidays (this includes damaged books, books with regions that couldn't be delivered to that have given a new shipping address, etc).
   
•  AU/NZ: As far as I know, all books have been shipped in this region. If you don't have your book, please reach out and I'll see what I can do.
   
•  RoW (Rest of World): These have shipped from the UK, but shipping times can vary drastically. I don't have much insight beyond that shipped (I know that part because I got charged for it); I think in many cases they should be there, but some may take longer.
   

I'm really sorry this has taken so long, especially for the US/CA orders that are just now shipping. Some factors I'll work to do better with next time, and some factors were simply bad luck and out of my control (very slow shipping/port processing, production delays, etc). But more than that I'm excited that folks will finally get their books.

I also have one last thing to share, which is an alpha version (but still fairly useful) of the Crafting Site I've mentioned before 5eCrafting.com; one of the stretch goals of the Kickstarter. Right now all that's really there is a lookup table for all the item recipes, but that's already quite useful I find, and there's more coming for it, so stay tuned.

Speaking of staying tuned and the future, as fulfillment of this Kickstarter wraps up I will have more to share on the next Kickstarter. After all it's (unfortunately) been 2 years since the last, and I've made a lot of new content in the meantime that can fill another book, with exciting new classes like Warden, Spellblade, Occultist, and Warlord, each sprawling new options in their own right. But I'll save my excitement for that project for later, as for now it's the hour of getting this one into folks hands.

For those that missed the chance of getting a physical book in the Kickstarter or Preorder, there will be a window after shipping completes I will reopen orders to sell the remaining stock, but I need to make sure I've covered lost/damaged/etc orders before that, so it'll be after shipping completes.

All the best,

-Kibbles

November Update - Shipping Status by Region
about 2 years ago – Sat, Dec 03, 2022 at 04:46:48 AM

Hi Folks-

It'll be a short update as I'm just getting back and catching up on things from a bit of travel, but here's where things are at:

Regions

•  AU/NZ: Books have been arriving in folks hands. I think shipping is mostly complete for this region, but NZ may still be shipping.
•  UK/EU: Books are arriving in folks hands. So far it seems like most of UK and much of EU have gotten their orders - there's no need to panic just yet if you haven't, but it seems like many folks have gotten theirs.
•  US/CA: Unfortunately the bulk of our orders are here, and I don't have any good news. I haven't heard from the warehouse yet, and it seems like the books have been stuck in port for a full month. I prodded a bit to see if I could get more updates from the shipping folks, but haven't heard anything, so I'll prod them again, but not sure they have more info themselves - freight ports are mysterious black boxes where goods go in and eventually might decide to come out of best I can tell. I can only hope that they'll get moving again soon, but unfortunately don't have any insight into why they haven't moved for most of a month now.

Issues

So far outside of the US/CA books not going anywhere fast, there haven't been any real issues reported, outside of one or two copies damaged in transit. If your copy was damaged in transit, I'm happy to replace it, just reach out and let me know.

We'll give the regions currently shipping a bit more time, but if you haven't gotten your book in a week or two in the EU/UK/AU/NZ regions reach out and I'll see what I can do as far as tracking it down. Some orders will take a bit longer, for folks that have had to reroute or change shipping, but we are in the process of sorting those out.

Wrap Up

I wish I had better news for the US/CA books - I thought those would be shipping out weeks ago at this point, but there's ultimately relatively little I can do at the moment besides give it a prod and see if there's an update. I'm not sure what the delay is, beyond that I hear this happens sometimes (though we are getting to the longer than expected delays here even as delays go).

I'm happy to hear that everyone that's gotten their books so far seems quite happy with them. I was super happy with the book when I saw the first print copies.

As always, I'll post any updates I get in the meantime in the Discord, or may do an early update if it seems like US/CA books will finally start shipping.

All the best,

-Kibbles

October Update - Soon? I think Soon
about 2 years ago – Wed, Nov 02, 2022 at 09:04:30 PM

Hey Folks-

EU/UK/AU/New Zealand Status

So I have confirmation the books are at EU/UK/AU warehouses and should be shipping out imminently. To be honest, I thought they'd be shipping by now but asking on my Discord, folks have not yet gotten any shipping notifications yet, but I guess inventory and processing at taking longer than expected. I can say that I hit the Big Red Button That Cost A Lot Of Money on my side approving the order and issuing payment about a week ago now.

Issues

• There are some issues with orders from Norway and Switzerland through the VAT system ShipQuest uses (due to how they work with UK/EU rules - not my area of expertise). I believe those are resolved, but those orders may be charged a VAT/import on the book. Technically those are outside of region friendly shipping, but as folks there may have expected to be included (I don't know the usual expectation on that) if you did think that, reach out to me and I can arrange refunding the VAT amount (if you get charged, not entirely sure the details there).
• Unfortunately, orders in Russia and Ukraine cannot be shipped at the moment for obvious reasons. If you have an order in those regions, it'll be on hold for the time being.
  

I believe those were the only issues, so hopefully books are arriving soon. All the buttons are pressed and checks are signed on my side (though I believe they still need to bill me for VAT fees, which I expect to be... a large sum of money).

ROW (Rest of World): The books outside of US/CAEU/UK/AU/New Zealand regions will be shipping out of the UK, and should ship at the same time as those books, but should be expected to take longer to arrive.

NA/CA Status

NA/CA orders are still going to be a few weeks off. I believe the books are going through ports/customs at the moment, and should be through soon, but nothing about the Ship->Port->Warehouse steps are quick or transparent, and I have no control and honestly not that much insight into it, so you're getting what I know, and that's not as much as I'd hope. I am pretty sure that it'll be within weeks, but there's a good chance I've said that before.

Signed Books

Here is a bit of bad news: there will be no directly signed books. I mentioned this would probably be the case a few times previously, but the logistics of this just turned out to be basically impossible without large delays, particularly with US books coming so much later than the rest of them, and me not wanting to delay hold things up for this.

Here's what I'll do: if you really want your KibblesTasty signature and we're at the tier for, I'll open up requests for that once shipping is complete and mail you a sticker in a letter (at my expense, obviously). This is not a good solution and I'm aware that's not ideal or what was originally promised, but there's just nothing else practical to do there. Originally I thought I would be shipping out the books, so it would be easy. Then I thought all books would be shipping through the US, so it wouldn't be that hard, but between international distribution and the US warehouse changing to the other side of the country from me, there's just not a practical solution.

I'll let folks know through a future update where to request a signed sticker so I can organize those later.

Soon

I don't really have anything else to add here beyond that as far as I know everything should be basically imminent for EU/UK/AU/New Zealand (particularly UK and AU orders should be going out basically any day now or already out), and that as far as I know the US/CA orders are on schedule and should be in the next few weeks, but I realize that's not that different than the update I gave last month, and that was a month ago, so... here we are.

As of a week ago (the last I heard from them) there were no major issues and I signed off on the final shipping prices and the like (that I'd pay, you folks were locked in a long time ago, lucky blokes), and hit the go button, but guessing inventory and packing have taken longer than expected.

All the best, and I hope to hear folks are getting their books soon,

-Kibbles

September Update - Kibbles where's my book?!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Oct 01, 2022 at 12:35:38 PM

Hey Folks-

This will be a short update as it has a lot of the same info as last month, but with a "more" tacked onto the "soon"... "more soon".

Things have all taken a little longer to get from boats to warehouses than expected, but trickling through:

• Australia/New Zealand (Fulfilment by Aetherworks/ShipQuest): I have been told these are at the warehouse. I have turned over the finally shipping addresses to the fulfilment folks, so these could start shipping at any time. I would hope they will ship out in the timeframe of next week, but I'd say 1-2 weeks, and from there, I have no idea on shipping speeds in Australia, but I imagine some folks should get it in not too long.
• UK/EU (Fulfilled by GamesQuest/ShipQuest): The boat has arrived here. I don't have confirmation the books are at the warehouse yet, but I just got charged import dues for the freight shipment yesterday, which I believe means its at least unloaded. I've been told a few days ago it was due at the warehouse next week, so I would guess it will start shipping the week after that. I've turned over the final list of addresses to shipping folks, and so it's just a process of when they get it in, and the turn around speed/bandwidth.
• US/CA (Fulfilled by Nord Games): Unfortunately this boat here is taking its sweet time. I've been forwarded a schedule that says it will unload from the ship on October 10th. From there, I'm not sure how long it'll take to get to the warehouse. I would expect it to ship out by the end of this month, but I cannot make any promises there. I'm locking down the final US addresses today and sending them over to the shipping folks.

With this, all preorders for physical goods will be closed until fulfilment is complete (you can still order digital goods). I have a few interested retailers in some of the remaining stock, and if there's anything left after that, I will open some form of direct sales for the remain stock through Backerkit or Nord Games probably (not sure how that'll work yet, not sure how much left over there will be).

I've been told there's a few locations I will be unable to ship to, but at a quick glance I don't see any orders from the locations I was given. If for some reason that's the case, we'll talk about any alternate shipping option, or I will obviously offer a refund if that cannot be worked out (though I don't think there's any cases of that yet).

If the shipping folks need clarification on your address, I will be reaching out to you, but currently am asking them to generate a list of addresses they are having issues with and those we might be able to resolve without reaching out if the problem is obvious.

Sorry this has taken so long. It's been an ordeal, folks. Lot of here that I've learned and will improve the next time around, and a lot here that just was unfortunate timing - Many folks along the way have told me I picked pretty close to the worst time to decide to print and ship a book. Fortunately I expect everything to arrive before we run into trouble with holiday shipping.

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to me, or join the Discord. I'm generally around to answer any questions or trouble shoot any issues. If for some reason you've reached out and not heard back, please give me another poke - while I try to get back to everyone, sometimes I lose things in the shuffle.

All the best,

-KibblesTasty