Yes, the Contagion Chronicle continues to open up like a flower with each new section revealed to backers during this Kickstarter. We’re loving hearing from folks as they get excited by the way the Contagion manifests in city and region after city and region.
Is this the way you’ll include the Contagion in your ongoing Chronicle? Or is this manifestation so perfect for your group that you’ll just use it as-is for an all new Chronicle?
It works either way!
Plus, with the Stretch Goals to both expand on the Contagion, and to go crunchier into crossover rules, backers are going to have a fantastic spectrum of options to pick from.
Check out the link below in The Blurbs! section!
Speaking of The Blurbs!, I want to point out our whole Onyx Path Media section, and in particular, the weekly Onyx Path News vid that Matthew has been doing for, what?, ten weeks now.
Each week, he’ll give you a fast recap of the week that was, the fantastic projects we’ve put on sale, where things are with our Kickstarters – you name it!
Here’s this week’s link: https://youtu.be/WvO-lsim_Kk
One other thing I’d like to point out that I noticed just this week in the Onyx Pathcast: Whoo-boy do those three Pathcasters let loose a lot of teasers and info for upcoming projects! I’ve maintained a very strong hands-off policy in terms of the content for the Pathcast, and really have let the gang do their thing, but after listening to all the bits of spoilers they revealed in the first part of last Friday’s look at Emotions in Gaming…maybe I should reconsider….
Here’s the link again, if you want to hear insider info about Trinity Continuum: Aberrant, and a whole bunch of upcoming projects:
https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/
Finally, here’s an update on the Scion errata issue I touched on last week. Neall, the Scion 2e lead developer, continues to review the PDFs and compare them to his errata notes. We can tell already that not all of the errata fixes he input reverted after he fixed them, which is very good news.
We’re not looking at anywhere near the number or severity of fixes that we had feared.
Unfortunately, it would actually be easier to figure out what broke in the errata input process if they all reverted or if there was a pattern to the ones that reverted, but we have still not discovered why these two books had issues after over a dozen before them using the same process did not.
Since we don’t have that solution, but we still have books coming up we want to go through the errata process, we’ve already made some changes so that we don’t get hit with this problem again. I mentioned last week that our in-house developers will be the ones to actually input the errata changes, with guidance from the book dev, from here on in.
Now, we have worked out a new method for our backers and our community to provide us with the errata they find in the first place: a Google Form survey that we will provide links to, which will replace our usual “forum thread” method. We think this will provide a cleaner method for our devs to evaluate the errata we’re provided by the community. Not all errata is actually something that the devs think needs fixing, and this survey should make the ones we really want changed stand out.
You’ll be able to see that in action very soon with an upcoming PDF release!
Thanks everyone for your patience as we go back down the river to discover what went wrong. We should be able to move on some action items with this by this time next week.
As always, we’re dedicated to finding the best ways to bring you into our:
Many Worlds, One Path!
BLURBS!
KICKSTARTER:
The Contagion continues to spread, passing 1200 backers and infecting all in its path with more and more Stretch Goals! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/contagion-chronicle-a-chronicles-of-darkness-cross
Matthew Dawkins has also started running the Contagion Chronicle for some of the members of his Discord, via Google Hangouts! Follow along to get some sneak peeks of the content coming up in the Contagion Chronicle Kickstarter: https://youtu.be/dFMjit-YTwQ
He also asks for your Contagion Chronicle-related questions here: https://youtu.be/axvrFeQOvEg
ONYX PATH MEDIA
On this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, our team interview Monica Speca, one of our fantastic new up-and-coming developers and who’s working on the Scion Jumpstart! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/
And Here’s More Media About Our Worlds:
Matthew Dawkins is back with another episode of the Onyx Path News for you fine folks: https://youtu.be/WvO-lsim_Kk
Matthew’s actual play of The Contagion Chronicle continues into its fourth episode, as the motley band of a Beast, a changeling, a Promethean, and a werewolf stumble into a scene where infection might have taken hold of a victim: https://youtu.be/7TB9aEMj-84
If YOU have a podcast, YouTube or Twitch channel, or talk about games on a blog or other website, and want to perform actual plays or make reviews of our games, please reach out to the Gentleman Gamer on the Onyx Path forum. From there we’ll share emails and get you started, so when you do start producing content we’ll be able to promote it on our blog and YouTube channel!
The good folks at the Gamers Table have played AND reviewed They Came from Beneath the Sea! They’ve even created some props for their game, and their website can be found here: http://gamerstable.com/cheesy-sci-fi-horror/
Here’s the wonderful Occultists Anonymous with their Mage: The Awakening chronicle reaching episode six: https://youtu.be/FH-XCHN_s_I
Blades and Blasters just completed a lengthy one-shot of Scion 2E on their YouTube channel and it’s excellent! Check it out: https://youtu.be/gpmseeSqp7o
The always fantastic Caffeinated Conquests returns with the Gauntlet of Spiragos for Scarred Lands! Please give them your support and love: https://youtu.be/8lVL40fkPX8
Meanwhile, Roll the Role have their actual play of Dystopia Rising: Evolution available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvFtWq6Ys7g
In other excellent news, Mage: The Podcast has been covering all things Mage: The Ascension weekly, and we really recommend you give them a listen for all things purple and magickal: https://magethepodcast.com/
And the Dramatic Failure crew are deeply embedded in a Napoleonic Wars era chronicle of Geist: The Sin-Eaters on their channel: https://dramaticfailure.podbean.com
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 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’s an update from the App devs:
Onyx Dice! We’ve recently released the Changeling: The Lost, Trinity Continuum: Aeon dice, and now the Geist dice. Next up on our radar is: Demon: The Fallen, Mummy: The Resurrection, Kindred of the East, Vampire Dark Ages, and Mummy: The Curse.
We have a serious issue on the Pixel and Motorola phones that prevent the user from using the app correctly. A fix is coming shortly. A temporary workaround is to minimize the app without shutting it down, and then restore it.
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:
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
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
Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Try this link! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
And you can now order Pugmire, Monarchies of Mau, Cavaliers of Mars, and Changeling: The Lost 2e! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296
And available this week! Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming and Deluxe Beckett’s Jyhad Diary! The additional books we have after the Kickstarter ship-outs are done are now at IPR!
DRIVETHRURPG.COM:
Running until the 22nd, all WoD 20th Anniversary Edition PDFs are on sale!
75% off all core 20th Anniversary Edition PDFs and 25% off every other 20th Anniversary Edition PDFs
PLUS!
If you are looking for physical Deluxe WoD 20th Anniversary books, IPR has them on sale for 25% off too!
On Sale This Week!
This Wednesday, we’ll be presenting Dragon-Blooded Journals for sale on our RedBubble store!
CONVENTIONS
UK Games Expo: May 31st – June 2nd From the US comes Eddy Webb, Matt McElroy, and Rich Thomas to join with Matthew Dawkins, Steffie de Vann, John Burke, Chris Allen, and Klara Herbol!
Gen Con: August 1st – August 4th
Save Against Fear: Oct 12-14
GameHoleCon: October 31st – November 3rd
We’ll also be back at PAX Unplugged later this year.
And now, the new project status updates!
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST 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)
- M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- City of the Towered Tombs (Cavaliers of Mars)
- Geist2e Fiction Anthology (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)
- Across the Eight Directions (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Exalted Essay Collection (Exalted)
- Kith and Kin (Changeling: The Lost 2e)
- Scion: Demigod (Scion 2nd Edition)
- Trinity Continuum Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum Core)
- TC: Aeon Jumpstart (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
- Tales of Aquatic Terror (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
- Masks of the Mythos (Scion 2nd Edition)
- Scion: Dragon (Scion 2nd Edition)
- Wraith20 Fiction Anthology (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)
- DR:E Jumpstart (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)
- DR:E Threat Guide (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)
- One Foot in the Grave Jumpstart (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2e)
- Dragon-Blooded Novella #2 (Exalted 3rd Edition)
Redlines
- Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition core rulebook (Mummy: The Curse 2nd Edition)
- Legendlore core book (Legendlore)
- TC: Aeon Ready Made Characters (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
- Heroic Land Dwellers (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
- Monsters of the Deep (They Came From Beneath the Sea!)
- Blood Sea: Crimson Abyss for 5e (Scarred Lands)
Second Draft
- Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)
- Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)
- Let The Streets Run Red (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
- Dragon-Blooded Novella #1 (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Chicago Folio/Dossier (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
- Cults of the Blood Gods (Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition)
Development
- Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)
- Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)
- Oak, Ash, and Thorn: Changeling: The Lost 2nd Companion (Changeling: The Lost 2nd)
- Night Horrors: Nameless and Accursed (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)
- Memento Mori: the GtSE 2e Companion (Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition)
- M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- Creatures of the World Bestiary (Scion 2nd Edition)
- Heirs to the Shogunate (Exalted 3rd Edition)
- Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)
Manuscript Approval:
- Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)
- Scion Ready Made Characters (Scion 2nd Edition)
- Pirates of Pugmire (Realms of Pugmire)
- Distant Worlds (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)
Editing:
- Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)
- CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)
Post-Editing Development:
- C20 Novel: Cup of Dreams (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)
- M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)
- V5 Chicago By Night (Vampire: The Masquerade)
- V5 Chicago By Night Screen (Vampire: The Masquerade)
- CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)
- Witch-Queen of the Shadowed Citadel (Cavaliers of Mars)
Indexing:
- Trinity Core
- Trinity Aeon
ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:
In Art Direction
- Ex3 Monthly Stuff
- Chicago By Night – Art coming in slowly but surely.
- Aeon Aexpansion
- They Came From Beneath the Sea!
- EX3 Lunars
- Hunter: The Vigil 2
- Contagion Chronicle – KS.
- VtR Spilled Blood – Hiring artists.
- M20 Book of the Fallen – Contracted.
- Dark Eras 2 – Getting artnotes in from devs.
- CoM – Witch Queen of the Shadowed Citadel – Contracted.
- Pirates of Pugmire – KS art contracted, sketches and finals coming in.
Marketing Stuff
In Layout
- Dystopia Rising: Evolution – With Josh.
- Signs of Sorcery
- Shunned By the Moon
- Scion Jumpstart
- Trinity Core and Aeon Screens – Need to assemble.
Proofing
- Adventures for Curious Cats – Maps being reviewed.
- C20 Player’s Guide – At WW for approval.
- The Realm
- Book of Oblivion – Inputting first round of corrections.
- Tales of Excellent Cats
- Scarred Lands Spell Cards
- Dragon-Blooded Screen – At WW for approval.
At Press
- Scion Hero – At Studio2.
- Scion Origin – At Studio2.
- Scion Dice – At Studio2.
- Scion Screen – At Studio2.
- Fetch Quest – Shipped to backers.
- In Media Res – Getting Backer PDF out to backers.
- Geist 2e – Going to backers for Backer PDF.
TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE:
Today we lost an amazing and unique talent in science fiction and fantasy writing: Gene Wolfe. The master of archaic words – Severian in The Shadow of the Torturer wears a fuligin cloak, the color darker than black – and unreliable narrators, has passed away at the age of 87. Scion fans in particular should look for his “Soldier of the Mist”, the story of Latro, a soldier whose head injury during a Greco-Persian War skirmish allows him to see the gods, but also to forget everything as he sleeps – so the novel is compiled from the notes he writes to himself each night to be his memories in the morning.
Comments
44 responses to “April Showers Bring Contagion Flowers! [Monday Meeting Notes]”
A few things I’m wondering about for the errata survey system:
* will we be able to see already submitted errata (to at least somewhat reduce duplicates)?
* will it be possible to add multiple errata items in a single response, or will we need to submit multiple responses?
* what extra info will be asked? (page number, Typo/Unclear/Inconsistent/Symbol Problem?, etc.)
No, we’ll worry about culling duplicates on our end. But it will be useful for us to see if any particular piece of errata gets a lot of responses.
Not that I’ve seen, as part of the value of the Survey is to focus on that item and stick it in a spreadsheet row. But we’re open to evolving the form if we get the same usefulness on our end.
Page number will be vital on each report, so that’s a constant. Beyond that, pretty much: yes. That’s really close to the info, and you’ll be able to see exactly what is on the form the next time you’re looking to help us with errata. Thanks!
As the guy who offered to make that Google Form for you back during Exalted 3rd errata collection, I’m very glad to see you using it.
I know that cutting down on duplicate reports might not be a priority for *you*, but it does make *us* feel better when *we* don’t end up wasting our time reporting things you already know about. Please do let me know if you want some options for displaying the list of already-collected feedback. Google Forms can create a spreadsheet, and those spreadsheets can be published to the web. It doesn’t have to display every column.
Much appreciated! I’ll pass on the info to the team.
I like the Geist update. Should I be checking my inbox every 5 minutes now?
I imagine James will let backers know when it’s a comin’. 🙂
As a fellow backer, I’d suggest you might want to check it now.
🙂
Are BackerKit backers also going to see it?
Maybe it’s just in my head, but it seems like this was a good week for projects moving forward in status. Great stuff!
Hey, I have full faith that this is gonna be the case, but since the progress tracking has the books having finished printing.
I assume that the books will be checked for errors. For the Backers who got the physical books, can you promise that they won’t get books that are misprinted? Like, the books received will be as complete as reasonably possible instead of the Final drafts that we’ve already received?
I don’t need to know what the full plan is, in case the answer is “We’ll formulate it when we know the extent of the potential state of the books”, I’d just like to know if the physical backers will get completed books. Thank you.
As much as I deeply appreciate your faith in us, I think you should be aware that I would never promise to deliver books with no errors in them. I’ve never seen that in any of the books I’ve ever had, and TTRPG books are some of the ones with more blips because there are so many interconnected items. Take a look at the number of errata items for just the D&D 5e Players Handbook, or the latest Shadowrun core rulebook – I’m told there’s 40+ pages of errata for that. We proofed both Scion books again and again, and this errata is what was caught after that. If a still undetermined amount of those slips are in the printed books, then that’s not what we wanted, but it doesn’t render the books incomplete or the game broken.
I think there was a miscommunication here. I believe Kyman was wondering about delivery of the completed books with the fixes in question, the Tuatha art issue addressed, and the Backers credits (as promised in the Kickstarter reward tiers), etc. not hypothetical flawless books.
As Rich points out in his update, a lot of the errata did make it into the printed book.
More so then the PDFs we have gotten? This is the confusion issue for a lot of us, as the PDFs we currently have don’t even have the Backer Credits and includes reported stolen art, hence the assumption/hope that the printed books must be off a different file.
No miscommunication. In my reply, I’m addressing the idea underlying some of the concerns folks have about whatever happened to revert pieces of Neall’s input changes based on backer errata. Until we have the full list, I can’t venture into what we are doing about the issue – those “action items” mentioned in the blog. But whatever we do, if we’re looking at those reverted fixes and think they are not what we wanted but are non-critical, and some backers are thinking that the errata phase was vital to making the books the books we wanted to create, then we have a disconnect we don’t want to have.
No, I do understand that nothing is without errors and that no book is perfect. However, there are a couple errors in the previous Final draft that are noteworthy.
The wrong number of Boons in one spot, for example. Freya’s Calling line includes a handful of Purviews. The list of Backers isn’t in the PDF.
If, worst case scenario, there are errors in the printed versions that you yourself would say “We can’t ship these as they are”, is there a plan for that?
I don’t need to KNOW said plan. I’m not an employee, I’m not privy to the workings of the company. I would, however, be assured by something as simple as “Yes, we have a plan in case of extreme errors in the printed versions”
Thanks for reading
Yes, we have plans for how to proceed depending on the final errata. I can tell you right now that the list of backers will definitely be in the PDF where we intended it – as that’s not strictly the errata Neall needs to go over.
Thank you once again. I’ll wait patiently until we get the final product then.
Can we reasonably assume that this new community errata process will debut with the incoming Geist2e and In Media Res backer PDFs, or will it first appear with a later backer PDF?
I specifically didn’t lock down which PDFs would start our new errata sheet process in order to give the team room to get the first usage up and working right.
Rich,
I just received the pre-notice about the Geist 2E backer PDF and James included an image of the Errata form. It is a sleek, efficient, and (dare I say it?) sexy form. As someone who uses Google forms daily I really like how straight-forward it is. You have good people working with you!
Thanks, I’ll pass that along. Now let’s hope it works as efficiently!
Aw, still nothing about my Blood War twitch/youtube game.
Have you messaged me about it?
I have indeed, though it was on facebook.
I get a whole hell of a lot of messages on Facebook. Drop me a message on the Onyx Path forum, to make sure I’ve seen it.
I keep hoping to see Aberrant move one step closer to being in my hands. Good things come to those who wait! A little more time is better then a few more broken concepts. Keep up the good work all!
Take a listen to last week’s Onyx Pathcast if you can. Some talk about where things are with TC: Aberrant- all good stuff.
Glad to see The Realm so close to done, and Heirs of the Shogunate continuing to make good progress! Will Realm be released early to Dragon-Blooded backers, or everyone at once?
The Story Told also released the next episode in our ongoing Exalted Dragon-Blooded actual play series. You can check it out here: http://thestorytold.libsyn.com/fall-of-jiara-episode-3-the-matriarch-of-jiara
Can you talk at all about the WW approval process these days? I imagine that’s gone through changes and I’m curious how it works.
Not really, no. The approval process hasn’t changed much since we started with CCP, although it is more formalized with WW. Since it’s a behind the scenes process with another company, it’s not something I want to go into beyond what folks can see here and pick up through the blog and our Pathcasts, etc.
Understood and thanks for chiming in.
Is Signs of Sorcery fully done with the editing process and now just needing to get through art? I assume since there will not be a KS, we can’t get a text only copy. That ones an instant buy for me
We’ll go to Advance PDF as a release first. Gather some errata, and finalize the PDF and PoD. So there’s layout, proofing of that layout, and approvals with WW still to go to get to the Advance PDF.
Thanks for the update Rich. Drooling for this one!
Will Cult of the Blood Gods include paths? I’m so excited to finally get to read up on the Hecata!
Possibly even more excited for Technocracy Reloaded which can’t get here fast enough. I’m hoping we see expanded rules for Enhancements as the main M20 book was a bit lacking in that department
Cults of the Blood Gods won’t include Paths of Enlightenment, but will contain further Discipline powers!
When Geist 2e will be avaiable on DriveThroughRPG? 🙂
After backers get their KS physical books, so a while away still.
FYI, Pathers, you need to have a serious talk with Studio 2.
“Scion Hero – At Studio2.
Scion Origin – At Studio2.
Scion Dice – At Studio2.
Scion Screen – At Studio2.”
None of these things show up on their website. When I search for “Scion”, nothing shows up. There is no Scion category in the “Filter by Tag” area under the catalog. I’m five pages deep into the New Releases area and there’s no listing. The website doesn’t have any way to even just go to the “S” section to look around, you have to page through every single alphabetical page.
Or am I missing something?
They won’t show up on the Studio2 website until the KS backers get their packages and Studio2 opens up the items to be ordered by non-backers. Gonna happen, not yet the time – fear not, true believer!
Understood, I will try to chomp less at the bit.
Thank you for the time, Mr. Rich. You and all the Pathers have a good weekend, holiday or not.