We're very close to being done with fulfillment! A truck is coming this morning to pick up 13 pallets of international orders (one for each house ... plus a secret Diedne pallet lurking among them!). That's 1,800 packages and a total of 13,894 "mythic" pounds.
About two dozen Founders/Durenmar orders to the US are also going out today and tomorrow, and retailer orders have been shipping as we hear back from those backers. Over 98% of physical backer rewards will be out the door by the end of today!
It's been a crazy few weeks, though. We even had our teenage kids assembling dice and pulling together the FORTY sourcebooks for the huge Library of Durenmar orders, despite their natural tendency to want to sit around doing nothing during summer break. ;P
If you haven't received yours yet, don't worry, it's coming VERY soon! UNLESS you're one of those folks who still need to respond to our e-mails about address corrections or tax ID numbers? Or maybe you haven't filled in your survey, or your shipping charge had a problem? Please check your email!
We're also beginning to see damage reports coming in, which are pretty low for a project this size. We put a lot of thought into packing orders, so there's a word (or several) about that below …
DAMAGES VS OVER-PACKING
For a premium item like the Definitive Edition Set, each damage can be expensive. In packing the orders, I tried to get the right balance between cost, environmental impact, and shipping efficiency. Because, you know, the cost of bubble wrap for EVERYTHING would have been huge, and the time cost would have been enormous too, as well as being a LOT of disposable plastic. And there still will be damages and lost packages. So we chose not to go that route.
The preparation that let us pull off such a huge launch of immediate shipping was having the Definitive sets pre-packaged at the factory in individual double-walled cardboard boxes. That meant we could slap labels directly on when they arrived at our warehouse (after opening the master cartons that each protected four individually boxed Definitive sets for the sea voyage). If we'd had to repackage each book, we would have barely started fulfillment by this point in time.
Double-walled cardboard with the extra cardboard sheets inserted on each end should be good -- but if someone drops a box on its corner from six feet up, it's gonna dent. And it would if we had an outer box and/or a layer of bubble wrap, honestly. I can tell because I've seen damage reports from boxes sent with that extra packaging.
I suppose we could have custom-extruded styrofoam inserts like you see with televisions and computers. But those still don't protect against some of the piercing damage I've seen in at least one damage report. And of course they would cost a bunch to make, increase shipping costs (which are based on dimensions as well as size), be an environmental horror, and would no doubt run all afoul of new or pending packaging regulations in California, the EU, etc.
The sad truth is that it's a tradeoff between increasing packaging cost and just being prepared to eat the cost of replacements when necessary, with diminishing returns on the packaging investment -- you could easily spend more on packaging material and labor than we paid per copy for manufacturing Definitive, after all.
It turns out that sometimes it's both less costly and more environmentally friendly to replace the damaged books than to over-pack them in a futile attempt to avoid any possible damage. Thanks for understanding!
I should note, we're replacing damages as promptly as possible, and keeping track of how many are damaged and in what ways (including lost packages and manufacturing defects). In at least some cases, shipping insurance will cover the replacement costs. I intend to gather and analyze the data to inform future projects, and see how well our packaging choices ultimately did in balancing cost and benefit on this one.
-John Nephew Atlas Games Co-Owner
NEW OPEN LICENSE RELEASES
Hand Signs for Techniques & Forms: By request, the ArM3 Technique & Form hand signs from p171 are newly designated as open license. Those images are in the sidebar on the Ars Magica Open License page.
Then, check out this new fan content for Ars Magica Open License …
Kickstarter LIVE for The Shining Dragon: Launching Sept 1 is Jason P. Crawford's first novel in a series of seven, following the life of Roland of Flambeau. Here we see him as a young boy, first inducted into the magical society of the Order of Hermes, and watch him grow into a capable magus in his own right. A classic fantasy with intrigue, combat, magic, and dragons.
Le guide de Luxovia: Moines, curistes, lutins et vouivres, nombreux sont les habitants de la vallée de Luxeuil-lès-Bains... Découvrez ce supplément de contexte riche en histoire et en trésors, pour le jeu de rôle Ars Magica V5 (Edition définitive). Amazon Canada & Amazon France
Covenantum on Steam: The pre-launch page is live for this seasonal covenant-management RPG on STEAM, inspired by Ars Magica, where you guide a growing magical covenant through decades of political intrigue, supernatural events, magical research, and strategic seasonal planning in Mythic Europe. Planned release is early 2027.
Ars Magica 5th Edition Character Generator: Norbert Langermann published an Ars Magica character generator on Github. It's a native desktop application for building Ars Magica 5th Edition characters — grogs, companions, mythic companions, and magi — as well as covenants, with everything running locally.
A Game of Grogs - Medieval Sports for Ars Magica: This a compilation of rules and mechanics to play medieval sports within the Ars magica frame It isn't an adventure but a mix of rules, examples and story seeds. So whether you are still cruising on world cup fever or not, the grogs and companions have an opportunity to take to the field.
The Magical Renaissance – Conversion Guide for Ars Magica: The year is 1500. The Middle Ages are ending – but magic is not. This 144-page sourcebook contains everything you need to bring the settings, characters, creatures, and mysteries of The Straight Way Lost and Serenissima Obscura into your Ars Magica saga – and carry Mythic Europe into the dangerous brilliance of the Renaissance.
