#also i got done watching through KS for the first time a bit ago and mannnn the ending fucked me up so bad its not even funny

[stewieonxbox360]

2 arts plus some doodles

[theonyxpath]

WOW! What a weekend!

And it started with our Legendlore Kickstarter funding on Friday! Now we’re moving into Stretch Goals – so please, if you haven’t already, check it out! The link is below in the Kickstarter section!

And and, to get you started, here’s a review of the free PDF of the complete text for the book linked on the KS site: https://thetabletopalmanac.wordpress.com/2020/06/15/rpg-reviews-legendlore-manuscript-preview/

Of course, this leaves the rest of the weekend, which just happened to consist of the first-ever Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention!

What a fun time!

We really didn’t know how folks would respond, but now that the three days of panels and gaming are done, I can say that our community was in turns hilarious, supportive, giving, excited, and energized. And that energy really flowed right back into all the events and energized all of us!

I mean, we’re still tired as all get out – who’d have thought that a con I could attend from my own house would do that? – but pretty sure we’re all still feeling the love, too.

Just to pull the giving part out for a second, we are absolutely thrilled that our charity goals were blasted through sometime mid-con, and we’ll be donating over a thousand dollars to each of our excellent causes: The Bodhana Group, and the Thurgood Marshall College Fund!

Now, back to the whooped by the con part, we are and I am, so today I’m just going to pull out some impressions of the events from a bunch of us who normally would have had our Monday Meeting today – we rescheduled it for later this week.

SCENES FROM A VIRTUAL CON:

Matthew: The Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention was the first con I helped organise, and while it had its share of stresses in the setup, it came to excellent fruition due to the fantastic teamwork of everyone working hard behind the scenes and amazing engagement from viewers, panelists, players, and those who donated to our charities and took advantage of our sales on onyxpathcon.com

RichT: I started us off on Friday night with the Opening Keynote speech, and then just sort of chatted with Matt McElroy, Dixie Cochran, Eddy Webb, and Matthew Dawkins about what was coming with the con.

For me, I then rolled into my first game, I played one per day, which was the first Actual Play of Exalted Essence. It really did run both fast and smoothly, and all of the various Exalted types we were playing had their times to shine. I was able to put a different, more easy-going, pie-eating, spin on my bear-totemed Lunar who still wound up grappling with the big bad and bear-hugging them in place for Danielle’s Solar to practically one-shot the sucker!

Ian: Convention was great, despite a few hiccups. I was on two streams early on: one Friday evening and one Saturday morning, and then the rest of the con was “free.” Travis and the GG crew were all-stars. Travis couldn’t get Nightbot working for a bit so I took over the random prize drawing for a few streams. I was often juggling two different streams in different monitors to help keep dialogue going in chat. Kudos to everyone, especially those of you who worked multiple panels and games in a single day.

RichT: In fact, the panel Ian refers to on Saturday morning was the “What’s Up With Onyx Path?” panel that started off the day at 9am. This is a panel where a bunch of developers and I talk about upcoming projects for their lines, and answer questions. Eddy and I started doing them about a decade ago when it was “What’s Up With White Wolf?”, but changed the name for obvious reasons after Onyx Path appeared.

During that panel, a couple of things came up: Matthew teased that we might very well do They Came From (the Old West!, or something more flavorful that fits the genre) as the third They Came From game, and Ian talked about Trinity Continuum: Aeon Mission Statements, a book all about the organizations in the setting that aren’t the Psi-Orders. We also noticed that some folks in the chat were new to Onyx Path and what we create, so that was unexpected but welcome news!

Then, I played my second game of the con, which was a sneak preview of Scion: Demigod! Neall took us through a voyage to the Grecian Afterlife, using the Ready Made Characters from Heroes of the World and I got to play a stern Horace Farrow ala Sam Elliott, while Steffie cut up many, many things with Yukiko’s Grass-Cutter Sword. Then, another panel on Community Content and why it rocks wrapped up my Saturday.

Matthew: I didn’t encounter one instance of bad behaviour in chat or anything dubious discussed on screen in games or on panels, and I attended most that I could as a viewer, if I wasn’t an active participant.

Viewership of panels and games peaked at around 250 to 300 people at one time for a couple of the shows, and bottomed out at around 50 people. Those are good figures. Our subscriptions and follows on Twitch rocketed, with many subscriptions being gifted by viewers and even more just being purchased or acquired via Amazon Prime.

My own highlight is impossible to choose between the games and panels I ran or appeared on, though the “Create Your Best Character” panel, which I suspected would be a sleeper, turned into an excellent talk on not playing harmful stereotypes and break out of dangerous tropes.

Eddy: The convention was great for me. My scheduling was a little odd, and I ran into one minor technical issue, but otherwise it went smoothly and it seemed like people in the chat were excited and appreciative. I felt like we got to dig into topics we aren’t able to do in normal convention settings, and attendance was definitely higher than usual for panels at other shows. I also heard that people had a good time watching the games or playing in ad-hoc games all weekend. I know there were some problems on the back-end of getting this all together, but I don’t think any of our attendees noticed anything but a nice, polished experience.

RichT: Sunday started out just like Saturday, with the second “What’s Up With Onyx Path?” panel, although with a different set of developers. The big news was when Eddy ratted out that he was working on Squeaks in the Dark, the mice/rats supplement for Realms of Pugmire!

I then had my second panel on Sunday, the “Art of Onyx Path” one, where Mirthful Mike Chaney joined three of our freelance artists and I in discussing just how illustrators work for us: how they submit their work, how they are contacted, how art notes work, how artists work, and what sort of music do we listen to while doing illustrations. Lots of great questions from the audience, and a wide range of experience within the panel, made it really interesting.

RichT: Then my Sunday game was the first public playtest of They Came From Beyond the Grave! run by Matthew, and featuring Dixie’s Rose Thorne, a driven vampire hunter with attitude, and 70s hair. She teamed up with B. Dave Walters’ smoooth street investigator to blast the ever-lovin’ hell out of evil cultists, while Ian Mueller’s exorcist (sorta) shot the big bad between the eyes with Rose’s derringer, and my slightly odd professor tried to save as much weird-science lab equipment as he could. Science! We left the haunted house as the superimposed fire effect began to devour it, fortunately for all involved (except the dead 70s prog-rock star sacrificed by the cultists).

I immediately had to log into my last event, but what a special event it was! Added late in the proceedings as we had to work within a lot of people’s schedules, I was thrilled to sit down with a bunch of my old co-workers at the original White Wolf in a “Memories of WW” panel with Bill Bridges, Rich Dansky, Ethan Skemp, Mike Tinney, and my old go-to designer for graphics, Matt Milberger.

Much reminiscing occurred, interposed with questions from the chat, that pretty much focused on our time from the early 90s to the early 2000s, although we did chat a bit about the late, lamented WoD MMO, as most of us worked on that in one capacity or another. Mike talked about how he cozened us an arcade version of Dark Stalkers for our little lunchroom, and we had fond memories of the WW Blood Bowl League.

(My Children of the Khorne chaos team won the cup two seasons in a row, just sayin’).

And although I didn’t want it to end, it did, and my time at the first-ever Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention was over. Which was actually pretty good because my brain was on autopilot at that point.

Ian: Everyone on both sides of the screen seemed to have a great time, and the only real complaints I heard were that there were too many good things happening at once and people had to make a choice on which stream to watch.

Matthew: While many games had a tendency to overrun, I’d say they each ran to optimal length and didn’t cause too much disruption farther up the schedule.

RichT: Which are all good things to happen, actually, with your first online convention, so we’re going to review all the metrics we can gather ourselves and from the super folks at Gehenna Gaming, and see what we can learn from all that.

Will we do another one? We just don’t know yet, but whether we do or not, this one sure did what we wanted to do – folks who attended had a whole lot of fun! If you missed out and want to watch the games and panels, they are currently on the Onyx Path and Gehenna Gaming Twitch channels for subscribers, but will soon migrate over to the Onyx Path YouTube page for all to watch!

So, from all of us to all of you, whether you attended or didn’t, thanks for making it a real joy to walk with you exploring:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The Legendlore Kickstarter funded right before we started the Virtual Con last week! A really great way to start things off! Now we’re building towards Stretch Goals: the GM’s Screen, and starting the Legendlore Companion book PDF!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/339646881/legendlore-rpg-setting-for-5th-edition-fantasy-roleplaying-0

Grab your friends and escape to another world!

You’ve found an enchanted portal — a transition point — between worlds. The portal, called a Crossing, takes you to a world you thought only existed in novels and films: a magical land where dragons roam the skies, orcs and hobgoblins terrorize weary travelers, and unicorns prance through the forest. It is a world where humans join other peoples such as elves, trolls, dwarves, changelings, and the dreaded creatures who steal the night. It is a world of fantasy — of imagination.

It is the Realm.

It is Legendlore.

Onyx Path Media!

This week: the most exciting episode of the Onyx Pathcast ever, recorded live at the Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

Hi all!

We’ll be back next week with our usual promotion of all the excellent games on our Twitch and YouTube channels, but for now, we encourage you to do what it seems a lot of people are doing right now, and hop over to our Twitch: twitch.tv/theonyxpath

While the convention has ended, but subscribing to our Twitch channel (which you can do for free if you have Amazon Prime), you get access to all the panels and games that ran on it over the convention weekend. So, if you missed a panel or game you really wanted to watch, head on to our Twitch, subscribe, and browse our back catalogue!

Other than our content, we would like to promote a couple more games for those without Twitch:

Occultists Anonymous continue their excellent Mage: The Awakening game here:

Episode 106: Friends & Minions The cabal combats the uninvited guest summoned by an Exarchal Supernal Being. The danger of the Exarchal attention prompts further investigations away from the Supernal. https://youtu.be/YSErlwnC7Nc

Episode 107: Making Promises Songbird reaches out to the Queen of the Vampires of New York about a divine blessing. Wyrd and Atratus hatch a plan to make a car… https://youtu.be/dueYYUl0FrY

And A Bunch of Gamers have just started up a two-part extravaganza of They Came from Beneath the Sea! right here:

The Crabby Lizard from the Murkey Depths

Episode 1: In the small east coast town of Chatham Massachusetts things are easy. The soda pop shop is ready for any of the locals. The city comes together for a bake sale to help their neighbors, and everyone knows each other. All that changes when a strange electrical storm and a booming voice can be heard over the jukebox. Tonight, the strange, the horrid, the damp creatures from beyond the stars and the depths of the sea rise up to meet the people of Chatham.https://youtu.be/UwxzdwVoYQE

The Tabletop Almanac has released a lovely review of Legendlore that you’ll want to see! https://thetabletopalmanac.wordpress.com/2020/06/15/rpg-reviews-legendlore-manuscript-preview/

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

Available this Wednesday, we are just a bit embarrassed to say that we’ll be releasing on DTRPG the PDF and PoD versions of Swine and Cheese Party, Et Al., excerpts from The Complete Duke Rollo, for Trinity Continuum: Aberrant!

Also available this Wednesday on DTRPG: the Advance PDF for Quantum Entanglement the Trinity Continuum: Aeon Jumpstart!

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Indexing

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Scion Titanomachy – Art coming in.

Tales of Aquatic Terror

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS) – Prepping KS assets.

Aberrant – AD’d. First new comic in.

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – Dividing up among current artists.

Legendlore – KS running.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS)

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon (KS) – Waiting on art notes.

Masks of the Mythos (KS) – Some tweaking to art notes and hiring artists.

Scion: Demigod (KS) – Tweaking art notes, hiring artists. Splats in progress.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – Finals coming in.

TC: Adventure! (KS) – Cover art finishing.

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma

V5 Let the Streets Run Red

Pugmire Adventure

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – New artist taking care of finishing missing art.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Finishing Backer PDF errata.

Contagion Chronicle – Going to WW for approval this week.

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet

At Press

Scion Companion – Shutting down errata.

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – Prepping PoD files.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Files at press.

Creature Collection 5e – PoD files uploaded. Traditional files sent to printer.

Pirates of Pugmire – Files at press. Prepping files for PoD.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Duke Rollo Aberrant Book: Swine & Cheese Party – PDf and PoD versions on sale Wednesday on DTRPG.

Pugmire Buried Bones – Gathering errata.

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Dark Eras Compilation – Gathering errata.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today is feet up and dozing after the busy, busy, Virtual Con and celebrating its success!

[junker-town]

Syracuse, Arizona State, and the best teams of one hell of a “This is why we love college football” weekend

A bunch of teams that have been through rough times got to celebrate.

This was a bad week to do something wild. Unless you did it against a top-10 team, it was going to get drowned out.

This also wasn’t a good week to pull off a dramatic comeback. Sorry West Virginia (over Texas Tech), USC (over Utah), Air Force (over UNLV), Appalachian State (over Idaho), etc. There was just too much happening for us to give you guys the attention you deserved.

Team of the Week: Syracuse (def. No. 2 Clemson, 27-24)

This was the week that all of your issues came home to roost. And Clemson most certainly had issues, even if we were too distracted by the Tigers’ glittery résumé to see it. From earlier in the week:

Here’s what S&P+ sees in Clemson:

A team with minimal big-play capability. The Tigers rank a solid 22nd in offensive success rate, but in IsoPPP (which measures the magnitude of one's successful plays), they are just 108th. When you aren't recording a ton of big plays, that means you have to avoid mistakes for eight or 10 plays at a time to score touchdowns. Clemson ranks just 45th in points per scoring opportunity and 41st in passing-downs success rate. Once they fall behind the chains, they are not yet excellent at catching back up.

A team that gives up nearly as many sacks as it makes. Clemson’s defense ranks second in Adjusted Sack Rate, but the offense ranks 111th. Kelly Bryant is getting sacked 8 percent of the time on standard downs (108th) and 12 percent on passing downs (109th).

A team with pretty bad special teams. The Tigers rank 120th in Special Teams S&P+, and it's costing them about a point per game at the moment. They are 119th in punt efficiency, 114th in kick return efficiency, and 106th in field goal efficiency, and they just lost place-kicker Greg Huegel. Special teams can flip a game all by itself, and if it does so in a Clemson game this year, it's probably flipping it to the opponent. Plus, despite extreme defensive efficiency, special teams has led to Clemson ranking just 68th in field position margin.

Clemson had won 14 of its last 16 one-possession games, a rate of clutchitude that simply isn’t maintainable. The Tigers have become incredibly adept at pressing the “Okay, time for a big play” button while blowing teams out as infrequently as possible. Their run game is dreadfully inefficient and reliant on the QB. Special teams really have been awful.

On Friday night in the Carrier Dome, quarterback Kelly Bryant came into the game injured and left with a concussion. He finished with three non-sack carries for four yards. Consequently, the Tigers couldn’t run the ball consistently. They got a 52-yard touchdown from Travis Etienne and a 37-yard run from Tavien Feaster. Their other 19 non-sack carries gained just 54 yards.

Redshirt freshman quarterback Zerrick Cooper was put in an impossible situation and acquitted himself reasonably well (10-for-14 for 88 yards), but Syracuse was able to tee off on him because of Clemson’s rushing problems. He was sacked three times and could only move Clemson more than 35 yards downfield once in five possessions.

Of course, if not for the whole “bad special teams” thing, the Tigers might have survived. But they missed two more field goals — a 34-yarder and a 38-yarder and are now just 4-for-10 on field goals for the season. Greg Huegel was just 2-for-4 before tearing his ACL a while back, but replacement Alex Spence has been worse.

We’re all just a kicker injury away from disaster.

That said, an upset win should be about the conqueror, not the vanquished. This was Dino Babers’ moment, and he seized it. The second-year Syracuse head coach is easily one of college football’s most likable figures, and after last year’s upset of Virginia Tech (and the locker room brilliance that followed), he just sent an even louder message about his own capabilities.

This is about:

Eric Dungey, everybody’s new favorite quarterback, who completed 20 of 32 passes for 278 yards and three touchdowns, leading the Cuse to 27 points and 440 yards on one of the nation’s best defenses.

Steve Ishmael and Eric Phillips, senior receivers who entered the game with 1,204 receiving yards and an opportunity to make a name for themselves against Clemson's sticky DBs. They combined for 10 catches, 167 yards, and two touchdown. And yes, a couple of egregious push-offs, but who's counting?

Chris Slayton and the rest of the Syracuse defensive front, which dominated Clemson’s line at times, forced Tiger running backs to find their yards on the outside, and harassed two quarterbacks.

Syracuse fans. They’ve been through quite a bit. From 1987-2001, the Orange went to 12 bowls and finished in the AP top 15 five times. They produced incredible quarterback play (Don McPherson, Donovan McNabb) and absurd individual talent, from receiver Marvin Harrison to defensive end Dwight Freeney. But after trailing off in Paul Pasqualoni’s final seasons, they bottomed out under Greg Robinson and averaged only 5.6 wins per year in seven seasons under Doug Marrone and Scott Shafer. And technically they’ve only won eight of 19 games under Babers. (Hell, they lost to a pretty bad MTSU just a month ago.)

Friday night was why we all keep watching our teams, why coaches keep working ridiculous hours, and why student-athletes put in ridiculous hours of their own (without the six-digit salaries). You never know when perseverance might pay off, be it in the stands, on the sideline, or on the field.

Change some of the names, and everything I just said could go for fans of the schools below, too. This was a life-affirming weekend of college football.

Other teams of the week:

2. Arizona State (def. No. 5 Washington, 13-7)

Arizona State won 10 games in both 2013 and 2014 under Todd Graham, but as he began losing assistants to other jobs, he began losing a lot more, too. Since a 2-4 start in 2015, the Sun Devils lost 12 of 19, and a rugged schedule — four of their first five opponents were ranked 51st or better in S&P+, as was Saturday’s opponent (and three of the next four as well) — had prevented them from proving any major progress in 2017.

A win over Oregon dropped some hints, though. And on Saturday, against a surprisingly lackluster Washington, ASU made a statement. The Sun Devils scored on three of their first four drives, and a defense that tends to give up some of the biggest big plays in the country, did anything but. Washington gained just 230 yards and scored a single touchdown in a big ASU upset.

3. California (def. No. 8 Washington State, 37-3)

I ranked ASU’s win over UW higher than Cal’s upset of Wazzu simply because I was far more confident in Washington’s ability to avoid such a loss. But make no mistake: Cal looked really, really good on Friday night and helped to make Washington State look really, really bad. The Golden Bears pounced on every single Cougar mistake.

They had lost their last three games by a combined 62 points ... and then they beat a top-10 team by 34. College football!

4. Boston College (def. Louisville, 45-42)

Good gracious.

5. South Alabama (def. Troy, 19-8)

Drowned out in all the cacophonous noise that followed: USA was 1-4 with only a win over Alabama A&M. And the Jaguars took down the team that took down LSU. Kudos.

6. Tulsa (def. Houston, 45-17)

A week ago, Tulane beat Tulsa, 62-24, to move the Golden Hurricane to just 1-5 in 2017. After last season’s breakthrough, they were staring a 3-9 or so season in the face. On Saturday, they stomped 4-1 Houston. Tulane, meanwhile, lost to FIU. College football!

7. Boise State (def. No. 19 SDSU, 31-14)

Like Clemson, SDSU was a team reliant on big, timely plays to disguise some ongoing issues. Like Clemson, the Aztecs got their comeuppance at the hands of a Boise State team ready to look like Boise State again.

8. No. 6 TCU (def. Kansas State, 26-6)

It took a few hours more than normal, thanks to the storms that rolled through the Midlands on Saturday, but in an upset-laden weekend, TCU traveled to Upset Town (aka Manhattan, KS), and handled its damn business.

9. LSU (def. No. 10 Auburn, 27-23)

From “Ed Orgeron is done!” to “Ed Orgeron’s shining moment!” in, what, about an hour? Hour and a half?

10. No. 23 Stanford (def. Oregon, 49-7)

Bryce Love rushed 17 times for 147 yards, and it lowered his season per-carry averages. Since figuring out a way to lose to SDSU, Stanford has looked awfully Stanford-like. Might get that rematch with USC after all.

[theonyxpath]

I could certainly use some pax right now. Lots of stuff going on and ugh… still feeling kind of yucky, but trying to force whatever this is to get it over with by PAX Unplugged starting this Wednesday (for us). Lots of vitamins and NyQuil! Whoooo!

But even if I’m a walking mess at the con, we’re going to have a great crew there in Booth #650, and doing demos. If you are going, here’s a map for our booth:

And it’s possibly the fever, but watching James Bell do most of the heavy lifting and pulling things together for the Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Kickstarter has been kind of strange. Very, very glad to both have someone to take all that over from me and to have him doing it so well and adding some cool elements I never thought of to the mix. But odd to see someone else do what I’ve done for, what?, five years now?

I’m like a ghost over here watching it come together. Whoooooo, James, whoooooo!

Very much looking forward to all your reactions tomorrow at 12 noon EST, Tuesday the 14th, when this Changeling: The Lost 2nd Kickstarter goes live! Here’s a clue: for every thing, there is a ______.

    W20 Changing Ways art by Brian LeBlanc

    Hey! If you are playing “Santa Paws” this year, may we suggest you pick up some copies of Pugmire for your pack of kiddies? Ask your Friendly Local Game Store to order it now so you get it by the holidays, or go direct and order from Studio2 or Indy Press Revolution (contact info below in the BLURBS! section).

It’s the perfect game to get your family and friends involved in our wacky hobby!

      W20 Changing Ways art by William O’Brien

    So this is the long form essay. Feel free to hit THE BLURBS! section below!

A few weeks ago, or a few months – the NyQuil, y’know – I posted about our developer focused creative teams and how we are both driven by the teams and have been evolving how those work. Developers are the project leads and for many years we followed the WW-style of having developers that were responsible for the entire game line. They would be “show runners” or “head writers” in other creative industries. Today, I’d like to go back through the dim mists of time to when I first started Onyx Path, and kind of show how our present system got to where we are.

We really have to go back in time a bit further, to the scary and shadowy CCP days. (Don’t worry, they are just memories now, and can’t hurt you).

There were only a few of us still working on tabletop RPGs, and I was more of a cheerleader and advocate than actively working on products, and our freelance pool of developers and writers had shrunk dramatically as the release schedule was reduced to a trickle compared to the three products a week pace of years gone past. Then came our work on what was supposed to be a one-off anniversary RPG book: Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition.

Eddy Webb and I had convinced the bosses to let us run a “Transmedia” department for CCP based on the success of V20, and we actually had a tabletop RPG release schedule and everything, as well as some projects we were working on for the EVE teams. Because of how we were budgeted, we were actually the only part of the US office making money, as everybody else was part of the spending on the late, lamented, WoD MMO.

So naturally, the Transmedia Group became just a happy memory in the midst of mass-layoffs.

But before I jumped ship in the face of those layoffs to start-up Onyx Path, we had begun to work with a variety of freelance writer and developers again. It was these folks I needed to continue working with for the projects now being created by Onyx Path. Some were experienced from the WW days, some had only developed a couple of books. Eddy had to step back because CCP wanted his full attention on the MMO, so we scrambled to cover the projects we thought he’d develop, and Justin Achilli stepped up for our new V20 books.

In addition, because of our long relationships, I was able to bring Ethan Skemp in on W20, Phil Satyr Brucato in on M20, and Rich Dansky in on Wraith20. The classic developers on their classic lines, was my thinking.

Ethan had to duck out though as he landed a new gig in a different computer game company, and Stew Wilson stepped up. He was the first of the new developers who were actually fans of the old developers for WoD. This sort of “second generation” of developers was already a thing with Exalted 3rd, and CofD (or nWoD as it was known then) with Rose Bailey and others developing, and it seemed both natural and cool that we had this sort of legacy of creators working together.

My expectation was that the newbies would learn from the experienced devs the ins and out of our processes, which were almost identical to those used at old WW, which worked well for us to a large extent, but I was wrong. The diffused nature of our virtual office was, and is, such that institutional knowledge doesn’t get passed on at all in the way I was used to from the WW days. Once we realized this, Rose began to help out our devs, and eventually her position was solidified into that of Development Producer – a term we stole from the computer game biz for a person that helps enable creators to succeed with their projects.

With Rose in place to help, we were able to better respond when our “elder” developers began to step back or away for various reasons. New developers were brought in, but now we had the experience and the leeway to select our devs with an idea for how they might be able to fit into the way we do things and who are more in tune with our company ethos. We were also able to draw from a much wider and varied pool than the folks I knew at the beginning of Onyx Path, and that variety of input, backgrounds, and experiences makes for richer projects.

We’re not perfect, and we’ve brought on developers that we needed to stop hiring for projects for a variety of reasons. We do try and offer assistance before that decision to stop working with them is made, but there are just some situations we can’t salvage.

So you see, the entire history of project creation at Onyx Path is one of evolution.

Together with ideas from our developers and writers, we expanded and redefined our developer and writer payment rates and schedules early this year, and are experimenting with “floating” experienced developers who can assist the other devs in a hands-on way. Generally, we’re finding that the lone developer in the ivory tower with their cadre of writers may not be the best set-up for creating tabletop RPGs these days.

For some projects, a vision developer and a production developer may be a valid method of dividing the essential duties, for others perhaps a triad of a spearheading logistics developer and two devs freed up to focus on the writers, or maybe a systems dev and a setting dev, and sometimes having one developer is just the right set-up. We’re now at the point of being able to look at a project and try and provide a creative solution to creating it, rather than being stuck with looking for the one solution from a decade, or more, ago that will work for every problem now.

Ultimately, we’ve been extraordinarily lucky to work with some absolutely amazing folks and we want our internal processes and project set-ups to enable them to shine, so we keep evolving them in ways we hope will make that happen. We’re not at the destination, we’re still on the journey. Still on the path.

Many Worlds. One Path.

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Right now, Tuesday the 14th at noon EST is looking good! If things get weird, we’ll fall back to Thursday the 16th. See you there!

Next, our Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will start in early January – since it makes no sense to start a KS mid-December!

  ON SALE NOW:

As we try and find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://ift.tt/2zjnD0c

http://ift.tt/2hhT5Fk

This morning there were already multiple tweaks applied in the Update that were brought about by feedback from our community! Thanks, folks!

    ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores on Amazon and Barnes & Noble! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

  And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

  Andand six more more:

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)

Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)

Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)

Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)

  And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)

V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)

Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)

Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

    OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

http://ift.tt/2w0aaEW

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://ift.tt/1pOsnTb

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

Appearing on Wednesday on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition!

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

      NOW on DriveThruCards, the Pugmire Card Set One (Trick, Condition, and Initiative Cards) are helpful visual aids for your Pugmire gaming fun! http://ift.tt/2zC3kuY

Enhance your Pugmire game with this set of player aid cards! These helpful visual aids make your Pugmire gaming easier! Lay them out next to your sheet for ease of reference during play, and to keep track of what you can do, what affects your character, and when they get to act.

Set one contains one card each of every trick in the game, as well as every condition. It also has a set of initiative cards to track player and non-player character actions during combat. Sets two and three (covering artisan and shepherd spells) coming soon!

      What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://ift.tt/2sV8lZR

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing.  There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

      Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2z4uZnU

        For over 20 years, the artists of Mage: The Ascension have conjured spirits and constructed hypertech that can transform reality on a whim.

Within this retrospective, those artists and images depict the ever-changing face of magick. From the debut edition to the twenty-first century, this book explores the people behind the pictures, the process of putting such books together, the story behind Mage’s Tarot iconography, and more.

Featuring the artwork of Echo Chernik, Joshua Gabriel Timbrook, Michael Gaydos, Mark Jackson, Leif Jones, Michael Kaluta, Steve Prescott, Alex Sheikman, Christopher Shy…and many, many more.

The Art of Mage: 20 Years and More has manifested on DTRPG in PDF and physical book PoD versions! Here: http://ift.tt/2iwP1Rr

      A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2fEO9YJ

http://ift.tt/2fELqyx

  Heroes, Villains, and Others in Between! 

This tome is a revision of the original book by the same title, originally published for use with 3rd edition rules for the world’s most popular roleplaying game. In this revised edition of The Wise & the Wicked, all the same characters have returned (and we’ve added some new ones, too!), for use with the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide. 

Champions of Gods and Titans 

The Wise & the Wicked introduces a rogue’s gallery of the Scarred Lands’ movers and shakers, characters who carry out the will of the gods or the fallen titans. These non-player characters can be friends, enemies, or simply convenient resources for the player characters in your game.

Inside, find villains such as King Virduk of Calastia, the Black Dragon, along with his wife, the beautiful (and black-hearted) Queen Geleeda; the Grand Vizier to King Virduk, the wicked warrior-mage Anteas; and the sinister general of Virduk’s northern armies, Archduke Traviak the Steel-Fisted. At the other end of the spectrum, meet the gracious Lady Ariniel, the Swan Knight, champion of Madriel; Kimer the Shatterer, bearer of the Earth Sword of Scarn and tenacious foe of the titanspawn of the north; and King Thain the Just, the Aleking, ruler of Burok Torn. And many others beside!

Here you’ll find a fascinating compendium of characters from the Scarred Lands, but easily transported into campaigns set elsewhere. In addition, find multiple appendices full of new magic items and artifacts, class archetypes and prestige classes, new feats, new creatures and races, and more.

Available in Pathfinder and 5th Edition versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2zdVHXS

http://ift.tt/2zeEpd8

          From out of the Dreaming, the C20 Jumpstart: Yours To Keep PDF and PoD are now live on DTRPG.com: http://ift.tt/2fmlF3s

There is magic hiding everywhere. You just need to know where to look.

You are a changeling, a faerie soul hiding in a mortal body, fighting the chill of Nightmares and the oppressive weight of Banality with the pure creative power of Glamour. You have lived many lives, but the story of this one? It outshines them all.

In this hidden world, knights in steel and leather clash sword to sword outside the homecoming dance, dragons fly between skyscrapers, and fantastic castles rise from suburban lawns. A world of magic, intrigue, and adventure, and now that your fae side has awakened, it’s your world too.

“Yours to Keep” includes a rules and setting overview, as well as pre-generated characters and a complete introductory scenario for Changeling: The Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition. It’s perfect for jumpstarting a new Changeling chronicle!

        CONVENTIONS!

  This month, the Onyx Path crew including Rich, Matt, Lisa, Neall, Dixie, and Meghan will be at Booth #650 at the first ever PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia, November 17-19. http://ift.tt/2kBzmfv

  In December, Matthew Dawkins, Dave Brookshaw, and Eddy Webb are going to be at Dragonmeet in London. https://www.dragonmeet.co.uk/ Expect plenty of playful class warfare as these three mix it up, represent Onyx Path, and generally redefine the term “hooligans”.

  Planning ahead for 2018, we’re heading back to Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14, where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show!  http://midwintergamingconvention.com

    And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

  Redlines

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

  Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

  Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pugmire Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

  Indexing:

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – Art meeting this Tuesday for sure!

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Origins

Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2 – Graphics done- KS ready.

Trinity Continuum – Splats for core book with Mr Jones, sending multi-cover single piece of artwork to illustrator.

Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb

Ex3 Dragon Blooded 

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Beast PG

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content

Pugmire Artisan Cards

Book of Freeholds

DtD Enemy Action – Going to Josh

  Proofing

Wraith 20 – Second layout proof being worked on by designer.

Pentex Indoctrination Manual – Second proof.

VtR Half Damned – Second proof.

W20 Changing Ways – First proof.

  At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – With US customs. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover proofs.

V20DA Jumpstart – PoD proofs ordered.

Prince’s Gambit – Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer.

M20 Cookbook – Layout waiting for errata.

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology  – Layout waiting for errata.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– Finishing Backer PDF errata gathering.

C20 Ready Made Characters – Out to backers.

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Advance PDF on sale Weds on DTRPG.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Over the weekend in the US we had the Veterans’ Day holiday. Thank you all for your service.

[theonyxpath]

Gag! Choke!

Yes, the They Came From Beyond the Grave! Kickstarter funded last week, and we’re all really thrilled that it will be over-printed to get copies in stores and that now it can start building some extra projects thanks to the generosity of our backers.

Thanks, folks!

With three weeks left to run, we figure that with good word of mouth we’ll be able to open up a good solid handful of monsters for the Monsters From the Crypt book we’re building with Stretch Goals, as well as more projects we haven’t yet revealed.

So, spreading the word if it looks cool to you is important – please do it if you get the chance!

But if support trickles in rather than gushes – that’s OK, too! What we want with our new games is enough support in terms of backers so that the Kickstarter lives up to its name. A little kick that gets the final book into stores and the hands of folks who will play it, or a great big kick into even more of both are both excellent outcomes. One is just more biggerer and means we’ve got a larger base group to start with.

Having had both in the forty-some KSs we’ve run, there are challenges to either situation. A lot of biggerer KSs, for us and for a lot of other TTRPG companies, wind up being logistically hard to handle because no one involved is truly ready for how problems multiply at 4,000+ backers.

But littler KSs can sometimes not make enough to cover the costs if printing or shipping suddenly goes up. We’ve been lucky in that we never had a KS that actually ran at a loss, but it has been close! So, challenges for both, like I said.

Finally, in talking about They Came From Beyond the Grave!, I just wanted to give you some first-hand thoughts about our game that was played at our Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Con a month-ish ago.

First, here’s the link to our Actual Play on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/qLEFXntIa3g

If you’re not into watching an hour-plus of a gang of gamers explore a creepy old house in the 1970s, or at least roleplay doing that as we sit in little windows, I’m told that the Onyx Pathcast on Friday, August 7th will contain an audio presentation of this gaming session.

I really was looking forward to playing this. It was my third game in three days, which is the most TTRPG playing in that amount of time that I’ve done for years. But, I went into it knowing I’d be playing a Professor, and one that had been a bit messed up by the secrets he had uncovered through his career. So, I figured he’d be a natural for shouting out lines and Quips, which would make diving into a new game much easier.

In fact, I’d just been in a game that weekend with Dixie, but I’d never had Matthew as a GM, and didn’t know Ian or B. Dave. Fortunately, once again the weird Professor role allowed me to do my thing while getting used to how they played their characters – and if you watch the Actual Play, you can see that Ian worked up to his character a bit, as he had a dark secret or two, while B. Dave went all-in from the start.

Which was a delight, and allowed Dixie and I to work out some banter and methodology for how our characters worked together: she was hip and driven, and I was weird. Our time partnered up even gave me a chance to come up with pseudo-scientific catch-phrases in addition to the Quips Matthew provided!

V5 Let the Streets Run Red art by Ken Meyer, Jr

Here’s Dixie, with some thoughts about the game:

“I love how it does camp along with actual horror, and the cinematics like costume change and dramatic meteorology make for amazing scene changes. I had so much fun watching B. Dave’s character and also getting lost in the red room and drenched in blood was a highlight.”

Speaking of costuming, I really think this game could be a fantastic opportunity to wear both 60s/70s and kinda Victorian clothes while playing. And the “costume change” cinematic card did come in handy for us after getting soaked in blood up to our waists, as Dixie and I used the card so that as we entered the room where the other characters waited, we were in two totally different, but non-blood soaked ensembles!

For myself, I did adopt one bit of costume: round tinted glasses. In the webcam, no one could easily see my eyes, which was really interesting and helped me keep a little mystery going along with the weird science stuff. In my mind, I was modeling myself on the dark glasses-wearing Quincy Harker from the old Tomb of Dracula comic by Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan. It must have worked too, because at one point Dixie wondered if the glasses were because I actually was a vampire or at least a ghoul.

Which was a great example of how just one bit of costuming or prop can create a whole different set of reactions while we’re playing.

System-wise, everything flowed really easily and intuitively and the added system elements like Quips and Cinematics made sense where they fit into the base Storypath System.

By the time we realized that we needed to head towards the episode’s denouement, it was obvious that the four of us could have played these characters locked in a broom closet and still have come up with tons of fun roleplay, so it was very smart of Matthew to move us towards the big reveal or we probably would still be playing and have only gotten through half the mansion (and plot).

And a satisfying ending it was, too. Everybody got to do their characterful things, and Matthew got to give us the big reveal (no, I’m not going to tell you. You gotta check it out!). Some fiery atmospherics, and we were out in the murder mansion’s driveway again, battered but maybe a tad wiser. Maybe. And with clues towards a larger menace to face in the future!

Here’s Matthew’s takeaway of the session:

“They Came From (in both its iterations) is always a joy to run, with players and audiences alike responding well to its combination of madcap laughs, hammy acting, and fun, gameplay and narrative altering mechanics. I really couldn’t have asked for a better group to show the game off at Onyx Path Virtual Gaming Convention, with Ian, Rich, and Dixie each adding their own creative flair to their characters, while B. Dave Walters stole the show with his smoooooth P.I., using the Raconteur Archetype.

One thing that stands out most to me from that session, is how differently it played to the session I ran for Red Moon Roleplaying (the third episode of which they’re uploading tomorrow!). Both games were great fun, but struck a different tone and style, and I think that speaks to the flexibility of the game and the characteristics the players brought to each game. Both are great fun and contain a lot of laughs, so please check them out!”

Nuff said! Please give it a look-see!

Titanomachy art by Felipe Gaona

What Did We Talk About At Today’s Meeting?

Thanks for asking!

For World of Darkness fans, it’s the return of the Dog Days of Summer Sale at IPR. From July 30th to August 31st, all Vampire 20th Anniversary deluxe books, screens, and dice are 50% off! And so are select Werewolf 20th and Wraith 20th deluxe books and screens! Exclusively at Indie Press Revolution!

In our ongoing efforts to try and connect gaming with helping out our communities during this tough period, a good number of the Twitch games running on our channel this week will donate proceeds to various charities including RAINN, the US’s largest anti-sexual violence organization; The Trevor Project, the national 24-hour, toll free confidential suicide hotline for LGBTQ youth; the Transgender Law Center, the largest national trans-led organization advocating self-determination for all people; and The Bail Project, a national nonprofit organization that provides free bail assistance and pretrial support to thousands of low-income people every year.

If you have a chance, you can enjoy watching some great gaming and elect to contribute to some worthwhile causes.

Yugman‘s art by Shen Fei

As a reminder, as I think I mentioned this last week, we’re doing our annual Gen Con “What’s Up With the Onyx Path?” panel virtually this year at Gen Con Online. Join Dixie, Eddy, Danielle Lauzon, maybe Matthew if the trans-Atlantic timing works out, and myself as we discuss just what we’re doin’ these days, dontcha know!

Finally, as I’ve gone on about pretty much since the pandemic started, we’re looking at more and more ways to enable folks to play our games virtually. This week we have a Virtual Table Top “encounter pack” going on sale at DTRPG that is usable for your VTT playing: Hunt for the Red Widow, a short encounter designed starting Talents in the Trinity Continuum Core setting.

It has the storyline written up, character tokens for the antagonists, maps, and some new powers, all the pieces needed to play through chasing down the Red Widow and her minions after their theft of a valuable artifact hidden by the Aeon Society. It’s designed to be easily fit into your virtual gaming, and just as easily into face-to-face gaming, too!

Give it a run through and let us know what you think! After all, we need to hear from you as to which of the many projects we’re getting out there work for you, so that we can create more ways to explore our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Kickstarter!

The They Came From Beyond the Grave! Kickstarter funded last week, and as it finishes its first full week we have opened up (like a crypt!) the Screen and the first section of Monsters from the Crypt: a book containing More Monsters! Next up in Stretch Goals are the T-Shirt and even More Monsters!

Thanks to all of you who have pledged to enable this fantastic project and its Stretch Goals!

Here’s a specially-made special trailer by the brilliant Larry Blamire:

And keep your eyes open for:

Onyx Path Media!

This week: Scion Status Update Roundtable featuring the affable Neall Raemonn Price!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

With They Came from Beyond the Grave! haunting Kickstarter, let’s take a look at some of the media related to that game!

Over on twitch.tv/theonyxpath, Vorpal Tales are running their first campaign of They Came from Beyond the Grave! This follows their fantastic They Came from Beneath the Sea! campaign, and I really think you should check it out! Their YouTube channel has episode one right here: https://youtu.be/Q6na0WHTfjo

Meanwhile, over on YouTube, our friends at Red Moon Roleplaying have started their own They Came from Beyond the Grave! story, with their usual excellent editing, quality, and in this case, a lovely cast of players led by Director, Matthew Dawkins! Come join in and listen to the Cult of Abaddon at play: https://youtu.be/RDYzNbk7VkQ

Also on YouTube, Larry Blamire’s hilarious trailer for They Came from Beyond the Grave! has dropped and is there for your viewing pleasure. It’s a testament to the kinds of stories you can tell using this game: https://youtu.be/NP65PlAw7mI

And finally, also on YouTube, in case you missed it we have the actual play of They Came from Beyond the Grave! that Matthew ran for Rich Thomas, Ian Muller, Dixie Cochran, and B. Dave Walters. Dare you enter Karnstein Manor? https://youtu.be/qLEFXntIa3g

This week on Twitch, expect to see a whole heap of games, including a lot of games we’re running for charity!:

Scarred Lands – RAINN

RPG Chaos, with Danielle Lauzon – Transgender Law Center

Cavaliers of Mars, with Vorpal Tales – The Trevor Project

They Came from Beneath the Sea!, with Ravyn Evermore – The Trevor Project

V5, with Gehenna Gaming – RAINN

They Came from Beyond the Grave! – The Bail Project

They Came from Beneath the Sea!, with PolishedCryptid – The Trevor Project

Changeling: The Dreaming – The Last Faerie Tale

Mage: The Awakening – Occultists Anonymous

Exalted Essence, with Monica Speca – Transgender Law Center

Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds

Chronicles of Darkness – Tooth & Claw

Get watching for some fantastic insight into how to run these wonderful games and subscribe to us on Twitch, over at twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more, including:

Storytellers with Coffee: Technocracy Reloaded – https://youtu.be/hb44inqafmE

Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion Episode 23 – https://youtu.be/-O-74ePyQC4

(Matthew’s favourite) Scarred Lands – Purge of the Serpentholds Episode 8 – https://youtu.be/PFBYHw5TqoM

Deviant: The Renegades – A Cautionary Tale – Session Zero – https://youtu.be/5u9haYcXHa8

Storytellers with Coffee – Changeling: The Lost and Other Games – https://youtu.be/K7STCgIi8RY

Storytellers with Coffee – The Games of Onyx Path – https://youtu.be/QxRRq-WQytg

Subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

The ExaltCast continues with its superb breakdown of Exalted, hosted by Monica Speca and Exalted Writer Chazz Kellner. Check out their array of episodes (the show’s only just started!) over at http://www.exaltcast.com/

Our very own Chris Allen continues his chronicle of Werewolf: The Forsaken here and on Twitch: https://youtu.be/FyghldnRGPM

Please check these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games! We’d love to feature you!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

We’re told that the App Dev is currently creating an updated version for the latest devices, so keep an eye open for those!

Virtual TableTop!

This Weds, we are releasing a Virtual Tabletop encounter pack for the Trinity Continuum Core: Hunt for the Red Widow on DTRPG!

Hunt for the Red Widow is a short encounter designed starting Talents in the Trinity Continuum Core setting. When a renowned but mysterious thief known as The Red Widow steals an ancient artifact from the Æon Society’s vaults, it is up to the party to track her down and recover the device. She is heading to an old ruin said to unlock the artifact’s true power. Can the heroes reach her in time?

Inside you’ll find:

A short encounter for use with the Trinity Continuum Corebook

Two new antagonists: The Red Widow, and her minions, known simply as “Ghosts.” Virtual tabletop tokens are included to represent the antagonists

Two maps, ready to be uploaded into your virtual tabletop platform of choice

New Anomaly Powers.

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost Second Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And now Scion Origin and Scion Hero and Trinity Continuum Core and Trinity Continuum: Aeon are available to order

It’s the return of the DOG DAYS OF SUMMER SALE!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, part the fourth of Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad, a multi-part PDF for Scarred Lands will be adventuring on DTRPG!

This section of Yugman’s includes:

6 new Backgrounds detailing Devotional and Political societies

Two new subclasses

Nine new spells

New equipment and magic items

Plus, as mentioned above, also this Weds, we are releasing a Virtual Tabletop encounter pack for the Trinity Continuum Core: Hunt for the Red Widow on DTRPG!

Hunt for the Red Widow is a short encounter designed starting Talents in the Trinity Continuum Core setting. When a renowned but mysterious thief known as The Red Widow steals an ancient artifact from the Æon Society’s vaults, it is up to the party to track her down and recover the device. She is heading to an old ruin said to unlock the artifact’s true power. Can the heroes reach her in time?

Inside you’ll find:

A short encounter for use with the Trinity Continuum Corebook

Two new antagonists: The Red Widow, and her minions, known simply as “Ghosts.” Virtual tabletop tokens are included to represent the antagonists

Two maps, ready to be uploaded into your virtual tabletop platform of choice

New Anomaly Powers.

Conventions!

Though dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, here’s what’s left of our current list of upcoming conventions (and really, we’re just waiting for this last one to be cancelled even though it’s Nov/Dec). Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with:

PAX Unplugged: https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

Keep an eye out for our games being run at the online version of GenCon at the end of the month, as well as our What’s Up With the Onyx Path? panel currently slated for 1pm, Thursday July 30th!

https://www.gencon.com/online/

And now, the new project status updates!

Development Status from Eddy Webb! (Projects in bold have changed status since last week.):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep.)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

The Devoted Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

Saints and Monsters (Scion 2nd Edition)

M20 Technocracy Operative’s Dossier (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Prometheus Unbound (was Psi Orders) (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

No Gods, No Masters (Scion 2nd Edition)

Redlines

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Wild Hunt (Scion 2nd Edition)

CtL 2e Novella Collection: Hollow Courts (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Adversaries of the Righteous (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Squeaks In The Deep (Realms of Pugmire)

Trinity Continuum: Anima

Second Draft

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Dead Man’s Rust (Scarred Lands)

The Clades Companion (Deviant: The Renegades)

M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide To Magick (Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution Fiction Anthology (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

Hundred Devil’s Night Parade (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Novas Worldwide (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Exalted Essence Edition (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Assassins (Trinity Continuum Core)

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

V5 Forbidden Religions (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

V5 Children of the Blood (was The Faithful Undead) (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Manuscript Approval

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

V5 Trails of Ash and Bone (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Post-Approval Development

Under Alien Skies (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Editing

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum)

LARP Rules (Scion 2nd Edition)

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

The Book of Lasting Death (Mummy: The Curse 2e)

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (They Came From!)

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Dearly Bleak – Novella (Deviant: The Renegades)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Post-Editing Development

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Indexing

Lunars: Fangs At The Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

Tales of Aquatic Terror

WoD Ghost Hunters (KS)

Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Mummy 2

Deviant – Sam doing fulls for this next. Contracting out all the rest.

Legendlore

Technocracy Reloaded

Cults of the Blood God – Rolling along.

Scion: Dragon (KS) – Splats contracted.

Masks of the Mythos (KS) – KS art contracted, a couple of finals already in.

Scion: Demigod (KS) – KS art in progress.

They Came From Beyond the Grave! (KS) – KS running.

TC: Adventure! (KS) – Cover is in.

Geist: One Foot In the Grave

In Layout

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad

Vigil Watch

TC Aeon Terra Firma

V5 Let the Streets Run Red – Almost wrapped up, still working on Loresheets.

Pugmire Adventure

Scion Titanomachy

Trinity Core Jumpstart

Proofing

Trinity Aeon Jumpstart – PoD files updated.

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate – Indexing.

Cavaliers of Mars: City of the Towered Tombs

Magic Item Decks (Scarred Lands)

Yugman’s Guide Support Decks (Scarred Lands)

At Press

TCFBTS Heroic Land Dwellers – PoD proof on the way.

TCFBTS Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller, PoD proofs on the way.

Pirates of Pugmire – Shipping from printer to KS fulfiller.

Pirates of Pugmire Screen – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 – Files at press.

Dark Eras 2 Screen and booklet – Files at press.

Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition Dark Eras Compilation – PoD proof on the way.

Contagion Chronicle – Press prep.

Contagion Chronicle Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Lunars Wall Scroll Map – Files at press.

Lunars Screen and Booklet – Files at press.

Scarred Lands Creature Collection – Printing.

Scion Companion – PoD proofs ordered.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Today marks 80 years since the first named appearance of Bugs Bunny on screen. A Wild Hare in 1940 was his first appearance as Bugs. He did appear earlier as a Bugs-like rabbit in Porky’s Hare Hunt, but he was unnamed in the episode. Guess they liked the reaction to his character enough to give him a name. For several generations that grew up with the cartoons, especially run in blocks on TV, Bugs was an anarchic, rebellious, and sarcastic role model – very often the first that young minds were exposed to.

You can tell because even to this day we quote certain lines, like my old WW buddy Ken Cliffe who often replied to questions about whether the text for game books would hit deadlines with “Could be, rabbit. Could be.”

[theonyxpath]

That photo looks like V5 Philly By Night‘s cover!

(Not an actual book we’re working on).

But it was my view in Philly during this last weekend at PAX Unplugged. Which was fantastic for us, so let me get right to the highlights!

First, there was the convention itself. We went in with a strategy of a non-sales booth, with double demo tables in the booth and more demo tables in the gaming area. Our primary goal was to hand out our new brochures and to talk with as many people as possible. Towards that end, Mighty Matt brought a fine selection of display products, including working texts from several books not yet on sale (or Kickstarted):

And no, we were not selling V5 Chicago By Night at the con, which unfortunately disappointed a few fans. First it needs to get to KS backers (soon), and then into game stores and other sales venues. But, as we had intended, we did give folks a chance to buy our stuff – right across the aisle at the Studio2 booth! Here’s a pic with Jim from Studio2 and our books on prominent display:

That was from set-up day, so you can’t see our new Onyx Path official shirts, and I wasn’t wearing by silver bell yet, but once the attendees rolled in, the system of us sending folks over to buy the books we just talked up, and them sending folks over to us for demos and info (or to get Eddy or Neall’s autographs), worked out better than we had hoped.

And here’s the booth itself on set-up day. It would soon be filled with people talking and demo-ing:

Ah yes, the people. So many the people. We had demos running at at least one table and usually two, all through the con. Dynamic Dixie, Crystal, and LisaT were our ambassadors of goodwill and directed folks to the downstairs gaming area, or next door to buy books, or over to Mighty Matt or myself if they wanted more in-depth answers or to talk business – all the while handing out a phenomenal amount of brochures.

Eddy, Neall, Meghan, Travis, Danielle, and Crystal (again, boy was she busy), all demoed games in the booth and downstairs – a wide cross-section of our publishing, from Chicago By Night to Scion to Pugmire to Scarred Lands to Changeling: The Lost to TC: Aeon (more on that later)!

Here’s a Pugmire game being run by the one and only Eddy Webb:

There was a lot of laughter, some gasps, and a lot of folks who popped over to the Studio2 booth to see what of ours was for sale. That flow from our booth to the demos to Studio2 was what we were looking for, so our booth/demo crew hit it out of the ballpark!

And when I mentioned people, I also meant that we talked to a ton of podcasters and actual play folks, printers and shippers, and our cohorts from around the industry. At least three of us were losing our voices by the end of the con. I did a look back at art directing the original Mage: The Ascension book interview, which I’ll be sharing the link for soon – but let’s just say that our discussion went far deeper into how art direction works in general than I’d have expected.

A real thrill for me was meeting the Devil’s Luck crew (literally) in their Scarred Lands characters’ costumes – especially since the Slitherin rat-men were one of my contributions to the Creature Collection back in the day:

A mighty Manticora!

Squeak, squeak!

If you get a chance to watch, well, really any of their actual plays – not just Scarred Lands – you too will be impressed with their dedication to character and great gaming.

So here are some specific news items from PAXu:

PAXu was the first place you could buy the Trinity Continuum Core and TC: Aeon traditionally printed books, and boy did they go over big! Right now, we are sold out of their respective Screens, so we’re looking into what to do about that! You can ask your FLGS to order both books from their distributor or have them reach out to Studio2 or IPR (below in the sales section of the blog).

Our old friend Ivan van Norman and Hunters Entertainment through Renegade Game Studios announced that they are heading up the creation of Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition! Congrats to Ivan and the whole team!

We released our new brochure for 2020, although the year really doesn’t mean anything except that we can find it in sequential order with all our other ones. The year isn’t associated with any expected releases. I’ve seen some folks ask why this project or that project isn’t in there, and the reason is simple.

This brochure is designed to showcase the various worlds that we are making projects for; to give a taste and info about those game-lines, and not really to provide a listing of everything we have done, are doing, or will do. We picked a few key projects to mention to show some of the range or depth of a line.

Chicago Folio art by Michael Gaydos

And, of course, we followed through with announcing a new project at PAXu that was hitherto unannounced, with a blurb in the brochure and press releases the same day as the brochure went public. That project is Exalted Essence!

Of course, we’ve only teased what’s in this book, because this is just the first announcement, but here are a few clarifications from the team on a few things that people have some questions about:

A lot of people have been speculating on the system, so we can definitely confirm it’s still a version of the Storyteller System and not Storypath or something else.

Castes/Aspects, etc. will still come into play, but as variations on the main Exalt types.

The 10 Exalt types included will be Solars, Lunars, Dragon-Blooded, Exigents, Sidereals, Getimians, Liminals, Abyssals, Alchemicals, and Infernals.

There will be some setting information in Essence, enough to run games set across Creation, though players and Storytellers can certainly supplement setting information and history with any of the current and forthcoming Exalted 3e books.

Players and Storytellers won’t need to be familiar with any other Exalted books or editions to run a game of Exalted Essence.

Our main goal regarding Exalted Essence is to capture the feel of Exalted: the vast, epic-fantasy game that has captured imaginations for almost two decades.

Now, I’d also like to step back a bit and go into our impetus for creating a “lighter” version of Exalted 3rd.

Obviously, Exalted 3rd Edition is a huge book. It has a lot of pages, it’s heavy, and inside, it covers a ton of material with a gigantic Charms chapter, and then several more chapters for other powers. (Obviously, this is a titanic simplification of EX3, but I’m not going into an analysis of everything in there, this is already a long blog post).

What I’m saying is that EX3 is daunting just to look at when you sit down to play. If you hear about it, and want to get it, it costs a lot to buy, it costs a lot to ship, and the page count pushes the limits of book binding technology. Then we look past that, and the material within is also daunting, even to experienced Exalted players.

VtR2 Spilled Blood art by Andrea Payne

So years ago, we began to discuss how to make EX3 less daunting. To start with, despite all that I’ve laid out above, there are a lot of people happy with EX3 exactly (or at least close to exactly) as it is. A lot. So our purpose shouldn’t be to wreck what people do like – we want to make it easier for people to continue to enjoy Exalted as well as to get into it for the first time.

But a Jumpstart alone isn’t going to do it. It’ll get you started but ultimately the only way to keep going is going to require you braving that giant scary book. We realized that we need a simplified version of EX3 that didn’t supersede it, but simplified it while allowing the line to be there if you wanted to get into those more detailed systems and descriptions.

OK, but now it falls on us as publishers to figure out how to make that happen. And EX3 is not just daunting for players, it’s just as daunting to game designers. I’ve said it before, so it’s good to repeat here: Exalted is like a giant steam-punk machine; an intricate interconnected series of gears. And if you mess around with one game system gear in one section, you run the risk of completely screwing up a system or detail on the other side of the machine that is interconnected to a dozen gears of its own.

So we just can’t plop a developer who doesn’t understand Exalted into a chair and they start making Exalted books. We were phenomenally lucky that we could bring on Robert Vance and Eric Minton as developers, and even with their previous Exalted experience there was still a decent ramp-up time. But then, when they were rolling along on all cylinders, they were faced with creating books that were already on the schedule and had been announced, that built off of the EX3 core.

We either had to pull them from that continuation of a very healthy and enjoyed game line in order to develop the EX3 simplified book, and leave a lot of fans in the lurch, or find and train more EX3 devs to create the simpler version even though that would make it even longer before it could come out.

Obviously, ultimately, that’s what we did.

We will certainly have more to say about Exalted Essence in the weeks and months to come. Keep an eye on the project progress info below, and once writing begins you’ll see it pop up in the First Drafts section and then move through all the steps.

Like all of our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

Next Kickstarter: V5 Cults of the Blood Gods!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast recaps PAX Unplugged! Available on Podbean or on your favorite podcast venue!

Once again our Twitch schedule is jam-packed with games! We’ve got Vampire: The Masquerade, Pugmire, Scarred Lands, Aberrant, Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Dreaming, Mage: The Awakening, Trinity Continuum, and even more! If you’ve ever wanted to know how our games are played, check out our Twitch channel on twitch.tv/theonyxpath

Likewise, our YouTube channel is filling up with content, including Aberrant: Community Service, Changeling: The Lost – Littlebrook Reunion, and Pugmire: Paws & Claws! There’s a ton of content over there to wade through, as well as a recently dropped Onyx Path News! Subscribe to us on youtube.com/user/theonyxpath

I want to give a special profile to Aberrant: Community Service, as this superb actual play really gets into what’s great about Aberrant. For your ease, here’s the playlist of episodes on YouTube so far: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiNRTdSDh6-XTtU1yRfowy7njFNps7qEN

Matthew Dawkins continues his Gentleman’s Guide to Scion over on the Gentleman Gamer YouTube channel. He’s covered an introduction to The World setting and to the Storypath System so far. Videos can be found right here: youtube.com/user/clackclickbang

The fantastic folks at Red Moon Roleplaying have been working with us overtime on producing actual plays of Mummy: The Curse, Changeling: The Lost and Vampire: The Masquerade with Matthew Dawkins, Klara Herbol, John Burke, and Bianca Savazzi. You can find their excellent shows right here:  Vampire: The Masquerade: https://youtu.be/IRNubrPeIKk Mummy: The Curse: https://youtu.be/jyZYG-WadpU Changeling: The Lost: https://youtu.be/Y90EFR8FlR0

Did you know you can pick up the mobile version of the Pugmire RPG for free? Find out about the mobile version right here: https://youtu.be/6TkWfDecVp8

Have you been watching Ekorren‘s Exalted roleplaying journal? If not, you really should, because he makes a fantastic series of videos: https://youtu.be/6OM9lwzzOEQ

And finally, it’s been a while since we last promoted the fine folks at Devil’s Luck Gaming, and their superb actual plays. If you love watching people play RPGs, you’ll really enjoy their games: twitch.tv/devilsluckgaming/

Drop Matthew a message via the contact button on matthewdawkins.com if you have actual plays, reviews, or game overviews you want us to profile on the blog!

Please check any of these out and let us know if you find or produce any actual plays of our games!

Electronic Gaming!

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is awesome! (Seriously, you need to roll 100 dice for Exalted? This app has you covered.)

On Amazon and Barnes & Noble!

You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle (from Amazon) and Nook (from Barnes & Noble).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue from which you bought it. Reviews really, really help us get folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these latest fiction books:

Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there! https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

We’ve added Prince’s Gambit to our Studio2 catalog: https://studio2publishing.com/products/prince-s-gambit-card-game

Now, we’ve added Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition products to Studio2‘s store! See them here: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/all-products/changeling-the-lost

Scarred Lands (Pathfinder) books are also on sale at Studio2, and they have the 5e version, supplements, and dice as well!: https://studio2publishing.com/collections/scarred-lands

Scion 2e books and other products are available now at Studio2: https://studio2publishing.com/blogs/new-releases/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin-now-available-at-your-local-retailer-or-online

Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

And you can order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e at the same link! And NOW Scion Origin and Scion Hero are available to order!

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles at DriveThruRPG.com!

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we are proud to announce the PDF and physical book PoD versions of In Media Res for the Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook, a collection of pre-constructed stories featuring the hypercompetent Talents including:

Codename: Aquarius, a spy story of questionable loyalties in a wilderness of mirrors.

Caper, Incorporated, a reality-bending super-science heist for the fate of the world.

Classified: Help Wanted, a deadly game of cat-and-mouse in a single locked-in skyscraper.

And more…

Plus we’re also releasing the Trinity Continuum Core Screen in PDF – all on DriveThruRPG

Conventions!

2020: Midwinter: January 9th – 12th, in Milwaukee, WI. Check out David Fuller’s Athens, Ohio Scion actual play tie-in adventure (soon to be coming to the Storypath Nexus community content site) that will be running at Midwinter. The event url is below: https://tabletop.events/conventions/midwinter-gaming-convention-2020/schedule/402

And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)

N!ternational Wrestling Entertainment (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

Trinity Continuum: Adventure! core (Trinity Continuum: Adventure!)

Duke Rollo fiction (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Redlines

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Many-Faced Strangers – Lunars Companion (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Second Draft

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Player’s Guide to the Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)

Editing

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Hunter: The Vigil 2e core (Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition)

Let the Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Geist 2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

Legendlore core book (Legendlore)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Mythical Denizens (Creatures of the World Bestiary) (Scion 2nd Edition)

Pirates of Pugmire KS-Added Adventure (Realms of Pugmire)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Post-Editing Development

Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)

TC: Aeon Ready-Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)

Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)

W20 Shattered Dreams Gift Cards (Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th)

TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Vigil Watch (Scarred Lands)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Sending out art notes and contracts.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Cults of the Blood God (KS) – Art all seems ready.

Mummy 2 (KS)

City of the Towered Tombs

Let the Streets Run Red – Sending out art notes and contracts.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Awaiting artnotes.

Scion Mythical Denizens – Going over sketches.

Deviant

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad – Sending out art notes and contracts. Still looking for a couple of artists.

Vigil Watch – Sending out art notes and contracts.

In Layout

Chicago Folio

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds – Haven’t forgotten it.

Pirates of Pugmire – With Aileen.

Proofing

Memento Mori – At WW for approval.

Dark Eras 2 – Correction notes back to Aileen, so off to WW soon.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

M20 Book of the Fallen – Getting PgXX notes from Satyr Phil.

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – 2nd proof.

VtR Spilled Blood

At Press

Trinity: In Media Res – PDF and PoD versions on sale on Weds at DTRPG!

V5: Chicago – Shipping to the KS fulfillment shippers. PoD proofs ordered.

Aeon Aexpansion – PoD proofs coming.

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – At press, proofs signed off on.

Geist 2e Screen – At press, waiting for proofs.

DR:E – At press, proofs signed off on.

DRE Screen – At press, waiting for proofs.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties – PoD proof on the way.

Trinity RMCs

Tales of Good Dogs – PoD files uploaded.

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

In Memoriam- Two performers that brought multiple beloved characters to life: Rene Auberjonois, from the original MASH Father Mulcahy, to Clayton Endicott III on Benson, to perhaps his best-known role as Odo on DS9, and Caroll Spinney, who brought Big Bird and, my personal favorite, Oscar the Grouch, to life on Sesame Street and delighted so many children around the world for decades. They did good work, brought two notable grouches to life, and will be missed by the many who loved them for it.