If someone had told me four weeks ago that a 5E magic system inspired by Doctor Strange was going to take up 40,000 words and a month of my life, I might have just thrown out those notes and not cared.

 

But that’s what happened. I had made the stealth-based magic system Veil for the upcoming Arcane Almanac after promising that it would just be a greatest hits book for all things 5E from Dias Ex Machina, but then I decided I wanted to make new original content for the book. After Veil, I thought, “Oooh, you know what would be awesome, a magic system based on guns,” so that led to the Trigger system, but halfway through, I realized the issue with the system—to cast spells, you had to stop shooting guns. So, I had to throw out about 15,000 words of spells and restart.

 

BUT, THEN I THOUGHT, “I can’t leave this to waste, so what if I created a monk-based spellcaster inspired by our favorite sorcerer. That shouldn’t take too looooooonnng.

 

Four weeks later, it’s still not done. 

 

I am almost finished. I should have the chapter wrapped up this week.

 

Why am I mentioning all of this?

 

Because when something this involving captures my attention, my heavily neurodivergent brain doesn’t want to break away to deal with the numerous questions people have been having.  

 

So, I have forced myself to write this update out to all my amazing backers.

 

The majority of you have received your games, but I imagine there are a lot of questions.

 

1. No, Studio 2 Publishing apparently is a little inconsistent with sending out tracking numbers. Many people never got them. Others were informed they were receiving 20-plus units only to receive the one box they were actually owed. As you can imagine, there is absolutely nothing I can do about that, as this is entirely the distribution’s responsibility. 

 

2. Separate Boxes. Yes, some products were missed on the initial shipment, meaning if you received one product out of four or three out of four, stand by—there is likely another one on the way. Interestingly, some people are receiving their “Correction” shipment before their initial one. I know smaller packages may arrive before larger ones, so that’s my only guess on that.

 

3. Canadian Shipments. You may be aware there is a strike going on. I don’t know who is handling Canadian shipping, but if you are still waiting, it may be because of that.

 

4. Different GM screens. Due once again to inconsistent numbers from the previous distribution, not enough UM5 GM screens showed up at Studio2 for UM5 backers. As we had extra Amethyst screens, Studio2 sent those instead to backers. These screens are identical outside of their illustration. Anyone taking issue with this swap, please message me and we can work out a solution. 

 

I am doing my best to fix everyone’s issues as they come in, so I apologize if there is a delay. I’m the only one on my end filtering these issues, so I am trying my best to get ahead of each of them. I apologize ahead of time for any problems that have popped up. So far, all the mistakes regarding distribution I have sourced to be my own. So, it’s all on me, and I will do my best to fix these few issues as they have emerged. 

 

THAT BEING SAID, compared to the NUMEROUS screw-ups from the previous distribution, like incorrect rewards being sent out, and my personal favorite, removing books out of their slipcase and sending the books without their slipcase, I think this campaign is below average in actual mistakes, LOL. 

 

While Studio2 has not given me an update on their percentage of completion, given they have been doing this for over a month, I have to assume they are either finished or nearing completion. 

 

I’ll still field your questions and get you answers as quickly as possible. Best thing to do is either PM me or email me at [email protected]. If you comment on Backerkit, I don't get it for like there days, which is kind of annoying. I apologize ahead of time if delays occur.

 

Thanks, everyone!

 

Chris