Trinity Continuum: Aegis funded on Crowdfunded By BackerKit in just under 9 hours last week, and since then has been rolling along steadily! Woohoo! The gang are particularily thrilled that we’ve already achieved the Stretch Goal that starts the Atlas (AEtlas?) that takes us around the world during TC: Aegis‘s time period.

Of course, the more TC: Aegis Atlas Stretch Goals that are achieved, the bigger the book will be and the more areas they’ll be able to cover!

For some of those ideas for the Atlas, and much more, the writing team just finished a round-table on our Onyx Path Twitch channel (which means it’ll show up on our YouTube channel in a couple of weeks).

Speaking of our Twitch channel and TC: Aegis, there’s an Actual Play Session 0 starting next Sunday the 6th at 8pm Eastern time, so if you want to get in on the ground-floor with a campaign and see how they do it, here’s your chance!

For more TC: Aegis bits and pieces, last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, entitled Aegis Is Alive!, was an interview with Ian Watson and Lauren Roy, who headed up the project. It features such topics as:

• Aegis is on Backerkit!
• A new line for Trinity Continuum
• What is ambrosia?
• A bit on the setting
• Strange places
• Culture and societies
• Character creation
• Differences from other eras
• Historical differences
• Antagonists

All in the patented Onyx Pathcast irreverent style! Onyx Pathcast Episode 269: Aegis is Alive

Phew! Lot’s of great stuff to dig into – but then it’s a pretty compelling subject. Bronze Age to Iron Age adventures as your world is transformed!

Which is kind of a segue-way into this next section of the MMN blog: how we made the cover!

COVERING THE COVER!

Yaaaaay! (Insert vid of Kermit waving his arms frenetically)

Long time readers of this blog might recall from previous posts that the Trinity Continuum covers all follow a very highly-formatted visual direction. Primarily, there’s a vertical illustration that includes a collection of significant scenes and characters, some sample player characters, at least one explosion, and antagonists.

I design each of these first in order to have a concept sketch ready for our cover artist, the delightfully talented Shen Fei, that covers the important elements in each Trinity Continuum era. Since I’m involved in the conceptualizing that starts off each era, I usually sit down and start listing all the elements that we intend to include in the text and pull out those that sound like they’d make cool visuals. For specific elements, particularly characters, I’ll request a list and descriptions from the team. And as we touched on last week, this is also a great chance for the writing team to let me know of anything we want to avoid including.

Just because something is written well and sounds cool as we read it doesn’t mean that it will translate well when illustrated. Pulling out the really visually compelling moments are an important part of art directing. And if I can do it at this stage, that’s less that Mirthful Mike, who is probably going to art direct the rest of the book, needs to worry about.

So, a bunch of words is what I have and now it’s time to turn them into the cover. Because I’ve done sooo many of these Trinity Continuum cover pieces, I can go right to a rough sketch of the whole thing. I know I want something about a city at the bottom, and something going Boom! at the top. I want three possible PCs above the city, and some sort of “rogue’s gallery” below the top boom. Elements and scenes between all that. Maybe another boom moment! Here’s the initial “thumbnail” sketch:

You can see, I already liked using Atlantis falling as our “city”, and a spearman, an archer, and a mystic for our PCs. Next up, as you can see by my notes, it was time to research these elements, and others suggested by the dev team, and pull appropriate reference imagery from both online and my own reference library. Yep, real live books! Here’s a whole bunch of those drawings:

Even in this batch of drawing, there are some that are still pretty rough, but others where I’m refining the idea and tightening up the visuals – usually via finding the right reference so that I’m not just using Greek-style clothing, but basing it on an actual example of clothing from that culture and era. Now, I plug all these into the overall cover design, so we get a tighter version of my first thumbnail:

I added the Trojan Horse, just because, and swapped our mystic and archer around as their poses work better to direct our eyes to the other action now. There are now arrows directing me to move stuff rather than verbal notes, as we’re deep into visual territory now, and at this stage I’m thinking so hard about the art that I’ve probably forgotten how words work. That’s because this is just the launching pad for the actual sketch for Shen Fei, which is here:

Now this is my version, on tracing paper, so it’s semi-transparent in case I want to redraw a particularly good sketch from before. I can just lay this on top of that sketch and refine it as I redraw it. For Shen Fei, I’ll scan this in, clean some stuff up and include explanations for the various areas. Also color notes, if I didn’t do any sort of color guide. In this case, the colors were pretty clear, although I did include a color guide for TC: Aether since the different energies were an important part of the setting.

I’ve blacked out a bunch of the art notes because I’m not sure what has been revealed in your backer texts so far, but don’t worry, you’ll be able to figure everything out once you get the complete text at the end of the crowd funding campaign:

And here we have the brilliant art in the cover:

Once Mirthful Mike gets power back on at his place, I’ll see if I can get him to send me just the art without the cover stuff so you can really see it!

OTHER THINGS WE’RE BULLISH ABOUT!

This week is when Gen Con starts, and we are not going to be there as a company. BUT, our sales partners at Studio 2 and IPR will be there AND have our physical books and screens and stuff for sale – for those of you going! Here’s a handy map showing their booth #s and placement in the hall:

And if you too are not going to Gen Con, then what could be better on this coming Thursday the 3rd at 10am Eastern US time than to listen in on our Onyx Path Discord where our very own Danielle Lauzon will be holding a Q&A session answering questions on OPP processes?

So if you’ve ever had burning questions about how our books are made, now is the time to ask! If you can’t make it to that time, but want to ask a question, throw it into the Q&A channel right there on the Discord!

Plus, next week Danielle is stepping up to the plate and will be writing this very MMN blog! As many of you might remember, Eddy had what he describes as a “nervous breakdown” right on the blog as he wrote it, so clearly this is a stress-filled task Danielle is shouldering! Be kind next week, folks!

This week, though, feel free to be your usual awful selves in the Comments – I kid, I kid! You know I love you all! In fact, I can’t stay away and will be back in two weeks to resume the MMN. How could I, after all, I’d be losing out on my chance to sound off every week about our:

MANY WORLDS, ONE PATH!

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BLURBS!

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KICKSTARTER/CROWDFUNDING!

FUNDED IN 9 HOURS!

Here a link to the BackerKit campaign landing page!

https://www.backerkit.com/call_to_action/877c1416-a77f-42a9-8c11-8aedb2e4656c/landing?ref=OnyxPath

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Onyx Path Media!

This week:

Matthew and Eddy talk with Mike Chaney about art direction!

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

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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 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:

Asterinomous has created a fantastic video on legendary pirate Anne Bonney being the Daughter of Hela in Scion 2e! Give their video a watch, a like, and a subscribe: 

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://youtube.com/live/AAXi86ynQWQ

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Virtual Tabletop!

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

More news and links when we have them!

The Scion: Origin and Scion Hero Compendiums are now available on Roll20!

https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/publisher/1716/onyx-path-publishing

Scion is just the start! They Came From Beneath the Sea! and other
Onyx Path RPGs are in development for Roll20 virtual tabletop!

The first of our official Scion sheets designed for Foundry VTT are
now available!

Direct Link: https://foundryvtt.co

Looking for more virtual tabletop resources? We have a selection of
Tokens, Encounters, and more available now at DriveThruRPG!

Get ’em here: https://bit.ly/3SnrNJ7

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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!

Visit Studio 2 at Gen Con: Booth #1929!

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

Visit IPR at Gen Con: Booth #449!

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

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!

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On Sale This Week!

Many thought this day would never come, but the truth will out! Despite the mystic forces arrayed against it, the mighty Tome of the Pentacle is at last available in PDF and PoD versions this Weds on DTRPG! Featuring an examination of the Pentacle Orders worldwide from prehistory to modern day, with story hooks and Mysteries!

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Conventions!

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

Gen Con starts this week, and while we won’t be there ourselves, our sales partners at IPR and Studio 2 will have our books and screens and stuff there in their booths for sale!

GameHoleCon (Oct 19th – 22nd) has updated their Exhibitor list, and we’re on it!:
https://www.gameholecon.com/

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

Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing at Start.Playing is the last Friday of every month! Come play some Trinity Continuum in celebration of the Trinity Continuum: Aegis crowdfunding! (But any of our game lines are welcome all day 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

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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 June’s full list report here: https://theonyxpath.com/release-roundup-june-2023/

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY

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

Post-Approval Development

Exalted – Tomb of Memory (was Exalted Essence Jumpstart)

• Danielle: Once again, we are moving at the speed of light to transfer post-approval docs to the editing staff.

Post-Editing Development

Exalted – Sidereals

• Danielle: This likely just needs a little polish after our favorite editor, Dixie, has taken an expert hand at it.

TC: Aberrant – Hated and Feared

• Eddy: Another of our TC: Aberrant projects comes racing out of editing, ready to fight the overbearing “heroes” of Team Tomorrow!

TC: Aether – TC: Aether Player’s Guide

• Eddy: One of our supplements for the upcoming Trinity Continuum: Aether, this player’s guide is back from editing with a vengeance!

Exalted – A Murder in Whitewall (was Exalted Essence Novella 3 (Cole))

• Danielle: Rai’s novella has made it through editing, and I’m excited to look it over and send it off to layout soon.

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ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!

In Art Direction

• Ex3 Many Faced Strangers – Reviewing art notes with Maria.
• TC Aegis (KS) – Funded!
• TCF Cyclops Cave/Classified – I have Luis’s halves in…. Sheikman is doing finishes.
• TCF Cyclops Cave and Classified Jumpstarts – Gonna get Durwin to do the cover of the Jumpstart and maybe get Luis to do the two or so halfs for that as well. I am gonna see if Marco can handle the splats.
• M20 Faces of Magick – Fulls contracted and I’m looking for artists to do the 35 portraits.
• M20 Victorian Jumpstart – Art back on track.
• M20 Victorian Weird Wonders and Revolutionary Magic – AD’d.
• SCION God 2e – Going over the artnotes and massaging them a bit.
• TC: Ab With Great Power – Working with Lee on the comic and fulls. 
• COFD Contagion Chronicles RMCs – Contracted.
• CtL2e The Hedge – Fulls in and approved.
• W20 Icons of Rage – KMJ doing the remaining portraits.

In Layout

• SCION Once and Future – With Josh.
• Ex Essence Novella I and II – With Dixie.
• Scion Dragon Jumpstart – Getting that wrapped up for proofing.

Proofing

• TC Assassins VTT Adventure – Still working on fixes… there’s a bunch.

Indexing

At Press

• TC Anima – Errata incorporation this week so we can get the index going.
• TC: Adventure! – Updated files with Printer.
• TC Adventure Storyguide Screen and Booklet – Quoting with Printers.
• Exalted Essence – Quoting with Printers.
• W20 Apocalyptic Record – Quoting with Printers.
• W20 Apocalyptic Record Screen & Booklet – Quoting with Printers.
• M20 Lore of the Traditions – With KS backers, errata closing this week.
• Legendlore: Legacies of Earth – With KS backers, errata closing this week.
• Ex 3 Crucible of Legends – Advance PDF getting ready for next week.
• The World Below Ashcan – PoD proofs on the way.
• MtAw Tome of the Pentacle – PDF and PoD versions on sale Weds on DTRPG!

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Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Oh my. During our meeting, it was announced that Paul Reubens, aka Pee-wee Herman, passed away. Let us celebrate the life of this intensely creative performer who turned kids’ TV on its ear in the 80s. Working with him on Pee-wee’s Playhouse were such talents as Sandra Bernhard, Laurence Fishburne, Phil Hartman, Natasha Lyonne (at age 6), S. Epatha Merkerson, Jimmy Smits, and Lynne Stewart. And, of course, the legendary William Marshall as the second King of Cartoons! The Pee-wee movies also featured a fantastic range of performers, and Big Adventure revved up the career of Tim Burton and got composer Danny Elfman into creating movie scores. Burton would, in turn, bring Paul Reubens in as a performer in Batman Returns and as the voice of Lock in the Nightmare Before Christmas. Although he had other roles throughout his career, we’d be bereft in not mentioning his performance as the vampire Amilyn in the original Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie – the longest ongoing vampire death scene and inspiration for countless VtM moments. RIP Pee-wee.