Hi everyone!
It’s been a while since I last made a post, and I thought it was about time I got things moving again in terms of updates, because we are still working hard!
COVID-19 has been very hard on everyone, of course, and it’s changed the landscape a lot for us. We’ve done a lot this year, but it’s been very, very different to our plans for 2020.
Our Discord (https://discord.gg/6C4H9Cv) has been running games like crazy! We’ve grown our community there, and we’re offering several games a week still, so if you’d like to play some Era games online, you are welcome to join us. We’re playing Era: The Consortium, Era: The Empowered and Era: Forbidden the most at the moment, but we’re also open to any game you’d like to play!
Era: Lost Legend is almost complete as I type this, we’re just waiting on the final Power Web from the graphic designer. What we’ve achieved is stunning, from the artwork to the fun people have by playing, and I could not be more proud.
Era: Survival‘s expansions are moving along, with the first currently undergoing its second proofread! Encounters En Route will be the first to go to Kickstarter backers and ultimately be released on the store, but I’m currently working on the edits for the Foundation Campaign. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the two books as I write this (I’ve done all of the “player” segments first and am now working through the “GM” segments where the sessions are described!). After that, it will be Diaries of a Madman or Settlements & People – I haven’t entirely decided yet – and finally moving on to the Aqua Source book, as that was the closest to finished when I started the project!
I’m still confident that I’ll be delivering these expansions by the end of the year, something I believe all of the backers are looking forward to!
Era: The Consortium’s Living Campaign has been amazing! With the extra games on Dicsord and many groups from around the world sending in the results of their sessions, the situation has changed significantly, just as we had hoped when we started!
You can find all the updates here (https://www.shadesofvengeance.com/era-the-consortium/living-campaign/), but suffice it to say that things are not going well for the Resistance at this stage! With the Consortium now willing to lock down entire planets and stations, preventing travel, it’s caused some serious problems for Resistance operatives who can’t reach their resources any more.
Inspired by that, I’m releasing a new Patreon campaign this month (https://www.patreon.com/SoV), which explores what it’s like to be a border patrol officer on the newly locked down Clota. We played the session last night on Discord, and I think it’s fair to say that it was a massive amount of fun for all involved!
The Era Zone has been going strong with 3 of the 4 episodes for the year now out with everyone! September’s issue, sent last night, was a fantastic addition to the series, which included not only a session from the amazing Alison Cybe but also the first of our “GM Toolkit” sections which talk about how I recommend handling various aspects of the game. On this occasion, it’s traps, answering questions from ShadowsOverScotland, one of our most prolific GMs on Discord!
There’s loads more to come from The Era Zone, so don’t miss out when they become available on the Store!
Now that Era: Lost Legend is about to be sent to the printers, we’re gearing up for our next major rulebook – Era: Forbidden‘s Core Rulebook is finally coming! This Pocket Game’s popularity is undeniable, and we’ve decided that it’s time to fill out this world in the way we always wanted!
I’ve got a treat for you in a week or two when it goes out as well – we have about 30 episodes of actual gameplay recorded from early in the COVID lockdown, which I’ll be publishing daily to celebrate the campaign! Keep an eye out for an adventure that is truly unlike any other!
We’ve been working on audio a lot this year. EraScapes is something that’s very important to the team, and we have a lot of material recorded and awaiting editing from last year. The first of those, A Titan’s Rise, is on Kickstarter now (as you probably know! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/erascapes/a-titans-rise-a-cyberpunk-full-cast-audio-drama?ref=32nerm), but we have loads more coming, including a sequel to Declaration: The Bug War #1, several Empowered stories (Lacuna, Blue-Shift and Violete) and a few others. Of course, I’ll tell you a lot more about those when we’re a little closer to their release. For now, please check out A Titan’s Rise when you have the time!
We’ve also been working on our backlog of comics! Violete #2: Backlash is now almost ready, and we’re expecting it to get to Kickstarter before the end of the year. I’ve shown the latest adventure to a few Violete superfans and they think it’s even better than the first comic! That’s a lot of pressure, but I feel certain that our new regular artist Linggar is up to the challenge of providing an amazing cover, sitting on top of a comic written, drawn and coloured by veterans of Era – with a team like Jennifer Martin, Rahmad Wisnubroto and Keith Draws, there’s very little that can turn out badly!
I’d like to apologise for how long it has been since my last update – things have been crazy (as you can probably see!). My plan is to return to regular weekly updates to keep you on top of all of the latest over here. We have 3 card games ready to go to Kickstarter, another 3 Tabletop RPGs ready for some intense development (one of which is just finishing the last piece of artwork!), issues of the Era Zone and our miniatures game all coming soon, so keep an eye out here for more info!
– Ed