Hello, everyone. I’ve been quite busy the last few months, with a lot of books and drafts whizzing by back and forth. I’ll keep this fairly short, because I’m going to have more to say on most of these after Gen Con. (See below for more Gen Con stuff.)

Secrets of the Covenants

Since we did the clanbooks in 2007-2009, I’ve wanted to come back and give the covenants the same treatment. Doing that dive into the World of Darkness was just fun. Well, and also scary. There are a few things in the clanbooks that still creep me out, like Wood Ingham’s roommate story in Shadows in the Dark.

We’ll be working in the clanbook style, but this book is also necessarily different: the clans were families. Some are very up front about that, like the Daeva, and others are more reserved about it, like the Mekhet. Not so the covenants. They’re gangs, mobs, and churches. Their ties aren’t in the blood, but in the handshake or the kiss. Their defections are a different sort of betrayal.

Blood and Smoke gives us a strong foundation for the covenants. They’ve changed a bit since the first edition, and this is a chance to explore that and exercise the freedom that comes with it. At the same time, it’s a chance to revisit some old friends, like the Kindred of New Orleans, and Solomon Birch. And to pay off longstanding hints. There’s one from The Testament of Longinus that Eddy is acting on, which I’m really excited about.

The writers are working busily on this. I’m expecting some first drafts before Gen Con, and some shortly after.

A Thousand Years of Night

You can thank Vampire developer emeritus Will Hindmarch for that title, which I’ve been fond of for years. Thousand Years is a very different book from Secrets of the Covenants, but it does something similar: it’s an energetic new take on a classic subject.

Thousand Years will give you tools both to play elder characters and to enmesh them in the world. It’ll also look at the allies and antagonists an elder has in the long game, and how a vampire’s Touchstones can evolve over decades and centuries. We’re following in the footsteps of the elder-as-conspiracy material in The Danse Macabre.

It’s going to be a lot of fun to show that elders aren’t static and bored, that they’re canny and vital and scheming every minute of the night, that there’s a reason they survived while their fellows perished.

A Thousand Years of Night is at the outlining stage, and will go to the writers after the second draft for Secrets of the Covenants comes in.

Dark Eras

One of my first Vampire assignments was Requiem for Rome, a book I’m still immensely proud of. The warm reception it and its companion, Fall of the Camarilla, received is part of why we’re doing Dark Eras. In Eras, each World of Darkness game receives a chapter and a period all its own.

For Vampire, that’s Elizabethan England. I’ll quote from the outline:

In 1593, Elizabeth Tudor wears the Crown Imperial and is redefining the nature of power in Europe. In a London both grimy and vibrant, the Kindred wage their secret wars. The Invictus get ready to declare a new Camarilla, while the Lancea et Sanctum is riven by the religious schism between the Roman and Anglican churches. All the while, they watch over their shoulders as the Elizabethan police state emerges.

And then there’s the matter of who’s going to kill Christopher Marlowe…

Theme and Mood

The theme is Schisms. Our Elizabethan setting is about how bonds that were once viewed as impossible to sunder are have given way to implacable enmities. England has changed a lot even within the Requiems of ancillae.

The mood is Someone’s Watching. Vampire governments have always tended towards being invasive, but mortals are beginning to poke into each other’s affairs more and more. The government keeps its ears keen for the hymns of the old faith, and the cat and mouse games it plays with those believers might lead it to the havens of the Damned.

Of Requiem’s core themes, the one we’re playing up is Old + New.

The Dark Eras chapter is running later than planned, but is in its final stage of development.

Gen Con

At Gen Con, we’ll be talking about these books, the 2015 schedule, and making an announcement. The new World of Darkness panel is at 10 AM in the Crowne Plaza, Grand Central D. For those of you that can’t make it, Eddy will be recording the panel and we’ll put the schedule and announcements on our blog.

I’ll be staffing the Onyx Path booth for much of the show, and I’m excited to talk to you. Gen Con’s always a great opportunity to put faces to names and to talk about the future.

Take care, everyone!