It's the Tuesday before the final Thursday of the month, and time for our regularly scheduled Trinity Continuum update. I've got the third in our series of Aegis Atlas previews for you today, so let's get right to the fun stuff!
Aegis Atlas Preview 3
Amulet of the New Face (Artifact •••)
Gifts: Cunning Hero’s Charade
Made of gold and lapis lazuli carved in the form of a stylized face, this useful item allows the wearer to appear to be any general sort of person they wish to be simply by imagining roughly how they wish to look, holding the amulet and spending a point of Inspiration. Someone could look like a strong-backed Nubian sailor, a wealthy Egyptian woman, or any other sort of person they can imagine. This disguise includes the appearance of clothes and similar accoutrements. The one limitation is that, when used in this fashion, it cannot disguise the wearer as a specific individual.
However, the amulet has a small hinged compartment in the back. If the wearer places a drop of blood, a few strands of hair, a fingernail clipping, or any other similar small piece of someone, the wearer can become an exact duplicate of this person. They don’t gain the person’s knowledge, but the user looks, sounds, and moves exactly like the individual in question. Note that this disguise is based upon whoever actually provided the material, not the person the wearer thinks it came from.
Used in either fashion, trivial characters have no chance of piecing this disguise; Inspired characters must use a Gift to see through it or make any roll to spot the deception at a Difficulty of 4.
The Cauldron of Life and Death (Artifact ••••)
Gifts: Balm of Healing, Children of the Hydra’s Teeth, Hand of Asclepius Tags: Powered 3
This heavy bronze cauldron is large enough for a tall, muscular individual to easily fit inside. It is carved with vivid looking scenes of life, death, birth, and mystical rebirth from the cauldron. Healing someone of a recent injury or illness merely requires filling the cauldron with water, bringing it to a boil, and spending a point of Inspiration, either from the cauldron’s owner or from the cauldron’s innate power. The injured or sick individual must drink from it, gaining all the benefits of the Balm of Healing Gift. This cauldron can also cure old and congenital injuries or disabilities, but to do so, the individual must climb into the cauldron. The boiling liquid does them no harm, and each point of Inspiration spent to empower the cauldron entirely heals one disease, Injury, or other Condition, including anything from missing limbs to blindness. Finally, if someone is dying or has died within the last scene, then placing them in the cauldron and spending three points of Inspiration restores them to life if the user succeeds at a Medicine + Cunning check.
This wonder cannot bring anyone dead for longer back to life, but if the owner places fragments of corpses, or even just handfuls of human bones, then they can spend a point of Inspiration and make a Persuasion + Manipulation check to call forth the dead and add +2 Enhancement to this roll. At this point, a number of fully formed skeletal figures equal to the successes rolled climb from the cauldron. The rules for using these skeletons in combat are identical to the skeletons created by the Children of the Hydra’s Teeth Gift (Trinity Continuum Aegis, p. XX).
Depending upon the state of decay of the bodies or parts of bodies put in the cauldron, these skeletons may or may not have significant amounts of flesh attached to them. These skeletons are brutal and bloody warriors, killing without mercy and with a tendency to run wild and kill indiscriminately if not ordered to attack someone. Once the cauldron’s owner has no more use for these skeletons, they must make another Persuasion + Manipulation (also with +2 Enhancement) to return the spirits animating these skeletons to the underworld, at which point all of them instantly fall to dust.
REWARDS STILL PENDING
Trinity Continuum: Aegis and the Aegis Atlas are in the first phase of Art Direction, which is Art Notes Prep - the hand-off between production and art. Art notes are collected from developers, projects placed in a holding pattern as artist availability is managed.
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://trinity-continuum-aegis-tabletop-roleplaying-game.backerkit.com
You can read Onyx Path's most recent monthly summary, covering all projects and their status up to that point here: <May 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
If you've got questions about the rules or setting, or just want to discuss this game with other fans (as well as the Onyx Path writers and developers!), you can check out these Onyx Path discussion zones:
Via Kickstarter: Click RichardThomas under the "Created By" heading on the main page, and then press the "Contact Me" button - the message will come to me!
Via BackerKit: Click "Need Help?" from your page, and then fill in the Contact Us form. BackerKit will pass your message along to me.
CURRENTLY FUNDING - ONYX PATH ADJACENT
From The Bodhana Group, the Branch Riders tabletop roleplaying game is currently in a campaign on Kickstarter. The Bodhana Group advocates for and utilizes tabletop gaming as a directed therapeutic and clinical practice that can benefit personal growth as well as enhance social and educational services to individuals and families. Gaming has usefulness in education, skill building and therapeutic applications.
Branch Riders is an RPG that came out of years of design and development - with the help of some of the Onyx Path team - to be a fun and compelling game first and foremost, but with the right therapeutic and skill-building tools "under the hood" for trained instructors to utilize beyond that.
If you're interested in a multi-genre action-packed easy-to-learn and -teach fun game with different approaches to problem solving and a variety of GM tools and player challenges, come check it out!
