An Excerpt from The Wellspring—Plus a Production Update
4 months ago
– Wed, May 15, 2024 at 12:47:45 PM
Greetings, vislae—
Over the past few months, our efforts to summon the Black Cube have progressed nicely. It’s a ritual of momentous proportions, taking many months, but its triumphant conclusion is coming into view. We expect to have our first-off-the-line production copy of the Invisible Sun reprint in just a few weeks!
That’s not the only project in the works, of course. The Vislae Kit is on the same schedule, with long-lead components of Book M and The Nightside to follow a few weeks after.
In the meantime, Monte has been hard at work on The Wellspring and has a snippet from that title to share with you. (While the bulk of The Wellspring is written, it’s just now heading into the editing phase. The snippet we are sharing with you is unedited, pre-production text.)
Before we get to that, though, a reminder: If you backed for the supplements, and were part of the Phase 1 fulfillment, and you haven’t yet redeemed your rewards—they’re waiting for you! Just log into the
MCG Shop, navigate to My Account, and click on the Coupons tab. From there you can add your coupons to your cart and check out, and we’ll ship your rewards to you!
Now back to Montes’ excerpt—a brief peek into what the Wellspring is in a physical (or metaphysical) sense, and how a vislae might navigate to its heart once they find it.
Understanding the Wellspring
How does magic work? Where does it come from? Ask ten vislae and you’ll get ten very different answers. And so it’s difficult and perhaps fruitless to explain the Wellspring. We can, however, describe it.
Magic itself is very often described with words that suggest water or at least liquid. Currents. Ebbs and flows. Even sometimes tides. The Wellspring, then, is a different source of magic—a different flow—that in the past has bubbled forth mystic energies, and in the past it has also stopped. There are those that say that sometimes the Wellspring just runs dry. Others contend that something—or someone—caps the Wellspring and keeps it from flowing that energy into the Actuality. (Into the Actuality from where, you might ask, but again—there are many answers to questions like that.)
If one is comfortable with the water metaphor, then it isn’t hard to understand that at the point where the Wellspring flows—the source, if you will—the magic pools. In fact, it creates a sort of oasis around that pool, where the magical power gives existence to a shore around it and even “plants” that grow at the pool’s edge. The Oasis—and that’s what most historians and theorists call it, “the Oasis”—can’t be located on a map. It can’t be attributed to any one sun. It’s a location all its own, created and sustained by the mystical energies of the Wellspring.
The Oasis around the Wellspring, then, is a sort of (meta)physical place that one could travel to. Doing so would be the most direct way of drawing upon the power there, although only a vislae would do it.
The Oasis appears to be a pool about 800 feet across, with the “land” around it being another 200 feet extended beyond the pool’s edge in all directions. The “terrain” is barren but weirdly twisted into surreal and normally impossible shapes.
The first time the PCs travel to the Wellspring, the oasis seems frozen. One can see only a mass of cold, solidified magical energy—which looks like glistening ice—with a small, bubbling font in the middle of it. The “ice” has frozen in uneven waves, with peaks and valleys. This is because the members of the Third Hand, who discovered that the Wellspring is ripe for opening, haven’t yet performed the rituals needed to push it over the edge.
There’s still power there when it’s frozen, but it is sluggish and harder to access.
If they travel there again, however, the mystic ice has melted and the entire pool is a swirling vortex of liquid magic. The Wellspring is fully open.
Getting Across the Oasis
The “land” around the Wellspring is easily navigable, but the pool itself presents some challenges. In many cases, travelers to the Oasis are going to want to get to the Wellspring itself, often to sever or redirect its connection with a particular place.
But the Oasis itself is a dangerous location and difficult to navigate, both when it is frozen over, and when it is not..
Frozen: The ice is supernaturally slick. Crossing it on foot is literally impossible. However, visitors can use the slippery surface to their advantage in conjunction with the uneven ice slopes, crests, and valleys. A good thrust carries a vislae along on their backside or their stomach, moving incredibly fast, moving toward the wellspring in a spiral motion, following the patterns in the ice. Navigating their toboggan-like ride safely requires three Movement-based actions with a challenge of 5. Any time the character fails one of these actions, they suffer one damage and the challenge of the next action in the series (if any are left) is 2 higher. Worse, a failure also means that the frozen magic has scraped away some of the vislae’s personal power, so that they lose 3 Sorcery.
Should a character fail all three actions, they not only suffer the effects described, but they careen across the ice entirely out of control. They end up out of the Oasis entirely, and lose their next action. If they want to get to the Wellspring, they will have to try all over again.
This activity is not overly dangerous on its own, but in some circumstances (see each individual story in this book) enemies may attack the PCs while all of this is going on.
Unfrozen: There’s no ice to slide upon, but this circumstance is perhaps even more difficult because the water in the Oasis churns around the Wellspring like a violent whirlpool. Swimming is impossible, but characters could attempt to use the churning motion to their advantage and ride the current (or even body surf) to the middle. Similar to dealing with the frozen Oasis, letting the whirlpool-like current carry a character requires three Movement-based actions with a challenge of 5. Any time the character fails one of these actions, they suffer 2 damage (from nearly drowning) and the challenge of the next action in the series (if any are left) is 2 higher.
Should a character fail all three actions, they not only suffer the effects described, but they begin to truly drown in the magic of the pool. They must attempt a Physicality-based action to keep from drowning, and the challenge is 3, with the challenge increasing each action by 1. The character must keep attempting these actions until a friend manages to help them out of the churning pool. A character alone in this situation is likely doomed.
At the Center of the Wellspring
Paradoxically, should one reach the Wellspring itself, they can stand as if on solid ground. Vislae who do so can cast spells or utilize other magical praxis at no Sorcery cost. Incantations and ephemera objects operate normally, but objects of power never ever deplete in that spot.
Vislae standing at the center can also make minor alterations to the flow of the Wellspring’s power as it flows into the Actuality. This requires specific knowledge of where the magic is specifically going (through an established link—as detailed in the various stories in this book). Preventing or redirecting this specific flow requires a few minutes of time and a Sorcery-based action with a challenge of 8. Multiple vislae can work together on this action, each devoting points of Sorcery to add to the venture.
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And that’s what Monte has to share with us today. We’ll have another production update in about a month, as, if everything remains on plan, production comes to an end and the Black Cube begins its journey to our warehouses.
Thank you so much for your support!
—The Monte Cook Games team
Gifts, Charges, and Initial Fulfillment
9 months ago
– Wed, Dec 20, 2023 at 02:33:02 PM
Greetings, vislae—
We have lots of news for you today.
Is your Black Cube a gift?
If you purchased the Black Cube as a gift and chose the gift-giving card add-on, we started sending those out today. Unfortunately, due perhaps to the befuddling powers of the Grey, some of you haven't provided the necessary information to send your card. If you chose this add-on, and have not already provided the shipping address via the form we emailed you yesterday, here’s what we need from you to ship your card before the holidays:
Our other rewards will follow our standard fulfillment process, but because there are a small number to fulfill, and you may need this reward ASAP, we’re using this expedited system for the gift-giving card. The cards are shipping today!
Pledge manager cards have been charged…
If you filled out the pledge manager and purchased any add-ons or upgrades, your card was charged this week.
If you haven’t filled out the pledge manager,
now is the time! Especially because…
Fulfillment is starting!
We are beginning the process of fulfilling existing rewards. These include:
- PDFs of existing titles, including the Black Cube and supplements
- Phase 1 of the six existing supplements in print
- Phase 1 of additional existing physical items, such as The Guiding Hand and the Testament of Suns
As we noted during the campaign, there are limited supplies of the existing supplements and other items. These items are being reprinted to meet the campaign’s demand, but that’s going to take some time. For now, as Phase 1, we’ll fulfill what we have, starting with the first backers. So:
- If you were an early backer (in the first day or two of the campaign), we will fulfill some or all of these existing items to you now, in Phase 1.
- If you backed after the first day or so, these items will fulfill when they are reprinted—probably around the time we fulfill the Black Cube.
Because existing quantities of these items vary, even early backers may receive some rewards as part of Phase 1, and others later.
As always, you don’t have to fulfill your rewards right away. If you’d like to save on shipping and don’t need these items right away, you can hold off on fulfillment until a later date. We guarantee your rewards will be available for at least a year.
We’ll have some news on The Wellspring and The Darkest Art, as well as an update on the complex process of reprinting the Black Cube, in the new year. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the holidays and are looking forward to 2024!
Thank you so much for your support!
—The Monte Cook Games team
(Oh, and speaking of the holidays…)
It’s a holiday tradition at MCG: we give you $10, and you can use it to get something at the MCG Shop—or donate it to charity! 100% of the donation goes to the chosen charity, and over the years we’ve given thousands to some really worthy causes. So take $10 off a gift for a loved one (or yourself!) or tell us which charity you’d like us to give it to. It’s
the MCG Holiday Gift!
