It’s here!

Get it now from DriveThruRPG!

Werewolf: The Apocalypse roared into hobby games in 1992, inspiring a generation of fans to stand up and howl their defiance at a corrupted world in a battle they knew they were doomed to lose. WtA presented the Garou: creatures at once both man and wolf, and filled with a Rage against the evils that would destroy and corrupt both the natural and spirit worlds. Capable of transforming into a variety of forms and blessed with Gifts that enabled superhuman and supernatural powers, the Garou fought many foes, always knowing that in the end they would fall. But what stories would be told and what songs sang of their exploits!

This epic tragic story, combined with the unwavering dedication of an unparalleled fan base, is the reason this book is being published. Werewolf: The Apocalypse – 20th Anniversary Edition brings the entire World of Darkness experience full circle and will serve as the perfect anniversary milestone to celebrate two decades of gaming the epic sagas of the Garou.

What’s in it?

• All thirteen original tribes, tribe variants and Lost Tribes, with their signature Gifts and Rites updated from the Werewolf: The Apocalypse Revised tabletop rules.

• Rules for character creation and advancement.

• Gifts from level one through six, including expanded lists.

• Updated setting to the modern nights.

• New full color original art by Ron Spencer, John Bridges, Steve Prescott, Dan Brereton, Richard Kane Ferguson, and other classic “Apocalypse” artists, as well as classic B&W pieces carefully chosen from the earlier editions.

• VTM: Berlin by Night
• VTM: Giovanni Chronicles I: The Last Supper

World of Darkness

• VTR: City of the Damned: New Orleans
• VTR: Lancea Sanctum

Exalted

• Compass of Celestial Directions IV: The Underworld

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/deluxe-exalted-3rd-edition

Two weeks ago, we invited you to help us interview Mummy: the Curse developer C.A. Suleiman. Today, we’re happy to present you with Part I of a two-part interview. We had so many questions, we had to break up the interview into two parts! Tune in this time next week to find more answers to your burning questions. Thanks for participating!

1. Please tell us about the upcoming sourcebooks.

Sure. Next up on the docket is Guildhalls of the Deathless, which is the big combo “splatbook” on the five guilds. I wanted the articulation of such concepts that core to the game to be voiced with consistency, so we’ve got some returning champions from the corebook material, including Malcolm Sheppard, Greg Stolze, and myself, along with the mighty Lucien Soulban and Adam Tinworth.

After that, we’ve got the first settingbook – Cursed Necropolis: D.C. – which offers the signature American setting for the game. It’s being written by Harry Heckel and Neall Raemonn Price, and (teaser drum roll, please…) it will do something no other World of Darkness settingbook has done. On the heels of that, we’ve got Book of the Deceived, which is the comprehensive Belials Brood-style sourcebook on the Lost Guild. That one is liable to blow some doors off, I think.

2. What are your main sources of inspiration for Mummy: the Curse?

Mostly the original source material – ancient Egyptian aesthetics, mysticism, and funerary practices – with a hefty dash of all things Lovecraftian/Mythos, particularly the writings of Clark Ashton Smith. (I’m also a big Abbott and Costello fan, but that doesn’t qualify as inspiration so much as a relevant aside.)

3. Do you think Mummy is too esoteric for most players?

I certainly hope not. While it’s true that the nWoD has a slightly narrower target audience than, say, the classic WoD or the average superhero RPG, we’ve got enough faith in the intelligence and discernment of its fans to believe this game will strike true.

4. How limited if at all did you feel by the NWoD System? Did you feel like it has aged well enough?

I didn’t feel limited at all, really. I designed the game to work with and for the nWoD Storytelling system, so the material feels pretty well wed to the mechanics to me. As to the overall system, I will say that RPG design is (happily) an evolving thing and that I look forward to flexing additional Storytelling muscles in the books to come.

5. What is the complete story behind the judges/ the Shan’iatu – and in which source book will the whole truth be unfold – what is their plan? 

The best place to start on a question like that is to call out the assumption it makes – that the Judges and the Shan’iatu are one and the same. Nowhere in the game material does it say that, so I think it’s a mistake to frame it that way. As to the “truth,” there will be additional revelations as the line progresses (have no fear there), but with regard to the overall truth of the backstory, it’s all there in the corebook (if maybe ‘between the lines’).

6. What was the connection between Atlantis and the nameless empire?

Officially, none. Atlantis didn’t exist in the continuity of Mummy, remember. If you, as individual Storytellers, want to do a big crossover thing, though, that’s fair game. After all, that’s part of the mission statement of the nWoD as a whole: Little to no first-party crossover narrative, but cooperative design allowing for player-generated crossover.

7. Was Apotheosis and the shadowy role of the Heretic always intended to be such elusive and ambiguous aspects of Mummy: The Curse?

I’m not sure I’d qualify it as ambiguous, really – there’s quite a few pages devoted to it in the corebook, which is more of a presence than the Golconda concept has in Vampire – but yes, without Apotheosis the entire theme of the game is only half manifested in the material (and thus, in game play). There’s a lot working against the Arisen when it comes to their enlightenment, though, so that’s where the elusive part could certainly come into play. Ultimately, it’s about which path a player chooses.

8. Are there any plans for Mummy to maybe take a look at Dark Age (or ancient Egyptian!) mechanical bits that we could graft on for more flavorful period games? 

There’ll be some of that, no doubt, since we have an entire sourcebook on historical roleplaying on the schedule (called Sothis Ascends), but also because there’s been some talk at Onyx Path about the Dark Ages, and Mummy might have a place in that, if it happens.

9. As someone interested in this redemptive aspect of Mummy: the Curse, I was wondering whether future supplements might explore this theme in further detail, such as in the highly anticipated Dreams of Avarice? 

Absolutely, and yep, Dreams of Avarice will be the defining source for the flavor of that theme, but it won’t contain any mechanics or hard game advice. You can expect some discussion of that sort in Sothis Ascends, but most of it will be addressed in a supplement that I’m technically not allowed to discuss, yet. But yes, there are Plans™.

10. In necropoli like D.C. or Rio, where there is enough of an Arisen population to support functioning guilds, is there more “institutional memory (or Memory)” that can help an individual mummy maintain and build their own through resurrections?

A great question, and yes, that’s one of the things that the guys writing the settingbooks are going to address: How does living in a larger nome affect memory? Mechanically, some of it works how it works (and that’s more or less that), but there are things the Arisen of the five guilds can do to feel more connected to one another, and that’s where the really fertile narrative soil lies, I think.

11. Do like motorcycles? If so, do you own one? If so, what kind is it?

Motorcycles?  0.o  But the answers are yes and yes, actually. It’s a Honda Shadow.

This gives everyone a chance to get in and get the limited backer tiers if they really want them.

Good luck, and we can’t wait to show you what we have in store!

For the first, we have to go back to when WW launched the New World of Darkness, almost nine years ago. The intent was to create a new World of Darkness with streamlined rules that greatly enhanced storytelling by getting out of the way, and to present a zero-metaplot setting so that players weren’t overwhelmed by ongoing events that steamrolled over their personal chronicles. The idea was to present the “default” setting in our fiction products so that the rule books wouldn’t assume the players had all bought into that setting. Also, since our design staff were all experienced Storytellers and GMs, there was a desire to allow other Storytellers to mix and match the info in the rule books to suit their preferred styles — to present a toolkit or sandbox or toolbox, or whatever the kids are calling it.

These were admirable intentions, but we ran into a few roadbumps along the way, not the smallest of which was the fact that we couldn’t logistically support an ongoing Fiction arm. So the expected depth of backstory and setting we had planned to deliver wasn’t there. At the time, we had every confidence that our ongoing fans would be more than able to pull together their own worlds and chronicles based on what we were providing, and certainly this proved true for a certain kind of gamer. What it didn’t provide was a rich backdrop to engage those players who weren’t into the “creation” aspect of gaming but were more about immersing themselves in the background and pulling their character ideas and play from the setting. And, also, those fans who weren’t actively gaming and really wanted to still enjoy the cool ideas, characters, art, and stories WW had always been known for. And to be clear here, in no way am I trying to indict or condemn nWoD, or those creators and players who have supported the lines since nWoD came on the scene- what I am looking at here is a series of steps that led to my thinking that nWoD needed a “default background” as well as it’s current tool-box approach. Not a metaplot, but a rich background that would be interesting to read about, would be there if gamers wanted to explore it in their chronicles, but would still be usable in pieces for our fans who love to mix ‘n’ match setting elements. This was in the back of my mind for years, but only once Onyx Path came into being could I really step in and conceptualize a few projects that would try and address what I saw as a gap in how folks could enjoy nWoD.

Once I started talking about this idea with our awesome Devs, the second set of ideas came to the fore. After eight years of writing about nWoD, of creating all sorts of extra rules-bits and system add-ons, the Devs really felt like we needed to overhaul the system if we were going to step up with a comprehensive setting project. There wasn’t a desire to totally trash the system, quite the opposite as the Devs were adamant that they weren’t going to let me wreck their beloved lines; the desire was to use everything we had learned in those eight years- from nWoD play and from the advancements and ideas in the RPG industry that had seen print during that time. Plus, they would be able to make sure their rules changes and tweaks were appropriate for this setting we would be creating.

So then, what was going to be the focus of this cool new setting?

It seemed to me that whatever it was, the focus should be something that was both cool specifically, but also something “behind the scenes” in the sense that it could permeate every chronicle without directly messing up what folks were already playing. We wanted something that the Devs and creative teams would really get into. Plus, I wanted to make sure that the players who had expressed a love for the little bits of setting we had already presented would get a bit of a payoff with seeing something they already liked get expanded. Kind of a thanks to those folks. Now you might think that The God-Machine was the only choice considering those parameters, but we had some other contenders including something with “the Mothman”. Ultimately, I went with the concept that so many nWoD fans had been asking us for more information about. There was something very disturbing in the idea as presented in the core nWoD snippets of a machine-based Elder One whose machinations of cogs and wheels were just beyond our sight but which controlled the history of our world.

At the same time as we were discussing the core nWoD setting, we also needed to come up with the Vampire: the Requiem default setting if only because the original nWoD core book and the VtR core both came out together. Plus, having a specific supernatural to work on would help both projects as the Devs could bounce ideas back and forth from the general to specific instances. For Requiem, I felt like the Strix had the potential to be that background menace and still show up as specific horrors if the individual chronicles demanded it. Rose Bailey, as Requiem developer, did express a concern that the Strix weren’t as yet even acknowledged as around in the modern nights, as they were Requiem For Rome’s principle bogie-men, but she and I talked through the idea that they could be and that possibility would lead the modern vampires to lead a different sort of unlife than we were currently suggesting. Ancient owl spirits that are inimical to both humans and vampires, but intelligent and malign- and that vampire who has snatches of memory from his time in ancient Rome says he saw one the other night…. That difference- more paranoid, more looking for the shadows of the Strix behind the scenes and as the source of their troubles- would be the basis for Requiem‘s default background. Exactly how Rose and her creative team are presenting the setting is something you’ll need to discover in the months to come, as I’m not going to wreck their fun by spoiling it here.

There was one more piece of the Chronicles idea that should be mentioned, and that is how very important we felt it was to presage each game-book with a fiction anthology. The collections of fiction pull from previous occurrences of the God-Machine and the Strix respectively in the fiction in the game books, and add new stories that further expand the setting. Because they are collections of stories, readers can get engaged with the feel and mystery of the settings from a variety of different viewpoints, and can get some unique ideas for how to adopt them for their own groups. And, for long time fans, Onyx Path has brought WW back to creating actual fiction titles- we are even publishing them in ePub and Mobi formats although we’re not yet listed in the larger eBook venues. Yet. Here’s a link to the GMC Anthology: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/108003/God-Machine-Chronicle-Anthology?src=s_pi

Finally, let me say that all of the above is a pretty big-picture and publishing strategy minded bit of musing from me, but the real magic and the real work to take these plots and plans and turn them into something you love comes from the Devs and their fantastic and talented creative teams. If you like what the Chronicle projects do for your game, if you like sitting there and reading through the books, if you like arguing about the stuff in them online- that’s because these talented writers and artists poured their creative hearts and souls (and blood in Strix‘s case) into these books. Since God-Machine is out now and finished, let me give a shout out to Matt McFarland and his awesome team of writers: Dave Brookshaw, David A Hill, Jr, Danielle Lauzon, John Newman, John Snead, Stew Wilson, Filamena Young, and Eric Zawadzki. Michelle Lyons-McFarland on editing. Mirthful Mike Chaney art directed and designed the book with his crew of crazy artists: Andy Trabbold, Jeff Holt, Sam Araya, Andy Hepworth, Cathy Wilkins, Justin Norman, James Denton, Aaron Acevedo, Heather Kreiter, Vince Locke, and Marian Churchland. Awesome work, each and every one of you!

• VTM: Ashes to Ashes
• MTSC: Infernalism: The Path of Screams

World of Darkness

• WOD: The God-Machine Chronicle
• MTC: Mummy: The Curse Rulebook (Premium color added)
• MTC: Eve of Judgment (incl. in rulebook)
• MTC: Mummy: The Curse Player’s Book (incl. in rulebook)

Scion

Extras: Supplemental (Yet Can Be Somewhat Useful On Occasion) Scions

This week, what I can relay about our Monday Lunch Meeting is pretty limited in that Eddy and I had quite a bit to cover, but most of it was behind the scenes or stuff that’ll be talked about soon. Nothing we can really blab about as yet. Which leaves the twenty minutes we talked about not letting the personal creative flame go out- buried beneath the weight of demanding job responsibilities, serial projects, and regular life. I’m struggling with wanting to do more Creative Director stuff- like finishing the “Making of the Art” PDFs for Children of the Revolution and W20- but needing to be The Publisher of Onyx Path, and Eddy is in a quandary as to how to balance his very exciting and demanding full time gig on the WoD MMO, with developing V20 projects, and doing personal work. In either of our cases, the need for focus and discipline, and to create to the order of external forces- no matter how cool our jobs are- has to be balanced with the fun and unordered exploration of creativity driven by forces from within us. After all, before we had our careers (and in my case that was around the time the dinosaurs (Jesus Horses?) ruled the earth) the creative impulse was what propelled us forward. It’s still there and access to it is what brings the fun and freshness to our creations- and the lack of it can burn us out. So it’s kind of an essential thing we were discussing, at least for us, but not something to belabor because YMMV.

So here are some very creative projects in progress:

-  God Machine Chronicle (nWoD) Reviewed one proof of two- will the second come Tuesday?… I’ll have some thoughts about GMC and Strix/Blood & Smoke Chronicles in a blog on the Onyx Path site (and probably linked elsewhere) that should be at least a little interesting. A teeny bit, maybe. [Note from Ian: GMC is out!]

-  Strix Chronicle Fiction Anthology (VtR) Strix is in Editing.

- Blood and Smoke: The Strix Chronicle (VtR) Crisis handled, new authors working on the project, and we’ve pushed back our release estimate by a month to compensate.

- Mummy the Curse - The single volume PDF and standard color PoD, as well as the “virtual box set” PDFs are on sale and doing great. We’ve added separate product listings for the Player’s Book, the Screen PDF, and the SAS. Sent the KS edition files to the printer. We have gathered a double handful of online questions for CA Suleiman that he’ll be answering and we’ll post this week.

- Exalted 3rd Edition:  Ian is working on the KS video- we’re fine-tuning it now. We’ll drop that into the rest of the KS shell and get feedback from our Dev team. From there we’ll submit. The Map artist/cartographer is moving to finalize the painted map- have printer samples that might be really map-tastic.

- V20 Hunters Hunted 2:  Sending Chaney the HH2 backer names and we’ll make up the PDF. Justin’s writers have a deadline for their first drafts of the HH2 Anthology of 5/10.

- V20 Anarchs Unbound is in editing and we are getting art for it.

- Deluxe Werewolf 20th Anniversary Edition:  Sent the Deluxe W20 files to the printer (both Standard Deluxe and the Heavy Metal Edition). Saw proofs and the few corrections are going back to the printer this week. The W20 PoD versions look good right now, but waiting on new proofs. Mike Lee is three quarters-way through the W20 “Houses of the Moon” novel.  The Storyteller Screen files are going to press with W20. Bill has prepared the W20 Anthology outline and contracting prospective writers.  The Skinner is in layout and almost all the art is in. Jess Hartley is writing the White Howlers Tribe Book  and the W20 Cookbook is being outlined. Check out some news here: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/2013/03/18/w20-cookbook-update-white-howlers-outline/

-Deluxe Mage the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition has Phil Brucato writing like a maniac and developing his writers, also like a maniac. Art notes and contracts out to our full-page artist, once we have some feedback from him I’ll look a posting an art blog along with Phil’s developer notes. Very early sketches for the fulls look awesome. Talking to more artists this week.

- W20 Changing Breeds is in layout.

- W20 Rage Across the World: Most of the art is in but a bit continues to trickle in.

- Guildhalls of the Deathless (MtC) is being written.

- Conventionbook: Progenitors (cMtA) is onsale now at DTRPG: http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/113471/Convention-Book%3A-Progenitors.

- Conventionbook: Syndicate (cMtA) is in editing and art direction.

- Mage Translation Guide is in Layout.

- W20 Book of the Wyrm is being written and red-lined. Check out the W20 blog notes: http://whitewolfblogs.com/w20/

- Trinity Continuum: Looking at the schedule to start setting up writing. John Snead is chasing me through the internet.

- Scion:  Scion: Extras PoD is about ready to go live, and we’ll drop a small price tag on the PDF as well. Monica has some designer notes and extras we’ll be posting on the OP site.

- Demon: The Frutang: lots of example of play commentary including from Black Hat Matt McFarland’s play test are up on the new Demon blog: http://whitewolfblogs.com/demon/ Check it out, there are quite a few playtests posted now and they give a very interesting (if early) look at the game. Text is being redlined and Rose is trying to get early art notes together.

- Free RPG Day Project: Reap the Whirlwind, for VtR, is a combined 64 page booklet that combines a revised version of “Into the Void” and additional rules files from the Strix and God Machine Chronicles. This will be available at participating friendly local game stores June 15, and is on its way to the FRPGD warehouse.

Reason for Drinking: We’re up to a quintuple shot, but very close now to when the EX3 KS is ready!

Scion: Extras was originally going to look a little more like the Yazata: the Persian Gods supplement with dozens of crazy-ass gods from all across the pantheons. We were initially going to lump multiple pantheons into their own grouping like “misfits” and the like. As the writing commenced and deadlines loomed, we realized that the annual April Fool’s joke could also be something that might attract fans to Scion as a property. So, I wound up taking cues from Scion: Hero and reintroduced the different pantheons as a way to make the joke fun for new fans to read and still usable for existing fans.

Mind you, we put a ton of work to make sure that each god was loosely related to a deity that actually exists – just like Scion intended. We were certain we’d get eviscerated if we went completely off the reservation and didn’t stick to some of the main tenets. In fact, when Scion: Extras was released, we expected (and got) some reviews from folks who took the joke very seriously. Others understood that this was part of the annual April Fool’s joke. And, though humor was the point? We did want to make this usable game material. That was really important to both Matt and myself, because Scion is such a cool world. Some concepts we introduced, like gods crossing into other pantheons or straddling between two of them, were elements we’d play around with if this were a serious release, too.

The level of humor was a concern for everybody. While we wanted to be funny, we didn’t want to cross over into “crude” or “vulgar” territory – well, at least not too often, anyway. The god MIN still cracks me up! So, we decided to play this one a little more straight-edged. There was a ton of parodies included in Scion: Extras from SpongeBob Squarepants to The Crow and Dune. Double extra bonus points if you can find all of them. I’m not even sure that I can, anymore! Anyway, the reason why we took this approach, was because it was a way to incorporate pop/geek culture and lighten the mood a bit. How cool would it be if the Kwisatz Haderach was actually a real Scion? Okay, I’m displaying my nerd card a bit on that one…

But, the larger point behind Scion: Extras was to play with the idea that there are a ton of lesser gods and goddesses out there. Not every deity is uber-powerful and we thought, in addition to making a joke out of it, the idea of lesser gods and goddesses that have fallen out of favor was a pretty cool idea to introduce to Scion in an “official” sense.

We had a ton of fun creating this. My favorite part was “Sci.” I loved mapping the beats of the song to create lyrics that were right in tune with the game and I hope you’re still singing Sci’s praises. Literally. I was thrilled when the decision was made to put him, Yukiko, and Grace on the cover. Mike Chaney did a fantastic job with the art direction and layout.

We were also hoping you picked up on the parody of the new Scion line developer, Joseph Carriker. There were MORE than a few hints dropped about the announcement that he’s working on the new line. That’s the reason why he was parodied as Jack Cariacture, after all.

Jack was planned as a bonus Scion — which was the reason why we didn’t write up his god, Irusan. Since fans requested it and pointed out the missing deity, I wrote him up as I envisioned him in a stricter, not-as-funny sense. ‘Course with Grumpy Cat and so many other popular cats online… There’s definitely a lot of interpretations for the King of Cats. Enjoy!

IRUSAN

Alternative Names: King of Cats

Pantheon: Tuatha de Danann

Description: Irusan is an enigmatic figure who represents the Celtics’ fear of dark places and apprehension toward fairies. A shapeshifter, Irusan typically appears in the form of a giant, black cat that lurks in labyrinthine caves and other dark places. When he’s not in his giant form, he can shrink to the size of a common pussycat or also take on the guise of a dark-haired human wearing a gilded crown.

Like the cait sith, Irusan often travels between worlds in his various guises and is rarely spotted in the same place twice. When he walks among the living, he sticks to the shadows; when he travels through the underworld, he scurries through narrow passageways guarding tormented spirits. The King of Cats reputation as both guardian and jailor is what has irritated many Celts over the years – including the great bard Seanchan Torpeist, one of the more well-known Scions of the goddess Brigid. At the goddess’s behest, Seanchan attempted to infiltrate the royal court of Connaught, but failed to charm the nobles with his surly, jealous attitude and refused to eat the King’s food – a crime punishable by death.

A Scion huntress named Sharp-tooth tried to intervene, but Seanchan rejected her and publicly mocked her father, the King of Cats. Pissed off, Irusan waited for Seanchan to leave and did the unthinkable – he viciously attacked Seanchan until Brigid begged him to stop.

Unlike his Scions or his feline charges, Irusan rarely interferes in mortal lives and, instead, works to keep the balance between all the worlds in check. It’s also his responsibility to ensure his cats do not fixate on any one thing, for if they do, they’ll fall prey to a deadly curse – and lose the fae part of their nature.

Associated Powers: Animal (Cats), Magic, Illusion, Psychopomp, Epic Wits, Epic Manipulation, Epic Dexterity

Abilities: Animal Ken, Occult, Investigation, Presence, Athletics, Survival

Rivals: Anubis, Hapi, Lugh, Nebthet, Xolotl, Hermanubis, Bhairav, Cerebus

• World of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle
• God-Machine Chronicle Rules Update (free!)

“Here’s the question: Do you really want to know? Because it’s not like it’s a secret. It’s just like your car- it doesn’t run by magic but it might as well, for all you know when you look under the hood.”

– Wesley Cote, AKA The Key
What Has Risen May Fall

What is the God-Machine? That question doesn’t have a single, easy answer, but that doesn’t stop people from asking. The World of Darkness is layer upon layer of mystery, but what is the mechanism that keeps it all moving? Is there a design in play? And what happens to those who think to use the Machine for their own ends?

What Has Fallen May Rise Again
A Chronicle Book for the World of Darkness^© 

• A “default” chronicle, a way to introduce new players to the World of Darkness and experience one of its greatest mysteries
• Choose the depth of madness that’s right for your group, from local to cosmic!
• A modular approach to building a chronicle, 20 different stories that fit together to form “chronicle tracks”
• Revisions of many of the core rules from the World of Darkness Rulebook