Category Archives: The Tinker’s Packs

Black Friday, but from the safety of your home

Well folks, it’s Black Friday.

I’ll admit, I’ve never actually ventured forth in search of deals on this, the most terrifying of all shopping days. But every year I see the news stories and I think to myself how much I love to stay inside and never ever leave.

In an attempt to help you make some similar good decisions with your life, we are continuing in the fine tradition of offering some deals in The Tinker’s Packs.

As I’m guessing many of you know, the proceeds from The Tinker’s Pack go to Worldbuilders and help us run… well… everything. Electricity bills. Website development and maintenance. Rent and employee salaries and… well… everything that it takes to make fundraisers of the sort we’re running now happen.

Once Worldbuilders covers its expenses, all the money we make go into our General Donations pool, which allows us to run our other fundraisers and support organizations like First Book or Mercy Corps (like we did for our recent Puerto Rico fundraiser)

The fact of the matter is, NONE of what Worldbuilders does would be possible without the store.

So if you’re thinking of doing some shopping today, can I interest you in some bargains?

It’s worth noting that the folks who are subscribed to our newsletter got a heads up about all of these new cool things yesterday. If you want to be in the know early, you can sign up for the Tinker’s Packs newsletter over here.

Here’s what we’re offering.

First and Foremost: 10% off the ENTIRE store.

If you’ve been holding off on buying something from the store to wait for a deal, now’s a great time. Every single item in the store is discounted, and you don’t need to do ANYTHING to get that except go to The Tinker’s Packs and buy something.

There we have things like the Eolian Bar Mug (a wonderful holiday gift), various Tak sets (for the gamer in your life), specially-designed change jars for your annual donation (good for the whole family) and officially licensed merchandise for books, webcomics, and more!

Everything is 10% off, and will remain so through Monday night, so don’t forget to grab your gifts before the sale ends!

New Products in the Store!

In honor of the fundraiser and our Black Friday sale, we’ve put up some new, rare items, as well as some previously-sold-out items that we’ve either found hidden away over the years or had been secretly saving for just such an occasion.

Many of these things have fewer than 10 available, though, so if you’re interested you’ll need to snap them up quickly.

  • Caesura

Recently, I worked with the folks at Jalic Inc to produce Caesura, Kvothe’s Ademic sword. And it’s truly beautiful to behold.

This first-edition run of Caesura was limited to 5,000 pieces, and each sword is engraved with its number, and comes with a card of authenticity.

And now you can buy your very own in The Tinkers Packs.

  • Kvothe’s Bloodless, True Dungeon Token

When I teamed up with the True Dungeon folks to set this year’s game in Temerant, that also included making equipment and items for the players set in the world, as well.

I was tickled when the Bloodless was made, and I think its effect (-4 damage on missiles and spell attacks) is excellent. I keep one with me wherever I go just in case.

The Bloodless is classified as an Ultra-Rare token, making it difficult to acquire, and extra-valuable to True Dungeon players.

True Dungeon was kind enough to donate money from each of the runs this year to Worldbuilders already, and now they’ve also generously given us our very own set of Bloodless tokens to sell. You can grab it over here.

Back For A Limited Time

Everything else we’ve added today is a limited-edition item that we’ve scrounged up from our vault. Some of these we’ve had sold out for years before the team discovered where I’d squirreled them away, and they persuaded me to give up a bit of my horde for a good cause.

  • Limited Edition Domesticated Owlbear

The Owlbear Plushie was a limited edition item that John Kovalic designed to help us raise money for Worldbuilders at GameHole con two years ago. We sold out fairly quickly, but a few have been put back into the store, so if you missed your chance, you can grab this little dude right here.

  • Limited Edition Bast & Bastas heroes from Boss Monster

We also found our limited-edition Bast & Bastas hero cards for the game Boss Monster. The lovely folks at Brotherwise Games made them exclusively for us to sell to support Worldbuilders, and our vault has been cleared to get the last of them out into the world.

These are special promo cards for Boss Monster, so you need a copy the game if you’d like to use them accordingly. Of course, since there’s 10% off the entire store, that’s not so hard to pull off. You can get the cards here, Boss Monster 1 here, and Boss Monster 2 here.

  • First edition copies of The Slow Regard of Silent Things, double signed by me and Nate Taylor.

Nate Taylor has been one of my dearest friends for many years, and I loved working with him on Slow Regard. We have a few first edition copies of the book that he agreed to sign for us, and we’ve put what we’ve got up in the store, but fair warning: when they’re gone, they’re gone. Grab yours here.

  • Limited Edition of The Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle: The Dark of Deep Below. Double-signed by me and Nate Taylor.

A few years ago the second Adventures of the Princess and Mr. Whiffle book came out, and the special edition came with a full-color cover, in addition to being numbered and signed by both me and Nate.

We’ve been out of these for ages, but we’ve re-launched them in the store right here.

That’s all of the new stuff, but since there’s 10% off the entire store, there’s plenty more you could go check out and see if it tickles your fancy.

Thanks for all of your love and support, folks. You’re the best people a charity could ask for.

Also posted in The Tinker's Packs, Worldbuilders 2017 | By Pat9 Responses

Beautiful Games….

Heya folks,

As many of you have already noticed, the Tak kickstarter has been fulfilled.

(Dear Andrew, I’d like you to be the official Tak spokesmodel. And I’m not just saying that because you’re way *way* pretty. It’s because your presentation here is absolutely flawless.)

The vast majority of you who backed the kickstarter have your goodies now. And while a few of you might not yet, that’s mostly due to international shipping, or because some people never answered their Kickstarter surveys. (Imagine me giving you a disappointed-but-still-loving dad look here.)

But yeah. The big news is that games have been showing up at people’s houses for months. It’s exciting for me to see people finally getting to have their own copies. And not just playing it, but really kinda loving it.

Not only have folks been playing it, but they’ve been taking it out in public, showing it off, and making friends….

There’s been some very nice photography done, as well as some political commentary.

This was one of the more pleasantly surprising tweets I saw from fellow author Sabba Tahir.

I’d always assumed that Oot (age 7) would be too young to play. But hearing that Sabba’s kid and others had been successfully learning the game, I thought I thought I’d try him out…

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We started on the 3×3 and he eagerly moved up into a 4×4 game. Then he wanted to play the 5×5….

Everything said, he took to it pretty well. He’s no mastermind, but… well… neither am I. And he won fair and square one game when I wasn’t paying proper attention.

Most importantly though, we had a good time. And I’m looking forward to playing more with him in the future.

In terms of games being shipped out, we haven’t just fulfilled the kickstarter. We’ve also completed shipping out all the pre-orders people placed in The Tinker’s Packs. That means that as of now you can order the base game, cloth or wooden boards, the Tavern set, and all the other Tak Swag over in The Tinker’s Packs. Not only will we ship it out to you straightaway, but you can sleep soundly at night knowing that all the proceeds go to charity.

Companion_Book_For_Real-real_1024x1024(I have to say, the companion book turned out pretty nice as well.)

If you’ve been enjoying Tak, feel free to share your pictures and stories in the comments below. You can also review the game on BoardGameGeek. It’s the biggest game review website out there, so a good rating there will do a lot to help get the word about Tak out to people.

Last but not least, Tak has already been nominated for a Golden Geek award for 2016. So if you’re a frequent user of BoardGameGeek, you can head on over and vote for it in the 2-player category.

So… yeah. I’m glad you guys have been enjoying it. And if you missed out on the Kickstarter, feel free to swing by the Tinker’s Packs and pick one up. Or more than that. Don’t worry. I won’t judge.

pat

Also posted in Beautiful Games, Oot, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat35 Responses

Black Friday With More Cool Geekery and Less Getting Trampled to Death

Black Friday is one of those events leaves me feeling kinda… grungy.

I can honestly say I’ve never gone out to the stores on Black Friday. I’d like to say it’s because I’m protesting crass, manipulative consumerism. But the real reason is that on the day after Thanksgiving there is still stuffing to eat. That’s usually my big goal for the day.

And, if we’re being completely honest here, the other thing keeping me out of the stores on is that I’d never even *think* of doing Christmas shopping a month ahead of time. It will surprise none of you to know that I’m not the most… um… timely of people. Hell, one year I was so busy with Worldbuilders that we postponed our family Christmas until February because my son was too young to know the difference.

So… yeah. Black Friday. Every year I see the news stories and it seems so gross. People fighting and pushing. Real ugliness. It seems to bring out the worst in a lot of people.

If you hadn’t noticed, here at Worldbuilders, we try to bring out the best in people. We promote good works, charitable giving, community. We’re in the warm fuzzy business. I’m rather proud to say that nobody has ever been trampled to death in our online store.

Because that’s what I’m talking about today. Our online store’s version of Black Friday.

We’re launching new products, for those of you who *do* manage to do your holiday shopping early. We have mystery boxes, new t-shirts, and things that were only available before if you ordered them in the IndiGogo….

eolian-mug-front-_2_1024x1024(Like the Faboo Eolian Mug…)

Do I need to mention that all the proceeds from The Tinker’s Packs go to support Worldbuilders? Not just some of them. All of them.

So if you’re looking to get a little Black Friday action without the grungy feeling or the fear of getting trampled to death in a Walmart, why not check out the sale we have going on today?

  • 10% off the entire store

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If you buy something before midnight tonight, you’ll be able to use the offer code BlackFriday2016. That code will stack with things that are already on sale, so products like signed Beyond Words prints, Wooden Rings, and discontinued t-shirts are all going to be even cheaper.

Be sure to use the offer code BlackFriday2016 at checkout to get the deal.

  • Surprise Boxes

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The team has really taken to my obsession with MYSTERY BOXES, so we’re offering 2 different boxes in the store, a small one and a big one.

The big one is an expanded version of the small one, so you can’t buy both without getting some duplicates. That said, both come with a t-shirt and a mixture of posters, games, books, etc. It’s a cool idea that we’ve been wanting to try for a while now. The $30 box has between $75 and $100 worth of coolness in it, and the $60 box has between $160 and $180 worth of geek swag.

So if you love bargains and like surprises, you can go get more details over here.

The rest of the things going up are the long-awaited items from this summers Geeks Doing Good campaign. If you missed out on that week-long fundraiser and have been sad ever since, it’s probably available now…

  • So much apparel

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We featured a ton of wearables in the summer fundraiser, and now you can get your hands on all of it (except for the fundraiser exclusive one).

Feeling cold? How about an Amyr Hoodie paired with some Name of the Wind Writing gloves?

Want to show off your ability to track quintuple negatives? Sam Sykes’s Not Writing Nothing shirt‘s got you covered.

Good at tumbling, or at least pretending to? Jim Butcher’s PARKOUR shirt is right for you.

And if you want to show off your love for your favorite internet-based fundraising group, you can grab a Worldbuilders t-shirt.

  • Stickers and Clings

stickies

People have been asking for a while for better ways to show off their geeky pride in public, and one of the venues that’s regularly asked for is bumper stickers and window clings.

We already had Auri’s Gear window clings, but we’ve added Talent Pipes to the mix as well.

And if you want to spread the message about Worldbuilders, we have a bumper sticker 3-pack to stick onto your car with pride.

  • Other cool NOTW themed merch

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It’s no surprise that a lot of the merch Worldbuilders produces is based on my books. It’s my charity, after all.

What is surprising is how amazing some of this stuff is. This year we’ve got Auri’s Sunny Summer Soap from Slow Regard, scents based on Bast, Denna, and Kvothe (available individually or as a 3-pack), and a puzzle of the amazing Kvothe in Tarbean art donated by fan and professional artist Matt Rhodes.

We’ve also got talent pipe patches for your hats or bags, and the long-awaited and beloved Draccus plushie. We all know Amanda is getting hers, but you might want to buy one before she just takes them all.

  • The Princess Who Saved Herself

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This is something that should be on every parent’s gift list.

If you haven’t heard me gushing about it before, this is a book that I absolutely love. I’ve read it to my boys (and recorded Cutie Snoo helping me do it). All of the parents in the Worldbuilders office have copies, and have children who beg to read it.

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It’s based on a song by Jonathan Coulton, written by Greg Pak, illustrated by Takeshi Miyazawa, colors by Jessica Kholinne, letters by Simon Bowland, and injected with awesome by all. We picked it up to publish and put into the hands of as many people as we possibly can.

It’s the perfect book to read to or with kids of any age. Pick one up to make a kid in your life happy, and know that all the proceeds are going to a good cause….

*     *    *

It’s a ton of stuff, and there’s even more already up in the store, so head on over and peruse.

Hope you have a good Friday, everyone.

Stay safe,

pat

Also posted in The Tinker's Packs | By Pat15 Responses

Pat’s Far Travels: MisCon, Phoenix Comicon, and GenCon

Hey guys, Amanda here! After the crazy-awesome end to the Tak Kickstarter, Pat almost immediately has to pack his bags and head off to a couple of cons.  The good news is it’s almost become tradition for me to hijack the blog to post his convention schedule information, so I wasn’t altogether surprised this time around.

Missoula, Montana

PatInMissoulaMontana

(Aren’t these graphics Brett made awesome? I want one to track where Pat is at all times)

First is going to be MisCon, a great hidden gem of a convention, held in Missoula, Montana. If you’re anywhere near there, Pat’s one of a lot of cool guests, like Jim Butcher, Robin Hobb, Peter Orullian, and Dan Wells.

If you’re in the neighborhood, you can still buy badges over on their website or at the door when you arrive.

The con runs from May 27th through the 30th, but Pat’s only panels are on the 30th:

  • Sunday, May 29

5:00pm-5:50pm: Q&A With Jim Butcher and Pat Rothfuss in Ballroom B

**This event has been changed from Monday the 30th to Sunday the 29th at 5:00pm.

  • Monday, May 30 

10:00am-10:50am: Signing in Ballroom B

12:pm-12:50pm: Making Characters Resonate in Ballroom B
with Carol Berg, Todd Lockwood, & Peter Orullian.

Definitely check this stuff out, because it all sounds amazing. And if you see Pat, say hi from me.

 

Phoenix, Arizona

PatInPhoenixArizona

If you’re headed to Phoenix Comicon, though, you won’t have to say hi for me, because I’ll be there slinging Worldbuilders Merch at our gigantic booth,  #740/641. If you’re interested in helping us out at the booth, we’re looking for volunteers! If you’ve got some time to spare, contact our coordinator, Thera, right here.

We’ll be hosting signings there with Pat, as well as Kevin Hearne (Thursday 6/2 from 4-5), Scott Sigler (Friday 6/3 from 12-1), Pierce Brown (Friday 6/3 from 6-7), Brad Beaulieu (Saturday 6/4 from 1:30-2:30), and Mary Robinette Kowal (Sunday 6/5 from 1-2). More might be added, so be sure to swing by and check us out.

All signings, including Pat’s, will require free time tickets so we can keep the lines under control. If you’re interested in getting in on one of our signings, you can come to the booth anytime the hall is open to get a ticket.

But before the con even starts, there’s a huge signing event happening at The Poisoned Pen in Scottsdale.

  • Wednesday, June 1

7:00pm: ELEVENGEDDON, an 19-author signing extravaganza
The Poisoned Pen Bookstore
4014 N Goldwater Blvd
Scottsdale, Arizona 85251
Facebook Event

There are going to be 19 different authors all hanging out at The Poisoned Pen, all ready to sign books and have a rocking time. They’ll start handing out free color-coded wristbands an hour before the event starts to keep things from being too crowded all at once.

Authors like Pierce Brown, Kevin Hearne, Mary Robinette Kowal, Brandon Sanderson, Sam Sykes, and Django Wexler are going to be there, just to name a very few. If you can, you should really check it out.

Then, of course, the con starts the next day.

Note: There’ve been a few things added, so be sure to double check this one!

  • Thursday, June 2

4:30pm-5:30pm: Would You Rather?- North 128B
with Alyssa Wong, Pierce Brown, Sam Sykes, and Shannon Messengers

If this is going to be anything like Author Batsu games (which is another panel you should go to, even though Pat isn’t on it), then we are all in for a very weird treat.

  • Friday, June 3

12:00pm-1:00pm: Adventuring Parties, Still Cool?- North 129A
With Sam Sykes, Sarah Remy, and Todd Lockwood

1:30pm-2:30pm: Signing in the Signing lounge, North 127AB

3:00pm-4:00pm: Signing at the Worldbuilders Booth #740/641

PatSigning - Color

  • Saturday, June 4

12:00pm-1:00pm: Signing in the Exhibitor Hall Signing Area

1:30pm-2:30pm: Glowy Swords: Magical Macguffins-North 129A
With Alyssa Wong, Brandon Sanderson, Sam Sykes, and Victoria V.E. Schwab

3:00pm-4:00pm: Signing at Worldbuilders Booth #740/641

4:30-5:30pm: Spotlight:  Join Pat as he talks writing, mead making and livestock  – West 301A

  • Sunday, June 5

10:30am-11:30am: Guilty Pleasure Tropes-North 128B
With Christina Henry, Gini Koch, and Tom Leveen

12:00pm-1:00pm: Signing in the Signing Lounge, North 127AB

3:00pm-4:00pm: Signing in the Exhibitor Hall Signing Area

4:30pm-5:30pm: Embarrassing Author Con Stories-North 128B
With Kevin Hearne, Leanna Hieber, Mary Robinette Kowal, Pierce Brown, Sam Sykes and Shannon Messenger

The subject matter of this panel would be enough for me to desperately want to attend. The authors who are going to be on it will make it that much more amazing. Anything Sam Sykes considers “embarrassing” is going to make for an awesome story.

Indianapolis, Indiana

PatInIndianapolisIndiana

And, even though it’s a couple of months away yet, we wanted to make sure you knew about Pat’s GenCon schedule. GenCon has tickets for some of the panels and events, so if you want to attend you need to register online. All of Pat’s panels are free, but have limited seating, and we don’t want you to miss out just because you weren’t able to register soon enough.

Worldbuilders will also be at GenCon in a few different places, including a table outside the Writer’s Symposium, and booth #267 in the exhibit hall. We’re still deciding what we’re going to bring to sell at the booth, but there’s a lot to choose from in The Tinker’s Packs, so if you have feelings on what we should bring, maybe let me know in the comments and it’ll help us decide…

  • Thursday, August 4

1pm-2pm: Writer’s Craft: Convince the Reader to Care, Capital 1

4pm-5pm: Signing in the Exhibit Hall Author Area

All of Pat’s signings will require a ticket (so that you guys don’t flood the signing area with awesome, awesome people), so you can register for this one right here.

  • Friday, August 5

12pm-1pm: Talk about Tak with James Ernest, Westin, Capitol II

WoodBoardPhoto

This promises to be a great talk, especially since the Kickstarter went so well, and it’s just plain fun to hear Pat and James get into really in-depth talks about games. If you want to check it out, ask some questions, or just hear Pat and James discuss all things Tak, you won’t want to miss this. You’ll need to register for this event, which you can do right here.

4pm-6pm: An Evening with Pat Rothfuss

This is one of my favorite events Pat does, because you honestly never know what’s going to happen. Maybe he’ll read some poetry. Maybe he’ll make the entire audience sing with him. Maybe he’ll discuss the narrative structure of his favorite Marvel movie. No matter what, though, it’ll very likely be entertaining.

Registration for this one just went up today, so be sure to get in on it soon here.

  • Saturday, August 6

1:00pm-2:00pm: Signing, Exhibit Hall Author Area

As with the last signing, this will require registration for the sake of line control. If you want to attend this signing, you can do it here.

3:00pm-4:00pm: Character Craft: Representing Unconscious Motivation, Capital 1

4:00pm-5:00pm: Writer’s Life: Writers and Mental Health (You’re Not Alone), Capital 1

If I can, I’m going to make a point of swinging by this panel. It’s so rare for folks to discuss issues of mental health, and having a bunch of authors being candid and honest about it will hopefully open up the dialogue for more people, and take some of the stigma away.

* * *

And there you have it folks. You’ll probably see Pat around the con at all of these, but you’ll for sure be able to find him at these events. Make sure to register soon if you’re going to be at GenCon, and come say hi at the booths if you’ll be at Phoenix or GenCon.

Hope to see you soon!
Amanda

Also posted in a billion links, conventions, The Tinker's Packs | By Amanda18 Responses

Novelties: Hoodies, T-Shirts, and Drug-Addled Dracci

Novelties has become a lot of fun over this last year, mostly because we get to show off the cool new things we’re putting up in The Tinker’s Packs for charity.

As of now, we’ve pretty much finished shipping out the Geeks Doing Good fundraiser perks, with the exception people who never got back to us about t-shirt sizes. *HINT HINT* So that means we can finally start rolling some of those products out in the store.

But first, a signed book:

endofallthings

Amanda geeked out when she found out John would be in Madison for a signing, and so drove down to see him in all of his sarcastic glory.

She got 10 copies of his newest book, The End of All Things, and he graciously signed them for her, despite her intense fangirling. We’ve got those first edition copies up for grabs right here.

  • Auri’s Gear Temporary Tattoos

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This is, apparently, Amanda’s “tough” face. Amanda is hella street.

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This is her ‘I am mildly surprised and a bit perplexed by this tattoo on my arm’ face.

There are two tattoos per pack, so you can be double tough. Or, y’know. Single tough twice as long.

They’re available right here.

  • Geek-a-Week decks.

GeekAWeek

These Geek-aWeek decks are cool, as each card has a geeky celebrity featured on the front with some of their vital stats on the back.

During the fundraiser we actually played a little game of D&D showing one of the best uses I’ve seen for these cards: namely, using them to generate off-the-cuff NPCs with more personality than is generally the case.

Here are some highlights from Season 1 and Season 5:

geekaweeks1

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I’m guessing you can see a lot of familiar faces there.

Decks are available here. And fair warning: quantities are limited.

  • All of the t-shirts

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Dear beloved Worldbuilders employees: Do not break each other. This is expressly forbidden in the employee handbook.

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All four of the new t-shirts we made for the fundraiser are now live the the store. The team have been wearing theirs with pride, and Amanda, Jeff, and Rachel were all giddy when they saw some out in the wild at my recent signing in LA.

If you missed out on getting one before, or you suddenly thought of a friend who probably needs these, you can pick them up over here:

What Does It Unlock, Waystone Inn, You Have Died of Chandrian, and Polka Will Never Die.

  • Hoodies

Hoodies2

Amanda’s been SUPER photogenic lately…

Hoodies1

So apparently, this is what my team does when I’m not in the office to keep an eye them. They dress up and take pictures of their butts.

The hoodies were something of an experiment. They’re much more expensive than t-shirts to produce, so they’re more expensive to purchase, and we were worried no one would be interested in them. Or at least not enough people to make them worth the expense, not to mention the storage space.

They went over way better than we thought, and so even though we hadn’t intended to carry them in the store afterwards originally, you swayed us, and you can get your own over here.

  • Draccus for King of Tokyo and King of New York

DraccusAd

As I mentioned before, King of Tokyo isn’t just a personal favorite game, it’s captured the hearts of the entire Worldbuilders team. They got together and played it a few weeks back, then posted a bunch of pictures up on the Worldbuilders Blog.

So imagine our delight when the lovely folks that make the game worked with us to create a special promotional character, so you can destroy Tokyo like the giant drug-addled cow-lizard you are.

When we brought this promotional Draccus card to GenCon, we only had about 400 of them, which we thought were plenty to last us the weekend. Even so, we limited it to 50 a day, so folks who only came on Saturday or Sunday still had a chance to pick some up. We sold out every day in just a couple of hours.

But now we have our full shipment of draccuses (dracci?) in the store, and we’re making them available to everyone for the first time.

Fair warning: We have a limited number of these, and once they’re gone, there won’t ever be any more. So if you want one, you might want to grab it sooner rather than later. Personally, I wouldn’t be surprised if they sell out in just a couple of days.

For those of you who’ve never played the game before, I highly recommend it. So we’re selling copies of King of Tokyo and King of New York in the store, too. You can use the draccus in either game.king-of-tokyo-couverture2

And, as always, all the money raised in the Tinker’s Packs goes to charity. So you’re not just buying geeky swag, you’re making the world a better place, too.

* * *

Three final notes before I sign off today.

I’ve decided that I’m going to be fewer events and less overall traveling in 2016. So if you’d like to see me in person, you might want to catch me in some of the following events coming up here at the end of the year, if that’s at all possible.

1. I’m doing a bit of a tour with Paul and Storm on the East Coast this week. There will be stops in Philadelphia, Alexandria, Brooklyn, and Somerville. (Which is not the same as Sunnydale. I checked.)

2. The convention I’ve been helping plan is fast approaching: NerdCon: Stories. It’s going to be a seriously awesome time.

3. Expect another post later this week on the blog. Odds are I’ll have some news to share….

Later Space Cowboys,

pat

Also posted in gaming, Novelties, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat14 Responses

Novelties: IndieGoGo Edition

As some of you may already know, we’ve been shipping out our summer fundraiser perks for a while now. If it weren’t for the constant arrival of the UPS truck, we would be buried by the sheer mass of packages we’re assembling every day.

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And that’s not an exaggeration. Look at the upstretched hand of some poor lost Worldbuilders Minion waving for help from behind this stack of bundled packages. We have to keep shipping things out or we’re going to be crushed to death.

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So rest assured that if you jumped into the Geeks Doing Good fundraiser a couple months back, your goodies are on their way to you.

While it’s true that we’re busy with fundraiser fulfillment, we still have some new items for Novelties that have been showing up here at Worldbuilders HQ, including a couple of signed books. For example….

  • First edition copies of The Mad Apprentice. Signed by Django Wexler.

_DSC0539 Django Wexler is a seriously cool dude, and he’s helped out with Worldbuilders before. This time, he donated signed first edition copies of his newest book, which is the second in The Forbidden Library series. If you want to be cooler than all of the other kids, you should grab your copy and support Worldbuilders in the process by buying it right here.

_DSC0544 This is a collection of the webcomic my good friends Pat Johnson and Nate Taylor did for years. I wrote the introduction, and this is from the limited edition that was signed by contributing artists as well. There were only 50 of these, and it has art from Worldbuilders’ own Brett, Shane Tyree, and Phil Foglio, just to name a few. If you want in on a hilarious webcomic, grab this collection over here.

  • Boss Monster 2 from Brotherwise Games.

_DSC0542 Boss Monster is a house favorite here at Worldbuilders HQ. When we get together and hang out, or have a team game night, it’s usually one of the first choices to play. And now that Boss Monster 2 is out, we have even more to play.

One of the cool things about Boss Monster is that every card is a geeky reference to a retro game or gaming archetype in some way. Boss Monster 2 is no exception. Here’s someone you might recognize. PatCard(Wrathfuss the Namer.)

It’s kinda uncanny how easily that managed to capture me using that 8-bit style….

There’s a few other faces in there you might recognize.

BossMonster2AuthorCards

Yup. Characters similar-to-but legally distinct from Sanderson, Gaiman, and Martin all make cameos as heroes you must destroy in your dungeon. And we have copies we can sell where the profits go to Worldbuilders. You can grab them right here.

BastAndBastas

As an added bonus, we still have some the limited edition Bast and Bastas cards they made as a promo. They play in either this game or the previous one. If you don’t already have them, we’ve got those for sale right here as well

Since we’re adding new stuff up in The Tinker’s Packs, we thought we’d add some of the items we launched in the summer fundraiser to make them available for people who missed out.

For those of you who bought one of these things in the IndieGoGo, don’t worry, we’ve already shipped out all the rewards containing these items. So if they aren’t already in your hot little hands, rest assured that they’re in the mail, making their way toward you…

  • Auri’s Gear Window Clings.

RachelAndGears

D’aww, look at how happy Rachel is…

These are pretty cool little things. We couldn’t choose between black and white when we were planning for the fundraiser, so we gave up and did both. A pair (one in black and one in white) is available in the store now for just $6.

_DSC0538

Here’s the white one on Amanda’s car, looking particularly glorious. Put them on your computer, in your car, on your desk, on your cat, whatever you can think of.

  • 2016 Beyond Words author calendar.

BeyondWords2016_Cover

Lauren Zurchin drove around the country again to take photos of authors in fantasy-themed costumes and settings. The calendar turned out great, and it had a great bunch of authors this year.

BeyondWordsGrid

The authors included Leigh Bardugo, Jim Butcher, Melissa de la Cruz, Tony DiTerlizzi, Kami Garcia, Lev Grossman, Robin Hobb, Tahereh Mafi, Garth Nix, Ransom Riggs, Margaret Stohl, Scott Westerfeld, and me. If you follow this link, you can see some pages, and grab a copy if you’re interested.

  • Karen Hallion 2016 Happy Endings calendar.

KHPages_cropped

Next year’s Hallion calendar is extraordinarily beautiful. The art is stunning, and Brett really outdid himself on the calendar pages themselves, giving each one a theme based on Karen’s art, and putting in little extra details everywhere for those of you clever enough to notice.

I’m immensely proud of it. You can get yours over here, and it’s early enough that no matter where you live you should have it in time for the new year without too much trouble at all.

  • Cheap 2015 Hallion Calendars

As some of you already know, August in the 2015 calendar features a few characters that might be familiar to you…. Denna-final

This picture pleases me to no end, so I figured we would discount the few remaining copies of this year’s calendar we have, while we put up the 2016 version.

So: Beautiful NEW Hallion Calendar: Available here for $20.

The calendar for 2015: Available here, marked down to $5 for those of you more interested in the art than keeping a calendar anymore.

  • Polka Will Never Die

PolkaWND_BK_Straight_NoSerif

In related news, we had some trouble with people making illegal versions of the Polka shirt a while back.

Screen Shot 2015-08-03 at 11.31.35 AM

I was filled with furious anger when I heard. But that is a story for another day. (And another blog.)

The problem is dealt with for now, but since people were excited enough about the shirt to start stealing it, we figured we’d give y’all a place to pre-order on the Tinker’s Packs.

Now, note that this is a pre-order. These aren’t shipping yet, because the folks who jumped into our Geeks Doing Good fundraiser need to get theirs first.

But rather than have people buying them from someone who is taking advantage of the designer who made the shirt and the charity, we’ve decided to make them available to purchase now. If you go in and order one there, you’ll be first in line to get yours after the other orders ship.

Show your love for Butters, and do it for a good cause. You know you want to.

* * *

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks. In another month or so, we’ll be rolling out more of the items after we finish shipping things out to folks who backed the IndieGoGo.

Want to get an immediate heads-up when we launch new stuff in the store? Since I don’t always blog about it, the Tinker’s Packs has a newsletter for those of you who hate missing out on limited edition stuff.

But if newsletters aren’t your thing, you can always keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter, or just check the online store regularly.

Later,

pat

Also posted in BJ Hiorns Art, Geeks Doing Good, Nathan Taylor Art, Novelties, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat13 Responses

Million Dollar Milkshake (and Novelties)

Guess what happened last year that I never got around to talking about?

In 2014, for the first time, Worldbuilders raised $1,000,000.

Last year two things happened that pushed us over the top.

1. We had our best holiday fundraiser ever, raising more than $880,000 (as you can see if you look at the Worldbuilders website.)

2. We tried an experimental mid-season fundraiser on Indigogo that was so successful that I actually lost a bet with the Worldbuilders team and was forced to buy everyone milkshakes. (As I wrote about in a blog over here.)

Despite the fact that this was a pretty big deal for us. We haven’t made much noise about it. Partly because after the holiday fundraiser we were all exhausted. And partly because we were focused on getting everyone’s prizes shipped out to them in a timely fashion.

But the fact remains that we did it. And I wanted to mark the occasion because it’s a milestone that took us 6 years to achieve.

I wanted to make a challenge coin. Because I think they’re kinda cool. I’m a geek for coins, I like the way they feel in my hand, and people have given me a number of challenge coins over the years. Personally, I’d love to do a new one for ever year of Worldbuilders.

The rest of the Worldbuilders team was skeptical. They didn’t know if y’all would be interested in something like that. But eventually I persuaded them to give the idea a trial run.

And here we are:

coinfront

Because we’re really not sure whether or not people will go for these, we’re only getting 500 of them made.

If people end up buying them, we’ll know y’all are interested and we’ll do more things like this in the future. If not… well… then I guess I’ll use these for poker chips, and the rest of the Worldbuilders team will mock me for coming up with this idea.

DSC_0626

(Do not eat coin.)

The flipside of the coin shows our beloved Monkey Puppet drinking a celebratory milkshake in honor of our first-ever million dollar year.

If you’d like to see a better picture of that, or if you’d like to buy one, you can head over to the Tinker’s Packs and order one now.

As always, all proceeds from the Tinker’s Packs go to Worldbuilders.

(Fair warning: these might not ship for a week or two…)

*       *       *

Since we’re on the subject of the Tinker’s Packs, we might as well celebrate the first day of spring with a Novelties blog.

For those of you who might be new to the blog, Novelties is where we put up some cool pieces of geekery for sale that you might not be able to find in other places.

Things such as….

  • Writhing Dark Playing Cards (Limited and Unlimited)

writhing_dark

Interesting Fact: One of the very first non-Rothfuss items we ever sold in our store was a deck of Cthulhu cards by Artist Shane Tyree.

I liked the cards so much that later on, I worked with him on a few Pairs decks, as well as the Name of the Wind cards.

What we have here is his newest endeavor. A second Cthulhu-Themed deck…

_DSC0621

(That bearded gentleman seems a little familiar.)

If you’d like to see more of the art or buy a deck, click over here.

  • Slow Regard Foreign Language Editions: 

DSC_0630

Now that The Slow Regard of Silent Things has been out a while, we’ve got more and more foreign editions getting translated. When that happens, the publisher sends me a handful of author copies.

When they show up at my house, I dutifully put one one copy on my vanity shelf, set one aside for the library, and give the rest to Worldbuilders.

Right now we’ve got Spanish, PortugueseGerman, Polish, Dutch, Brazilian, and Slovak translations of Slow Regard of Silent Things. We even have an audio book version of the German edition.

There’s been a more than a few other versions of my book too. For example, the Latvian edition of Wise Man’s Fear, showed up at my house recently:

I’ve been translated into 35 languages so far, and almost all of those editions are up in the store.

Even better, a lot of other authors have donated their author copies, too. So if you’re looking to bone up on your Estonian, or if you have a friend who speaks Portuguese as her first language, you could check out our Foreign Editions section on The Tinker’s Packs.

As always, all of the proceeds will go to Worldbuilders.

  • Limited Edition Le Nom du Vent poster

While I love all my foreign editions, and by extension all my foreign covers, I’ve always had a special place in my heart for the French covers, which feature the fabulous art of Marc Simonetti.

French-Cover-721861

Proving that he’s an incredibly kind person, Marc has allowed Worldbuilders to print a limited run of posters using the artwork used to produce the cover….

lenomduvent

(Click to Embiggen)

The posters are numbered 1 through 200 and signed by me. If you’d like to grab one, you can do so over here.

EditAmanda here! The posters went over awesomely and managed to sell out by 2 in the afternoon today. The people who are signed up for the once-a-month The Tinker’s Packs newsletter heard about these things a little earlier, so you should sign up right here.

*     *     *

That’s all we’ve got for now, folks. Stay tuned for more blogs soon…

pat

Also posted in all sorts of different types of books, book covers, cool things, Novelties, The Tinker's Packs | By Pat36 Responses
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