Updates

Update of the Avatar #43 – 10/10/13: Combat Sigil, Story Sneak Peek, Basements, Druid Home, Bonus Rewards, & More!

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

We have some amazing stuff to share in this edition of Update of the Avatar!  We’re revealing the awesome looking Combat Sigil, we’ve added player housing basements (and included them as bonus rewards in the Citizen level pledges and up), we have more to show on the Druid Home, as well as a long-awaited sneak peek at a snippet of the story that Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott have been secretly crafting!

Combat Sigil

SotA_Combat_Sigil_Dungeon

Followers of the martial path use this mighty combat sigil as their symbol. The sigil shows the eight schools of combat that a warrior can follow. There are four armor schools: Light Armor (Cloth & Leather), Medium Armor (Chain & Scale), Heavy Armor (Plate), and Shields. There are four weapon schools: Blades (Swords & Axes), Polearms (Halberds & Spears), Bludgeons (Hammers & Clubs), and Ranged (Bows & Crossbows).

Stephen Daniele (lead concept artist) provided these different treatments of the combat sigil:

Read more…


 

 

We are determined to help Tracy and Laura get to the $55,00 Stretch goal where they will produce a set of three, linked Story Modules set in the world of Shroud of the Avatar, to be released exclusively to the backers of each project. To help reach this goal, Shroud of the Avatar and Sojourner Tales are excited to announce a very special offer to celebrate the final day of Tracy and Laura Hickman’s Sojourner Tales Kickstarter! We will award each and every Shroud of the Avatar Adventurer* who pledges to Sojourner Tales at the $20 and above level a UNIQUE Sojourner themed in-game item.

So jump on over to the Sojourner Tales Kickstarter campaign and make your pledge! Better hurry because today is the last day!

[*Adventure Tier is $40 for Founders, $45 for Benefactors.]

 



Sojourner Avatars: A Hangout with Richard Garriott (Lord British) and the Hickmans

 

SotAspecial1_thumbShroud of the Avatar is excited to announce a very special offer to celebrate the final 24 hours of Tracy and Laura Hickman’s Sojourner Tales Kickstarter (and to show how determined we are to get to the $55,00 Stretch goal)! We are going to award each and every Shroud of the Avatar Adventurer* backer who also pledges to Sojourner Tales at the $20 and above level a UNIQUE Sojourner themed in-game item.
*Adventurer Tier is $40 for Founders, $45 for Benefactors.

Have you already backed Tracy Hickman’s Kickstarter?  If not, you only have a few more days to do so!  Please help him reach the $55,000 stretch goal… a special trilogy of adventures penned by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garroitt!  We all here at Shroud of the Avatar can’t wait to play it!

 


The Second 48 Hour Scene Jam is ON!

The second Challenge Of The Avatar: 48 Hour Scene Jam is going on right now!

You can get all the details here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/?page_id=30078

Also, the very professional and totally free of shenanigans video of Starr and Chris announcing the ground rules can be found here:

Keep up with your fellow scene jammers in the Shroud of the Avatar Developer Depot here: https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/forum/index.php?threads/challenge-of-the-avatar-10-4-13.3500/

Go forth and create catacombs of wonder!


Update of the Avatar #42 – 10/04/13: Founder Lord Home, Benefactor Edelmann Home, Avatar Outfits, & Scene Jam #2

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

This edition of Update of the Avatar continues our Parade of Homes, showcasing the Founder Lord Town Home and Benefactor Edelmann Village Home. Also have some new female avatar outfits to share, and news about this weekend’s 48-hour Unity Scene Jam #2!

Founder Lord Town Home

Artists Bob Cooksey and Michael Hutchison came up with a dignified design for our Founder Lord Town home!  Only available to Founders (included as a reward in the Lord level pledge). An extremely spacious two-story dwelling, with an open-air roof deck suitable for crafting or entertaining:

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Read more…


Pen of the Avatar 10.1.13

Happy October First!  :)

Stephen Daniele and I are back for another episode of Pen of the Avatar today at 1 pm CST!


Community Spotlight ~ The Bear Tavern

Do you have a cool Shroud of the Avatar Project you would like highlighted in our Community Spotlight?  Then what are you waiting for!?!  Contact me, Firelotus, at community@portalarium.com and let’s chat!  Speaking of cool Shroud of the Avatar projects, I had a chance to talk with Vallas, the head of the Bear Tavern project and he told me about the cool things they are doing to prepare for Shroud of the Avatar.  If you would like to know more, then keep reading! Bear Tavern Logo

“The Bear Tavern is a project which focuses heavily on the social aspect of Shroud of the Avatar. The intent is to create an open, active community which provides everyone the opportunity to socialize with fellow players. SOTA promises to provide an amazing social online environment, and so we were interested to see how far we can encourage it. Not only that, our intent is to create almost neutral ground, to help provide some fairly unusual player experiences.

During initial discussions on how such a community could be put together, the obvious choice was to create an inn or tavern where the player-base could pitch up whenever they wanted. Taverns tend to be a prominent location in many stories within a fantasy setting, so it seemed a good choice for a in-game meeting place for players from a variety of backgrounds.

Read more…


Update of the Avatar #41 – 09/27/13: Sigil of Magic, Collector’s Coin, Crafting Stations, Unity Scene Jam Winner, & More

Greetings Fellow Avatars!

More cool stuff to share with you in this edition of Update of the Avatar, including the Sigil of Magic, progress on the crafting stations, results of our first 48-hour Unity Scene Jam, Founder Collector’s Coin, updated FAQ, and more!

Unity Scene Jam #1 Winner

Our first Unity Scene Jam was a great success! This scene challenge involved a design that included a “Lunar Rift” and the ruins around it. We asked for the Lunar Rift to be one up on a plateau or at least on top of a very steep hill (see challenge design description here). We received a total of 48 submissions, with some awesome talent participating!

It was tough to choose the winner from among the top entries, but after much deliberation, Richard, Starr, and Chris unanimously chose Richard Matey as the First Place winner of our first Shroud of the Avatar Unity Scene Jam!  Chris Spears prepared this video walking you through Richard Matey’s sweet looking scene. So crank the quality up to HD, switch to full-screen, and enjoy!

As one of our First Place weekend winners, he will receive a Knight Level Pledge, signed game box, and SotA t-shirt! Congratulations Richard Matey!

Coming in at Second Place is the team of Charles Howell and Mark A. Barros. Check out this cool image from their scene:

SotA_SceneJam1_SecondPlaceWinner

And Third Place goes to Melchior Meijer:

SotA_SceneJam1_ThirdPlaceWinner

We were so impressed with the top entries, that we decided to award pledge credits to the second and third place winners! Congratulations to Charles, Mark, and Melchior!

The Sigil of Magic

SotA_Magic_Sigil_BloodThere are nine schools of magic in Shroud of the Avatar: the eight elemental schools of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Sun, Moon, Life, and Death with the ninth school of Chaos in the center of them all. Each school has a focus. Fire magic, for example, directly damages your enemies but also has a tendency to light them on fire, prolonging the damage dealt. Water magic on the other hand is about slowing your opponents with ice and healing your allies with soothing rains. The sigil represents how all the schools relate to each other and it will appear inked on parchment, carved into stone, sewn into cloth and minted into metal coins.

Read more…


Hangout of the Avatar ~ 9.27.13 ~ Virtues

Richard “Lord British” Garriott is back with us this week for a Virtuous edition of Hangout of the Avatar!  The hangout will begin at 2 pm CST on September 27th, and as always, I’ll have the link for you 15 minutes prior to broadcast.GarriottLB

This will be another focused, 30 minute Hangout, so I will primarily be taking your pre-submitted VIRTUE related questions via Google Hangout at #LBSotA_Hangout.  For those with an aversion to Google, you can also submit your question on the comments section below.

And be sure to stay tuned. At 2:30, Chris, “Dungeon Master” Bill, and Starr Long will be revealing the results of our first Unity Scene Jam!