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We want to begin with an apology for the long silence. Things have been incredibly volatile in the lives of many of our staff, especially that of our project manager who handles all the updates and team coordination.

Things started with multiple hospitalisations in 2024 due to lung issues that were finally determined to be a combination of: acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, lung parenchyma with mild interstitial chronic inflammation and organising pneumonia, with long term hypersensitivity pneumonitis and reactive airway disease. Atop that, a constant high white blood count led to being assigned an oncologist and given a possible leukaemia diagnosis pending a bone biopsy that the oncologist is currently delaying due to other health factors and surgeries happening.

They then endured violence from former housemates in the spring that resulted in a restraining order that said persons then broke to ensure the death of our staffer's senior kitties. For health and safety, our project manager had to move; and then was forced to undertake a second move under incredibly short notice a week prior to having full hip replacement surgery in October due to a breakdown of relationship dynamics. Then there was of course, said surgery, which they are still in recovery from - it takes about a year to return to full functionality but most of the critical healing takes place in the first four months. They are currently safe, but have another (unrelated) major surgery in February and have to move again in March or April when their current housing situation is changing.

On top of this, our layout person for a previous major project became gravely ill and bedridden since July (right after they had begun to work on Keepsakes) - unable to even sit upright due to pain. In August they were diagnosed - stage 4 Cholangiocarcinoma (bile duct cancer) - started in the liver and progressed into their spine. September was the start of chemo, but a bad reaction to the first dose landed them in the hospital, and ketoacidosis kept them there for weeks. October and November had them in rehab, and they were finally cleared to go home and resume chemo this month, though they are still not at a point where they can resume work in any manner. We have finally retained a new layout person in the interim, and they are working hard to get Keepsakes into a state where it can be released. 

The Paragon Tarot pins are fully designed and approved, and most have completed production. Our manus are retaining hold of them while we wait and weather through all these tariff changes imposed by the Trump administration on goods coming from China. We refuse to pass those cost increases on to you, but that in turn means waiting longer to ensure we can afford the cost changes. We expect costs to stabilise during quarter one of 2026, and will have our manus ship us the remaining pins at that time. We do have some designs in hand, and will be endeavouring to ship those out beginning January 2026 for those whose orders include only those designs.

We have other projects in the works and in various stages of completion, including other enamel pins, tarot cards, playing cards, and two ttrpg books that went through crowdfunding. The Paragon 5e supplement is nearly completed; we expect it to be ready for release in the first quarter of 2026. The related Paragon tarot deck now has completed major arcana art. Our merch mogul is hard at work on the minor arcana now, but that is a lot of cards so it will likely complete by quarter three of 2026. Troubleseekers ttrpg and accompanying card deck is well underway. The writing and editing is completed, we just await one more piece of interior art and the cover from our artist - who is still helping his children recover from a horrible accident that happened earlier this year - after which it will move to layout. The card deck is with our other artist, who has completed the card back and is working now on the design of the card faces.

And in the meantime, our game designers are participating in some game jams and working on other long term projects. You can find the game jams on itch.io, and new Mhar supplements and a Quickstart Mhar guide over on DTPRG. Our podcast team split apart, but have now retained a new partner and will continue and hopefully grow. Our live stream team is taking a break for the holidays, but we should have further one shots and limited campaigns resuming in 2026.

As a reminder, each of our projects are undertaken by different teams, so new projects have no impact on the progression of past ones. The bottlenecks on fulfilment are the result of delays at other levels, not the development teams.

Supporting our other projects helps support marginalised persons who work with us (neither project management nor upper management are paid, all funds go toward the people who work with us to make these games and accessories and operational costs). 

Hey, all!

Sorry for the delay in updates. Not a whole lot new to report, as the tariff situation is still very volatile, but we expect to have at least a few more of the designs in the mail to us before the end of summer.

After the last update, our project manager spent 3 weeks sick in bed while managing the project for the tarot deck itself (we were funding the remaining card art), followed by recovering just in time to spend a week out of town for Kublacon [which fell on their birthday as well! 45 years!] (and where we saw at least one of you lovely backers in person when you stopped by our table!). After returning home from that, they have had a series of medical appointment follow-ups with their specialists only to learn they need three surgeries this year! Deviated septum (ENT specialist was waiting for their lungs to recover enough to withstand surgery), optic nerve lesion/pit in the left eye (they'll share the imaging from the optometrist below; it's actually on both eye nerves but is currently only dramatically affecting the left eye), and surgery on their left hip (avascular necrosis of femoral head alongside arthritis).

They are home for now, but over the next few weeks will be getting all those surgeries scheduled, so we don't know exact timings on some things until those are on the calendar to plan around. Will try to update monthly as we move forward, as much as health allows us to remember, so don't be afraid to poke in the comments to ask for updates - the reminders are appreciated, given the state of ... well ... *waves hands around* everything.

Here's the eye scans from last week's appointment. left vs right, and last year vs this. You can see the layer separation happening, it's kind of crazy!

I know it's been a bit, but we had to delay some of the remakes due to personal issues happening at our project manager's home. If you backed Pintopia 2, you've already seen this update (sorry we're still catching up to all the places that need updates added!) but for those who didn't - our project manager who coordinates all of this and runs the campaigns and handles fulfilment has been dealing with both health concerns, and toxic housemates that assaulted them and both stole possessions and damaged property, and required both a restraining order and the local sheriff to remove the persons from their home when they overstayed past their eviction date.

This has finally been resolved, and their health is on the upswing of recovery for now (though their lungs remain sensitive and their cancer diagnosis is still pending, and a surgery is thus far delayed). So things should finally be getting back to normal with getting the products in.

Of course, there's also now the new tariff situation on the horizon. Enamel pins are not made in any meaningful way in most places outside of China, and the few that do are at 3x or more the cost. So making them elsewhere becomes unfeasible. We are committed to completing these, but know that the current state of tariffs mean that it may take us some extra time, as we refuse to pass those unexpected costs on to you folks.

We will send out soon the pins already in our possession - if you'd like us to hang on to them until we have your full order, we're happy to do so! And if you'll be at Midwest Game Fest in Kansas City, MO May 1-3rd or Kublacon in Burlingame, CA May 23-25, you can pick them up in person from us in the dealer's room and save yourself a few bucks of shipping. 

We are still waiting on some of the designs, as we had to get some remade. The glass effect can be tricky to get right! But we do appreciate your patience, and understand that it's coming up on a year in April. So what we're going to try to do is get the orders out starting next week for the pins that we do have on hand so far.