TL;DR: Everything is moving. For the UK & EU it’s almost moving towards you directly. Fulfilment will begin in early May.
You know those old slidy tile puzzles you did...
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Elaine Lithgow
26 days ago
Books books books! March Update
Greetings Delvers!
Just a short update today to let you know that the books are printed! It's all happening! So I'm get to show off some pretty pictures to share some of the...
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Elaine Lithgow
2 months ago
Locking Orders This Thursday and Shipping Update
Greetings delvers!
Just a quick update today to remind folk that we will be locking orders this Thursday 26th! So make sure you're happy with your pledge levels and add-ons b...
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Elaine Lithgow
2 months ago
Warm Up The Printers!
We’re back! It’s a new year and I’ve got a bucket load of exciting updates for all you sickos waiting to get your hands on Ways and Means. Let’s dive right in!
Orders Lock on...
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Elaine Lithgow
4 months ago
December Update: Preview PDF Now Available!
Do you hear that? The jingling bells and cavorting laughter? That’s a portentous omen! The holiday herald is fast approaching! We better be quick and squeeze out one last pro...
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Elaine Lithgow
5 months ago
Snail Pilgrims and Special Editions
Greetings delvers!
Oh how time flies. As the winter months creep across the land and the sunlight outside our windows is replaced by perpetual gloom, work continues apace on...
TL;DR: Everything is moving. For the UK & EU it’s almost moving towards you directly. Fulfilment will begin in early May.
What kind of psychopath makes an evil toy like this for children?
You know those old slidy tile puzzles you did when you were a kid? Or the Wolf, Chicken, Grain boat riddle? Have you considered doing them for a job? But also parts of the river may be on fire, the chicken and wolf have closed the airspace around the far bank, and the slide puzzles occasionally have tariffs added or removed…
All this to say, that the moving of things around the globe for this project is well underway, and we’re approaching some seriously good news for all Backers in the foreseeable (and predictable) future.
Last week the Ways & Means books and new edition of Heart arrived in both our UK & EU warehouses from the manufacturer. They sailed through any legal processing, and as we’re sending this out, the warehouse teams have begun the process of picking & packing our freight deliveries for the USA and Australian warehouses.
The final timelines for the USA and Australian freight movements are both still in negotiations, with boats and airplanes operating in the challenging environment we call ‘the world’. But we’re working with trusted partners, and are confident with the timetables we have for goods to arrive. We are requesting that no Delving Machines are used, due to their habit of screwing with time, but we have been warned that we may be forced to use the most eldrich horror of all: Amtrak.
We’ve got our sights set on shipping all the final items out of warehouses before the end of this week, with eyes on fulfilment beginning in the USA and Australia/Pacific around the end of May/early June.
We’re waiting on the final delivery of Delve Decks to make their way to our UK warehouse from China. USA & Australian copies have already arrived, but we’re expecting this final piece of the puzzle will be completed before the end of the month. At which point we will have all the items required to fulfil our UK backers.
There will be one final movement from the UK to the EU of the Delve Decks, a quick hop over ‘het Kanaal’ to the Netherlands and that will allow us to begin EU and Middle East deliveries as well.
Here’s the current timeline by location:
UK
The first UK packages will go out at the end of April, starting with orders that don’t contain the Delve Deck and working up to the largest packages over the following weeks. We will post another Update shortly before addresses are locked for this area, this will also be accompanied by an email from BackerKit about Locking Addresses. Look out for that email, or update your address NOW!
It will take a few weeks to fill all these orders. You’ll get a tracking code and we will also update your order in Backerkit so you know when it’s shipped. We’ll also update you again when fulfilment is done.
EU/Middle East
The first EU packages will go out in early May, again starting with orders that don’t contain the Delve Deck and working up to the larger and more complex orders over the following weeks, once the decks have arrived at the warehouse.
Once EU orders have been processed, the warehouse will move on to Backers from EEA and Middle East countries. This requires export paperwork, and requires a little more time to set up and put through with the correct customs paperwork.
Further details about the exact timeline for both of these will be in our next Backer Update.
America, Canada, South Americas
Things are coming together nicely. The freight shipments to our US warehouse partners have been packed in the UK & EU. We’re booking passage by boat and air for these items at present. It usually takes about 30-35 days to get things by boat to the USA. But unexpected bugs (literal) discovered when the boat arrives in the US port or train gremlins (metaphorical) slowing movement on the tracks can add a few extra days.
Once we know we’ve cleared USA border controls, we’ll have a clearer sense of the timeline, and we can begin to lock addresses and get your fulfilment started. Currently we’re expecting that information to come our way around the middle of May, with fulfilment beginning after that.
Australia/NZ/Asia-Pacific
Pallets are packed for shipment to our Australian fulfilment centre – they'll be handling everything Asia-Pacific-related through the AusPost system. These will go onto an airplane in the next week or so and, customs willing, will be at the fulfilment centre in about 3 weeks time (mid May).
Once we know we’ve cleared Australian border controls and it’s all been inspected for illegal fruit and bugs (in this case, the absence of them), we’ll lock addresses and get your fulfilment started. Currently we’re expecting that information to come our way around the middle of May, with fulfilment beginning after that.
Generally
Thank you for supporting this project, folks - it’s been a fantastic creative endeavour and we couldn’t do this without you. We’d love to see pictures of your parcels as they start to arrive - you can tag us on Instagram, Bluesky or Facebook, or pop links in the comments here.
As always, there’s a risk things will get dinged, damaged or lost in transit. If that happens to you, we want to put it right. If anything goes wrong with your parcel, get in touch with Jim or myself in the Customer Service mines by emailing [email protected].
Expect more communication in the next week or two,
Just a short update today to let you know that the books are printed! It's all happening! So I'm get to show off some pretty pictures to share some of the excitement.
Last week we received the advanced copies from the printers. These are essentially the very first books hot off the printing press which are sent out to us to approve. As always, our printer has done some amazing work and we're over beneath the moon with excitement.
The Hive and Echo editions of the Heart corebook came out fantastic as always. Just look at that gorgeous linen! The lux foil finish! The colour matched ribbons! Still photographs hardly do them justice, so you'll have to take my word that they shine bright enough delve by.
Not to be upstaged, Ways and Means also arrived in top shape. It took a lot of double and triple checking to make sure all the funky gimmicks worked in this beautiful odd-duck of a book, but the results are worth it. Let's run down the list:
Inverted front and back cover, plus spine treatment, so the book can be shelved in any orientation? ✅ Inverted content on the GM side? ✅ Twin colour matched ribbons bound on the head and tail bands? ✅
Secret messages that can only be revealed by viewing the book in certain ways? ✅ Ah you know what, we'll leave those as easter eggs for folk to find once the books are in your hands.
Now the books are printed, we enter the logistics dance of moving pallets around the globe. So next time you hear from us we'll have a shipping update for everyone dying to get your grubby hands on these gorgeous books.
Just a quick update today to remind folk that we will be locking orders this Thursday 26th! So make sure you're happy with your pledge levels and add-ons before the big button is pushed. You should receive a notification from Backerkit on Tuesday when we set orders to lock, so you can make any final changes to your pledge. Once orders are locked and your cards are charged, you’ll get access to all the PDFs in your pledge.
Addresses will not be locking down until April 28th, on our current timeline, but we’ve been working on shipping costs and you should now be able to see those in your pledges. The following noteworthy changes have occurred since our estimates last year.
Australia: Shipping should be slightly cheaper than we estimated, thanks to our distribution partner’s support.
EU: We have joined up with a new EU dedicated distribution partner. As a result, some upfront shipping costs may appear slightly higher than we estimated last year. Importantly, because this partner is sending the books from inside the EU, we're confident that you won't have to pay any surprise import duties. It should be cheaper for most EU backers in practice.
USA: Shipping within the USA is currently more expensive than we expected; this is partly due to the increasing costs of moving freight across the US border as well as within the US to get it to its final destination. In practice this translates into a sub-$5 increase for most US backers; we’re still working to see if we can get this down any further.
All these shipping costs have been updated and reflected in the pledge manager, so you can check what your particular shipping costs are going to look like. So check them out and make sure you're not going to get any nasty surprises. We’ll be back in touch once we are ready to lock down your addresses and start shipping!
We’re back! It’s a new year and I’ve got a bucket load of exciting updates for all you sickos waiting to get your hands on Ways and Means. Let’s dive right in!
Orders Lock on February 26th!
With the great time of shipping approaching, we will be locking orders and charging cards on February 26th (that’s just two short weeks from now).
That means you’re running out of time to make any last minute changes to your orders in your pledge manager. Don’t sleep on it!
Once the orders are locked, you’ll gain access to all the delicious PDFs you’ve been waiting for, including the updated Ways and Means. Exciting times!
Ways and Means Preview PDFs Updated
After an intense period of community feedback, internal mechanical tweaks, and layout changes, we’ve finally completed the polish stage on Ways and Means and we’re now proud to call the book finished (play the fanfare). I want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who submitted errata to the feedback form. You helped us make this the best version of Ways and Means.
You’ll all be able to get your hands on the updated PDFs in a couple of weeks when we lock orders (26th of Feb) so you can see for yourself just how much that additional polish period has really taken the book to new heights.
For the detail-oriented sickos, here’s a changelog covering the most impactful changes between the preview PDF and the final version of the book:
Added missing domains, skills, and protections to the Crawler's minor abilities.
Updated the Snail Pilgrim's Remove Shell core ability so you don't break time if you sacrifice a D12 resource.
Updated the Zeniths for the Snail Pilgrim to make them more impactful.
Adjusted some entries throughout the equipment section so they closer match their illustrations.
Added missing domains and tags to various resources.
Renowned Armaments have been replaced with a new suite of Legendary Weapons.
Clarified how Hirelings and Animals make rolls and suffer stress.
Added clarification for Bounties which use Delve rules to represent extended challenges instead of a journey.
Added tweaks to various bounty board entries and delves, including a full rework of The Pigs Have Unionised.
The "Idol Reflections" bounty has been replaced with an alternative bounty "Neither Blood Nor Teeth Nor Gloom of Pit".
Updated several Delve Events.
75+ additional minor mechanical tweaks and clarifications throughout.
Extensive spelling and grammar fixes throughout.
Various layout changes throughout, including refined boxouts.
The Printers are Printing
As I type, our printing partner is churning out books at an alarming rate. Pay close attention, and you might just catch the whiff of ink permeating the air. It’s taken us a little bit longer to warm up the printers than anticipated, but now they’re going, there’s no stopping them.
Currently we’re aiming to have books in everyone’s hands by June, which is a few weeks late from our initial timeline, but we feel the extra polish time taken was worth the wait.
You’ll hear more detail from Alex (our shipping and logistics magician) in our next update, where he will break down the shipping and delivery plan for you all in detail. Until then, know the books are inching closer to your waiting arms.
7,500 Bookmarks Packed
I swore I wouldn’t do it again after the Dagger in the Heart campaign, but apparently you lot take great joy from my suffering. The task of packing 7,500 reference bookmarks into 2,500 envelopes took place over a grueling two day sprint, as glimpsed in a wonderful montage.
I wish I packed as fast as I do in the video. But hey, at least I got to catch up on some Dimension 20.
As a reminder, these bookmarks were a stretch goal, so everyone who purchased a physical copy of Ways and Means during the crowdfunding period will get their very own set. (I swear I’m never doing this again, for real this time. You better enjoy these or my ghost will haunt you.)
Delve Decks Complete
The Delve Deck printing has actually completed slightly ahead of schedule, which means we can show it off with some fancy pictures courtesy of Maz. I can confirm that they are lush. They shuffle great, the linen coating is divine, and they might just become my new obsession – just picture me in meetings quietly shuffling the Delve Deck in a corner like a portentous tarot reader.
Phew, that was a lot! Time for me to sign off and rest my weary digits. We’ll be in touch soon once we have more details to share about shipping and fulfillment.
