#always having a lot of feelings about nile and art and art history over here

[nevermindirah]

To take the Nile Marine Discourse veering off in another direction,

Why did Greg Rucka make her a Marine? Because his characters' only superpower is that they can heal and revive from any wound or injury or illness or whatever. They don't have superhuman strength or speed, they're regular people whose only superpower is healing, and they happen to be nearly-superhumanly-skilled warriors because they've been warriors for centuries and millennia.

This dude made Nile a Marine because she'd have to be a trained warrior to hang with such experienced doers of violence, right?

This dude got from point A, my creations' only superpower is healing, to point K, therefore they're exceptional warriors, because Greg Rucka assumes that before a certain time in The Past, pretty much all people were violent. I too was raised on Lord of the Rings and Arthurian legend and all that shit where those who don't live by the sword can still die from it. But, like, was the past really all like that, or is that just Western myth to make modern white people feel civilized by comparison?

Was Yusuf actually a skilled swordsman from go, or was he just a poet-accountant starting to take over the family merchanting business when a terribly timed business trip to Jerusalem forced him into pretty extreme fight or flight mode? Maybe Nicolo killed Yusuf many times before Yusuf figured his way around a sword enough to kill him back, because Nicolo got trained in invadering and Yusuf was doing the 10th century version of me sitting on my couch writing essays on the internet.

I have a lot of empathy for Nile the character who chose to become a Marine because that's how the US economy works and because if she lets herself really think about the lie of American exceptionalism that means her dad died for a lie and that will break her and she could probably put herself back together eventually but OUCH NO THAT WOULD HURT THINK ABOUT SOMETHING ELSE GOTTA GO ENLIST NOW.

And I have a lot of empathy for Gina Prince-Bythewood who is so talented and has a platform but is still a Black woman in Hollywood and you can only rock so many boats at once before they throw you overboard so she went with Rucka's Marines as neutral framing and rocked other boats instead. Or maybe that's me giving her too much credit. I fucking love her work, but does she have a decolonial analysis? Does it enrage her what our country's military does to people in other countries and especially the people who live in Afghanistan? Maybe. But maybe not.

My appreciation for Greg Rucka as creator of characters who now live rent-free in my brain is non-zero, but my skepticism of his politics is very high.

Let's go back to that point A to point K math. The starting concept: regular human people with one superpower, healing. What are all the possible ways a person, a group of people could spend centuries of their time devoted to? What would make an interesting story for these characters' creator to tell? What would make the world a better place for these characters and the world of their narrative?

Shot in the dark here, what if, instead of regular human people with superhuman healing become superhumanly experienced warriors, what if they spend their centuries and millennia becoming superhumanly experienced historians, storytellers, sages.

Like, can you IMAGINE having a group of people who have spent hundreds and thousands of years listening to people talk about their experiences, learning how to get people to trust them with their stories, learning how to share their own stories and other people's stories with skill and care? By the time Nile, the art history grad student whose father died in Afghanistan but then the US government finally passed reparations for slavery so she got to go to college instead of joining the Marines, becomes an immortal these people are internationally respected and beloved holders of human history. Nobody's going to capture them and lock them in cages because people would RIOT and every restorative justice collective on the planet would be Holding Those Captors Accountable. (If Nile lives in a world where reparations and restorative justice are public policy in her country and many others, where the Old Guardians didn’t let colonizers get away with writing all the history books, would she have grown up in a world where the Afghanistan war even happened? Would the United States even exist? Would countries exist? Would slavery have been abolished globally and for all time even before that piece of shit Columbus was born? I’m gonna stop myself before I write another meta post within this already-way-long meta post but holy shit y’all this could change EVERYTHING)

The real world isn't always as violent as fiction makes it out to be, and fictional worlds could be way, way, like staggeringly way less violent than the real world if their creators chose for them to be.

Anyway Andy the paleo-zoologist (she was alone for at least a thousand years she befriends a lot of animals ok), Quynh the spinner of tales (romance! mysteries! comedies! the occasional tragedy but not too many because why be sad if you don't have to be! and also spinner of the most stunning cloth any human being has ever seen in their entire life holy fashion historian batman), Joe the poet with such kind eyes no one can resist telling him their secrets, Nicky the quiet and watchful man who notices what others don't even notice about their own lives, Booker the publications technology nerd (inks! printing presses! handwriting! forgery is a science y'all!), and now Nile the 21st century art history nerd who holy shit has somehow won the lottery because she gets to join this group of people who hold a vast trove of knowledge from so many times and places across human history in their forever-regenerating bones.

#the old guard #tog meta #nile freeman #nile marine discourse #us imperialism #slavery cw #what is even happening #i meta'ed again #i can't stop myself #mine

[peachymess]

If attack on titan was in the Harry Potter universe, what subject do you think the veterans would have been teaching at Hogwarts (like all the veterans including Nile, Hannes, pyxis and such) and what houses would 104 been in? It’s okay if you don’t like au’s like that then you don’t have to reply, hope you have a good day :) !

Hi, anon! Finally, I’ll be answering your Harry Potter AU ask! I knowit’s been ages and ages – I’m really sorry about that. To pay you back for thelong wait, I’ve done headshots of the entire 104 plus some of the vets for thisAU. Please accept my apology-drawings, haha. Art posts for vets here, and 104 here.

For the vets, I assigned each of them one of the HP subjects, and I’m reallyhappy with where they ended up. I can see them all in these positions, and Ihope you can too; if you’d like a deeper explanation as to why some of themended up with what they did, just shoot me an ask about the specific charactersin question and I’ll be happy to explain.

 Erwin (Slytherin): Defence against the dark arts 

Levi(Hufflepuff): Potions

Hanji(Ravenclaw): Transfiguration

Moblit(Hufflepuff): Muggle studies

Mike(Gyrffindor): Herbology

Nanaba(Gryffindor): Flight class

Nile(Ravenclaw): History of Magic

Pyxis(Slytherin): Astonomy

Hannes(Hufflepuff): Groundskeeper

Petra(Hufflepuff): Divination

Oluo(Slytherin): Charms

Eld(Gryffindor): Arithmancy

Gunther(Gryffindor): Apparition lessons

Ness(Hufflepuff): Care of Magical creatures

Now, forthe houses, and where to put everyone: I have to talk about how I view the HPhouses first… 

To start off, I’m not the biggest fan of dividing young, impressionable kidsinto groups based on personal traits to begin with. I feel like it’s likely toshape – and restrict – how the kids view themselves and the people around them.I feel like someone who’s more like, say, a Ravenclaw, at eleven years old,might develop into more of a Gryffindor during their years of schooling (atwhich case, it would be inappropriate for their development, to put them intothe house they not yet fit into, just like moving them mid-school would be). Notto mention it can restrict what social interactions they allow themselves; onegroup villainizing another, or avoiding befriending those they won’t share acommon room with, etc. Even more, I feel like saying people are EITHER brave ORsmart OR driven OR loyal, is doing the complexity of personalities a massivedisservice. If I had a dollar for every person who’ve ever told me they areboth one house and another, or a little bit of all, I’d be… well, richer than Iam now. So. My point is, I’m not a fan of saying someone is one thing, as it can sound likeI’m saying they’re NOT the other three things – which simply isn’t true. HarryPotter houses is something a lot of people have a lot of emotional investmentin. As such, I’m sure some of you will disagree with where I personally see theSNK characters. That’s ok. For most of these, I struggled to settle on onehouse, and I’d probably be swayed to change my mind on many of them, ifpresented with the right arguments. However, I have set some guidelines formyself, and I’ve landed on something, following these:

I’veseparated the HP houses into two categories: action-driven (active) houses andREaction-driven (passive) houses: Slytherin and Ravenclaw are action-driven:while Gryffindor and Hufflepuff are REaction-driven.

Beingaction-driven, in this context, means you actively seek out something. ForSlytherins, this is a personal goal. Be it a wish to become the most powerfulwizard alive, the richest, or for your moral compass to be universallyacknowledged and followed. If your path is dictated by where you want to endup, your path is unfolding through the actions you take to get there. This isSlytherin. Ravenclaws, similarly, are first and foremost seekers of truth andknowledge. They spend their time actively improving their insight into whateverfield they find most worthwhile; their path is created from the steps they taketo improve on this knowledge.

Being REaction-driven,on the other hand – in this context – means that you are mainly passive,waiting for something to occurs that requires you to react; you respond to anenvironment, rather than cause an environment to occur. For Gryffindor, whosemain trait is their unwavering drive to withstand and overcome even thescariest, most personally endangering obstacles, this means they’ll REact tosaid obstacles by tackling them head-on, because it is the right thing to do(even when it’s also the hardest thing to do). Hufflepuffs, similarly, willrespond to an environment by letting their loyalty tell them how they shouldrespond, when situations occur.

Using theseguidelines, I’ve ended up placing the characters like this:

Eren(Slytherin): Let’s start this off by getting one thing straight: being aSlytherin and being driven by a personal goal, does not have to be a bad thing!By placing Eren in Slytherin, I am in no way saying he’s a bad guy or that Idon’t support him. No. Eren is here, because, after thinking about it, I can’tdeny that his drive, is an intense, active personal goal of making things rightin the world. Sure, his goal of making the world titan-free (and seeing thefree world later), has taken him down a dangerous path that requires him to bebrave – but he’s not driven by bravery as much as an idea that he just “has todo this, danger level being whatever it is”, for his goal to be reached. He’snot wrestling his fears as much as he is wrestling the danger of not winningwhat needs to be won to advance towards his goal. Lucky for us, his personalgoal, is to give all of us the justice and freedom that is our birthright. Eren’sstrength, is his relentless strength to pursue this freedom.Armin(Gryffindor): I’ve got two names for you to suck on: Hermione and Neville.These characters have taught us that there is no such thing as being “toointelligent” or “too scared” to have the brave heart of a lion. Armin is veryintelligent, and he’s also very human in the face of danger. He also has a dreamto explore (which could make you advocate for Ravenclaw), but more thananything, his dream remains a backseat driver to his rising to the occasionsthat occur; saving humanity before pursuing his own dream. He uses hisintelligence to very skullfully aid in the brave battles he end up in. His maindrive, is wrestling his personal demons, and rising to the occasions. He’sbrave – so incredibly brave – and he’s a Gryffindor.Mikasa(Hufflepuff): A friend of mine said “anywhere but Hufflepuff” when we talkedabout Mikasa. But I beg to differ. Mikasa is strong, and she’s proud. But she’sloyalty bound most of all. She has amazing skills that take her far in battles– but they are not the product of her facing her fears and being brave, butrather the product of her being willing to give it her all to defend what she’semotionally bound to. She’s peak Hufflepuff, because she’s got the skills toback up what she’s loyal to. Honestly, I’d say EMA are all the peaks of theirhouses. Jean(Gryffindor): I’d got Slytherin, had it not been for the fact that once hispersonal desires had to face off against the world’s need for him to rise to adifferent standard, he answered. Jean puts on a good “bad guy slytherin”persona, but his actions say something else. He’s very human, and he’s a slowgrower (as I’ve talked about before), but he DOES grow – and it’s in responseto the world’s need for him to, not for his own personal goals and gains. He’sa Gryffindor.Marco(Ravenclaw): To be honest, we just need someone in Ravenclaw at this point. Ibased this off of Isayama’s HS AU; Marco and Armin are both smart guys, butwhile Armin is shown to be a geek (more devoted to his interests outside ofschool; not being defined by his cleverness), Marco is a “nerd”; school smart –defined by his intellect. I’d say this is better shown in the AU than in canon,but then again, Marco didn’t have much time to blossom. That’s why I’ve chosento go with the context Isa has given us, and say he’s someone who strives toalways be better, learn more, gain knowledge – be it how to fight better, howto strategize more, or how to read situations.Sasha(Hufflepuff): Sasha very nearly ended up as a Gryffindor for me. I held backpartially because I love the idea of her and Connie being Huff-buds. And atfirst I felt like I was cheating; after all, the ways she saved that child andtook out a titan on foot, is still one of the most amazing moments of thisstory for me. Like if you cry every time… But I had to take a step back andremind myself that Hufflepuff is not BELOW Gryffindor. Hufflepuff is not alower tier than any of the other houses. It’s supposed to be your main note.And for Sasha, what we see her do most of, is being a very quirky, goofy, funnygirl who enjoys the simple things (good times with friends, food, etc.). To me,that’s a Hufflepuff. She’s sweet, and she’s fierce. Precisely like a Huff who’sthrown into a world where her loyalty is called upon a lot.Connie(Hufflepuff): He’s in the same boat as Sasha; he’s brave in the face of danger,and he’s the Lion’s heart worthy, but more than that he’s a simple guy who’soften shown to fit snugly into the simpler times-life. Who said Hufflepuffscan’t also be brave when they’re called upon by something or someone they careabout?Reiner(Gryffindor): To be honest, I’m the least sure about the BRA trio. Partiallyfor the sake of mirroring the EMA trio, I decided to put them all in differenthouses. But also, I partially wanted to emphasis that they all have differentpersonalities. Lumping them all into Slytherin and calling it a day, woulddoing them and their individual causes a big disservice. And at the end of theday, while Reiner was the left-over after I placed Annie and Bert, I do thinkReiner’s struggles warrant recognition in the Gryffindor way. After all, nobodyworked harder to get a spot amongst the shifters than him, he took on the roleas Marcel 2.0 after BRA were thoroughly lost, he kept going even after theintense mental struggles he suffered from that point onward, he genuinely triedto be just be best tm  - even though he’sstruggled to find out what IS the best. I’d say he’s got a drive to mimic aSlytherin, but on the other hand, he became very passive inside the walls, oncehe found a comfortable place to play pretend, so I’d say he’s more a re-actor.Annie(Slytherin): Since the beginning, we’ve seen that Annie does not put much stockin loyalty for the sake of loyalty. Sure, she can stick to a side/idea once shedecides on it, but how she decides on it, is driven by her own interest. Shejust wants to be ok, and to have a better life for herself. She’s not exactlyshooting for the stars with this goal, but it’s her final compass none theless. Again, she’s not bad; wanting to wathc out for yourself is not inherentlyevil – it just is what it is.Bertolt (Hufflepuff): Bertolt is loyal to the side he’s picked, preciselybecause it’s what he’s decided to stick with. Loyalty for the sake of loyalty.He says he’s not sure what’s the right thing anymore, but he sticks with Marleybecause that was his entry point. He’s also – while powerful – more of areactor; doing the work he knows he has to do, once it’s possible or asked ofhim. He’s a Hufflepuff to me.Ymir(Slytherin): Ymir’s selfishness is a front she puts on. It’s aself-preservation mechanism that kicks in, understandably, after everythingthat’s happened to her. She’s not a Slytherin because of this. She’s aSlytherin, because at the end of the day, she’s made the choice to follow thatfront’s example, and put herself first for once. Perhaps she’s a convertedGryffindor. All I know is, she’s chosen to put herself and her interest(s)first, and she’s actively sought out these benefits – Slytherin by fomula – butthe more I think about it, the more I want to replace her in Gryffindor.Historia(Slytherin): Historia may appear to be a selfless, brave Gryffindor, and sure,she’s in dangerous situations, like everyone else in 104 – but she’s therebecause that’s her goal. Her personal goal is to appear selfless. To me, herentire arc was about accepting and beginning to love and blossom as herSlytherin self. A Gryffindor wouldn’t say they didn’t care if someone was indanger in their stead (Armin standing in for her), nor would a Gryffindor telltitan Ymir to tear down the tower to save herself, dooming three other people (Connie,Bertolt, Reiner) to death in the process. Historia is not a selfless personfirst and foremost – and while I personally don’t appreciate her, I’m not goingto say she’s in Slytherin for being selfish. No; she’s there because her drivehas been facing inwards, and that’s ok. She’s had little choice but TO have herown back. And she was a child, and can thus not really be blamed for ending uptrying to tend to herself in a harmful way (attempting to die in a heroic wayfor how that will appear outward). But she is, in the end, a character drivenby self-preservation and (the search for) self-acceptance. And that puts her inSlytherin for me.

… And that’sit, anon. I hope you found this interesting and/or entertaining. I put quite abit of effort into this, and I hope something positive will come from it ^^

#snk #aot #snk hp au #hp anon #anon #ask #hp au #eren yeager #armin arlert #mikasa ackerman #jean kirstein #marco bodt #sasha braus #connie springer #reiner braun #annie leonhart #bertolt hoover #ema #ymir #historia reiss #levi ackerman #erwin smith #hanji zoe #moblit berner #snk vets #snk warriors #all the tags #viva la armin if you read this far

[theonyxpath]

A comment in the comments section, of all things, basically asked why every time they look here lately there’s dogs all over the place. The art samples have dogs in them, the Kickstarter news is about the dog card game. Dogs, dogs, dogs!

Part of that is, of course, coincidence or a coming together of multiple projects for a line with three Kickstarters and a bunch of projects which came out of those KS Stretch Goals. And it helps that Eddy Webb is the kind of developer who pushes to get projects finished as close to estimate, and sometimes earlier, as possible.

So, woof, woof, woof go the dogs.

In a week or so, maybe it’ll seem like only WoD books are mentioned, or CofD, or Exalted. And so on. It’s all pretty much coincidence as to how books of a particular setting come out together, as we have projects from all of our “worlds” going at all times at different stages of creation, and a lot depends on which projects you’re waiting for.

This also applies to Kickstarter news when you don’t back Kickstarters, or Onyx Pathcast news when you don’t listen to podcasts, or convention info and our plans for FangCon 2019 when you can’t get to the convention.

So for this blog, I try to mix the things I mention and art I put up to give a bit of a taste of as many game worlds and activities we’re doing as I can so that I’m touching on something, I hope, that is relevant to YOU. But, if coincidence gives me mostly Exalted stuff that week, I’m mostly going to be relaying that, with a mix of other things if I have other things on my radar to share.

No Marketing department, no professional writer here – just your dear old Uncle Rich and whatever we’ve discussed during the Monday Meeting.

(Which reminds me, not only is last week’s Onyx Pathcast a great inside look at the way we conceive, create, and publish our projects, but this Friday yours truly is grilled by Dixie and Matthew for a very special episode. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry. You’ll learn secrets of the early days of White Wolf right into Onyx Path.)

    Wraith 20th Handbook of the Recently Deceased art by Michael Gaydos

  Which means, it’s time for some quick topic hits:

In a similar conversation to the one above, there was a poster that remarked how the first mention of Pugmire made him wonder just what Onyx Path was turning into. Then, he dug into the background of Pugmire and realized there was a lot more to it than a funny animal TTRPG.

My response must be that we aren’t turning into anything different than we’ve always been on track to be: a publisher who creates amazing and engaging worlds for folks to explore. And that the poster was dead-on right to identify that one of the threads that combine all of our projects is that there are depths built into our worlds that reward players who look into them.

Some of that is a heritage from old White Wolf we’ve been fortunate to bring to the fore, and use as models for what works and what doesn’t, and part of the depth is built in by our amazing creative teams who know they can do that kind of game and world building with us.

    Monarchies of Mau art by Pat McEvoy

    We’ve been having other great conversations on our Onyx Path Publishing Discussion Group on Facebook, which you might be able to get to through this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/419273928504341/ I haven’t had a chance to join in to the discussions yet, but hope to very soon.

    Boggans art by Brian LeBlanc

    I haven’t been able to jump in because these last couple of months have been a combination of working up and with contracts for new projects and licenses, putting in pitches for projects, and getting Changing 20th, Prince’s Gambit, and soon, V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary Kickstarter rewards out to backers. It’s a bit of an endurance challenge, so I’m lucky to have maxed out Fortitude.

Plus, I’m trying to keep up the communication with backers for the Scarred Lands Kickstarter that the late Stewart Wieck had started for our two companies, while representatives for his company, Nocturnal Media, work to get the KS fulfilled and shipped. So, four KSs shipping around a month from each other.

The flip-side is…we’re getting out four KSs’ rewards to our backers!

    Nerma Fetch Quest Stretch Goal card.

    Finally, I think I might have mentioned this before, but one of my working methods when creating a new setting, or establishing an overall art “look” for a project, is to take what Allen Moore calls a “high altitude pass” and gather all sorts of reference material and sift through it without trying to force any sort of viewpoint over it.

For visuals, this is very often seeing what registers as “right”. What feels like the sort of feeling we want the setting to give players. Although we can pull huge amounts of story from an illustration (picture=1K words), very often a far more lasting impression comes from the viewer’s emotional reaction. I’ve been doing this pass for Aberrant for about 3 months now, and we’re getting to the decision point on creating an artist list, and actually further back for when I did the initial designs for all four Trinity Continuum main books.

Right now though, I’m reading through a collection of 1950’s EC Weird Science comics in preparation for establishing the art for They Came From Beneath the Sea!. Developer Matthew Dawkins and I already have a strong idea overall based on the films of the time and some TV, but in a lot of ways looking at illustration when thinking about kinds of illustrations is actually more directly what I need.

Not going to go too far into the history of EC right now, although I could and it is a fascinating tale of the rise and fall of a publisher, but suffice to say that their comics were a gigantic influence on both the comics that came after, and on the generation of creators who wrote science fiction in all media (including TTRPGs) for decades to come.

So I get to read comics collections as part of my job. It is tough. But it’s what ya gotta do in order to explore:

Many Worlds, One Path!

    BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Fetch Quest, the adventure card game set in the Realms of Pugmire went live last Tuesday, May 22 and funded in under a day, and now we’re over 250% funded and have added a group of six cats from the Monarchies of Mau to the game as alternative adventurers via Stretch Goals!

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!

      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: http://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

      DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

  This week, we’ll be releasing a cornucopia of merchandise and other items on Wednesday!

  This is our monthly release week for our ongoing series of PDF releases for Exalted 3rd Edition, and we have the Barrow Hound and Devilstone for Hundred Devil’s Night Parade www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242687, and Iron Siaka for Adversaries of the Righteous http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/242686 on DTRPG.com!

      CONVENTIONS!

Prep is also underway for Gen Con 2018 in the first week of August, which takes place in Indianapolis. In addition to our booth presence, be sure to check out the games and panels in the Gen Con Event Schedule.

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will be speaking at Broadleaf Writers Conference (September 22-23) in Decatur, GA. He’ll be there to talk about writing for interactive fiction, and hanging out with other writers who have far more illustrious careers. http://broadleafwriters.com/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference-speakers/

Eddy will also be a featured guest at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

If you are going and want to meet up, let us know!

    And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Scion Companion: Mysteries of the World (Scion 2nd Edition)

  Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Fetch Quest (Pugmire)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

Guide to the Night (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

  Editing:

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Indexing:

Wraith 20

Cavaliers of Mars

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Hero – Last art notes and contracts sent.

Trinity Continuum 

Geist 2e

The Realm

M20 Gods and Monsters

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Wave 2 art in progress

Promethean Night Horrors: The Tormented – Sending out Artnotes and Contracts.

  Marketing Stuff

Storyteller System Brochure

Posters and Displays

Gen Con Cards

  In Layout

Wraith 20 Screen – I’ll pull this together this week.

Fetch Quest – Putting together the Mau Pioneer card previews.

EX3 Dragon Blooded – Firming up layout and tweaking some backgrounds.

  Proofing

Scion Origin – PDF almost ready for in-Onyx review.

Changeling: the Lost 2 – Meghan has the proof.

  At Press

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary & Beckett Screen & V20 Dice – At fulfillment shipper, prepping for KS ship-out. Shipping addresses to be locked down on Wednesday.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – Shipping from fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Prince’s Gambit – Shipping from fulfillment shipper.

Scion Dice – At fulfillment shipper.

Cavaliers of Mars – Errata input on Backer PDF, now to Indexing.

Boggans – PoD files uploading.

Monarchies of Mau – Errata gathering on Backer PDF.

Wr20 Guide for Newly Departed – Backer PDF should go out to backers this week.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: In 1783 the Montgolfier brothers publicly demonstrate their montgolfière (hot air balloon). A year later in 1784, Élisabeth Thible becomes the first woman to fly in an untethered hot air balloon. Her flight covers four kilometres in 45 minutes, and reached 1,500 metres altitude (estimated). In the future, people of all genders are able to fly in balloons and zeppelins to work and to visit friends, at least if any pulp setting ever can be believed!

#Onyx Path Publishing

[everyrubicon]

It’s Yuletide!

I’m here!

Dear Yuletide Author,

First, thank you so much for writing for one of these fandoms!!! I'm really psyched about Yuletide. I'm going to enjoy what you write. So, know that.

Apparently my style is to throw everything up here and let you decide if you want to use any of it. Fandom-specific behind the cut.

story stuff I like: found family/team as family, competence porn, family dinners, undercover as lovers, there's only one bed!, training, first times (of anything), discovery, adventure, romance, journeys (emotional and physical),  vulnerability, talking through their shit, women being awesome, AUs, crossovers and fusions, gen fic, slice of life, learning to work together, missing scenes., case fic, world building, rituals/traditions, powers/abilities explored, time travel/loops, academia, folklore, they're in space!, take your fandom to work day, hygge, game night, five times

random stuff I will always love: flying (space, super powered, airplane, all of it), horses, knives, swords, swimming, libraries, sheets, that feeling of coming back home after a long day/trip, road trips, banter, laughter, concerts/live music, movie nights, old marked-up maps, , people who answer the phone without saying hello they just leap into the conversation or answer the question they know the person calling is going to ask, cellos, books, notebooks, brownies, sunsets, bonfires, that part of the morning where everything's still and it's not light out but it's not still night and the birds aren't even up yet, rain on the roof, leather, the smell of a bookstore

sexy times, should you want to include them: f/f, m/f, threesomes (+), orgasm delay, semi-public sex, enthusiastic consent, poly are all a green light

crossover/fusion fandoms: MCU, Legends of Tomorrow, Killjoys, Agents of Shield, Wynonna Earp, Farscape, X-Men, Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, anything else it looks like I post a lot about.

stuff on the no list: rape, abuse, non-canon permanent character deaths, a/b/o, mpreg, watersports/feces, age play, bleak endings/hopelessness, betrayal, longstanding lies

squicks: pregnancy, infidelity, homophobia, hate in general, calling each other mommy/daddy, betrayal [If you, my sweet summer child, are now wondering what the hell a squick is, it's the kind of thing that, when you see it in the tags, you just keep scrolling past, or hit the back button, even if it's your OTP. You're not triggered, but you're not really into hearing it, thanks anyway.]

The fandoms:

Motherland Fort Salem: I love the world building here, but also the relationships between all these women. you don't have to include every nominated character, and feel free to bring others in-- I ran out of slots.   The request's words stand, but if you're looking for a little more... I'm hella curious about Anacostia. What's it like growing up an orphan in a military school? Did she hate that she had to enlist? Could she not wait? What does she do now that following orders got her cadet killed? Is that why she freed Scylla. And speaking of: did she skulk by the house Scylla went to so that she could check it out, or to join, or to just know where the hell the girl went/see if she was safe? Did Scylla know she was followed?

The Gifted: this family is so good for each other. If you wanna include Lorna, that's awesome, if you would like to keep her out of this, that's also awesome. I really enjoyed seeing how these three (and with Lorna, pre-Clarice) leaned on each other in turn, they kept each other going. I'm totally down if you want this to be a John/Clarice/Marcos deal, too. I think Marcos could have used a little more love in season 2, the boy was *stressed.*  

Maybe they've gotta move again? So road trip with the three of them in the car/hotel/side of the road while John goes to get gas he didn't think they'd run out of quite so soon. Training is always good, so maybe they try new power tricks together?

The way Clarice kept John grounded, focused, on the here and now instead of the responsibility and weight of the mission when he got stressed was something I really liked about their relationship.

Marcos and John have been together for a *while,* but they can be very different. One of my favorite exchanges between them happens when Marcos is pining and fretting over Lorna and the baby, and John says hope's a powerful thing, he just has to keep holding onto it. And then Marcos looks up at him and says hope is what's been killing him.

Chronicles of Elantra: I started reading this series back when it started, and then somehow took a break, but this year I caught back up. Now I'm only three behind--the last I read was Cast in Flight. So if you could please avoid spoilers for those last few, I'd appreciate it.

Okay, I totally missed nominations, which means I missed a chance to nominate characters. If you wanna stick with just Bellusdeo, that's not a problem. I like all of them. Teela, Anarion, and Mandoran, with Bellusdeo and Helen rounding out the home squad are my favs. Kaylin and Severn, too-- and him, not Nightshade, for the record. What's it like there on non-world in peril again time? Does Moran ever crash there now? What's Helen like with everybody?  In the books, we only really get Kaylin's pov, so it'd be interesting to see the same place or thing or story through someone else's.  

it's the weirdos and outcasts coming together that I love.

The Old Guard: I really love the side by side ass-kicking duo of Nile and Andy, they've got their shit handled. Or, the fighting shit, at least. I really love how tired Andy is of the world. If anything resonated with me in 2020, it was that. Her yelling at Booker to not leave her alone and living was *painful.* I like to think finding Nile put a little more interest back in Andy.

I have a deep fondness for them using their not-dying to thwart people--the car crash, the far too long fall, the plane in the movie. Yes, I'm a-okay with you using the movie cannon. They're not all that different (yet, just started the second arc), honestly, and I think the actors were prettier than the drawings, so that's who I see in my head.

Nile's whole art history interest is fantastic, too. And you know it wasn't just Rodin Andy knew. But how many "historical figures" did they run into? What have they seen? What do they still want to see? What do they all want to show Nile? (I'm feeling very 5 things about that, and if you are, too, run with it!) What human festival things do they check out? Burning Man? Oktoberfest? Pride? ...have they stood guard ove

I know this is really long, but please remember optional details are optional--if none of this helps, ignore it! I can't wait to read what you write, either way.

#yuletide2020

[astyle-alex]

[the Old Guard] the Thing about Technology... | Fanfic by PrettyMissKitty

Fandom: the Old Guard Pairing / Character Focus: Andy | Andromache of Scythia & Technology Warnings: None Word Count: 1380 Summary: Booker might be the Guard's official Tech Guy, but I don't think google would be Andy's handicap, because the thing about technology is that it's not about how old you are, it's about how closely you've been paying attention. Tech is only scary if you look away and miss something in its development (and you don't have the luxury of time to learn what you missed).Here's a short over-view of Andy's history with technology, because when she was young, Zero hadn't been invented yet! *Includes Historical Notes!

The Thing About Technology...

           The thing about technology and old folks is that the old folks usually missed something, some critically important step in leaning, not how to use a piece of tech, but the context of why it was created and therefore how to manipulate its variables.

           Old folks can’t use a cell phone because they’re focused on the end result of making the photo-thing take pictures rather than on the process of finding a way to access the camera. They usually missed the developmental stage in tech when the camera was a physical button-press being grafted onto basic coding. And most old folks today certainly weren’t around for when ‘coding’ meant shoving paper punchout card by hand into a mechanical maw the size of god damn building and physically pulling levers to manipulate it.

           Old folks generally can’t use tech because they weren’t there to see the layers of it get invented— and they can’t keep up with learning the how-to’s when they never learned the why’s. They look away for a second, distracted with Life, a job, or having kids, and suddenly the world is different and they can't sit down and backtrack until the figure out what they missed.

           When one is an immortal, no part of that problem is really relevant.

           Andy knows how tech works.

           She even likes most of it.

           Well over 6000 years of technological developments and her ancient ass is still up on all the latest shiny things. It kills her with hysteric giggles how people younger than her age by over 40 fold think they can’t call her ‘kid’ with such disdain, and call her a ‘millennial’ with dismissive rancor even when begging for her help because ‘their gps is broken’ (the function is not usually broken, but it’s rarely been enabled).

           Over 6000 years and Andy still remembers the first big new thing to make its mark upon the world. She’s old as sin itself at this point, but written Language was still fairly new when she was born… phonetics and syllable symbols were becoming more common [1] , but alphabetical written language? Woo, well that had still been mostly an experiment [2] .

           Likewise, the concept of zero was a pretty cool thing.

           Zero popped up about 2000 years into Andy’s time on earth, though it wasn’t given it’s own symbol in the writing system until about a thousand years later [3] .

           Around that same time, saddle girths came into being [4] . And blink a few hundred years away ‘till when stirrups came along [5] . As far as Andy was concerned, that was the moment when real warfare was invented. Elegant and noble warfare, at least, the kind with a grand strategy and careful deliberation in the use of armies.

           Technically, war had been around for thousands of years before Andromache first drew breath, but only in the far east (as she would only learn after several millennia of fighting) had war become something other than foot soldiers and a few mounted units or those in chariots just randomly bashing up against each other.

           A thousand years before Andromache became the scourge and savoir of Scythia, East Asia had made war into an Art, and by the time she was halfway through her 4th millennia, they'd even wrote a book abut it [6] .

           Bows and arrows had been around forever [7] , but the deign for a recurved composite bow came around as an exhilarating shock— appearing a little after girths and a bit before stirrups [8] .

           Combined, stirrups and girths and recurve bows made war into and elegant dance of skill and strategy— a contest in which there were clear victors and few civilians caught in the crossfire. What armies did outside of battle was another story, one that had such heinous chapters that Andromache wet her blade far more often in the chests of men dying off the battlefield rather than on it.

           And the gunpowder came along [9] .

           Things got messy with gunpowder. War became less a contest of skill and planning, and more a contest ruthlessness and willingness to utterly destroy the object of one’s aim to conquer... no matter who got in the way.

           Still, gunpowder meant the delights of fireworks and noise crackers and smoke-bombs for dramatic exits.

           Even with the higher casualty count and increase brutality and suffering in battle, Andy counted gunpowder a solid boon.

           And outside of warfare? Well, windmills were pretty cool [10] .

           Efficient mills made bread cheaper and made it taste much better than before— good, highly efficient mills made everything easier which lowered the risk of having a baker cheat you with most of the flour used to bake really being sand.

           The magnetic compass was neat [11] , but what really drew Andy’s attention was the development of mechanical clocks and celestial calendars [12] — the metallurgy skills of her Scythian heritage could feel the hum of craftsmanship in the work behind their making.

           Books were always pretty much magical, even when they’d been written down by hand. But once the printing press had been developed [13] , Andy started reading everything available.

           She perhaps wasn’t there for the invention of the oil lamp [14] , but the cleaner burn of kerosene [15] changed how Andy spent her nights, spending longer and longer into the evening enjoying time out on the town— at least until things got out of hand with air pollution and roughing it like the good old days before lamps and plumbing seemed infinitely preferable to staying in a city.

           Skipping all the big-but-little developments, like railways / cars / planes and the telegraph (all of which Andy needed to utilize with capital effort to be effective in her self-appointed role as a from-the-shadows world-improver), Andy was there when electric lighting came to be [16] .

           1901 saw radios becoming legitimately useful in Andy’s line of work, which made a lot of things far easier. Conversely, 1935’s development of radar made many things much harder.

           Room-sized calculators in the 1920’s and 30’s and 40’s gave way to legitimate computers by the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s… with the niche interest of computer programming and networking going from mostly military or home-grown super geek to entirely mainstream in a single blink once 1985’s release of an ATARI graphic interface hit. That was when tech really took off, in Andy’s mind, at least.

           The pace of its development certainly exploded.

           But the advantage of being an immortal is that she never had to look backwards to learn tech’s history. When something new came along, she could learn it with the benefit of having the full depth of its context there behind her to bolster her way passed any minor blips of confusion.

           So, now, when Andy’s bored to death with waiting for the noise to start, she can listen to an audio book while playing CandyCrush or MarioKart Tour or PokemonGO and run up annoying threads of banal conversation in the group chat for her little Family.

           Poor Nile’s caught between treating Andy and the others like people from her own tech-savvy generation and staring incredulously at a text message from Joe or Booker that reads more like the Constitution than like a plan for supper.

           Sometimes the long-windedness is meant to be a joke to confuse her, and sometimes they forget she doesn’t really know how to take that kind of thing very seriously anyway.

           It still turns out funny without any effort.

           All in all, the only thing Andy cares about is the safety of her Family. She’ll exploit whatever tech she can to ensure their happiness and security.

           The endless entertainment of YouTube is certainly a boon, but instantaneous wire transfers and multinational credit accounts are better.

           Andy may be an old lady who cannot be arsed to care what TikTok vid is trending, but she’s also a kick-ass pioneer whose VPN can keep the CIA and such from getting at all handsy with her nearly bottomless cash accounts.

           The thing about technology is that is less about how old you are than it is how consistently you’ve kept up with paying attention to the new developments— and with 6000 years of active learning under her belt, Andy’s got the patience to ensure that she always keeps herself perfectly up to date.

- - - - -

Historical Notes: 

[1] Mesopotamian cuneiform was developed circa 3200-3500 BC, an ‘alphabet’ of syllabic phenoms. [2] Semitic peoples in regions of Egypt and Phoenicia developed a truer form of alphabetic script, ca 2000~2500 BC [3] Zero popped up in Mesopotamia around 3000 BC, but it was recorded as a blank space. It got a symbol in accounting archives in approx. 2000 BC. [4] Girths appeared on the Kazakh Steppes around 700 BC. [5] Stirrups appeared, also on the Kazakh Steppes around 300 BC [6] Sun Tzu’s ‘Art of War’, published in the 5th century BC. [7] Something ~71,000 BC shows artistic representations of bows being made and used in dozens of cultures. [8] Recurved bows, the Scythian version in particular, began appearing regularly in ~500 BC. [9] ~850 CE, gunpowder was invented in China. [10] Windmills appeared in Persia around 950 CE, to both move water for irrigation and to grind down grains for flour. [11] Magnetic compasses appeared in China around 1044 CE. [12] The golden age of precious metalwork as a function high-art came in the 14~1500’s CE. [13] Gutenberg invented his moveable type press in 1436, but China and Korea had woodblock printing in 800 CE and had a thriving industry of fiction being published before the western world invented the concept of a fiction novel narrator (‘Tom Jones’, by Henry Fielding, published 1749 is the one of the earliest western examples). [14] Oil lamps appeared in the Middle East in 9000 BC. [15] Kerosene was derived in the 1840’s~50’s, it burns cleaner than natural oils, but is cheap enough to be used at obscenely excessive volume. So an individual dwelling wouldn’t be coated in black residue, but whole cities would be—and with the other kinds of air pollution… yeah. Country living looked real nice. [16] Edison’s light bulb was released in 1879 and Edison Electric had a working power plant established by 1882.

Author’s Notes: This fic is cross-posted on my Ao3 Account (PrettyMissKitty) and on my Patreon (Astyle_Alex). It’s the first of at least 3 (but probably many more) fics that I plan to post in this amazing fandom, written in a single sitting because I just could NOT contain myself after watching the awesomeness that is the Old Guard.

(And if you're curious as to what ELSE I am / should be working on, check out my schedule and project lists!): October 2020 Schedule: https://www.patreon.com/posts/current-project-42144611 Project Masterlist: https://www.patreon.com/posts/current-projects-30172736

#the Old Guard #Andy | Andromache of Scythia #andromache of scythia #fanfic #Andy x Technology #Andy & Technology #historical accuracy #With Historical Notes!

[hibernianbok]

Happy B-day Hetalia :D

Here’s a headcanon for every official character :D

African characters:

Cameroon: He enjoys going to schools around his country, he always tries to play a couple of matches against the kids. He lets them win to build their confidence in themselves.

Egypt: Someone when he’s sad he writes letters to his mother in hieroglyphics, he then puts it in the Nile hoping she’ll find it, one day.

Seychelles: Whenever she visits France's place she does her hair in a french plait. No reason, She just likes to plait her hair when she visits.

Asian characters:

China: Whenever he gets time off, he loves to ride a bike on the xi’an wall, he loves taking in the city. Sometimes he likes to think about how it has changed.

Cyprus: Whenever he is around Greece and Turkey he considers himself the “mature” one. With all their arguing who wouldn’t?

Hong Kong: Due to his fear of the dark, whenever he’s at a friend/family’s house he’ll refuse to let them leave the room he’s sleeping in till he’s asleep, he’ll hold their hand the whole night if that means they’ll stay.

India: His favorite pastime is drawing is hennas on people's arm, if nobody is around he’ll draw one on himself. Every single one he does is a work of art!

Japan: On trips to meeting or even on holiday he brings an emergency blanket to burrito in, he has been found on more than one occasion huddled up in his hotel room rather than outside enjoying himself.

S.korea: he knows how to K-pop dance, every time one of his many K-pop artist releases a new song with dance moves he’ll practice it till he perfects it.

Macau: Around new people he acts like a gentleman, he always offers the best of his hospitality, around his family he’s a lot more casual and tends to make jokes.

Russia: He is amazing at ballet, only his sisters and his teacher knows this though, he is way too embarrassed to tell anyone else.

Taiwan: She has lucky cats hidden around her house, when she is tired or bored she likes to flick the kitty’s arm. Sometimes she giggles at their movements.

Thailand: Bad hair days are horrible for him, the majority of his day will be dedicated to making his hair fluffy again.

Turkey: Sometimes he likes to go to the mills in his country and help the ladies there make carpets, he loves the detail that goes into them.

Vietnam: Her loves to a coracle around Ha Long Bay, especially at night. She loves to sit in the middle of the bay and stare at the stars.

European countries:

Austria: He can recite entire script of the sound of music. It's his favorite musical because it's from his place and actually happened!

Belarus: When she is around someone she truly hates she’ll stare at them and think of every possible way to kill them till they walk/run away. She always smirks afterwards.

Belgium: She has a habit of cooking when she’s not hungry, she’ll just start making waffles at 3am for no reason. Most of the food she makes is given to her brothers because free food = more money.

Bulgaria: He has an entire cabinet full of his cosplay outfits, he is very careful when washing and drying all of his outfits and rarely ever lets people try them on, for obvious reasons.

Czech: Her tolerance to alcohol is very high. It takes quite a few beers before she can be considered drunk.

Denmark: More than once he has decided to break into Sweden's house and made a sofa fort, he defends it like it’s his own castle.

England: His favorite tea is Earl Grey. He is open to trying other types though, his second favorite tea is PG tips.

Estonia: He will spend an entire day blogging stuff, sometimes Latvia or Finland will have to come over to make sure he is actually eating and sleeping.

Finland: He’s a lot stronger than many people give him credit for, I mean just think about his country's sniping history and how he was excited to fight against Lithuania and Poland!

France: On the short breaks (weekends) he likes to travel around his place to taste wine. He can name every vineyard and seller in alphabetical order.

Germany: He takes on more work than he can handle. The reason behind this is so at the end of the week he feels like he has accomplished something.

Greece: Sometimes when he is bored he’ll make mini statues of Greek gods and goddess.  He’ll just get a bit of clay and mold it into a god.

Hungary: Her favorite pastime is to bathe in her hot springs. Not these new fancy ones, the original ones that were built during the old days.

Iceland: He has an account for nearly everyone social media site, most of which he’s too scared to actually post something because he fears of being judged.

Italy: I bet you he owns a book based on the different types of pasta, he doesn’t even need it he can name every single style of pasta.

Latvia: The reason he is often hanging out with the micro-nations is because it makes him feel more grown up, he likes being the oldest in a group!

Liechtenstein: She has more than one ribbon. The one her brother gave to her is very special to her, so much so that she bought herself more ribbons so that she doesn’t ruin the one Switzerland got her.

Lithuania: He has defended Latvia more than once, a lot of times when russia was about to punish Latvia, lith took it for him.

Luxembourg: Sometimes when he is feeling mischievous he’ll which the side his hair falls on, this makes ned’s eyes twitch and Belgium mentally scream trying to figure out what’s off.

Moldova: More often than not he’ll watch horror movies way over his age (Well not his actual age but his personified age), he is often scolded by his big brother Romania because of this.

Monaco: She’s made make up tutorials before, they are all very detailed and anyone can pull it off! She has never uploaded any though, the key to her beauty must remain secret~ (even though she’s prettier without it)

Netherlands: He lets his bunny sleep in his bed. As neat as he is having his little fluffy friend to cuddle up with helps him sleep.

Norway: He knows the names and address of every coffee shop at his place, he can also name the place where the coffee was grown. It’s his wine.

Poland: He is very religious, every Sunday he goes to church. As flamboyant as he may be he’ll thank god for all he has.

Portugal: He barely ever combs his hair, not because he doesn’t want to but because he is always doing stuff. When he does get the chance to comb his hair he’ll take a good hour combing it.

Prussia: whenever he is home alone he busts out the old shirt on trousers off moves. If Germany gets home early he’ll be greeted with his awesome brother in his tighty whities.

Romania: Sometimes when he wants to troll people he’ll dye his water blood red, people call him a vampire anyways, why not freak them out a bit more?

Slovakia: He is rather lazy when it comes to personal hygiene, he’d rather just get some dry shampoo and a couple of wet wipes then take an hour in the shower.

South Italy: He often trips over his own feet, so he’ll be walking down the street minding his own business and casually fall over. He plays it off very well though!

Spain: Sometimes when he’s bored he’ll put on his dancing clothes, he doesn’t need a partner, a broom will do quite nicely~

Sweden: Is one of the best dancers ever. Think about it, most of the music that comes from his place are addictive and have dance moves that everyone knows! (Caramelldansen)

Switzerland: Has a manual on how to win monopoly every time, it doesn’t matter if the others see it, so long as he wins he doesn’t care.

Ukraine: She really enjoys being around the micro-nations, especially if they enjoy her company too. She likes to mother the little ones, she’s very motherly.

Mirco-nations:

Hutt river: The main reason he is so fancy is because of Australia, he wants to be noticed by him so he sparkles~

Kunglemungle: He loves to be left alone to practice his art, even if it’s just for a few minutes it can mean the world to him.

Molossia: The only person that truly sees his soft side is america, he is the only person that he trust not to tell anyone

Niko Niko: Although he’s human now he still acts like a micro-nation. He was born as one and he will forever be one to everyone else.

Sealand: He is scared of fires, whenever fire is mentioned he feels tears falling from his eyes. (Sealand had a pretty bad fire a while back)

Seborga: Sometimes he likes to see how many people he can flirt with in one day, he makes it a little game for himself.

TRNC: He barley ever hangs out with the other micro-nations, he’d rather just hang out with turkey and his big brother.

Wy: When she is around the other female nations she asks if they can do her hair, she likes how Ms.Belgium does her hair the most!

North America:

America: He still cuddles with a stuffed animals when he’s asleep. He really likes to cuddle things at night and if nobody is nearby his bear is his lifesaver.

Canada: He really likes hiking during his time off, he’ll often go on holidays to mountainy areas so he can go on a nice, long, hike.

Cuba: He enjoys taking naps on the beach, if he could he’d lay there all day watching the waves roll in and out whilst having a cheeky smoke.

Oceania:

Australia: Sometimes when he’s feeling upset he’ll hangout in the bush with all the animals, he feels like he can connect more with the animals than actual people.

New Zealand: He is very aggressive when playing sports, he may seem like a sweetheart when talking but as soon as he puts his uniform on it’s game O N

HOLY MOLY THAT TOOK FOREVER I FEEL ACCOMPLISHED! 

#Hetalia #aph #aph hetalia #hetalia aph #hetalia headcanons #aph headcanons #aph africa #aph europe #aph oceania #aph micronations #aph north america #aph asia #aph italy #aph germany #aph japan #aph romano #aph prussia #aph america #aph england #aph france #aph canada #aph russia #aph china #aph cuba #APH Seychelles #APH Spain #APH Sweden #aph south italy #APH Australia #aph new zealand

[burgermiester]

Fire Emblem Warriors Mini-Review

(My thoughts on Fire Emblem Warriors after ~15 hours beat the story mode, played a bit of history mode; still don’t know any Japanese)

I have to say I was not very hopeful about this game going into it.  Between a lot of surface level issues and a succession of absolutely abysmal PR from the game’s director, I had a feeling that this was a lazy cash grab for Koei. 

Thankfully, pretty much all my expectations have been surpassed.  In every way except possibly the visuals (I still don’t LOVE the art direction but it all looks a lot better in person than it did in screenshots and trailers to me) it’s an improvement over Hyrule Warriors.  History mode is Adventure mode without being forced to get S rank and grind items to progress; leveling up multiple characters is easier and less grindy since characters you field still level up even when you aren't controlling them directly; the annoying bosses that take forever to kill are gone, and generally speaking draw distance and frame rate is better, though that's to be expected as these things typically get better over time. 

Before I go any further with what I liked I have to stop to get into the elephant in the room and the biggest problem with the game: the roster.  It’s... bad.  I don't say that because it ignores a majority of the series; I say it because (1) it doesn't do a good job of representing the 3 games it tries to represent and (2) it comes with mechanical issues that hurt the game.  In the first case, I only really feel like they did a good job with the roster for Awakening.  It has the 3 main characters, 2 prominent supporting characters, and a fan favorite, and they have a pretty diverse weapon breakdown.  Fates, despite being almost half the roster, has only main characters (except for the notably absent Azura) with a couple of fan-favorites as NPCs only.  And I cant help but feel it was a big misstep to not include any hidden weapon users, both because hidden weapons are an iconic new aspect of Fates and because a few of the hidden weapon users are extremely popular.  Last, with only 3 characters it only feels like Shadow Dragon has a nod in the same way as Blazing Sword and Gaiden/Echoes.  It really doesn't feel like a featured game. 

It also really needs to be said: there are too many sword users.  When playing story mode I always felt like I had to field one of the 3 pegasus knights (the only lance users in the game) and either Frederick or Lissa (not Camilla since I didnt want to double up on fliers) and then needing my OC sword lord meant it was tough to find a good reason to field any of the mountain of other sword wielding characters, especially since most chapters only let me bring 4 people and that last slot I wanted to use for an archer or tome user.  I wish I had more axe and lance users to choose from and fewer sword users to chose from.  It makes the decision to make the OC sword users even more confounding.  It would have been so much better to have one of them use an axe and the other a lance. 

Despite having a lot to say about the roster issues, it actually isn't that critical or game ruining as some people fear.  Later on the OCs become effective against the armadillo-lizard-bear...things and the Falchion users are effective against wyverns and dragons, so there becomes a reason to use both an OC and a Falchion user.  Even though that doesn't make a niche for Corrin, Ryoma, and Xander (and presumably not Lyn or Celica either, but I haven't unlocked them yet) you still totally can use them and they can get the job done even if they are a tiny bit redundant. 

The most important thing about the game is that it plays great.  Ordering people around the map and switching between them is fantastic.  I talked in a previous post about how I didn't enjoy how the Peg Knights played (except for specials, all 3 have the same moveset) and while they still aren't my favorite, they did grow on me over time.  I haven’t really enjoyed playing as Camilla either, but every other character was a blast to play as.  This is by far the biggest percentage of playable characters I like playing as in a Warriors game, so I am very pleased about that.  On top of just being mechanically fun, the characters all have a ton of personality in their attacks and animations, and this is from someone who couldn't read or understand any of their words, the characters were all just amazingly fun to watch in action.  The only character I am iffy on is Xander in this regard.  He’s one of the more serious characters on the roster yet I kept laughing out loud at how ridiculous his magical flipping and spinning horse looked in most of his combos and his pair-up special; i just don’t think it was a good fit for his character, as fun as it is to look at.

I’m gonna end this off on questions/concerns/hopes for the English version.  I feel like I have a pretty accurate understanding of the game from the Japanese version but there are a few things I wonder about.  First, I really wasn't able to sink my teeth into the upgrade or weapon system.  Fortunately, it looks exactly like what they both were in Hyrule Warriors and it was a perfectly fine system there, so I expect it will be fine here.  Second, I have avoided all the English trailers for the game but I hear most of the characters from Awakening and Fates have been recast, with plenty of people saying they are pretty bad.  That’s kind of a bummer, I especially don’t know If I can get used to anyone other than Laura Bailey as Lucina.  So I hope I get used to all the new voices.  I also hope there's a way to turn off critical cut-in quotes. I liked them at first but they take just a bit too long and hearing the same thing over and over is just a little bit annoying when you use specials as often as you do.  Also, I hear that there's a lot of surprisingly great support conversations in the game.  I was expecting mostly silly fluff but people are saying there's some great ones, so I am feeling pretty hopeful.  Last, and this isn't really about the English version, but I really hope that Niles, Oboro, Owain, and Navarre are made playable as free DLC and aren't a part of the paid packs, both because it means more characters total and because I think it would be kind of a dick move on Koei’s part to put fan-favorite characters in the game but charging extra to play as them. 

I still want to play the game in English before I say this for certain, but I really do think this game is set to be one of the best Warriors games as well as my personal favorite of the series.  If you love Awakening and Fates and are at least neutral about Warriors, I am sure you are already pumped for this game; but even if you are a FE fan who doesn't love Fateswakening then as long as you don't hate them (and don't hate Warriors, of course) I really think you will be pleasantly surprised by this game.

#fire emblem #fire emblem warriors #long post #warriors #review

[papermoth-bird-blog]

New Orleans: mapping it out.

In some ways, New Orleans is exactly what I thought it would be- but more concentrated than I anticipated. It is so dense with happenings. I imagine it would be a lot/anxiety inducing for the type of tourist that makes up a long list of “must-dos” that they are determined to fit all in one day. I think New Orleans & get along is because I’ve always been a happy wanderer. No one is in a rush here, ever. In fact, it seems the more punctual/timely/quick you try to be about things, the slower you will be met. 

The wandering is definitely something that runs in my family. We are like golden retrievers (in fact, we actually have one named Harley, who is also much the same). We are constantly in need of lonnnnng winding walks, or else prone to unspecific sadness. Most people don’t quite have the patience for the marathon-like walks my sisters and I go on (which is another reason I’m so happy to have them as close neighbours). Anyways, in travelling alone, I’ve been able to walk as much as I wish. And I do. Until it practically feels like my legs are going to fall off. New Orleans is really the perfect city for it too- flat, easy to navigate & small enough in sprawl. (I should note though, with it being a very old city, the trees have begun to fully revolt against their concrete prisons & so anyone with mobility issues may struggle in many of these areas). The past few days I’ve wandered through a big chunk of New Orleans, so I’ll break it down in areas.

The 7th Ward:

Definitely a more “sketchy” area, slightly north of the Marginy and where I happen to be staying. As gentrification spreads, this is the next area to be consumed. Walking distance (ten/fifteen) to the French Quarter. Wouldn’t exactly wander around this area alone, as a young woman, but if you are confident enough & know where you are going, you’ll be fine. 

Bywater & Marigny & St. Claude:

Two different neighbourhoods edging the 7th ward to the south & the south-east respectively. These neighbourhoods are populated by artists, musicians & other rag-tag dreamers. The houses are colourful, some works of art in their own right. At one point in history, this was apparently a distinctly Creole area. There is definitely an “in-crowd” kind of feel to it- but if you can get in with the the crowd, it hosts all kinds of strange & wonderful DIY-style events. Definitively a “northend” of Halifax, or Leslieville of Toronto kind of feel to it, but distinctly older & much more established than either of those two places (At least Marigny is, Bywater is still in the midst of gentrifying). Marigny is definitely walking distance from the French quarter, running right down the boarder (Frenchman street- which also happens to be where all the best Jazz bars are). 

The French Market:

I guess this is technically in the French Quarter, but it’s kinda it’s own thing too. This market for sure Caters largely to tourists- with booths filled with masks & keychains & Crocodile heads (and claws on keychains!), but there are also really awesome unique handcrafted items as well. This is a pretty big- farmer market style event- definitely more of a weekend thing too. (And if you were to go to the French market on the weekend, I’d recommend going to the Frenchman street craft markets too. Confusing, I know, but they are two separate things, that would be equally good to check out). There were a few booths selling soaps & scents, etc. Sculpture work in Stone & wood & tin. Loads of jewlery. There is also a really good opportunity for food- especially if you like seafood & have been wanting to indulge in some Cajun cooking. At the far end (walking away from Frenchman) is the Cafe du Monde- which has some of the most killer beignets. Seriously, I’m already thinking about going back there tomorrow again & I was just there today. (Bonus tip: if the weather is good, take the Beignets to-go and eat them overlooking the Mississippi or Jackson square, which is like steps away. The Cafe can get over-crowded and a little overwhelming at the best of times. It should be noted, I was having weird feelings about the french market while I was there, and I did rather enjoy it. The weird feelings stemming from the fact that it was in these markets that Slaves were bought and sold. Like mega-ultra-big time. New Orleans wasn’t only the biggest slave port in America, it was the biggest slave port in the entire world. That being, I was having a hard time engaging in the space as casually as one might want to enjoying Beignets under the sun. 

Garden District:

HOITY_TOITYVILLE, USA. Honestly, by far the fanciest neighbourhood I’ve ever been to. Halifax has maybe one street that may come somewhere near it- but only one! And this is a whole neighbourhood!! Technically two if you count the lower garden district!! It’s insane. Historically, these houses were established after the Louisiana purchase (in which France sold the territory to the Americans). Wealthy Americans moved into the area and built their excessive mini-castles, and there they’ve been since. Seriously. This is the type of old-money area that it wouldn’t even surprise me if the house had been in the same family all those years. I tried to compartmentalize & just enjoy it for what it was, but I was so distracted by my brain shouting “What the fuck do these people do with their lives to afford this kind of excess.” I decided, a good chunk of them must be super-villains, and my brain calmed down enough with that for me to be able to engage objectively again. This place smells like flowers. All the time it seems. If you peep through the fancy-fences, there are some great gardens to be seen too. The houses are Antebellum in style & absolutely sprawling. The trees are huge & swoop over head. Many of them are busting at the brickwork & sidewalk, in a kind of beautifully rebellious way. The Lafayette Cemetery is nestled in this area too- but these days, you need a tour guide to go in most of the cemeteries. 

Magazine street:

It’s not really fair to say that Magazine street really belongs in one area- It’s a really long street that changes faces many times. Throughout, however, it remains a vital artery for the city & has restaurants, cafes & retail spots all along the way. The section I found most interesting (especially if you happen to have money to burn) is the section that runs through the Garden district. I didn’t eat there (cause I don’t have that kind of money to burn.) There are lots of cool shops along this stip. Definitely some of the same type of things you’d find in the quarter- like tattoo parlours & palm readers & witchy things, but not as in-your-face about it. Lil’ bougier, but definitely worth a stroll if you are in the area.  

It is also notable that in mid-town, just west of the french quarter, Magazine also hosts a few of the bigger museums- Including the Ogden museum of Southern Art which was my favourite thus far. 

Canal Street:

Canal street is another vital artery that runs across (okay, about halfway) through the city. Many of the theatres are along this street- so if you were ever to see a bigger show, i’d probably be along here. Blood Orange is playing on February 19th. trying not to let that one tempt me too much.... but it makes me wanna come back. 

Gentilly:

Okay, I’ll be honest, the only reason I went to this area was because I needed to get an American SIM card at Walmart. But I’m kind of a “When in Rome” kinda person, so I took some time to get a good ol’ wander in. This is more of a suburban area- but being so, was so distinctly nuclear-family American. I was kinda walking around observing everything as if I were an anthropologist. It’s in this area, that I truly learned about how loose Louisianan liquor laws are- and I’ll tell you, they are scary loose. Like drive-through Daiquari- bar loose. Asa was telling me, that because of that, there are actually specific laws now that say the Daiquiri can be in the cup holder, but the straw must be tilted away from the driver... cause you know, thats the least you can do, right? In the grocery stores, the rum is literally next to the coke. Also- throughout the city you are welcome to carry open liquor- as long as it isn’t in a glass container. Anyways, if you find yourself in Gentilly Woods, the Baptist Seminary College happens to have a really beautiful campus. 

French Quarter aka Vieux Carre:

Honestly, everything you’ve heard about the French Quarter is true. It’s pretty freaking great. Yeah sure, it’s the tourist area, but it’s so interesting and full of all the best activities. The architecture of this area is also very distinct from the rest of the city. It’s one of the big legacies of what used to be the spanish colony of “Luisiana”, before the French gained control of it. Anyways, between the Palms & the buildings, you could easily imagine you were in Cuba or Haiti or something, not america. The vintage/antique stores (all more so in the east end of the Quarter) are some of the best ones I’ve ever been to. On a good day, the streets smell like Candied Pralines. The house buildings now host many boutiques and galleries. My favourite part about the area tho, is that there are witchy things all over- Bottom of the cup tea house (est.1929), Madame Laveau’s (east end of Bourbon), Hexes, & all kinds of other stores & booths that will do tarot, palmistry or tea leaves. For jazz- the best spots are all along Frenchman street in the east. The spotted cat was my favourite, but Snug Harbour & the Blue nile also had great music spilling out of them every time I walked by. 

I should mention Bourbon street I guess too, it’s the biggest bar scene for sure. So much more hoaky- neon lights- the whole 9. I mean, New Orleans is a fanatastic city to party in. Seeing how I’m not having that kind of trip, I’ve pretty successfuly avoided the most intense part of Bourbon street. 

[xtoxicblueberry]

((not my art, that was done by the wonderful, and lovely @ronyascribbles)

“ I will help you if so desired, if you need my staff or bow just call me. ”

Name: Kari Age: 20-24 Gender: Female Nationality: Nohrian Race: Human Birthday: 08/02

Height: 5'4" (162.56 cm ) Eye color: Apple green Hair color: Light blue Hair style: Typically up, mainly in twin tails. She will wear it in a bun if she’s either in the bath house or its just a super hot day. Though she will wear it down at times. Clothing style: Other then her adventure outfit that she wears to battle; she typically wears comfy clothes. Tank tops and short shorts or pants, depending on the weather. Her clothes are typically black.

Hobies: walking Around, exploring, window shopping. Likes: Talking to people she gets along with, playing with Animals, looking at things she finds interesting, almost all things sweet, ice coffee, relaxing, enjoying nature, making up stories about her scars and seeing how far she can go and what people would believe, stimulating conversation, storms, and rainy weather. Dislikes: Being around so many people, being touched in any way, by a person, unless she is very close with said person, talking to someone she just met, messy things, getting dirty, chocolate flavored things.

Personal Skill: Vigilante - Grants +20 Hit/Str/Crit if attacking a unit that has attacked another unit without a weapon equipped.

Affiliation: None (Recruitable in Birthright, Conquest, and Revelation. )

Roster: A traveling young woman without a set destination. Cold and distant, she is hard to befriend. If you gain her trust she will become a very loyal and trust worthy friend. Most likely to comfort others in distress. Born August 2nd.

History: Kari was born a high class Noble, her father was a leader of one of the higher up fractions from one of the many armies under King Garon, her father was a great Knight and her birth mother was a troubadour. They met in the army. Shortly after Kari’s birth, the mother was killed on the battle field. Her Father developed the habit to get Kari any and everything she could ever want; going above and beyond what she would ask for. He became doting and spoiled her. Though she didn’t like it, her father had her take many lessons, some consist of Piano, violin, dance, chess, singing, stiching and anything else that he felt a proper lady should know how to do. To try and make sure the loss of her mother didn’t affect her to much, he remarried. The woman had the wicked step mom Syndrome, she never wanted children. She would act innocent and kind in front of Kari’s father, but once he wasn’t there she would be mean and horrid. She was a pure Noble woman, both her parents came from money, she never worked a day in her life. She was a floozy and only looked for money in men. She cared more about her social status and looks above all else. She would never allowed Kari to call her “mother” or “mom” though she was in her life for many years. Kari was mainly raised by butlers and maids, due to the demanding hours of her fathers job. This caused her to say humble and kind. The maids and Butler’s tought her many life skills, such as cooking and proper cleaning techniques. she would often help them out with chorus, for fun. When she was still young, but old enough to take care of her self, her father died in battle. Leaving her with the step mom whom really didn’t want anything to do with her. One night, she slipped poison into Kari’s food, though an elderly maid whom took care of Kari since she was born stopped it from ever reaching her. Thus as punishment, the woman made the maid eat the food, losing the closest thing to a mother she had left. After Kari’s father passed, her step mom would bring home a different man every night. One night, the man she took home turned out to be a thief. Him and his small gange turned over the house killing all who lived there. With the help of some maids and Butler’s, Kari managed to stay hidden for a long time, but once he found her he tried to end her life. Though he failed, the man did however leave a large scar going down the left side of her face and partly her neck causing her to have nerve damage on most her face and lose eyesight in that eye. Once she was able to move around once more, she went to an old friend of her fathers. He managed to save her eye. Once he fixed her, and she was fully healed, she left. She now wonders around, she does what she needs to do to survive.

RECRUITMENT

Birthright Recruitment Recruited In: Chapter 12: Dark Reunion Recruitment: The Avatar must talk to her. Starting Class: Adventurer Starting Level: 16 Motivations for joining the Avatar: She wants to help end the war.

Conquest Recruitment Recruited In: Chapter 14: Voice of Paradise Recruitment: The Avatar must talk to her. Starting Class: Adventurer Starting Level: 16 Motivations for joining the Avatar: She wants to help end the War.

Revelation Recruitment Recruited In: Chapter 13: A lost Peace Recruitment: The Avatar must talk to her. Starting Class: Adventurer Starting Level: 16 Motivations for joining the Avatar: She wants to help end the war.

UNIT STATS

Asset: Speed Flaw: Resistance Skill(s): Point Blank, Luna, Resistance +2, Locktouch, Pass Weapon(s): Killer bow, Recover, Mend Class Sets: Adventurer                   Heart Seal > Maid

SUPPORTS

Romance Supports: Corrin (M), Jakob, Kaze, Saizo, Subaki, Silas, Xander, Azama, Hayato, Kaden, Hinata, Ryoma, Takumi, Arthur, Keaton, Odin, Leo, Laslow, Benny, Shura, Niles.

Other Supports: Corrin (F), Felicia, Rinkah, Orochi, Setsuna, Mozu, Oboro, Kagera, Nyx, Beruka, Peri, Charlotte, Selena, Asugi, Dwyer, Sigure, Sophie, Shiro, Kiragi, Selki, Mitama, Rhajat, Siegbert, Forrest, Ignatius, Velouria, Soleil, Nina.

Ideal (‘Canon’) Spouse: Keaton or Shura

QUOTES

Event Tile: “ Hum? What’s this? ” (item) “ No such thing as to much practice.. ” (exp) “ Hmm.. I feel I’m improving.. ” (weapon proficiency)

Level Up: “ Wow! I impress myself sometimes! ” (6+) “ There’s always room for improvement.  ” (4-5) “ Do I disappoint you? ” (2-3) “ Tch, that’s it?  ” (0-1) “ forgive me! ” (0-1, most skills capped)

Class Change: “ This is new.. ”

Support: “ I got your back! ” “ I’ll help you! ” “ don’t worry I got you! ” ” I’ll keep you safe! ” “ I’m here for you! ” “ Who’s the enemy here? Hehee kidding~” “ Don’t back down! ”

Attack Stance: “ Let me have a go! ” “ I’ll take a shot! ” “ My turn! ” “ Time to strike! ”

Guard Stance: “ Time and place! ” “ I thought I was the blind one! ” “ I won’t let them hurt you! ”

Critical / Skill: “ I have no mercy for scum like you. ” “ I’ll make you pay! ” “ I won’t hold back! ” “ I’ll shoot you down! ”

Defeated Enemy: “ On to the next. ” “ To easy. ” “ I suppose that was amusing. ”

Partner Defeated Enemy: “ Nice shot! ” “ I missed that do it again! ” “ killer shot! Hehe. ”

When Healed: “ This is a nice change of pace. ” “ Thanks! ” “ Who are you again? Kidding~”

Defeated by Enemy: “ I-I didn’t see you coming.. ”

Death Quote: “ This is it..  Mother.. Father.. I’ll.. See you Soon.. “

Retreat Quote: “ Ugh! It’s to blurry, I can’t tell who is who! I have to fall back! I don’t want to hurt an ally”

DLC Battle Quotes: Boo Camp “ You’re the monsters everyone’s talking about? You aren’t so scary.. I’ll show you true horror! ” Museum Melee “ Ooo ~ I see something shiny ~ that’s mine now hehee” Ghostly Gold “ Huh… Ghosts… Who would have though.. All well, time to die again~” Anna on the run “ I know my eyesight isn’t the best.. But I think I’m seeing double.. ”

Confession Quote: “ I don’t need my sight to see how much you mean to me. You have my heart now and forever…. (I hope you know what you’re getting in to. Hehee)”

MY CASTLE QUOTES

Castle Grounds Alone - ” Talk about a sugar rush! “ (surge) - ” I snuck in some training, I hope it paid off. “ (weapon proficiency) - ” This is NOT where this belongs, who left it here? “ (item) - ” What do you think will look good on me? “ (accessory)   - ” Wow! Thank you! “ (accessory given)   - ” So pretty! “ (accessory given)   - ” Is.. This a joke? “ (accessory given, not liked)   - ” Hehe thanks shall I try it on now? “ (Bath Towel given)   - ” Hehee thank you, this means a lot to me. “ (Friendship birthday present)   - ” Ahh hehee you know me so well ~ I love this so much! I’ll cherish it always. “ (Lover birthday present) - ” Hmm? Did you need something? “ (idle) - ” W-what? No I was not just dancing! “ (idle) - ” La laa la ~ W-whaa!! H-how long have you been there?! “ (idle) - ” Is someone there? Hehe ~ I’m kidding! I see you just fine. “ (idle) - ” Wow aren’t you cute ~ don’t I know you from somewhere? Hehe “ (idle, married) - “oh? A new face I see, let me know if you need anything. ” (visiting another castle)

Asking - Normal “ What has you so happy? Did something good happen? ” (happy) “ What do you think your future holds for you? ” (dreams) “ I’ll watch your backside- I mean back in the next battle, sound good? ” (team up) “ Indulge me in my curiosity… How do you spend your down time? ” (free time)

Replying - Normal “ I love the feeling I get when I finish cleaning. ” (happy) “ I hope to find true happiness one day. ” (dreams) “ Alright, no promises I won’t mistake you for the enemy ~ I’m kidding,  I’m kidding! ” (team up) “ I often walk beyond the camp boarders, or wonder around the forest. ” (free time)

Private Quarters Friendship “ You called me for something? ” (invite) “ I baked some cookies, want one? No I didn’t put salt instead of sugar in them this time. ” (invite) “ Hehee now this will be fun ~ ” (invite, MU is married)

Lovers “ Hey! I finished cleaning up, don’t mess it up. ” (greeting) “ I missed you! Don’t leave me again.. ” (greeting) “ I-I’ve been practicing my violin.. Would you mind listening? ” (greeting) “ Hehee that’s the best sight to wake up to. ” (awakening, good) “ Do that again and you will regret it.. ” (awakening, bad) “ My hair is such a pain to dry.. ” (greeting, cool down) “ Hehee thanks that felt nice ~ your turn now ~ ” (cooling down successful) “ Oh my! How beautiful! Thank you! ” (flowers)

Bonding “ If that’s all you need, mind if I go? ” (friendship bonding) “ It was a pleasure spending this time with you. Invite me again some time. ” (friendship bonding) “ I’m glad we can spend this time together..   These are the happiest moments of my day. ” (lover bonding) “ I just want to hold you in my arms and never let go.. Promise you won’t leave me.. ” (lover bonding) “ Come here for a moment, Hehee I’m not going to bit you… (See, I told you I wouldn’t bite you, This time. Hehe) ” (kiss)

Extras/little quirks: She won’t dule someone unless there is a wager of some sort; even if she manages to win she will let the other party have their winnings as well. After her father passed away she continues to practice all the things he wanted her to learn when ever she can. Typically after doing one of them she would cry a little and say softly to her self,  “are you proud papa? ” or “am I improving father? ” she can be fairly vain when it comes to her hair, she takes pride in its soft silky texture. When she’s in deep thought she will twirl the ends of her hair. Because of the damage to her left side of her face, she can no longer produce tears from that eye. The left eye is also significantly lighter in color, and has a small thin line down it from where it was cut. Though she hates chocolate flavored things she loves normal chocolate. If she eats anything remotely spicy she turns red and gets sick, if it’s really spicy she will pass out. She is very flexible and uses it to an advantage in hand to hand fighting.

#fire emblem #Fire emblem fates #Fire emblem if #original character #fatesona

[one-additional-time]

Intro - June, 2013 [Translated]

Here is a great RAM-era interview I found on Issuu.com! There’s discussion about the guest musicians, real instruments vs electronic equipment, the lyrics, why new music takes them so long, and the RAM marketing campaign. Fair warning that I do not speak German, and this was done via Google Translate and WordReference.com, so it’s loosely translated at best, but it is nice readable English.

“ONLY THE MUSIC” Intro Magazine, June 2013

Eight years ago, Daft Punk released their last studio album Human After All. Now, Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo are back: Random Access Memories, their most elaborate work, is completely without outside samples and is based on a cross-generational guest list. Together with Giorgio Moroder, Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams, and six other guest musicians, they explore a spectrum of sounds ranging from West Coast Pop to disco, to contemporary house and R&B.

The Random Access Memories project was subject to extreme secrecy. Following a strict schedule set by the two Frenchmen, it was revealed to the public little by little via advertising clips on Saturday Night Live and at the Coachella Festival. Sebastian Ingenhoff and Thomas Venker speak exclusively with Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo about the album’s different production methods, the slow work pace, the guest musicians, and the long-awaited lyrics.

Daft Punk, why did you choose the title Random Access Memories? Thomas Bangalter: It is about the interrelationship between computer memory and human memory, which is more and more being replaced by digital technologies. Technological progress plays an important role nowadays, it is being integrated into everyday life more and more and so has a real impact on human behavior. We have always been interested in futuristic ideas, as you can tell from the robot personas we assume on stage. Robot figures, which shift between artificial intelligence and human behavior, are a recurring theme in science fiction.

On your album, however, you did not use computer technology. The tracks were done with analog equipment and guest musicians. So you are “human after all”! Thomas: That’s true, but it’s still the same music. You can achieve precise craftsmanship in an analogous way and also have a certain robotic quality. It works on a different level than artificial intelligence. The human aspect of electronic music has always interested us. How do you make music that is mainly produced with synthesizers and sequencers come to life? Lifeless electronic music is synonymous with bad music.

You were able to get two pioneers of dance music together as guest musicians, Giorgio Moroder and Nile Rodgers. Moroder, for example, took up techno at the start with Donna Summer’s 1977 production “I Feel Love”. Thomas: We wanted to represent a broad spectrum to carry the past into the future, to draw a connecting line through the decades. Not in an archival sense, but with a clear view of the future. Giorgio Moroder may be over seventy years old, but he still has something to say, and he does more contemporary work than a lot of young producers. We wanted to create something that is timeless but also contemporary.

The piece with Giorgio Moroder is a good nine minutes long. It starts with a monologue in which he first reflects on himself and his work, before handing the stage over to a meandering track that shows what freedom music can have. Did he come up with that idea himself? Thomas: We wanted to document the history of his music. Where did Giorgio come from? What kind of circumstances did he face when he invented techno? Did it come about by accident or was it due to his ideas of futuristic music? This is of course something archival, but then comes this incredible song with incredible synthesizers and a great hookline. You can immediately recognize Giorgio Moroder’s style. But also our style – at least I hope so.  It was about the line connecting us. We want to show that today’s dance music would not be possible without the dance music from the 1970s.

The other disco-era icon on the album is guitarist Nile Rodgers, who is still very busy – he was just on tour with Chic and in the studio with Tensnake. How was it collaborating with him? Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo: He is now over sixty years old, but insanely energetic and young at heart. It was incredible to be able to work with him. He still comes across as a child, totally enthusiastic and engaged. If you feel Nile Rodgers’ energy, then you realize that physical age says nothing about a person. He was very ill, he had cancer. When you have conquered a disease like that, you live your life more consciously and intensely. He is incredibly productive and always wants to do three things at a time. Thomas: He told us an incredibly beautiful story about the making of Chic’s “I Want Your Love”.  When Nile first heard “I Feel Love” by Moroder and Donna Summer, he thought, “Wow, this guy’s playing is super tight, this is incredibly fast and precise.” When he realized the tightness came from the sequencer, he wanted to bring that into his guitar playing. So he followed the sequencer. And this is how “I Want Your Love” by Chic came about! Listen to both pieces one by one and pay attention to the guitar playing. It’s amazing. No one knew that until now. Nile is a huge fan of Giorgio Moroder. And vice versa, Giorgio is also a big Chic fan. But they never really worked together. On Random Access Memories they have finally come together. Obviously that makes us proud!

On the other hand, you recruited young producers like Gonzales, Panda Bear, and Pharrell for the album. Thomas: Exactly: “Past, present, future”. They are all producers we like and who have touched us somehow. Take the tracks with Pharrell Williams and Nile Rodgers – the most innovative R&B producer of the past decade meets the most brilliant disco guitarist in the world. The guests on the album are virtuosos in their field and were able to make a real contribution to our ideas. Neither Guy-Manuel nor I are outstanding at the piano — Gonzales, however, is certainly one of the best pianists in the world. So he was able to contribute something that we could never have done in our lives. We did not just want big names, but rather contributions that made sense.

The lyrics are about the search for love, the essence of life, the hedonistic escapism of the night — and all the abysses connected with it, the dramas and losses. That’s typical of disco, that the music is often very uplifting but the lyrics are contradictory. That is tradition, even so for Chic. Thomas: Dance music needs that emotional depth, that contrast of sadness and happiness. It is always easier to create something that is sad or happy. But to combine both in a song, that is art. Guy-Manuel: That’s the great thing: you can be incredibly happy and be crying at the same time. Ideally when you’re dancing, you feel like a volcanic eruption, bubbling over in all directions. It’s not just black and white, but many shades between. Our albums have always tried to represent a broad spectrum of feelings. There are very dark tracks from us, but you can still play them in a club because they might have an uplifting bass line or a nice melody.

This year is your anniversary: 20 years of Daft Punk. Yet you have announced you will not be performing live this year. Why? Guy-Manuel: There is no need to rush. We have completely invested the past few years in the record, now we want to enjoy the anniversary. Thomas: We want people to focus on the album and not on us standing on stage. It should be something special with a very particular value — after all, it was a very ambitious undertaking. Guy-Manuel: For many, a new album is just an excuse to go back on tour. That’s where they can make money. But we want it to have a special appreciation and not be just a flashy stage show. That’s why we’ve said from the outset: Here’s the record, and it stands on its own. No music videos, no tour, only the music.

You started in 1993 as young bedroom producers. Now for the new album you have worked in several big studios like Ampex in Los Angeles and Electric Lady in New York. How did that affect writing the tracks? Thomas: Was our songwriting process really different than before? We have never thought of electronic music as computer music, as something that you sort of spit out. It has always been about capturing and preserving a special moment. When we started, it was much more chaotic than it is now. We had a bunch of drum machines and a couple of good ideas we could feed into them. But we never wanted to control the equipment like a computer, rather appreciate it as a living thing. As an organism. Now we are doing the same thing with real instruments. If you do punk rock and suddenly everyone else starts doing punk rock, it would get boring at some point. Then maybe you want to compose an opera, just to see if you can bring punk rock into it. Then opera becomes the new punk rock. Guy-Manuel: Now electronic dance music has become very uniform. With the computer, anyone can put tracks together, but often they are only presets that have been strung together. It’s not a challenge. We want to make music that is more than a few mouse clicks. We want to have emotion and soul. Just something human. Bangalter: It’s hard to program emotion on a computer. Analog synthesizers give you a mix of different sounds, but they never sound sterile. It is much different than a computer. If you then add in elements like a Fender Rhodes and a keyboard, you can create poetry. You can’t produce an album with a few mouse clicks. Obviously this is a very conservative point of view. But just imagine what would have happened if the few people who make interesting music on the computer would have used real instruments.

But Chicago house, which greatly influenced you, relied on this difference. It was a statement against submissiveness, a revolution in the sense that you no longer had to master instruments to produce music. It was about being creative with something simple like a drum machine and a sampler. Guy-Manuel: Of course, and the music always sounded very warm. Chicago House had soul and depth, something you find in few dance tracks now. Maybe because at the time they were using real synthesizers and real drum machines. It might have been produced quickly, but it was made with a lot of attention to detail. When I’m at a club and there’s a Robert Armani track on, I can instantly distinguish it from the mush of beats. However I cannot tell most contemporary dance tracks apart, a lot of it just sounds boring to me.

Your first album Homework was the blueprint of a somewhat more brutal sound that was cultivated a few years later by the label Ed Banger. Pedro Winter was also your manager for a while. Are you following the Parisian scene now? Thomas: Ed Banger is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year. Pedro comes from our generation, we started at the same time and have been experiencing similar advancements. We share the same interests and preferences. It’s nice to see that they’ve found their way and that this sound lives on. It’s hard for artists and labels to stay on the ball for years and years, because the scene changes: younger people grow up and want different sounds. If you’re still around after so long, then you’ve done something right.

In twenty years you’ve only released four studio albums. You take a lot of time. Thomas: We have to do it like that, because it gets increasingly more difficult to reinvent ourselves. You want to become more complex and not a caricature of yourself. Many older musicians keep making the same thing out of convenience, because they are afraid to lose their fans. But that’s bullshit. If you don’t have any challenges to face as a musician you might want to retire. We take a lot of time because we want to reach a higher level with each album. Like a video game. That’s why the latest album is always the most difficult for us.

As a marketing gimmick you aired two fifteen-second commercials on Saturday Night Live. What was the idea behind the campaign? Thomas: It was supposed to be very small teasers that don’t give away too much but arouse curiosity. Like a good commercial. We intentionally didn’t want anyone to hear any songs in full. Physical marketing through print magazines, TV stations, and billboards just has a better vibe than online marketing. It fits better for us, because we grew up with that. All of this online marketing is not very poetic. We make the tools available to people and they can do with them what they want. We don’t use the internet much ourselves. Of course we shot an elaborate video that we put on YouTube, but that’s not exactly what we wanted this time.

But at the same time you are known for your spectacular music videos. You’ve worked with major music video directors like Spike Jonze and Michel Gondry in the past. Thomas: Many say our clips were revolutionary, but the revolution was that we didn’t make any. After the two fifteen-second videos came a slightly longer performance video with Nile Rodgers, Pharrell Williams, and our two robots. But it’s not a music video, it’s more like an advertisement.  In either case it’s pretty funny. I don’t think you can really surprise people with music videos anymore in the internet age. That’s why you have to move forward, giving yourself challenges and new formats to utilize, both on a musical and an aesthetic level. Random Access Memories is a complete piece of artwork that must first be absorbed. For me that could go on for more than a year. What comes after that? A tour? A film? We’ll see.

—

THE HISTORY OF DAFT PUNK Through the years with Homem-Christo and Bangalter

1974 On February 8th Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo is born in Paris.

1975 On January 3rd Thomas Bangalter is born in Paris.

1992 de Homem-Christo and Bangalter form the rock band Darlin’ with Phoenix musician Laurent Brancowitz. The British magazine Melody Maker described their demo as “a dafty punky trash” - a historically significant phrase.

1993 Bangalter and de Homem-Christo change their sound, creating a techno house group and naming it Daft Punk.

1994 Scotsman Stuart McMillan reacts euphorically to their hand-delivered demo “The New Wave” and signs the two to his label Soma. As a result the three singles “The New Wave / Assault / Wave”, “Da Funk / Rollin’ & Scratchin’”, and “Into Silver Club” are released.

1995 Daft Punk move to the major record label Virgin, sending Da Funk up the charts with a bigger marketing campaign.

Thomas Bangalter forms the label Roulé.

1996 The last photo of the two in which you can see their faces is shot in May 1996.

1997 Daft Punk’s first album is released on January 17th. Homework makes them well-known outside the club scene. Among the biggest hits of the album are Da Funk, Around The World, and Revolution 909.

Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, together with Eric Chedeville, forms the label Crydamoure and the group Le Knight Club.

1998 Bangalter, together with Alan Braxe and Benjamin Diamond as Stardust, releases the hit single “Music Sounds Better With You”.

Bangalter and de Homem-Christo go into the studio with Romanthony. One of the songs from this session, “One More Time”, is released two years later as a single and, with more than four million copies sold, becomes the duo’s biggest hit so far.

2001 On March 9th their second album Discovery is released. In addition to Romanthony, there are guest appearances by DJ Sneak and Todd Edwards. It will go on to sell three million copies.

For music videos of Discovery’s single releases Daft Punk use excerpts from Interstella 5555, a musical they produced with anime director Leiji Matsumoto.

2002 Thomas Bangalter’s partner, the actress Élodie Bouchez, gives birth to their son Tarra-Jay on January 22nd.

Bangalter produces part of the soundtrack for the controversial French film Irreversible by Gaspar Noé. He also later worked on the soundtrack of its successor, Enter The Void [Note: Not really true, Thomas did help a little bit but was busy with Tron at the time; he is credited on this film as a “sound effects director”].

On July 8th, LCD Soundsystem releases their song “Losing My Edge”, in which James Murphy sings about being the first guy playing Daft Punk to the rock kids.

2005 On March 14th their third album Human After All is released. It’s a harbinger of Daft Punk’s later period of sampleless-ness.

On February 21st LCD Soundsystem released their hit song “Daft Punk Is Playing At My House”.

2009 Daft Punk produce the soundtrack of Tron: Legacy. The album is released on December 6th.

2010 On October 20th Daft Punk make a guest appearance at the Phoenix show at Madison Square Garden. They play a mix of “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger”, “Around The World”, and “1901”.

2013 On May 17th Random Access Memories is released. For the duo it is one of the most important moments of their career, “because the best is always yet to come,” says Bangalter. “You must not think retrospectively.”

#daft punk #interviews #translations #RAM

[theonyxpath]

…And he says he has a mission for you and your valiant pioneer friends. In less than two wags of their tails, you are all ready to follow the cryptic map the stranger has given you, and off for adventure!

That could be how a session of Fetch Quest starts. Story-wise.

Part of the fun, and part of what we’ll be exploring, with Fetch Quest is how the card game connects with the TTRPG. You can play it as a straight-up card game, you can add in your own characters as the pioneers going on the quests, you can role-play the challenges as well as solve them mechanically with the card game rules, and we’re looking at how a card set of missions could be transformed into a TTRPG adventure.

What I’m saying is, if the Kickstarter goes well, we have some ideas to explore.

In any case, the Kickstarter starts at 2pm Eastern US time Tuesday the 22nd – which is tomorrow as I write this. Here’s one of the videos we created to give more details about Fetch Quest:

As always, I have no idea if this one will do well, or even fund. You’d think after thirty of them I’d get blase, but I’m not. It’s still exciting and I always can’t tell if what we’re doing will be interesting enough and exciting enough to get folks pledging. We’ve all worked to make this one fun to follow, and Jaunty James Bell has proven to be an engaging “Kickstarter Concierge” as he titles himself, so it should be pretty cool. See ya there, good dogs!

    Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition illustration by Michael Gaydos

    Meanwhile, we posted a short Onyx Pathcast last Friday announcing that the team feel so confident and excited about the response to the first three episodes that they will now be doing it weekly! So make sure to subscribe to PodBean or whatever podcast service you use, and get ready for your weekly dose of insider info about Onyx Path and our projects, game design, gaming in general, professional wrestling, and general good-natured repartee.

And here is the link and their third visual treatment by our old friend and first edition Trinity developer Charlie Bates:

https://onyxpathcast.podbean.com/e/special-episode-one-youre-doing-great-kid/

We had a lot of fun doing this shorter special edition Onyx Pathcast, and yes, I said we as I joined Dixie and Matthew and basically pretended to weasel them into going weekly. Now, what you hear there is not what happened in real life as they all came to me with the weekly idea, but we thought we’d go broad and I’d be sort of a cross between an evil Stan Lee and P.T. Barnum. Hope it’s as much fun to listen to as it was to perform!

This week’s episode will be their interview with Impish Ian Watson, and these are some of the things they cover:

Ian talks about his history with the Trinity Continuum pitch, through the CCP merger, and into the creation of Onyx Path – Ian’s love for the Trinity line goes back to 1997.

We talk about rabbit holes and why we love what we love.

The dynamics of the Trinity Continuum design team, and how awesome Danielle Lauzon is.

How the Storypath System came to be and how we reframe Storypath between TrinityStorypath and They Came From.

Reexamining how we do the development process, and how we are trying new things for Aberrant.

Ian talks about his Community Manager role.

What’s exciting about this new version of Trinity – Aegis! Anima! (Maybe) – Trinity as a pop culture toolbox.

We answer some forum questions (did yours get answered? Listen to find out!)

We talk about fonts! Fonts are cool!

Aberrant‘s diversity.

Ian’s contributions to Vampire: Bloodlines.

So, just chock full of great conversation, and going live on Friday.

    Scion Origin art by Gregor Pedrycz

  And here are some quick notes that came out of our Monday Meeting today:

Our sales partner Indie Press Revolution (IPR) is starting their month-long sale of Chronicles of Darkness Prestige Kickstarter Editions today! http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Onyx-Path-Publishing/

  We often talk about our forums, comments sections, and Facebook and Twitter presence, and here are two more places you can connect with other Onyx Path fans: our Reddit areas: non-WW games: https://reddit.com/r/OnyxPathRPG/ and WW games: https://reddit.com/r/WhiteWolfRPG and here’s a link to our new Facebook community page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/419273928504341/

  Just to let folks know, since the various Kickstarter communities may not actually overlap all that much, we have shipped the Deluxe Changeling: The Dreaming last month, are looking good to start shipping the Prince’s Gambit casual Vampire: The Masquerade card game this month, and should be shipping Deluxe V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary next month. Phew!

  And along those lines, we’re going to be sending the Backer PDFs out for Cavaliers of Mars this week! Here’s the gorgeous cover:

  So, wrapping this up, I also took to heart your comments about pruning the Blurbs! section of this blog, and while I still want to consolidate the Amazon epub section, I think you’ll already find it a lot less bloated. We are also looking into the suggestion that we set up tabs featuring our various sales partners as a fixed place to locate them, and I’ll be able to only “blurb” new stuff.

Thanks for all your help. With all that we are doing, it can sometimes be an important task to find the best way to communicate all the great things that are happening with our…

Many Worlds, One Path!

    BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Fetch Quest, the adventure card game set in the Realms of Pugmire is going live tomorrow Tuesday, May 22 at 2pm Eastern US time! That’s 2pm, not noon like most of our other Kickstarters!

      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).

Our latest offering is the Mage 20 Cookbook, now in a convenient Kindle ebook version! https://www.amazon.com/Mage-Cookbook-World-Darkness-Enlightened-ebook/dp/B07C71BRDC/

Nook version is coming soon!

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)

And here are the Champions of the Scarred Lands fiction anthology and the Huntsmen Chronicles anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition!

    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: http://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

      DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

  For the first time since it was originally published, we now have the Champions of the Scarred Lands fiction anthology as a physical book, available as a PoD on DTRPG and going live this Wednesday!

      Pan’s Guide to New Pioneers has found its way through the wilderness to arrive in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG! http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/239620/Pans-Guide-for-New-Pioneers

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers

When a devastating flood hits Pugmire, all manner of bad dogs, opportunistic rats, and manipulative cats take advantage of the kingdom. Good dogs try to turn the tide, but searching the dangerous wilderness for a way to heal the land is no easy task. If only there existed brave dogs to lay down the way for other intrepid pioneers…

It is time for a new group of heroes to set out on a chaotic and risky adventure! Armed with a guide prepared by the daring dog Pan Dachshund, fabulous treasure and great recognition await them. All these pioneers need do is explore the wilds, discover the key to Pugmire’s salvation, and return in one piece!

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers includes:

A full Pugmire adventure, aimed at people brand new to roleplaying games and experienced players alike!

Rules laid out and explained for every encounter and challenge in the adventure.

Snippets of Pan’s journal presented for enjoyable reading or integration into the game.

Ready-made characters so a game of Pugmire can commence as soon as you open this book.

Hyperlinks to video footage for those who prefer to follow along in different mediums.

        CONVENTIONS!

Matthew Dawkins, Steffie de Vaan, and Mighty Matt McElroy will be at the UK Games Expo next week running games and talking shop with fans and retailers.

Prep is also underway for Gen Con 2018 in August, which takes place in Indianapolis, IN. In addition to our booth presence, be sure to check out the games and panels in the Gen Con Event Schedule.

From Fast Eddy Webb, we have these:

Eddy will be speaking at Broadleaf Writers Conference (September 22-23) in Decatur, GA. He’ll be there to talk about writing for interactive fiction, and hanging out with other writers who have far more illustrious careers. http://broadleafwriters.com/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference/3rd-annual-broadleaf-writers-conference-speakers/

Eddy will also be a featured guest at Save Against Fear (October 12-14) in Harrisburg, PA. He’ll be running some Pugmire games, be available for autographs, and will sometimes accept free drinks. http://www.thebodhanagroup.org/about-the-convention

If you are going and want to meet up, let us know!

    And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM FAST EDDY WEBB (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 The Technocracy Reloaded (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Victorian Mage (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

CofD Dark Eras 2 (Chronicles of Darkness)

C20 Players’ Guide (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Wr20 Book of Oblivion (Wraith: The Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition)

Aeon Aexpansion (Trinity Continuum: Aeon)

In Media Res (Trinity Continuum: Core)

Trinity Continuum: Aberrant core (Trinity Continuum: Aberrant)

Lunars: Fangs at the Gate (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Tales of Excellent Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

Dog and Cat Ready Made Characters (Monarchies of Mau)

Adventures for Curious Cats (Monarchies of Mau)

  Redlines

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

Spilled Blood (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

Night Horrors: Shunned by the Moon (Werewolf: The Forsaken 2nd Edition)

  Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

CofD Contagion Chronicle (Chronicles of Darkness)

Dystopia Rising: Evolution (Dystopia Rising: Evolution)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

Fetch Quest (Pugmire)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

Guide to the Night (Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

  Editing:

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

  Indexing:

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Hero – Last art notes and contracts being sent.

Trinity Continuum – Yep… workin on it.

Geist 2e

The Realm

M20 Gods and Monsters

Ex3 Dragon Blooded – Wave 2 art in progress

Monarchies of Mau– Artwork in progress.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Wraith 20 Screen – I’ll pull this together while doing errata. I got the list from Dansky of what tables to pull… just want to make sure they are right.

Fetch Quest – KS stuff all done for tomorrow.

EX3 Dragon Blooded – firming up layout and backgrounds while waiting for new art.

  Proofing

Scion Origin – PDF almost ready for in-Onyx review.

Boggans – Waiting for WW approval.

Monarchies of Mau – Filling in XXs and prepping alpha PDF.

Changeling: the Lost 2

Wr20 Guide for Newly Departed – Art in Progress… book pretty much layed out.

  At Press

Beckett Screen – At shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – Shipping from fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Prince’s Gambit – At fulfillment shipper, prepping for KS ship-out.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– Set to arrive at fulfillment shipper this week.

Scion Dice – At fulfillment shipper.

Wraith 20 – Errata being input.

SL Champions of the Scarred Lands Anthology PoD – PoD on sale this week at DTRPG.

Cavaliers of Mars – Backer PDF out to backers this week.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Tomorrow is Mighty Matt McElroy’s birthday! We could not have built up Onyx Path all these years without Matt, so please celebrate with us that dark and stormy night he was born!

#Onyx Path Publishing

[theonyxpath]

Aaaah, what does Jon Snow know, anyway?

(The answer is “nothing”.)

But we know that we’ve themed our Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition Kickstarter to change from season to season, week to week. This week, we’re finishing up Winter, and next up is Spring and all the growth that promises.

But right now, Winter rules and with it a post-Thanksgiving sense of lingering thankfulness.

Maybe it was attending PAX Unplugged in my hometown of Philly a couple of weeks ago just two blocks from the hobby store where I bought the original D&D Monster Manual, then a wonderful family Thanksgiving, and then getting back together with an old friend and gaming buddy from our college years after ten years yesterday, but I’m in the mood to tell you about how I got into this tabletop gaming thing of ours while expressing some thanks.

(Feel free to skip to THE BLURBS! and the Updates, if anything pre-White Wolf causes your eyes to glaze over. This is pre-history, dude.)

      Half Damned art by Michele Giorgi

      Here’s the preamble: I started serious tabletop gaming in my sophomore year of HS (Central HS in Philly, class 239) by walking into the Strategy & Tactics Society where about a dozen guys were playing board games like Squad Leader and Wooden Ships and Iron Men.

You want to see where checking off heatsinks in BattleTech came from? That’s your game; you checked off hull, rigging, etc. Also probably influenced Star Fleet Battles.

Anyway, I was amazed because I had never met anyone who wanted to play Avalon Hill and other tactical boardgames. Besides myself. So I stayed and played, and within a couple of weeks I heard that Robert was coming back, and he was ready to DM.

I had no idea who this guy was, or what a DM was, but this was apparently big news to the group who were into this new style of gaming called Dungeons and Dragons. A bunch of the other gamers in the club were not happy with it; it wasn’t real gaming, they said. Apparently, we had all been waiting for Robert to get his hands on a book of new rules called Blackmoor. Sure, whatever you say.

Well, I did sit in on the session when Robert returned, and while my Halfling Thief was hardly an original fantasy character concept, I was enthralled by this combination of improv theatre and wargaming where I could discover the world that started on sheets of graph paper that Robert scribbled on in response to our questions – a tree here, a pool of mud there – but was so much bigger and richer in my mind.

And Robert was amazing. The way he worked with each player to include their ideas, but kept his conception of this world of his constant, was like watching a narrative grow. Like sitting next to Moorcock, Tolkien, or Leiber, and suggesting ideas. I didn’t know anything like this existed! So my first Thanks go to Robert, my first DM, who inspired me to start my own campaign world not six months later.

A bunch of us took turns DMing as Robert faded away towards graduation, and not just D&D, but Boot Hill and Traveller as well. How we laughed as our intricately planned space military characters died in character creation! Good times.

    Enemy Action art by Andrew Trabbold

      But I DM’d D&D specifically, and began a consistent world that I fined-tuned over the Summer vacation, so that when we resumed playing in our club after school, and I had enough players that we could divide them into the good, neutral, and evil, teams, they all started in The City With No Name that sat astride the east/west and north/south trade routes nexus – and their adventures affected the city and the world.

Two years the gaming club guys played in that same world, many of them running through multiple characters. I graduated, went to art school twenty minutes from high school, so I returned to DM for the club some afternoons. Many of the folks who learned tabletop RPGs from playing these sessions became friends and we got together outside of the club, especially as they graduated and went to college too.

Meanwhile, I started DMing, same world, for a group of students at art school and their friends once a week. A bunch tried it, thought it was fun (or not) but didn’t keep up with it. But a core group loved it, and became the nucleus for a weekly gaming session that went on for twelve years. (I did not run all of those games, and we did miss some weeks, but it was mostly my D&D world).

And here is the next Thanks: I’m thankful that our group was mixed genders and races and that there was never an issue with prejudice within our group. There were affairs and jealousy and grudges and other human interactions, but for whatever reason I was lucky to have a group that saw this weird hobby as something that everyone could partake in and play in whatever way they felt good playing.

We had Mickey with her crafted storylines for her characters like Kwik the duck monk (Mistress of Kwak-Fu), and the brutish DW the half-ogre and his evil intelligent two-handed sword who did his thinking for him. Danilo with his “what’s next?” questions, and chaotic characters like Elmer who reincarnated into a troll. Jodie, who read every D&D book and magazine she got her hands on and knew all the gaming tricks for Yain Yarwa (Y-Squared) elven thief/assassin, and Isis, illusionist were-tiger. Chaka with his intricate strategies and plans that could take months to come to fruition, and Ed, who wrote up our sessions as chapters in a novel featuring his character Farcist, half-orc renegade.

In fact, our group only stopped playing because I moved to Georgia in 1992 to take over all Art Direction at White Wolf. We had been to hell and back together in our personal lives, and except for one guy who deserted us during those times, the group stuck together. When I moved, they were the ones who drove the rented vans with all my worldly goods down to GA.

Which brings me to now and several decades later. Because as of last year, most of the old crew have started to get together once a quarter. Sometimes for game night, sometimes for a movie, once for a wedding; always so we can talk with each other as only old friends can. Our kids are heading out into high school and college or into their own lives, and there is time again to get together with those people whose characters were once an adventuring party, but whose real lives have bonded even more tightly. My third Thanks goes to them.

So fourth Thanks: for forty years (this month) of this RPG hobby that set me on a career path and allowed me to make friends all the way through those times. My good gaming friends from high school and college and my WW friends and all the people I’ve befriended since then. Folks I’m simply glad to see at conventions, folks on-line, and those who have stood with me facing the hordes of hell.

Kind of getting inspired here; I may even start running my D&D world again…

Many Worlds. One Path.

  BLURBS!

KICKSTARTER:

Almost halfway through our KS campaign!

Our story so far: We funded in about a day, and have already blown through nine Stretch Goals and went past 200% funding before last weekend! The goals include the two novellas: Autumn and Winter, an art budget increase, two new sections for the Kith and Kin book that we’re calling the Book of Kiths, the first sections for the CtL2 Companion: Entitlements and Freeholds, and we added another 2 PDFs to our CtL 1st Edition PDF reward. And we’re just on the verge of adding another Kith section to that book!

We’ve also revealed excerpts with notes from the developers, and half the book text has been shown to backers so far.

Come along as the seasons change and we reveal the next chapters of the core book text to backers!

Next, our Trinity Continuum Kickstarter will start in early January!

  ON SALE NOW:

As we try and 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! Right now, they’re working on implementing multi-dice and die previews in the store, after adding in a lot of requested upgrades and tweaks, which is going along nicely but is a ton of work. Here are the links for the Apple and Android versions:

http://ift.tt/2zjnD0c

http://ift.tt/2hhT5Fk

Three different screenshots, above.

(The Solar Anima special Dice)

    ON AMAZON AND BARNES & NOBLE:

We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook stores 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). Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies:

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)

  And here are six more fiction books:

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)

  Andand six more more:

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)

  And even more books are now on Amazon and the Nook store!:

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!

http://ift.tt/2w0aaEW

    Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

And you can now order Pugmire: the book, the screen, and the dice! http://ift.tt/1pOsnTb

    DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

This Wednesday, we unveil Vampire: The Requiem 2e‘s Half-Damned as an Advance PDF on DTRPG.com!

I love her, she’s family, but I don’t love what she is.

– Antonio Ramírez, dhampir

This book includes: 

• An exploration of what it means to be one of the Half-Damned, dhampir, revenants or ghouls.

• Mechanics for creating Half-Damned characters.

• Information for creating and running chronicles using the various Half-Damned character types, both with vampires and alone.

• Information on Half-Damned antagonists for vampire chronicles.

      Legacy of Lies, the V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart, goes undead in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DTRPG:

http://ift.tt/2k981ql

TWO PRINCES. BITTER RIVALS. AND A COTERIE CAUGHT BETWEEN THEM. 

Marcus Verus, the vampiric Prince of Chester, secretly prepares to go into torpor. Should his plans be made public, the Prince knows the wolves — both real and imagined — would launch an attack, threatening all within his domain.

That’s where you come in.

Legacy of Lies includes:

Basic rules for players and Storytellers

Introduction to the Vampire: The Masquerade Dark Ages setting

Introductory adventure

Characters for players and Storytellers

      Appearing on DriveThruRPG is the Advance PDF for Arms of the Chosen for Exalted 3rd Edition! http://ift.tt/2A0ga4f

Take up the panoply of legendary heroes and lost ages, and awaken the world-shaking might of their Evocations. Before the dawn of time, the Exalted wielded god-metal blades to cast down the makers of the universe. In an ancient epoch of forgotten glories, Creation’s greatest artificers forged unimaginable wonders and miracle-machines.

Now, in the Age of Sorrows, kingdoms go to war over potent artifacts, scavenger princes risk everything to uncover relics of the past, and the Exalted forge great arms and armor on the anvil of legend. These treasures are yours to master.

Discover the mystical power of the five magical materials and the secrets of creating your own Evocations. Wield weapons of fabled might and don the armor of mythic heroes, making their puissance your own. Claim Creation’s wonders: the miraculous tools of the Chosen, living automatons, flying machines, hearthstones, and more. And unleash the mighty warstriders, titanic god-engines of conquest and devastation, to once more shake Creation with their footfalls.

      NOW on DriveThruCards, the Pugmire Card Set One (Trick, Condition, and Initiative Cards) are helpful visual aids for your Pugmire gaming fun! http://ift.tt/2zC3kuY

Enhance your Pugmire game with this set of player aid cards! These helpful visual aids make your Pugmire gaming easier! Lay them out next to your sheet for ease of reference during play, and to keep track of what you can do, what affects your character, and when they get to act.

Set one contains one card each of every trick in the game, as well as every condition. It also has a set of initiative cards to track player and non-player character actions during combat. Sets two and three (covering artisan and shepherd spells) coming soon!

      What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! PDF and physical book PoD versions available on DriveThruRPG.com. http://ift.tt/2sV8lZR

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing.  There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more!

      Is a life of running and hiding a life worth living? We say yes. There’s always something between the running and the hiding, and those moments of grace make it all worthwhile.

The Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology is a perfect companion piece to Changeling: The Lost, 2nd Edition. These stories spin tales of the Lost, of those abducted and enslaved by fairies. Those who escaped, but whose captors will stop at nothing to find them. These fairies summon forth the Huntsmen, primordial hunters who understand nothing but pursuit and capture. The Huntsmen are unstoppable monsters, and the Lost can only look to each other for respite, rare comfort, and rarer trust.

The Hedge has parted and you can get the Advance PDF of The Huntsmen Chronicle Fiction Anthology for Changeling: The Lost 2nd Edition at DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2z4uZnU

          A Land Where Legends Walk

Drawing enthusiastically on Greek mythology, the revised and re-imagined Scarred Lands nonetheless retains its place as a modern fantasy RPG setting. This is a world shaped by gods and monsters, and only the greatest of heroes can expect to be counted among them. The most populous continent of Scarn, Ghelspad, plays host to vast unexplored regions, hides unsolved riddles from ancient cultures, and taunts adventures with the promise of undiscovered riches hidden among the ruins of older civilizations.

Yet the myths of the Scarred Lands are relatively recent events. The effects of the Titanswar still ripple through the world, and the heroines and villains of many of these stories are part of living memory, if not still living.

The Award-Winning Fantasy Setting Returns

Scarred Lands has been a favorite fantasy setting since the release of the Creature Collection for the d20 System in 2000. In subsequent years, over 40 titles were published for Scarred Lands, making it one of the most fully supported fantasy RPG settings ever and the premiere product line of Sword & Sorcery Studios.

Available in both 5th Edition and Pathfinder compatible versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2fEO9YJ

http://ift.tt/2fELqyx

  Heroes, Villains, and Others in Between! 

This tome is a revision of the original book by the same title, originally published for use with 3rd edition rules for the world’s most popular roleplaying game. In this revised edition of The Wise & the Wicked, all the same characters have returned (and we’ve added some new ones, too!), for use with the Scarred Lands Player’s Guide. 

Champions of Gods and Titans 

The Wise & the Wicked introduces a rogue’s gallery of the Scarred Lands’ movers and shakers, characters who carry out the will of the gods or the fallen titans. These non-player characters can be friends, enemies, or simply convenient resources for the player characters in your game.

Inside, find villains such as King Virduk of Calastia, the Black Dragon, along with his wife, the beautiful (and black-hearted) Queen Geleeda; the Grand Vizier to King Virduk, the wicked warrior-mage Anteas; and the sinister general of Virduk’s northern armies, Archduke Traviak the Steel-Fisted. At the other end of the spectrum, meet the gracious Lady Ariniel, the Swan Knight, champion of Madriel; Kimer the Shatterer, bearer of the Earth Sword of Scarn and tenacious foe of the titanspawn of the north; and King Thain the Just, the Aleking, ruler of Burok Torn. And many others beside!

Here you’ll find a fascinating compendium of characters from the Scarred Lands, but easily transported into campaigns set elsewhere. In addition, find multiple appendices full of new magic items and artifacts, class archetypes and prestige classes, new feats, new creatures and races, and more.

Available in Pathfinder and 5th Edition versions! PDF and PoD formats available NOW!

http://ift.tt/2zdVHXS

http://ift.tt/2zeEpd8

            CONVENTIONS!

This weekend, Matthew Dawkins, Dave Brookshaw, and Eddy Webb are going to be at Dragonmeet in London. https://www.dragonmeet.co.uk/ Expect plenty of playful class warfare as these three mix it up, represent Onyx Path, and generally redefine the term “hooligans”.

  Planning ahead for 2018, we’re heading back to Midwinter Game Convention in Milwaukee, January 11-14, where we’re going to be bringing a big crew of many of your favorite Onyx Path designers and we’ll be running demos and making some special announcements at the show!  http://midwintergamingconvention.com

    And now, the new project status updates!

DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week): No changes this week.

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Deviant: The Renegades (Deviant: The Renegades)

  Redlines

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

They Came From Beneath the Sea! Rulebook (TCFBtS!)

  Second Draft

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Tales of Good Dogs – Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Night Horrors: The Tormented (Promethean: The Created 2nd Edition)

Monarchies of Mau (Monarchies of Mau)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Scion: Origin (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

  Editing:

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

  Indexing:

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Cavaliers of Mars – New art getting assigned.

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Scion Origins

Ring of Spiragos

Changeling: the Lost 2

Trinity Continuum – Assigned art notes for pieces for KS.

Pugmire – Vinsen’s Tomb

Ex3 Dragon Blooded

Pugmire – Pan’s Explorer’s Guide (or whatever) – Sending notes for this over to Laubenstein, Syme, Loboyko, and Alida this week as soon as I finish going through them.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

Beast PG

Pugmire/Scarred Lands Community Content – working on the logo.

Book of Freeholds – To Mark

DtD Enemy Action – With Josh

Pugmire Fetch Quest – Working on sample designs for more playtesting.

  Proofing

Wraith 20 – Final layout proof to WW.

W20 Changing Ways – First proof.

  At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Scarred Land PGs & Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – To fulfillment shipper. PDF and PoD physical book versions on sale at DTRPG.

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition) – Deluxe Edition cover and Screen in the works. Waiting for Deluxe cover and the Screen proofs.

Prince’s Gambit – Print and Play version updated. Getting specs from printer.

M20 Cookbook – Files uploaded and processing.

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology  – Layout waiting for errata.

V20 Beckett’s Jyhad Diary– Inputting errata.

C20 Ready Made Characters – Ending Backer PDF errata gathering.

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Advance PDF on sale on DTRPG, gathering errata.

Pugmire Artisan Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pugmire Shepherd Cards – PoD proofs ordered.

Pentex Indoctrination Manual – Being sent to backers this week.

VtR Half Damned – Advance PDF on sale this Wednesday on DTRPG.

  TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: To reference last week’s TRTC, the new version of MST3K has been picked up for a second season! (While you may think this is just a casual aside that speaks of another’s cultish nerd interest…consider how interested a person might be in a revival of a project with a hard-core group of vocal fans, if that person revives game lines with hard-core vocal fans on a regular basis. They did a great job at it, there is always much to learn from that.)

#Onyx Path Publishing

[theonyxpath]

Justin Achilli used to stumble around the old WW office as a character mumbling and shouting about all the Drakulas. Might be two l’s and/or two k’s in there. Maybe a g. I honestly couldn’t tell you, but all I could hear is him yelling about them this week as I thought about our meeting today.

Of course, as per the cover featured in the art above, we’re thrilled to be able to put the latest Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition supplement, Thousand Years of Night, on sale on DriveThru this Wednesday. First the Advance PDF, and after we get any notes back from purchasers, we’ll make an errata pass and get an updated final version of the PDF up, and get the physical copy PoD on sale too.

If you’ve been following, this was one of the first ideas for a VtR supplement that Rollickin’ Rose pitched to me as VtR developer, and it felt the pressure exerted by her expanding duties here at Onyx Path. It just got bogged down as Rose stepped up to cover crisis after crisis as Development Producer. As much as Rose loves VtR, and boy does she, she didn’t hesitate long after realizing that she needed help in bringing this book to fruition.

We were incredibly lucky that Dynamic Danielle Lauzon could take over as VtR2 developer, and we hope you are as thrilled by her work with this book as we all are! (You can find more details in the BLURBS! section, below)

      Thousand Years of Night art by Mark Kelly

    The other Vampire bit of news has been last week’s release of the V5 pre-Alpha playtest packet by White Wolf. To say that there are a lot of opinions about this very, very early look at a few systems and some suggestions of the setting they work within, would be like saying the sea sure has a lot of water in it.

The reason I bring it up here, is that part of the “packet” is a survey for folks to let WW know what they think of the pre-Alpha playtest, and, for me, the survey is really the biggest point for releasing the whole thing at all. If you look at the specific questions, you can see the emphasis on how the Hunger and Compulsion rules both work and feel in play. Same thing for the scenario, drawn from the innovative End of the Line larp in Berlin during the recent convention there.

And then there is the section for additional comments, which I know is where a lot of folks are going to shine. Or at least, you really could shine there, because this is your best chance to help the gang at White Wolf really understand your thoughts about this very first thing that they have produced to start the process – and it is a process – of creating the newest edition of Vampire: The Masquerade.

Here’s the link to their blog: http://ift.tt/2rviUWa

I’m telling you, it’s an amazing opportunity, and these surveys are going right to their very small team. If the Hunger mechanic sounds awesome, letting them know now gives it the best chance to survive the next iterations, and I believe there will be lots of those, and into the final published V5. If the writing style or subject matter works for your VtM, or doesn’t, then let them know that so they understand how their efforts are impacting you and the game and setting you love.

Now, I’m not going to suggest the obvious: that you compose your comments with the idea that an obscenity-laced, all caps, message filled with invective might not be the most effective way to hold and keep the WW gang’s attention. I’m not going to speak for them, and I have no idea how they react to such things, but I always hear from all those consumer advice advocates that polite and to the point is what tends to work best.

I’ve found that to be the case; your mileage may vary.

    Beckett’s Jyhad Diary art by Ken Meyer, Jr.

    A few followup bits of info garnered from today’s meeting that you might be interested in:

We’re expecting to get the Prince’s Gambit card game KS BackerKit site up this week.

We’re also expecting to close down the Pugmire KS BackerKit site this week or the next.

LisaT tell me that she counted up the freelancers paid the first half of the month at she paid 42 excellent creators, which she tells me is average for a two-week period. For anyone wondering at the extent of that part of our business.

Expect the third Dragon Blooded charms excerpt to go up this week from our new EX3 developers, Eric Minton and Robert Vance. And we’re looking at getting the next monthly releases for our two ongoing EX3 books out before the end of the month too – just need some WW approvals.

We’ve received some ideas for Dark Eras 2 from our project developers, and Rose, Mighty Matt McElroy, and I, will be discussing those this week in terms of how we’re structuring the book and Kickstarter this time. I had earlier compiled and shared all the suggestions for Dark Eras from our DE1 backers, and BOY there were a lot of great ideas there. We want to do this Dark Eras 2 Kickstarter before much longer so that it doesn’t smash into Gen Con prep.

  And I’ll leave you with this, the return of the brilliant and idiosyncratic artist John Cobb to Wraith:

Wraith 20th art by John Cobb

  BLURBS!

  KICKSTARTER!

Coming soon: Dark Eras 2…

    ON SALE!

ON AMAZON:

  We’re delighted to announce the opening of our ebook store on Amazon! You can now read our fiction from the comfort and convenience of your Kindle. Our initial selection includes these fiction anthologies: Vampire: the Masquerade‘s Endless Ages, Werewolf: The Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition‘s Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage 2, Mage: The Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition‘s Truth Beyond Paradox, Chronicles of Darkness‘ God Machine Chronicle, Mummy: The Curse‘s Curse of the Blue Nile, and Beast: The Primordial‘s The Primordial Feast!

And now you can get these books in the Barnes and Noble Nook store too!

Vampire: The Masquerade: The Endless Ages Anthology

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Rites of Renown: When Will You Rage II

Mage: The Ascension: Truth Beyond Paradox

Chronicles of Darkness: The God-Machine Chronicle Anthology

Mummy: The Curse: Curse of the Blue Nile

Beast: The Primordial: The Primordial Feast Anthology

  And here are six more fiction books:

Vampire: The Masquerade: Of Predators and Prey: The Hunters Hunted II Anthology

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: The Poison Tree

Werewolf: The Apocalypse: Songs of the Sun and Moon: Tales of the Changing Breeds

Vampire: The Requiem: The Strix Chronicle Anthology

Werewolf: The Forsaken: The Idigam Chronicle Anthology

Mage: The Awakening: The Fallen World Chronicle Anthology

      Looking for our Deluxe or Prestige Edition books? Here’s the link to the press release we put out about how Onyx Path is now selling through Indie Press Revolution: http://ift.tt/1ZlTT6z

You can now order wave 2 of our Deluxe and Prestige print overrun books, including Deluxe Mage 20th Anniversary, and Deluxe V20 Dark Ages! And Screens…so many Screens!

    ON DRIVETHRURPG.COM:

What dark secrets do the eldest vampires hold? Find out in Thousand Years of Night for Vampire: The Requiem! Advance PDF version available this Wednesday on DriveThruRPG.com.

You may think that with a multitude of people coming, going, dying and running away, we’d be tired, done, or ready to give up. Instead, I find myself restless, looking for the next thing.  There’s always a next thing, and I for one am not yet ready to die.

– Elder Kincaid, Daeva Crone

This book includes:

• Detailed instructions on creating elder vampires, including how to base chronicles around them

• A look into the lives of elders, how they spend their nights, who they work with, and why including their roles in both their clans and covenants

• New Devotions, Merits, and Rituals for elder vampires

• The kinds of creatures that pose a threat to elder vampires, including Inamorata, Lamia, Sons of Phobos, a new elder conspiracy, and more

      From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: To The Strongest (Mage Death of Alexander 330-320 BCE). In the rise and fall of Alexander the Great’s Empire, armies marched and cultures clashed. In the birth pangs of Hellenistic civilization, Awakened sorcerers all over the ancient world met, fought, and joined together. In the chaos of Alexander’s assassination and the wars that followed, Cults became Orders amid conflicts still burning in the present day.

http://ift.tt/2tmTVl6

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG!

  From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: Three Kingdoms of Darkness (Changeling and Geist China 220-280). Famine weakens the empire, and war splits it apart. It is an age of ambition and strife, where the hungry dead walk the earth in great numbers, and the Lost must rely on their own kingdoms. Warlords and commoners, ghost-speakers and orphans — who truly serves the Mandate of Heaven?

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2rp8hPL

    From the massive Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras main book, we have pulled this single chapter, Dark Eras: The Wolf and the Raven (Werewolf and Geist Vikings 700-1100). The Viking expansion across Europe comes at a pivotal time in history, as new faiths rose to challenge the old and new ways threatened to sweep ancient tradition aside. The Forsaken sail with raiders and explorers, seeking new lands to claim and new spirits to conquer, while Sin-Eaters walk the battlefields bringing the honored dead to their final rewards. The world grows larger and more dangerous by the day, but there are great rewards for those brave enough to fight for them.

On sale in PDF and physical copy PoD versions on DTRPG! http://ift.tt/2rUjKtX

      Curated by Matthew McFarland, developer of Changeling: the Dreaming Twentieth Anniversary Edition and featuring authors such as Myranda Kalis, Wren Handman, and Peter Woodworth, this C20 Anthology of Dreams is on sale in electronic/PDF and physical copy PoD formats on DTRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2snBT0X

We dream, and we tell stories. We dream of love and the sort of person who might complete us. We dream of horror and wake breathless. We dream of magic, of flying through the air, or breathing underwater. We dream of fantastic vistas and amazing monsters.

We dream, and then we wake, and we tell stories. Our dreams create the Kithain, the changelings. Our stories are sustenance.

    Now on DTRPG, the EX3 Tomb of Dreams Jumpstart PDF/PoD jumps up for sale!

http://ift.tt/2qdriZU

Once, in the time before the gods forgot their names, when the world was flat and floated on a sea of chaos, there was an age of gleaming cities, untamed wilderness, enlightened devils, greedy spirits, and mighty heroes. This was the age of the Exalted, champions empowered by the highest of gods.

Tomb of Dreams will jumpstart your group’s Exalted game—all you need to start playing Exalted Third Edition is this book, pencils, and 10-sided dice. Included here are the game’s core rules, five pregenerated characters, and a self-contained scenario that can start a new campaign or that Storytellers can use in an ongoing chronicle. And for groups that already have the Exalted Third Edition main rulebook, Tomb of Dreams will serve as an introduction for new players and a quick reference during play—anyone intimidated by that prodigious volume need only read Part 1 of this book to get started.

What legends will they tell of your deeds?

        Sailing out of the dark, the V20 Dark Ages Companion Advance PDF is now on sale on DriveThruRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2pX42dq

Travel the long roads and deep seas in search of power and experience danger, or tackle the wilderness to hunt monsters and face death. Settlements large and small dot the black expanse with the promise of sanctuary, life, and community. These bastions of civilization present cold comfort, when playing host to vampire warlords and sadistic Cainite faiths. Whether led by a Prince, a coordinated belief, or hounded by monsters from without and within — no domain is truly the same as another.

Dark Ages Companion includes:

• Domains scattered across the world, from small fiefdoms to massive cities. Bath, Bjarkarey, Constantinople, Rome, Mogadishu, and Mangaluru each receive coverage.

• Apocrypha including plot hooks, new Paths, and mysteries to explore in your games.

• A how-to guide on building a domain within your chronicle, including events and servants necessary to make a domain as functional or dysfunctional as you wish.

• A study on warfare in the Dark Ages period, so combat in your chronicles can gain authenticity and lethality.

        Bill Bridge’s new W20 novel, The Song of Unmaking, is on sale in PDF/ePub/PoD versions on DriveThruRPG.com: http://ift.tt/2qXQH9f and in ebook form on Amazon: http://ift.tt/2qpQM2V !

The fabric of reality is cracking. Fissures appear in thin air, glowing with balefire. Something is scratching on the other side, pressing, beginning to break through….

The Wyrm’s corruption finds its way into the hearts of humans and Garou alike. Even an ultra-rational techno-cratic scientist can fall sway to its lies. Channeling his hate and resentment through the most sophisticated machine ever created, Basil Czajka has turned a tool designed to peer deep into the heart of the quantum universe into a nursery for the hatching of a horror — a creature whose birth cry is destined to unmake Gaia’s Song of Creation.

The only ones standing in his way are One-Song, a broken-down old Theurge, and Lord Albrecht, whose heed-less anger might be the very weapon the enemy needs to crack the egg and free the Unmaker.

    The Chronicles of Darkness: Dark Eras Companion has arrived in PDF and PoD physical book versions at DriveThruRPG.com! http://ift.tt/2pygIL7

The Dark Eras Companion presents eleven new Eras for the Chronicles of Darkness. Stretching from Ancient Rome and Egypt through the Black Death, the Thirty Years War, the Reconstruction, and the Russian Revolution, the Companion showcases even more of the secret history of this eldritch world. Included in each era are “snapshots” of the various supernatural creatures, including vampires, changelings, mummies, and demons. Also included are lists of inspirational media to help you put these Eras in context for your troupe.

Open the Dark Eras Companion and take another look back in time.

    V20 Lore of the Bloodlines awaits in PDF and physical book PoD versions on DriveThruRPG.com!

http://ift.tt/2pj8UuA

Lore of the Bloodlines is a single volume (created via Kickstarter) that revisits some of the bloodlines in Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition, providing story hooks, character concepts, history, and bloodline-specific rules. The secrets of the Baali, Daughters of Cacophony, Gargoyles, Harbingers of Skulls, Kiasyd, Salubri, Samedi, and True Brujah are now yours.

Lore of the Bloodlines includes:

• The history, lore, and nightly practices of nine bloodlines, told from the perspective of the Kindred themselves.

• New combo Disciplines, powers, Merits, Flaws, and other rules specific to each bloodline.

• Revisions and updates of more classic Vampire: The Masquerade material to V20.

            CONVENTIONS! Discussing GenCon plans. August 17th – 20th, Indianapolis. Every chance the booth will actually be 20? x 30? this year that we’ll be sharing with friends. We’re looking at new displays this year, like a back drop and magazine racks for the brochure(s).

In November, we’ll be at Game Hole Con in Madison, WI. More news as we have it, and here’s their website: http://ift.tt/RIm6qP

      And now, the new project status updates!

    DEVELOPMENT STATUS FROM ROLLICKING ROSE (projects in bold have changed status since last week):

First Draft (The first phase of a project that is about the work being done by writers, not dev prep)

Exalted 3rd Novel by Matt Forbeck (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Trinity Continuum: Aeon Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

M20 Gods and Monsters (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

M20 Book of the Fallen (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

C20 Novel (Jackie Cassada) (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

The Realm (Exalted 3rd Edition)

Dragon-Blooded (Exalted 3rd Edition)

C20 Ready Made Characters (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

  Redlines

Kithbook Boggans (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

Ex Novel 2 (Aaron Rosenberg) (Exalted 3rd Edition)

DtD Night Horrors: Enemy Action (Demon: the Descent)

Hunter: the Vigil 2e core (Hunter: the Vigil 2nd Edition)

  Second Draft

GtS Geist 2e core (Geist: the Sin-Eaters Second Edition)

WoD Ghost Hunters (World of Darkness)

Pugmire Fiction Anthology (Pugmire)

  Development

Signs of Sorcery (Mage: the Awakening Second Edition)

SL Ring of Spiragos (Pathfinder – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Ring of Spiragos (5e – Scarred Lands 2nd Edition)

Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition, featuring the Huntsmen Chronicle (Changeling: the Lost 2nd Edition)

M20 Cookbook (Mage: the Ascension 20th Anniversary Edition)

Pugmire Pan’s Guide for New Pioneers (Pugmire)

Scion: Origins (Scion 2nd Edition)

Scion: Hero (Scion 2nd Edition)

Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (The Trinity Continuum)

  WW Manuscript Approval:

V20 Dark Ages Jumpstart (Vampire: the Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition)

    Editing:

Wraith: the Oblivion 20th Anniversary Edition

Book of Freeholds (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

BtP Beast Player’s Guide (Beast: the Primordial)

W20 Changing Ways (Werewolf: the Apocalypse 20th Anniversary Edition)

VtR Half-Damned (Vampire: the Requiem 2nd Edition)

  Post-Editing Development:

Arms of the Chosen (Exalted 3rd Edition)

    Indexing:

Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition (Changeling: the Dreaming 20th Anniversary Edition)

    ART DIRECTION FROM MIRTHFUL MIKE:

In Art Direction

Beckett’s Jyhad Diary 

W20 Pentex Employee Indoctrination Handbook

Cavaliers of Mars

Wraith 20

W20Changing Ways

Ex3 Monthly Stuff

Storypath Brochure

VDA Jumpstart

Scion Origins

C20 Jumpstart

Ring of Spiragos

Ex 3 Arms of the Chosen – Sketches coming in.

Beast PG – Got some artists lined up… just need to bust up the notes.

  Marketing Stuff

  In Layout

M20 Art Book – In progress…

Prince’s Gambit – New Cards out for playtesting

Gen Con Stuff

  Proofing

CtL Huntsmen Chronicle Anthology

  At Press

Beckett Screen – Shipped to shipper.

Pugmire – Printing finished.

Pugmire Screen – Printing finished.

Pugmire Cards & Dice – Printing/manufacturing.

Wise and the Wicked PF & 5e – Printing.

Dagger of Spiragos (5e) – Out to backers.

Dagger of Spiragos (PF) – Out to backers.

V20 Dark Ages Companion – PoD files uploaded and processing.

BtP Building a Legend – Awaiting errata.

Monarchies of Mau Early Access – PoD proofs ordered.

Dark Eras: Requiem for Regina – PoD proofs ordered.

Dark Eras: Lily Sabre and Thorn – Wrapping up and getting files uploaded.

M20 Book of Secrets – Out to backers and gathering errata.

VTR: Thousand Years of Night – Advance PDF out this week on DTRPG.

      TODAY’S REASON TO CELEBRATE: Today in 2017, our friend Eddy Webb made it to San Francisco after driving from Atlanta because SF has the only airport that will still allow dogs to fly out to Ireland. Or anywhere, as it’s the heat of the US summer that is too much for the doggie transports. And Murray Pug must get to Ireland. Greater love….

#Onyx Path Publishing