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Dragon Bagons; CR10 dragon dicebags

Created by Bridget Hughes

These CR10 dragon dicebags would love to guard your dice hoard. Also available are Dragon dice, Bagthulhus, and Bagthulhu dice.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Photoshoot and updates on shipping
over 3 years ago – Fri, Aug 21, 2020 at 06:04:29 PM

I've been busy the past few days editing photos. Next we're gonna try and get some outdoors and with interesting backgrounds, then some video.

Group shot of Red/Black, Purple/Green, and Rainbow Dragon Bagons with a pile of dice between them.
Rainbow Dragon Bagon with a rainbow of dice around them.
Black/Red Dragon Bagon looking over their wing at the camera
Purple/Green Dragon Bagon with purple and green dice

Etsy

As we need to start bringing some more income in, I've tentatively made manufactured Dragon Bagons available on our etsy store, with the priviso that in areas we haven't fulfilled yet, any new orders that come in will be in line behind any remaining KS orders. This primarily applies to the UK and the EU.

Retailers/Wholesale

We can start taking orders from retailers and distributors in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, and other places, again with the proviso that orders for the UK and EU will be in line behind the existing KS orders. Meeples & Dragons in Australia and Nerdy Chicken in Canada preordered from us early on and will likely have their stock of Dragon Bagons available for retail soon.

UK Shipping

Our fulfillment partner in the UK finally got a letter from customs. It's all a bit mixed up as new regulations are coming in after Brexit, plus a major slow down in processing (likely due to the pandemic). Some shipments have been sitting waiting to fly out of the UK for over a month now. UK customs wants a breakdown of everything that's in the shipment (which is weird, since the breakdown is both on the shipping label's customs declaration and on the pack list inside the box). We've sent them all the information again, so hopefully we'll hear back soon. As soon as the shipment actually gets to our fulfillment partner they'll start fulfillment for our UK orders.

US/Canada shipping

The majority of orders for the US and Canada have now gone out. We're getting a few returned and a few have gone missing, plus the USPS is having some delays at the moment, but we're doing our best to handle each issue as it arises. It would be great to know how many folks in the US and Canada have now received their parcels so let us know in the comments :).

EU shipping

We're still waiting to hear back about the second wave of parcels

Aotearoa/New Zealand shipping

All KS orders within New Zealand should have been received by now. If you have not received your order, please get in touch asap.

Australia shipping

All KS orders within New Zealand should have been received by now. If you have not received your order, please get in touch asap. There is one exception which was a later preorder which will be on it's way as soon as the courier picks up.

Everywhere else

Shipping is still being disrupted around the world. If you're not in any of the areas above, and your order has been marked as fulfilled for more than a month but you haven't received it, please let me know and we can try to sort it out.

Unfilled surveys and declined cards

There are a small number of surveys that either haven't been filled out or had shipping payments not completed. We're still sending reminders periodically, but eventually we'll have to consider these orders as abandoned and close them, so if you're one of the folks with an incomplete survey and you still want your order, please get on to filling in the info ASAP.

Covid 19 and Aotearoa/New Zealand

The number of cases being found in the Auckland cluster continues to grow as expected, but despite tens of thousands of tests being done, it doesn't seem to have spread nearly as far as it could have. Auckland continues to be at level 3, and will be for about another week. Every person that returns a positive test needs to stay in managed isolation for at least two weeks.

Me wearing a fitted mask with a blue and purple butterfly print

The demand for masks has skyrocketed, especially in Auckland. Our small stock disappeared overnight. We've been making more as quickly as we can in between our main projects. The main issue at the moment is getting elastic. Every manufacturer in the country is rushed off their feet and every store is sold out. We had a small amount but that is rapidly running out. We've improvised and made bias binding where we could, which allowed us to make a few extra masks to donate. So far a local foodbank has picked up two small batches of masks, and we have more that are waiting for their elastic. I organised to have a batch cut in bulk, and the pieces arrived today. We'll work on getting them as far along as we can without elastic, then we'll just have to wait until more becomes available. I've got three lots on back order from different suppliers, so hopefully some will get to us soon.

We're still safe and well, Auckland is quite a way away from us, and there's been no cases found in our region. The rest of the country is still at level 2, which is this sort of awkward semi normal where you feel silly for wearing a mask and worrying, but probably should all the same.

I hope you're safe and well :)

Covid 19 and Aotearoa/New Zealand
over 3 years ago – Tue, Aug 11, 2020 at 11:55:47 PM

As many will now know, last night it was announced that after 102 days of no cases of community transmission, four new cases tested positive with no obvious source.

The city where the cases are located has been put into level 3, which is not a complete lockdown, but pretty close. This will last for 72 hours while health officials conduct mass testing, contact tracing, and other measures. The rest of the country is in level 2, which is cautious but still relatively free.

People here have also been asked to get masks, as this is now part of the WHO official advice. We have a small stock of masks that we had been building up to send overseas, but now charities here need them. We'll be making more as we have the time.

Shipping

At the current level, any shipping direct from us should not be strongly affected. Most international parcels were already being delayed by a week or so before they left the country. 

Shipping within the US, Canada and UK will be primarily coming from our fulfillment partners. New custom orders will likely ship direct from us in NZ. Most of the US/Canada orders have gone out now, but there are a few we still need to sort. The shipment for the UK is still sitting in customs with no communication from them so far, so we're still playing the waiting game there. 

The second wave of the EU shipping test has gone out and we're now waiting for feedback.

We were already seeing delays for shipping within NZ, the postal service is supposed to be back to normal, but we were still seeing delays of up 1-10 days for pickups. I image those delays will unfortunately continue. Once picked up items seem to move reasonably quickly at least.

Safety with parcels

As we've said before, when you receive a parcel from us, we recommend keeping it in quarantine for a week, as we can't guarantee who has handled it on it's journey to you, and whether or not customs has decided to open it.

If you quarantine your parcel for a week and find an issue when you open it, we will still work with you to resolve that issue.

UK and EU shipping update
over 3 years ago – Mon, Aug 03, 2020 at 03:06:18 PM

UK

The tracking for the UK shipment has been updated to show that half of the shipment is now in the UK, but customs has not yet gotten in touch with our fulfillment partner about VAT. We had some issues with our shipping platform not printing enough tracking numbers (there's two boxes), so one box is further behind than the other.

Shipping in and out of the UK is unfortunately very slow right now so it's a waiting game. When the first box reaches our fulfillment partner I'll find out which one it is and ask them to fulfill as many orders as they can with it, so we're at least making some progress.

EU

We have now heard back from all of the recipients of the first wave of the EU shipping test, in a variety of EU nations, and none were charged extra VAT, so it's looking positive thus far. The shipment containing the higher value handmade dragons for the second wave of the EU shipping test has arrived and have either gone out or will go out soon (we're waiting for confirmation). After that it will be a waiting game until we hear back from our wonderful tester recipients.

Fulfillment update
over 3 years ago – Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 03:15:21 AM

Here's where we're at

Aotearoa/NZ, Australia, Switzerland, Brazil, Hong Kong, Norway (and a few other places)

The couriers have picked up a small mountain of parcels, and we celebrated completing this portion of the fulfillment with a glass of blueberry cider that was a gift from a lovely friend, and chocolate mousse cake.

USA

The US portion of the manufactured run arrived with our fulfillment partner today. The handmade shipment I sent them seems to be stuck at international departure here in Aotearoa, probably due to to there being fewer flights. I've asked them to start ASAP on the orders that can be fulfilled with what they have on hand. I'm waiting to hear back.

UK

The stock take info from the UK fulfillment partner has arrived, and the shipment for them is sitting in the lounge waiting to go. I suspect it will also be slowed down by the lowered number of international flights, I'm hoping it'll be picked up tomorrow.

EU

The second wave of the EU shipping test is also sitting waiting to leave the country. I'm hoping it'll be on the move soon.

QA and fulfillment
over 3 years ago – Mon, Jul 13, 2020 at 02:39:31 AM

Progress update ^_^

QA

We've checked about 250 manufactured Dragon Bagons so far. Ideally I'd like to check more over the next little while. We've found one or two major errors, and some small ones. The error rate is a bit higher than the manufacturers report showed, but to be honest I was expecting that. I'm also trying to keep in mind that I have a history of being fussier than many.

Some things I have noted:

  • The fabric quality is not as nice as what we use here in the workshop/lounge. There is also some variation in weight, softness, and knit size between the different colours of fabric. I knew some of this in advance since I had some samples, but some of the fabrics were sourced at the last minute because the original fabrics I approved were no longer available in stock. There's also a difference between a sample cut by hand and a manufactured item that was bulk cut. It may be that if I want to get fabric as nice as I have here for a manufactured situation, it needs to be custom made, which means a much bigger order. This wasn't possible this time, but it might be in the future. 
  • There is a cost to having the spikes and scales die cut (and thus softer) rather than laser cut. Die cutting is basically like using a cookie cutter but with fabric and literal tons of pressure. If the fabric in a stack shifts slightly during a "press" or "cut", it can produce pieces that are warped, nicked, or inconsistent in size. Laser cutting is far more accurate, but it created a slightly scratchy edge, which took away from the cuddliness. The scale sizes are not as consistent as I would like, but they're not scratchy, which is important. The spikes fared better, but some did have small nicks etc.
  • The manufacturers did very well keeping the spikes fairly flat around the back of the head and jaw, it's a tricky bit of sewing.
  • The applique for the inner wings (which I was quite worried about) has come out really very nicely.
  • The width of the forehead and nose are more varied than what we do here, but I was expecting that.
  • The eyes sit slightly higher than I prefer, but that comes down to my preferences on eye placement evolving (it's a very niche preference) since I sent the pattern over.
  • The stuffing in some of the heads has compressed in transit. I've found in most cases you can sort of fluff them out again, and they seem to expand a bit with time. To be fair, this can happen at any stage of shipping, and it's hard to gauge exactly how much stuffing to use, since there's a risk of overstuffing as well.

All of that being said, if you find a fault with your Dragon Bagon when they arrive, let me know and we'll sort it out :).


Fulfillment

Aotearoa/New Zealand, Australia, and others

We started a bit of fulfillment, mostly for a break during QA.

So far around 70 parcels have been sent to Aotearoa/NZ, Australia, Hong Kong, Norway, Switzerland and a few other places. There's another 30 or so to go out early next week.

Something weird happened with the printer where it would just randomly skip pages sometimes, so we ended up reprinting a few things so every order got checked off the list properly.

We also ran out of shipping bags for local orders, but the new ones I ordered got here pretty quick.

A pile of parcels (about 70) waiting to be picked up.
More parcels on top of a stack of Dragon Bagon cartons

US/Canada Fulfillment
We're still waiting on confirmation that the US shipment has been delivered to our fulfillment partner. In the meantime I've sent them the last of the handmade orders for the US/Canada that also contain a manufactured Dragon Bagon, plus a top up of dice. I'm currently working on the CSVs for their system.
 

UK fulfillment
Our UK fulfillment partner is waiting on a laptop part to get back in action. I'm waiting on a stocktake from them so I know whether to include extra dice and handmade dragons in the shipment of manufactured Dragon Bagons I have waiting to send to them. It's going by courier so hopefully once it's away it should be fairly quick.
 

EU fulfillment
So far it appears that the shipping method we're testing is working, we're sending a second wave of higher value parcels to finish the test, and then (fingers crossed) all going well, we'll be able to send out the EU orders.
 

Safety with parcels
Aotearoa/New Zealand was briefly declared COVID-19 free, but since then a lot of cases have been popping up at the border. Residents and citizens returning to the country from overseas have to be in managed isolation for two weeks, and now they have to test negative before they can go out into the community. So far we haven't had any more community transmission, but nothing is certain.
 

With that in mind, here is what we recommend when receiving a parcel from us:
Leave it in "quarantine", without opening it, for a week, wash your hands after touching it until the quarantine is up, and then proceed as normal. This should hopefully mean any unwanted microbial passengers have died off. It also means that if there's anything wrong with the parcel, you can keep the packaging etc for photos if they're needed. I realise this might seem over the top to some folks, and obviously we can't control what you decide to do with your parcel, but the weeks "quarantine" will hopefully give another layer of protection. 

Some parcels from us come straight from Aotearoa/NZ, while others come from fulfillment partners in the UK and US. There's different situations with the pandemic in different places, and while the contents of the parcels are usually sealed for at least a few days in transit (more for international transit), we can't guarantee that customs won't decide to open one, and we don't know how many people have handled the parcel along it's journey and what their exact circumstances regarding covid-19 are.

Armageddon Wellington

There's a convention here called Armageddon (well named given this years events) on the 1st and 2nd of August. It was originally going to be held much earlier in the year, but the pandemic put paid to that. We're planning to have a small booth there (all things going well). If we have enough time, we might even cosplay. So if you're going to the convention, feel free to come say hi ^_^, we shouldn't be hard to spot, just look for the crowd of dragons.
 

Dice

Also, when you receive your parcel, don't be surprised if you have a multiset or two that you didn't order. I added or upgraded them as a thank you :)