Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Welcome to this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar. Due to the Thanksgiving Holiday we’re publishing the update early this week. Lot’s of great stuff to share, including the first installment of the SotA novel by Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott, and some awesome Black Friday weekend promotions!

• First Installment of Blade of the Avatar Novel
• Combat Design
• The Immortality Fruit
• The Royal Elderberry
• The Pickaxe of Prosperity
• Black Friday Weekend Promotions
• Kickstarter: The Space Bards Present Their First Album, “Neon Milk”!
• Movember: Shroud of the Mustache

[Book Cover Art by Stephen Daniele and Tracy Hickman]

Blade of the Avatar Novel, Installment 1 – Prologue

The first installment of the serialized SotA novel, Blade of the Avatar (BotA), written by Tracy Hickman & Richard Garriott, is now available for download! Digital version of BotA is included as an Early Founder reward at all pledge levels $25 or higher, and is also available in the Add-On Store for everyone. Early Founders can download the first installment at the new Early Founder Rewards area in the community forums (accessible to Early Founders only; Early Founders are backers that pledged any amount by May 20, 2013). If you are a Kickstarter backer you’ll need to have your Kickstarter account linked to the SotA website (click here for instructions to link your Kickstarter account).

If you purchased BotA in the Add-On Store, then you will find a download link for the first installment on your personal SotA account page (log into SotA website and click on “Account” in the top-right corner).

This installment consists of the Prologue. Here is a brief excerpt (illustration by Denis Loubet, renowned Ultima artist):

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

This week’s edition of Update of the Avatar includes:

• Britannia Burns! The Long Awaited Spoony Interview/Roast!
• Benefactor Knight Village Home
• Founder Knight Home Improvements
• Story Sneak Peek #7 & Map Reveal
• Founder’s Cloak
• Lord British Cloak
• Axe of Prosperity
• Hearth of Britannia Lords of the Hearth Event
• Gifts of the Avatar!

Britannia Burns! The Long Awaited Spoony Interview/Roast!

You wanted it! You earned it in our Kickstarter Stretch Goals! You waited for it! Well, wait no longer! Presenting… Spoony meets Lord British, Part 1!

The unvirtuous force meets the inscrutable object!

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

We have another fun-filled edition of Update of the Avatar:

• Unity Scene Jam Grand Prize Winners
• Recruit-A-Friend Winners
• Story Sneak Peek #6 & Map Reveal
• Magic, Combat, and Crafting Skills Design
• Thanksgiving Specials: Taming Turkey Call & Cornucopia
• Windmill Village Home
• Village Mine Basements
• Movember: Shroud of the Mustache

Unity Scene Jam Grand Prize Winners!

[Chris Spears narrates a walk-thru of the Scene Jam Grand Prize Winner]

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

This week’s edition of Update of the Avatar is filled with more cool stuff:

• Unity Scene Jam IV Winners
• Story Sneak Peek & Map Reveal
• Early Access Release Schedule
• Founder Baron City Home

Unity Scene Jam IV Winners!

[Chris Spears narrates a walk-thru of the Scene Jam IV Winners]

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

We have some great stuff for you in this week’s edition of Update of the Avatar:

• Six Month Progress Video
• Story Sneak Peeks
• Founder Adventurer Starter Shield
• Fishing Pole of Prosperity
• Our Final Unity Scene Jam (#4)
• Recruit-A-Friend Promotion

Six Month Progress Video!

[Lord British Narrates the Six Month Progress Video]

It’s been a little over three months since we released our 3 Month progress video, and we’re excited to share the progress we’ve made since then. We encourage you to set your playback quality to HD, switch to full-screen, and enjoy our six month progress video, narrated by Richard “Lord British” Garriott!

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

Welcome to another edition of Update of the Avatar! Here’s what we have for you this week:

• Unity Scene Jam #3 Winners
• Story Sneak Peeks
• City Basements
• Wizard Tower Village Home
• SWAG: More T-shirt sizes & multi-item discount
• New Baron 3 Pledge
• Recruit-A-Friend Promotion 6-Day Countdown

Unity Scene Jam #3 Winners

[Chris Spears narrates a walk-thru of the Scene Jam #3 Winners]

The Unity Scene Jam #1 challenge was to build an ancient lunar rift.  The second scene challenge took a step forward in time to when people retreated underground and created the catacombs.  For Scene Jam #3 we took another step forward in time to when people moved back to the surface and rebuilt villages and towns, so the challenge for Jam #3 was to build a village scene.

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

We have some amazing stuff to share in this edition of Update of the Avatar!  We’re revealing the awesome looking Combat Sigil, we’ve added player housing basements (and included them as bonus rewards in the Citizen level pledges and up), we have more to show on the Druid Home, as well as a long-awaited sneak peek at a snippet of the story that Tracy Hickman and Richard Garriott have been secretly crafting!

Combat Sigil

Followers of the martial path use this mighty combat sigil as their symbol. The sigil shows the eight schools of combat that a warrior can follow. There are four armor schools: Light Armor (Cloth & Leather), Medium Armor (Chain & Scale), Heavy Armor (Plate), and Shields. There are four weapon schools: Blades (Swords & Axes), Polearms (Halberds & Spears), Bludgeons (Hammers & Clubs), and Ranged (Bows & Crossbows).

Stephen Daniele (lead concept artist) provided these different treatments of the combat sigil:

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

This edition of Update of the Avatar continues our Parade of Homes, showcasing the Founder Lord Town Home and Benefactor Edelmann Village Home. Also have some new female avatar outfits to share, and news about this weekend’s 48-hour Unity Scene Jam #2!

Founder Lord Town Home

Artists Bob Cooksey and Michael Hutchison came up with a dignified design for our Founder Lord Town home!  Only available to Founders (included as a reward in the Lord level pledge). An extremely spacious two-story dwelling, with an open-air roof deck suitable for crafting or entertaining:

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Greetings Fellow Avatars!

More cool stuff to share with you in this edition of Update of the Avatar, including the Sigil of Magic, progress on the crafting stations, results of our first 48-hour Unity Scene Jam, Founder Collector’s Coin, updated FAQ, and more!

Unity Scene Jam #1 Winner

Our first Unity Scene Jam was a great success! This scene challenge involved a design that included a “Lunar Rift” and the ruins around it. We asked for the Lunar Rift to be one up on a plateau or at least on top of a very steep hill (see challenge design description here). We received a total of 48 submissions, with some awesome talent participating!

It was tough to choose the winner from among the top entries, but after much deliberation, Richard, Starr, and Chris unanimously chose Richard Matey as the First Place winner of our first Shroud of the Avatar Unity Scene Jam!  Chris Spears prepared this video walking you through Richard Matey’s sweet looking scene. So crank the quality up to HD, switch to full-screen, and enjoy!

As one of our First Place weekend winners, he will receive a Knight Level Pledge, signed game box, and SotA t-shirt! Congratulations Richard Matey!

Coming in at Second Place is the team of Charles Howell and Mark A. Barros. Check out this cool image from their scene:

And Third Place goes to Melchior Meijer:

We were so impressed with the top entries, that we decided to award pledge credits to the second and third place winners! Congratulations to Charles, Mark, and Melchior!

The Sigil of Magic

There are nine schools of magic in Shroud of the Avatar: the eight elemental schools of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, Sun, Moon, Life, and Death with the ninth school of Chaos in the center of them all. Each school has a focus. Fire magic, for example, directly damages your enemies but also has a tendency to light them on fire, prolonging the damage dealt. Water magic on the other hand is about slowing your opponents with ice and healing your allies with soothing rains. The sigil represents how all the schools relate to each other and it will appear inked on parchment, carved into stone, sewn into cloth and minted into metal coins.

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