Though there's plenty of us left here, the office feels a little empty with folks out at Origins. Maybe that's just the feeling I get looking across into Phil's empty office. What am I doing here, whinging like a wanker while Justin's off punching cops, John "Exalted: Second Edition Tamer" Chambers is kissing hands and shaking babies, and Brian "Exalted 2: Flaming, Lens-Flare Boogaloo" Glass is dodging booth duty? Why, I'm writing these brief updates, of course:

Finished Mage pages, laid out and decorated with glimmering art, continue to rise like crocodile-infested waters in a perilous deathtrap. Soon, Rich Thomas and Bill Bridges will either drown, be eaten or fist-fight their way to GenCon. I'm naturally hoping for the latter, but then I've never punched a crocodile.

John Chambers, the talented and terrified new Exalted developer, has been swallowed whole by Exalted: Second Edition.* We are now in that tense, all-but-unbearable period when we wait to see if he cuts his way out of its guts and climbs all bloody and sticky out of its carcass with its heart in his hands. Or, I don't know, something. (*I honestly don't know the official way I'm supposed to refer to the second edition rulebook for Exalted, so don't take that colon-using title as gospel. I don't know jack about nothing.)

Ethan and I are slaving to get Chicago to the editors on time. Ye gads, that's a big book. We're in that difficult phase where we're smoothing all the parts together — Vampire, Werewolf and Mage. I got one of my wishes, though, which was to bring Ken "Suppressed Transmissions 2" Hite on board to write the game scenario for the Mage portion of the book. So that's nice. All told, when the book's done, it's going to be something like 400 pages, they tell me. Somewhere around here we have a cover for it, too. I'll see if I can't find that for you.

Meanwhile, VII has gone to press (as I think I mentioned last week), Invictus is about to go off to layout (already?!) and Bloodlines: The Legendary is being handed off to Justin for final development, 'cause I've got to move on to The Requiem Chronicler's Guide. It's too soon for me to really say anything about that book, but folks seemed to be curious about the title, so all I'll say is that it looks to be 160 pages of work by such stellar authors as Justin Achilli, David Chart, Ray Fawkes, Robin D. Laws, Jesse Scoble, Jared Sorensen, Greg Stolze, Jeff Tidball and more. I'm pretty excited about it and hope it strikes a chord with today's Vampire crowd.

This weekend, I'm hoping to justify the money I spent on used books in Chicago a few weeks back by doing some preparatory reading for both Mythologies and Circle of the Crone, which come up to the plate after the Requiem Chronicler's Guide. With any luck I'll be doing some of this reading on a pier in South Carolina where river dolphins (or some damn things) hang out... when there aren't any gators around. If it turns out that I get gators instead of dolphins, I'll punch one and let you know how it goes. Hell, dolphins or gators, I'll take a swing and let you know. It'll make up for missing Origins.