Hello Steam Warriors,

We're *this close* to achieving our funding goal on for this project and officially moving Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars from the "concept" to the "production" track.

Those are just my categories - in fact, the amazing Onyx Path team has already turned that "concept" into a full draft manuscript, which I'll be sharing with the backers chapter by chapter every Tuesday of the campaign. But you get what I mean - hitting the Funding target will take this project to the next stage, and I can't wait.

We've danced up to the line, put a foot over, moved a foot back, and now we're just ready to take that one final step. It's like a Crowdfunding hokey pokey, and I'm looking forward to someone putting their left foot in!

Before we get to today's manuscript download for Backers, I wanna do a quick review of the game - thanks in large part to the most recent Monday Meeting blog post from Onyx Path. Matthew answered some questiosn about the game and I figured we could use this update post to share that and point potential backers this way when they're curious.

1. Do you need another book to play Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars?

No! Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars is a self-contained rulebook and has everything you need to play games of TC: Steam Wars and any spin-off you should wish to create for your group. There’s a multitude of options within for characters and rigs, so you can start playing immediately upon purchase!

The term “Talents” isn’t used in Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars, but the characters are “talented.” They get access to a wide range or Edges that set them apart from regular humans, with some tied to rig warfare, and others having a wider context. Your characters are heroes in war and in the wider world.

Larry Blamire has worked with us on the They Came From games, but this is most definitely a Trinity Continuum game.

TC: Steam Wars fits within the Trinity Continuum just like Aether, Aegis, and Anima. TC: Steam Wars is the newest volatile element in the Trinity Continuum toolbox, setting 1897 up to be a very different year to the one we have in our recorded history. The book contains a depth of setting too, to help establish your stories and games.

We’ve conducted a lot of playtesting using SPU and we came to the conclusion after much testing that Ultra was the version to use for this Trinity Continuum game.

Absolutely! Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars sees a radical pace of war technology advancement, and with it, greater dangers to those operating them. If you want to use one of the skysleds from this game, have fun (and good luck)!

It’s a part of it. It’s linked in the sense that Aether may precede it and Adventure may follow it, at your table. Plus, some familiar characters from the Trinity Continuum show up in the setting for this game. You’ll find out even more when we drop the setting secrets as part of the backer manuscript.

No, not at all. Your character Roles are diverse and many of them excel outside the rig, especially the Envoy and Navigator, though all have their uses inside and outside their iron giant. This is a game that supports adventure, espionage, action, diplomacy, and of course, warfare.

For more information from Matthew, you can check out his video from The Gentleman Gamer channel covering "What do you play in Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars?" found <here>

Some quick things to note before we get into the manuscript.

First up, it's amazingly expensive to ship, especially from Onyx Path's home base in the US. And that's as of today - we're all in the dark about how things will look in 2 years. We get that, but there's not much we can do at this time. Onyx Path is in a difficult space where the company is big enough that they're not saving money by fulfilling out of Rich's garage, but small enough that they haven't been able to set up ongoing international partners to handle portions of the fulfillment. So we are where we are - for now.

The best we can do at this point is to plan carefully, advise everyone up front that international shipping will likely be expensive (see our projections on the main page) and only charge what it costs us when the time comes. We’ll be charging for shipping in the Pledge Manager once the books are being printed and we can deal with the actual shipping charges rather than using our best-guesses this far out. If you live outside the US and aren't sure you want the hardcover or other physical items, you can pledge to the PDF tier now and upgrade your pledge in the Pledge Manager once we know the final shipping costs.

Over the course of the next 4 weeks, backers will receive the entire current draft manuscript for Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars, but it's not going to come to you all in one go. The previews will come out in bite-sized sections throughout the campaign. This helps me seem interesting over these 30 days, but it's more about guiding the conversation and helping steer feedback for the developers.

Because they want your feedback! These manuscript previews are of the current draft manuscript – the document in its latest, approved form. This may not be the final form after editing and any additional development, but you can consider it about 95% finished, so keep that in mind.

In fact, you can help guide the team through the next stages of development by providing feedback on these manuscript previews! The Onyx Path team has set up a special Feedback Form just for campaign backers for this very purpose: <Trinity Continuum: Steam Wars Feedback Form>

You can use this Feedback Form to shrea your thoughts directly with the TC: Steam Wars developers and help guide them through the next rounds of development and editing.

Remember, thanks to BackerKit magic, these download links are visible to Backers only - you must be logged in and reading this on the website to have access to the manuscript preview links. So, if you're reading this via e-mail, click that "Learn More" button on the bottom and I'll see you below this title treatment.