The Story Engine: Lore Master's Deck

Created by The Story Engine

Lore Master's Deck is the ultimate creative jumpstarter for writers, game masters, and worldbuilders who want to fill their stories with rich, interconnected lore.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Backer discount in our store + late surveys + free workshop livestreams
17 days ago – Thu, Feb 20, 2025 at 06:32:38 AM

Hello again backers!

With the campaign fulfilled, we've received a few questions from backers that we wanted a chance to answer!

Here's what we'll cover in today's update:
  • I missed the chance to get [XYZ] during the campaign. How can I get it now?
  • I didn't get my rewards/I had a problem with my survey. What should I do?
  • What's next from The Story Engine?

Let's get into it!

I missed the chance to get [XYZ] during the campaign. How can I get it now?

You can now visit our webstore to order Lore Master's Deck plus expansions and accessories. If there are any extras or add-ons you didn't have a chance to pledge during the campaign, or if you pledged for PDFs and you'd like to try the physical deck, we want to make it easy to pick up anything you missed.

As a special thank you for all your support throughout the campaign, you can use the discount code THANKYOUBACKERS10 for 10% off your order for the next week (until midnight ET on Feb 27).


I didn't get my rewards/I had a problem with my survey. What should I do?


If you haven't received your rewards, or you think there's been a problem with your survey, please read our previous update for details on what to do. 

Since completing fulfillment earlier this year, we've been processing late surveys and making sure that anyone who responded late for their rewards can still receive them. We'll continue to process late surveys and late payments for those with a balance owing so anyone who missed the cutoff can receive their rewards.

What's next from The Story Engine?

We do have new things underway in the workshop. If you want to be the first to know, be sure to sign up for our newsletter!

In the meantime, we've launched a free resource we think you'll all enjoy: The Story Engine Workshop. It's a free livestream series where we host creative professionals for a short interview sharing tips and tricks about their craft, and then we spend time applying those ideas in a live on-the-spot creative session driven by prompts.

Last week we kicked things off with a workshop on writing complex relationships and compelling romances with award-winning author C.L. Clark that was full of fantastic advice for writers of all genres.


Today (Feb 20) at 3pm ET, we'll be sitting down with author, publisher, YouTuber, and solo RPG practitioner Clare Marshall to learn how she uses solo RPGs for fun and creative writing inspiration.


You can see our full lineup on YouTube and click "Notify Me" to make sure you don't miss your favourite workshops.

That's all for now!

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to let us know in the comments or reach out via our contact form!

Peter, Miroki & Eric
The Story Engine Team

All Rewards Shipped!
about 2 months ago – Mon, Jan 20, 2025 at 09:51:08 AM

We're happy to report that all US parcels have been shipped as of last week!

This means that all backers of physical pledges should now either have their rewards OR tracking information for their entire pledge (assuming you completed your survey and your pledge balance was paid as of October 2024; late surveys and payments will be processed in the next 30 days). That includes large pledges that were split into multiple shipments. The rest of your rewards should be on the way if your initial tracking number only covered part of your pledge.

If  haven't received your rewards or a tracking number, please follow these steps to check your reward survey:

  1. Access your reward survey. You can get your survey link here.
  2. Confirm you backed a physical reward tier. If you only backed PDFs, you won't receive any physical rewards and won't receive a parcel or tracking number.
  3. Confirm you completed your reward survey. If your survey isn't showing as complete or is showing any errors, we likely have not been able to lock your survey to prepare for shipping.
  4. Confirm your address is locked. If your address did not lock because of a formatting error, we may not have been able to export your rewards for fulfillment.
  5. Confirm your balance owing is $0. Shipping and sales tax (for certain regions) was calculated and charged after the campaign. If your initial pledge failed or if you owed money for shipping, taxes, add-ons or pledge level upgrades and your payment failed, your pledge may have been held back.

If you backed for physical rewards, your reward survey is complete, your address is locked, and your balance owing is $0 and you still haven't received your rewards or a tracking number, please get in touch with us via our contact form (and be sure to provide the email address associated with your BackerKit account). We'll help sort out any issues with your shipment or your pledge. You can also reach out if you’re still waiting on a second tracking number for a larger pledge.

If you do discover an issue with your survey, address lock, or balance, please fill out the missing details. We will routinely be locking late surveys, charging cards for outstanding balances, and exporting pledges for fulfillment. If you run into trouble completing your survey, please reach out via the contact form (providing your BackerKit email) and we'll work with you to get your pledge squared away.

Lastly, if you did receive your rewards and you've had a chance to check out the deck, please feel free to share your experience (like some backers did below)! Our community has always been powered by word of mouth and we'd love for you to post about it. You can tag @storyenginedeck on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Bluesky, Threads, or YouTube–we'd love to hear about your experiences and see what you've been creating with the deck!

Thanks so much!

Peter, Miroki & Eric
The Story Engine Team


New Year Update: Final 400 US backers shipping this week and next
about 2 months ago – Wed, Jan 08, 2025 at 01:16:11 PM

Happy new year backers!

As we mentioned in the last update, we'd been hopeful that Flying Cloud would be able to get all outstanding rewards in the mail by the end of December.

Unfortunately, it looks like they fell short of the goal. They are just as eager as we are to finish our project, but were a bit ambitious with their estimate, especially since they also took a few days off for Christmas and New Year, and we can hardly fault them for wanting holidays too!

They told us that as of yesterday, there are 400 backers left to ship, and they tell us they plan to have those in the mail by the end of next week. We know they've been dealing with transportation issues caused by extreme snow in Maryland, plus some holiday closures, so let’s cross our fingers for them.

If you don't have a shipping/tracking notification yet, don't worry. You're likely in the final block of parcels. We'll post an update when we have positive confirmation from Flying Cloud that they have shipped all rewards, at which point we'll invite backers who haven't received a tracking number to get in touch so we can check on your fulfillment status.

In the meantime, thanks for your patience as our final fulfillment hub gets through its final run of parcels.

Thanks again,

The Story Engine Team

Mid-December Update: Progress on US Fulfillment
3 months ago – Thu, Dec 12, 2024 at 04:21:28 PM

Hello backers!

We're thrilled to announce that the UK, EU, Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and Canada have now completed shipping, and our partner Flying Cloud Fulfillment is making steady progress on US shipments. We're emailing with them daily to check in on how things are going, trying to balance our need for progress updates with their need to focus on making progress.

We've seen some questions about US fulfillment coming up and we thought we'd answer those here as we update you on progress. This is an important update for US backers, so please read carefully!

US Fulfillment Progress

As of right now, if things continue at pace, Flying Cloud should be able to finish shipping all pledges by the end of December as we have been forecasting. Flying Cloud tells us that by the end of next week, they will have shipped the majority of US parcels.

However, today they advised us that they will not finish shipping all pledges before December 25, and that not all parcels shipped before the holidays will arrive by December 25. 

We do have a plan to maximize the number of holiday deliveries we can make, which we'll explain in the next section.

We know this news is disappointing. Despite the immense effort they've been putting in, they are behind on the progress they told us they'd hoped to make. Fortunately, they tell us that their daily pack rate is getting faster, currently well over 100 parcels per day. We've asked if we can help by shipping some parcels from Canada using duty-free cross-border shipping services, and are waiting to hear back on if this would help them or produce additional admin work dividing up shipments they have already imported.

Holiday delivery was something we had been hoping for, but we've avoided promising because of how congested and uncertain shipping and logistics get at this time of year. We've consistently forecasted that fulfillment would take place throughout November and December. We still think our holiday delivery rate will be fairly high, but unfortunately not 100% for US backers.

We are now focused on maximizing the delivery rate for backers who have the greatest need for holiday delivery. We're doing this two ways:
  1. We are asking backers who do NOT need holiday delivery to volunteer to go to the back of the shipping queue.
  2. We are inviting customers who DO need holiday delivery to request priority near the front of the shipping queue.

How to Volunteer For Lower Priority in the Shipping Queue

We are grateful for any US backers with physical rewards who can volunteer to wait on their parcels until the end of the queue.

If you don't mind waiting, please fill out this form ASAP. Flying Cloud will try to hold back your parcel if doing can help with queue management. Please note that requesting this is not a guarantee that your parcel will be held.

Thanks for volunteering! You're helping us ensure that backers with the most urgent needs can have the holiday they were hoping for, and we deeply appreciate it.

How to Request Higher Priority in the Shipping Queue

We can't make promises for our fulfillment partner, especially at this time of year, but we are going to do everything we can to prioritize shipments that absolutely need to arrive by the holidays.

Click here to fill out a form requesting higher priority in the shipping queue. The sooner you fill the form out, the greater the chance we can adjust the queue efficiently.

Please request this only if you have a high need for your parcel arriving soon. Please note that filling this out is not a guarantee you'll have your parcel delivered by December 25, but we want to do everything we can to avoid disappointment for people who are counting on holiday delivery. 

US Fulfillment FAQ

We wanted to take a moment to answer common questions about US fulfillment.

Will I receive a tracking number/shipment notification?

Yes! When your packing label has been printed you'll receive a tracking notification. Flying Cloud generally uses FedEx, USPS, UPS, or DHL. If the carrier's tracking page doesn't tell who is sending the parcel, check the sender's location in the tracking. Flying Cloud is located in Maryland.

Your webstore's holiday shipping deadline passed. Does that mean I won't get my rewards for the holidays?

No, it does not. We set our webstore's holiday shipping recommendations earlier than they need to be for a few reasons:
  • We knew we would be prioritizing backer shipments throughout December.
  • We prefer people to order early to avoid disappointment.
  • Order deadlines can vary greatly depending on the parcel carrier used and the distance from the shipping hub.

You could receive your ship notification much later than December 11 and still receive your parcel by the holidays. Also, please keep in mind that our webstore is only shipping US orders that contain our original decks from 2019-2022; none of the new material is available for delivery yet except to backers.

That's all for now!

The best way to get support is to reach out via our contact form, which we check frequently.

We are always happy to answer questions in the comments as well, but if you need any support with your address, contact, pledge details, etc., we won't be able to check on private information through public comments or posts.

If you've received a shipment notification from one of our fulfillment partners, it should include a support email address for receiving direct support for that shipment. Contacting our fulfillment partner or the delivery company directly for support with your parcel will get you faster access to an answer direct from the source, but you are always welcome to loop us in for additional support.

Thanks so much and happy holidays!

The Story Engine Team

Late November Update: All Regions Now Shipping!
3 months ago – Thu, Nov 28, 2024 at 05:05:21 AM

Hello backers!

We're thrilled to announce that all regions are now shipping!

Note that we've reallocated our "rest of world" destinations across different fulfillment hubs. See below for details!


Canada (fulfilled by our team)

Fulfillment is complete! As 10 million parcels are now frozen in the postal system due to the Canada Post strike, we are feeling good about our decision to fulfill early and use alternate carriers.


A wild Lore Master’s Deck appeared - in Canada! Thanks to David for sharing this photo!


USA (fulfilled by Flying Cloud Fulfillment)

Shipping has begun and will continue into December!


Australia/New Zealand/Asia (fulfilled by Aetherworks)

Address confirmation emails began earlier this week and the first parcels have officially gone out. Shipping will continue into December.


UK/EU (fulfilled by Spiral Galaxy Games)

Address confirmation emails began earlier this week and the first parcels have officially gone out. Shipping will continue into December.


Rest of World (fulfilled by a variety of hubs)

All of our hubs are now actively shipping. Parcels going to Asia will ship from Aetherworks while the rest will ship from either Flying Cloud Fulfillment or Spiral Galaxy Games depending on carrier availability.


That's all for now!

Thanks so much for your patience as we overcame the last hurdles of the journey. We are as eager as you are for our decks to find their way to their forever homes.

All our best,

The Story Engine Team