A Fifth in the Fifth

Monday Meeting

Cinco de Mayo! Been so busy we almost missed this, which is quite different than the old White Wolf days when it was almost mandatory to head out early and start the feasting (drinking). At their best, there was the feeling of the hot Atlanta sun beating down on your head while sipping margaritas on a restaurant’s patio. At worst, finding a missing friend because his car was up on the sidewalk outside the WW offices. As usual, I do not know how no one ever died during our festivities.

No Eddy on this 5th of May- his recent evolution to freelance writer and full-time job seeker left him with a deadline to hit and he needed the time we would have met to nail down a couple thousand words. We could skip our meeting because our CCP approvals are going swimmingly, and there wasn’t anything Eddy and I needed to review. As has been the case since Onyx Path was founded in January of 2012, I did have the second meeting of the day with the folks that really keep Onyx rolling, and since this is our one formal meeting of the week, it took several hours. The info I post below in the Updates comes from that longer meeting each week, as do our various items that happen in the week. During the Onyx meeting we don’t just compare notes on where projects are in their schedules but mostly we look at big picture items.

For example, this week we ran through a list of possible items we might have available to hand out at the booth at this year’s Gen Con: the 2014-2015 Schedule Brochure, of course, but also some smaller things like temporary tattoos, mechanical pencils, lanyards, canvas bags for gamer loot, that sort of stuff that we can put symbols and website info on. Not all of the ones I list here will definitely be at the con, but we want to have some sort of fun things there. On top of select PoD books that we’ll be bringing for folks to buy, of course. It’s our first year of doing this ourselves, and we’re all pretty jazzed to find out what things we can do to make it fun for everybody.

We also reviewed a tentative redesign for the Onyx website, discussed how important it is to prep and educate new writers, editors, and developers, on our particular processes- and how important it is for all of our creative contributors to feel that they can speak up if they have concerns. It’s weird, to me, but some new freelancers kind of get tongue-tied in talking with the long time contributors, so we want to be sure that the same transparency and dialogue we push for having with our community of fans also applies with our creative crews. I say it seems weird, because I know we’re all knuckle-heads making this stuff up as we go along, and always have been. 🙂

And Speaking of the Stuff We Make Up:

– Mummy the Curse – Cursed Necropolis DC- KS backer PDF out last week. Compiling and inputting errata before making the on-sale PDF and PoD versions.

– Book of the Deceived (MtC): Redlines.

– Exalted 3rd Edition: From Holden: Lore Charms are now finished, and we are hard at work on the final Ability in the Solar Charm set: Craft. Collating more Antagonists material this week and continuing Evocations work. Chapter Three (Character Creation) now stands fully complete, with the Kickstarter-backed example-of-character-creation integrated. A fresh (and hopefully final) round of Martial Arts style drafts have arrived, with changes made based on playtest observations, and are being reviewed and approved.

Getting Survey prepared to send to backers.

Zub’s EX3 Comic: getting both the PDF and PoD versions ready to go up on DTRPG for sale. Both EX3 novels are being worked on, and I have a synopsis from Matt Forbeck to review. Starting to get one of the EX3 Music Suites to a finished state, the Dragon Blooded theme but our composer got caught in a time crunch with another project which is why we haven’t gotten much done lately.

– V20 Hunters Hunted 2: US missing packages started going out last week, International missing packages have started as well. In daily communication with the European shipper as contact info is amassed. Need confirmation that they have started shipping to Europe.



– V20 Anarchs Unbound : Getting comments back on the backer PDF before we create final PDF, and PoD and Deluxe print files. One thing to point out to non-backers: the PDF also included an ePub version specifically designed to work on tablets and mobile devices- which is the first time we have tried to do this with a tabletop RPG book. There are very specific changes to how we do design of the books in order to create an ePub version, and we’re very interested in the response.

– V20 Rites of the Blood: is ready for layout, but layout is not yet ready for it, waiting on one artist for finals.

– V20 Dark Ages: Scribes are scribing 2nd Drafts. David Hill has delivered some art notes.

– V20: Ghouls: In redlines.

– V20 Red List: In final draft stage.

– The Making of the Art of Children of the Revolution: Out to backers who pledged for it. Creating PoD files to go with PDF for sale on DTRPG.

– Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition: US missing packages started going out last week, International missing packages have started as well. In daily communication with the European shipper as contact info is amassed. Need confirmation that they have started shipping to Europe. The Heavy Metal Deluxe W20 is done and has started shipping with more expected out this week. Mike Lee has a new batch of chapters of the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel for Bill to review. The White Howlers Tribe Book is in dev review. W20 Wyld West is in for developer review of proof.

– W20 Changing Breeds PDF and PoD versions are on sale at DTRPG! The Deluxes are being finished at press. The Changing Breeds Fiction Anthology needs a logo but is almost finished in layout

– W20 Book of the Wyrm is in layout. This will be the next Kickstarter project in a week or two if everything times out as expected. We think this book should appeal to W20 and W20 Changing Breeds fans alike. Getting this KS together, bit of a delay with the stuff happening mentioned above which just cut into prep time- but the KS video is almost done.

– W20: The Umbra: In second drafts.

– Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition- had a great talk with Satyr Phil and the Onyx Path gang and we were able to schedule the next books after M20– but finishing that developmentally is still the primary job for Phil and Bill. The Character Pack book and the “How Do You DO That?” book look like the first two next projects up.

– Mage 20 Quickstart: Printed and shipped for Free RPG Day.

– Trinity Continuum: System Doc being assembled by Joe Carriker.

– Scion: Both Scion and the TC above are now moving into active mode for 2014. Contracts and art notes out for the Scion: Origins cover.

– Demon: The Descent: Demon is now available in PDF/PoD/PDF&PoD combo versions. The Demon: Ready Made Characters PDF link has been sent to backers- getting ready to set the PDF and PoD versions for sale on DTRPG. Demon Seed Collection is in redlines. DtD Seattle is in second drafts. Heirs to Hell is in layout and art direction. Demon Translation Guide is being written. The Demon Fiction Anthology + Interfaces is in first drafts.

– DtD Players Guide: Flowers Of Hell: Layout proof to the Dev.

– Hunter: Mortal Remains: The PDF version is selling like hotcakes (scary hotcakes) on DTRPG and we have a forum thread for comments. http://forum.theonyxpath.com/forum/main-category/main-forum/the-new-world-of-darkness/hunter-the-vigil/122566-mortal-remains-errata-thread

– nWoD: Dark Eras: Second drafts are almost all in.

– WtF: The Idigam Chronicle: All but two first drafts are in- others are in redlines. Stew Wilson is doing a remarkably regular Friday blog that focuses on specific topics for the book- lots of good discussion happening right now: http://theonyxpath.com/category/projects/werewolftheforsaken/

– GtSE: Geist Ready Made Characters: In redlines.

– Also: nWoD Skull and Scion Pantheon shirts now on the RedBubble T-shirt site and soon to be joined by a Mage 20th logo shirt, and some special extras Mage shirts next week.

Reason to Drink: 5/5.