Checklist: The Countdown

Checklist:
CHAPTER 1

• Paths of Morality for Abyss Mystics, aka "That Darned Path"  (To be brought to the White-Wolf-forum shortly.)
  
• "Right and Wrong in the Eyes of the Abyss," (to be reworked by the original author, Agathe)
  
• format Abyssal Paths
  
• Edit Abyssal Paths
  
• Finish ROLEPLAYING TIPS: Road of Night
  
• Finish ROLEPLAYING TIPS: "Hot" Path of Night
  
• Finish ROLEPLAYING TIPS: "Cold" Path of Night
  
• Finish ROLEPLAYING TIPS: Road of the Abyss
  
• Finish "Lightless" Path of Night
  
• Finish ROLEPLAYING TIPS: "Allied" Path of Night
  
• Finish editing Chapter
  

CHAPTER 2

• Finish Thaumaturgy-to-Abyss Mysticism Ritual conversions  (Completed, with one possible exception)
  
• Finish fluff for custom/homebrew Rituals
  
• Abyssal Alchemy, another one we just can't seem to decide on =(  EDIT: Abyssal Alchemy needs to be written or fixed, or whatever. Valismedsen, I'm looking in your direction.
  
• Edit Chapter
  

CHAPTER 3 (REMOVED)

• CHAPTER 3 has more problems than just how long/short it is...
  
• Format the entire Chapter
  
• Edit the entire Chapter
  

CHAPTER 3 (previously: Chapter 4)

• Adjust the quotes from the Gospel of Laodice to align with the rest of the text in CHAPTER 4.
  
• Format Agathe's section on the Astral Plane/Umbra
  
• Edit Agathe's section on the Astral Plane/Umbra
  
• Wrap up the "Abyss Mysticism in Stories" section
  
• Finish fluff for Merits & Flaws
  
• Translate Merits & Flaws from Blood Dimmed Tides to something more Abyssal
  
• Write-up for Castel D'Ombro? I think Anarch possibly could do this one.
  
• Write-up for Dark Monastery? Still waiting on anything from Peter.
  
• Write-up for Well of Bones?
  
• Write-up for Well of Souls?
  
• (Maybe I'm not the guy for the job when it comes to writing fluff for Zadkiel's Well, and Caridad's Garden.  I looked but saw nothing to write about without taking away from the ST's role.  I say forget them, but if anybody else wants to take a shot at them, go for it, I failed.  =(  )  
  
• Write Caridad's Garden. I would like to suggest that we put Zadkiel's Well together with the rest about Mexico City in the locations section and then just add something small about Caridad's garden there as well. Seems strange to have many different parts about Mexico City, don't you agree?
  
• Write-up for Abyssal Text, "I Nomi di Ombre E Ombre"
  

CHAPTER 4(previously: Chapter 5)

• Quote for "The Antitribu Keeper"
  
• Quote for "The Psychologist"
  

[*]APPENDIX I

• The NPC "Hargos, The Fading Family Man" in APPENDIX I still needs to be written.
  
• Fluff for Moncada to finish off the NPC section. Agathe, your path is clear.
  
• Navarre and Saviarre
  
• Refine fluff for "Those Suspected" section
  
• Fluff for Zarathustra  EDIT: (Anda) Oh and I say we skip writing Zarathustra. I really see nothing that points him to be an mystic or why he even should be suspected as such.
  
• Missing info for De Polonia?
  

APPENDIX II

• Fluff for "The Kraken"
  
• Fluff for Friends of the Night + Sample Antagonist
  
• Fluff for Lupines, Society of Nidhogg + Sample Antagonist
  
• Fluff for Wizards, Nephandi, Euthanatos (?) + Sample Antagonists (this one would be in Agathe's realm of expertise)
  
• Fluff for Fey, the Domain of Night + Sample Antagonist
  
• Fluff for Ghosts, Specters, Malfeans + Sample Antagonists
  
• Fluff for Demons, Earthbound (?) + Sample Antagonists
  

If I remember correctly, Agathe were going to write Moncada for the NPC section and also a sum up on Angelis Ater to put somewhere in the book.

Also there are still parts on Abyssal Locations that we are waiting on. I think it's the stuff that Gattison and Valismedsen signed up to write.

Good news, I finally figured out how to make all the page numbers accurate. I have to manually make sure each chapter begins on the correct page, but at least every chapter won't start on page 1 any more.

Sweet!

Hey, can we remove the maya indian abyss dude with abyssal weapon arms picture from the book? I have given it some thought and I really don't like it. I rather draw something better to fill that space, maybe a half page picture would look much better there.

okay... fine. whatever man.

j/k. it's deleted

Remove the fact that Polonia is an abyss mystic from Byrsa's writings (chapter 1, page 9).

It is, as you pointed out, Byrsa's writing--an in-character voice stating their own beliefs. We ourselves have blurred the line between Obtenebration mastery and Abyss Mysticism at the top of the generational ranks at times. I say it could be one of our plotlines, Abyss mystics may think Polonia is one of them, when we have in fact proven that (canonically) there is no reason to assume that. Wink wink nudge nudge. KnowwhatImean?

Maybe Polonia has some kind of Merit or something that we don't know about that makes him more "in tune" with Obtenebration, allowing him to master its true secrets easier, thus he can essentially perform Abyss Mysticism Rituals as normal Discipline powers--much easier.

Anyway, shouldn't we list the shadowy envoys in that realm in our Bestiary? I don't beleive I have them yet?

I dunno, I feel as this is completely overlooking the case we have done on Polonia, that it's ignoring the facts we have. One might say that it is written in character but when white wolf wrote their in character things they atleast stuck to the facts and if they were touching rumours, personal beliefs or myths they would always mention that it was just that. I think since everything else in Byrsa's story is accurate, this minor thing is kinda like a nail in the eye, especially since we are actually planning to bring up Polonia's case. I think that if we add a "some say..." or "the rumours are that..." to what is said about Polonia, it would be easier to buy. I also think that the novel shows very clearly that this is also something Polonia is doing behind closed doors, and it wouldn't be a known thing.
Don't really like to explain such a complex thing with a unknown merit, knowwhatImean?

Yeah Envoys should absolutely be in the bestiary section, but maybe we should wait with explaining them until we sorted Polonia out. I'll probably put together a case on him soon with the material we have gathered.

Thanks Gattinson for sending the latest version of the guide.

I apologize for the long time away!

Some comments about the guide:

- WOW! just, WOW! It's looking awesome! There's so much new material, and the layout is very nice.

I see there's lot's of things still to be done, however, isn't that right?

I've lost some of the discussions (like the one about Polonia, which I'm okay if you all decide he's not a Mystic, but on the other hand just adding a 'I believe he is a great mystic' to Byrsa's writing should do the trick, like Anda suggested).

I'll also try to bring myself up to date with the many threads of discussions here, to see if I can help throwing my 2 cents in.

Back to the guide, I was thinking its finishing process could be helped if we looked at it and thought about what could be cut (if anything). Thus, things that we wanted to do, but never got around to doing (or doing to the end), and probably never will, can perhaps be better dealt with just by being cut.

On a different note, but still about cutting material, I feel like the work I've written about translating Necromancy and Thaumaturgy paths as Abyss Mysticism powers now feels kinda out of place in the book. That's because the efforts at being as complete as possible with the rituals has been so amazing that these conversions really feel unnecessary.

What do you guys think?

I know I wrote it, but I would be totally ok with it being cut.

This brings up an interesting idea I had earlier but wasn't sure how to bring up to you all....

What about this? On the White-Wolf-forum, somebody mentioned that Onyx Path is releasing a new Thaumaturgy supplement. Now would be a perfect time to start considering the unbelievable:

Grey Jackal's Abyss Mysticism Companion.

I was considering the same thing as valis, but I still feel like they are important, or at least beneficial, interesting or cool enough to deserve to not be thrown out. So, now that we are aware of plans for an new Offcial Thaum book, we could release ours as it is now, and then release a companion to the Abyss Guide after new info on Thaumaturgy in general is released.

So, we could actually move into editing phase on this book, and then begin compiling our unfinished stuff, at our leisure (like we have been) for a future release. Anybody else like that idea?

I'm on board with it!

I'll probably pass on that one (but I will never say never), but you guys should go ahead. Most important for me is to get this book finished and perfect. I'm planning to print my copy and make a real book out of it, so I would dislike the idea of fixing stuff little by little after we have said it's finished, cuz then I will sit with a nice book that probably will be outdated in a few weeks.

Yeah, Polonia, all it really needs Gatty is 'I believe he is a great mystic' instead of 'he is a mystic', then I'll be satisfied and less whiny If you fix it, I'll promise I'll clean out the sand in my vagina.

I guess I didn't understand what Gattison was saying, or at least I got it differently from Anda.

I thought that he meant for us to finish the book by cutting materials and things that perhaps could belong on a later Blood Magic fan supplement (to be paired with the official one to be released).

Anyway, I should probably mention that I agree with Anda, that having a finished book as soon as possible is what I'm also looking forward (and yes, mea culpa for being away for so long).

(When is Onyx Path's Blood Magic Companion being released anyway?)

One of you is correct. =)

I did not mean to release a "Director's Cut" edition of the book we are working on now in my suggestion above. What I meant was to finish our Abyss Guide as it is, except we take out The Abyssal Moralities section, Abyssal Alchemy and perhaps Chapter 3 and release the Abyss Guide without them in it. Then, later on, we release an entirely separate book entitled the Abyss Mysticism Companion, which contains everything we wanted to put into the original guide, but didn't finish in time. That way we could finish our book, impress the shit out of everybody with 160+ pages for now, and then impress them again later when we actually release even MORE helpful information on the same topic.

Oh and btw, "Rites of Blood" is the official name of the new Thaumaturgy book, and is scheduled for release in April of 2013.

I don't really agree, I rather put in alot of work into one book and then have a really cool finished product, rather then postponing stuff that we don't really have the energy to complete now. What says that we will have the energy later, and if we have learned something from this project it is that it's hard to finish it. Our first deadline was set in August last year. So I think with the Abyss Guide being so darn nice now, that can work as a motivator to make it absolutely perfect, right now. If we get cheered for this project we already recieved our end-price, how motivating will it then be to pick the dead ends up again when we already won?

With that being said, I'm very okay with being downvoted on this since the topics that would be postponed is none of the ones I've been working with, so I wouldn't be able to contribute to them and I neither would I want to since there are other topics in this book that lies closer to my heart. But please don't put the deadline next week cuz I have some pretty cool stuff in my mind that I wanna put down on paper before we go to print.

Has anyone heard from Agathe?

Anda just got points for true dedication, lol.

So, I guess I'm a sucker for passionate speeches, I'm swayed. We can postpone a bit longer. And if that's the case, how about this plan for now. We try to power through and wrap up what we can on our own as quickly as possible, and then we bring the tough decisions to the boards. That way, at that point we can have legitimate claims that this is our final run and after those new topics get discussed on the official forum, then the book will literally be released shortly afterwards.

Agathe hasn't been heard from in a few weeks or so now.

Yay!

And yeah, we clean our own backyards first I'm gonna finish the NPC section and then I have some other ideas that I wanna work on
I'm keen on doing some more art too, maybe full pages. I'm justs till waiting on my back to get better so I can lean over my sketchbook for long enough hours hehe

Oh, for art, if you do some thing full page, try to leave large blank spots on the page to fit text in, like I did with your picture of the Voodoo-ish lady's wrists bleeding and a portal forming behind her. There's no specific amount of space you should leave, just go for a variety of sizes if you can, but it would look really nice inserted right next to the text like that at the end of a chapter or something.

When your doctor says your healthy enough to draw, of course, heh. =P

Alright, I'll just say it...

I could delete Chapter 3 entirely and be fine with a section in Chapter 4 that discusses conversions of existing things, if that.

Anda wrote:

I'm planning to print my copy and make a real book out of it

Ah, so I had wondered if I should make a spine for the book or not... apparently I should, because I want to do that as well. =)

Think I found a error in one of Agathe's texts, but I'm not sure.

"Oblivion is not the Abyss, nor could any Abyss mystic be
able to summon shadow beings from the Abyss, for there is
nothing in Oblivion, it is quite simply the End."
page 77, chapter 4.

I think it's suppose to be "nor could any Abyss mystic be able to summon shadow beings from the Oblivion". Just thought I would mention it since it could easily be missed.

When I'm on this chapter, I see that there is nothing written yet about Well of Bones there or the Well of Souls, so if anyone is keen on that one they should go ahead and write something.

Fixed and updated. Thank you.

Note that I moved the Well of Bones and Well of Souls to the "Locations" section, rather than the "Abyss and..." section. I feel that's more appropriate. Any thoughts otherwise will be handled in our next town meeting, one month from tomorrow's date. Court is adjourned.

Alright so it's about time to update the checklist a little bit. I might miss something ofc.

• Abyssal Alchemy needs to be written or fixed, or whatever. Valismedsen, I'm looking in your direction.
  
• Write Castel D'Ombro. I think Anarch possibly could do this one.
  
• Write the Dark Monastery. Still waiting on anything from Peter.
  
• Write Caridad's Garden. I would like to suggest that we put Zadkiel's Well together with the rest about Mexico City in the locations section and then just add something small about Caridad's garden there as well. Seems strange to have many different parts about Mexico City, don't you agree?
  
• Write Moncada to finish off the NPC section. Agathe, your path is clear. Oh and I say we skip writing Zarathustra. I really see nothing that points him to be an mystic or why he even should be suspected as such.
  
• Get artwork approval. Oh and if we don't get a approval from the cover art piece then Joshua needs to make a new front cover for the book.
  
• All the stuff that I might've missed.