Surveys are sent! Bonus prints awarded! The clock to closing starts now!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Apr 02, 2022 at 09:59:42 PM

Hi everyone!

As most of you may have already noticed, the Backerkit surveys have all now been sent. If you haven't received your link via email from Backerkit, you can do one of two things:

1) Go to https://adrastea.backerkit.com/ and log in using your Kickstarter-associated email address (the email address you use to log into Kickstarter). That should be all you need to do.

2) If, however, that doesn't work for you, send us a message here on Kickstarter and we will reply back to you with your unique link.

Some recent FAQs:

• A few returning backers have messaged us asking why there is still shipping showing on orders when you pledged to one of the previous qualifying campaigns -- to those of you wondering this, we kindly refer you back to the last Update #9. 😊 Because there is no automated way of linking separate Backerkit campaigns, we will have to review all qualifying orders manually and then credit out redundant shipping where appropriate. We will be doing this manual process the week of April 8th, ahead of when credit cards are actually charged the week of April 15th. We will post another update with the status of that process well beforehand, so no need to worry about excessive charges to your cards.
• A few others have asked about the Pre-registration and Day-1 bonus prints -- those have now been added to all qualifying Backerkit baskets as of this morning. 😊 Sorry for the short delay! If you are expecting either of those bonus prints, please confirm they are in your basket. If you don't see them and feel that they should be there, send us a message and we can look you up. If you manually added either print to your order during the survey process, you should be able to remove it just as easily until we lock orders on April 8th. To that end, just a reminder that you can continue to make adjustments to your order at any time until then -- addresses, add-ons, payment methods, etc. The cart is pretty much wide open until we press the "Lock" button! Just log back into your Backerkit account at any time and everything should still be modifiable at your leisure.

Reminder: we will start to lock orders THIS FRIDAY, April 8th! 

Yes, this is a VERY SHORT survey window, but that is because we will be starting the fulfillment process VERY SOON! This project will be shipping along with THE OGRE GODS SAGA and ARSENE LUPIN at the end of May, so we need to lock down our quantities in the next two weeks so that Quartermaster can be ready to pack and ship everything as soon as the items reach their warehouse in May.

If you don't complete your Backerkit by April 8th, we will send out a week's worth of reminders until credit cards are charged the week of APRIL 15th. At that point, any late orders completed after that date will fall into a "phase two" shipping window that may not occur until August. This is particularly true for International orders since they rely on booking trans-oceanic freight weeks/months in advance. (Late domestic/North American orders may be able to go out sooner than August, however... TBD...)

Thanks, everyone! If you have any questions, please feel free to message us directly!

Emerging from the fog with some important dates and deadlines...
over 2 years ago – Mon, Mar 28, 2022 at 11:56:35 PM

Hello everyone!

First of all -- HUGE APOLOGIES for the big lapse in updating last week. I have been laid bedridden for the past week by a bug that fortunately was not Covid, but boy, what a reminder that there are other ailments out there besides the ones making headlines... stay healthy, everybody! There are a lot of messages that we owe replies to, and we'll clear through those today. Sorry if anyone grew concerned!

Despite that bout of crippled output, we were still able to get the Backerkit setup and ready to go. You may notice that the Backerkit store link is live at the top of the Campaign page -- please feel free to share that with your friends who may have missed the campaign! We'll continue to honor pledges/orders until the Backerkit is locked for fulfillment next month.

About that, here's the planned timeline -- 

• Sometime this week: we will send out the smoke test surveys -- this will go out to a random 5% of you to make sure there are no problems with our metadata or any confusion with our survey questions.  This gives us an opportunity to fix any wiring or phrasing to make sure the rest of the survey process goes smoothly.
• This Friday, April 1: Kickstarter will complete their attempts at collecting errored pledges. Please be sure you have fixed any payment errors in KS by Friday! Assuming they complete that collection on schedule, we will send out the remainder of the surveys that same evening, Friday April 1st. 

NOTE: THIS WILL BE A VERY SHORT SURVEY WINDOW! 

Because we will be fulfilling this campaign very soon with two other campaigns (ARSENE LUPIN and THE OGRE GODS SAGA), we will need to finalize our item count for all projects and send the final order data to Quartermaster no later than April 15th so they can be ready to start fulfillment in May. Therefore, we will start to lock orders on Friday April 8th!  Yes, that is only ONE WEEK, but we will be loud about it. 😊

We will continue to send reminders throughout the week until Friday April 15th, at which point, if you have not yet completed your survey, your pledge will have to fall into a "phase two" fulfillment window that may not go out until August.(This is particularly true for international backers; late domestic backer orders may be able to go out sooner.) So please please PLEASE be sure to watch for your surveys and fill them out promptly. Booking international freight is tricky these days so we can't (literally) hold the boat for a handful of stragglers.

Note that even though orders are locked on the 8th, credit cards will not be charged until April 15th. This will allow us (ourselves and you) to confirm that the final balance due is true and as anticipated, with any shipping credits properly applied for qualified bundling of multiple campaign pledges.

A few notes about the surveys when you receive them:

We are already anticipating a handful of common questions so we will answer them upfront to hopefully streamline the customer support process --

• "I backed a previous campaign, so why am I still seeing shipping on my order?"

If you pledged at a physically-shipping tier, your survey will contain a question asking if you also have an open order for one of our previous campaigns (OGRE GODS and/or ARSENE LUPIN).  This will help us manually identify which orders to review for shipping credit qualification. Unfortunately, there isn't an automated way for Backerkit to cross-reference campaign orders, so we will have to manually confirm which orders qualify for the free shipping bundling credit. We will do this during the week of April 8th, when the order lock is initiated. Once we have confirmed that your multiple orders/pledges qualify, we will manually credit out the appropriate shipping fee from whichever order(s) qualify. Don't worry -- this will be done before credit cards are charged on the 15th, so you will have time to confirm that the proper amount is being charged. 

• "Where are my pre-registration and Day-1 prints?"

Since those were timed rewards, we need to manually add these to qualifying backer packages inside Backerkit. We hope to do that this week before the surveys go out, but if for some reason we run into a hurdle (such as being unable to before surveys are actually sent), you may find those missing. Don't worry -- they'll be there before orders are locked! And if for some reason you still don't see them or feel you should be expecting them, just send us a message and we'll look into it for you. 😊

• "What if I need to change my address between the time the order is locked and the time it is shipped?"

Locking orders is primarily meant for us to be able to confirm item counts so that we can prepare the proper quantity of items for fulfillment. Fortunately, Quartermaster will send a final address confirmation email to everyone prior to actually shipping, so don't worry if you aren't sure where you will be in late-May/early-June; you will have a chance to update your address closer to that actual date.

Things seem on track with the printers and other vendors to have everything ready for a mid/late-May fulfillment date, but we will keep you posted in case anything unforeseen comes up. I think we've allowed for plenty of buffers, but you never know these days.

Thanks again, everyone! And again -- stay healthy!

WOO HOO! THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!
over 2 years ago – Sat, Mar 19, 2022 at 12:33:51 AM

WE DID IT! No -- YOU DID IT!!! 

Thanks, everyone for such a fantastic campaign! We knew this was a fabulous book and are so proud and excited to be adding it to the library of other great books by Mathieu Bablet. Once again, however, we are blown away by how many of you came aboard to show your love and support for his work, too. Mathieu sends his gratitude and thanks as well (while he continues to work on his next big project... hopefully we'll be able to share something about it later this year)!

We will be putting the Backerkit together very quickly for this project since the survey window will be relatively short -- we expect to be able to ship these along with ARSENE LUPIN and THE OGRE GODS SAGA in May, so we'll want to lock all three campaign Backerkits in the next few weeks.

We'll have more information about Backerkit and the surveys next week. In the meantime -- celebrate with us!

And if you're still in a giving mood, perhaps consider giving to Unicef Ukraine to help children affected by the war there: https://www.unicef.org/ukraine/en

Thomas Bergersen is one of our favorite symphonic composers, and he has released some powerful tracks in response to the war... We'll just leave this here and thank you once again until our next update.

THANK YOU!

Two updates in one day? There must be something cool happening!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 11:52:33 PM

Busy day... there is definitely cool stuff going on...!

First off, we just found out that we've been selected as the Featured Project of the Day by Kickstarter! Frontpage placement! Woot!

Then, as if on cue, we hit the target to unlock the last stretch goal! 🥳

Now all physical orders will include ALL FOUR LINEN CARDSTOCK PRINTS FOR FREE!

Thanks for your support -- please keep spreading the word! One more day to go! 

A big reveal in the final stretch: PHYSICAL BOOK PIX!
over 2 years ago – Thu, Mar 17, 2022 at 10:33:45 PM

Hi everyone!

With just over 28 hours left in the campaign, we've got some exciting last-minute surprises! We JUST LAST NIGHT received finished advance copies of the hardcover book from the printer! And they look sweeeeeeet...

We even took a little flip-through video to show the book in action -- (caution: brief glimpse of bare sphinx boobies at one point... this is a rated R book for that reason...)

For those of you asking "Wait, how can the book be done if it's being Kickstarted?" That's a fair question, to which we'll clarify (as hopefully we did in the campaign page itself): the Kickstarter is for the limited edition, campaign-only "Immortal" Bundle and the other campaign-exclusive stretch goal bonuses. These finished books still need to make their way to our warehouse from the other side of the Pacific Ocean, so they still won't be ready for another couple of months, but (barring any more Covid-related delays) should be here right on time for May fulfillment as scheduled. 😊

We also got copies of ARSENE LUPIN, GENTLEMAN THIEF and THE OGRE GODS SAGA Box, since they are all shipping to us from the printer together. So if you (wisely) backed all three campaigns or preordered the other two through Backerkit to have them all sent to you in one package, you could be looking at a nice shelf-spread like this...!

We're closing in on the final stretch goal quickly... maybe even by the time I finish typing this! Let's check...