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IRON KINGDOMS: REQUIEM *5e*

Created by Privateer Press

The Iron Kingdoms Roleplaying Game setting for 5e.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

FULFILLMENT COMPLETE!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Feb 26, 2022 at 01:37:53 AM

Greetings Adventurers,

I’m pleased to announce that as of yesterday, we are finally finished with shipping the Iron Kingdoms: Requiem rewards. Some rewards as well as replacements are still in transit and should be arriving to their recipients imminently. And of course, should anything arrive amiss (or not arrive at all) please contact us so that we can correct the problem.  We will monitor this Kickstarter campaign’s comments and messages through the next week or so, and once we can confirm everything has been delivered, we’ll make a final update to officially close this project, after which any needs can be directed to Privateer’s customer support at: [email protected]

Requiem has been a project like no other for us, and it is impossible to say enough, but thank you for your incredible patience, support, and generous understanding as we have navigated some of the biggest challenges that Privateer as a company has encountered in over two decades of publishing. Despite the on-time and seamless handoff of our print files to our printer, it seems like everything downstream of approving our samples was a textbook lesson in Murphy’s Law. Not ones to waste the opportunity of a good lesson, there are several things we’ll be doing differently in the future to mitigate the potential impact of forces out of our control, some of which we have already implemented on upcoming projects.

Sometimes, it’s the best intentions that lead to speed bumps. With the Requiem campaign, we offered a selection of miniatures as add-ons in the pledge manager, which we thought would be desirable for use in IKRPG campaigns. This inspired many request for additional miniatures from our extensive catalog to be added to the pledge manager, and what started as a couple dozen became a couple hundred different individual items in our effort to accommodate as many requests as possible. However, in doing so, we greatly complicated the fulfillment process for our packing team which added to the overall time we would need to pack and ship orders. We realized this was going to slow things down well before the printed materials ever showed up, so we got as much of a head start on it as we could, but also realized that as much as we love sending out all those minis with the orders, it was not a good plan for future projects, which is why we did not offer a-la-carte miniatures add-ons for the Borderlands and Beyond project. Going forward, we will streamline our projects as much as possible to ensure that the fulfillment process can be kept simple and efficient. This means fewer option for getting lots of different things from Privateer into a single order, but it will allow us to take advantage of other opportunities for improving our deliver process as well.

Streamlining our future projects means that we can make better use of the fulfillment services we work with. Until now, all our rewards were packed at our own warehouse and the shipped in bulk shipments to international fulfillment services, who then handled the local shipping in those countries. In the future, we will split-ship from the vendors producing the books or game components directly to the fulfillment services, who will handle the packing of the individual parcels. This will decrease overall fulfillment time by removing an entire leg of the international shipping process as well as dividing the labor of fulfillment over multiple teams. We are trying to arrange this for the Borderlands and Beyond shipment, but it is due to ship soon and we’re not sure if the original plans can be altered. However, we are building this into our planning for all future projects manufactured outside of Privateer’s facilities.

The supply chain issues contributing to international shipping delays are expected to continue for the foreseeable future, but the issue we ran into with the container shortage is one we hope to mitigate through multiple, smaller shipments.

In the wake of the great ‘Make-Ready’ debacle, our printer has pledged to redouble their quality control protocols. And while the situation with these bad copies that got mixed in with our production run is an isolated and unique occurrence in our long history of working with this printer, we will be conducting a rigorous quality control check of our own when future shipments of product arrive to ensure that we catch any issues before they are sent out the door.

As well, we are upgrading our packaging materials to better protect contents during shipping, particularly for our international shipments that seem to endure considerably more abuse these days than what we have observed in the past.

We still don’t have a great way to address freak snowstorms or debilitating pandemics, but lowering our ambition for a speedy delivery — or rather, planning time into our schedule for the inevitable speed bumps — will ensure greater success in delivering on our projected timeline.

Armed with the new tools and experience gained from overcoming the challenges of this fulfillment process, we look forward to bringing you more projects and more great rewards in the future. Thank you, again, for backing Iron Kingdoms: Requiem, for bringing the Iron Kingdoms to life again as a role playing game setting, and for your encouragement and support from the moment this project launched to the time it delivered. We are ever grateful.

ALMOST DONE...
about 2 years ago – Sun, Feb 20, 2022 at 12:44:01 AM

Greetings Adventurers,

We are closing in on the end of this epic fulfillment process for what we hope you feel is an equally epic campaign setting. Here is where things stand:

UK/EU Fulfillment

Spiral Galaxy was due to complete all UK and EU shipments today. If you have reported a damaged or defective product, replacements should be on the way imminently. 

Domestic U.S. Fulfillment

Our team has just a few more days to go to get the last of the orders out the door. All rewards for domestic U.S. backers will be shipped by next week. 

Damages and Defects

If you have reported rewards damaged in transit or a defective book, we are processing replacements as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and for the photos that many of you have provided.

We'll have an after-action report for you once shipping is complete to let you know what we've learned through this experience and how that will improve our future projects and fulfillment processes. Until then, thank you for your continued patience and support.

PROGRESS REPORT
about 2 years ago – Sat, Feb 05, 2022 at 10:34:40 PM

Greetings Adventurers,

Lots of info below on reward shipments and book defects. Read on!

UK/EU Fulfillment

We learned this morning that Spiral Galaxy suffered some setbacks over this past week and were understaffed sufficiently that fulfillment on the Requiem rewards will not start until next week. We apologize for this further delay and wish all the folks at Spiral Galaxy the best as we can certainly relate to the challenges of keeping operations staffed during a pandemic. In the meantime, in case any of the defective books made it into UK/EU rewards, we have preemptively sent a reserve supply of books to Spiral Galaxy so that should anyone receive a defective copy, we'll be able to quickly dispatch replacements directly from the UK rather than shipping them overseas direct from Privateer.

Domestic U.S. Fulfillment 

As of yesterday, all books have been shipped, including Retailer Backer orders. Fulfillment of the non-book rewards, including cards, tiles, and miniatures has commenced and we will be shipping out parcels daily over the next two weeks. 

Damages and Defects

If you have reported rewards damaged in transit or a defective book, we are processing replacements as quickly as possible. Thank you for your patience and for the photos that many of you have provided. 

How to Identify the Dreaded 'Make Ready' Copies

When examining your books to determine whether or not you have received one of the dreaded 'Make Ready' copies, please note that the gap between the book block (which are all the pages that are stitched together) and the inside of the cardboard spine, is by design. The book block is not supposed to be adhered to the cardboard spine or the pages would rip out when the book was opened. If you have a defective 'Make Ready' copy, the defect will be obvious. You will see torn pages or splitting in the stitching of the book block, ripped end papers or loose pages falling out. 

Again, thank you for your continued patience and support. If you haven't signed up for our mailing list, please do so at PrivateerPress.com. We will be publishing a new Pendrake Encounter tomorrow and if you're on the mailing list, you'll be the first to know when it goes live!

PROGRESS REPORT
about 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 09:40:37 PM

Greetings Adventurers,

Thank you for your patience as we continue to work through fulfillment of the Requiem rewards. Here is where things stand right now:

Canada and Australia/New Zealand rewards have all shipped and should be in the hands of backers by now, less any replacements that are on the way.

For UK and EU backers, Spiral Galaxy will begin shipping next week, so your rewards will be delivering very soon!

For domestic U.S., all books will be packed by Monday and awaiting pickup and we will then begin sending all non-book items in the follow up packages. Everything is made and ready to go, it's just a matter of working through the significant volume of orders, which we expect to take another couple weeks. 

In other news, we have continued to research the book-spine defect issues that many of our backers have reported. Our printer confirmed that somewhere between 50 and 80 'make ready' copies were accidentally packed into our shipment of finished product. The 'make ready' copies are effectively practice copies used to prototype the assembly of the books before the actual binding process begins. Normally, these are set aside and disposed of, but somehow got scooped up with everything else. Unfortunately, these inconspicuous infiltrators made it into packages before we knew of their existence.

Once again, our apologies to anyone who has received a defunct book or received a book in anything less than perfect condition. Should you require a replacement, please message us directly through this Kickstarter project and we will have new copies on their way to you ASAP. To anyone messaging over the last 24 hours or through the upcoming weekend, please know that several of our staff are deployed at the Las Vegas Open convention this weekend, so our replies will be a little slower than normal. But you will hear from us by early next week and your replacements will be processed as quickly as possible.

Until next time, have a great weekend!

WAITING FOR PICKUP!
about 2 years ago – Sat, Jan 29, 2022 at 08:44:44 PM

A quick follow up to the previous update. I received this picture a few minutes too late to include, but thought it worth sharing. We're going to need a bigger truck!