Cloud Empress streamlines the Ennie-winning rules-lite Mothership 1E tabletop roleplaying system into a stand-alone Nausicaa-inspired ecological science fantasy setting.
This is a world where we are small things, where we are cursed, where reality is slippery, and we survive in beauty and terror. Welcome to the Hereafter. Explore a land governed by the patterns of giant psychic cicadas – the Imago. When the Cloud Empress goes missing, glory-hungry soldiers from royal lands above the clouds threaten the balance. The fields below will burn without your help.
Cloud Empress returns to Kickstarter! Our last campaign delivered successfully to backers in under a year. Now you'll journey into lands of ash and spore with two new setting books, Land of the Living and Land of the Dead, along with the release of hardcover box sets.
Latest Updates from Our Project:
Final shipping charging January 2nd + Timeline update
5 months ago
– Thu, Dec 04, 2025 at 02:22:41 PM
Final shipping charged on Friday, January 2nd
The games are arriving in port and moving through customs! The books are so close to getting into your hands and households!
This week, I confirmed the final shipping quotes from our fulfillment companies, Quartermaster Logistics and GamesQuest. These final shipping rates, along with any previous backer discounts, have been applied to your Backerkit account. You can view your final shipping cost on Backerkit.com. The remaining balance due will be charged to the card on file on Friday, January 2nd. If your credit card has changed in the last 6 months, please update your card on the Backerkit website.
Let's talk through the final shipping costs:
As you can see above (or on your Backerkit account), final shipping prices are about a third higher for all pledge levels and regions. The increase in shipping is due to several reasons, and I do not take lightly the increased cost it will take for you to get your games. So why did the shipping prices go up?
US tariffs increased by 10%. (This particularly impacts higher pledge level US backers, unfortunately.)
We are shipping the game 9 months later than expected. Shipping costs have been raised during this time period.
The Land of the Dead grew from the original 76-page estimate to 108 pages.
The Skull box size increased by 33% (1 inch).
I'm doing as much as I can to offset these increased costs. My current projections have worlds by watt publishing paying about $8,300 out of pocket to keep shipping prices as low as possible. The other mistake I made along the way was that I didn't clarify/understand that previous EU quotes did not include VAT taxes. There's a lot I didn't understand about VAT that I'm learning. I apologize for the increases related to VAT that I did not include in the original shipping estimates.
I know these shipping prices are higher than what you would see at Amazon. My commitment is to make the crowdfunding experience as positive as possible. Retail copies of Cloud Empress will also reflect these increased costs. I always want to make backing my campaigns one of the cheapest ways to get my physical games with the most content. Thanks for your continued support!
As always, I'll be working hard to provide more accurate estimates and compile formal lessons-learned documentation to avoid future shipping cost increases on upcoming projects.
If the increased shipping charges present an untenable hardship for you and your family, please reach out to [email protected], and we can work something out together.
December's Project Timeline
With that all covered, fulfillment will soon be underway. Despite very little progress made on the project map above, the games have traveled thousands of miles to ports across the world. Games will be getting loaded and prepped, and fulfillment should begin after payments are received on January 2nd.
Rust Wings coming to Kickstarter, March 2026
Finally, here's a look at the next box of my upcoming game Rust Wings! We're going with another box set (now at an 8.5 x 11-inch size). Rust Wings will incorporate poker-sized playing cards to make character creation and item management satisfying and easy to manage.
In Rust Wings, you'll investigate a Studio Ghibli-inspired island filled with ruins and robots using a hacked version of the Mausritter rule-set.
Finally, please post any questions you have in the comments below, and I'll do my best to get them answered!
Games still on the water + next steps for shipping
5 months ago
– Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 01:37:15 PM
Games still on the water + next steps for shipping
Hey everyone! It's been a relatively quiet month for the Cloud Empress: Life & Death fulfillment on my end. The games are traveling as cargo on freight vessels traveling to hubs in the UK, the United States, and Australia. The cargo is expected to arrive in port sometime between the last week of November and the first week of December. To avoid major holiday shipping surcharges, fulfillment is planned to begin in January 2026.
Shipping payment will be charged in early January 2026. I'm waiting to see what customs charges are applied before assessing the final shipping charges. I'll share shipping rates here several weeks before any charges are posted on your account, and you can monitor expected charges due in Backerkit, too. In the last month, I've also applied previous backer credits to relevant accounts, which will reduce shipping for physical backers of the previous Cloud Empress campaign who pledged for reprints of hardcover materials.
Rust Wings RPG coming to Kickstarter, March 2026
In other news, I'll be launching my next TTRPG Rust Wings: Dystopian Adventure Roleplaying on Kickstarter on Tuesday, March 3rd, 2026. The game will launch on Kickstarter after I know fulfillment of this project was successful. Let me tell and show you a bit more about Rust Wings...
In Rust Wings, play as misfit teens who build and pilot their own planes from the scrap around them. Journey deep into an abandoned city full of decaying robots, sky pirates, and the royal navy to find your missing friends.
Inspired by:
Castle in the Sky
Arcane
Legend of Zelda: Windwalker
Rust Wings adapts the Ennie Award-winning Mausritter ruleset, encouraging players of all ages to climb, hide, and jump across a ruined city.
As for the overall health of the Life & Death project, we are heading towards the final stretch of the campaign. Fulfillment completion is still expected for January 2026. I'll connect back in early December with final shipping prices and an update on shipping dates by region.
Questions about Cloud Empress Life & Death or Rust Wings? Post them in the comments, and I'll do my best to get them answered!
Freight shipped from the factory + shipping charges timeline
6 months ago
– Wed, Oct 22, 2025 at 11:54:21 AM
Freight shipped from the factory
Happy October, everyone! Our big update is that Cloud Empress: Life & Death is traveling from the factory in China to fulfillment centers in China, the UK, the United States, and Australia.
The games should arrive at their fulfillment destinations between November 30th and December 2nd, where they will clear customs. This means the project is still on track for a January 2026 fulfillment.
Shipping charges timeline
My original plan was to charge the final shipping charges for your pledge in October or November. With the current tariff negotiations between the White House and China, I'll be waiting until the US games clear customs in early December before charging shipping to backers in case the tariff rate drastically changes. You'll receive a future Kickstarter update outlining shipping charges, and when you can expect them to hit your credit cards.
This week, I also applied the appropriate "thank you discount" credits to previous physical tier backers who supported this project. Those credits will be applied to the final shipping charges.
Project timeline
We are in the final stages of the Cloud Empress: Life & Death kickstarter. As mentioned above, the games will take a few weeks to get to their fulfillment center, and you should receive your games in January 2026!
I've also started working with the crew over at Alchemy VTT to start importing Cloud Empress assets into Alchemy for the VTT implementation stretch goal.
That's it for this month. Post questions in the comments and I'll do my best to get them answered!
PDFS sent through DriveThruRPG + arranging freight shipments
8 months ago
– Mon, Sep 15, 2025 at 02:33:00 PM
PDFs sent out through DriveThruRPG
You should have received all the PDFs for the Cloud Empress: Life & Death Campaign through an email from DriveThruRPG. Emails were sent to the email associated with your Kickstarter email address.
If you need any help accessing your PDFs, please email me at worldsbywatt (at) gmail (dot) com for assistance!
I sent out a second version of the Land of the Dead, Land of Cicadas, and the hex map (now bundled with the rulebook in DriveThruRPG) because a strip of Breadbasket hexes (about 5-10 in total, depending on the page) has incorrect hex numbers. This impacts the Weeds map in the Land of Cicadas book, the Deadlands Hexmap, and the simplified/colorless side of the folding map. Thankfully, the Breadbasket hex map in Land of Cicadas and the main color folding hex map are correct. Because the games have already been printed, physical copies will reflect these errors, but all digital copies will now be correct.
I apologize for the inaccuracy created on a few of the hexes now. There was a monumental amount to check, and despite 3-4 editing passes and a backer editing pass, we missed this error. I recommend using the folding color hex map and/or the digital hex map to run your games.
Project updates
So where does the project stand? Manufacturing and assembly are complete, and we are arranging freight shipments. There is a week or two delay now as I switched from Quartermaster Logistics to Gamesquest for UK and EU fulfillment, as I was worried and overwhelmed by VAT taxes, and successfully navigating UK VAT payments. I think we are on a good path for timely and accurate delivery in January 2026, but I will keep you updated if anything changes.
Another reminder that shipping addresses are now locked. If your address will change between now and January 2026, please email your updated address to worldsbywatt (at) gmail (dot) com.
That's it for this month. If you have any questions, post them below and I'll try to get them answered!
Addresses lock tomorrow, August 14th + Print production complete
9 months ago
– Wed, Aug 13, 2025 at 12:35:55 PM
Addresses lock tomorrow, Aug. 14th
By the end of the day on Thurs. August 14th, I'll be locking addresses. If your address has changed recently, please log in to Backerkit and make any necessary changes ASAP.
We'll be calculating shipping costs in the next two weeks and creating the final shipping timeline estimate. Shipping charges should be charged in the next two months (the next Kickstarter update will outline the final shipping charges).
Print production complete
Panda Game Manufacturing sent me copies of the print production. All materials have been successfully printed and are looking great!
The biggest update to note is the increased depth of the Skull Box. The previous print sample could not hold all of the hardcover copies, so we expanded the box by about 10mm. Now there is some extra room for materials, and the box feels like a hefty container for your Cloud Empress collection. The starter cicada box remains the same size as a great entry point for new Cloud Empress players. Here's a look at the comparison between the depth of the print sample and the final product.
Final skull box on the left, print sample on the right
Overall, I'm thrilled with the materials and can't wait to get this massive collection of content into your hands! Two minor issues that I did notice: the Rivals Protocol pamphlet is on thinner cardstock than the previous Solo Protocol pamphlet. I had a miscommunication about the paper stock after the print sample review, and the change never got made. There's also a barely noticeable difference in resolution between the Rulebook cover and the other setting books. To my best guess, the Rulebook looks ever-so-noticeably different do to when I converted the image into pixels in Adobe Publisher to re-edit the cover image. For both of these issues, I've decided to move forward with assembly. Reprinting the Rulebooks and/or pamphlets would create a delay of a month or more and incur a significant cost. I don't think many people will even notice these issues, but perfectionist that I am, I thought I would mention it here. Anyway, thrilled with the overall product, and this week, we are moving forward with the final assembly.
Timeline updates
So far, we are right on schedule with production! There's a slight chance we could complete fulfillment before 2026 if things keep moving forward at this pace, but I don't want to jinx it by updating the timeline.
I'm also working hard on the bookmarked and hyperlinked PDF files, which I hope to have out to you all by the end of August.
That's it for this month. Let me know what questions you have, and I'll try to get them answered!
