Winging in some new Stretch Goals
about 3 years ago – Sat, Feb 06, 2021 at 09:52:10 AM

Line 'em up and knock 'em down!

Great job, Squamous Scions and Awesome Heirs!

We've worked through the last of our announced Stretch Goal targets, so let's get some more on the board!

On Sunday, we had a couple hints about what might be coming. Let's dig in and see...

[DRAGON] At $136,000 funding – Scion: Dragon Companion – The Returning – A new Flight of dead dragons who are trying to reincarnate will be added to the Scion: Dragon Companion PDF.

[MYTHOS] At $142,000 funding – – Scion: Masks of the Mythos Companion – Relics– A trove of Mythos Relics and Artifacts will be included in the Scion: Masks of the Mythos Companion PDF.

[ALL BACKERS] At $146,000 funding – Scion: Dragon VTT Tokens – Digital assets for the signature characters and key antagonists from Scion: Dragon will be created and added to the rewards list for all backers.

So there we go! Another Flight added to the Scion: Dragon Companion PDF, more dangerous relics for our Mythos Companion, and some sweet virtual tokens for online play! We've got a few weeks to hit these goals and add these rewards to our rewards lists. I'm sure we can do it.

And then... maybe even more?! Let's keep it rolling and see where we can end up!

#ScionSecondEdition

#ScionDragon

#ScionMasksOfTheMythos

Arkham
about 3 years ago – Sat, Feb 06, 2021 at 09:51:18 AM

Squamous Salutations, Scions!

It's a Mythos Day, and time to delve into our setting a little today. So, let's check in on the town of Arkham...

Arkham

Statistics

• Population: 46,298
• Active Gods: Nyarlathotep, The King in Yellow
• Demographics: 71% White, 10% Hispanic or Latinx, 9% African American, 7% South Asian, 2% First Nations Peoples
• Median Age: 38
• Median Income:$63,867
• Cost of Living: 125% composite index compared to national average. (Boston, MA is 132%)
• Major Town Mascot/Sculpture: Jeddediah Houston’s Sacrifice

History

The city of Arkham represents one of the first settlements to come from the great egress of good English peoples escaping troubled lives in their homeland for a simpler life in the new world. This frontier represented a blank slate on which they could build a community more wholly complete and committed to their God’s intentions for them in this lifetime. Salem was the first in 1626, with Arkham soon after in 1628. Two years later, there began a tidal wave of thousands of immigrants from England that lasted until 1642 and seeded what would become Essex County.

The land was rich, fertile, and welcoming to the resolute and the hardworking. Their First Nation neighbors, the Wampanoag, were kind and happy to teach these foreigners the things they needed to know to thrive on the land. What and where to plant were important, almost as much as what and where not to. They taught them better trapping techniques for game that wandered in the area, as well any number of other useful techniques.

With a climate much like their homeland and ready access to timber and many other raw resources as well as waterways that ferried them quickly to the coast, they thrived in their new home, this new England. The foreigners were strange to the native people of what would become America with their odd tales of this new world. The Indigenous people told them of great battles, and old gods and beings older than time that had come before them and would come again after them and shape the very earth they stood on. They spoke of events so ancient that no human individual could possibly have borne witness, yet their story would have made the foreigners believe they were actually there.

They cautioned the settlers to take heed in numerous parts of the forest, advising them to avoid many places entirely. Some were odd landmarks with characteristics that made it hard to understand how human hands could have fashioned them. Others were simply parts of the forest where nothing seemed to grow, barren with the stench of death, that no person of sound mind would traverse voluntarily. Others were just areas with ominous-sounding names, as if a warning were built into the moniker. Exactly what these Puritans were to be warned away from was never clear. The newcomers could no more see danger in this land than they could the great creator the Natives spoke of as being all around them. Their God had brought them here; he had chosen this place for them. Surely there was nothing here from which he could not protect them. So, the Puritans balked at the “superstitious savages,” paying their ancient myths no mind. There were some white men, however, who noted if you looked closely you could see the deep, haunted fear in their eyes when they spoke — or more aptly didn’t speak — of this history.

The story of Arkham is the story of most New England towns with some minor revisions. Arkham was built along the Miskatonic River and sprawled into its surroundings as more and more immigrants arrived and families expanded. The slow-but-steady transformation of woodlands that were thick and wild into tamed and managed farmland was seemingly inevitable. Trees were cleared to make way for the roads that were needed to carry all one could acquire from the coast and surrounding areas. That lumber became the farmhouses, barns, and fences that were called home. This was progress for the next 150 years until the bounty of the woodlands was spent entirely.

The end of the 17th century bore witness to decades of witch hunts that spread through New England, hitting Massachusetts particularly hard. All the news from neighboring Salem reported on the seemingly never-ending number of trials, dunkings, and burnings in their attempt to cleanse their town of evil. While the rest of their neighbors waged their crusade, Arkhamites took a different approach. It wasn’t that they were any less devout or less committed to their God than any other good citizen of New England. It certainly was not because Arkham could be declared free of sinister influence or void of evil. There were too many strange goings-on. Too many rumors, whispers, stories, and odd folks with even odder behaviors that no one could or seemed inclined to explain.

Every Arkhamite knew and was rightly leery of the Witch House on Pickman Street. With its strange sounds, terrifying smells, and the unsettling way it seemed to affect its lodgers, it was best avoided at all costs. While everyone was concerned about what unholy happenings went on inside, no one dared cross its bounds and knock on the door to inquire. It seemed every citizen breathed a sigh of relief when the news came of Keziah Mason’s arrest and trial in Salem, as she was the house’s owner. Then they quickly sucked in and held their breath at the news of her disappearance from her locked cell. No, it was not that the people of Arkham heeded their God less. Perhaps it could be said, however, that they had a keen sense of the forces at play and could recognize that which was beyond the laws of mortals when they brushed against it.

Like most of New England, the redcoats marched through during the war and even managed to burn down quite a bit of the town. Unlike other towns, there were multiple reports of regiments who wandered into the woods surrounding Arkham and were never heard from again. Individual soldiers who left the safety of numbers to make chase into the trees did not return; a search turned up only empty, lifeless uniforms, still whole and intact as if the bodies had been simply sucked out of them. The forests eventually proved unnavigable. Soldiers swore that north would “drift” and they would end up lost, nowhere near where they should be. These events and the strange, inhuman sounds that came from the trees meant the British soon stopped coming through at night and eventually stopped coming through at all. Stories of large armies marching their way around the coast, cutting wide and circuitous paths to avoid Arkham and its surroundings all together, bandied about the towns.

The 1900s were prosperous for Arkham. With the exception of a typhoid outbreak in 1905, Arkham thrived. Like all towns, it lost its share of boys and men to two world wars, but the opening of Miskatonic University in the early part of the century meant more youth and vibrancy than most towns had during war. Shortly after, the Arkham Sanitarium opened. These two institutions brought in professors, doctors, and researchers of all stripes. While Arkham was considerably smaller, its reputation was comparable to the great institutions of Boston in educational, medical, and otherworldly affairs.

Modern Day

Despite trying occasionally, the city of Arkham was never quite able to shake its small-town, Puritan roots. It has a bustling, steady population of over 40,000 citizens, of which nearly 10 percent are students and faculty at Miskatonic University. Something about the small-town vibe, regardless of the crime, makes Arkham feel strangely safe to young residents. That youthful energy and money have led to the town having an active nightlife scene. The latest tunes float out of clubs to those looking for fun, music, and good food.

Arkham provides well, since, like all small university towns, it has its share of contemporary conveniences. Multiple coffee shops and bakeries abound, including the best doughnuts in New England. There are a couple of medium-sized butchers and grocers. There is a frozen yogurt store, the bubble tea shop, a few hotels, and many restaurants ranging from diners to upscale eateries with tablecloths — and while the town has managed to keep out every other national chain, there is, much to the dismay of many, a single Starbucks. On the main street, you can find just about anything you might be looking for including practical things like a hardware store, several bank branches, a locksmith, car mechanics, a used-car dealer, and a drug store.

For fun, there is the local comic-book shop and game store, plus the music store where you can rent or buy an instrument and learn to play it. There is a nine-hole mini-golf course, a two-screen movie house, a playhouse that shares space with the university and way more bars and music venues that rely heavily on alcohol sales than the much of the local populous would like. Of course, all of this means that the students leave campus and spend their money, which, considering what a year at Miskatonic University costs, is far more than the average 20-year-old Arkhamite has in walking-around money. The locals love it here, except for the part where the students leave campus. Like all good Puritan towns, there are no fewer than a dozen churches to save the souls of Arkham sinners. However, most churchgoers don’t think those who need it most ever attend services at all. The fact that all the students seem to sleep in on Sunday mornings or attend on-campus church sits with everyone just fine.

One of the ways Arkham holds fast to its history is that it’s governed by the same town council that was put in place almost 300 years ago. One of the few and most important changes came around 40 years ago, when the council changed the bylaws to allow one non-native-Arkhamite member of the board. With the closing of paper mills and other port-based industries leaving the greater area and many leaving the US altogether, there were growing concerns about the health of a small town with very little industry of its own. As a gesture of goodwill and to show appreciation for the role the university plays in the Arkham community, a new seat was created.

Now, even though it says in the bylaws that legacy residency isn’t required to be eligible to run for this opening, not everyone can throw their hat in the ring. Everyone knows a university professor, preferably a chair holder, or possibly a doctor from the sanitarium, will occupy this long-contested seat. Many, if not most, Arkhamites can trace their lineage back to the original Puritan settlers from over three centuries ago. Call it protectionism, call it elitism, call it a bull-headed way of keeping Arkham’s troubled history, well...history. Still, the town has never cared for outsiders to be too deeply involved in its business, and they have an unusually broad definition of an outsider.

Miskatonic University and Arkham Sanitarium are fundamental to the economic wellbeing of the town, though anyone who sits on the council will give you all kinds of numbers that show Arkham could live without either institution while knowing it isn’t true. That doesn’t give the people just passing through the right to start making decisions for hardworking folks who have been here all their lives. Never mind that most of the sanitarium staff and nearly all the university faculty live in Arkham, some for decades. Not to mention the many residents who work in nearby Kingsport or who commute as far as Bolton or Manchester but have decided to call Arkham home

Then there is the economic divide. While the median income is just shy of $63,500, the top half is weighted heavily with employees of the big two. In fact, these looming institutions are just about the only places to make a six-figure salary in Arkham. All this, of course, helps push up the cost of living ($48,741 at last census) over time, making it harder for lifelong blue-collar workers to keep up. Some can barely afford to live in their hometown.

What does that mean for the average Arkham citizen? Turns out, it is a little easier to get things done and make your way if your family name appears on the old citizen ledgers. Any time permission, planning, permits, or even just general courtesy is required, new Arkham residents (as in anyone who moved there in the past 150 years) encounter roadblocks and technicalities one could argue were constructed just for them. Not that they can prove it or find anyone will listen when they complain. They’re more likely to be arrested for disturbing the peace than find any justice.

Legends

Arkham has always been haunted, long before there were humans around to notice. Just below the simple, calm veneer of the place is a darkness that infects everything. For a town of its size, it has an unusual amount of disappearances. Not officially, however; for some reason, no one ever recalls the exact numbers, just that it happens. According to the locals, people tend to keep to themselves and come and go as they please, so it is no surprise when one just up and leaves for good.

Arkham, while one of the largest and most modern cities in the Miskatonic Hollow, has always been surrounded by dark trees that reach up toward the heavens. Regardless of how many are cut down, turned into homes, furniture, and shipped around the world, the trees never grow thin. It was those trees that kept Arkham safe during the Revolutionary War. At night, strange screams in the night can occasionally be heard coming from them. Some people claim the accents are old English or something stranger.

A scattering of old gambrel-roofed homes dots the city — a reminder of what was. They are beside thriving businesses, apartment buildings, and mansions. One or two have fallen into the control of the city as historical monuments and are shown during walking tours. The others are still in use, with locals living in them and passing them down from generation to generation. Whispers of ancient houses that twisted their residents’ minds are now children’s songs. The Tills house was abandoned and investigated in the 1970s, after discovering both human and other remains in the walls and attic. Stories of Arkham Cemetery tell of where, if you dig deep enough in the right grave, you can reach hell and speak to the devil, or of Old Helen, a Revolutionary War widow and the victim of a fire who haunts the east side of town.

Even the civic district, which should be the most respectable part of town, is not free from this stigma. In the center of the square bounded by the railroad, government buildings, civic organizations, and Arkham’s small post office sits a peculiar statue. A tall, broad man stands proud with his foot resting on a sphere, victoriously holding an odd, L-shaped object in his right hand. This is peculiar but not suspect. The devil is in the details and the inscription. The item in his hand has the rough shape and dimensions of a handgun, but it is far too cylindrical and smooth, with what can only be described as a balloon attached to the top of it. Upon further examination, his foot sits on something uneven, layered, and messy. Some speculate it is a ball of earth and grass, representing the triumph of Arkhamites over the land, but some swear they can make out what surely must be three eyes, and a mouth slightly agape.

Then there is the plaque. It reads, “On this site, 1825, we recognize Jeddediah Houston and the sacrifice he made to save us all in 1722, Arkham, MA.” There are no Houstons in Arkham and no one claims to have ever heard of the family. In fact, despite a monument being erected to his great deeds 100 years later, no one seems to know or can recall ever hearing about who he was, what he did, from what he saved Arkham, or why he would be honored. Yet, every attempt to remove it and have it replaced with a more modern figure is denied before the ink dries on the application.

Arkham is unlike any other location. It is draped in legends, stories, and tales beyond human imagining. Those stories passed down from family member to family member shape the foundation of the city of whispers.

On Friday, backers will be able to download the next Kickstarter manuscript preview from Scion: Masks of the Mythos. Join in and check it out!

#ScionMasksOfTheMythos

#ScionSecondEdition

Where There’s Smoke
about 3 years ago – Sat, Feb 06, 2021 at 09:49:56 AM

Hello Heirs,

I've got the final dragon tale from Lauren Roy for you today! If you've missed the first two parts (or just want to re-read them!), you can here:

• Retrieval
• An Unlikely Alliance

And now that you're caught up, let's dig in...

Where There’s Smoke

By Lauren Roy

The intruders hadn’t been exactly subtle, tromping through the forest like they were the apex predators here. That’s what they normally were, after all, out in The World: people with guns and body armor, with big machines to perform the tasks they otherwise couldn’t. Out in the rainforest — everyday nature — that balance still shifted. Bobcats didn’t care about Kevlar, and an Olympic black bear could shrug off several shots while it rushed its victim. Still, guns made humans feel confident. Immortal, even.

But here, in this part of the rainforest, they couldn’t predict what else might be stalking them through the trees. Several times as Ambrosia and Rhiannon led the way, Jakob had spotted footprints whose owners he was sure would be a couple of stories tall, if they had the misfortune to encounter them. He doubted the intruders’ guns would do much against a prehistoric monster.

While Rhiannon and Ambrosia explored the cavern and Eric scouted off to the west, Jakob found the trail the intruders had cut through the woods. They’d come in from the opposite direction, and had clearly passed back and forth to the shrine a few times. Trampled ground and broken branches pointed a clear path to their staging area. Three giant pickup trucks were parked in a row, with two people in military-style gear standing around them chatting. Crates filled the backs of the outer vehicles. In the middle truck’s bed, a tarp covered something massive. Jakob’s heart sank.

That’s why we didn’t have any trouble getting to the shrine. They killed its guardian. He couldn’t be certain — maybe it was a giant bear, or another huge forest denizen — but the guards all seemed a little too smug for it to be anything less than an epic kill under there.

He faded back into the forest, intent on warning the others. Halfway back to the shrine, he found another pair of intruders. They were lugging a plastic crate between them, paying more attention to the ground than they were to what was up ahead, which unfortunately for them, was Jakob.

“You got a permit for that?” he asked, stepping into their path.

“Buddy, you’re on private property,” said the one in front. “You need to turn around and go home.”

Jakob frowned. “Last I checked, the rainforest’s part of the national park.”

“Apparently you haven’t noticed we’re not in the national park anymore. This land’s been claimed, and you’re trespassing.” They lowered the crate to the ground. The one in front unholstered his sidearm, but didn’t aim it at Jakob. Yet. “You want to move along, now.”

“What have you got there, anyway?” he asked, ignoring the threat. “Some kind of treasure? I bet there’s some really old stuff out here, probably worth a lot. Do you get a cut of it?” Jakob knew a thing or two about greed, how it wormed its way into people’s hearts and made them jealous of what others had. How it made them suspicious of one another. He played on that now. “What’s your percentage? The same, or is it negotiable?”

The one in front glanced back at her counterpart. “We don’t talk numbers.”

Jakob tilted his head. “Really? Because that guy looks pretty pleased with himself. How big is the stuff? Anything that could fit in a pocket? Maybe smuggle something out and sell it yourself, keep the whole pile of money?”

She stared at her counterpart. “That does sound like you. What do you have hidden, Frank?”

“Me?” Frank spread his hands. “You’re the one who was talking numbers back there, Kate. How would you know what this stuff goes for unless you’ve been doing some research on your own, maybe setting up a buyer?”

As they sniped at each other, Jakob inched closer. They moved from bickering into full-on shouting; it’d only be a matter of seconds before one took aim at the other. Stepping up behind Kate, Jakob smoothly plucked the gun from her hand.

Frank reacted quickly, training his gun on Jakob. “Hey. Easy now,” he said. “Don’t make me shoot.”

“You can’t,” said Jakob. The air grew bitterly cold all around them. The intruders’ ragged breath came out in little clouds. Frank hissed as a skin of rime covered his gun; he dropped it as ice licked toward his fingers. “Sit down, both of you.”

They did as they were told, sinking to the ground. Jakob pulled zip ties from Frank’s belt and secured their hands behind their backs, then to one another. He removed their radios and stomped on them until they shattered. Then, he hefted the plastic bin up onto one shoulder as though it weighed no more than a feather. “Now no one gets a cut,” he said.

He left them there, still bickering, and hurried back to the shrine. In the distance, he heard the thunderclap-roar of Donner’s gun.

Jakob reached the clearing as Ambrosia and Rhiannon emerged from the cavern. Eric came striding in from the west seconds later.

“What’s going on?” asked Ambrosia. “We heard the shot.”

“We’re not alone here,” said Jakob. “Got a bunch of security types in trucks about a mile to the east. I bumped into a couple of them on the way back, and I’m guessing Eric’s found more.”

“Yeah. Just one,” he said. “A shoot first type.”

Rhiannon hurried over to him. She’d mentioned having EMT training, and proved it now, giving her friend a concerned once over. “I only heard one gun go off.”

Eric shrugged. “Turns out he shot second. Or would have, anyway. I didn’t kill him, but it’ll take him a while to get back to his friends, whoever they are.”

“Lonergan Industries.” Ambrosia showed them the badge she’d found below. “Looks like their CEO’s trying to expand his territory.”

“We can probably scare them off,” said Jakob, setting his burden down, “but the damage might be done. They had something in one of their trucks. I think it was whatever lived here.”

Ambrosia opened the plastic crate. Inside, among a jumble of worn stone figures, were about a dozen sharp teeth the size of her palm. “I say we get rid of them anyway. Those fuckers.”

***

The two guards in the staging area had gone from their casual shit-shooting to high alert when the four arrived. Frank and Kate must have hobbled their way back and alerted the others to the trespassers’ presence; they stood off to the right, consulting a tablet, probably marking down lost inventory. They were about to lose a whole lot more.

Ambrosia recognized one of the guards as she came through the trees: Byers, whom she and Mitch had run into at Lonergan’s manor. She didn’t bother with niceties. Several of their number had already waved guns at her allies, and between the teeth from the crate and the lump under the tarp, Ambrosia doubted Lonergan’s employees had much interest in negotiating.

Rage seethed in her belly, an echo of what she’d felt in that memory beneath the earth. Out in the field, she kept a tight lid on her emotions and let logic drive her decisions. Here, though, were the modern equivalents of the wicked men she’d stopped long ago, though their leader was elsewhere. Lonergan was content to rake in the profits, but Gods forbid he got his hands dirty.

Her roar shook the trees as she rushed forward. Her allies were a hairsbreadth behind. Panic lit Byers’ eyes as he recognized who it was streaking toward him, but he didn’t turn and flee. That was fine by Ambrosia.

A wind kicked up as she ran. Between Jakob and Donner, quite a storm was brewing. It felt good on her face, like the currents that buffeted some past version of herself as she soared through the clouds. For a moment, she was back in that final dive toward the wicked men, in a controlled plummet that was both terrifying and thrilling.

Byers’ Kevlar’s wasn’t so different from those old steel breastplates, she realized. Even though he wasn’t putting the rainforest to the torch, he’d been complicit in killing a creature that was merely minding its own business out here in the wilds, all for some other man’s greed. Things hadn’t changed all that much.

Byers was ready for her, settling into a defensive stance. He didn’t draw his gun, maybe full of some bullshit macho need to best her hand-to-hand. That was fine. He could make that mistake. It’d be all the sweeter when she defeated him. She left hers holstered, too.

He had professional training, that was for sure; Ambrosia noticed it the night of the heist. She wondered if he had been military before he’d signed onto Lonergan’s crew; A Navy SEAL or the Marines, maybe. He caught several of her swings, turned them aside and struck while she adjusted. She learned some of these same moves in her time with the SPD, and even how to counter them, but her ribs ached wherever Byers’ blows landed.

He grinned, smug and pre-emptively triumphant.

Wrong choice.

Ambrosia abandoned the police moves. Some days, a good old-fashioned bar brawl was the way you needed to go. The switch in styles threw him — he adjusted, but not fast enough. The force behind Ambrosia’s wild swing knocked him back, left a dent where he slammed into the truck’s side.

In that moment, he realized he might lose. So, he stopped fighting fair. Out came the gun.

“You fucking coward,” Ambrosia sneered.

He squeezed off a shot as she flew at him. A white-hot streak of pain seared her upper arm as the bullet grazed her, but she gritted her teeth against it. Ambrosia closed the distance in a heartbeat and grabbed his gun hand. Heat flared beneath their fingers and as she pictured the bullets in their chambers. “If you want to keep that hand,” she said, “let go right now.” He howled as the metal seared his skin. The smell of burning flesh was awful, but Ambrosia’s stomach grumbled anyway.

Byers’ hand relaxed beneath hers. Ambrosia let go, and he sank to the ground, panting.

Jakob leapt atop the rightmost truck. He hefted one of the crates and flung it out of the bed, forcing a guard to dive out of its way. He pitched another at Frank and Kate. It shattered at their feet, sending splinters of plastic and stone shrapnel into exposed skin. Frost spread from Jakob’s feet, encapsulating the truck. The guard dragged himself into the cab and turned the ignition, either attempting to flee like a coward or separate Jakob from his allies. Either way, it didn’t work. The engine was too cold to start, the battery drained. Jakob smashed in the window and dragged the guard out by the collar.

Rhiannon skirted around Ambrosia and Byers, climbing up into the other truck’s bed. Like Jakob, she went for the crates. Heavy as they were, she lugged firehoses and air tanks around on the regular. Out of the trucks and onto the ground they went, spilling their contents onto the rainforest’s tire-churned soil.

Eric shot the middle truck’s rear tires, then circled around behind Frank and Kate. He herded them toward their other two colleagues, directing them with a flick of Giantsbane’s muzzle. Jakob held the guard he’d been tangling with by the scruff of the neck and dragged him over to Ambrosia and Byers like an unruly kitten.

“You’re going to get in this truck and leave,” said Ambrosia. “You’ll find your last buddy on the way out. He’ll need some help getting in. Then you’re going to tell your boss this place is off-limits. He sends you or another team back, we’ll find out.”

“Do you think this is the only place like this he’s got?” asked Byers. “You can’t be in all of them.”

Ambrosia leaned down, so Byers could see the flames flickering in her eyes. “Don’t be so sure,” she said. “I can be very, very patient. Now run.”

The four Lonergan employees scrambled into the truck, two in the cab, two riding in the bed. The tires kicked up dirt as the driver floored the gas.

“Did we just ... declare war on a billionaire?” asked Jakob.

“Think so,” said Ambrosia. She was already planning the research she’d need to do when she got back to Seattle, the calls she’d need to make and the favors she’d need to call in. “You in?”

He grinned. “Hell yeah.”

***

A week later, Ambrosia sat in Leticia Flores Gonzáles’ kitchen. Maps of Washington and printouts of Lonergan’s holdings covered the table, along with several notebooks full of Ambrosia’s research. If anyone would have an idea of which Lonergan endeavors were the shadiest, it was Leticia. Her environmental activism had taught her to spot inconsistencies in land buys, and how to tell when business operations weren’t truly what they seemed.

“He’s been after permits to cut old-growth trees that have been off-limits for a long time,” she said now, twirling the macaw pin on her sweater. “His whole team of lobbyists have been at it for over a year now.”

“And he’s using those permits to find places of power and steal whatever’s there so he can sell it. It’s only a matter of time before he stumbles across someone’s hoard.”

“He’s got resources. Friends in high places. An army of lawyers. You sure you’re ready for this?”

Ambrosia thought about the empty shrine in the rainforest, and the relics Lonergan’s people had taken from their sacred places to turn a profit. She thought about what they’d found under the tarp after Byers and his crew drove away, and the deep sorrow and pity she’d felt as they buried the slain shrine-guardian.

She tapped a place circled on the map, one of Lonergan’s recent real estate acquisitions. “This is worth fighting for.”

#ScionDragon

#ScionSecondEdition

The Bog Woman
over 3 years ago – Mon, Feb 01, 2021 at 10:43:22 AM

Salutations Squamous Scions!

Welcome to February!

We've had a couple stories from the Scion: Dragon book so far, but today is a Mythos Day, so it's time to share a quick piece to help us continue to get into the mood for this twisted path.

The Bog Woman

The old woman walked the land for the last time while pondering recent events. Her ancestors were among the early settlers in the region, fleeing the Salem witch panic before they became casualties themselves. But recent events meant she would have to find a new home; her ancestral homestead would become a casualty of supposed progress. Before her family occupied the land, it hosted a small colonial settlement that was preceded by a Penacook village. According to the family records, she descended from residents of both villages, the offspring of First Nations and white settler pairing.

Heavy rains caused artifacts of these settlements to emerge from the soft, damp soil near the bog and she cherished each moldering treasure. Experts from the state told her the pristine bog’s rarity and the ancient archaeological sites on the land would stave off attempts to supplant her — but, in the end, corrupt local officials took her home under the auspices of economic development. She knew a similar fate had befallen some in the city, but until now the oldest families of the region were spared.

Her mood darkened as she realized nothing would save the land. She passed through the aged family burial ground one last time, whispering final farewells and hearing faint sibilant susurrations in return. She then ambled to the bog she explored as a girl, cataloging the various inhabitants. She recalled taking a small raft into the deeper waters in the center of the bog where, on certain nights, she saw a green glow emanate from below the surface. In recent weeks that glow had returned and seemed stronger than before; where once visible only on the darkest of nights, it was now strong and visible even when the moon was full. She had believed it to be a portent of something, but now thought it must have been a trick of an aging mind. She knew this land like no other had before; she and the land were one.

Continuing her trek along the edge of the bog, she wove among the trees and shrubs, hoping to find something of significance that would stave off the impending takeover. It was then that she stumbled across a strange, green stone about the size of a newborn child. Elated to find one last artifact, she knelt to wipe away the mud and saw it was a carving. Looking closer, she marveled over the stone that must have lain just beneath the surface for centuries. Understanding immediately that this piece of statuary shared her connection to the land, she began to clean the wide-mouthed, lizard-like face and saw the bulging eyes emit a familiar green light. A strange name came unbidden into her mind and she knew she would have help saving the land.

Her eyes began to glow a brilliant green as she proclaimed, “Bokrug, I am yours!”

This coming Wednesday, we're gonna start to explore the history of Arkham and some of the setting introduced into the World with Masks of the Mythos. On Friday, we'll have our next Chapter download for review.

#ScionMasksOfTheMythos

#ScionSecondEdition

Sunday's Squamous Summary
over 3 years ago – Sun, Jan 31, 2021 at 12:27:28 PM

Hello Heirs and Salutations Scions,

Today is not a Dragon Day nor is it a Mythos Day. Instead, we're going to have a Sunday Summary, looking at how far we've come and scanning the horizon for upcoming goals and opportunities.

Manuscript Previews

Now that we're into the middle weeks of the campaign, we've released a few previews for the books and are approaching the halfway point for these draft manuscripts. 

• Scion: Dragon - second manuscript preview for backers released in Update #14
• Scion: Masks of the Mythos - second manuscript preview for backers released in Update #18

There's been lots of good discussion in the comments on the manuscripts so far, and a ton of questions and speculation. I've reached out to the Scion team to add some clarification where possible and maybe give us a hint or two about some directions, and I'll share that when I have some further info.

Of course, a lot of our questions will be answered as we work through the manuscript, reviewing the upcoming chapters. By the end of this campaign, we'll have definitive answers on what's included in the book and what all is covered. It's tough, sometimes, when you can't yet see the entire shape and how all the parts go together, but I expect some illumination when we have all the pieces laid out.

Of course, the other area stems from clarification and errata. As noted, these are working draft manuscripts and, though they provide a solid foundation and enough to confidently run a kickstarter campaign, there are rounds of editing, development, and review still in store for these books. The writers have lived through a few drafts already, and countless conversations, but this is the first time their work is being reviewed by those outside the Scion development bubble, so necessary fine-tuning will make the text work for a larger audience.

And speaking of fine-tuning, the Onyx Path team isn't only sharing the manuscript so you know what you're getting into - they also want your feedback!

FEEDBACK FORM: https://forms.gle/Bcc2KLUP6n5ep14eA

Podcasts and Actual Plays

This week we had some fun Scion: Masks of the Mythos info and examples, with

• Episode 139 of the Onyx Pathcast - The Man behind the Mythos!

Wherein Eddy Webb had a chat with Masks of the Mythos developer Chris Spivey to discuss how the Mythos fits into the World of Scion, the morality and mechanics of Scion: Masks of the Mythos, the challenge in picking bits to include in the book and more!

And then the Vorpal Tales team had a few sessions (and a Character Creation session) of Masks of the Mythos! Check out the playlist for those here: Vorpal Tales' Mask of the Mythos

Stretch Goals

But here's the most exciting part of the week in review! Last week when we looked at where we stood, we just landed our 13th Stretch Goal. Well, while I'm typing this update, we've just achieved our SEVENTEENTH Stretch Goal! Let's see what we've added in this past week...

[MYTHOS] At $111,936 funding – Scion: Masks of the Mythos Companion – Y’ha-nthlei – The underwater home of the Deep Ones off the coast of Devil’s Reef will be detailed and added to the Scion: Masks of the Mythos Companion PDF.

[ALL BACKERS] At $117,749 funding – Scion: Dragon Digital Wallpaper – Dress up your monitor with an epic scene from Scion: Dragon. This will be added to the rewards list for all backers.

[DRAGON] At $123,000 funding – Scion: Dragon Jumpstart – A starting scenario will be added to the 6 Ready-Made Characters, expanding the Ready-Made Character supplemental PDF into a full Scion: Dragon Jumpstart PDF supplement.

[MYTHOS] At $127,000 funding – Scion: Masks of the Mythos Companion – Elderian Home Planet – A new kind of Terra Incognita, the home planet where the Elder Things reside, will be detailed and added to the Scion: Masks of the Mythos Companion PDF.

So, we've turned our two previous Ready-Made Character PDF supplements into a full Scion: Dragon Jumpstart PDF, which will include ready-to-go characters and an introductory scenario so you can dive right in!

And we've added two new weird locations to be detailed in the Scion: Masks of the Mythos companion PDF book. 

Outstanding! And, with 18 days still left in this campaign, there's plenty of opportunity to add even more to these additional reward lists! Let's keep at it!

 [ALL BACKERS] At $130,000 funding – Scion: Masks of the Mythos Digital Wallpaper – Dress up your monitor with an unsettling scene from Scion: Masks of the Mythos. This will beadded to the rewards list for all backers.

We've got one more wallpaper celebration - this time, with Masks of the Mythos artwork, to go before we unveil our next flight of Stretch Goal targets. If you're interested in another Dragon Flight... or maybe some additional Mythos Relics... and maybe some simple assets to make online play a bit more colorful? We'll see!

The Week Ahead

Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday are our Dragon Days. We'll be able to download the second half of the Flights chapter on Tuesday, getting the third and final fiction piece from Lauren Roy on Thursday, and meeting a couple of Scion: Dragon signature characters on Saturday.

Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are our Mythos Days. Tomorrow, we'll meet the Bog Woman. On Wednesday, we'll be taking a history class at Arkham University. And on Friday we'll have Chapter 4 from Scion: Masks of the Mythos available for all backers to download and review.

So, huge thanks to everyone for your continuing support - all 1600 of us! And let's all take a moment (again) to celebrate these massive accomplishments! This campaign continues to rock even during these "slow" periods in the middle!

And let's keep up the enthusiasm and excitement and see if we can't add another flight of Stretch Goals to our rewards over the next week or two!

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