Well, final writing is finished and design is well underway. We’ve found a few great editors and people to do some cleanup work, so things are progressing along nicely.  I’ve just finished updating a few things in the chapter 3 character creation section. Two races from the monsters section got moved up and expanded. Firstly, Mechanist Automata in all their diversity got a more detailed writeup.  Another race, the Zasheri got added. The Zasheri are an alien race whose home world was destroyed by the "Dark Fire From The Sky". They stepped into the spirit worlds and travelled them for many years before finding Cyrus. Their time between physical planes has left them magically infused. They are somewhere between gods and demons and fear the Dark Fire might have followed them.  (Art by Laine Garret)

7 pages left, 3 of them are being written by Jason Novak (our new freelance writer) right now.

That leaves 4 to go, and 2 of those (Cirro) just need a re-write. I find this hard to fathom . . .

- JA

but they will be soon! Just 2 more days until Origins Games Fair starts and 3 more days until Silvervine arrives and starts running games.  We’ve got some great stuff going on and the prizes this year are going to be excellent. The winner of the Reisja Stones Tournament on Saturday night gets their NPC featured in an upcoming Silvervine adventure.

THU 4:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

THU 6:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

THU 6:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Sky Raid Rescue

THU 8:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Adventure in Venture

FRI 10:00 AM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 12:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Sky Raid Rescue

FRI 12:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 2:00 PM  – 4 hours - Riesja Stones – Adventure in Venture

FRI 4:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 6:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Claim the Cultural Artifact

FRI 6:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 8:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Of Mice and Minotaurs

SAT 10:00 AM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

SAT 12:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

SAT 12:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Of Mice and Minotaurs

SAT 2:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Claim the Cultural Artifact

SAT 4:00 PM – 42 hours – Character Creation & Demo

SAT 6:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones Tournament

Today is Free RPG Day! A day when various companies donate or give away quickstarts and freesamples of their RPGs. While Silvervine doesn’t have anything NEW to give away today, you can always find the Quick Character Creation Guide (more than enough info to build a fully usable Silvervine Character) in our downloads section. 

SVG Free Quick Character Creation Guide

Go check out the Free RPG Day retail locator and get yourself some new stuff!

For all you wonderful people who are attending the Origins Game Fair this year, here is Silvervine’s schedule of games.  If Ancon was any indication of how fun the games we setup this year are, Origins is going to be a blast. The picture to the right is of the beta model we created for the Pandgaarum Tournament at Ancon. It will be running Saturday evening at Origins and the model is being painted and embellished, so it should look a lot better before it hits the table on Saturday.

THU 4:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

THU 6:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

THU 6:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Sky Raid Rescue

THU 8:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Adventure in Venture

FRI 10:00 AM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 12:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Sky Raid Rescue

FRI 12:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 2:00 PM  – 4 hours - Riesja Stones – Adventure in Venture

FRI 4:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 6:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Claim the Cultural Artifact

FRI 6:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

FRI 8:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Of Mice and Minotaurs

SAT 10:00 AM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

SAT 12:00 PM – 2 hours – Character Creation & Demo

SAT 12:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Of Mice and Minotaurs

SAT 2:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones – Claim the Cultural Artifact

SAT 4:00 PM – 42 hours – Character Creation & Demo

SAT 6:00 PM – 4 hours – Riesja Stones Tournament

Character Creation – Armored Mage,Ninja Paladin,Suave Orc Spy? Try Silvervine’s unlimited character creation and an intro game.
Sky Raid Rescue – Couriers transporting an artifact by airship are hunted and trapped by a pirate’s blockade. Get in and rescue them before the pirates unearth their hiding spot.
Adventure In Venture – Whytegaard needs assistance in recovering an ancient artifact last seen in Venture. Try to keep up. This stone seems to have legs of its own.
Of Mice And Minotaurs – Andred needs your help! Beat the enemy party to an ancient lost artifact buried in a labyrinth that history has forgotten.
Claim The Cultural Artifact – The Clavian emissary to Adamah is dead. Restart negotiations and acquire the Reisja stone, however possible, or face the Emperor’s "justice" . . .
Reisja Stones Tournament – Fight for glory or play mercenary in this 16 player tournament. The winner’s character will be featured NPC in an upcoming Silvervine publication.

Well, we just finished registering for our Origins badges. Woot! This year should be a really fun time, especially if our games at Ancon were any indicator.

Also, check out some of our ads that will be appearing in Open Game Table Anthology Version 2.

This is one of the interior ads that will fit in a column in a section of blogs all about making awesome characters. Appropriate placement for a Silvervine ad, don’t ya think?

The full page ad comes after the jump.

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We had an AWESOME time at Ancon 2010. The convention was awesome beyond awesome. There were so many incredible moments. Special thanks to everyone who participated in the Reisja Stones tournament: Amber, Ben, Brian, Ian, Larry, and Mark. You guys made it incredible and your added storyline was awesome!!!!!!!

Check out our pictures on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/silvervinegames

Hey all NE Ohio SVG Fans (or anyone wanting to travel farther)!

Want to get a taste of what Silvervine is offering up for the 2010 convention season? With Ancon 8 days away, we are going to be doing some practice runs for 4 of our adventures this Sunday at the Silvervine Offices. If you live near Akron Ohio and would like to get in on some pre-convention games, you are invited.

We’ll be running games at 2pm and 7pm on Sunday May 16th. In order to get involved, register by emailing playtest [@] silvervinegames.com and we will send you more information. Playtests will be run in Massillon, Ohio and should take 3-4 hours for each one. Nothing is required and no fore-knowledge of the game system is needed. Pre-generated characters will be used for the games and all materials will be made available, but you can always bring your own starting level (275 Exp) characters.

Want to make your character beforehand? Use the Quick CC Guide – found here.

One of the biggest sticking points for completing the Silvervine Core Rulebook has been finishing the writing on the world of Cyrus. Cyrus was the reason that Silvervine got started in the first place, and it has always been Matt’s baby. Since I was tasked with writing it up as an RPG game world instead of a world that was the backdrop to his in-progress novel, I’ve always had an odd relationship with it.

On one hand, Matt isn’t your typical gamer and had lots of unique ideas for the world. Back in those days I hadn’t been exposed to a lot of the non D&D games that I’ve come to love today. Things that matt proposed for the world I always had a hard time integrating into my idea of what tabletop gaming was.  The more I did though, the more I came to embrace many of the more unique points of Cyrus.

On the other hand, Matt isn’t your typical gamer and never had as much exposure to what kinds of things have become cliche’ in games. A lot of elements that could be found within the World of Cyrus were cases of parallel development to concepts found in many other fantasy settings. I’d shake my hand at the heavens every time I would mention the latest thing to come out of a brainstorming session and one of my friends would tell me about how that was like a tribe of werewolves in White-wolf, or how a group of Elves in forgotten realms had similar qualities to a tribe of Elves in Cyrus.

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So I’ve only got 14 pages left to outline for the 80 page Cyrus section. The outlining is actually the biggest step. It is where I take all the conglomerated Cyrus information and decide what is actually going to make it into the final book. With a large bullet point list of things that I want to include, detailed with Setting Information, Adventure Hooks, Cool Factors, NPC names, and lots of other stuff, the remaining writing is easier. It is looking really good at this point and I’m feeling great about how Matt’s world of Cyrus is shaping up. We are pushing hard to have a final sellable book by Origins this year, but I’ll make no guarantees. We’ve been six years in the making and playtesting and I don’t want to have a half-assed product out there with my name on it.

Also, to whet your whistle, here is a bit of preview art, done by the incredibly awesome Avery Liell-Kok.

In it you can see the Rings of Cyrus, an idea of Matt’s that I wasn’t totally sold on until I saw this video: