The Deluxe Exalted Abyssals crowdfunding campaign has rocketed out of the “Hell” in Exalted 3e: not only funded in 22 minutes but has already passed 1000 backers and is over 325% funded!

Since last Thursday, and over the weekend (traditionally not the strongest times for pledging)! But, our ever-excited Exalted fans have jumped right in regardless! Thanks to everybody who has backed so far!

This trajectory is also despite our audience needing to find this campaign on IndieGoGo, which is the quirkiest of the three crowdfunding platforms we use. And that status was our thinking before we discovered that a few things had been changed over at IndieGoGo since our last campaign there.

Most of those changes aren’t something backers need to know about, but one very much is: apparently, there is a toggle switch when you make your pledge that defaults to the backer giving IndieGoGo a tip to help them with their costs of running the platform. If you know about it, you absolutely can turn it off. If we had known about it, we would have at least let our prospective backers know on the campaign page.

But, in fact, this little feature wasn’t a part of the set-up the last time we ran a campaign there, and we only learned of it once this current campaign was running. Sorry about that, everybody! We were able to get the word out in an Update, and in particular to let folks know that you can get that tip amount refunded without cancelling your whole pledge.

I mean, it’s not like adding a tip function is a terrible idea; just be sure you let us and our backers know about it ahead of time!

On to better stuff, last week’s Onyx Pathcast was an interview with Chazz Kellner and Elliott Freeman all about their work on Abyssals 3e, and this Friday’s episode features Danielle doing an in-depth walk-through of Abyssal character creation! (Available wherever you get your favorite Podcasts!)

Our Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing at StartPlaying will be this entire coming whole weekend, the 24th – 26th of November! Plus, the gang at StartPlaying are providing a 10% discount coupon for the StartPlaying Store for the weekend:

https://startplaying.games/referral/clog9y0v10006ju0968iev95m

We’re pushing for folks to play some Exalted 3e to go with Abyssals, but really, any of our games are go for playing during these extended hours!

WHAT FRESH HELL IS THIS MEETING?

Actually, it wasn’t bad at all. Eddy was back from a well-deserved vacay, Matthew is going on one, and a lot of the rest of us are looking at taking a few days off for the Thanksgiving holiday at the end of the week.

More on that later.

Certainly, we’re not the only folks taking some time for holidays: you can see that our Twitch gaming has a limited schedule for just that reason this week. Even streamers need time to recharge!

DTRPG‘s traditional Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale starts late Thursday and ends early Tuesday, well there you go, and is a phenomenal blowout with a ton of our PDFs on sale. Like most of them, with a lot of the core books at 80% off! Jump in there and take advantage now!

So, back to Thanksgiving. Long-time readers of this MMN Blog may know that it’s my favorite holiday (with my rationale down there in the Reason To Celebrate section). I also ask our Monday Meeting crew to contribute some thankful notes to share with you, and this year is no exception:

Let’s start with Eddy, all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and back from vacay:

I am thankful for the fact that I’ve been able to work with Onyx Path for so long. If you consider my work with Onyx Path as a job for one company, it’s the job I’ve held the longest. But it’s great that, even after over a decade, I can still (virtually) sit with Rich and my other colleagues and talk about exciting new games. As I get closer and closer to 50, I’m thankful that I can still do what I love for a living.

I’m also thankful that Russel T Davies is running Doctor Who again.

Hear, hear! I’m very excited to see if RTD can do it again!

And here’s a short but sweet one from Travis:

I’m thankful for another year on the right side of the dirt, doing what I love for a living.

Of course, with our jobs and our subject matter, we may still be doing them on the other side of the dirt, Travis!

In contrast, Danielle has a more exhaustive list:

This year I’m thankful for a great many things. In no particular order, I’m thankful for:

– The Exalted team knocking their work out of the park to get 5 different books started and/or all the way to layout this year alone.

– Everyone for the outpouring of excitement and love for Storypath Ultra and where we’re going with these games.

– The opportunity to create, design, and work on my very own game which I can’t wait for everyone to get a chance to see soon.

– The trust I’ve been shown by the OPP team to head up several special projects around the office and expand our processes in doing so.

– All the fans who get excited to read the books I’ve written for.

– My husband who supports my little gaming career.

– My friends who are so proud of my work that they can’t help to tell everyone what I do when we go to parties together.

– My colleagues who think of me first for projects and opportunities because they respect my work and recognize my abilities.

– Every single NDA meeting I’ve been in this year.

I mean, D’s had some pretty great NDA meetings, but every single one? Now that‘s a thankful attitude! 🙂

Matthew passed me this note up through a crevice:

I’m thankful for the tremendous support received for The World Below. I’ve said it before, but creating a new game from scratch and hoping it succeeds is always a massive risk. We hit 200% funding and over 1000 backers, so that’s a success by any measure. I’m thankful to all of you who backed, supported, shared, and otherwise engaged with The World Below!

It’s really true, launching a new game is always fraught with peril, yet we can’t rest on our laurels! Which is a natural intro for a guy who never rests at all, Mirthful Mike:

Thankful that we’ve almost made it to the twelve year mark and still get to make games and other cool stuff as our full time jobs. And we did it without selling out and doing a knock off 5e setting…

In fact, in January we’ll have finished 12 years of being in business, making 2024 our 13th year of making these darn games we love. That number may prove to be significant as the year progresses…stay tuned!

Dixie, who tells me that it’s a hotdog-eating, Baldur’s Gate-playing Thanksgiving at her place this year, also sent me this:

I’m thankful that, in the hellish year I’ve had, Onyx Path and my Pathcast cohosts have continually had my back. I’m grateful to the fans for their response to everything we’ve worked on this year and years past. I’m incredibly grateful to the Exalted: Essence team, but especially Monica and Neall, for shepherding that project across the finish line. I also want to thank Mike and Rich specifically for helping me pivot my role to doing more layout and design work, as I’ve always been interested in that side of production.

While we’re not yet at the That Was The Year That Was stage of the year – that’s next month – it was certainly a year for transitions and adjustments! Here’s Ian, who did significant adjusting on our website this last year:

I’m thankful for the continued outpouring of support from our fans that enables us to keep making the games we love. We still have a license to make White Wolf material a staggering 12 years later. I got to rejuvenate and expand upon a 25-year-old property. And now we’re firing out brand new game lines left and right. Whether you’re new, you’ve been with Onyx Path from the beginning, or you’re an old greybeard still hanging on from the punk 90s, thank you.

Or an old white beard, in my case! (Although I blame the shock of raising my kids for that, more than aging through the job.)

But as the old white beard, let me end this with my thanks to all of you. Your support has kept us going, your enthusiasm energizes us, your polite criticism keeps us always striving to look for better ways to create our:

Many Worlds, One Path!

Blurbs!

Crowdfunding!

The Exalted: Abyssals Deluxe Edition campaign on IndieGoGo FUNDED IN 22 MINUTES last Thursday the 16th! So far, we’re 325% and over 1000 backers all of four days in! Thanks to everybody who have backed so far!

Onyx Path Media!

This week: Danielle showcases how character creation will work for Exalted: Abyssals!

As always, this Friday’s Onyx Pathcast will be on Podbean or your favorite podcast venue!

Please check out our attached media schedule for the 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:

Let’s shine a light on the Onyx Pathcast for the first time in a while, as Chazz Kellner and Elliott Freeman were both interviewed about the rip-roaring ghastly success known as Abyssals!

https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/e/episode-285-abyssals-preview-with-the-devs/

The Onyx Path News discusses recent and upcoming releases! You can find it on our YouTube channel (click the bell to be informed when we go live!) but if you missed the last episode, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeNQwx7T4AY

Virtual Tabletop!

New on the Roll20 Marketplace, it’s the Scarred Lands Creature Collection and Camp Murder Lake Tokens for Roll20 VTT play!

NEW!
They Came From Beneath the Sea! on Roll20 VTT!
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/bundle/22308/they-came-from-beneath-the-sea

Here are some more shots from the They Came From Beneath the Sea! Compendium!

And there’s also the Scion Jumpstart, all ready for Roll20 VTT fun!

https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/bundle/21165/a-light-extinguished-a-jumpstart-for-scion-second-edition

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!

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

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

DriveThruFiction NaNoWriMo includes Buried Bones for 2 more days:

https://www.drivethrufiction.com/sale.php?manufacturers_id=4261

The Black Friday/Cyber Monday Sale starts on DriveThruRPG,
DriveThruComics, DriveThruFiction, Storytellers Vault, and Roll20 on
Thursday. We’ll have most of our digital catalog on sale, plus some
big bundle deals on Friday and Monday! Get your favorite core books for 80% off!

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 Melody Through the Mirrorshade Lens and Facets of Truth, as well as Trinity Continuum: Terat and The Hollow Courts on Kindle in the Kindle store!

On Sale This Week!

Read some fantastic essential Exalted Essence lore in these two novellas generated by the support of the Essence crowdfunding backers reaching these stretch goals! Enjoy What Lies Forgotten & A Murder in Whitewall: Exalted Essence Novellas in PDF/ebook and PoD versions this Weds on DTRPG!

And just to keep the Essence party going – jot down your thoughts about the novellas, or start writing your own – in a selection of Exalted Essence Journals available this Weds on our RedBubble store!

Conventions!

As we are slowly returning to attending conventions in person after avoiding them during the COVID-19 outbreak, keep an eye out here for more physical and virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with!

We’ll be part of the Studio 2 booth at PAX Unplugged (December 1st – 3rd):
https://unplugged.paxsite.com/

Matthew Dawkins is one of the guests at Illusion Horror Con, a virtual gaming convention taking place from 1 to 3 December this year! Matthew will be running They Came From! and The World Below, and there are lots of other games available to play besides them! We’re also sponsoring this con and providing free PDFs as prizes for their competitions, so get involved!

If you want to sign up to play, head on over to Illusion Horror Con‘s website right here: https://www.theillusionhorrorcon.events/

Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing at StartPlaying will be this coming whole weekend, the 24th – 26th of November! Come play some of our games, especially Exalted! (But any of our game lines are welcome all weekend long!)

Please spread the word about GMing games as much as
possible. Details on how list a game are at the bottom of the page in
the FAQ:

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

Project Status Updates!

Our full list of projects will be available monthly on our blog! Check out October’s full list report here:

https://theonyxpath.com/release-roundup-october-2023/embed/#?secret=3TTYUAPXst#?secret=2b0IbWepuT

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY

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

First Draft

Exalted – Sidereals Companion

Danielle: A bustle of activity can be heard from the writer’s quarter in Yu-Shan. It appears the authors have begun their work amid shouts of joy and laughter accompanied by coffee and tears.

Editing

Tasty Bit – Scion: Masks of the Mythos: Tomb

Eddy: Our Lovecraftian scenario has twisted time and space to arrive at editing!

ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

Ex3 Abyssals (KS) – Going…
TC:AB With Great Power – Working on getting the rest going…

In Layout

Ex Essence Charm Cards – Sending those on over Dixie’s way.
TC Anima Terra Surge Screen – Working on it.
SCION Once and Future – This too.

Proofing

Ex3 Across the 8 Directions (with Maps) – Cover is in and the Maps are as well.
Ex3 Exigents – First proof stuff being input via InCopy.
W20 Icons of Rage – Wrapping that up and getting it over to Paradox.

Indexing

They Came From the Cyclops’s Cave

At Press

TC Adventure – On the road again!
TC Adventure Screen and Booklet
W20 Apocalyptic Record – Printing, expecting publisher copies soon.
W20 Apocalyptic Record Screen & Booklet
Exalted Essence – Still prepping press files… need to get the final print #s.
Ex Essence Screen
M20 Lore of the Traditions – Interior press files ready to go.
Ex3 Crucible of Legends VTT Tokens
Scion CC Guide
They Came From CLASSIFIED! – With James to go out to backers this week.
HtV 2 Jumpstart – Incorporating errata and prepping for PoD.
They Came From the Cyclops Cave! – Indexing.
TC Anima – PoD proofs ordered. Interior press files ready to go.
Ex Essence Novella 1 – PDF and PoD versions on sale Weds on DTRPG!
Ex Essence Novella 3 – PDF and PoD versions on sale Weds on DTRPG!

Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

This week always gets dedicated to the idea of giving thanks, celebrated this Thursday in the US with the Thanksgiving holiday. For me, personally, this isn’t a religious thing, a reenactment of a story, or a historical thing. It’s all about taking one short period once a year to really look back at the year that was and find something to be thankful for. Identifying something positive, if you will. For some folks, that’s really hard to do because they had it rough all year, and for others it’s hard to pick the one thing they can be grateful for. Picking one thing is a different challenge for different folks, but that’s why it’s worthwhile. And, as always, thanks for reading these all year!

Like A Bat Out Of Hell! [Monday Meeting Notes]