Trinity Continuum: Assassins Pre-Order

[wyrdhamster]

TC Assassins will release as Pre-Order on DriveThru RPG, not Kickstarter.
Most important info - Pre-Order is to buy here, cost is 19.99$ - https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/...ssins-PreOrder

The Onyx Path studio will publish a new chapters from the book as part of the Preview every 2 weeks, similar to how they did it on time limited Kickstarters. I do not know what the payment for the Pre-Order will look like, because this is only the second one they are doing, and the first one that I will be watching. I will summarize here how it will be resolved below.

Here is what we know from this week Monday Meetings Notes...

On Wednesday, we’re doing something different and offering a Pre-Order page as our sales item of the week. In this case, the Pre-Order for Trinity Continuum: Assassins! We had such success with our Pre-Order for M20 Rich Bastard’s Guide, that we really felt that a book like TC: Assassins would be a fantastic follow-up!

Here is some official sounding stuff all about that!:
This Wednesday we’ll be setting up the pre-order on DriveThruRPG along with the first couple of chapters of the TC: Assassins manuscript. Then every two weeks or so we’ll be adding more sections of the manuscript, which you’ll get automatically added to your Library on DriveThruRPG.

Once the PDF has gone through layout we’ll update DriveThruRPG with the Advance PDF. Pre-order customers will get a chance to look at the complete Advance PDF for at least a week before it is released for sale to non pre-order customers.

We’ll have an errata feedback form available the same as other Advance PDFs we’ve released in the past and we appreciate everyone who sends in those comments.

Also, from Eddy, here is the description of the chapters:

While Trinity Continuum Core Rulebook is necessary to play a game of TC: Assassins, this book contains many additions and adjustments to the core ruleset to better shape a chronicle set in the world of shadow. The following chapters detail these additions.

Chapter One: Stepping into Shadow discusses the hidden world of the Assassins, its history and structure as well as notable figures from the past and present.

Chapter Two: The Shadow World details the Societies of Shadow. Characters can belong to any of the five introduced in this chapter, but players and Storyguides are welcome to invent their own.

Chapter Three: Character Creation details the process by which players create their unique Assassins. This chapter contains brand new paths and Edges suitable for playing in the shadow world, as well as all-new Skill Tricks and cutting-edge gear.

Chapter Four: Systems and Drama explains the rules specific to playing TC: Assassins chronicles. In this chapter Storyguides will also find a collection of deadly antagonists to challenge the players’ characters.

Chapter Five: Masteries are new, special abilities that only Assassins can access. They grant characters supernatural power over acts of violence, hunting, stalking, and killing.

Chapter Six: The Killing Art provides advice for Storyguides running Assassins games. It also includes a few sample scenarios, and how to properly pace one’s way through a series of linked assassinations.

If you haven’t realized it yet, Trinity Continuum: Assassins is a very different look at our Continuum! (Or is it? See art below )

[glamourweaver]

First few chapters preview is great. I'm considering whether several antagonist groups I'd been tinkering with should in fact be Anathema Assassins. I made up the "Chakravarti" to specifically combine the Pulp villain staples of Nazis and Thuggee by having them be Hinduism-appropriating Aryanists who believe cycles of destruction are necessary to serve social darwinism and renew the "natural order".

The "Amarenth Concern" are dedicated to preventing world threatening scientific breakthroughs by staying one step head with regard to technological potential and consequences and taking out the researchers they need to - but even as that agenda alone served to make them Anathema since many of their targets are in Daylight, they've also been corrupted by taking contracts to protect certain business interests from destabilizing technological threats (such as from the fossil fuel industry.

[Hakkonen]

So, if Assassins is not going to be Kickstarted, will the physical book have the same format as the Kickstarter hardcovers of the other games so far?

[IanWatson]

So, if Assassins is not going to be Kickstarted, will the physical book have the same format as the Kickstarter hardcovers of the other games so far?

To date, three TC books (TC core, Æon, Aberrant) have been Kickstarted. There have been an additional eleven supplements, four of which have been available in hardcover.

They've all had the same basic format. There's no reason why Assassins would be an exception to that, and we're not planning on changing that.

[DarrenDalca]

I liked the links that the Core book had to Shadow. The Aeon / Jacobin links specifically provide food for thought.
It will be interesting to see if they will come out with a source book detailing Assassins thru the ages. I would love to see how the Society's deal with the Psion Orders.

[wyrdhamster]

Most important info - Pre-Order is to buy here - https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/...ssins-PreOrder

[Leliel]

I liked the links that the Core book had to Shadow. The Aeon / Jacobin links specifically provide food for thought.
It will be interesting to see if they will come out with a source book detailing Assassins thru the ages. I would love to see how the Society's deal with the Psion Orders.

Directive on the Ministry of Noetic Affairs, Entire Preliminary Statement:

[worldsaverinc]

Well, I pre-ordered this. I wonder if this proves to be successful, they could do a supplement like Assassins in other eras. I would be curious as to what assassins would look like specifically in the Anima-era (for things like Shadowrun-type knockoffs), Aberrant (would be interesting and to see what happens if a Nova enters the Shadows), Aeon - (alien assassin societies, space, psions and how Noetics works with the Shadow, and just future tech etc.)

[glamourweaver]

1. It’s cool to see to see several foes of Core Allegiances show up. Baphomet (foe of Archangel) and the Society of Minos (foe of the Theseus Club) specifically.

2. Theseus Assassins would be an interesting topic to address/include at the game table!

3. It really seems like La Revolte Eclatante hasn’t shown up since the core because someone decided “No wait, scratch that, let’s make them Assassins”, hence the Haiti based Daughters of the Jacobins.

4. The Heavenly Immortal Corps reinforces my desire to see a Wuxia genre supplement/setting for TC (including examining and deconstructing Yellow Peril tropes and Orientalism in drawing in Wuxia in Adventure! Aether or Aberrant)!

[Waldi]

Well, I pre-ordered this. I wonder if this proves to be successful, they could do a supplement like Assassins in other eras.

This would indeed be awesome! In fact, I think the concept of "Assassins" would work in just about any era of Trinity. Given, that "Assassins" could be called "The Assassination Bureau - the RPG", even Adventure! and Aether could work just splendid!

Speaking of "The Assassination Bureau" - might either equipment or masteries contain exploding Blutwurst? And, more important, would assassination by said Blutwurst be a violation of the Code?

[CaptOtter]

So far I'm loving the material made available via pre-order--but then, this entire line has been batting 1000 for me with regard to the writing, and I love the spy/assassin/thriller genre besides (so it would need to have really stunk for this to not have been a 'love at first sight' situation.) Having said that, I'm hoping there was some attempt to systematized different styles of combat/fighting and killing such that there's fun distinctions; highly stylized methods of dispatching folks is sort of a trope of the genre. Obviously the way Nicholai Hel kills people (with his "naked/kill" style,) is vastly different from the way John Wick (or any one of a number of the killers in the John Wick movies,) does it. I'm not expecting anything revolutionary, but I'm excited to see the attempt (if any).

[Amethyst]

1. It’s cool to see to see several foes of Core Allegiances show up. Baphomet (foe of Archangel) and the Society of Minos (foe of the Theseus Club) specifically.

2. Theseus Assassins would be an interesting topic to address/include at the game table!

3. It really seems like La Revolte Eclatante hasn’t shown up since the core because someone decided “No wait, scratch that, let’s make them Assassins”, hence the Haiti based Daughters of the Jacobins.

4. The Heavenly Immortal Corps reinforces my desire to see a Wuxia genre supplement/setting for TC (including examining and deconstructing Yellow Peril tropes and Orientalism in drawing in Wuxia in Adventure! Aether or Aberrant)!

I’m gonna make La Revolte Eclatante a Daylight Allegiance of social justice activists allied with the Daughters of the Jacobins.

[DarrenDalca]

Well, I pre-ordered this. I wonder if this proves to be successful, they could do a supplement like Assassins in other eras. I would be curious as to what assassins would look like specifically in the Anima-era (for things like Shadowrun-type knockoffs), Aberrant (would be interesting and to see what happens if a Nova enters the Shadows), Aeon - (alien assassin societies, space, psions and how Noetics works with the Shadow, and just future tech etc.)

I cant find it, but somewhere in the forum Ian Watson (or Bunyip I don't remember) says something about how Shadow is a subtle effect and those with Inspiration aren't really affected by the perception filter that Assassin buildings get.

[Waldi]

I’m gonna make La Revolte Eclatante a Daylight Allegiance of social justice activists allied with the Daughters of the Jacobins.

Sounds good - especially since similar things would also be very logical with other Allegiances. With some Allegiances in other eras, the whole thing is even clearer. I would be very surprised, for example, if De Vries in Aberrant or Norca un Aeon had no connections to the shadow.

My take on assassins in the Aberrant era would be that the whole basic situation is still comparatively similar to that in the present - with two differences: "The Signal" specialises more and more in eliminating novas that are dangerous for Baseline people - they mutate into "The Boys", so to speak. In the process, they have entered into alliances of convenience with the Directive on more than one occasion.
The Swarm, on the other hand, has dropped to the status of a minor society thanks to internal disputes and financial problems. In exchange, De Vries is now part of the Council.

In Aeon, I would find it quite interesting if an Assassin society was a secret militant arm of ISRA. This highly dangerous and surprisingly fanatical group uses precognition to determine what kind of people could endanger humanity in the future and then has them eliminated before they can do any harm.

[Bunyip]

I cant find it, but somewhere in the forum Ian Watson (or Bunyip I don't remember) says something about how Shadow is a subtle effect and those with Inspiration aren't really affected by the perception filter that Assassin buildings get.

I’m guessing Ian (or maybe Neall) - I haven’t worked on Assassin.