Metaphorically.
In terms of our Lair of the Rat Kings crowdfunder on BackerKit, we’re over 250% funded! Hoo ha!
But in terms of what we’d like to do with both the campaign and the book itself, we’re not even halfway done! There’s a bunch of cool material there that you might want to check out – and here’s Eddy Webb to tell us more about psionics… brain zap! Argh!
Holy cow! Usually this is the “slow” period for crowdfunders where not much happens, but we’re already at 250%! Just for that, here’s another sneak peek at what we’re offering in the campaign – the brand new psionic masterworks, or inventions, which player characters can make!
Creating a Psionic Masterwork
A rodent who wishes to create a psionic masterwork must spend a lengthy time designing, testing, and constructing the item. Crating a psionic masterwork is usually handled during the downtime between sessions, though if the Guide wants to handle it during regular gameplay, each step of the process requires a number of days of work equal to the magnitude of the effect placed in the masterwork. For fixes, the creation time can be cut in half (rounded up).Step One: Engineering
The first step in creating a psionic masterwork is engineering, also called the design phase. During this time the psionicist decides the form and function of their masterwork. This includes drawing blueprints, selecting materials, and choosing which psychic power the psionicist will infuse into the masterwork. This is also the stage where the psionicist decides if they will be creating an invention (the psionic equivalent of a relic) or a fix. A psionicist may only imbue a masterwork with a power they know, and they may not imbue a masterwork with a power of a magnitude greater than their experience bonus. Materials matter here, as plastic is not conducive to psionic energy while crystals are excellent for channeling psionics. During the engineering step, the rodent may choose to work with items available or may decide to go on an adventure to acquire better materials, pausing any progress until they return.Step Two: Infusion
During this phase, the psionicist channels the desired power into their masterwork. Doing so requires the psionicist to activate the desired power a number of times equal to the power’s magnitude (once for basic powers), spending power points accordingly. If the psionicist cannot afford to activate the desired power enough within a single day, they must add days to this stage of the process to reflect the additional time taken. Once the power points are spent, the psionicist must make a psychic attack at difficulty 11 + the imbued power’s magnitude. If the masterwork contains crystal components, the psionicist gains a boon on this roll. If successful, the power is imbued into the masterwork with a number of charges equal to the magnitude of the power + the creator’s affinity modifier. Psionic masterworks holding basic powers get the creator’s affinity modifier in charges (minimum of 1). If the psionicist gets a triumph on their roll, they may add additional charges up to their experience bonus, while a botch destroys the materials, requiring the psionicist to start anew. A simple failure allows the masterwork to be completed with a single charge; however, this locks the psionicist’s access to the power imbued into the masterwork. The psionicist may not personally activate the power imbued into the masterwork until the masterwork’s charge has been spent, as the psionicist’s command of that power is tethered to the masterwork.
If the psionicist is creating a fix, no roll is required, but psionic fixes are subject to greater limitations. All psionic fixes are good for a single use. A psionicist cannot create a psionic fix containing a power with a magnitude greater than their experience bonus. Psionic fixes retain their potency for a number of days equal to the psionicist’s affinity attribute + experience bonus. When a psionic fix loses its potency, it reverts to being a mundane object with no power within it. An expired fix may be crafted anew using the same materials, but an expended fix may not.Step Three: Documentation
Once the masterwork is completed, the creator must note the power, number of charges, and potency duration (if any) of their new creation. They must also note their affinity attribute and experience bonus at the time of construction, as this could be important when the masterwork is used or when determining the duration of its efficacy in the case of fixes.
Once documentation is complete the masterwork may be used.
Quick meeting today, but…
We did compare notes on some of the questions that y’all are posing on our various social media sites, and the first bunch are about announcements we’ve made that folks just must have missed. So, here’s a few reminders about:
Jadestorm – this is the latest Earthbane Cycle fantasy game that we’ll be crowdfunding after Lair of the Rat Kings – hopefully pretty quickly after Rat Kings is over. Fantasy, high-powered, “wuxia” some have called it; all in a world where the jade shards of warring demons/gods slammed into the earth, and into plants and animals, and intelligent beings, too, and changed them!
Scion 3 – also announced at Onyx Path Virtual Con, and what we told folks is that we’re working on it right now and if we can get it the way we want it in time, we’ll be crowdfunding it sometime in 2027. Other than that, the devs have teased a few things that you can usually find pinned at the top of whatever social media site you’re looking for info on. I know our Scion 3 devs are on Discord saying what they can about it, but not sure if they have braved other venues!
Seattle: City of Curses – the location book or city book, or what have you, for Curseborne. Details Seattle and the surrounding areas as it exists in the world of Curseborne now, and delves into the history: both mundane and supernatural, including some new Families. This book is not slated to be crowdfunded.
Not saying that I might not change my mind, but if I did, I wouldn’t disrupt the crowdfunding and release of this next item:
Covenant – this is the new Curseborne project that we’re planning on Kickstarting in October, just like we did with Curseborne itself two years ago, and the Curseborne PG last October. Covenant continues the saga of the Accursed as it expands on both the powers the Accursed have access to and can develop, and the history and society that you, as one of the Accursed, now must face. Growing to responsibilities within your Family, or maybe rejecting that stuff, and learning that there are larger conspiracies in the shadows all around you.
Hope those notes are helpful, and now in a totally direction: Here’s Twitch news from Travis:
This week on Twitch we have a new episode of Curseborne: Accursed in Boston from Awkward GM Corbin on Wednesday at 7 PM EDT! This ongoing campaign follows a group of accursed in Beantown!
On Thursday at 4 PM EDT, Tom Murr brings us Guiding the Path, in which he drops new tips and tricks for bringing Storypath Ultra to the table.
Monday at 9 PM EDT we round out the schedule with a new episode of Trinity Continuum: Adventure! Air Circus! Don’t miss out! Be sure you’re following us on Twitch and if you can do so, shoot us a subscription! It helps immensely!
The Xmas in July Sale at DTRPG (et al) is in its Final Week!
Here’s a Scarred Lands update from Travis:
The Scarred Lands Player’s Guide for Savage Worlds errata has been completed and the files have been uploaded to the printer for POD! As such I have updated the Kickstarter to indicate rewards are being fulfilled, and that started the clock on closing late pledges. The last full day for late pledges will be on August 6th, so get in there if you’ve not yet done so!
Late pledges will have access to stretch goals based on the tier of the pledge (POD backers get POD coupons for all stretch goals, PDF only backers get PDF only coupons) so this will be a good way to save money and support the Scarred Lands! In fact, we’ve sent out our $3k stretch goal to digital supporters already and will be sending out POD coupons for three decks of reference cards when I get and approve the proofs! These decks are Edge Cards I, Edge Cards II: Arcane Backgrounds, and Power Cards, providing easy reference to new Edges, Skills, Domains, and Powers introduced in the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide for Savage Worlds! Head over to Kickstarter and get your late pledge in!
The They Came From the RPG Anthology! backer reward books have arrived at both of our fulfillment shippers (in the US and the UK) and should be headed towards backers with possibly a slight slowdown because of GenCon.
This is super-great news and we’re all absolutely thrilled that backers will have a chance to enjoy these traditionally printed versions of the book!
This leads us to a response I made in last week’s MMN blog Comments section concerning where we are on ramping back up our traditional printing and shipping efforts. You can tell by how I phrased my responses that I was replying to some specific points that were raised in the comment, but they seemed like a lot to replicate here, so if you want those too, our Q&A is there in last week’s blog Comments.
“I’ll try and address your points in order. The plan is that the various Curseborne projects that need traditional printing or manufacturing will be done together once we have all the parts how the printer needs them to be. This will be the most complex project they have done for us, with some aspects to the job being things we haven’t done with them before, and it takes time to go back and forth with them about technical issues so that we’re all sure the project will turn out as intended. All the rewards from the first CB Kickstarter are being done at once, as well as the trad printed version of the jumpstart for the campaign we ran for just that, and is the next job they are doing for us.”
“The CB project did not interfere with or delay other projects. If you look at what was printed since we felt like the chaotic tariff situation was resolving enough that we could be reasonably sure that we wouldn’t be tariffed out of existence, you see that we did: Exigents – a deluxe project that could have really hurt us if the outer limits of the tariffs actually were applied to it – but relatively simple to create, then the They Came from RPG Anthology – a regular trad printed book that we could handle any tariffs on but which would only be our second project with this printer so it provided proof of process beyond the initial Exigents job. Now, with confidence that the regular trad printed, going-in-stores, version of Curseborne can follow that process, we’re working on the more unusual items from that KS to develop a good process for those sorts of projects. With CB finished, and hopefully our prep work provides excellent results, we’ll be able to accelerate the printing and therefore the shipping to backers for the outstanding trad printed projects.”
“Pugmire Unleashed and the ongoing Lair of the Rat Kings crowdfunding campaigns were specifically not for trad printing, nor was the two book World Below crowdfunder. We have been experimenting with non-trad printing crowdfunding for specifically the reason of not screwing up our releases because of ongoing tariff concerns. And they are ongoing at this time because there’s no way to tell how or when or why they will be levied. Once CB is printed and shipping, then we’ll be moving on to the rest of the backlog.”
“The issue with conveying to our community exactly what that means and what projects are next and all that is because if I say I’m looking to put a couple of similar sized books together for printing, and then circumstances change and we can’t move forward that way, folks accuse us of all sorts of heinous things all over social media. So once we are reasonably sure we are going to be prepping a new book or books for printing because things look good, we’ll note that on the Monday Meeting blog schedule. Hope that helps and thanks!”
(Edited for a couple of punctuation errors).
Hope the above answers a few questions that some of you might have – I mean hey, I’m hoping that this whole blog clears up a few things! Don’t be shy, though, if you still have questions…let us know! We’ve got the Comments here, plus a lot of social media. Our crew regularly checks and hangs out on our Discord, and Reddit, so those are good places to get info too.
I’m sure you know what I’m going to say next! Something about getting good info out there for all of us being a part of sharing our:
Many Worlds… One Path!
Blurbs!
Crowdfunding!
Meep! Meep! Enter, if you dare, the Lair of the Rat Kings! Over 250% funded so far!
You can check it out with this link – so you don’t miss a whisker of the campaign!
Onyx Path Media!
Check out our attached media schedule for the videos on our Twitch channel this week!
On the Onyx Path News today, Matthew talks about the new Curseborne novella, Peel Back the Bark: https://youtu.be/17eFU2yAoo4
On The Gentleman’s Guide to Gaming, Matthew tells another RPG horror story through the lens of Scarred Lands, Vampire, and Trinity Continuum: Assassins. This one? The Macho Man: https://youtu.be/2BF90763qm0
Tales of Pantheons continues their fantastic Scion actual play, which we’d love for you to check out right here: https://youtu.be/MVvAEXi8fYc?si=u-9svloCwAQpZB2Q
Virtual Tabletop!
Check it out now! The Scion Demiplane Nexus! Click here for Early Access:
Campaigns for Scion Nexus went live last week as well. This blog post explains how Campaigns work on Demiplane:
https://www.demiplane.com/blog/campaigns-have-arrived
Scion Demigod Available on Roll20 NOW!
The Scion: Origin and Scion Hero Compendiums are now available on Roll20!
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1716/onyx-path-publishing
The first of our official Scion sheets designed for Foundry VTT are now available! https://foundryvtt.co
They Came From Beneath the Sea! on Roll20 VTT!
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/bundle/22308/they-came-from-beneath-the-sea
Looking for more virtual tabletop resources? We have a selection of tokens, encounters, and more available now at DriveThruRPG! https://bit.ly/3SnrNJ7
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!
Select Chronicles of Darkness Screens and Monarchies of Mau books, screens, and dice 50% off at Studio 2:
https://studio2publishing.com/collections/onx-onyx-path-publishing
Some more deluxe books have popped up on Studio 2, with more on the way.
https://studio2publishing.com/collections/onx-onyx-path-publishing
As always, you can find Onyx Path’s titles in PDF and PoD versions at DriveThruRPG.com!
FINAL WEEK! X-Mas in July is surfing along and we’ll have a lot of our projects on sale across several sites!
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).
On Sale This Week!
This month’s Tasty Bit expands on the Guardians of the Dying World setting in Storypath Ultra Core Manual with the Dead Crops PDF available this Weds on DTRPG!
On Sale Last Week!
Plunge deeper into the eerie world of Curseborne with Peel Back the Bark, a terrifying Curseborne novella! PDF and PoD versions now on DTRPG!
Conventions!
Here’s where you can find out more info on physical and virtual conventions we’re going to be involved with!
Gen Con, July 30th – August 2nd (Studio 2 will have our books and more).
Twin Cities Con – November 20th – 22nd (Game Room demos).
PAX Unplugged – December 4th – 6th (Studio 2 will have our books and more).
Project Status Updates!
Our full list of projects will be available monthly on our blog! Check out June’s full list report here: https://theonyxpath.com/release-roundup-june-2026/
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY!
Here are the projects that moved to the next stage of production:
Development
Eye of the Storm – Second Novella from Player’s Guide KS (Curseborne)
- If you loved Matthew’s “Peel Back the Bark” from last week, get ready for even more Curseborne fiction! Another novella from Danielle is wrapped up and in the hands of our tireless fiction guru Lauren Roy for development!
The Advent of Silt (The World Below)
- This is an experimental book with a very interesting adventure format! Looking through the draft now, I’m intrigued about what you’ll all make of it!
ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!
In Art Direction
- Curseborne Seattle – Got the artnotes… probably gonna get notes out for this after more of the CBPG and Curseborne Solo art gets turned in.
- TC Aether Player’s Guide – Already got sketches in for the fulls. Durwin is doing the cover.
- Pugmire Adventures – Got the Art notes… got to wait on Navella to finish up some other stuff first.
- Jadestorm (BK) – Getting changes over to Gong and Navella… Matthew is typing something up as I don’t have a way to type up a long email at the moment.
- Curseborne PG – Rest of the art is coming in throughout August… moving it to Layout.
- Monster Kingdoms – Finals came in… gonna go over them today…
- Lair of the Rat King (BK) – Crowdfunder in progress.
Layout Queue
- Curseborne Compact Edition
- Ex Essence PG – Moving right along… I got four more chapters to go and it’s off to proofing.
- Curseborne Screen – All part of my Curseborne Round Up.
Proofing Queue
- Curseborne Community Content Stuff
- Making of Curseborne – fixed… now I got a bunch of prepress stuff to fix.
- Essence PG Novella 1 – Murder on the Divine Carriage
- Essence PG Novella 2 – Even the Heavens Will Burn
At Press
- They Came From the RPG Antho – At fulfillment shippers.
- Curseborne – Trying to wrap up some of the peripheral stuff and getting things ready to go.
- Curseborne Tangled Webs – Backer errata shuts down Wednesday.
- Ex3 Alchemicals – Prepping PoD Files with index.
- Curseborne Jumpstart – PoD proofs ordered.
- At The Gates – Backer proof this week (I just need to finish the character sheet).
- TCF Cyclops Cave Jumpstart – PoD files have been uploaded but I still need to upload the updated PDF.
- July Tasty Bit: Dead Crops (Tasty Bit for the Guardians of the Dying World setting in Storypath Ultra Core Manual) PDF on DTRPG this Weds!
Today’s Reason to Celebrate!
Today we celebrate the life and career of Bill (William Edgar) Oddie (7 July 1941 – 25 July 2026) an English actor, artist, birder, comedian, conservationist, musician, songwriter, television presenter and writer. He was a third of the British comedy trio The Goodies, who were contemporaries at Cambridge, and afterwards, of the Monty Python troupe. Bill was the crusty, working-class, often rude, member of the comedic trio, and also the songwriter responsible for their several UK Top Ten hits during their TV show. Saw a gibbon in his cage, doing the dance that would be the rage…do, do, do, the Funky Gibbon! Bill was also one of the best-known naturalists and conservationists in the UK, and fought hard and often to preserve the natural spaces in England, in particular, while battling depression and bi-polar episodes. He was one of the first celebrities in the UK to overtly talk about his struggles and opened the door to greater acceptance and understanding.
I understand wanting to do the Curseborn books at the same time due to their complexity, but why are they next? Why not get the older books printed and out the door first. I can only assume its because CB is the hot product compared to the others. If I follow your logic with CB, couldn’t the Trinity Player’s Guide, Aegis, & the Ultra Core Manual be printed back to back? Or how about Titans Rising, Titanomachy, & Mythic Shards? Or Realms of Pugmire and Curious Cats of Mau? Each of these groups are of similar shape, size, & layout and have been sitting much longer than Curseborn.
You answered the question in your first question actually: they’re next because they are complex. If we can work out all of that with the printer now, then it’s a known process going forward and that should speed up getting the rest of the books printed. Although that doesn’t make anything that pops up with shipping or tariffs a guaranteed slam-dunk.