Monday Non-Meeting: Doing Rich’s Work! Also, Gen Con!

Monday Meeting

Rich is off doing… something. I dunno. Something with his family, I think? He used this strange word “vacation” that I had to look up. The whole idea just doesn’t make any sense to me. But, he convinced me to handle the Monday Meeting blog for the next couple of weeks while he doesn’t do work (slacker), so I’m dusting off the old routine and posting updates under the guise of jocularity. Or maybe it’s the other way around.

For those that haven’t heard, I’m now working freelance full-time these days, and a fair portion of my time is devoted to Onyx Path contracts. Between juggling Masquerade books, I’m also helping out here and there on the back-end again. One of the things I’m helping out with is booth duty at Gen Con this year, which means I’ll fly in early to help unpack and set up the booth, sell things to people for several days, and stay to tear down and repack the booth in addition to my usual “attend panels, talks to fans, and drink heavily” schedule I’ve done the past few years. (Maybe not the “drink heavily” part this year, though.) In fact, that’s a picture of me last year at Gen Con (taken by the incomparable Meredith Gerber of Silhouette Studios).

In a lot of ways, it’s an odd blend of coming home and blazing a new path forward, like a lot of things with Onyx Path. I worked the old White Wolf booth back when I was with the Camarilla Fan Club and we shared space, so I’m familiar with the heavy boxes, the lack of air conditioning before the floor opens, and the variety of ways you try to find time to eat. I even had my job interview for CCP/White Wolf with Rich at Gen Con 2007. On the other hand, this is the first time in seven years that I’ll be there without representing CCP. Even though there are a lot of familiar faces, Onyx Path is a whole new thing, and it’s exciting and terrifying to see what happens on this first year when Onyx Path has its own booth.

But I think shows like Gen Con are important. So much of our industry has moved to the Internet. In a wide variety of ways, I think that’s an improvement: it’s allowed things like open development and last-minute errata and a perpetual bookshelf that never goes out of print. But it also means that sometimes the social touch is lost. I’m always nervous about Gen Con because I’m an introvert and being social for days on end wears me out, but I also feel so much more enthusiastic and excited for our industry after I’m done. Every single year it happens. I think it’s important for all of us to come together once in a while and share what we think is awesome together, as people. And I hope that you’ll think some of the new things coming out of OPP (whether I worked on them or not) are awesome, too.

But enough about me! Let us get on to updates! I hope I do this right….

ART STUFF (courtesy of Mike Chaney, who is awesome)

White Howlers – Leblanc is doing the fulls and halfs. Jeff is cranking along on the splats. Actually saw Jeffe’s sketches Friday night…so far so good.

Book of the Deceived – Sam is working on them.

DtD Seattle – Cover is in. Fulls are starting to come in…I got the first three on Friday night…should have rest by midweek.

DtD Demon Seed collection – Borja is working on the stuff.

DtD Interface – Awaiting final text. Should be a quick turnaround on this as it is fiction.

Book of the Wyrm 20 – Getting backer photos in.

DAV20 – Fulls rolling in along with progress shots for splats. Fulls thus far have looked nice.

Demon PG – Uploaded and awaiting approval. Got some Condition cards made for the additional stuff

Heirs to Hell – Ditto.

Rites of the Blood – Should have errata for that this week and then getting it ready for PoD. [Eddy Note: I sent Mike the errata earlier today, but it’s a lot. Shout-out to the forumites who posted on the thread!]

Anarchs Unbound – LtD cover stuff.

DEVELOPMENT STUFF (courtesy of Rose Bailey, who is also awesome)

Contracting

DtD Storyteller’s Guide

First Draft

WtA Book of the Wyrm Stretch Goals

WtF Idigam Anthology

MtAw Fallen World Chronicle

MtAw Fallen World Anthology

Ex3 core (from Holden): “The corebook now has roughly double the originally-planned number of hearthstones. Other major matters this week included post-edits finalizing of martial arts and chapter fictions, and a whole ton of art notes.”

MtAs How do you DO that?

MtAs Book of Secrets

MtC Rio

Redlines

VtM Lore of the Clans

MtC Sothis Ascends

Second Draft

V20 Ghouls

WtF Idigam Chronicle

Development

WoD Dark Eras Vampire

Editing

MtC Book of the Deceived

DtD Anthology/Interface

DtD Demon Seed Collection

WtA Umbra

WoD Dark Eras

Development (post-editing)

Dark Ages

Special

Tri Core (system work)

Tri Aeon (system work)

WtA White Howlers (waiting on comic)

MtAs M20 Core (with Bill)

Today’s Reason To Drink: On July 28th, 1540, Thomas Cromwell was executed on charges of treason. On the same day, Henry VIII married his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. So, let’s drink to the efficiency of having a funeral and a wedding with only one caterer.