I had a fantastic weekend at the European Championships in Mannheim. Many thanks to everyone who attended - it was great seeing you all! Many thanks to the hosts, as well!

At the EC Mike and I gave a presentation and Q&A session for the new expansion, The Unaligned. By now you've all seen the cards, but here are some additional announcements from the presentation:

- The next set, due in October of 2015, will be Anarch-themed. It will be 50 or so cards in size. We're strongly considering Bloodlines for 2016.

- Playtesting for the next set will start in November. Please talk to Playtest Coordinator Hugh Angseesing (Squidalot on vekn.net) if you'd like to be a playtester.

- If you have ideas for Anarch cards, or any other cards, feel free to post them in the Expansion Sets & Card Ideas forum on vekn.net. We do read that forum - Illusory Resources from The Unaligned was directly inspired by a post there.

- An even better way to try out card ideas is to run a Storyline event! They get your ideas out there and tested in actual games. Talk to Storyline Coordinator Mike Nudd (mikelosaurus on vekn.net) if you'd like to do this.

- We'll be releasing some overdue Storyline reward cards sometime in the next several months. This will include older Storyline events, such as the Battle Lines event, and the Budapest EC Storyline. We'll also be reviewing the crypt cards from The Returned event for possible approval in sanctioned tournaments. We don't have an exact release date for these as they'll need testing and we'll need artwork for a couple of cards, but we're hoping to have them ready by February.

- We're very grateful for all of the work that our artists have contributed. I highly recommend checking out their other works in their portfolios. Most of them are available for commissioned work, and some have prints and original pieces for sale. You can find the list of artists and links to their online portfolios here: http://www.vekn.net/vekn-artists

That's all for now! Have a great weekend!

- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

Congratulations to Matt Hirsch for winning his second North American Championship, and congratulations as well to all the other tournment winners at Origins and the Week of Nightmares! Many thanks to Kevin Mergen, Bob Joseph, Mark Loughman, Jay Kristoff, and Hugh Angseesing for organizing and running tournaments all week!

I had a very productive meeting with the playtesters at Origins. It was great to be able to get more in-depth insight from the players, and I came out of it with a much clearer picture of the playtest feedback we've been getting. There's a lot of information to sort through, and it's fun and interesting to get several different answers from several different people for the same questions. However, the decisions we in the Design Team have to make are made a lot easier as a result of the discussions and feedback. Round Three of playtest will be wrapping up in the next week or so.

The featured artist this time is returning artist Javier Santos, who previously did work on Danse Macabre. Pieces he did include Dark Steel, Inside Dirt, Shakar: The Hunt, and Shadow Boxing. We're thrilled to have him back! You can check out his online portfolio here, and here's a piece he did for the new set as well:

http://javisart.com/



Lastly, fellow Design Team member Mike Nudd has a Kickstarter campaign going for a boardgame he's created called Waggle Dance. It's all about bees and honey-making, a particular interest of Mike's. Reviews of the game have been very positive! There are two days left in the Kickstarter, so please check it out!

www.kickstarter.com/projects/1811420414/...-dance?ref=discovery

- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

To see more of Riccardo's work, check out his websites:

http://dogwithoutabone.carbonmade.com/

http://thickblacktrace.wordpress.com/


- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

The still-as-yet-unnamed set is still slated to have 70 cards (45 crypt, 25 library) and we're well ahead of an Q3/EC release date.

Artwork is progressing apace, with 53 cards sent to artists for artwork. We currently have 31 completed pieces and 7 concept sketches submitted. We're also very excited to have added several new artists, including Laia López and Alejandro F. Giraldo.

Over the coming weeks and months, we'll talk more about what concepts to expect from the new set, as well as more art previews. Speaking of which, here are a couple of previews from Laia López and Alejandro F. Giraldo:

- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

- Ben Peal and the V:EKN Design Team

Round One of playtest for the second V:EKN set is underway! As mentioned earlier, it's an still-as-yet-unnamed Independent-themed set. It was originally slated to be a 36-card set covering the four classic Independent clans, but we were informed by our Art Director, Ginés Quiñonero, that we will have enough artists to expand the set to include Gangrel.

A total of 74 cards have been sent to the playtesters - 45 crypt cards and 29 library cards. The final size of the set will be less than that, in the 60-70 range depending on how the cards fare in playtest. We intended to start playtest at the beginning of July, but we took another month to develop the Gangrel crypt and library cards. Most of the art descriptions have been submitted to Ginés, and we already have our first two completed pieces!

We've also scheduled a Design Team presentation for the Saturday night of the European Championships in Stockholm, Sweden. There will be artists on hand displaying their artwork for Danse Macabre (and possibly the Independent set), and we'll have previews of that set. We'll also give a presentation about the card design and development process to give you some insight into how a card gets made. After that, we'll have a question and answer session. We'll be sure to record it for those unable to attend.

We hope to see you in Stockholm!

- Ben Peal, V:EKN Design Team Lead