Greetings Delvers! It’s time for another project update. We’re talking shipping, PDF delivery, and timelines. We’re also showing some pretty (gross) new illustrations. Fun for all the family! So make sure you’re sitting comfortably with a drink in hand, cause it’s a big one!

According to the backend of Backerkit (imagine a lot of lines and numbers) around 94% of you have completed your pledge management. Pats on the back all round! If you’ve not done it yet, though, get on it! We’re rapidly approaching fulfilment time, and you don’t want to be left out… Speaking of which.

We've now finalised the product specifications for the various rewards, which means we can properly estimate shipping costs for everyone.

We've also spent some time finding a better solution for our Canadian backers, and we're pleased to say that we'll be shipping to you with the help of Adventure Dice, who will be bringing your books across the border from the US and shipping them across your startlingly massive country. This means we can give you better prices and also be more confident that you won't be stung unexpectedly for taxes.

Pretty much everyone else will be seeing similar prices to the ones we estimated during the campaign. Roughly speaking, that looks like this:

Canadians, your pricing should be similar to AU & NZ pricing, between £11 and £17 depending on the items. There will be some variation and some edge cases, so if you see anything that looks wildly off base, please drop us a line and let us know.

All this means that, once we've confirmed the shipping costs for your pledge, we can now lock your order and grant you access to the various PDFs for products that already exist.

Everyone's order will lock when we're ready to send out the Dagger backer preview PDFs, but we know some of you are dying to get your hands on PDFs for the existing books ASAP. So if you'd like us to lock yours sooner so you can access the existing Heart and supplement digital files, please comment and let us know, or email [email protected] (please use ‘Lock My Dagger Pledge’ in your e-mail subject field to help us find you).

This good news comes hand in hand with a timeline update. We’ve been working our butts off polishing Dagger, creating the GM screen content, reworking the Echo Edition, and more. We’re ecstatic with how it’s all coming together, but unfortunately it’s taking its sweet time doing so. 

We had originally planned to have the PDF for Dagger and the GM Screen available by the end of May, but with the extra work that’s come from from the stretch goals, and the looming spectre of convention season on the horizon, we’ve made the decision to push back the timeline by one month to give us the time we need. Hopefully you’ll agree that it’s worth the wait!

All told, that means our new project timeline looks like this:

Now onto the fun stuff! Sar has been hard at work creating new illustrations for Dagger as a result of our More Art stretch goal, and the results are stunning as always. No spoilers from me, you’ll have to read the adventure to find out what’s going on.:

We’ve also been working hard on the GM Screen and the accompanying booklet which has got us all frothing-at-the-mouth excited. Here’s a sneak peak at the initial sketch for the GM side of the screen.

The idea here is to provide you with the most interesting and immersive blank canvas possible. The central panel has some core ideals and advice for GMing Heart, smeared in blood and right in front of you was the most overt delivery method we could think of. Meanwhile, the left and right panels feature in-world gubbins to inspire (after all, why should the players be the only ones to see pretty art?)

Atop this greeble-bedecked canvas, you’ll be placing whatever tables and references you desire, taken from the GM screen booklet. We realised early on that basic boxes wouldn’t cut it, after all, who wants to cover delicious details with boring squares of paper, so once more Sar has pulled out all the stops. Here’s some blank examples of the table boxes in action (of course the final ones will be full of handy reference material and cool tables): 

We can’t wait to see what you get up to once you get your hands on the finished screen and booklet combo, and start crafting your very own madness-infused GM screens. 

That’s all from us for now. We’re off to prepare for the UKGE next week. If you happen to be there, come say hi!

- RRD Team