Hello you amazing people!

Last week I put out an update but without any real information, simply because I didn't have new info yet. I hate doing that but it had been too long since you'd all heard from me and I wanted to at least say hello.

Today I got an email from New Titan, who has been kindly sourcing all the elements of this project with local factories in China. We had a really hard time on the Alleyman's Tarot due to the state of the world, but I honestly can't imagine how impossible it would have been without their help. I trust them.

Everything but the dice are going smoothly. Boxes, cloth, books, cards, prints, etc. Unfortunately with the dice, the manufacturer we were working with started being really sketchy. They refused to follow the designs we'd sent them exactly, which is why the symbols on the dice were smaller than the original edition. They wouldn't sign a contract without including a large tolerance for sizes of the dice and symbols-- basically they didn't want to suffer our Quality Assurance with the dice, and if their dice were too big or too small from what they were supposed to be, or if the dice had tiny symbols, we wouldn't be able to hold them accountable for it. They also just generally wouldn't sign a reasonable contract, they would only go forward if there was no ability for us to ask for changes, etc.

New Titan already lined up a new manufacturer and a set of the dice done by them is already on the way to me as of yesterday. The dice are simply better quality with this new manufacturer.

Old manufacturer's first run of dice is on the left, new manufacturer is on the right. First thing to note is that all the colors are actually right this time, which is a pleasant change. The top left die in both sets is the Actions die-- they failed to use the right colors and as a result I couldn't read it. Now this was something they said they could change, but I hadn't seen fixed dice yet. The new manufacturer got it right the first time, which definitely makes me feel a bit better. Same on the bottom right die, which was supposed to be a deep blue with pink ink, and the first manufacturer delivered a muddy water brown die.

The other obvious thing is the symbol sizes. The first manufacturer refused to keep the symbols the same size they were the first time, shrinking everything. Smaller things I'm excited about is the fact that on the Goblin Die, the old manufacturer said that symbol that's showing, with the Goblin head under the moon with big round eyes-- they wanted to change that symbol to have eyes that were dots, rather than circles. There were a lot of small things they wanted to simplify. In some cases it was minor, in some it was major. The new manufacturer is working with the designs as we sent them, and it's just going to be a better product.

I'm also being told that the stone dice will be better quality, though I'm a little unclear on how or why, so I won't say that for sure. I'd imagine if we're using the same stones we will have the same quality-- the symbol size will be bigger again so that's nice, but otherwise nothing has changed with stone dice.

Generally it's the same with the stone dice, so no biggie there.

As of today, this is the situation with each item:
Reading cloths: Finished, received in their warehouse.
Coins: Finished, received in their warehouse.
Wood Box: COVID hit the wood box manufacturer we used in the past hard, but they should still have those all finished by Feb 15th, potentially sooner.
Cards: Could have been done already but since they were waiting on other pieces they set aside to complete by Feb 10th. You can see lots of the cards above, so they're already in production. Assuming art prints are tied into this category, but I'll ask.
Guidebook and Journal: Also by Feb 10th, though their binding department has had a labor shortage after the reopening, with 50% of their workers getting COVID and going back home right away.
Resin and Stone Dice: The manufacturer has pledged to sort the dice into sets for New Titan and get it out to them by Feb 25th.

For shipping, this means:
By the 2nd week of March, US orders will be pick+packed and on a ship heading over to the US. This will arrive late March, meaning shipping US orders would start in the first week of April. This is the tightest turn around, and while generally speaking the world is a bit better at getting things places now than it was a year ago today, I think it's fair to think we could have another COVID-related delay as China has been opening back up fully in spite of COVID that could place US shipments reaching people in mid April, or at the worst, late April.

By the 2nd week of March, Rest of World shipping would already be starting, as those would all come directly from China. All international packages will be in the mail by late March, but with travel times won't likely arrive until April, unless you live nearby.

So! We have put off setting and charging shipping for a while now due to the general delays. But since we'll want to lock orders in by mid February, I will likely be setting up shipping costs (and charging for it) in early February. We will be doing this so I can give everyone on the project time enough to get their stuff settled and paid before I send a list of stuff to pack to New Titan-- since they will be pre-packing US orders like they did on the Alleyman's Tarot BEFORE it leaves China, that way boxes arrive ready to drop into the mail.

I will put out an update when shipping is put up and let everyone know a couple days before I charge it, then let people know after it's done.

At the time when I go to charge shipping, I will be contacting the community copy recipients to get addresses from them for their free sets of dice, books, and reading cloths. Apologies for not reaching out on this sooner, just didn't seem necessary yet as we were still a bit from shipping. With it looming on the March/April horizon, I'll gather these in February.

I was lining up to launch the Alleyway Oracles in April, then as things seemed a little uncertain, I was thinking instead May. I'd like to do May, really I would, but something tells me with the state of the world it might be even smarter to do June and lock that in. I was comfortable having the current 3 projects overlap because they all used different fulfilment teams and manufacturers. However I will be using New Titan for the Alleyway Oracles, and I'd like them to have a month to ensure everything is out the door, and for them to get my print prototypes of the decks for that new project, before we launch. So Alleyway Oracles will wait until this is in people's hands.

We're coming to the end, and things will be moving through the air before we know it!
Thanks for all of your patience, excited to have the final sets in hand myself shortly,

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