Well, you’re right – I’m gonna!

I’m gonna talk all over the place!

It’s one of those sorts of weeks, with lots of bits of things being discussed during our Monday Meeting.

+ We’re heading into finishing the first two weeks of the They Came From [CLASSIFIED]! and They Came From the Cyclops’s Cave! Double Kickstarter, and very close now to unlocking the first stretch goal that would start the creation of yet another They Came From game – this one focused on 80s action flicks!

Just look at the header art above!

That’s a full-page piece for They Came From [CLASSIFIED]! by the amazing Durwin Talon (who also did the fulls for They Came From Beyond the Grave!) that pulls in all sorts of international super-spy visuals and makes them its own! Not unlike how the games are to play, actually!

+ Today, Matthew Dawkins sat in on an EN World interview, on their Not D&D podcast to talk of They Came From, the current Kickstarter, and other game and crowd-funding topics: https://twitter.com/i/broadcasts/1LyxBoBPXlzKN

+ Totally as an aside: speaking of Kickstarters, long-time White Wolf President Mike Tinney’s new company, FIX Health is running a KS to expand their mobile game The Outbreak. The Outbreak is a mobile game where your real-world steps determine your outcome in a zombie apocalypse.

They hope to expand The Outbreak platform and make the factions more robust and sophisticated, and in doing so, take The Outbreak one giant step closer to an alternate reality RPG world where adventures are fueled by the steps the players take in the real world, right outside their door. Check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/outbreakchallenge/the-outbreaktm-game-introducing-factions-all-new-content

+ Back to our Kickstarter, we’re continuing to do our own offerings to give folks a taste of what is going on with the They Came From Double Feature (and we hope you’ll see something that piques your interest as well!), with two Twitch events this coming week:

Tuesday at 3pm, we have an interview with writer and developer Michele Masala going over their favorite bits in the two double feature games – and when Michele gets enthusiastic, which is invariably, the excitement is totally contagious!

Thursday at 9pm, Travis Legge takes you into a realm of adventure with his They Came From the Cyclops’s Cave! actual play…if you dare enter the Land Beyond Beyond!

Also on the Onyx Path Twitch we have an actual play for Cavaliers of Mars – Shared Sagas on Friday night at 11pm. If you’ve wanted to know what this March-long celebration of Cavs is all about, here’s a great chance to see the game as it plays!

And if that’s not a segue…

+ March is indeed Cavaliers of Mars Month in our Onyx Path 10 Year Anniversary Celebration calendar, and our various sales – 50% off the hardcover at IPR and Studio2, and 90% off all the PDFs of the game line on DTRPG – continue on as we head towards the end of the month. Come swash your buckles in the red sands!

+ A brief sales-oriented note to let folks know that the Trinity Continuum: Assassins pre-order is closed and those folks who pre-ordered should be receiving a message letting them know that the advance PDF and errata sheet are ready for them.

We’ll give them some time to review and send in any errata they find, and then open up the PDF for general sales – also with an errata sheet. Once we assemble and implement the pertinent errata, we move to creating the PoD files, getting the PoD approved, and then having both PDF and PoD versions go live on an upcoming Wednesday on DTRPG!

+ Back to They Came From in general for a second, we had a thrill seeing our first They Came From Beneath the Sea! ad run again on last Friday’s Manos special event on the MST3K Gizmoplex. We’ve had a bunch of folks message us that they’ve gotten interested in They Came From because of the ad – which is really awesome considering that it has only run twice to a limited audience!

+ I’ve mentioned that it’s coming, and now the first official signs of the 3rd Onyx Path Virtual Convention is the GM Sign-Up Sheet live over at the StartPlaying site:
https://startplaying.games/event/onyx-path

Even more fun, since we’re celebrating our 10th Anniversary, the convention is just going to be bigger and better than we’ve ever done before! We’d love to have folks join us for this special year – and join up on the linked site and run games during the convention. Running games is a great way to connect with our Onyx Path community and also helps us raise donations for the Bohanna Group.

We’ll reveal the Actual Play and Panel schedules soon, don’t you worry – they’re coming!

What printing is which?

Finally, I just want to touch base with everybody about the way our books are currently being printed and how those printing methods differ. There’s been a few folks asking, and reviewing this every once in a while as we add or change printing methods helps our community find the books they want.

First, there’s traditional offset printing. If you bought a book in a store during the White Wolf days, or bought one of our Deluxe or Prestige books created for one of our Kickstarters in stores or online, those were printed (and cut and bound) on a traditional 4 color (or more) press. A big ol’ thing fed with really big rolls or giant stacks of paper, that prints hundreds or thousands of books in one printing session.

We, the publisher, choose the kind of paper, and sometimes even the ink, and we have a wide range of options for sizes and how fancy the covers are, as long as we are willing to pay more for all the fanciness. As one of my old printer sales guys was fond of saying with a grin, “Of course we can do that…but it’ll cost you!”

(That very line led to the first, plastic covered and spiral-bound edition of Trinity/Aeon!)

Print on Demand (PoD) printing is just what is says in the name. Each book is created one at a time on presses that have more limited capabilities because they are designed to create a book and then wait to be fed the next book file and then print out that book. And so on, and so on.

With our biggest sales partner for PoD books, DTRPG, we have some choices in terms of sizes, two choices in terms of paper/ink quality with Standard and Premium, and the choice of four color or black ink. We trade versatility for the ease of each customer being able to choose to order their book right there.

Our newest PoD venue is via Amazon and their PoD options are currently even more limited for us, but even easier for folks used to their giga-gigantic marketplace to order and receive.

As for binding, which I know some folks are concerned about – after all, we use these books over and over again – we’ve found that it’s really variable in terms of whether PoD books hold together better or worse than traditionally printed. Wear and tear can break just about any non-archival binding. My D&D 1e Monster Manual‘s binding is still solid, my D&D 5e Monster Manual has sections of pages disconnected out from the spine. My Exalted 3rd Deluxe creaks when I page through, yet still holds together – but other folks have had their EX3 pages come loose.

Regular sized books, both traditionally printed and PoD, seem to hold together the best in terms of the comments we’ve heard these ten years, but there’s some that don’t. We really only work off of anecdotes and try to be aware if there’s a trend with a batch of books. One of the reasons we’ve been waiting for our traditional printer to pull out of their Covid-based issues is that they’ve been so fantastically consistent over the years, with a tight eye on quality control. We really appreciate that!

So, traditional printing for our KS’d books, and you can get them in game stores who order them via distribution, Studio2, and IPR. You can also order them directly yourself. Links to our sales partners in the Sales section below. All of our PoD books can be ordered via DTRPG and a limited selection are available through Amazon PoD, as well.

That’s where we are with printed books right now, and we hope these options give y’all maximum choice and easy access, here after:

Ten Years, Many Worlds, One Path!

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BLURBS!

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Kickstarter!

Our very different and very daring They Came from the Cyclops’s Cave! and They Came From [CLASSIFIED]! Double Feature Event funded! We’ve passed and achieved two stretch Goals, and now is the time we will build another new project from Stretch Goals – as well as other fun rewards!

Check it out here!https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/they-came-from-the-cyclopss-cave-and-classified

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Onyx Path Media!

This week: Celebrating 200 (enumerated) episodes of the Onyx Pathcast, Matthew, Dixie, and Eddy watch two movies back to back – Hercules in the Haunted World (1961) and Special Mission Lady Chaplin (1966) – and discuss how well those movies work as They Came From scenarios! It’s over three hours of the rambly content you crave!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue! https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/

Onyx Path Media now has its own blog on Tuesdays! We’ll continue posting our highlight of the week here, but Tuesday will be the day to visit if you want to catch up on actual plays, interviews, deep dives, and other assorted Onyx Path media!

Please check out our attached media schedule for the impressive number of videos on our Twitch channel this week! In particular, keep those eyes open for our Storypath Showcase, where we give an excellent profile of our various Storypath games and how to play them!

MEDIA HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK:

To coincide with our They Came From Double Feature Kickstarter, please enjoy Tom Bagley’s one-shot of They Came from the Cyclops’s Cave! actual play – Shared Sagas! With an amazing cast and using the content from the manuscript for the game, enjoy a tale of romance, action, and drama: https://youtu.be/KVvb3OY3c30

The Onyx Path News goes live every single week to discuss recent and upcoming releases, dive into some of our most anticipated books, and answer questions from the audience. You can find it on our YouTube channel (click the bell to be informed when we go live!) but if you missed last week’s episode, here it is: https://youtu.be/x9Wdw-4bXV8

Come take a look at our YouTube channel, youtube.com/user/theonyxpath, where you can find a whole load of videos of actual plays, dissections of our games, and more. Please subscribe and click the bell icon if you want to be notified whenever new news videos and uploads come online!

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Virtual Tabletop!

The first of our official sheets designed for Roll20 are now available!

The first of our official sheets designed for Foundry VTTis now available!

As they say:
Direct Link: https://foundryvtt.com
“Foundry Virtual Tabletop is a self-hosted roleplaying
platform with support for hundreds of game systems with modern
features and a developer-friendly API. Foundry VTT is a one-time
purchase where your players connect for free using a web browser.”

More VTT offerings and projects will be arriving this year!

A Quantum Leap (A Trinity Continuum: Jumpstart),The Adventures of Teen Tomorrow (A Trinity Continuum: Aberrant Jumpstart),Quantum Entanglement (A Trinity Continuum: Aeon Jumpstart),are all on Astral TableTop.

Also on Astral TableTop is the Secret of Vinsen’s Tomb for Realms of Pugmire!

Check out Astral TableTop for two free projects: Scion 2E: A Light Extinguished and Scarred Lands: Gauntlet of Spiragos and this Dagger of Spiragos module for sale: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/336406/Dagger-of-Spiragos-5e–Astral-VTT

On DrivethruRPG, here is the main filter for all of our current VTT content:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4261/Onyx-Path-Publishing?filters=0_0_0_45317_0

A few highlights of our platform agnostic DTRPG content:

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/309127/Scarred-Lands-Creature-Collection-VTT-Token-Pack
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/317690/Trinity-Continuum-Hunt-for-the-Red-Widow-VTT
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/340327/Trinity-Continuum-Aeon-VTT-Tokens
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311578/Scarred-Lands-VTT-Separation-Anxiety
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311580/Scion-2e-VTT-Origin-Signature-Tokens
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/311579/Scion-2e-VTT-Hero-Signature-Tokens

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Our Sales Partners!

We’re working with Studio2 to provide our traditionally printed books out into your local game stores. Game stores can order via their usual distributors, and can also contact Studio2 directly. And individuals can check out our projects via the links below!

Cavaliers of Mars Hardcover & Screen 50% Off at Studio 2:
https://studio2publishing.com/collections/onx-onyx-path-publishing

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

Cavaliers of Mars Hardcover & Screen 50% Off at IPR:
https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Deals-and-Specials/

As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles in PDF and PoD versions at DriveThruRPG.com!

Our focus on Cavaliers of Mars in March for the Onyx Path 10th Anniversary Celebration means we’re offering Cavs PDFs for 10% of their usual price for the rest of the month: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4261/Onyx-Path-Publishing/subcategory/8329_31332/Cavaliers-of-Mars

Please also contribute to the Doctors Without Borders Charity Bundles for Ukraine on DTRPG:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/featured.php?promotion_id=DwoB2022

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).

Check out the Trinity Continuum: Aeon novella Dawn in the Kindle store!

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On Sale This Week!

It’s in the cards! Quip and Cinematic cards for They Came From Beyond the Grave! and for Heroes in a World of Horror! go undead this Wednesday in PDF and PoD versions on sale on DriveThru Cards! And the They Came From Beyond the Grave! wallpapers also go “live” this Wednesday on DTRPG!

Plus, Pirates of Pugmire is now available as a PoD on Amazon!

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Conventions!

Because dates for physical conventions are subject to change due to the current COVID-19 outbreak, we don’t yet have a list of upcoming physical conventions. Instead, keep an eye out here for more virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with!

Right now, we’re planning our first plans for the 3rd Onyx Path Virtual Con in June. See the news above!

The OPP Con page is now live on
Start Playing Games:

https://startplaying.games/event/onyx-path

Check it out now for the GM sign-ups section if you want to run games during the con. More info on events and panels and all yet to come!

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And now, the new project status updates!

Our full list of projects will be available monthly on our blog! Check out February’s full list report here: https://theonyxpath.com/release-roundup-february-2022

Development Status from Eddy Webb!

(Here are the projects that moved to the next stage of production):

First Drafts

TC: Aberrant – From the Shadows

• Eddy: Another TC:Aberrant book is out of the gates! This one is our superhuman espionage book, so think Agents of SHIELD, Peacemaker, and the Global Defense Agency from Invincible.

Exalted – Exalted Essence Companion

• Dixie: The Essence companion, from the Kickstarter, is moving into first drafts! I’m so excited, and can’t wait to expand on the Charms, Martial Arts, and Setting from the core book.

Redlines

TC Anima – Anima Jumpstart – Terra Surge

• Eddy: Our second TC: Anima jumpstart is back into my hands early! Looking forward to digging into this one in particular, because it’s going to be a trickier concept to get across to someone who hasn’t read any Anima.

Development

Changeling the Lost – The Hedge

• Dixie: With final drafts in, Meghan is getting to work on The Hedge! Between this and Kith and Kin, we’re expanding the CtL2e play options so much here soon.

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Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

• Ex3 Exigents – Getting the final fulls from Gong then getting everything over to Paradox.
• Ex3 Adversaries– ADing moving along.
• CTL2e Kith and Kin – AD’d
• Novas Worldwide – McEvoy Fulls, O’Connor halves, Pride portraits.
• M20 Sorcerer – AD’d
• Legendlore: Legacies of Earth – AD’d
• TC Mission Statements – AD’d

In Layout

null
• Squeaks in the Deep Screen
• Dead Man’s Rust 

Proofing

• Scion Demigod
• Squeaks in the Deep – Prepping for Page XX pass.

At Press

• M20 Technocracy Reloaded – Deluxe at fulfillment.
• Technocracy Reloaded Screen – At fulfillment shipper.
• Mummy 2e – Shipping to KS backers from fulfillment shipper.
• Mummy 2e Screen – Shipping to KS backers from fulfillment shipper.
• Deviant – KS reward shipped.
• Deviant Screen – KS reward shipped.
• WoD Ghost Hunters – At fulfillment.
• WoD Ghost Hunters Screen – At fulfillment shipper.
• Paranormalists Handbook – Prepping for PoD
• TC: Aeon Novella: Meridian – PoD proof arrived.
• Hunter: The Vigil 2e – Deluxe files prepping.
• They Came From Murder Lake! – PoD proof coming.
• They Came From Murder Lake Twist Cards – PoD proofs coming.
• They Came From Murder Lake Quip and Cinematic Cards – PoD proofs coming.
• TC Panopticon – PoD proof ordered.
• M20 The Operatives Dossier – PDF out to KS backers.
• TC: Aberrant: Terat Novella – PDF out to KS backers.
• TCFBTG! Heroes in a World of Horror Cards – PDF and PoD versions live Weds on DriveThruCards!
• TCFBTG! They Came From Beyond the Grave! Cards – PDF and PoD versions live Weds on DriveThruCards!
• Trinity Continuum: Assassins – PDF going out to pre-orders.

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Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Coming this Friday is the Onyx Pathcast‘s 200th episode! Congrats to the Terribly Terrific Trio of hosts: Dixie, Eddy, and Matthew! Who’da thought that this plucky lil team of podcasters would have managed so many fantastic, fun, and informative episodes? Well, all you have to do is listen, and you’ll know why their natural chemistry works so well!