2021: Posts 95-111

January 8th, 2021
During our research on a long, dead female politician, we came across something rather interesting. While digging through her belongings, we found a booklet with the most curious contents: soft porn. Her name remains unknown.

What We’ve Been Up To:
After a well-deserved holiday, we are ready to tackle 2021! While we’re moving slowly, we are still moving forward. We’re excited to share more concept art, updates on gameplay, and other content!

January 15th, 2021
Today, we did a thorough review of our team-building sessions! We made plans actionable, so working from home will be more manageable. ‘Tis the year of rejuvenated passion, aligned visions, and an amazing future!

👉🏼 How will you tackle your RPG project in 2021?

Fragment of Æther Void Lore:
Elves hail from a very traditional Matriarchal society where men are perceived to be household caretakers, things of beauty, weak, and something to be protected and fought over. As such, Elven women and men often clash and are confused by Human males and females who act exactly the opposite as they would expect.

👉🏼 Find more lore in our one-shot Return of the Ancients here!

January 22nd, 2021
A supposed demon soul bound to a lifeless clockwork body made from wood, metal, and gears. Human creations, made by ingenious inventors. The soul of this demon is under the contract of the clockmaker. They are meant to do the bidding of her/his mistress/master, which makes them certainly one hell of a butler. Well, until their owner dies, of course

What would you do if you had such a creation at your disposal? 🧐

January 29th, 2021
Another day working from home has come to a close! Today, we focussed on our art checklist, started discussing going to SPIEL in October, and continued working on the second one-shot adventure. Things are moving forward!

𝗔 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲:
Dryads sleep by rooting in the soil and turning into an actual tree, which leaves them vulnerable at night. But the little dryad portrayed in the art piece is not quite ready to root yet, still enjoying the last rays of sunlight from which she gets her energy. The young dryad will eventually need to root, because they get their water and nutrients from the soil at night.

February 5th, 2021
This week we welcomed a new Æther Void member! She’s an art intern and will be a valuable addition to our artistic team. We’re thrilled to have her for the upcoming semester and excited about what she’ll create to enrich the worlds, enhance the gameplay, and interpret the stories within the Æther Void universe.

A fragment of Æther Void lore:
Not everything the technocrats created is terrible. The water chicken depicted in the art is one of the cuter abominations they’ve made. It should be impossible that this youngling is dangerous, right? What do you think?

February 12th, 2021
Our three artists worked together today on an art piece that celebrates the lunar new year! Sanne created the background and the dragon, Bere made the ox, and lastly, Sigrid painted the character. We’ve been inspired greatly by Asian culture for one of our worlds, and we’d love to share our appreciation this way. Stay safe everyone!

A fragment of Aether Void lore:
Did you know that the calendar on Sleeping Dragon was based on Chinese numerology? In this particular system, some numbers, such as 6, 8, and 9 are regarded as signifying good fortune, while the numbers 4 and 7 are seen as bad omens. To make the calendar suitable for their world, the numerologists avoided 4 and 7 altogether and used the numbers 6, 8, and 9 wherever they could. Resulting in a year consisting out of 198 days with exactly 11 lunar months of each 18 days. Each lunar month was divided into 3 weeks of 6 days. Their days must be filled with luck, don’t you think?

February 19th, 2021
Besides our progress on our second one-shot, we’ve also been working on an engagement plan to improve our communication and marketing. There are lots of ideas, but it’s also been a challenge since marketing in the TTRPG community seems less present than in other branches. So if you’re working in the industry, and have tips and tricks, we’d love to learn more!

𝗔 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗴𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗩𝗼𝗶𝗱 𝗹𝗼𝗿𝗲:
This little snake messenger is reporting for duty! Usually deployed by lamias to communicate with each other. The snakes are often hypnotized and compelled to carry those messages, which is slow but very effective. Especially during stealth missions. Who would ever suspect such a tiny creature, right?

February 26th, 2021
Fluff stories have been appearing in our development Discord server. And since everyone on the team is really excited about those, we’ve decided to share a snippet with all of you. So, enjoy! ❤️

A fragment of Æther Void lore:
Taking a deep breath, he focused his mind and concentrated on the spell. Almost as soon as he started to move his hands, he felt the Æther around him swirl as he focused his will to find a separate, but almost identical reality. In his mind’s eye, he saw different realities flash by instantaneously, using his hands to navigate between literally endless varieties of reality until he found the one he was looking for. He saw a reality where his skin was as tough as iron, almost perfectly overlapping with his own current situation. His hands waved around as he connected this desired reality to his here and now. As the Æther bridge formed, he sensed the familiar tingling sensation of mass and energy movement through higher-order dimensions and the ever so slightly out-of-phase look of overlapping realities, where one was substituting the other. The effect lasted only the briefest of moments, after which he felt his skin tighten, as if it were suddenly coated by a form-fitting suit of armor around his skin, gleaming in the light from the southern window.

How would you continue writing this fragment? Share it with us in the comments! 🧐

April 2nd, 2021
Check out the progress on this rogue concept art! The finished piece (not this concept) will become a part of our corebook. We’re still showing all kinds of progress. Both one-shots are coming along quite well. We are also looking at revamping this website in time for those two one-shots to be released.

What would you like to see on this website?

June 6th, 2021
Our teammates are blasting through the one-shot adventures like the steam-powered trains blast through eldritch horrors on Victoria: fast and brutal. With 680 lines of feedback and revamped artwork, our team member who makes sure it’s all nice and tidy in the final document might need some help. Either way, the guts have been examined and are ready to be stitched back in. Then all that needs to be done is tying up the last loose ends, and Return of the Ancients ánd its sequel will be ready! 🥳

Do you have any gutsy progress you’d like to share? ❤

June 18th, 2021
Today, we’ve been in planning mode. There’s a lot we want to do for Æther Void, and even more to be done. So, we’ve been putting it on paper and called in some reinforcements. It’s coming together quite nicely, and the future looks bright. On another note: our art intern has successfully completed her internship! We’re all very proud and can’t wait to show all of you her artwork that’s incorporated into the one-shot adventures

July 9th, 2021
Meet the Mirgull, a small avian carnivore living near freshwater lakes on Far Haven. Fun fact: we have a generator that we sometimes use to create new creatures to fill our worlds with (and will at some point in the future also be available for players!). The Mirgull is one of those creatures that one of our team members rolled with his dice, and then one of our amazing artists visualized it.

If you would draw a small avian carnivore with a preferred freshwater lake territory – how would you visualize the creature?

July 23rd, 2021
What do you do if you run out of HP, or mana, or in our case: Æther Points? How would you deal with it mentally? In the Æther Void game system, we decided that it’d be realistic to have a character break down. But how would it affect your character? Because evidently, no one is the same. Would they have panic attacks? Abuse substances? Start hearing voices? In our one-shot, you can already experience what we call Breakdown Behaviour. It is one of the things we’ve been finetuning for Return of the Ancients and the second one-shot adventure.

If your current TTRPG character would break down, what do you think their behavior would be?

August 20th, 2021
These past weeks have been productive! 👀 The line editing of the one-shots is progressing nicely, and game mechanics are updated along the way. The artwork is nearly finished – our artists did an incredible job of creating one consistent art style that will live and breathe Aether Void. 💕 Besides that, we’re really excited to recreate our world map, which will be featured in the adventure as well, of course!

We’ll update you guys when it’s ready for launch. 🚀

September 10th, 2021
While the Netherlands hasn’t had much summer lately, it didn’t stop us from coming together for a BBQ in Stadspark two weeks ago. Just like last year, we made sure to be safe due to the pandemic (with most of us either partially or fully vaccinated). Working from home’s still the weekly norm for us, so it was amazing to see each other again in the flesh. Good food, stories to tell, and even better company. Refreshed and ready to continue working on the one-shot adventures!

October 1st, 2021
Today was all about redesigning our character sheet for the one-shot adventures. What’s the placement for stats, backgrounds, and specializations, and what kind of layout would work best? We went over it all! It’s a work in progress, and we’re beyond excited to show you the finished character sheet when the one-shot adventures will be released (coming soon!).

What do you think is most important when it comes to character sheet design?

November 5th, 2021
As we’re nearing the final polish of the adventures, we wanted to share a few sneak peeks of what’s to come very, very soon. First up is a snippet from the Far Haven map, revamped from the previous version of Return of the Ancients. Somewhere on this map, the adventure begins for a ragtag group of adventurers. They’ve all been abducted from their own worlds by a corrupt faction known as the Technocrats. How will you continue?