Forgive my participation in seasonal retailing, but I'm still enjoying the ability to produce game components, card-decks, markers, etc, on demand. The folks at GameCrafter.com do a great job, and a fun service! Substantive article next/soon...
Last spring I launched a little ritual kit, that delighted my heart with its pocket-sized convenience. (See that launch here, if you care). However it lay like a flounder in my catalog - my blessings to the seven people who bought one. The problem, I b'lieve, was the price. On-demand game components are not cheap, and nice little printed boxes are especially not-cheap.
Time passes, and I do art. By careful reorganization of the contents, and by adding a number of new cards while removing clever-but-unsalable ideas, I have reissued the kit at a pleasantly reduced price.
The box is gone; it was a pretty box, but didn't add any actual utility. Everything fits nicely in the velour bag that ships with the kit. Being a game company their robot is confused if a product has no box, so you'll see a big bar telling you it "ships without packaging". Yes, you'll have to put the items in the bag yourself. Sorry.
In any case, the content of the new kit is both more complete and more concise. Carried over from the old kit are the four 'tiles' used as 'altars' for the Fire and Well, and the Blessing. The Blessing tiles are backed with a conjuring triangle for use in spirit-arte. I've rounded out the deity image cards to a full nine Gaelic gods, kept the general Three Kindreds images and Gate and Tree Cards. These are all jumbo cards in vibrant color.My design-leap is to include a 'grimoire' deck - cards with attractively arranged ritual text. Actually there are twenty-seven faces - nine of the cards are two sided. This Breviary Deck includes the nine invocations for the gods pictured, a full simple druidic rite usable with the kit, and nine additional charms, prayers and small spells.
Regular readers will not be surprised that I wanted to make sure that the kit contains a practical magical element. The kit contains three talismanic spell-cards, for Healing, Prosperity and Vision. They are intended to allow a tea-light to be placed at their center, to focus and enchant the intention with the Irish words and sigils drawn upon Fionn's Window. I actually really dig the way the graphics turned out, so they'll work for me, at least...
The kit also includes a full mini-deck of the Ogham letters, presented with their Irish names and English translations, tree associations and divinatory keys.
To me this serves to make the Traveling Magic kit a true Crane-bag, a pocket-sized Nemeton that should be useful to travellers, students, solitaries, and anyone who enjoys adding color and symbol to their altars.
The Travelling Magic kit is available now for $24.99 +sh here.
(This price won't last, I guarantee... Forgive GC's shipping costs - your items will arrive carefully hand-packed.)
2 comments:
Dear Ian
You should not abandon your original Kit idea, but add the improvements and larger cards to the original kit as some of us need larger rather than smaller. Your price on this one is a good doable price. Including a artful box should cost more but not overly much more.
It's specifically $4 more per product, and provides limits on how much stuff actually fits in the box. I'm limited by the products the on-demand printer supplies.
I could do a 'big-box game with a whole conjuring-table on a game-board, etc, but not for much under $60.
But, watch for supplements.
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