Zub Tales

White Wolf Announces Second Edition of Exalted

Atlanta, GA; June 10, 2005—Ending a rash of speculation, White Wolf Publishing announced today that it will be releasing a second edition of its wildly popular pen-and-paper roleplaying game Exalted in 2006. White Wolf first gave hints of its intentions with a titillating “leak” in its quarterly catalog, and it has now confirmed that the Second Edition will be in stores early next year.

The early “leak” brings to mind White Wolf’s long campaign of hints and teases surrounding the original 2001 release of Exalted, which left fans speculating for more than a year as to what the prospective game might actually be about. This time around, though, White Wolf promises fans a far shorter wait for this much advanced version of its anime- and wuxia-inspired reimagination of epic fantasy storytelling.

On the design side, Exalted Art Director Brian Glass is approaching the forthcoming project with a zeal inspired by the game’s legacy to date. “I’ve striven to push myself as a designer for each hardback book we’ve done,” said Glass, “so to be able to take this fantastic setting and reshape it visually, adding to the vast lushness that’s come before, is an exciting task that I can’t wait to undertake.” Also looking forward with great enthusiasm is John Chambers, the copyeditor for every Exalted book to date, save one. “As the Exalted editor since the launch of the line,” Chambers raves, “I’ve watched the evolution of the game since prior to its debut, and I can say without fear of contradiction that the second edition Geoff and I have cooked up is an even stronger game than the original.”

What’s more, the second edition of Exalted not only showcases revisions and refinements of the rules and setting, but highlights the passing of the torch to John Chambers from Exalted Developer Geoffrey C. Grabowski. With the new edition, John Chambers steps fully from the role of editor and co-developer to sole developer and intellectual property manager.

“John and I are of one mind here in reverence and irreverence,” outgoing developer Grabowski said. Added Chambers, “I’m ecstatic that, when he decided to move on, Geoff chose me to succeed him as Exalted developer, and I’m looking forward to putting my own stamp on this game that I love.”

The second edition of Exalted, a 352-page full-color hardcover roleplaying rulebook, releases in February 2006.

Exalted Second Edition
WW80000; ISBN 1-58846-684-1; $39.99 US
352-page full-color hardcover

Up at Newsarama this morning:

The Publishing Gauntlet – Part Four

Find out about the contents of Exalted #0, where you can find it this summer and finally get a look at the first cover image:

Following up on yesterday’s post

Okay, I was taking out the recycleables later in the day… I wasn’t even trying to eavesdrop and I heard one of the players raise his voice because his ‘anima banner is flaring’

Holy shit, they ARE playing Exalted! I couldn’t believe it! So…

I knocked on their door and chatted with them. Two gamer guys in their early thirties. One of them had noticed Warhammer 40K boxes amongst my stuff when I was moving in but they didn’t know if they should knock on my door either so had just let it go. Heh. They’re big Exalted fans, but not freaky gamer types or anything. They invited me to game with them some time and I told them my schedule is pretty batshit lately.

Once I got a decent feel for the fact that they weren’t going to be stereotypical scary gamers I let them know what I do. They were really surprised, but also quite cool about it too. Once the current slate of projects die down we may try a night of board games or card games to break the ice and enjoy a few beers.

They both had extensive Exalted collections, which was neat. One of them was missing Savant & Sorcerer so I gave him an extra comp copy I had here. He was really grateful.

All in all, it went well. I know it sounded silly being nervous about it, but I’m glad took the plunge and chatted with them. Getting their unbiased opinions about Exalted before they found out what I do for a living was quite informative.

Heh, gaming neighbours. I like my building.

Anyways, thought you guys and gals might want to know how it turned out.

It’s kind of amusing. The people living in the apartment across the hall have a role-playing game running almost every Sunday. Gal and I have heard them chatting and heard bits of game speak. Without actually putting my ear right on their door I can’t tell what system they’re playing. I think it’s something modern, but I haven’t heard any terminology from WhiteWolf books or anything… so maybe d20 Modern?

Part of me thinks I should knock and introduce myself as a fellow gamer. Most of me thinks that’s just embarrassing and weird. Mind you, standing in the hallway straining to hear dice rolling and corny dialogue and being entertained by it is pretty weird too.

If I knew what system they were using I’d probably slip them a free book or something, but that could come off as creepy if they received this mysterious package from nowhere.

Heh. I know there’s all sorts of gamers out there but having them across the hall is amusing to me for some reason.

Hold on, I’m gonna eavesdrop again and see if I hear even what kind of dice they’re using or anything:

*heads to the hallway to listen again*

Holy shit, they are playing White Wolf stuff… I just heard the Storyteller ask for a “Manipulation + Socialize” roll. This is so weird…

Up at Newsarama this morning:

The Publishing Gauntlet – Part Three

Find out who our cast of heroes are for the Exalted comic as well as where the first story arc is taking place.

This post isn’t exactly momentous or occasion worthy. Sometimes livejournal is just day to day observations.

Good Morning June.

I think the strange sleep schedule and sheer volume of things going on is making me extra touchy today. I hate feeling this way. I hate being extra irritable or jumpy when I’ve got this much to do. Of course, this tends to happen because I have so much to do. It’s a little vicious cycle.

The “Card Game Project of Doom” continues unabated. Going over images last night I see several that need to be overhauled. Not sure how we’re going to be able to pull that magically out of our butts in time. So frustrating.

If the summer cons go well I am seriously taking a vacation somewhere. Not a day trip or going to friend’s place to get away from work kind of thing. A real “going away somewhere” kind of vacation. I’ve never left Canada/USA and that irritates me. I shouldn’t be 29 and have no experiences outside of this continent for crying out loud. Schedule wise and money wise I don’t think any of my friends could spare the time or afford an autumn vacation to a resort or anywhere out of the way. Going alone somewhere is a little scary, but might be a neat experience nonetheless. It’s hard to figure that out on this little sleep.

The apartment is too quiet.

My computer’s hard drive is emitting the same old high pitched spinning noise. I normally filter it out without even trying but right now it’s piercing and annoying for some reason.

And why does my ankle hurt? *grumble grumble*

Oh crap, now I’m rambling.

Okay, time for some breakfast/lunch/whatever and a shower to hopefully shake my head out of this.

TCAF was a bust business-wise, but pretty good from a “hangout out and meet people” standpoint. I knew going in that the Street Fighter and Darkstalkers books weren’t the kind of fare people were looking for at this show and us not being able to bring in any of the art team accentuated that even more.

Still, meeting more of the Flight crew was quite nice, as was hanging out with the Speak Easy boys and meeting Jeff Smith. Rey and Mal were there as well (read Sharknife!) but I didn’t get to visit with them as much as I would’ve liked.

Today ended up quite awful. Although I had a couple drinks out last night, I woke up disproportionately pained. More than just a hangover headache, my head ended up on fire. Worse of all, I thought I was okay at first and went down to the show today. Within a couple hours I was practically blacking out from a crushing headache and my stomach lurching. I left at about 1:30 and drove very slowly home, then rolled up into a fetal position in bed and felt like I was gonna die. Four hours later I came to and now I’m groggily trying to get things done while feeling a slight and headache and quite disconnected from everything because of the time loss of the nap.

Gonna try and get some serious sleep and then attack tomorrow with much more gusto. I’ll try and post a couple photos from the show tomorrow as well.

As Noi was working up the cover for issue #1 of the Exalted comic for the solicitation info we also talked about a poster or print we could do up for stores and/or sell at the cons. One of the female characters for the print seemed an obvious choice. Noi told me he’d do up a piece for it by the end of the week. I received the pic about an hour ago and I’m more jazzed than ever about the comic.

I e-mailed it to several of the White Wolf staffers to get their take on it. Brian, the Art Director for Exalted, just woke me up at 2am to freak out:

*ring*

Jim: *groggily fumbles with phone* huzuguh?

Brian: DU————–UDE! HOLY FUCK! NOI IS INSANE!

Jim: Yes. Yes he is. Pretty sweet, eh?

Brian: My God, that rules. Okay, sorry for calling so late. Just had to tell you. Go back to bed, crazy boy.

Jim: *sleepy grin* G’night.

When you eventually see it, I think you’ll agree that something special is coming this fall. Okay, back to bed.