And you TOO can be a member of that League!
Just like the over 775 backers of the Trinity Continuum: Aether Kickstarter who pledged in just under a week! We funded in less than four hours and are just shy of being 200% funded as I write this, so it’s all Aether-gravy now, folks!
Well, maybe not that, eww, but you know what I mean: we’re hatching Stretch Goals like Martians hatch young-lings!
Thanks to all of you who have already backed! As for the rest of you: both the Martians and Thomas Edison can’t get you if you’re a backer, so pledge for your own safety!
Thomas Edison?
Here’s a little ditty by Matty Dawkins, age 12, that suggests some of how Mr Edison fits into TC: Aether:
Woke up, fell out of my Edison™ SleepEZEBed®
Dragged an Edison™ SuperFineToothComb® across my head,
Made my way downstairs and drank a cup (of Edison™ Charge Coffee®),
And looking up (at my Edison™ AccurTimePiece®), I noticed I was late.
If you are working in creating a world for a game that isn’t completely created from scratch, that is designed to be essentially our world, then there’s real value in including NPCs based on real-world people. In TC: Aether, we can say that there’s even more more value to mixing historical people in with the fictional characters from literature that the setting includes as NPCs, which are all mixed in with wholly new characters.
We know something about that real-world character, and from that knowledge we get an feel for the setting. They’re a pre-assembled pack of details for the world, and however you felt about that historical personage, those feeling with flavor your encounter with them – or at least their corner of the setting. The same can be said about including characters from fiction – we feel like we already know them. Historical figure also ground the story to real-world history. They’re signposts letting us know how far our setting is diverging from that history, whether heroes or villains.
Whether Edison is a full-out villain is really going to be up to your comfort level with an arch-capitalist, but for a game purpose, his Unwinders are a great “ticking bomb” kind of threat to the efforts of the players. Even if those Unwinders themselves have the best of intentions and are actually really nice people, personally, their efforts and those of the players are doomed to conflict. Probably – I won’t speak for all tables.
This is one of the reasons that each of our insightful TC: Aether teasers are written by one of the NPCs of the setting. What, you didn’t know about the teasers still running on our blog? Well, here you go:
Onyx Path Game Night with Start.Playing!
Onyx Path Publishing and StartPlaying are hosting a monthly “Game Night” – it’s actually all day – on the last Friday of every month. Play games including Pugmire, Trinity Continuum, Exalted 3rd Edition, Scarred Lands, Scion 2nd Edition, They Came From Beneath the Sea!, Vampire: The Requiem, and more. Our professional Game Masters are running sessions throughout the day starting on Friday July 29th!
Here’s a handy link, it has all the info you need on the page:
Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing event Jul 29 – Jul 30, 2022 | …Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing event Jul 29 – Jul 30, 2022. Sign up to run or play games now on StartPlaying.Games.
And here we come down to the last week in July – which means it’s the last week of our month-long celebration of the Chronicles of Darkness!
How can a month have passed so quickly? How can sooo many PDFs have been on sale so completely? Let us look now, though, at this final week of the 90%-off CofD sale on DTRPG, and note the projects that are only 10% (in honor of our 10 Year Anniversary) their usual price.
Week 4 covers core CofD material:
- Chronicles of Darkness and Contagion Chronicle (8 products totalling $7.10)
- Dark Eras (6 products totalling $7.60)
We hope everybody enjoyed the sales, the actual spotlights, the starting character creation sessions that the Onyx Pathcast ran these last few week (all available at Podbean or your favorite podcast venue), and all the conversation about CofD throughout our social media!
Y’know, looking back on the month and the love expressed by our community for CofD, it reminds me that a lot of us at Onyx Path have spent many, many creative and playing sessions in the Chronicles of Darkness setting. There’s a very deep and abiding love here for all the many gamelines and how they weave through to each other, and we’d like to think that when it comes to the 2nd Editions, we were able to take that caring and all of the analysis and actual play sessions and use all that, which can only be built through time, to make even better, more polished, versions of already excellent and powerful games.
With the brand-new CofD games, our intent was to take those same lessons and apply them to a new concept; something that stood out as different and valuable in the midst of so many other compelling game lines. We weren’t going for niche, but to attempt to reach another universal motif or set of themes or fears, and to weld those into this new setting rife with new experiences. So far, we think we’ve hit that more often than not, although YMMV.
I think our Onyx Path creators who have poured so much of themselves into our horror settings still have many more terrifying journeys to take us on – they just are that much into it! You can see it in our more overtly “horror-adjacent” game lines like They Came From Beneath the Grave!, Scion: Masks of the Mythos, The World Below, or Scarred Lands. You can see it in the amazing upcoming CofD books like Kith and Kin, and WoD 20th books like W20 Apocalyptic Record or M20 Sorcerers!
Yep, there’s still a lot to be said about horror from Onyx Path, even after:
TEN YEARS, MANY WORLDS, ONE PATH!
BLURBS!
KICKSTARTER/CROWDFUNDING!
Trinity Continuum: Aether funded in less than four hours on Kickstarter last week!
Check it out here!
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/trinity-continuum-aether-tabletop-roleplaying-game
For some of our previous backers, the indominable James sent out a small peek into what TC: Aether is about. And now you can see it as well!
Call it what it was: hubris, arrogance, a collective delusion of grandeur… We thought we were the only beings in this universe and that with our grand intellect and glorious empires we were the best humanity would ever be.
And then came Aether.
And along with Aether came mental expansion, form mutation, matter warping, time manipulation, and the discovery of new worlds, new peoples, new and terrifying possibilities.
And with Aether came the doom of humankind. Aether brought the Martians to our world, and the unravelling of the reality we knew.
Aether is a full rule and setting expansion for the Trinity Continuum line of games, set in the year 1895, at a time when humanity has conquered its own world, and now seeks to conquer the limitations imposed on us by the laws of all the sciences known to our kind. Inside, you will find:
- A complete Victorian-era setting and Paths for characters to embark upon within it.
- Aether powers allowing you to manipulate fate, space, time, and even your own bodies in wondrous and horrifying ways.
- Societies both lawful and rogue, looking to leave their imprint on the world, from those in league with Mina Harker to those affiliated with Dr. Jekyll and Moriarty.
- Storyguide advice, secrets, hooks, and plots, to enable you to start your game of Aether off with a bang.
Onyx Path Media!
This week:
Eddy hosts his trivia game show, “Game Lawyers!” Dixie, Matthew, and Danielle compete for fabulous prizes (like Eddy’s respect) while answering questions about Onyx Path books.
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:
The OpCast recently interviewed developer Matthew Dawkins regarding Trinity Continuum: Aether in a deep delving show we heartily recommend: https://anchor.fm/opcast
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 the last episode, here it is: https://youtu.be/dKDSdJ19RYQ
Virtual Tabletop!
The Scion: Origin Compendium is now available on Roll20!
https://marketplace.roll20.net/browse/compendiumexpansion/12522/scion-second-edition-book-one-origin
It’s native to Roll20, so not for use elsewhere, but perfect for starting your Roll20 Scion game – plus, the official Origin & Hero sheets are already available!
And the first of our official sheets designed for Roll20 are now available!
The first of our official sheets designed for Foundry VTTis now available!
Direct Link: https://foundryvtt.com
As they say: “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!
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
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/
Select CofD books & screens 50-75% 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!
The Chronicles of Darkness 90% off Onyx Path 10th Anniversary Celebration Sale runs all through July!
CofD Sale at DTRPG:
https://theonyxpath.com/opp10-chronicles-of-darkness-month-week-3-big-sales-on-all-the-beasties/
And right now is the legendary X-Mas in July Sale at DTRPG:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/4261/Onyx-Path-Publishing?filters=0_0_0_0_0_31815
https://www.drivethrufiction.com/xmas_in_july.php?manufacturers_id=4261&filters=0_0_0_0_0_44595
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 novellas Dawn and Meridian in the Kindle store!
On Sale This Week!
It’s time for fun, fun, fun in the sun, sun, sun! With the PDF Tasty Bit on sale this Weds on DTRPG!
They Came From Bikini Beach Party!
Every They Came from Beneath the Sea! takes our heroes to the beach at one point or other, and this book is built specifically for those occasions!
They Came From Bikini Beach Party!
Within its sandy contents you will find:
New Archetypes!
New Cinematics!
New Quips!
New Story Hooks!
Good gosh, this Tasty Bit hosts a plethora of new play material for Beneath the Sea! games, fit to enhance your games without complications!
They Came From Bikini Beach Party!
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!
Game Night With Onyx Path Publishing at Start.Playing is this Friday
the 29th. 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
We’ll be doing panels for the online version of Gen Con for early August, and if you’re interested in running or playing our games there, they’ve recently released this link:
Here are the links to our panels:
https://www.gencon.com/events/217051 – What’s Up With Onyx Path?
https://www.gencon.com/events/217052 – Storypath System Q&A
https://www.gencon.com/events/217053 – Onyx Path 5E OGL Games
Tabletop Scotland is due to take place on 27th and 28th August 2022 and will play host to at least four Onyx Pathers running our games and sitting on panels live and there in the room with you! If you’re UK or Europe based, it’s an excellent con to visit and within traveling distance from Edinburgh, which takes flights from a lot of places! Consider paying Tabletop Scotland a visit. https://tabletopscotland.co.uk/
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-2022/
DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM EDDY
Here are the projects that moved to the next stage of production:
Redlines
TC: Aegis – Trinity Continuum: Aegis
- Eddy: Our latest Trinity Continuum game, set in the ancient world, is off to redlines! The team’s been having a lot of fun with our “sci-fi spin” on ancient myth, and I can’t wait to see the results!
Final Draft
TC: Aberrant – Best at What I Do
- Eddy: The redlines are done for our Aberrant book on elites and other solo novas.
Manuscript Approval
Trinity Continuum – Talents Player’s Guide
- Eddy: Our player’s guide for Talent characters in Trinity is developed, and now in our hands for approval!
Hunter: The Vigil – Hunter Jumpstart
- Dixie: After sending in Tending the Flame so recently, I feel like I can most accurately sum up how I feel with the Thor “Another!” gif, so just imagine that in your head!
Editing
Trinity Continuum – TC: Aether Six-Part Serial
- Eddy: The last bits of the Aether serial everyone has been enjoying on the blog are in Dixie’s hands for editing!
ART DIRECTION FROM MIKE CHANEY!
In Art Direction
- Ex3 Crucible of Legends – Art notes with Maria
- Exalted Essence – More sketches and color comps in
- Legendlore: Legacies of Earth – Tracking down the rest of the art.
In Layout
- SCION Masks of Mythos – Monster artwork in for Antagonists chapter.
Proofing
- Scion Dragon – Second proof in. I need to put together character sheets for RMCs.
- TC Adventure! – Still waiting on some artwork to come in, but layout is solid enough to start proofing.
Indexing
At Press
- Scion Demigod – Trad press files at printer.
- Scion Demigod Screen – Press files at printer.
- Squeaks in the Deep Screen – Press files at printer.
- Squeaks in the Deep – Trad press files at printer.
- Squeaks in the Deep Bookmarks – At KS shipper.
- Hunter: The Vigil 2e – Trad press files at printer.
- HTV 2 Screen – Press files at printer.
- Scarred Lands: Dead Man’s Rust – Trad press files at printer.
- TC: Novas Worldwide – Backer PDF out to KS backers – errata-ing.
- Trinity Continuum: Assassins – Need to put in PGXXs.
- Down In The Hole – CRC Adventure – PoD proofs on the way.
- Scion Players Guide: Saints and Monsters – Backer PDF out to KS backers – errata-ing.
- Tasty Bit – They Came from the Bikini Beach Party! PDF on sale Weds on DTRPG!
Today’s Reason to Celebrate!
Sorry to say that we heard today of the passing of David Warner, an actor who has played so many genre-based characters that the odds are you probably based a mannerism or phrase you used in a game at least one time on one of his characters. (July 29, 1941 – July 24, 2022), his credits include The Ballad of Cable Hogue (1970), Straw Dogs (1971), The Omen (1976), Cross of Iron (1977), The Thirty Nine Steps (1978), Holocaust (1979), Time After Time (1979) – my favorite portrayal of Jack the Ripper in media!, Time Bandits (1981) – as “Ultimate Evil”, Tron (1982), A Christmas Carol (1984), Portrait in Evil (1985), Titanic (1997), Mary Poppins Returns (2018), and various characters in the Star Trek franchise, including Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), and the Star Trek: The Next Generation two-part “Chain of Command” episode (1992). – Five Lights! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze (1991), and Scream 2. In 2001, he played Captain James Sawyer in two episodes of A&E’s adaptation of C.S. Forester’s Hornblower series. He appeared in three episodes of the second season of Twin Peaks (1991) as “Thomas Eckhardt”. A less-spectacular role included a double-role in the low-budget fantasy Quest of the Delta Knights (1993) which was eventually spoofed on Mystery Science Theater 3000. He also played Admiral Tolwyn in the film version of Wing Commander. He worked as a voice actor, most notably in Batman: The Animated Series playing Ra’s al Ghul; the anti-mutant scientist Herbert Landon in Spider-Man: The Animated Series; as well as rogue agent Alpha from Men in Black, the Archmage in Disney’s Gargoyles, and the Lobe in Freakazoid! He was on Doctor Who, and on Penny Dreadful as Abraham Van Helsing. Seriously, this list is long enough already, and his bio just keeps going with more and more genre-focused roles! Thank you sir, for all that you did to make your characters character-ful!
Considering the TC’s setting, will we see ‘ancient aliens’ in Aegis?
On one hand, Ancient Aliens “theory” is racist as fuck so that seems like a topic/theme best avoided.
On the other hand, if there was a game studio that could actually have a chance of pulling off separating fun Alien shenanigans from the horrors of colonialism it’d be OPP.
Vote of confidence greatly appreciated!
You’re most welcome. I may rant and rave about Exalted’s glacial pace regularly, but that doesn’t change the fact that OPP has some of the best writers and devs in the business who produce some of my all-time TTRPG content (including my all-time favorite TTRPG)
We should be focusing on the genre that is represented by each time period in TC. So, superhero comics for TC: Aberrant, etc. TC: Aegis is looking at “bronze age epic heroism”, and getting that right in that context and then additionally in the context of being part of the Trinity Continuum is what the writing team is working on right now with their first drafts. We’ll have to see what they’ve included, and how, to make that work.
Ooh! Talents Players’ Guide? I don’t think I had been aware of that one previously! Sounds awesome!
And it’s good to see Crucible of Legends on the list. Can’t wait for that one!
When will we start to see the first real teasers for The World Below?
When the project is farther along in first drafts! We’re still world building.
Does your love for Chronicles of Darkness mean that we can hope for further yet unannounced books in the setting, or even a 3rd edition somewhere down the line?
Our love for CofD doesn’t trump the IP owners’ OK. So something has to change on that end before we can do anything further on ours with CofD. But what the future holds is always: Answer Hazy, Ask Again Later.
How far along in the art process is “Art notes?” in relation to crucible of legends?
The devs give the art director art notes based on the art breakdown he sent them. So if the AD says that four half-page pieces are needed in the chapter, the devs give a brief description of what would be depicted in each of those half-page pieces. Often, reference links are included with the descriptions. Working from those notes, the AD creates the art notes for each specific artist, divvying out the pieces amongst the artists and clarifying the notes to put them into terms the artist can best relate to. So, it’s somewhere in that phase.
Will Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey be one of the inspirations in Aegis?
Well, the book is only being written now, so what winds up as inspiration or in the Inspiration section still remains to be seen. The odds of any of the writers being inspired by the game as they write, ie: like all writers they draw on everything that has gone into their brain, ever, seems like it’d be likely.
I’ve been handling the Ancient Aliens concept in Scion by taking a page from Delta Green and using a bit of Masks of the Mythos. Ancient Aliens are actually Mythos based weirdness and some of the artifacts left behind are local peoples trying to comprehend what the they were looking at. While also paying respects to the local cultures after researching them. I also work to correct mistakes when I find them.
It’s a fine line to walk, but my players appreciate the effort
First off: sale has been amazing and lots of cool stuff on the way!
Once the anniversary is over, I’d like to go through DTRPG and see what I’m still missing, but I’m having trouble filtering out community content and pieces of things I already have (e.g., Dark Eras chapters). Less importantly, it would be nice to filter out “not books” – wallpaper, VTT, cards. Is there any search/url wizardry that can help? Even just “Everything Onyx Path” – “Community Content” would get me far. I do appreciate CC, and have gotten a fair bit, but I don’t have the same expectation of value as OP stuff, and they can be hard to differentiate in the search results (a serious annoyance from DTRPG’s side).