Crucible of Aether

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November 19, 2024

Creating characters in a world of magic, industry and the eldritch

Dive into character creation for Crucible of Aether, with livestreams and PAX Unplugged news!

The main logo for the tabletop RPG Crucible of Aether is rendered on a wood-styled background

Welcome to the second newsletter for Crucible of Aether, a mystic-industrial Tabletop RPG that puts player agency first. We wanted to focus this issue on creating characters in this world - with news about livestreams, podcasts and our booth at PAX Unplugged!

Stepping into a living world

A black and white drawing for the TTRPG Crucible of Aether depicts a figure in a toga sitting on wide marble stairs above a cityscape. The figure, who has canine-like facial features, is grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle while looking at instructions on a piece of parchment she is holding down with a foot.

Each CoA character begins their journey with deep roots in the communities of this world, coming from one of 14 Home Nations and one of dozens of Backgrounds ranging from wilds-roaming augur to blacksmith’s apprentice to freedom-fighting social pariah.

Your choices of your character’s fantastical origin, birthplace and upbringing shape the start of their adventures.

A black and white screencap of a page of the Crucible of Aether TTRPG depicts all four fantastical Origins in the game.
Players choose one of four fantastical origins for their characters, which give you access to unique traits and shape your options later in character creation!

A diverse cast of peoples breathe life into the Empire. Each stems from one of four unique Origins. Three have roots in the Old World of Estylia, a now-forsaken land of pestilence. These include the canine-like Cianosans, avian-like Valthurians, and insectoid Osyrtians. The fourth Origin, the rodent-like Asylians, only recently emerged during the Awakening, an event still shrouded in mystery and fear.

Players further shape their characters by choosing a Home Nation within the Empire of Odayos. The choice of Home Nation represents where a Character spent their formative years. A Home Nation defines a Character’s available Backgrounds, Favored Skills, Languages, and more.

A Character’s choice of Background represents how they grew up, what resources they had access to and what skills they developed before the start of play.

A black and white screencap of a page from the tabletop RPG Crucible of Aether depicts a number of options from character creation for choosing the Black River Squire Background.  At the bottom of the page, a black and white image for the Crucible of Aether TTRPG depicts two figures in a forest clearing. The first figure is an armored warrior with short hair and holding a sword. The warrior is facing down a monstrous bird with the face of a person and a fanged maw.

These choices have a huge impact on your character even before the start of play!

Check out our Discord to make characters of your own with our demo materials!

Character Creation livestream for PAX Unplugged!

This Thursday at 8:30 ET we’re doing a character creation livestream for a character we’ll use at PAX Unplugged next month!

We’ll be live on both our Discord and Youtube as we make a character who will grow as attendees play demos at booth 4353!

We'll take suggestions from our Discord chat about who to make in a world of magic, industry and the eldritch!

Youtube channel

Check out our appearance on the Character Creation Cast!

A color image depicts the logo for the Character Creation Cast podcast and a rendering of the rulebook for TTRPG Crucible of Aether.
Mike from the team stepped onto the Character Creation Cast this month to talk about making adventurers in our game! Check out the episodes here:
Episode 1 of Character Creation Cast!
Episode 2 of Character Creation Cast!
Episode 3 of Character Creation Cast!

Don’t forget the Kickstarter!

A black and white digital drawing for the TTRPG Crucible of Aether depicts two figures. The first is a woman with bird-like features wearing a dress and looking out a window. She is holding a goblet in one and and oblivious to the second figure. The second figure has mouselike facial features and is wearing tattered clothes, bits of armor and many pouches. The second figure also has a rat on one shoulder and is wielding two knives as they stalk behind the first figure.

Follow our Kickstarter page to help us make the game happen and get some hints at about the magic, industry, and eldritch secrets of the Empire of Odayos

Social media and podcast appearances!

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