Hey everyone! Benny here. This will be a relatively long update and it will go over many things even beyond Moonsoon! We will start with Moonsoon though since that’s why you’re all here!
Tariffs
As I mentioned in the update last week, the tariff war that has been happening between the US and China has thrown our industry into absolute chaos. There’s some really amazing blog posts on the entire thing from much larger publishers than us and I would like to link one here for you to check out if you want to learn more about the nitty gritty
How do the tariffs affect us?
Unfortunately, we have Moonsoon in one of the worst positions in relation to the current tariffs. Before this whole thing kicked off, even the 20% tariffs the US was imposing on goods from China was going to cause us a lot of turmoil with this project because when you start playing with the numbers we are playing with, it very quickly turns from a small profit to a massive liability.
With the tariffs now well above 125% we are officially in “wait and see” mode. This will possibly mean a delay of Moonsoon manufacturing. The silver lining is we are currently not ready to hit the big “GO” button on mass production and we are still finalizing the beta books (The final two of which are now releases – see below). So we have some leeway here for things to turn around and go right. We are probably about 1-2 months away from actually starting production (we have had other production issues with the liquid core dice that I will detail below in the “Moonsoon Manufacturing” section below).
So, with all of that said, we are waiting and seeing + we still have some time before we are starting to manufacture.
What’s the factory’s perspective?
We have been in contact with our manufacturer in China and they have provided us with a couple of potential solutions such as potentially manufacturing in another country near China through new factories and supply lines they have been setting up for awhile and they have also provided customers like us with some potential alleviating options (storing our product in their warehouses much longer until tariff issues can be fixed)
What happens if the tariffs stay?
I will be completely honest right now – I do not know. I think there are some solutions such as producing through the same company in a different country, but I am not 100% sure yet what is the best solution. It’s so unprecedented even for very experienced publishing companies and we are relatively new compared to all of them. So we are really just waiting to see and will keep you all as informed as possible.
Have any more questions
If you have any more questions about tariffs, please post them here in this thread, or join us on Discord.
Moonsoon Releases
The Creature Compendium and Ewanok Saga Campaign Beta PDFs are now both available! See the links below. If you do not have access to the PDFs, you will get a broken link page. All of the following tiers and addons have access to the PDFs
- All-in (pledge)
- Digital Deluxe (pledge)
- Deluxe Box (pledge)
- Core Box (pledge)
- Game-Ready (pledge)
- Just the PDFs (pledge + addon)
That means all 4 of our books are now out in beta format! The Player’s Guide and the Game Master’s Guide are both nearing fully finished production level (thank you to everyone who provided feedback).
Get the Player’s Guide Beta PDF here
Get the Game Master’s Guide Beta PDF here
Get the Creature Compendium Beta PDF here
Get the Ewanok Saga Campaign Beta PDF here
Avatar Boss Battles
As for the Avatar Boss Battles – we have now 6 of them ready and released! They are Ximmix (releasing today), Tsuge, Bha’al, Mornlig, Arkhos, Gilgal. Linked below! We have one more remaining – Devah
The following pledges and addons have access to the PDFs
- All-in (pledge)
- Digital Deluxe (pledge)
- Deluxe Box (pledge)
- Core Box (pledge)
- Game-Ready (pledge)
- Just the PDFs (pledge + addon)
The following pledges and addons have access to the STLs
- All-in (pledge)
- Digital Deluxe (pledge)
- Just the STLs (addon)
- Arkhos, Avatar of Creation STL
- Arkhos, Avatar of Creation PDF
- Bha’al, Avatar of Suffering STL
- Bha’al, Avatar of Suffering PDF
- Devah, Avatar of Identity STL
- Devah, Avatar of Identity PDF (Not yet out!)
- Gilgal, Avatar of Dissolution STL
- Gilgal, Avatar of Dissolution PDF
- Mornlig, Avatar of Links STL
- Mornlig, Avatar of Links PDF
- Tsuge, Avatar of Passage STL
- Tsuge, Avatar of Passage PDF
- Ximmix, Avatar of Consumption STL
- Ximmix, Avatar of Consumption PDF
Moonsoon Manufacturing
So as I mentioned briefly in the tariffs section, this is a bit of a silver lining take and that’s that the manufacturing is not quite ready to go full on yet. We just released the Ewanok Saga beta PDF today and we released the Creature Compendium last week so we need to let these live in the wild a little bit before we finalize them, but they shouldn’t need much more work.
The main item that is delaying us beyond these right now – are the liquid core dice. We originally had an OK formula for making the dice, but we currently have been trying to improve them to make sure we give our customers and backers the absolutely best quality liquid core dice we can. This is really important to me personally as many of you know, I really put a high emphasis on making sure we provide the best quality that we can.
The current status of this delay is that we are waiting on the factory to provide us with some new samples, ideally with some improved quality in them. I’ve been personally working very hard with the factory to try and make sure these dice are up to the standard I feel we want to present you with. It’s been quite stressful, but I think the end results will speak for themselves and you will all be very very delighted by what you receive.
Aside from the dice delayed, there’s nothing else really holding us back atm aside from the tariffs and just letting the PDFs breathe in the wild a little bit before we finalize them.
I am EXTREMELY excited and hype to get to the point where we can get our Pre Production Samples in so we can start showing you all the progress, but that won’t be until May right now!
Really sorry for the delays and sorry for the tariff stuff (even though I can’t control it, I still feel sorry for backers as well as to other companies in our situation. It’s definitely not ideal).
Moonsoon VTT
One thing that won’t be delayed is the VTT of the PDFs! As soon as we finalize the final 2 books, we will be moving to put them into VTT format! The plan was always to do the VTTs last, but with the tariffs, it’s very possible that the VTTs will be done before the physical manufacturing. So just to keep you all updated, these will be worked on as soon as we finalize all 4 core books! =)
Moonsoon Wrap Up
That’s all of the Moonsoon stuff for now! It’s a lot to take in and there’s a lot of things yet undecided and left in limbo, but you can be sure that we are trying every possible way to sort out everything to make it as painless as possible to backers and ourselves. It’s a stressful time so your patience and understanding through this troubled time would be very very greatly appreciated.
End of Moonsoon stuff!
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Now, getting into all of the other stuff we have going on right now (there is A LOT). It’s times like this where our diversified product portfolio is really going to be a strong point for us as a company when crazy things like tariffs happen. Granted, a lot of out future projects also require physical manufacturing, but they are going the route of a slightly smaller footprint for manufacturing which makes them easier to produce outside of China or adjacent to!
Weretigers Kickstarter – Launching June 10th
As I am sure a lot of you may have seen, we have a brand new board game launching soon and the designer of that game is the same author of Moonsoon! the same creative hand that has graced the pages of Tooj and Moonsoon also created this fun, 1-4 player coop dice defence game!
This little, compact, game is something we are really excited about bringing to our audience as it’s not a massive manufacturing commitment, but it packs such a fun punch. It’s a perfect run time of 30 mins (often less!), good for kids and good for groups of friends on a game night or while you wait for everyone to show up for your D&D night!
Want to try out Weretigers? We have the Tabletop Simulator Version of Weretigers you can play as well View the Tabletop Simulator Version here
Follow the Kickstarter and Sign Up to be Notified when we launch on June 10th. We welcome you all to help us defend the village of Tamanthi!
Pantheons Kickstarter – Launching May 6th
Another awesome project we have coming up is Pantheons: Sky Sovereign’s Council. Our next in the series of Pantheons projects where we release a collection of miniatures that take on a classic theme of creature or diety pantheons like dragons, giants, etc.
This next one is all about GIANTS! We have 19 amazing new giant sculpts that you can get in STL format or in physical format! Yes, that’s right! We are finally making physical miniatures. We are partnering with Dragon Trappers Lodge in the physical fulfillment of this project. Miniatures will be available in amazingly high-quality, durable, tabletop quality resin. It’s probably the best resin we’ve ever used and we love it so much, you’ll be able to buy your own resin during the Kickstarter!
Follow the Kickstarter Here!
Want a free STL?
Who doesn’t love a free STL, right?? Well, we do, and we love giving them to our backers and community. Spreading the love in tough times is always good =)
We have one of our amazing Frost Giants available for free. Just sign up to our newsletter and get directed to the download page!
Download your Free Frost Giant here!
Sordane Publishing Does Novels!
That’s right! We have been writing 3 novels set in the rich world of Sordane that we have been building for the last 5 years! We don’t have too too much information on them right now, but I can tell you that you will soon begin to start reading the first novel. The crowdfunder for that novel will be launching some time in July or August of this year as well.
The first book is called Lost & Found. An adventure book written by Rob Knipe. You definitely shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but if you’re interested, please check out the Lost & Found page on our new website and
Get Notified about Lost & Found here!
The ancient city of Forastad has risen from the sea after two thousand years. Adventurers and treasure hunters from around the world flock to dare its dangers, seek out its riches, and uncover long forgotten mysteries. Valdeer, a down on his luck bard with quick wit and a big mouth, sets off on his journey for a new start in this distant land for a possible second chance.
Aldarra Sales + Reprints
Even with all of the tariff madness, the lucky factor in all of this is that we got all of our Aldarra stock imported into the US before the tariff madness took hold. The game has still been selling well and we have high hopes for a reprint with some new expansion. Probably in about a year we will do a reprint kickstarter campaign with 2-3 smaller expansions available for people to pick up and expand the usability of their Aldarra boxes!
If you looking for ways to support our company even further, picking up a copy of Aldarra is hands down the best way to do so right now! Without this product having been finished and in-stock, the tariffs may very well have been the downfall of our company. So there’s always a silver lining =)
You can purchase Aldarra here
You can check out some reviews on our website or on Board Game Geek!
That’s it thats all!
A big huge personal thank you from me, Benny, to all of our backers, customers and community. I can’t believe we have been able to keep doing this for over 5 years and it’s because we have just had such a great communtiy around us. Understanding people through tough times and good ones and it makes doing this work extremely rewarding
I wish you all a fantastic weekend!
Don’t forget to Join our Discord =)
All the best
Benny
