Hello all!

As of right now I'm playing the waiting game with the production. There's nothing for me to do for them at the moment so I'm hovering around for the manufacturing proofs. I want to include some photos of the new set, cloth, etc in the book, and definitely the stone dice as well, so I'm hanging on to the book's print files until I get the manufacturing test copies of everything else. Books print quickly so I can afford to hold onto them until dice manufacturing begins in earnest, as it's what will take the longest.

We should still be good for February, but I'll let you know if it speeds up or slows down.

And a reminder to anyone who got a copy of the Alleyman's Tarot, they will ship with your order of the dice.

New Avernus is live right now here on Backerkit, and in the first 7 hours it already funded! This is super exciting, simply put. I can't wait to get this game out there in the world. Asher did a remarkable job with the game's design and gameplay, and Emma did an equally incredible job on the visual design. I'm super glad to be present among such talent! : )

Want to join the apocalyptic world of New Avernus and race against the impending meteor to build a city worthy of your cruel, capricious god? No? What about a 30-card Oracle Deck, unique to the game? Get either or both! Pledge right now in the first 24 hours of the campaign to get the Oracle Deck free with the purchase of your game!

Head on over and pledge now-

Or if you're feeling super niche in your interests, might I interest you in the Alleyman Podcast on a 6-CD Set? It's funding over on Kickstarter right now and is over halfway there already! It includes awesome new art on the packaging and cds, as well as on 7 new Alleyman tarot cards which come with the CD set. The book has the scripts and behind the scenes info and trivia!

The podcast is 13 episodes and follows Dr. Ala Okoye, host of Modern Mythologies, as he explores urban legends through an academic lens. It begins with his first steps into the Alleyman mythos, and then grows from there over the course of three other fictional podcasts within the story's world.

If this sounds up your alley, or you already listened and loved it, now is the time to get an amazing package for your book shelf!



And just a reminder that the manufacturing and fulfillment teams on these two new projects are different from one another AND from the oracle dice, so there's zero overlap that could cause any of them to slow one another down. 

Thanks for your patience and support, I'm way overly excited for the proof set of these dice to arrive. The box is going to look so freaking good with the full 22 set, and I want to roll them, damnit! Be back soon when such a thing happens!

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The long and short is that we are shifting the shipping date to February 2023. Manufacturing still hasn't started because test prints and dice sets haven't been made. Things were just now finally okayed to move forward, pending a couple simple answers from me. They are estimating 2 months to have test pieces and then full scale production handled, and think early December things could start heading out from China.

However, because shipping costs are high in that time, and because package volume makes it more likely for things to go missing during that time, I am sliding us back one more month to January. So from January 2023 to February 2023, this project will ship.

I'll update again when the test sets arrive, especially the stone, and the updated dice box and all that good stuff.

For now, I'm leaving the pre-order store open through December at the least.

First, a note that both these new projects AND the dice all have different manufacturers and fulfillment teams, so there will be no issue for manufacturing or fulfillment on these projects.



New Avernus

On October 4th, launching here on Backerkit, is New Avernus. In this apocalyptic city building board game, 1-4 players race to clear the rubble of old civilizations, gather resources, and build new cities worthy of their cruel, watchful god. But you must hurry, as a meteor is on its way to destroy all you build. After it hits, count the remaining points you have left on the board to see which of your cities is still the most worthy of your god's adoration.

Sign up to be notified here!

If board games aren't your thing, consider pledging just for the Oracle of Glass and Stone-- the 30 card oracle that chronicles the lives of the Koukyla, the stone people who labor to be witnessed by their god, Xerxes. Or pledge day 1 for the game and get the oracle for free. Use it to divine your own answers, or use it in conjunction with the game for a more indepth single player mode.






The Alleyman Podcast CD Set

Over on Kickstarter, the same moment of October 4th we go live with the board game, the Alleyman returns with his story, all 13 episodes, saved on a cd set. Join Dr. Ala Okoye on his journey to uncover this myth's origins, its meaning, and its truth as he asks the most important question of his career: Who owns a myth?

Then answer it yourself by pledging to own the 6-CD set and its 7 all-new Alleyman tarot cards by incredible artists like Metallica and Magic the Gathering's own WolfSkullJack who has illustrated the Alleyman as werewolf oracle, the incredible Morgan Robles who is interpreting the Alleyman as goth sex worker, Kollapsar who is displaying the Alleyman in a back alley card duel, or the award-winning Nala Wu whose interpretation is as unknown as the Alleyman himself, and more.

You can also get an accompanying book with art, the scripts, behind the scenes info, and more! Head over to Kickstarter and show your interest today to let me know that you'll be there for this chance to own the Alleyman myth on your bookshelf.

Because the dice, the boardgame, and the CD set will be coming to fruition into the first couple months of 2023, I am delaying the Year of the Goblin. For those not in the know, I was going to be launching a new project each month of 2023, rotating platforms, manufacturers, and genres. From board game to card game to oracle deck to book of poems, I had a whole fun thing planned.

However, I want to go into the event with people's absolute trust. I have always fulfilled projects that funded. Lately with the state of the world, there have been some delays, but things always get done in the end. I want to affirm that good will and my good standing with all of you by ensuring the projects from this year are complete before this endeavor begins.

Manufacturing for all three projects will be occurring in October-December, and in January and on each will be sent out by their own teams. By the end of March, all 3 will be done at the latest.

Then in April, 2023, I will open with the first of 9 projects run in a row. In January I will have more news on what the 9 projects will be, and when each will launch.

Thank you for your support and interest!

A side note. The Caretaker, designer and writer of the Normal Tarot, has opted for a foil-less print on demand option for the Gold and Silver Normal Tarots rather than a full reprint. You can find the Gold here, and the Silver here. These two will not have a reprint in the 9 projects of the Year of the Goblin.

Thank you, and see you all soon for the print test videos and photos!

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Since New Titan is handling it either from their US office or their Hong Kong office, they have two separate websites for US and International buyers. 

For US buyers: https://www.alleymantarot.com/collections/all

For international buyers: https://hk.alleymantarot.com/collections/all

         Reminder that New Titan is handling all of this, I have no hand myself in the site so if you have issues or questions with the ordering, you'd need to contact New Titan: [email protected]

(And please, no worries! We are of course keeping some stock held back to cover anyone's whose goes missing or arrives damaged from the KS still)

Czarfunkle has updated the reading grid and drawn out the new one. I can't share the new one because we're making some slight adjustments, but I promise it looks just as good and will share it soon.

Amy Smith is wrapping up designs for the Chaos Die. Because of its smaller surface area on its faces, the symbols are smaller and less detailed. We are making sure all the symbols are clear and unique, but they're definitely simpler than I'd originally imagined. Still, they will be a welcome addition to everything already in place. I'll share as soon as I have those in hand!

I am wrapping up the updates to the guidebook, and I've been tinkering with how the journal's pages will be laid out, but generally I will have a small intro and then two rotating page templates for the two different reading grids with plenty of space to write notes. I thought I would be done by now with both, but time doesn't always work on our side haha. I'll be taking this work with me to Gen Con this week on my laptop, and should have everything finished and handed to manufacturers next week.

I wasn't going to Gen Con this year, because there's still a pandemic at hand. But enough things aligned that I would be foolish to not go, and now, I'm going. I still don't think it's responsible, but too many things came together on their own that I'd be shooting my business in the foot not going. So I'll be at GenCon Wednesday through Sunday!

I'll be hanging out with Kickstarter and Backerkit people, I'll have some random stock at a friend's booth in the dealer's hall (booth 2447-1), including some Alleyman's Tarot I have on hand and some Normal Tarot, and some pins and stickers. 

I'll also be around if you find me or email me ([email protected]) with subject line GENCON, maybe we can meet! I'll have various oracle tools on me so Ill probably also do some readings for strangers here and there. I haven't signed up for running or taking part in any events, since this is last minute, so I'll just be hovering and networking.

I will also be a headlining guest at Autumn Meet down in Florida in mid October: https://www.facebook.com/events/570487067751967 . It's an outdoors camping setup, so I felt better about going to this one. I'll be running some events at that one, and it should be nice. I've never been before, but it seems super lovely.

This boardgame was supposed to run in the spot the Oracle Dice took for a crowdfunding campaign. But unfortunately it took so long to get the print samples in hand that we had to move the Oracle Dice up to run first. It arrived a bit ago and I love it. I'll be taking a copy to GenCon to run for strangers wherever I can, and getting it out to reviewers as well.

You can sign up to be notified when that campaign launches in October here. 
I'm waiting until October so that the final Alleyman things can be taken care of (touched decks mostly), and so the dice should be well on the way to getting to people. 

Thanks everyone,

7DA

your Pub Gob

The votes have been tallied. The fates have been divined. Our 22nd Lord is the Trickster. A trivial name for a trivial being.

But what's in a name, when you're the Lord of Chaos? That's another of its names, of course... It is known as the Thing Among Reflections, the Shifting Sands, The Raven, That Which is Dead and That Which is Alive. The Alleyman misunderstood this being. It is not merely a creature in the liminal space of shadow and refraction, nor a mere trickster. It is infinitely less and more all at once. It is something strange moving beneath the surface of all things.

And we may now look on it, in its Empty Throne.

czarfunkle worked in a lot of the things people wanted as details around the card-- the least of which is the inclusion of many of the top voted names scrawled onto the card.  The void of infinite space, the empty throne, the golden apple, the squirrel, the rabbit, and the octopus, the raven, and an ode to Schrodinger's Cat. This is everything people asked for all at once, and to make that stay true, I've done something a bit wild with the final die as well...

The votes have been counted. The top six dice faces are...

But this is an abnormal lord, an abnormal die. And it has just so many titles...
What are a few more faces among friends?

    7. 36.3% Add an Unrolled Die
    8. 35.9% The Shadow
    9. 35.6% Re-roll Lost dice
    10. 35.4% Re-roll nearest dice
    11. 30.9% The Burning Bridge
    12. 29.5% The Blank

Yes, the Chaos Die will be 12-sided. But some of these faces are still quite similar to one another, so let's mix and match, and take a look at the runner ups who just squeaked into place... by looking at the final faces of the Chaos Die.

Grimoire - Consult the books. Open this guide, a guide to another deck, or simply another book entirely, to a random page. That page presides over this reading in place of this die in its spot.
Mirrored Raven - Re-roll the dice in the quarter this lands in. If it lands in the core, re-roll the full reading. Take note of what has changed. Is this another path, or a dark reflection?
Joker - Consult the cards. Shuffle a deck and deal a card in place of this die from any deck of cards. It presides in this reading.
Broken Clock - The nearest dice in this reading come in strange ways on odd paths. They will not matter when you think they should. They are out of sync. In the core, this die face warns you this reading is out of time. It is not time for you to know it. You should end while you can.
Dice - The dice are lonely still. Add an unrolled die to this reading. In the core, add up to 3 unrolled dice.
Shadow - The dice in this quarter are read in shadow-- inverted meanings. In the core, the whole reading is read this way.
Burning Bridge - Going forward damns all other paths.
Unknowable - This is blank, and it is uneasily empty. Something has shifted or changed, something was here but its gone now.
Flip - Flip the dice in this quarter so their bottoms are on top. In the core, flip all dice this way.
Entropy - The face of change. Entropy is afflicted in different ways in a reading based on its space in the reading.
Dumpster Fire - The nearest die is blazing aflame. If you go near it, you will enter the mess. It will leave a scar.
Collision - Roll this die again through the reading, allowing any changes it makes to the reading from collisions with other dice. If it landed in the core, you may flick it with intention.

And yes, this means there will be 12 more cards added to the Dice Face Oracle deck, and that the dice box is being adjusted so a d12 fits in the center spot.

Thanks everyone!!

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Hello everyone!

I have made decisions on the 22nd Lord and Die, but I am waiting to share with you until I have the Lord's art, which czarfunkle is doing right this moment. I am excited to share that it is more than anyone expected, and will make many people quite happy, if the votes were anything to go by.

First, I want to share the deck back! This will be on the backs of all the Lord's Oracle cards as well as the die face deck, which I'll be able to share very soon.

Elegant, right? I am quite in love. Since both oracle decks will have the same card backs, you are fully supported in mixing them together. What could be more right than the lords in the deck with their die faces?

So now, the remaining two lords before the 22nd...

You already know the Alleyman, I presume? If not, I highly suggest the fictional podcast that delves into that very question. The Alleyman is no one single person, it is a moving spirit among humanity. It is the man down the street telling you that you're going to hell and the rapture is nigh, and the woman sitting in the old plastic chair in the entrance to her tiny ice cream shop. The Alleyman is the personification of our belief that there is something wonderful just beneath the world we live in. If we'd only taken the alley shortcut, we might have seen something strange and unbelievable. Something to break the trance we find ourselves in during our daily rituals. The one who presides over the Alley Die.

Well, here she is. The Alleyman, with a card to give and a story to tell.



And last but certainly not least-- I would be in some extreme trouble if I dared suggest such a thing about him-- we have he who needs no introduction, and yet asked for one to be read. The one with the contracts to give you fame and fortune, the one with the bright lights that will carry you to stardom, the very same one who knows what you have hidden in the back room, locked away from all focus, it's the lord of the Attentions Die.... The Showman!



Talk again very soon with some exciting news regarding a certain 22nd Lord....

Ta ta for now!

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