Phase 1 Shipping Complete for all submitted surveys! Update on STLs, Music and Campaign
9 days ago
– Fri, May 29, 2026 at 04:21:13 PM
Dear Keshites,
We are happy to report that the Temple of Shu has completed the dispatch of all Phase 1 rewards for all backers who have completed their surveys. For a detailed description of what is included in Phase 1 and Phase 2, please see the update link at the bottom of this message.
If you have not received your rewards yet, it could mean one of three things:
1) You have not completed your survey.
Many surveys are still outstanding. Once you complete your BackerKit survey, which should be in the inbox of the email address we have on file for you, you will receive your Phase 1 rewards.
2) Your package is still in transit, delayed, or possibly waylaid by random encounters.
Some packages, especially international shipments, may still be on the road, at sea, in the air, or briefly intercepted by Spawn of Apep or Basquran Pirates. Please give it a little more time, especially if you are outside the United States.
3) Something else has gone wrong.
It happens. Even our duskers occasionally drop a scroll.
4) What to do if any of the above applies to you:
We are committed to delivering all of your rewards. If you have not received your Phase 1 rewards after allowing a reasonable amount of time for shipping, please contact our fulfillment and customer service team at [email protected]. Be sure to include the email address you used for Kickstarter. That will open a ticket, and the team will help you out.
I am always here as well if you need extra help, so please never hesitate to reach out. But if you are looking for delivery updates, sending an email to [email protected] is your best bet.
LATEST DELIVERIES
You should have an email for the STLs and Adventure Music deliveries!
STATUS OF THE CAMPAIGN
Many of you have, quite rightly, asked about the status of the campaign.
We had to split our attention a bit because we ran into a problem with our fulfillment partner and ended up managing our own fulfillment. In the end, the turnaround time was about the same, and we were able to add a lot more special touches by doing it ourselves, such as the stamps and stickers.
Regarding the campaign, it now has my full attention, and it also has Marx’s. Marx is handling the encounters and mechanics, and he is my partner on the main story arc. I anticipate that we will have it done soonish. I hesitate to provide a firm date because it is hard to predict things like writer’s block, final testing, and the occasional ambush by reality. My goal is to complete it within four months, possibly sooner. A lot of it is already done, and I have been doing a final playtest of the completed sections.
Several other rewards depend on the campaign, including the battlemaps and Secrets of Bast cards. Once the campaign is complete, everything will be made available electronically as PDFs, and all remaining physical items will go to the manufacturer for completion. That production process will take at least four months due to manufacturing and shipping times, but it will not stop anyone, including me, from running the campaign, since you will already have the PDFs.
Here is a little view into our fulfillment work
Here is an update with more details on Phase 1 and 2 shipping
Don’t forget to join the frothy conversation in The Reth Discord server with the other Egyptomaniacs! The Discord invitation and our other social links are in our Linktree here.
Thank you so much, as always, for your support.
Regards,
Dave, Marx, Emily and Mop Hotep
Sourcebook Shipping About to Happen
about 2 months ago
– Thu, Apr 09, 2026 at 02:57:34 PM
Hello everyone. Thank you as always for your patience. We finally have pallets of the Sourcebook in our climate controlled storage and we have begun the process of shipping. This is going to take a few weeks to get everything that we have on hand (sourcebook, dice, canopic jars and scarabs) out to you. As we mentioned earlier, we are are dividing the entire KS delivery into two phases so that we can get you the sourcebook now. This adds about 15K to the shipping costs but we are anxious to get the sourcebook and a some other items into your hands ASAP. We call this Phase 1.
Phase 2 will be the LE covers, the campaign, DM screen, printed minis and everythign else that comes with the campaign (like the cards and battlemaps). The PDF of the Campaign will come sooner of course but the printed books will be printed in China as we kinda shot the cash wad on printing the sourcebook in the US (saved 4 months) so now we need to be a bit more frugal on the production costs for the rest of the physical goods.
Over the course of the next week we will complete our fulfillment logistics and start getting hundreds of packages into the mail. We will be sending updates once that starts you can seeing them shipping out.
Thank you as always for your generous support and patience. We think you will really like the sourcebook. It came in at 512 pages rather than the estimated 400 and it is loaded with amazing art. It has some minor errors (despite the dozen editors and proofreaders) because we did the layout in 3 weeks instead of 3 months. Rushing the layout introduced a few errors that were not in the manuscript but I think they are forgivable - errors are like Pokemon, you can't catch them all, or maybe it's you gotta catch em all - whatever. You will recieve a card for the errata PDF download with each book. We are also getting ready to release the Shadown Manuscript from Dr. Jill, our Egyptologist, that points out what aspects of the lore and Keshen theology and culture that are accurate to ancient Egypt and where we deviated in the interests of game play and adaptation to general DnD cosmology. That will be a PDF and you will reiceve a notification to download it.
While all this is happening, I am cranking on the campoaign. Its close. Then it's art and layout and the PDF will ship. I hate to guess when because it will probably be wrong but its a matter of some few months. Getting that in your hands is priority number one.
Regards
Dave, Marx and Emily.
Setting Book PDF has released!
4 months ago
– Thu, Feb 12, 2026 at 01:38:21 PM
Dear Backers,
Today was a huge milestone in the lives of the Orthane Productions team. We just distributed the PDF of the setting book for the Kingdom of Keshanar. If you did not receive an email to download it from BackerKit then please send an email to [email protected] to get that sorted right away! Soon we will be releasing the STLs packs although we have decided to make some enhancements by adding color to the models. This doesn't print (as far as I know) but it looks cool and may provide some inspiration to the mini-painter. So look for more digital content releases soon. The PDF came in about 100 pages bigger than we anticipated. We thought about spreading some of the content into the Vol 1 of 3 of the campaign (like putting most of the NPCs in there) but because some backers only want the setting book, we decided to pack as much in there as possible and use it referentially with the campaign books; our maxim is maximum value for your table.
All other items are on track with the date I mentioned in the last update (#27), and the hardcopy books will be printed in the next 30 days.. This moment is a trepidatious one for us as we have poured so much into this and now we get to face the feedback after all the hype. And while it is not over (and hopefully won't be for a long time), this is the close of an era where we get to experience so much support and enthusiasm for a product nobody has even seen yet! That was indeed, a humbling experience. If you like the setting book, I can say with some confidence that you are going to love the campaign. It's a little eerie how the overarching story of the campaign meshes so well with ancient Egyptian religious canon and we are going to roll it out in a slightly unique way (at least in my experience). But more on that later. Now I am back to the grindstone finishing up Ra-Memnon and the Book of Gates here at the Luxor airport waiting area. As Marx and I developed the setting book, chunks of the associated campaign were invalidates by enhancements we made to the setting.
As always, we would love to hear from you on our Discord where we do most of our lurking, and/or see you at a con (GaryCon, Origins and GenCon are in the lineup).
Dave and Marx
We are on the eve of printing the setting book!
5 months ago
– Thu, Jan 22, 2026 at 10:31:50 AM
First off, sorry for the radio silence. All, and literally ALL, of our energy of late has been going towards finishing the TKK Sourcebook. No excuses for leaving you in the dark though as I know that not all of you are in Keshite Conclave on facebook or our The Reth Discord server. And on that note, we have some exciting news: We are currently DAYS AWAY from finalizing our files and sending them to Walsworth to print the regular edition cover of the setting book. We decided to upscale both covers significantly and we are absorbing those costs. You should have them in your hands by the end of April. After that we will have the regular edition covers and they will start going out to you, our faithful and generous backers! The Setting book is coming in at 512 pages - about 20-30% higher than anticipated - mostly because of all the stunning art from our 60+ artists (just the hieroglyphs are a big process taking several people). Our goal is to have them in hand at GaryCon 26 but if that doesn't happen, we will bring a few proof copies to GC (where we announced the project 2 years ago and launched the KS 1, year ago).
Of course, the backers get everything first. We will be shipping most of the physical rewards in April. The campaign book is going to take a little longer as well as a few of the physical rewards that are associated with the campaign book (Like Secrets of Bast Cards and some maps). There IS a large tear out double sided map in the Setting Book though. The Setting came in much beefier and took more time. For instance, most of the NPCs that the campaign will be referencing are in the setting book (not all - some new ones in Campaign also).
The custom covers are going to be printed by Regent (in China) as there is not a printer in the US that makes leatherette covers, custom bronze stamp debossing and other features at the quality level we want. We even explored full cowhide leather but there were lots of quality and consistency issues so we are using real but processed leather.
We never imagined that layout was this much work (I'm sure our colleagues in other setting projects are laughing at this) but we remain committed to getting this to the our US printer (Walsworth) within a few days - even if it kills us - and it might. The good news here is that we have established our style guide, our processes, our cadre of artists, our layout team, etc. The campaign book will truly happen quickly (by comparison) and we are committed to launching the Lv10-15 and 15-20 campaign books rapidly so that there will be no delay in your campaigns. The second this one goes to print, we will start on the next and the master ark of narrative for all 3 campaign books is already set.
The PDF will be available sooner than the print. We just need to put the links and other functionality in after we send it to the printer and make sure we have the distribution process full nailed down.
As we may have mentioned earlier, this means that we will not be shipping all the physical rewards together so you may get multiple shipments. We don't want to prolongue getting things in your hands just to save on shipping.
Eternally grateful for you all.
The Orthane Team
Here's a preview of what we've been putting together
And this:
Another example of the care and authenticity that is going into this. We made this ancient Keshen tablet in the style of some specific ancient Egyptian wall art. The hieroglyphs are real, and we aged it to match similar AE wall art. It took a month for this one page. We are NOT screwing around here folks! You will be pleased. There may be a few typos or a missing indent here and there because we have so condensed the timeline but trust us when we say that this is not your grandmother's AE setting book. Our 3 trips to Egypt in 12 months testify to that (and I am going back in Feb).
Part of the reason why we need to go there is that there is so much art, architecture, hieroglyphic text and other material that is not on the internet or otherwise available. Going is the only way. Orthane is also opening up TTRP in Egypt (we already set up a lending library of books, dice, battle mats, screens and minis - 500 pounds of gear) and are working to fund some actual archeology there but more on that later. I'm back to the grind! Thank you for your faith in us. We cannot express how appreciative we are. SO CLOSE!
PS. Many other game TTRPG studio folks told us that delivering a KS of this magnitude within a year was impossible and, frankly, I think they were right. But we had never done this before so we didn't have the assured knowledge of impossibility to override our enthusiasm. Are we paying for that now? Yes. Do we regret it? No. We are the kind of people that get out of bed faster when you tell us our work is impossible, not roll over in capitulation. And you folks are the kind of backers that do the same.
Thanks for your trust and Belief
Dave, Marx, Emily and the entire Orthane Productions team.
