With tails wagging and tongue’s lolling, we are racing towards the last days of the Fetch Quest Kickstarter campaign! If you haven’t yet checked it out, please take a look at this easy to learn, cooperative, deck-building card game for all ages. The KS page has reviews and how to play links, and as a backer you can download a print’n’play version of your own and start having fun right now! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/200664283/fetch-quest-a-deck-building-game-in-the-realms-of/description

And once you do, let us know what you think! Card games aren’t our usual thing, so the more feedback we get on the game or the way the Fetch Quest Kickstarter is set up, the better we can do the next ones!

Here are a few more bite-sized treats selected from what we talked about in the Monday Meeting today:

• Our sales partners at IPR‘s sale on prestige edition Chronicles of Darkness books (Demon: The Descent, Mummy: The Curse, Dark Eras, Beast: The Primordial) and their Screens ends June 24th. These are the remaining books from their respective Kickstarters, and are traditional printed and bound, with bookmarks and embossed and varnished covers printed over metallic paper. They’re gorgeous and on sale. http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/
• Fantasy Grounds has added Shelzar: City of Sins from Scarred Lands to their online store, so that their Virtual Tabletop community can now explore the most wicked city in the Scarred Lands. We’re very happy that our SL presence in VTT is starting to build with our friends at Fantasy Grounds!
• Our plans for Gen Con 2018 are rolling forward – just check out the projects Mirthful Mike is working on right now – and we’re going to be waving at Paizo again on our front, and across the aisle sideways at White Wolf this year. So we’ll have a ring-side seat at the explosion of gamers coming for V5 this year. Meanwhile, we’ll have our good friends from the Wrecking Crew demoing again this year outside the exhibit hall in their own room, and at least one demo table at our booth going at all times. Expect us to announce some pretty wild projects this year!
• Lots of folks working on lots of exciting books – just peruse the First Draft part of the Progress Report below! We still have some very important core books to deliver, and then a smorgasbord of different projects of all game lines and sizes are on their way.
• Last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast that featured an overview and behind-the-scenes of Vampire: The Requiem 2nd has garnered a ton of fantastic comments all over the place, and rightfully so considering the Terribly Terrific Trio (or the Terrifically Terrible Trio) were really firing on all cylinders with this one. If you want to hear more of these project or game-line oriented Pathcasts, then join the crowd and let us know! This Friday, at least two thirds of the gang will be interviewing the amazing up-and-coming writer and developer, Steffie de Vaan.

And now, as a change of pace, and as sort of an illustration equivalent to the Developer/Writer viewpoints in last Friday’s Onyx Pathcast, I thought I’d do a bit of a walk-through showing the steps Mirthful Mike and I go through as an art director when one of us commissions an artist to create an illustration for one of our books.

The developer should have provided the art notes for the pieces they know they need. Some devs will write out very detailed, multi-page, descriptions that specify every aspect of what the piece should contain, others will give very brief descriptions and leave the decisions as to what looks good to the artist.

As an art director, I’m looking for a bit of a middle zone where the developer includes descriptions or reference links for accuracy – character appearance, the location, etc – and very specifically what they need to see happen in the illustration. If the point is to show a power being used, we do need to know what that power does. If the point is to show our cool protagonist in a run-down bar, then a brief description of what sort of attitude is being expressed is important.

In the end, we prefer to give the artist just enough info so that they can run with a piece and show off their abilities while still holding to the subject matter we hired them to illustrate. We also like to have a good idea of which pieces are going to which illustrator so that we can fine tune the notes based on how they are most comfortable working.

Some artists like having as much info as possible in addition to the art notes, like the whole text or at least their chapter, while others find all that reading too much to deal with while trying to get to grips with their specific assignments. No wrong answer there, and we try and work with them to allow them to make their best work.

For example, here’s a link to the art notes for the full page pieces for Wraith 20th that we sent to Ken Meyer, Jr. For this project, Ken was illustrating all the full-page pieces and they needed to contain the various player-character types. Since we’ve been hiring Ken for longer than any of us care to be reminded about, RichD was able to keep the info pretty minimal for the actual fulls, while stressing the overall specific feel of Wr20 (as opposed to any of our many other game lines Ken has done his beautiful illustrations for). Here’s a link to those art notes: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B57iDF62OjtPaV9ySDZ3QlZtbEJqdW8yb2V4ZFVRZDdjRGVZ

Here’s the specific full-page description (in case you don’t want to read the PDF of the full art notes):

Chapter Nine – Drama
Chanteur – Petite wraith with an electric violin and a headset mike, playing the violin like it’s a
weapon. Because it is.

As per our illustration process, Ken then sent in a sketch worked up in pencil and based on a series of emails with Mirthful Mike that went over any questions that Ken might have:

Depending on the project, Mike may loop in the developer, me, or a licensing partner like White Wolf, for commentary and to see if the subject matter is being handled as needed. Most of the time, Mike handles this stage himself – particularly when you consider that different artists sketch with different kinds of completeness. Some artists like to create very tight sketches and then use the final stages to take that tight sketch into the finished medium. Others like to have less detailed sketches and work out the details in their finish.

So an art director gets to know how to “read” the sketches of their different artists and respond appropriately.

In this particular case, the communication worked the way we like it to, because here’s the fantastic final piece:

Now figure that we go through those steps, and often have redos or tweaks at each stage, for every piece of art you see in every book and project we make. An art director’s job is never done, especially when they are keeping an eye on all the styles and subject matters we have in all our projects which span:

Many Worlds, One Path!

BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Fetch Quest, the adventure card game set in the Realms of Pugmire is down to its last days and we’d love to have you join us!

And if you’ve already pledged, this is definitely a game that needs to be spread by word of mouth, so please let your friends and family know about this game of good dogs (and cats!) out to fetch what Man has left behind!

Next up, Geist: The Sin-Eaters 2nd Edition Kickstarter…starting sooner than you might expect…

ELECTRONIC GAMING:

As we find ways to enable our community to more easily play our games, the Onyx Dice Rolling App is now live! Our dev team has been doing updates since we launched based on the excellent use-case comments by our community, and this thing is both rolling and rocking!

Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://theappstore.site/app/1296692067/onyx-dice

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.onyxpathpublishing.onyxdice&hl=en

Three different screenshots, above.

ON 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).

If you enjoy these or any other of our books, please help us by writing reviews on the site of the sales venue you bought it from. Reviews really, really help us with getting folks interested in our amazing fiction!

Our selection includes these fiction books:

• Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II (Kindle, Nook)
• Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox (Kindle, Nook)
• Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile (Kindle, Nook)
• Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree (Kindle, Nook)
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds (Kindle, Nook)
• Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Vampire: The Masquerade: The Beast Within Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Werewolf: The Apocalypse: W20 Cookbook (Kindle, Nook)
• Exalted: Tales from the Age of Sorrows (Kindle, Nook)
• Chronicles of Darkness: Tales of the Dark Eras (Kindle, Nook)
• Promethean: The Created: The Firestorm Chronicle Anthology (Kindle, Nook)
• Demon: The Descent: Demon: Interface (Kindle, Nook)
• Scarred Lands: Death in the Walled Warren (Kindle, Nook)
• V20 Dark Ages: Cainite Conspiracies (Kindle, Nook)
• Chronicles of Darkness: Strangeness in the Proportion (Kindle, Nook)
• Vampire: The Requiem: Silent Knife (Kindle, Nook)
• Mummy: The Curse: Dawn of Heresies (Kindle, Nook)

OUR SALES PARTNERS:

We’re working with Studio2 to get Pugmire out into stores, as well as to individuals through their online store. You can pick up the traditionally printed main book, the Screen, and the official Pugmire dice through our friends there!

https://studio2publishing.com/search?q=pugmire

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

Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: https://theonyxpath.com/press-release-onyx-path-limited-editions-now-available-through-indie-press-revolution/

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/manufacturers.php?manufacturerid=296

IPR is holding a 40% sale on the Chronicles of Darkness prestige edition core books that we have remaining until June 24th!

DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday the PDF and physical book PoD versions of C20 Kithbook: Boggans go on sale on DTRPG.com!

Sometimes it’s the little things that make the biggest differences in life, and nowhere is this more evident than the boggan kith. Although they have preferred to let others glory in the spotlight, this industrious kith has worked its own subtle and patient magic over the centuries, drawing power from dreams of hearth and comfort and becoming no less than the bedrock of Kithain society. Even heroes need homes to return to, after all.

For the first time ever, the secrets and gossip of the boggan kith are being shared with outsiders. So pull your chair closer to the fire, take up a fresh cup of tea, and listen carefully, because the real truth about these unsung heroes is finally coming to light.

Kithbook: Boggans features:

• A history of this unassuming yet vital kith, and how they’ve subtly shaped the Dreaming.

• Insight into boggan nature combined with advice for bringing boggan characters to life.

• Ready-made characters for quick play, and profiles of famous boggans past and present.

• New Treasures, Merits, and Flaws for boggan characters.