Alea Tools Background

Founded in 2003, Alea Tools, LLC is a partnership of two individuals – Jeff Almeida and Craig Andrie. Jeff and Craig are part of a tight-knit gaming group that came together when WotC released 3rd Edition. Jeff, who had been a lifelong D&D gamer, invited several of his friends to join a table where he planned to relive some of his youth. Eight years later the group still plays about once a month – more if we can squeeze it in between all of the other priorities of life. The markers evolved from our game table. Initially we wanted a visual way to tell who was hurt and how badly. The answer Jeff came up with was to cut one-inch wooden dowels into little disks and stack them under the miniature. One disc was ¼ down, two was ½ and three was “almost dead”. This worked well and also led to writing numbers on the disks to number the dozen or so critters that might attack in a given encounter. So, wound tracking and numbering were the first uses we came up with… and it really helped streamline play. It dawned on Craig one that it would be great if the stacks of markers would stick together – and furthermore, it would be very cool to get them to somehow stick to the miniature. In fact, if that could be accomplished, one could use a variety of colors to indicate almost any status situation that you could imagine. That led to research into the method of play and resulted in our patent on the concept of stackable status markers placed under the miniatures. We filed a provisional patent application in 2003 and were awarded the US patent was awarded in 2006 . In the mean time we worked to bring our initial product line into the market. Our first offering was a beta version of the product in six colors. The quality was fair and we had not found the conversion material for the miniature bases. Still, the market test was well accepted and we invested in a high-quality mold to produce the current pieces. With the new mold we have been able to increase our quality, volume and number of colors – now 18 core colors plus some special runs. We did eventually find the conversion material and produced it in both sheet form and circles – which rounded out the entire miniature-magnet concept. At this time we are still selling primarily through our website and at conventions. The Gencons have been huge for us and we hope to continue seeing many of you there. We have been to Origins and are considering going back and we try to support out local cons in Denver, CO. As we are not currently in distribution, we do offer direct retailer packages – so if you are a retailer and would like to carry us – drop us a note, or if would like your local store to carry us direct them to our website and we can take it from there. One last note – with the advent of 4th Edition, our product line has become even more central to the running of the game. The “bloodied” concept is a really where we started as a company – who is hurt and how bad? We have sold a LOT of red pieces recently to handle this fundamental rule. The concept of “marking” an opponent is also easily accomplished by simply putting the same color under both pieces. Thus the fighter can mark and opponent by putting purple under his miniature and his opponent. If later the paladin marks the same opponent, he might use a green marker under his miniature and replace the purple marker under the opponent with a green marker indicating that he has overridden the fighter’s mark. These techniques are specific to the 4e rule set and make the pieces even more useful to gamers. But, the markers are still very useful for all manner of status tracking – who’s flying? how high? what buffs are in place? what negative effects are happening? All of that can be tracked by placing a couple colored markers under the pieces. It is our pleasure to bring this useful accessory from our table to yours. Enjoy them and tell your friends. And stay tuned for further product development from Alea Tools! aka Jeff and Craig