Pledge to help us create a beautiful edition of Trinity Continuum: Aether and deliver it to backers and into stores.
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Hello Aethernauts,
OK, I'll admit my brain is still in vacation mode a little bit. I have yet to fully unpack. Let me dig into my bag and see what I've brought back for you! Oh, it's some new Stretch Goal targets!
At $46,000 in Funding - Trinity Continuum: Aether Digital Wallpaper - Exciting Aether artwork will be used to create a wallpaper for your computer desktop. This digital wallpaper will be added to the rewards list of all backers supporting this project.
At $48,000 in Funding - Trinity Continuum: Aether VTT Token Pack - Digital assets will be created to support online play for Trinity Continuum: Aether, including key character and antagonist tokens from the book. This online asset pack will be added to the rewards list of all backers.
At $50,000 in Funding - The Aethernaut Collection 3 – The famous fictional character folio PDF will be expanded a third and final time to include additional characters (such as Dracula) and other possible allies and antagonists.
Well, there you go! As with our last set of Stretch Goals, we've got a couple milestone markers there, smaller stretch goal rewards to help us keep our momentum and gather resources during this slower portion of the campaign. And then we're back on our regular additional content kick with another expansion goal at the next 5K funding target. Expanding the Aethernaut Collection for a final time, adding in more "fictional" foes and allies to plug into your game, including maybe a famous Count!
Please continue to spread the word about this campaign, and let's see if we can't recruit our own collection of Aethernauts to help us hit these Stretch Goals before the end of the campaign!
I'm gonna climb up every mountain of the moon
Hello Aethernauts,
First up, I wanna share some info about Onyx Path's participation at Gen Con Online this year!
They’ll be doing panels for the online version of Gen Con today (Thursday) and tomorrow (Friday), and if you’re interested in running or playing any Onyx Path games there, they’ve recently released this link:
Here are the links to the Onyx Path panels:
https://www.gencon.com/events/217051 – What’s Up With Onyx Path?
https://www.gencon.com/events/217052 – Storypath System Q&A
https://www.gencon.com/events/217053 – Onyx Path 5E OGL Games
The two that will likely interest you the most are:
Thursday at 1:00 PM EDT - the classic “What’s Up With the Onyx Path?” panel, that is always filled with fun – and doing it on Twitch means that there’s no disruption of the proceedings by the sounds of rumbling trains like they had for many years at the live Gen Con!
Friday at 12:00 Noon EDT - A “Storypath Q&A”, which is a great opportunity to lob some rules questions at the team, as well as questions about the new Storypath “Ultra” ruleset they let slip at their online con earlier this year! You know as much as I do, so this will be very interesting!
The world of Trinity Continuum: Aether is rich with possibility and the tensions of competing probabilities and potentials all vying to change from what may be to what is. In other times and places these tensions between possible realities would be called Flux, but in the late 19th century, Nikola Tesla dubbed the energy of possibilities the Aether. Through subsequent experiments Tesla discovered how to harness the Aether, spinning its potential along paths of the experimenter’s design. Further work led by Thomas Edison further proved the possibility of unwinding previously spun Aetheric patterns, undoing some of what the followers of Tesla’s work had done.
Gifts are how characters manipulate Aether, spinning and unwinding its threads to manifest their will upon the world. Each of the three character options in Trinity Continuum: Aether manipulate Aether via Gifts, but each of Squires, Gogs, and Magogs does so in their own way. To avoid confusion, here are the basics of what each character type can and can’t do with their Gifts, and how they differ:
Deviations represent the Magog’s separation from the rest of humanity. Deviations are weaknesses or challenges normal humans don’t face, and complicate the Magog’s life in the face of specific situations or conditions. Deviations may include obvious changes to appearance, giving the character inhuman features like cat’s eyes or grotesquely elongated limbs. The character’s skin may be shriveled and parchmentlike, or carrying an extreme pallor or unusual hue. Other inconveniences such as weakness to certain substances like sunlight, garlic, or silver, behavioral limitations like being unable to approach holy symbols or uncontrollable transformation in the light of the full moon, or compulsions like pausing to count grains of rice dropped before the Magog are also frequent examples of Deviations.
Gaining Deviations
When a Magog purchases a Gift with the Magog keyword they gain a Deviation. Each Deviation may either be a new and separate limitation on the character, may increase the severity of an existing Deviation, or may replace one or more previous Deviations with a thematically appropriate and more troubling condition of equal value.
Sample Deviations
The Deviations below are examples of what Magog characters can choose, and how they can increase with multiple purchases, but they are far from a complete list. Use these as inspiration for designing your own Deviations individually tailored to your character’s monstrous condition.
Aetheric Polarities: The energies in this character are unique and difficult to utilize when the character is close to other Aetheric-infused items or people. When a device which is powered by Aether is used in close proximity to this character, they stutter or spark, occasionally giving a static whine and refusing to work quite as properly as intended. Aetheric devices in the same room as this character struggle to operate, causing anybody who attempts to use such a device (including this character) to gain a +1 Difficulty to be able to use them appropriately. Additional levels of this Deviation make these energies affect not only technology, but the Gifts of other Magogs first, and then Gogs as well.
Caustic: The energies in this character leak into the environment around them. Plants slowly die and the air feels stale. Your character’s touch and bare footsteps leave a corrosive acrid, alkali sheen on surfaces, dealing 1 damage to the environment with which it’s in contact, regardless of the material. For each additional level of this Deviation, the alkali possesses the Continuous tag (duration quickening depending on Deviation level, starting at hour, then minute, then round).
Conditional: One of your character’s Gifts can only be used under certain conditions, such as a specific time of day, after imbibing specific substances, or when exposed to certain environments. Under these conditions, the character can use the Gift normally. If the conditions are absent, the Gift is unavailable. One level of this Deviation should prevent the character’s use of the Gift for approximately eight hours. Additional levels further decrease the window of availability for the Gift’s use.
Feeding Requirement: Your character requires sustenance beyond the normal human diet to remain healthy. The Feeding Requirement begins at once per day, with the character required to consume approximately a reasonably-sized meal of the substance. Failing to consume the required substance causes the character to suffer one Injury Condition for each skipped meal; such Injury Conditions are persistent and can’t be healed until the character consumes their required sustenance. Additional levels of this Deviation increase the feeding frequency by one per level, requiring the character to feed two, three, or more times per day. By itself, this Deviation doesn’t prevent the Magog from consuming normal food.
Monstrous Visage: Your character’s appearance is unusual and clearly outside human norms. They may possess inhuman features, such as catlike eyes, or a mouth filled with oversize fangs, or may simply be grotesque or conversely, inhumanly perfect. Each level of this Deviation decreases positive Attitudes (Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook, p. 85) toward your character by one step, or increases negative Attitudes. In situations where Attitudes don’t apply or aren’t used, increase Difficulty of Social rolls by 1 per level.
Booster Cache
She’s traveled around the globe enough to know that one sometimes needs access to fast cash and a new identity. Fortunately, she’s taken the time to set up several stashes in case of emergency far from the comforts of home. Sometimes it’s in the hollow of an old tree, and others it’s in a safe deposit box under a false name. As inconvenient as it is to leave several hundred dollars squirreled away, it’s even more so to be stuck in a strange place with empty pockets due to misadventure.
Fortunately, she’s prepared for that very thing.
Message in a Bottle
Even if shipwrecked on an uncharted island, her missives eventually find the way to their intended recipient.
Wanderer’s Fortune
As he looks around the crystal cavern, he realizes that mapping the region will be the work of days. While contemplating the task at hand, he hears a voice and turns. Seeing a man with chalk white skin and glowing green eyes, he conjures a friendly smile. He needs a place to stay. Fortunately, he’s good at making friends.
Gogs and Magogs access their Gifts through blatant and direct manipulation of Aether. Gogs achieve this through an Apparatus and serve as tools for the Gog to spin Aether. Magogs have internalized this process and require no external means of accessing their Gifts. To represent the differences in the ways these Inspired access their Gifts, Aetheric Gifts use the Gog keyword and the Magog keyword. Many Aetheric Gifts have both keywords and can be accessed by Gogs or Magogs, but the keyword through which the Inspired accesses the Gift has an impact on the Gift’s functions and cost. If a character has more than one means of accessing a Gift via keywords, such as a Magog using an Attribute Gift that also includes the Magog keyword, they access that Gift through the Gog or Magog keyword as appropriate.
Attribute Gifts
These Gifts draw on an Aether manipulator’s Attribute scores. As reflections of raw potential magnified by Aether, each Gift manifests desire into reality. Powerful effects and permanent alterations to the body and mind are possible through Attribute Gifts.
Accelerate Tempo
He looked out into the abandoned street. Shattered glass covered the cobbles and the gaslights burned like torches; their flame exposed to the open air. Three Martian tripods patrolled, looking for survivors. He knew if he and his companion were going to take them down, they would need to move fast. Fortunately, he’d just upgraded his Aetheric tuner.
Dynamo
She knew her companions could make it to the portal if she could only buy them some time. As the band of Morlocks entered the cavern, she activated her Faraday belt.
“Go,” she called to her allies as bolts of electricity danced across her body. “I can hold them off.”
Spring-Heeled Leap
With a pair of bobbies hot on her heels, she ducked behind a townhouse. The moment she was out of sight, she leapt onto the rooftop and dropped prone. Crawling to the edge she looked down to see the perplexed police searching the street below.
Skill Gifts
While Attribute Gifts draw from an Aether manipulator’s raw potential, Skill Gifts rely on learned expertise. Mere access to Aether is insufficient to provide access to these effects. One must have the appropriate knowledge and training to shape Aether with such precision.
Projectile Avoidance
Bullets streaked through the air on all sides, but he didn’t have time to look for cover. He needed to get past the armed guards and inside the building. Fortunately, he’d learned to ensure that his body was never in the same place as a bullet.
Mirage Minions
As the bullet struck his shoulder, he looked to his left. The duplicate he’d called up from the Aether locked eyes with him and they switched places. Now he stood where a moment ago the duplicate had been. The duplicate — having served its purpose — dissipated into the element from which it had sprung.
Invisibility
“Do you think you’re alone?” the woman’s voice whispered with a sense of laughter. He spun around, seeing no one behind him. He looked left and right, then turned a slow circle, knife in hand, careful not to step in the spreading pool of blood from his latest victim. He must have imagined it; some trace of guilt he thought long since buried. “I see you,” the woman laughed, unseen hands shoving him backward, so he fell, sprawling into the fluids he’d tried so hard to avoid.
Remote Relocation
The mugger stepped forward brandishing a pistol. Flipping the trigger on her matter conversion pen, the Gog shifted the pistol through space itself into her own hand. She couldn’t help but laugh as the mugger turned tail and ran.
Skill Tricks are additional tools for Gogs, Magogs, and Squires to enhance their core competence and achieve remarkable success where others would fail. These Skill Tricks are available in addition to those presented in Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook (p. 45-53).
Command
Strong leadership is essential for productive teamwork. Most adventurers and explorers work in teams and rely on the acumen of those most skilled in each situation to keep everyone safe and alive. Through the Command Skill a character can impart wisdom, warnings, and guidance to their allies.
Persuasion
Through this Skill characters get what they want from others. Intimidation and seduction both fall within the realm of Persuasion. Proficiency in Persuasion helps a character attain their goals through social interaction.
Science
Science governs a collection of disciplines and conveys a deep understanding of the way the world works. With this foundation in reason, a character well versed in Science can find explanation for the inexplicable. It is through the study of Science that Aether was discovered.
This is a pretty random sampling, there's lots more to see tomorrow, when the entire chapter is available to backers for download. We'll learn about the Apparatus of Gogs, possible redemption arcs for Magogs, lots more about Aetheric Gifts, and more!
SO: Check out the Onxy Path Gen Con panel today at 1:00 PM EDT (or hopefully it'll be available to watch later on some channel!), check out the manuscript download coming tomorrow, and then the Storypath Q&A panel at noon! Until then, please continue to spread the word and let's see if we can't bring more backers through our Aethergate!
Hello Aethernauts,
Welcome to the midpoint of this 30-day campaign! We're at the halfway mark, and this is typically right in the middle of the slow/plateau part of the campaign, but let's take a moment to see how far we've come over the past few weeks and what we've got ahead of us.
The biggest note to take away from the first half of the project came on Day 1: WE FUNDED. Thanks to your support, the Aether setting will become a reality, at least within this version of the Trinity Continuum!
This is not something taken for granted. While Onyx Path has a long history of crowdfunding success, each project lives it it's own world, and I certainly never know how new games or expansions will perform. I'm extremely happy to see the early and rapid support for this new era within the Trinity Continuum, which adds in a whole host of new opportunities and cool arenas to explore within the Continuum.
So I mentioned we're in the "typical plateau" portion of the campaign. It's pretty interesting, then, that we continue to unlock new Stretch Goals! We hit another yesterday, brining our total up to FIVE! So far, we've unlocked new add-on opportunities and purchase options, like the Reference Screen and Backer T-Shirt, plus - my favorite - adding new content with a full Jumpstart introductory supplement (expanded from our initial Ready-Made Characters goal), and begun a new Who's Who supplement for the Victorian Era of the Trinity Continuum with the Aethernaut Collection.
And we're well on our way to expanding that reward as well, closing in on our next Stretch Goal:
At $45,000 in Funding - The Aethernaut Collection 2 – The famous fictional character folio PDF will be expanded to include additional characters such as Moriarty and other possible allies and antagonists.
One of my favorite bits about these campaigns is reading the manuscript as it comes out to us. So far, we've shared about half the book, available for backers to download in our Update from yesterday. And as cool as the chapters have been so far, we've still got some awesome aetheric stuff coming up:
I'm *really* eager for that Aetheric Gifts chapter! And also that setting secrets, because right now I don't even know what I don't know. If you know what I mean. Cool stuff in the weeks ahead!
Not only are we able to read the manuscript (and send the developers our feedback using the Aether Feedback Device), but we can watch people actually playing the game!! See it in action!
The Gentleman Gamer, and developer of Aether, Matthew Dawkins runs the first part of his TRINITY CONTINUUM: AETHER story for Danielle Lauzon, Kim Godwin, Gilbert Ramos, and Travis Legge!
And once you've read the manuscript and watched people play the game, you can hear interviews and discussion about the game on these podcasts!
The OP Cast features an interview with developer Matthew Dawkins here: OPCast Arms Around the Trinity Continuum interview.
And the folks at Trinity Continuum Airwaves, who are even more enthusiastic than me about Aether - if that's possible - have been sharing podcasts throughout the campaign as manuscript sections drop. They've also interviewed the Aether Societies author Kim Godwin to talk about that portion of the book. An Aether Author! Say that three times fast!
I always have to be careful with listening to Corey talk about games because I end up getting really excited and ordering lots of books!
Lots of great stuff so far, and still half the campaign to go! I'll note that Matthew had set a dreamy goal of hitting 850 backers for this campaign over these 30 days, and we've just passed that number at the halfway point! Can we get to 900 or 950? Or... dare I dream... maybe even 1000?
We've still got two weeks to go, and much more to reveal about Aether! Please continue to spread the word in your social circles and on your social media, and let's see if we can grow our own Society of Aethernauts and unlock more rewards for this campaign!
This post is for backers only. Please visit Kickstarter.com and log in to read.