After the Sound & Fury… [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting

After last week’s blog, how about we get back to business as usual? And in a lot of our worlds, the above picture by Sam Araya for V20 Lore of the Clans (see below) is business as usual! But no, first I just need to take a minute to touch base on all the great responses I got this whole last week to that blog, and to clarify one thing.

Thanks to each and every one of you who took the time to reach out, either on this blog or through other methods, and let me know how much you appreciate what we have tried to do and are doing with Onyx Path. The good wishes, accolades, and most of all, the understanding, was incredibly heartening and I’ve passed your support on to our gang and our creative teams that are kicking ass on projects around the world. Remember they’re the ones who make all these amazing books possible, and who really need to hear the yays.

The one thing I wanted to clarify came out of some of the responses last week about the Exalted forums and really the Exalted fans. There’s a meme around that describes the Exalted fanbase as “toxic”. If only based on the messages I received last week, I can tell you that that is simply not the case. But I do think some members of that fanbase are toxic, just like any large group of devoted enthusiasts. This is a large part as to why we have the new policy on the EX forum I talked about last week.

Part of this, maybe most of why the forums got the way they did, was my hesitation to cut off anyone in our community who might have had a bad week but is basically a supporter of what we are doing here. And for some folks, that bad week can stretch to years, so I always try to talk first, ban second. That may have led some very small minority of our posters to think that the accepted standards of that community were about being nasty.

Well, no. It is our intention that anyone in our Exalted community can post on our forums without fear of flames and other nastiness from here on in. Or at least, there will be repercussions to not respecting your fellow posters, our creative teams, and Onyx Path as a whole.

And now, because the furthest thing I can think of to all that is a puppy, here’s one of the Pugmire character design sheets I’ve been working on these last couple of weeks:

The notes are where we are now with the character – things can change. But this sheet is already out to an artist for reference for a color piece you should be seeing in the weeks to come.

Our Onyx Path gang talked about convention support again, and what else we can do with that, and our current Kickstarter and the couple of interviews and Reddit possibilities we have lined up already. We did note that the new Achievements section of the Kickstarter had been grossly inflated in our imaginations as to how many selfies we should expect. We have lessened those amounts based on how real people are sending them in. Huh, theory meets the real world and the real world smashes theory. I’m just glad we can do these sorts of experiments, and then adjust them. Back in the WW days, that was really hard to do when you tried out something in a printed book.

Finally, I leave you with this bit of jocularity from our meeting from Mirthful Mike: “I don’t do web.” [pause] “Sorry, Eddy.”

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And now, the BLURBS!

We have been reviewing our shipper’s copies and discovered that we have a few, and only a few, extras from a couple of our Kickstarters, so please email lisat.onyxpath@gmail.com and our lovely office manager Lisa will help you. We have Prestige Edition Mummy: the Curse, and the Mummy Screen. Deluxe V20 Children of the Revolution, and the Deluxe Hunters Hunted 2, and the V20 Screen. We’ll have to do this on a first come, first serve basis, so let us know asap.

Sothis Ascends, the final book of Mummy: the Curse’s originally planned supplements is on sale as an Advance PDF and we are assembling errata for final PDF and PoD physical book copies are available: http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/146995/Sothis-Ascends

It includes:

• Comprehensive information on the mundane and supernatural world during each of the three prior Sothic Turns, Mummy’s pivotal eras of historical play — the Cannibal Hymn (2371 BCE), the Mighty Despair (910 BCE), and the Return to Dusk (551 CE).

• A wealth of new material for Storytellers, including characteristics of a Sothic chronicle, features of the latest Sothic Turn, a secret society of the Deathless, a new kind of Utterance, and two new types of story framework — the interwoven chronicle and the parallel chronicle.

• “Pearl of Ascent” — a complete Mummy story that Storytellers can run alone or as the climactic final act in a three-part series called The Avarice Chronicle.

The Deluxe V20 Lore of the Clans Kickstarter is headed towards hitting 200% of the funding goal, and has passed goals that will add Appendixes to the book itself and Bloodlines to a separate extra book called, logically enough, Lore of the Bloodlines. But the Stretch Goals are just one part of the fun, as backers have been sending in selfies and liking our Facebook page in order to boost the Achievements counters and get some extra rewards! If you want to see how the V20 Clans and Bloodlines are given more depth and expanded on to the present day, check it out at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-v20-lore-of-the-clans

Our own Fast Eddy Webb and as many Vampire 20th Anniversary writers as possible are looking at doing a V20 and Lore of the Clans Reddit AskMeAnything Tuesday, April 21st in the WW subreddit. More details next week – watch this space!

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And now, new project status updates!:

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (Projects in bold have changed listings)

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

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition) (Going for open development soon.)

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

Secrets of the Covenants (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition) – In Open Development

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

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

nWoD Hurt Locker (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)

Pugmire (Be a Good Dog.)

CtL anthology (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

WoD nWoD 2e core (World of Darkness 2nd Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Scarred Lands Player’s Guide: Ghelspad

Redlines

Mummy Fiction Anthology (Mummy: the Curse)

Mage: the Awakening 2nd Edition, featuring the Fallen World Chronicle (Mage: the Awakening) – In Open Development

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Cursed Necropolis: Rio (Mummy: the Curse)

Demon Storytellers’ Guide (Demon: the Descent)

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

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

Demon Translation Guide (Demon: the Fallen and Demon: the Descent)

Second Draft

V20 Black Hand: Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

W20 Shattered Dreams (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

W20 Novel by Mike Lee (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Development

V20 Ghouls (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

Promethean: the Created 2nd Edition, featuring the Firestorm Chronicle (Promethean: the Created) Being playtested.

Beast: the Primordial core book (Beast: The Primordial)

“Sardonyx” System Rules (Base rules set for Scion and the Trinity Continuum)

Editing

M20 How do you DO that? (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

MtC Dreams of Avarice

V20 Red List (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

Development (post-editing)

ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE

In Art Direction