James Bell

CREATOR

4 months ago

Project Update: August 2024 Monthly Update

Hello Deep Delvers,

With The World Below currently being art directed, it feels like a good time to reveal some of what you’ll find in one of its stretch goals - Ed Greenwood’s Monstrous Ecology! Now, I weighed up whether to preview a pure monster or a playable one, and have decided on the playable end of things this time around! So here’s the Vulpa, a new ancestry for The World Below. And don’t worry, the Monstrous Ecology will contain plenty of new Theses so you can make full use of this and the other new Ancestries presented in this book!

Ancestry: Vulpa

My people are expert diggers and trappers, and we will be happy to render our services in exchange for a warm bed and solid roof.

Identifiers: Vulpa (common), Foxbodies (informal), Plaguebearers (derogatory), Kitsune (respectful), Fortuna’s Own (archaic)

Popular Idioms and Idiosyncrasies:

Vulpa are known for their smiles, their ear twitches, and their gentle laughs. Many are affectionate to the point of unexpected handholding, embraces, and even kisses. These traits are unusual in the World Below and often feared from the vulpa, due to their reputation for carrying disease. When a vulpa is worried, they instinctively draw away from the threat (even when they could win in a clash). Many treat bright lights as threatening. If a vulpa swings their tail sharply, it implies their anger or concern. A gentle waggling indicates enthusiasm, while a horizontal tail with a raised tip indicates attraction.

“You need to trust me.” (“I can help you.”/“I feel alone.”)

“Fortuna bless me with a hundred tails!” (“I could really do with some luck right now.”)

“Ignore my tail.” (“I can’t control how my body betrays my feelings.”)

Many folk of the World Below were surprised by the appearance of vulpa in recent seasons. There were always the rumors of furred people with tails and pointed ears, dwelling worryingly skyward, but few could claim to have met one. Vulpa now appear across multiple settlements, some claiming to be the most recent refugees from the surface. This claim is in fact true, though the means by which they survived the surface for so long is a mystery.

Vulpa establish themselves across a wide number of settlements, but have yet to build any of their own, preferring to maintain nomadic communities. They readily adopt non-biological vulpa into their ancestry, mainly out of a sense of curiosity. Worryingly, some communities (Hurreth’s Bones chief among them) are all too keen to capture and skin these people for their warm hides. If they continue, they’re at risk of discovering and catching the various diseases the vulpa carry.

Biological vulpa rarely stand much taller than 150cm/5ft and tend to be of slight build. Red, gray, silver, white, or black fur covers their bodies (with the occasional combination of shades or colors, especially on tail tips and faces) and their face shape, teeth, and ears are more akin to foxes than human. This doesn’t prevent their communicating in common languages, however. Unfortunately for the vulpa, few of them have thick coats or well-tended tails, instead showing signs of illness on their skin through patches and sores. Vulpa have lost the ability to move comfortably on all fours, as their upper limbs (and clavicle) are more humanoid than fox.

Vulpa claim to trace their lineage back to a people known as the kitsune. In those days, vulpa had multiple tails, with each tail capable of granting a wish or resurrection to the person who possessed it. Long ago, these kitsune vulpa would gift their tails to the deserving. But then, people hunted them for their tails. A vulpa’s final tail is as important to their life as a heart is to any other being.

Momentum Generators for vulpa include:

Provide a surface secret to one of the guilds.
Defend a solitary traveler or refugee from harm.
Improve the negative attitude of mourners via storytelling.
Receive an invitation to stay within the habitat of a non-vulpa.
Use a Thesis, Synthesis, or Sorcery to assist you in finding something hidden.

Story Hook: Antidote in the Blood

Rumors of plague-stricken vulpa are common and often true. They build up resistances to surface illnesses in their systems, but other beings aren’t so fortunate. A handful of vulpa envoys have offered any Holies of Fortuna access to their most squalid settlements (where miasmas of disease float in the air) to retrieve samples of blood and craft cures for all manner of illnesses throughout the World Below. They do this in part to spread good health and build their reputation, but also because they know many of the infections in the World Below came down with them or the surface-touched and, at some point, a powerful leader’s going to demand the vulpa be driven back to the World Above.

REWARDS STILL PENDING

I'll post this chart in each monthly update, and fill in dots as projects move along.

REWARDS DISTRIBUTED TO BACKERS

Trinity Continuum Digital Starter Bundle (January 25 '24 Update)
Scion Second Edition Digital Starter Bundle (January 25 '24 Update)
They Came From Digital Starter Bundle (January 25 '24 Update)
Redbubble Backer T-Shirt Link (April 4 '24 Update)

Once a project finishes up on the progress chart and is distributed to backers, I'll move it down to this list and note which update talks about reward distribution for that item in case you want to go back and get more information.

If you need to review your information or pledge status, you can return to your survey by clicking the link in your survey email or requesting your survey link under "Lost your survey?" on our BackerKit project page at https://the-world-below.backerkit.com/

DRAFT MANUSCRIPT

In addition to redemption links for distibuted digital rewards, all backers have received a link to the compiled draft manuscript. This link can be found in your BackerKit digital rewards page (See the link above for Claiming Your Digital Rewards if you need a refresher). Again, this isn't a new manuscript, it's just all of the pieces we shared during the campaign put together in order.

ONYX PATH PROJECT TRACKING

You can read Onyx Path's most recent monthly summary, covering all projects and their status up to that point here: <July 2024 Project Status Summary>

You can find the weekly Monday Meeting blog updates <here>, which note any projects with status changes since the previous Month End summary. The project statuses listed are current as of last Monday, so do check it out each Monday night to see if anything may have progressed!

I will continue to post regular updates every month until the final reward has gone out.

ONYX PATH DISCUSSION CHANNELS

You may be able to get further insight and possibly some in-depth conversation at these Onyx Path discussion zones:

TO CONTACT JAMES

Via E-Mail: Onyx.Kickstarter [at] gmail.com
Via BackerKit: Click "Need Help?" from your page, and then fill in the Contact Us form. BackerKit will pass your message along to me.

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