Hello friends!

A quick update today, but packed with information. Please read all the way to the bottom so that you get all the info you need!

The whole game industry (and a lot of others) are talking about it, so we wanted to address the elephant sized T word in the room - Tariffs.

As of right now a 145% tariff has been levied on the entire board game industry. Obviously this is crippling, not just to us but to all of our fellow creators and friends working in a career which is already never guaranteed and very expensive. Most of us who work in games tend to do so out of love and passion, and so it's absolutely heartbreaking to see and hear so many of our friends and colleagues doing the math and coming to the sobering realization that their businesses may not survive the coming years due to a pointless, counter-productive, and fully self inflicted set of poorly though out policy decisions. 

What this means in real terms is that if a game normally costs $10 to make, it now costs fully $24.50 to produce and get to the USA. It's also worth noting that nowhere in North America is capable of producing board games or ttrpgs in any sort of cost effective way, and many of the resources required to do so simply can't be found here. 

Here's the good news for everyone who backed our campaign: We're going to figure this out. When you supported us, and when we launched this campaign, none of us could have possibly seen this catastrophe coming. That's not our fault, but it's REALLY not your fault either. We're going to work out how to make this work for everyone, ideally without delaying too far, or bankrupting ourselves. 

Ok, the bad stuff is out of the way, now the fun stuff! 

In order to get surveys out to everyone so that you can select your rewards, and we can start working with the folks who are designing their own NPCs to appear in the Familiar Tales module, we need to do something called a Smoke Test. During a smoke test, around 5 percent of backers will receive their survey first. Assuming we don't find any problems with the survey, we'll be releasing the survey to everyone else shortly after that! 

The survey is a great place to add-on anything extra you'd like! The most exciting thing, we think, is the Wilds of Willowmere module! We didn't quite reach it as a stretch goal during the campaign, so it won't be bundled BUT we're offering it as an add on at HALF the price it'll be retail. This is the only time it'll ever be offered at this price, so grab it while you can! Speaking of the Wilds...

So we said that the Wilds of Willowmere module, taking place off the edges of the known map, would be written by some awesome guest writers, and we're very excited to say we've gotten all four of them on board, and we have our first meeting next week! Over the course of the next updates we'll be announcing who they are with appropriate fanfare and celebration, but for now we just want to build some anticipation xD

If you happened to miss the Familiar Tales campaign, NOT TO WORRY! We have our pre-order store open HERE where you can get anything you'd like! Please check it out, signed limited edition copies of the book are still available :D

As always, thank you so much for your support. We can't create and build worlds without you, and we appreciate you so so much. 

With love and gratitude, 

Michael and Morgan

Thank you all so much for your help in bringing Familiar Tales to life! We're so blown away by the support YOU offered to make this a reality, and we're so SO excited to be creating for you :D

The campaign has come to an end and we are going to be moving into the pure creative phase of finishing off the last of the writing, getting the art done, and then into layout.

Our final stretch goal at $12,000 was to unlock a final full module for Familiar Tales: The Wilds of Willowmere, where your party of brave little adventurers could step off the edges of the map to explore lands unknown! Beetle-riding hares, magical sprites, and the heart of Glimmer (magic) itself reside in the Wilds, and we were veyr ready to explore the unknown with you! Unfortunately we didn't quite hit the target, settling out about $1,255 below what we needed to make it happen.

We want it anyway. We're jazzed to work with some really awesome writers and artists, so here's what we're going to do! The Wilds of Willowmere is still a locked stretch goal, which means it can't be included in everyone's pledges, but we'll be adding it to the pledge manager as an optional add on that you can purchase at a MUCH lower price than it will cost later on. We expect The Wilds of Willowmere to retail at $45, so we'll be offering it in the pledge manager for $25. If you'd like the opportunity to experience even more of Willowmere and to explore the colourful and eclectic weirdness therein, please consider adding this add-on to your rewards in the pledge manager!

From this point we'll be kicking into production! The way BackerKit works is that it takes a couple of weeks for them to process pledges and deposit funds. You'll want to make sure your payment information is up to date so that there's no delay in processing your pledge! 

Once your pledge charge has cleared and BackerKit has transferred funds, we'll be releasing the surveys so that you can let us know exactly which rewards you want! You'll have a few months to complete this survey, and we'll keep it open so you can make adjustments and add things on. Once we're a little closer to fulfilment we'll close the survey. One important thing to note! Shipping will be charged a little bit closer to fulfilment as well. We want to make sure those charges are accurate, especially with all the tariff and border stuff going on right now, so we won't be hitting that button until we're ready to ship :)

I know I keep saying it, but I can't help but feel such incredible, intense gratitude for each and every one of you. Thank you so much for helping us bring this to life. It's a true gift to be able to create for you, and we look forward to introducing you to Familiar Tales. 

See you in Willowmere <3

Michael and Morgan

Hello friends! 

First off thank you so much for your support over this campaign! We're blown away by the love we've seen launching our very first TTRPG. It means so much to both Morgan and I (Michael) that you want to play in our world.

We're at the 1 hour mark, and I'm so excited about what we've managed to unlock so far :D At this stage everyone at the Greenfen Tier and above is getting access to whatever is in their pledge PLUS: 

A full audio ambiance pack
A full downloadable music album
10 custom character sheets
and
4 BRAND NEW module arcs for Familiar Tales!

We're so close to unlocking the final stretch goal which is a brand new full length story for Familiar Tales - The Wilds of Willowmere!

This module will be written by a group of incredible guest writers, with art by some of our favourite artists. We're less than $1500 away with an hour to go, so we're hoping to ask for your support in getting us over that final finish line!

If you like what you see, please consider maybe adding a set of dice, or a map to your pledge! If you've got a friend who might like the world of Willowmere we've created, show them the page! 

One hour to go, let's rally!

<3

Michael and Morgan