The Con was our 3rd Onyx Path Virtual Convention that ran over this last weekend, and the Job was all the work that went into putting together and running it!

An online convention seems like it should be a snap because it’s not a physical con, but it really does take a huge amount of coordination and effort.

Thanks to all of our panelists, tech folk, moderators, and game-runners! And, of course, thanks to every one of you reading this who popped in to any of the festivities! We’ve had a ton of great feedback letting us know that attendees had a huge amount of fun and, really importantly, felt really welcome!

That’s music to our tired ears – it certainly is what we wanted to have happen and really justifies all the work!

We took the opportunity of such an assembly of our community to announce and tease a few projects and stuff, so, for convenience and for those who couldn’t attend, here’s a list of things we announced:

Exalted: Abyssals was announced as having been given the go ahead by Paradox! (That’s right, as the IP owners they always have to OK our projects based on our license with them. We needed to explain this a few times during the Con, so it bears repeating).

Other Exalted tidbits were shared during the panels, including the subtitle for Exalted: Sidereals, but I’ll let you dig that info out from our Discord or by waiting to view the panels on YouTube when they drop.

So far, only this Actual Play of Dixie, Travis, Eddy, and Matthew, playing through the Down In The Hole dungeon delve for my Crossroads Continent has migrated to YouTube…yet:

We announced that indeed, the long-awaited Trinity Continuum: Aegis was moving forward as the newest TC game line. TC: Aegis will take place in the ancient world, circa the bronze age, and brings the themes of the Continuum to an age of myths.

During a panel with Jack Berkenstock of the Bodhana Group – our designated charity for the Con – we revealed that Onyx Path has been helping them create their very own TTRPG, called Branch Riders. And by help, we’ve really just been advising them, the game is their baby, and presents a setting where eight very different realities intersect.

It’s a wildly imaginative game with its own unique system of play, and the underpinnings are the teaching and therapeutic methods that the Bodhana Group have studied and used in the course of their mission to make games part of their therapeutic tool set.

In order to discuss the next new game line to be announced, I teased the idea that we’ve been working on evolving the Storypath System using all of the feedback we’ve received on it these past five years since the public were given their first look at it. We’ve been tinkering, you’ve been giving us suggestions, our designers have been trying out tweaks in each project using the system, and so we have some pretty good ideas on how to evolve it.

Which leads to us understanding how Storypath can be brought into new genres. Such as fantasy. The World Below was announced by creator Matthew Dawkins during the Onyx Pathcast Q&A, and, briefly, is a fantasy game line where you are one of those who fled the surface world due to some form of calamity, and are now surviving underground in a perilous world of tunnels and caverns. But all is not as it seems, and magical energies and areas lie waiting the deeper you go.

There’s a lot more to it than my little paragraph can describe, and you can find out a little bit more if you check out the Q&A when it hits YouTube. Matthew is also going to do some very controlled and specific bits of Open Development, when he feels the time is right.

We also mentioned that due to the way our Covid-related shipping and printing issues have impacted our schedule, we discovered that we had Scion: Masks of the Mythos going to press later than we expected, and its companion book from its Kickstarter was actually going to be ready early – in fact, as Masks was in layout. This is a blue moon occurrence, but with such a thing happening, we’ve decided to incorporate the companion book right into Masks!

So, if you backed the Kickstarter – and you still can on BackerKit – you’ll actually be getting a bigger book than we planned at the start of the KS!

Those were the announcements, and now, here are some notes from our team about their experiences during the Convention:

Impish Ian:

A good time was had by all! Or so I assume. Saturday I got to announce Trinity Continuum: Aegis, at long last, which was quite the relief, and people seem to be responding well to it. Sunday I spent some time talking to Rich about the history of Onyx Path, its future, and some of his other notable contributions over the years, like inventing nearly every splat symbol. That sort of thing is always fun for me, and the hour passed far too soon.

Delirious Dixie:

Even though I was sick, I managed to have a blast at this year’s Onyx Path Con! It’s always so cool to see everyone excited for games, panels, and announcements. We got to announce that Paradox has approved Abyssals to go into production, so we’re working on the roadmap for Exalted 3e’s future! I’m also happy to see the response to Aegis, Branch Riders, and The World Below, along with established projects like The Crossroads Continent and Exalted Essence! Thanks, too, to everyone who showed for the afterparty and played some Jackbox! I love hanging out with the community.

Nice-Guy Eddy:

It was frustrating for me to have to cancel an in-person convention earlier this year, so it was great to be able to have a virtual alternative! I have always enjoyed hanging out at Onyx Path con, but this year was just fun. Lots of great discussions, both on stream and in chat, and some great games. I think we had a good balance of announcing cool new things and showing off stuff that’s newly-released or in progress, and mooooooost of our fans were very understanding of where things were and appreciated how transparent we’ve tried to be about how things are going. I can’t wait for the next experience!

Melodious Matthew:

I had fantastic fun at Onyx Path Con 2022! The panels I co-hosted were very entertaining and drew strong audiences (and audience participation!), the Camp Murder Lake! game I ran was ridiculously popular and fun (including a spectral James Brown in the Funkhouse of Horror!), and the announcement regarding our upcoming fantasy Storypath game – The World Below – appears to be attracting a lot of hype over on our Onyx Path Discord. I think this one was the smoothest Onyx Path Con yet. An excellent convention!

Ring-a-Ding RichT:

I had such a blast at the Con, and for me it ran like buttah! Very smooth with nary a glitch. During our events, we had so many great comments in the chats that it was hard to get to them all! Eddy pointed out that he and I have been doing a What’s Up panel at least once a year, for White Wolf and then for Onyx Path, for 15 years – and I swear this one was the best!

Plus, I got to chat with Dixie and one of my oldest friends about the Crossroads Continent, since he was one of the players decades ago, and then be interviewed by Ian Watson all about how Onyx Path got started and where we’re going. Since Ian was along for most of the trip, it was fun hearing what he knew about what was going on back when the whole company was pulled together from the ruins of old White Wolf.

Thanks again, everybody!

Not Con Jobs:

Our Exalted: Exigents crowdfunding campaign on IndieGoGo keeps go go going, although as expected, we are now in the slower section before it heats up again. Nevertheless, we have passed 350% funded, and the commentary about the text reveals has been fantastic! The whole team appreciates hearing how excited Exalted fans are about the Exigents and the options towards Exalted creation provided by this book!

This week, everything on our Red Bubble site is 20% off with code FINDYOURVIBE – it’s all their thing, but we’re glad to share it (and even claim it as another 10 Year Anniversary perk!)

Meanwhile, our 10th Anniversary Celebration continues with our June one title sale on Peoples of the Crossroads Continent, and overall sales that started with the convention continue on at IPR and Studio2, so please check them out!

And since we mentioned the June CRC Celebration, here’s a little bit about the Crossroads Continent itself that I really should have said during the CRC panel at the convention, but I completely missed Dixie’s hints about it!

The Crossroads Continent is so named because every people other than the elves have traveled to it from someplace else. This has produced a layering of cultures and peoples and creatures that gives the CRC a depth of history – but it’s a depth of history that is the result of new beings coming to the land, affecting the current inhabitants, and creating new civilizations. This means that change (chaos, if you will) is always ebbing and flowing against the cultural order created by the domains that currently exist.

There were multiple waves of different human cultures that landed in the western part of the continent, and a dramatic but singular arrival of the dwarves in the north fleeing another world entirely. The elves began as stewards of the elements comprising the world, with demigod-level abilities, who have changed so much through the millennia and lost those abilities and those connections to a higher purpose – which could be the result of fighting epic Wars of Tears and Magic centuries before any other peoples arrived – but they are still significant in the southern part of the CRC.

And because of the nature of the setting, there is room for other peoples, like Gnomes and Halflings, and of course, Ducks. There are the insect people, the Mantids, and the great cat people, the Manticora. There is room for other peoples from other games or some adaption from other fantasy media. Because, it’s always just possible that the kind of character you want to play has indeed existed somewhere on the continent.

You see, “if it’s possible, then let’s do it” was always how we played.

This ties into the lay of the land, as well, with vast areas unclaimed by any realm. Beautiful forests, fetid swampland, majestic mountains…but are they truly uninhabited? Have they always been as they are today? There are ancient ruins and dungeons deep within the earth, or just under the debris of a century of nature reclaiming its own. As an example, The Valley of Cracking Doom is a sprawling complex of rooms and buildings buried under solidified lava after a volcanic eruption that altered the terrain for miles around.

On the Crossroads Continent, there’s always something beneath the surface – for good or for woe.

So, yep, that’s what I should of said during the convention, but the good part is that now all of you get to read it as an addendum to that panel – which should be up on YouTube along with the other con panels really soon!

If you have seen the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, or the What’s Up With Onyx Path? broadcasts, then you know I ended them with this very motto, so indicative of where we are with this year:

Ten Years, Many Worlds, One Path!

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BLURBS!

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Kickstarter/Crowdfunding!

Exalted: Exigents on IndieGoGo has already passed 1,300 backers and $125,000 in pledges! We’re more than 350% funded! So many Stretch Goals have already been reached, and they’ve opened up new high-end rewards/perks! Thanks everybody who has backed so far – keep spreading the word!

https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/exigents-out-of-the-ashes-for-exalted-3rd-edition/x/25772954#/

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Onyx Path Media!

This week:
Crossroads Continent AP, Part 3! LIVE FROM ONYX PATH CON (not really live), Rich Thomas finishes his adventure with Dixie, Eddy, Matthew, and Travis Legge through the new Crossroads Continent adventure, Down in the Hole. Or does he?

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:

We’re getting started with transferring our many videos recorded for Onyx Path Con to our YouTube channel, and a good place to start is our Crossroads Continent actual play, run by Rich Thomas for Travis Legge, Dixie Cochran, Eddy Webb, and Matthew Dawkins: https://youtu.be/Pk7Y219pCZo

The Onyx Path News has NOT gone live this weekend because of Onyx Path Con! So do check out https://twitch.tv/theonyxpath, hit SUBSCRIBE, and watch our announcement videos in the archive!

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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!

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!

To celebrate our Onyx Path Virtual Convention, we’re also running this 50% off sale:

S2 – 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/

To celebrate our Onyx Path Virtual Convention, we’re also running this 50% off sale:

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 Crossroads Continent 90% off Onyx Path 10th Anniversary Celebration Sale runs all through June!

Peoples of the Crossroads Continent PDF is 90% Off:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/344601/Peoples-of-the-Crossroads-Continent

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!

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On Sale This Week!

This Wednesday, the Technocracy receives a new data blast, and The Operative’s Dossier for M20 will go live in PDF and PoD versions on DTRPG!

The Operative’s Dossier includes:

• Digital Web 3.0: New rules for accessing the Digital Web in the 21st Century, including the introduction of Augmented Reality.
• Mission Statements: A collection of story hooks that can be dropped into an existing Chronicle or serve as the basis for an all new Technocracy story.
• The Technomancer’s Toybox: A collection of Devices, Adjustments, and Procedures to aid the Agents of the Technocracy in saving Reality from imminent doom, as well as rules for building Constructs and incorporating Terranorming into your Mage 20th Anniversary Edition Chronicle.
• Unlikely Allies: Guidelines for inter-faction play, incorporating mages of the Council of Nine, The Disparate Alliance, and the Unaligned in your Technocracy campaign.

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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!

We’ve submitted 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:

https://www.gencon.com/gen-con-online/hosting-events-eo-gmhttps://www.gencon.com/event_registrations/new

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/

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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 May’s full list report here: https://theonyxpath.com/release-roundup-may-2022/

Development Status from Eddy Webb!

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

First Drafts

Branch Riders – Branch Riders

• Eddy: This is a game being produced with our friends at the Bodhana Group, which was announced at Onyx Path Con! I’m keeping an eye on things, which is why we’re tracking it here, but really the team at Bodhana are moving at the pace that works best for them right now.

TC: Aegis – Trinity Continuum: Aegis

• Eddy: Our latest new setting for the Trinity Continuum! This one is set in the ancient world, but it’s still a TC game. So it’s not a fantasy game so much as a game where science-fiction concepts can seem fantastical. We’re still in first drafts, but I’m sure we’ll be teasing more about this book over time.

Storypath Fantasy – The World Below

• Matthew: Join us as we delve into a subterranean world of fantasy, survival, exploration, and monster slaying. The lower you go, the greater the treasures. The lower you go, the weirder the world. Stay tuned for more of The World Below on this blog! I’ll be posting teasers occasionally, aiming for Thursdays when I have content to share.

Final Draft

They Came From… – They Came from the Danger Zone!

• Matthew: Now with aeronautical combat rules, Cinematics involving slow motion explosions, playable cyborgs, and more! The writers are doing a fine job.

Development

Mage: The Ascension – Melody Through the Mirrorshades (was Technocracy Novellas)

• Matthew: We have reached Consensus. These stories are permissible for sharing with the ignorant Sleepers. Be aware that the risk of an improved rate in what some call “Awakenings” is very real, but at this time, is a risk we’ve calculated as worth taking.

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Art Direction from Mike Chaney!

In Art Direction

• TCFBTG Monsters from the Crypt – I got KMJ on a bunch of them.
• SCION God 2e – I got the fulls and splats contracted.
• Legendlore: Legacies of Earth – I’m getting Sheikman on this.

In Layout

• TC Adventure! – I know where the art goes.
• SCION Masks of Mythos – With Ron. See notes above about added content for this book.
• SCION Dragon – With Josh. First layout proof coming?

Proofing

• Scion Players Guide: Saints and Monsters – Page XXs from Demigod add in.
• TC Novas Worldwide – 2nd proof. Adding labels to the adventure map.
• TC Aeon Mission Statements – Logos and Symbology making.

Indexing

At Press

• Scion Demigod – Trad press files at printer. PoD proof on the way.
• Scion Demigod Screen – Press files at printer.
• Squeaks in the Deep Screen – Files ready for Press.
• 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 – Files ready for Press.
• TC: Aberrant: Terat Novella – PoD proof on the way.
• Trinity Continuum: Assassins – Awaiting errata input.
• Scarred Lands: Dead Man’s Rust – Press files sent to printer. PoD files uploaded and processing.
• Down In The Hole – CRC Adventure – Advance PDF on sale and gathering errata.
• M20 The Operatives Dossier – PDF and PoD versions on sale this Weds on DTRPG!

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Today’s Reason to Celebrate!

Last week I said we’ve had a lot of birthdays recently, and then Impish Ian handed me the list of birthdays for just June 18th! Seemingly, fate mocks me. Born on the 18th are Neall Raemonn Price, Eddy’s wife Michelle, and the ever-lovin’ Matthew Dawkins. Matthew also points out that the Battle of Waterloo also happened on that date in 1815, thus halting Napoleon’s conquest of Europe, and Mirthful Mike points out that it is also “the anniversary of when Bill and Ted took Napoleon to Waterloo…. but Ted’s little brother abandoned him because he was a jerk”. It’s like this all the time here, folks.

Also, today is the legendary center Hollywood Square Paul Lynde’s birthday, and I always loved his sarcastic humor when I was a kid!