The Walking (and Running) Dead [Monday Meeting Notes]

Monday Meeting, News

I’m going to get a lot of use out of the blog title this week, so stay with me.

First, it pretty accurately describes the Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e Kickstarter that is entering its last week today. Like most of our KSs, it had a great week and has slowed down to a walk right now, but we expect that it will also pick up the pace as we head towards the last days and run wildly towards the finish like the majority of our KSs have done.

So far, it’s been doing great and has achieved nine Stretch Goals – most of which are building the Memento Mori companion book, but there’s a lot more in store!

Geist has always had an extremely dedicated community that has come out and made this a very fun KS, and they’d love to add more folks to their Krewe. So, if you want to know just why we always had Geist questions thrown at us at every panel going back to when Eddy and I first started the “What’s Up with WW?” panels, this is your chance to find out! It’s the kind of game line and setting that gets into your head – in a memorable and thought-expanding way.

Speaking of getting into your head in a good way, how many of you are listening to the Onyx Pathcast podcasts?

(I am the king of segues!)

Well, there’s now another way to enjoy Dixie, Matthew, and Eddy as they delve deep into our game lines and interview noted creators, and generally have an infectiously good time. We have put the first couple of the Pathcasts up on our YouTube channel. Here’s the link to the first one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3-jNUV5-hM

Impish Ian Watson took the audio, and added art and graphics so that you’d have something to feast your eyes on as you listen to the Terrifying Yet Terrific Trio explore the secrets of Onyx Path, its creators, and its games. This last Friday they interviewed Eric Minton, one part of our excellent Exalted 3rd development team, and got him to talk about the thrills of developing new Ex3 projects. They even got some Lunars and Exigents tidbits out of him!

Marvelous marketing info aside, they really did a great job interviewing Eric, and you can tell they were all having a super time of it. I don’t know about you, but those sorts of audible and infectious good spirits makes me want to listen all the more when I check out a podcast.

This Friday, they’ll be talking about the connection, for good and for bad, between video games and tabletop RPGs. As creators that have worked in both spaces and as gamers themselves across a wide swathe of video games, it should be a blast and pretty insightful. And as always, you can download and listen on PodBean, or any of your favorites podcast venues: https://www.podbean.com/site/Search/index?v=onyx+pathcast

Returning to our blog title this week, I’m gonna touch on one of our new game lines coming out that has walking dead, running dead, all sorts of dead. Plus human survivors who are turning them into really dead dead.

Of course, I’m talking about Dystopia Rising: Evolution, which is a Storypath System powered RPG set in a post-apocalyptic future where zombies are just one sign of the terrifying way the world has changed.

We’ll be demoing DR:E at Gen Con in less than two weeks, and since we are sharing our booth with our licensors from Eschaton Media, please come by. Because if Eddy Webb or any of our crew can’t explain Dystopia Rising, our booth-mates can!

If you’ve never heard of Dystopia Rising, beyond my very brief synopsis above, it is best known for being a hugely successful and compelling post-apocalyptic LARP setting that has spread not unlike an undead virus throughout the US and the world. In fact, I first became aware of DR because of encountering scary armor and weapon wearing Mad Max refugees wandering around several Vampire LARP venues.

They just looked intense, and really communicated that they were working out a huge and personal story as they gathered together with cobbled together costumes. They, and the setting, do a great job of convincing newcomers of the depths and potential of this wasted world of theirs.

We then met the Dystopia Rising creators at further conventions, and when Mighty Matt McElroy brought me into a Starbucks with them “just to get to know each other”, I knew he sensed that this was a group of folks we could work with in presenting their world to our Onyx Path community. As Eddy Webb, who is developing the project, says:

“The Eschaton folks have been great partners. I’ve worked on a lot of licensed products, and it’s very rare to find a partner that is so open to new ideas and collaboration. Some of the give-and-take we’ve had has been fantastic, and I think it’ll make the final product better as a result.”

If you are counting, this is our first new license after the WW one, as I consider our Creator-Owned projects to be only kinda-licenses, and we took a while to find the right project to do this with. The folks on the other side of the dotted line are a huge part of that, but also, we had a few more reasons for why this is a good idea:

Honestly? Zombies. As Mirthful Mike sez: “At last I get to do up some real zombies!”

Because the post-apocalyptic, zombie/mutant genre is really a new space for us to play in, we also thought it was a great third place to use the Storypath System. We’ll demonstrating even more of the system’s range in adapting it for this existing game world, and from everything I’ve seen and heard so far, it is passing that test with flying colors!

The setting. Post-apocalyptic, but with a setting-based reason why the world is so messed up, and with a setting-based reason as to why survivors have both survived and have a hard time pinning down just how long it has been since things all went to hell. This gives both creators and players a massive chance to explore the world that is left, and to interject the themes and historical “facts” they want to include without contradicting the world we are building and which is already being played.

Like I mentioned, we’ll be demoing Dystopia Rising: Evolution in our booth and elsewhere, and soon after we all get our collective heads together after Gen Con, we’ll be running the DR:E Kickstarter campaign. We hope to have a lot of interesting rewards based on the many years of the setting that have run, and a few fun treats in store that focus on our new game line!

So here we go, into a new game, a new setting, a new license, and a new world to join our already successful and amazing universe of games. Like we surely must say, Onyx Path is really made up of:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

ONE WEEK LEFT for the Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition Kickstarter and we’ve achieved nine Stretch Goals so far, even though this period traditionally is a very slow time during our Kickstarters. Thanks to all of our backers out there spreading the word! We are in good shape to be able to make a great looking hardcover edition, and get that into stores, even while we’re giving backers first look at the complete text and other fun benefits: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/geist-the-sin-eaters-2nd-edition

Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition includes all the rules you need to play as one of the Bound: Five Burdens reflecting the cause that pulled you back from the grave, five krewe Archetypes for building your own mystery religion, and the Haunts, Keys, and Ceremonies that provide the Bound with their macabre powers.

It also includes the Chronicle of the Dead, featuring the Sin-Eaters’ struggle against the all-consuming Underworld and a variety of terrifying threats. In addition, for the first time in the Chronicles of Darkness line, ghosts are presented as playable characters.

Chapters include:

The Quick and the Dead: the five Burdens (the reason a Sin-Eater comes back from the dead and what draws a particular geist to them) and krewe Archetypes (the common cause that draws a krewe of Sin-Eaters together).

The Road Back: On death and coming back, and why Bound make the Bargain, including possible consequences.

One Foot in the Grave: Character creation, with sections on both geist and krewe creation, Anchors, Merits, Synergy, Plasm, Abilities, Haunts, Keys, Ceremonies, and Mementos.

Old Laws: the core Chronicles of Darkness rules, with special rules for playing Sin-Eaters, as well as information on subsystems for krewes, ghosts, and the Underworld, including Avernian Gates.

rules, with special rules for playing Sin-Eaters, as well as information on subsystems for krewes, ghosts, and the Underworld, including Avernian Gates. Antagonists: villains for your Geist chronicle, including Reapers, Eaters of the Dead, necromancers, enemy Bound, and Kerberoi.

chronicle, including Reapers, Eaters of the Dead, necromancers, enemy Bound, and Kerberoi. The Quiet Places: Setting information and story hooks for playing your Geist chronicle in specific times and places in history., from 16th-century Brazil to modern-day Edinburgh, Scotland to Mobile, Alabama in 1910, as well as information on Dominions.

chronicle in specific times and places in history., from 16th-century Brazil to modern-day Edinburgh, Scotland to Mobile, Alabama in 1910, as well as information on Dominions. Ghost Stories: Storyteller advice and information for running a Geist chronicle, including designing Remembrances, how to set theme and mood, story seeds, and various ways to play out the end of a game.

chronicle, including designing Remembrances, how to set theme and mood, story seeds, and various ways to play out the end of a game. Appendix: The Absent: This Appendix details the Absent, playable ghosts, including Memories, new Merits, and a collection of possible ghost characters to expand on and use in your chronicle.

Appendix: Conditions and Tilts: Geist-specific Conditions and Tilts, including ephemeral Influence Conditions and Manifestation Conditions for ghosts, as well as Haunt Conditions and Tilts.

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now 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 both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

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 you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Kindle, Nook) V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)

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

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

(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!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

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

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

The Christmas In July Sale continues at DTRPG.com! There are just so many bargains on all of our game lines that you need to check it out in order to believe it.

This Wednesday, we will release the next set of creatures for the Hundred Devils Night Parade: Aurochs and Walkure, and a new antagonist for Adversaries of the Righteous: Adeimantus!