News & Updates - November 2024

There is a LOT to go over, from Patreon changes to New Light gameplay adjustments. If you have any questions, feel free to ask in the comments or in our Discord server.

Upcoming Time Off

Every year, our GMs take the entire month of December off to unplug, unwind, and plan ahead for the next year of New Light shenanigans. (But only if they have time between all their holiday celebrations, of course.) You might see one or two non-canonical sessions during this time, and the D&Destiny dev team might run some 2e sessions for the heck of it, but don’t expect too much.

Patrons can still make use of the roleplay forum during this time. We’ll also have another batch of writing prompts to respond to. 

Patreon Reward Changes

We’re finishing up our second year of running the D&Destiny West Marches campaign known as New Light, and now more than ever we are overflowing with players. We have 62 active players (these people show up at least once a month to play a game with us), and between them, there are 73 active characters. Our GMs run nearly two dozen new NPCs, too. These are NPCs not present in the video game, but made up by us, interacting with our playerbase and sending them on brand new quests in this version of the universe.

We pay our GMs to run games for this campaign. To keep up with the demand for sessions, we need to increase our price. Starting January 1st, 2025, only patrons of $5/month or higher will be able to play in the New Light campaign. We also need to reorganize our Patreon structure in general for our own sanity. This will also cause a bit of shuffling when it comes to tier names and prices.

Starting January 2025, we’ll only have 5 tiers on the Patreon: $2 Supporter, $2 Supporter but Purple, $5 Campaign Player, $10 Content Enjoyer, and $20 Mega Supporter.

$2 Supporter/Supporter but Purple

Show your support of Velvet Fang! You’ll also get early access to stable D&Destiny updates and the occasional discount code for Velvet Fang products.

$5 Campaign Player

Everything in the lower tiers + you can play in the New Light West Marches campaign. Make a Guardian, explore the wilds, and fight against the forces of Darkness in this alternate universe where Vex can be gunslingers, humans can take over the Tangled Shore, and the outcome of the story is determined by the choices you make.

$10 Content Enjoyer

Everything in the lower tiers + regular free content drops/discount codes. You’ll also get access to the GM channels where the VF dev team works live, and you’ll get to sign up for New Light sessions ahead of most players.

$20 Mega Supporter

Everything in the lower tiers + absolute first access to the New Light campaign schedule. You also get to bring in a +1 on the Discord server, who shares all the same Discord benefits as you without having to pay.

So what’s happening with the current tiers?

Here’s the plan for each one:

• $2/$2 but in Purple: remains mostly the same, just gets its description updated to the new rewards.

• $5 Priority Player: This tier will become the new $5 Campaign Player tier. Its reward description will be updated, and the sign-up limit will be removed. This tier will lose priority access to the schedule starting January 2025.

• $7 GM Workshops & Content: The tier will be delisted and its price dropped to $5/month on November 30th. You’ll still be a patron, and you’ll receive the same rewards as the $5 Campaign Player tier. You’ll also retain access to all the GM downloadables released prior to January 2025. This includes tons of art files, roll20 JSONs, additional monster stats, and more. However, if you want any of the new downloadables coming in 2025, you will need to switch to the $10 Content Enjoyer tier.

• $10 Priority Player + GM Workshop/Content: This will become the new $10 Content Enjoyer tier. Its reward description will be updated, and the sign-up limit will be removed. You retain all the content rewards you had prior to January 2025, and you get access to all the new ones coming up.

• $20 Mega Supporter: remains mostly the same, just gets its sign-up limit removed and its description updated to match the new rewards.

But hang on!

If you’re a $2 patron right now and you have at least one active character on our roster (aka the Guardian Census), you will be grandfathered into the $5 Campaign Player tier when January comes around. We would appreciate it if you could bump up your donation (it would seriously mean a lot!), but you’re already playing with us and we’re not going to kick you out.

You must be a $2 patron and have at least ONE active character by January 2025 to be grandfathered in. If all your characters are timed out or retired, you won’t receive this benefit.

We’re really sorry for any frustration or confusion this change may cause, and we really, really, really appreciate your understanding and support. We’re always striving to give you the best value we can for your money. Running such a huge and awesome campaign is a privilege, but it also has costs we simply can’t ignore.

Thank you <3 If you have any questions or concerns, please reach out.

Player Character Retirement Notice

We have a new year coming up! Throughout the year plenty of players have come and gone, and for us to move forward with the next stages of our campaign, we have a few unpleasant but necessary housekeeping items to get to. 

All inactive player characters will be forcibly retired on November 30th. Retired PCs retain their place in the campaign’s history, but they cannot be played in sessions or in the roleplay forum. You can never un-retire a character: the transition is permanent. 

To make a character active again, simply play with them in a session! November is your last chance to do this before we go into our December hibernation.

New Monsters in Sessions

Going forward, New Light players can expect to encounter the following new monsters: the assassin, security drone, heavy bomb shank, heavy repeater shank, banshee, and deceiver psion. These monsters will become freely available with the launch of the D&Destiny 2e Bestiary, but if you’re at least a Content tier patron, you can download their stats right now (link). 

Iron Banner is Back

After working with the Awoken to smooth over relations, Lord Saladin is back to host another Iron Banner tournament. This tournament officially starts November 8 and ends November 30th. Get all your character’s downtime submissions done during that window, or lose out on the awesome new prizes available.

New Experimental Gear

The smiths at the Iron Forge put together two new armor sets and one new auto rifle.

Haakon's Hatchet, an experimental auto rifle that can award the Onslaught perk/catalyst.

Iron Beast, an experimental medium armor set that can award the Joint-Servos (costs 1 slot) perk.

Iron Fellowship, an experimental light armor set that can award the Helping Hand (costs 1 slot) perk.

You can find out more about these in the SEG Chapter 7: Crafting Gear.

Lord's Blessing

This is a Superior longsword forged by Lord Saladin himself. You can find its stats in the SEG Appendix C.

Whoever has the highest Iron Banner reputation at the end of the tournament will be awarded the sword, which they get to keep until the next Iron Banner tournament. If a fireteam wins the sword, the sword goes to their leader.

A Volatile Climate

The renowned/infamous Fireteam Avalon is making a play for the Lord's Blessing, and that's not all. With the recent addition of an Eliksni Guardian to the Vanguard's roster, Fireteam Avalon is campaigning to sway public opinion away from allowing alien Risen in the City. 

Fireteam Avalon's reputation in this tournament is paramount to their success. If they manage to win this tournament, it's almost guaranteed alien Guardians will be banned from The Last City. So get out there and fight, Guardians! Not just for glimmer and loot, but for a brighter, more hopeful future.

The Roster Grows

Speaking of alien Guardians, with recent campaign happenings, we now have almost one Guardian of every species in the City. There’s an Eliksni (Miikraks), Vex (Navaria), psion (Otwot), and krill (Meecham) Guardian. All that’s left is to get a non-hostile Cabal Guardian into the City, and alien race options will be unlocked for all players. 

Just one catch: the only known Cabal Lightbearer is currently the Primus of the Blind Legion. Even if you captured her and brought her to the City, she wouldn’t meet the requirements of the task due to her hostility toward humanity. Who could possibly change her mind? Alternatively, how might one find a different Cabal Lightbearer?

Food for thought!

Other Campaign Updates

• It is now possible to sell/trade Iron Banner gear. 

• Fixed a few wording errors in the SEG. 

• Labeled the GMB and ESS blueprint devices with their correct Knowledge requirements. GMB now properly labeled as needing Mundane Energy Storage and Transfer, and ESS now properly labeled as needing Mundane Energy Conversion. 

• Vanguard Deployment downtime option updated to potentially award resources upon completion.

Also, if one of your characters has a blueprint in progress, please report as such using the downtime-report channel on Discord. We put a new column on the Invent a Blueprint table to keep track of who's in progress on what. 

Finally—and this is the big one, folks—the Waking Ruins are starting to stir. The Vex are mobilizing on Venus. Starting with January 2025, for every month the Vault of Glass is NOT defeated, the Vanguard will lose 25% Strength. If the Vanguard’s Strength falls to 0%, it doesn’t mean the City immediately falls, but it does mean the City is guaranteed to fall to the next attack made against it. And deep in the Reef, rumors of a rebellion are on the rise...

Eyes up, Guardians.