Pre-Order Store for Historica Arcanum: Echoes of Renaissance

Final 48 Hours to Join Historica Arcanum: Echoes of Renaissance!
over 1 year ago – Wed, Nov 06, 2024 at 07:00:04 AM

Hello all! 

We're down to the last 48 hours of Historica Arcanum: Echoes of Renaissance! It’s been an amazing campaign, and we couldn’t be more grateful for the community that has rallied behind this project. We'll work hard to make this game the best it can be in all aspects!

As we approach the final hours, there's still a chance to join us in our latest addition to the Historica Arcanum universe. Let’s make these last moments memorable and bring Echoes of Renaissance to life on an even grander scale!

Thank you for everything from the bottom of our hearts! 

The Metis Creative Team

The End of the Hunt: The Archvillains of Echoes of Renaissance REVEALED
over 1 year ago – Tue, Nov 05, 2024 at 07:15:10 AM

The Archvillains are here to turn Venice on its head. Your Hunt has led you to this point, hot on their trail. Will you stand to face them, or join them in their macabre dance?

The time has come, hunters. A couple of you guessed correctly, while many of you circled agonizingly close. Many of you were led astray; many fell to the lull of false promises and eldritch corruption. Red herrings were caught in your nets and eagerly snatched up, or were warily thrown back to the sea…

All your sleuthing and hard work has led you to the streets and canals of Venice, where the grand Carneval de Venèsia is in full swing. A crowd of masked faces have gathered around a makeshift stage erected under the column of St. Mark. Behind you, the Doge’s Palace and the Basilica of St. Mark loom in the glowing of several fires. Beyond the stage, gondolas bob uneasily in the lagoon waters, choppy as if disturbed by some coming force. 

SIX OF SWORDS. STRENGTH

The air is thick with the scent of wine, and the nervous excitement pulsating through the gathering crowd is palpable.  

A bell rings out, then cheers and clapping, and then a trill laughter. The company has begun to take the stage: I Gelosi, the Jealous Ones. 

THE FOOL. FOUR OF PENTACLES

As the masked players – harlequin and sandrone, dottore and colombina, scaramouche and pantalone – begin their Commedia dell’arte, the fires around the piazza, and even the moonlight above, seem to dim. A darkness spreads across the crowd, and a new wave of revelers rush into the piazza and envelope the stage. As the laughter amongst the audience turns raucous, many begin dancing and swaying. Draped in fox furs and wreaths, they hold up thyrsi and a bull’s head, still dripping with fresh blood. 

Then, suddenly, for a brief moment, the crescendo of madness falls still, as the two main characters of this farce step off a nearby gondola and glide, dancing, to the stage. They are the only players unmasked: The Innamorati. 

THE LOVERS. TWO OF CUPS. 

Fits of cheers and laughter burst out once again, and the frenzied dancing continues, but now, all eyes are on The Lovers… 

Without further ado, hold up your lanterns and help light the stage, for here come our villains! 

Our leading lady and man are: Isabella and Francesco Andreini, the leaders of the Compagnia dei Gelosi and leaders of the Cult of Bacchus. 

After terrible childhoods of torment and false hope at the hands of someone powerful in Venice, they have returned with a plan: reunite with their disdainful “father” and reshape Venice into an unending bacchanal. With the Carneval their stage and the streets of Venice their bloody canvas, the entire Floating City is theirs to play with. What better way to get someone’s attention than to take their city under your thumb? This is going to be so much fun…

4 days left in the Campaign! Stretch Goal Survey Results! Setting Sneak Peek!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Nov 04, 2024 at 07:10:03 AM

The Last Few Days to Pledge! 

Greetings Gang, 

We’re in the final stretch, folks! Let’s see if we can keep pushing this campaign further and unlocking as many stretch goals as we can! We thank you again from the bottom of our hearts for all the support and trust you've thrown our way. We are endeavoring to match and even surpass your expectations!

If you have not yet, please spread the word! If you know someone who's been on the fence about pledging, now's a good time to remind them! 

Our Grand Villain Reveal is Tomorrow! 

The crowds of the grand Carneval de Venèsia are parting, and the Archvillain(s) are ready to make their entrance! Stay tuned! 

The Results of the Community Stretch Goal Survey…

We tallied the votes, and it was a very close race. However, there was a clear winner. The 300k Stretch Goal will be: more Subclasses! While we get cracking on those, if you haven’t already, join our Discord and check out the other subclasses we have already released to the community! Let us know what you think!

Join the Discord here

Second place in the voting went to producing a lovely Art Book, but who knows what the future holds? With more funding, we may be able to find a way to make it happen! 

There were a lot of other great ideas - from apparel and swag, to more maps, to detailed sections in the book about the Venetian economy, to more small adventures - and trust us: we will try to find ways to realize these to some extent in the future (and we’ve actually been working some of these ideas into the books already). 

A huge thank you to everyone who cast a vote! 

Setting and Sidequest Sneak Peek  

As the last part of today’s update, we wanted to give you an enticing slice of our Setting Guide, Echoes of Renaissance. As you all undoubtedly know, Venice is a city made up of islands in a lagoon, as well as its imperial holdings in Italy and beyond. For this update, we want to turn the magnifying glass towards the island of Murano.

Isola di Murano, the Island of Glass

Murano glows with the fires of forges and the energy of industrial innovation. Venetians have been working in glass since at least the 10th century, but due to the fire hazards of glass-blowing, the industry was moved to the island of Murano in the 13th century. Yet restricting the industry to a tightly controlled and more secretive area was perhaps the plan all along, as Venice is always on guard when profits are on the line. The Murano glassmaking families live in great comfort, with more allowances afforded them than the average Venetian; for instance, women from their families are able to marry into noble houses. However, their restriction to Murano means that they’re living in virtual captivity – gilded cages, but cages nonetheless. Trade secrets are so jealously guarded that any glass worker who leaves the city without government permission is in danger of expulsion from the guild and having his family imprisoned. If he still does not return, assassins are sent to find him. 

Though there is fierce competition between the glassmaking houses, since the end result is filling the coffers of the state, there is also much exchange of ideas and techniques between workshops. Perhaps for this reason, Venice’s glassmaking was able to innovate and produce at a level far superior to their competitors. 

“Nothing is built on stone; all is built on sand, but we must build as if the sand were stone.” 

Amidst the family workshops collaborating and competing for greatness, some glassmakers have begun meeting in secret for a more complex purpose. The Society of Sand, as the group calls itself, is devoted to pushing the limits of glassmaking into unforeseen, powerful arcane heights. They take inspiration from the fact that Venice grew from nothing, from silt and sea, into something tremendous; they hope to unlock the secrets of glassmaking and transform it into new exciting potentialities, from golems, to augury devices, and more. Hidden within the swirling molten glass, anything is possible, or so they believe. However, they work away from the eyes of the government agents to avoid their projects being co-opted or meddled with unnecessarily. The current head of their cabal is Benevuto Barovier (Maestro Vetraio, Glassblower), who also runs his family’s workshop Vetreria di Barovier.

Sidequest: A Missing Grain of Sand

One of the members of The Society of Sand, a man named Luigi Sabbatini (Maestro Vetraio, Glassblower), is missing. This is bad not only for the Society, who are worried about Luigi and their secrecy, but it is also very bad for Murano glassmaking as a whole: if a glassmaker goes missing, not only are they in deep trouble with the Venetian authorities, but their family is as well, and then the authorities clamp down on the island to uncover any further “issues.” The Society is at a pivotal moment in some of their research and cannot let Luigi’s disappearance unravel everything they have been striving for. 

If the adventurers have made a name for themselves as people who act with discretion, they may be approached by Benevuto or one of the members of the Society. They are offered a large reward for Luigi’s safe return. However, they will not reveal to the party any details about the Society; they will simply say they believe their fellow glassmaker is missing, and they want to find him before the government does. If it has transpired that Luigi has fled to sell secrets, then the party is requested not to mete out justice in their own way; instead they should bring Luigi back to Murano so the glassmakers can, in turn, surrender Luigi to the authorities. “You are being paid to search where we cannot search,” Benevuto will tell the party. “But we glassmakers must be responsible for bringing him to justice, if that is indeed where this story ends.” 

The adventurers might sniff out something fishy about the secrecy of all this and the sheer amount of money Benevuto is willing to pay for Luigi’s discreet return. The investigation leads them on a trail traversing the back alleys of the Cannaregio sestiere of Venice and to the barrier islands and the mouth of the lagoon; through clever roleplay and investigation, the party can uncover that Luigi was hired to work on a unique musical instrument of glass, something capable of capturing and emitting powerful, maddening magic. Yet Luigi wasn’t making this instrument under the auspices of the Society: who is his patron? The Society must learn why Luigi went rogue and they will break him if need be before the Council of Ten gets their hands on him. 

Developers' Diary #1 for Echoes of Renaissance!
over 1 year ago – Mon, Oct 28, 2024 at 08:02:35 AM

Happy Monday, gang! 

Today we are excited to share with you our first Developers’ Diary video! You’ll meet a few of the Metis Creative crew and hear us talk about different aspects of the project, from the setting and story, to the Decks we have concocted, to what goes into visual design! 

Do you have any particular questions for the team? Let us know in the Comments section of the campaign! We’d love to hear from you and answer your queries.  

Let’s Keep Pushing for the Next Stretch Goal! 

We are into the final fortnight of our campaign, and we would love to unlock more stretch goals to have as many cool additions to the project as possible. If you haven’t let your friends, family, allies, and enemies know about us, please do! It would mean the world to us. As it is, though, we are eternally grateful for your support thus far. 

So long for now, see you in the next Update in a couple days! 

Subclasses are Ready for Playtesting, and more exciting updates!
over 1 year ago – Fri, Oct 25, 2024 at 08:14:35 AM

Hello and Happy Friday everyone,

We have two weeks left in our campaign, and we have some really exciting news to share with you.

Subclasses Revealed and Community Playtest

Earlier this week, we revealed our Druid subclass, the Circle of the Benandanti. Thank you to all those who have already given us great feedback about it and the first 2 subclasses we released in the Quickstart - Art Domain Cleric and Way of the Marionette Monk!

Now we are sharing all of our current subclasses with you! This is a great chance for you to dive more deeply into what we’ve been working on, try the subclasses out, and let us know what you think! Just remember that these are works in progress - you can consider them alpha versions, and based on playtesting and feedback, we’ll tweak and perfect them before the release date!

Join our Discord channel to download the Subclass PDF!

We're a Kickstarter “Project We Love” again!

This week our Echoes of Renaissance campaign was given the "Project We Love" tag from Kickstarter! We are super excited and thankful for this stamp of approval, which we've now received for each of our Historica Arcanum releases.

Still Time to Vote for the Next Stretch Goal! 

We are still collecting ideas and votes for the next Stretch Goal at $300,000. Right now it’s a neck-and-neck race between more Subclasses and a beautiful Art Book – however, if the campaign keeps growing, we can hopefully do both! We are also open to whatever other ideas you have, so go wild!

You can let us know your idea for Stretch Goal by leaving a comment in the Comments section of our Kickstarter campaign page, or in our Discord, or by emailing us!

Upcoming Updates

Stay tuned for more exciting updates! We have a lot of fun things in store, including setting and story sneak peeks, and more!

Okay, that is it for this update! Stay safe out there, and please spread the word about this project! Let's keep the momentum going! Thanks to all of you for your incredible support.