Here’s A Little Something I Like To Call…[Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting, News

LESS THAN THREE DAYS LEFT FOR THE V5 CULTS OF THE BLOOD GODS KICKSTARTER!

It is, in fact, doing fantastic, with over 2200 backers so far. The comments section, knock wood, has been overwhelmingly positive and energized – which really encourages our team to pop in and answer questions and chat a bit.

So, come over and check it out and as a backer you can check out the text that we’ve released to backers so far. Which is most of it. If you disagree with those 2200 other backers and dislike it, you can bail out before the KS is over. No harm, no foul.

We want our backers to be into the project, and totally understand when some folks don’t dig it. Not every project appeals to every potential backer. It’s why we set up our KSs this way, now. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/cults-of-the-blood-gods-for-vampire-the-masquerade-5th-ed

Most of last week was spent at Mid Winter Convention in a gathering of almost the entire Monday Meeting crew plus dozens of freelancers. And a wonderful group of friends and fans, too. We started with:

THE SUMMIT

This was a day long – well half a day, it took us 12 hours – meeting where we took a look back at 2019, and then mostly looked at our plans for ongoing projects and how we could evolve our processes.

Then we spent the second half of the day looking at how we wanted Onyx Path to grow throughout 2020. What works for us and so should be nurtured and fed with love and effort and money.

If we felt something was no longer working, we didn’t just trash it, we looked at ways to change it or replace it so that our original goal for it was more likely to be met.

It was loud and long and lively, and ultimately we filled three walls with Post-Its filled with our ideas. We’re already working on some of the changes, with more to come of our efforts all through 2020 (and beyond).

Then it was time for dinner, and normally in Milwaukee we’d go to the traditional German restaurant Maders (a tradition going all the way back to when White Wolf ate there during Gen-Con), but then this happened:

I cry at the door to Maders: temporarily closed for renovation.

So we all ate at a different restaurant, which was perfectly nice, but not steeped in tradition. Sob! Later that night, I joined with our amazing Onyx Pathcast hosts (Dixie, Matthew, and Eddy) for a very silly Pathcast recording that went live last Friday. You can find that on Podbean, or on your favorite podcast venue.

Matthew, Eddy, and Dixie “enjoying” their favorite Mario pastime!

From there on in, we were attending the convention. So:

THE MID WINTER CONVENTION

Here is a run-down with a whole lot of pics taken throughout, as were the earlier ones, by the multi-talented Meredith Gerber.

Eddy’s Developer Bootcamp.

Thursday was set-up for the booth and some professional seminars and panels designed to help freelancers and aspiring creators with tips on such things as running a Kickstarter (Mighty Matt McElroy, Meredith, and I were that panel), to networking, to Eddy’s Developer Bootcamp where he divides attendees into teams, has them come up with a game concept, and walks them through each stage of creation.

My favorite idea was a game where a cyber-pug is created in parts, with each cyber-part containing one bit of what I believe was an exploded pug’s body. I heard about it second-hand, so I might not be grasping the full nuanced concept.

Friday, for us, was important. This was the day of our Onyx Path Q&A Social, which is a small gathering in a boardroom at the hotel, with snacks and drinks. We’ve found that this works better for us than the traditional panel at this convention.

Onyx Path Q&A Social 2020

I explain some minor, inconsequential, point while the gang wait to announce new releases.

Matt reminds us to announce Trinity Continuum: Adventure!, TC: Assassins, They Came From Beyond the Grave!, and The Hedge for CtL2e.

Naeall Raemonn Pricae makes a point – potentially about Scion, Exalted Essence, or Trinity Continuum: Assassins. Or something that applies to all three at once.

Eddy also makes a point – in an elegant and thought-provoking manner.

That was our big group event, but individually everybody still had events they were a part of. In fact, right after the Q&A, Matthew demo’d They Came From Beneath the Sea!. Which I didn’t know about until I heard gales of laughter from the demo area and popped my head in to see what the jocularity was all about.

It turns out the group was menaced by Commie Seaweed!

But with a clever use of improvised Quip and Cinematics cards…

…the day is saved by, well, getting the sinister seaweed stoned!

Besides They Came From Beneath the Sea!, we had other games of ours being demoed throughout the convention, including Eddy playing Pugmire (big surprise, I know), and at least one more panel – which was for V5 Chicago By Night.

Incidentally, mentioning V5 reminds me that not only do we have the Cults KS finishing up, but our friends over at Modiphius still have the pre-order open for Fall of London for Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition! You can do that whole pre-order thing for the physical book over there on their website, and get a link for the PDF right away!

But, besides helping out our fellow V5 content creators with a plug, here are some pics of Eddy playing Pugmire, and then the V5 Chicago By Night creators at their panel:

Eddy demos Pugmire, the very best doggy game in the world!

The V5 Chicago By Night creators no doubt revealing some scary and mysterious bit of lore from the book!

The Chicago panelists and creators: Crystal Mazur, Matthew “The Gentleman Tongue” Dawkins, Mike Tomasek, and Eddy Webb.

And so, to end our little visual tour of our adventures at Mid Winter in Milwaukee, here is a gorgeous picture taken once again by Meredith Gerber, of Matthew and I in a moment of downtime in our habitual haunt, the Monarch Lounge in the hotel:

Lords of the Night, indeed!

Check us out next week, after we’ve fully recovered – we hope! We’ll have lots more talk about our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

Kickstarter!

V5 Cults of the Blood Gods is in its last few days! Thanks to all of you, the kickstarter has passed $131,000 and 2240 backers, and has trumpeted forward passing through Stretch Goal after Stretch Goal right into the new year!

Next on Kickstarter, we are looking at Hunter: The Vigil 2nd Edition for Chronicles of Darkness!

Onyx Path Media!

This Friday’s Onyx Pathcast is an in-depth roundtable on the Trinity Continuum with Danielle Lauzon and Ian Watson from the MidWinter Convention in Milwaukee! Check it out direct on Podbean, or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

An abbreviated profile of media this week, as Matthew has only just got back from the States and is a little tired.

We’ve a busy week ahead of us on Twitch with Vampire: The Masquerade, Chronicles of Darkness, Pugmire, Aberrant, Changeling: The Lost, Hunter: The Vigil, Changeling: The Dreaming, Scarred Lands and Blood City’s Chicago by Night!

As ever, tune in to twitch.tv/theonyxpath to watch these shows live and subscribe to the channel!

Our YouTube channel will start boosting its content again this week, with more Scion, Pugmire, Scarred Lands, Aberrant, Vampire and more!

Find our YouTube channel on youtube.com/user/theonyxpath and as with Twitch, click subscribe! An Onyx Path News is coming this week!

Here’s Occultists Anonymous‘ latest fantastic Mage: The Awakening shows:

Episode 72: From The Ashes

Before heading to the Yucatan, Atratus visits the soul fragment of a mage in an Atlantean soul stone. The cabal then heads down to Mexico and begins to investigate the ancient pyramid.https://youtu.be/NylE4FsuYfs

Episode 73: This Isn’t Kansas

The cabal investigates the portal atop the Pyramid of the Magician, for beyond it lies another world, and perhaps a clue to the grimoire they are searching for. Wyrd has spotted what seems to be a living Mayan civilization beyond the portal, but what really is out there?https://youtu.be/CETbEGEbrUU

The Story Told Podcast have recently interviewed Onyx Path mainstay Vera Vartanian on the subject of Exalted right here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/episode-44-exalted-dragon-blooded-great-houses-part-1-with-vera-vartanian

Red Moon Roleplaying have posted the final episode of The Sacrifice for V5 Chicago by Night, run by the excellent Klara Herbol, but as well, they’re still posting episodes of V5 Cults of the Blood Gods and Changeling: The Lost! Find their content on YouTube, Spotify, or redmoonroleplaying.com

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!

One more week: DTRPG and its affiliated Community Content sites are running the New Year, New Game sale! A huge number of our PDFs are on sale from all of our game worlds, as well as a Big Scion 2e Bundle with 4 PDFs being offered for $13! https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/299474/NYNG-Scion-2E-BUNDLE

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

On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, we will be releasing the PDF and physical book PoD versions of M20 Book of the Fallen on DTRPG!

This book deals with extremely disturbing and mature topics as it examines evil within the World of Darkness, and in Mage: The Ascension, in particular. Please be aware of this before making your order.

Conventions!

More conventions will be listed for 2020 in the weeks to come-

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)

Contagion Chronicle Ready-Made Characters (Chronicles of Darkness)

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

Duke Rollo fiction (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

TC: Aberrant Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

RUST (Working Title) (Scarred Lands)

Under Alien Suns (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Mission Statements (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Redlines

Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)

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

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

Second Draft

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

Exigents (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Crucible of Legends (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

TC: Aberrant Reference Screen (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

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

Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)

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

Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Contagion Chronicle: Global Outbreaks (Chronicles of Darkness)

Contagion Chronicle Jumpstart (Chronicles of Darkness)

Manuscript Approval

Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)

Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)

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

Post-Approval Development

Scion LARP Rules (Scion)

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

Titanomachy (Scion 2nd Edition)

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

Editing

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

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

Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd 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)

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad (Scarred Lands)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Terra Firma (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Lunars Novella (Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Buried Bones: Creating in the Realms of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)

Post-Editing Development

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)

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)

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

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

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

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

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

Indexing

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Contagion Chronicle – Last of finals coming in.

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant

Hunter: The Vigil 2e

Ex3 Lunars – Art is in.

TCfBtS!: Heroic Land Dwellers – LeBlanc working on finals.

Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed – Finals starting to come in this week.

Cults of the Blood God (KS)

Mummy 2

City of the Towered Tombs

Let the Streets Run Red – Art notes and contracts finishing going out this week.

CtL Oak Ash and Thorn – Figuring out art notes.

Scion Mythical Denizens – Need sketches for fulls.

Deviant

Yugman’s Guide to Ghelspad – Finals all coming in.

Vigil Watch – Need one more artist.

Legendlore (KS) – Starting to gather art needs for KS.

Technocracy Reloaded (KS) – Artwork for KS in progress.

Scion Companion – Working on art notes for that.

TC: Aeon Terra Firma

In Layout

Trinity Continuum Aeon: Distant Worlds

Pirates of Pugmire – With Aileen.

Wraith20 Anthology – First Proof.

Proofing

Dark Eras 2 – Backer PDF going out to backers this week.

Trinity Continuum Aeon Jumpstart

They Came from Beneath the Sea! – Backer PDF almost ready to send to backers.

VtR Spilled Blood – 2nd proof with dev.

Chicago Folio – First proof.

At Press

V5: Chicago – Shipping labels for backers being created, should start shipping rewards soon.

Geist 2e (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition) – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

Geist 2e Screen – Being printed.

DR:E – Shipping to fulfillment shippers.

DRE Screen – Being printed.

DR:E Threat Guide – Helnau’s Guide to Wasteland Beasties

Memento Mori – Awaiting errata for input.

M20 Book of the Fallen – PDF and PoD version go live on Wednesday on DTRPG!

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Almost our entire Monday Meeting crew made it to Milwaukee and back safely, and had a great and productive time at our Summit and the convention. I got stuck for a while in Milwaukee’s airport with a delayed plane, and Ian had a bunch of flights cancelled out from under him, but we’re all home now. Which is, for us, a pretty great trip!