Today is Getimian day. I had a whole bit about how - in another world - this might be a chapter that was edited out, but has since become real in our reality. But it got too weird and I lost the thread. So let's just check out the awesomeness that comes from these most unusual Exalted.
Just before we get there, though... let's check in on our Stretch Goals, because we've unlocked one more since our last update!
ACHIEVED At $80,000 in Funding - ESSENCE EXTENDED (Universal Charms Expansion)
Onyx Path will expand the "Essence Extended" supplement, adding more Universal Charms. This supplement will be released for purchase on DriveThruRPG and added as a free bonus reward to all backers receiving the Exalted: Essence Player's Guide standard hardcover or Deluxe Edition [SIDEREAL PLEDGE+]
At $85,000 in Funding - VTT TOKEN PACK
Digital assets will be created to support online play for Exalted: Essence, including key character and creature tokens from this book. This online asset pack will be added to the rewards list of all backers supporting this project. [DRAGON-BLOODED PLEDGE+]
Draft Manuscript Previews
Over the course of these 4 weeks, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for Exalted: Essence Player's Guide, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in Exalt-based sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over the the 28 day campaign, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.
Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.
In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: https://forms.gle/sqmxdW6u87pT3Mhg8
You can use this Feedback Form to share your thoughts directly with the Exalted: Essence creative team to help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY
Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Learn More" link on the bottom and I'll see you below the Exalted emblem.
Thanks to the 100+ folks who voted for what spread we'll reveal today.
With a commanding 47% percent of the vote, you chose RAG & BONE MAN, so here it is!
I just rolled 1, 2, 2, so at the moment, for me the Rag & Bone Man has the date of my death etched into his bones, with rags made of funeral shrouds, and is reading my thoughts as I think them.
How's he appear for you? (roll three six-sided dice to find out)
Today, we wanted to share a few things with you and ask you a question (in the linked poll).
A Place to Call Homebrew
First, we wanted to announce that we’ve created a channel in our Discord server for your Indominant homebrew to be shared and discussed! We’ve already had one community member create their very own homebrew Powerset: Time Manipulation! They have already gone and created everything up to Level 5, meaning they have an Inherent Effect, Base to Tier 3 Powers, and Tier 1-2 Talents for all 5 Archetypes!!!!! We are blown away at this idea and would love for people to see it and give them some love. Join our Discord server to check out the homebrew and even share your own!
Community Event Poll
Now for another exciting bit of news… we want to run a community event with everyone, and better yet, we want your ideas for what the community event should be! This is taking the place of our Community Event Stream reward for when we hit the 250 Backers Achievement! We are updating that Achievement to reflect this change of plans.
But what will that community event be? Well, we want your input! We’ve linked a poll to this update that has 3 options:
#1 - Character Concept Challenge
This is a challenge that we previously ran when our community was a lot smaller, and we had to put it on hold until we grew our active community (which this Backerkit campaign has done!). The idea behind this challenge is that participants submit a story and build for a character concept of their own making, and once submissions close, we will create a series of knock-out votes to determine a winner, with 2nd and 3rd place rewards too!
What does the winner get? Well, if we fully fund, the winner will get a full body, full-color image of their character concept drawn by Milton Aguiar, paid for by our team here at Odin’s Key Gaming!
#2 - Team Player Versus Player Tournament
For this one, it is quite simple. Participants would create a team of 2-3 players (we haven’t decided team size yet) and compete in combat against other teams. We would set up brackets and stream the combats, with the final Team getting a reward (reward is TBD).
#3 - Other
For this option on the vote, you would need to comment what your alternate idea is, and if any of these ideas gets more upvotes than option 1 or 2, we would go with this option.
Wow, what a first day! The first 24 hours are nearing completion and we are over 63% funded! As a small team with a relatively small following we are so excited at the response we’ve had! Make sure to check out the below updates too, you won’t want to miss them.
We can’t thank all of you, our supporters, enough! Thank you to everyone that pledged, and those of you that are checking out the Primer and joining our Discord server!
Primer V 2.1 Update
Just before, and during our launch we have been working on a small update to the Game System Primer 2.0.
The only rules/mechanical change is that instead of having to choose 2 of the 4 available Base Power options, every character now automatically gets all 4 Base Powers for their Powerset! We made this change because selecting Base Powers could be quite a difficult decision at times, and we don’t think the pros of that choice being meaningful outweigh the cons of it being a choice that doesn’t feel like it has a “right answer”.
Other than that there was just some small wording clean-up and clarifications to some areas that got questioned somewhat regularly.
So that means we’ve included the updated Primer below (all you need to do to download it is follow our Backerkit page, subscribe to our Newsletter, or join our Discord server here)! This also comes with a new character sheet (coming soon) to give you the space you need to add those 2 extra Base Powers to your sheet!
Another Architect Pledge Level Opening?!?
Yes, that’s right, as of the time we send out this update, we’ve also decided to open up the Architect Pledge Level to 1 additional Backer! That means one more person will get to work with us to create their very own Powerset concept, to be added in our first expansion book!
We're going to finish off with the Exalted of Creation today with some new Exigents. We're gonna learn about Architects, God Admirals, March Lords, and the Soverigns of Uluiru. Lots of cool stuff, and I know many of us have dreamed of something like the God Admirals for a long time!
One quick thing to note before we get into the manuscript.
Shipping Costs will be Collected in the Pledge Manager
First up, it's amazingly expensive to ship, especially from Onyx Path's home base in the US. And that's as of today - we're all in the dark about how things will look in 2 years. We get that, but there's not much we can do at this time. Onyx Path is in a difficult space where the company is big enough that they're not saving money by fulfilling out of Rich's garage, but small enough that they haven't been able to set up ongoing international partners to handle portions of the fulfillment. So we are where we are - for now.
The best we can do at this point is to plan carefully, advise everyone up front that shipping will likely be expensive (see our projections on the main page) and only charge what it costs us when the time comes. We’ll be charging for shipping in the Pledge Manager once the books are being printed and we can deal with the actual shipping charges rather than using our best-guesses this far out. If you aren't sure you want the hardcover or other physical items, you can pledge to the PDF tier now and upgrade your pledge in the Pledge Manager once we know the final shipping costs.
Draft Manuscript Previews
Over the course of these 4 weeks, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for Exalted: Essence Player's Guide, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in Exalt-based sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over the the 28 day campaign, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.
Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.
In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: https://forms.gle/sqmxdW6u87pT3Mhg8
You can use this Feedback Form to share your thoughts directly with the Exalted: Essence creative team to help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.
DRAFT MANUSCRIPT PREVIEWS - BACKERS ONLY
Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Learn More" link on the bottom and I'll see you below the Exalted emblem.
