Backers!

A quick update for you.

I've just hit the button to digitally distribute The Dose Makes The Poison V1.0 pdf and associated digital assets bundle, so this should be propagating now.

If this Backerkit email doesn't come through to you today at some point (distribution can take a bit of time), it likely means there's been a problem when charging your card for shipping last week, so check your spam folder for that email from Backerkit.

There's currently about 100 of you with shipping and add ons payment outstanding, so have a look for that email or I won't be able to ship the zine out to you!

In other unrelated to Mothership Month news (but with the same initials), Norgad has got a bundle of modules as part of Mausritter Month, check it here and follow along. I've seen some bits of Hot Property and it's worth grabbing for the artwork/design alone!

Cheers!
Andrew

Don't look now, but it's another July update! As the saying goes here in Scotland: holy fuck!

Test prints have been reviewed. The full order for the zines, posters (more of an art print, really), and bookmarks was placed and landed in my office a couple of days ago - and all is looking pretty swish so far:

Apart from the boxes everywhere:

Charging cards

As a result, you should have received an email from Backerkit yesterday saying we're going to charge cards soon (probably tonight, the 31st), with the tally for shipping, plus any add ons you've added on.

Shipping

Shipping costs are in line with those quoted for the campaign, apart from EU folks.

EU shipping is going to be handled by Peregrine Coast and will include all the pre-paid VAT nonsense that would never have been an issue if the UK was still in the EU. I’ve heard horror stories of customers getting hit with €20 fees plus VAT before they get their product to just leave this to chance: so while your shipping will be higher than originally quoted, hopefully it will sail through customs and into your hands hassle-free.

For the rest of the world, the product should hopefully come under the de minimis threshold for charging goods etc.

Dispatch

I’ll be dispatching in batches by Royal Mail Economy: while it might take a little longer to arrive, it’s the cheapest option. This will be untracked, but I’ve been assured it’s very reliable!

Since we have the zine, patch, and bookmarks in stock (sticker and pamphlet still to come), we should be able to ship very soon, these account for a big chunk of the orders. Shipping out in stages also means I won't overwhelm my local depot here in Inverness, I need to keep those folks on my side. 

That’s it for now!

Cheers,
Andrew

Guess who's back? Here's your proper update for The Dose Makes The Poison, and it's a BEAST.

Firstly, apologies for the multiple emails from me last night and today, I made a bit of a digital fulfilment error on Backerkit that should all be sorted now.

Headlines/TLDR

More info on all this below.

First a quick shout out. Over the past month or so Chris Airiau has been helping me with final proofreading (the number of errors and typos found should give you confidence that this is a No AI zine). Chris has just announced a new Mothership module, funding in (I think) September and you are duty bound to follow this here, it sounds great:

"Twisting Unseen is a 36pg Mothership RPG adventure inspired by BLAME!, Pandorum, Half-Life, and yokai folklore… the players Build the Superstructure with Map Tiles of Twisted Substrata illustrated by Ripley Matthews, against a Voidcrawl-inspired 1d100 event table of Relics, Omens, Factions, Hazards, and Incursors."

Follow Twisting Unseen here.

On with The Update

Last night you should've received the pre-full-production pdf of The Dose Makes The Poison, and some of you should also have received the digital assets bundle to accompany the zine. This morning the rest of you (that took anything above the zine-only tier) should have received the asset bundle download in a second email. Sending these individually was an error on my part but hopefully all sorted now. Live, laugh, learn, as it used to say above the door of solitary confinement, back in my prison days.

If you spot any typos between now and when I send to print, feel free to add them to the google doc in the below Backers Only section.

I'm really delighted with how everything has turned out. Norgad has done a superb job with layout and artwork in a style that feels fresh and doesn't sacrifice usability.

I've enjoyed getting the audio and video assets together for this, too. Hopefully they'll help sell the setting and add to the immersion for your players. Big shout out to squinch from the Mothership Discord, who's done a great voice acting job on a couple of the audio assets and has been a total breeze to work with, highly recommend!

The full ad for Hope's Serum cracks me up:

https://youtu.be/drFVxmLogh8?si=Qans3kJzNz33HXLG

I got some decent use of my tape multitrack too:

I'm expecting test copies of all of the above coming early next week from my main printer, Mixam UK. Which is pretty darn exciting! Pamphlet and stickers are coming from a different printer, soon, and patches have actually been here since March but I forgot to mention that previously.

And while we're here's below is the 'waiting room' poster, which should be giclee print on 300msg archival uncoated stock, unless the test print comes back looking shite or something:

Exactly what it says on the tin 👆

I'm waiting to get the test prints to confirm the weight of the zine, but I'm optimistic that I'll be able to stick to my quoted shipping fees from the original campaign (see below) with the possible exception of the EU which think will have to be a bit higher, sorry. 

I'll be shipping Royal Mail economy and won't be including any possible customs charges you might incur at your end, but these low cost items should fly under the de minimis threshold for most countries. 

I'm currently trying to work out how you post 700-odd packages that won't get me blacklisted by all the Inverness posties.

Those proposed shipping estimates from November:

UK: £4.5

EU: £6.50

USA: £8.50

ROW: £10

I'll be aiming to collect shipping and any outstanding additional add ons paid for, and pre-orders. I'll give you notice so it's not a surprise!

The eagle eyed of you might have noticed that I've already locked addresses. I did this by accident at the same time as locking orders, just because. If any of you need to change address details just drop me an email and I'll update it manually, I've done this for a few of you already.


If you've read this far I just want to say thanks again for giving me the opportunity to produce this zine for you. It's been a massive learning curve for sure, but I wouldn't have it any other way, and I really hope you enjoy the finished product. I'm already looking forward to the next one - I've even restructured my working week to have a full day each week to work on RPG stuff, which is pretty cool.

I'll be back in touch again soon, till then, don't go changin'.

Andrew

To finish, a pic of Angus looking pissed off at me for spending too much time on my laptop:

Hello there, Backeroo Banzai!

Just a quick note to say that the V0.14 pdf of The Dose Makes The Poison PDF should be in all of your inboxes now!

This is the version that I sent away for a test printing this morning.

If you spot any typos, please fire them into the Google sheet in the Backer Only section below.

I've also attempted to distribute the digital assets bundle (Audio files etc) to backers but there seem to be a glitch with this - it looks like it's only gone out to 126 of you so far and I can't seem to increase that number no matter what I try, so I'm going to ping Backerkit a message to see what I need to do to fix that. So hang tight on that, you'll likely get another audio file update from me tomorrow if you backed at the £8 tier or above.

I'll be back in touch soon!

Cheers,
Andrew