Morning Mounties!
Now that the dust has started to settle for the Briar Society, The Book of Briars, and the new year, I wanted to post a quick update about the Neithernor RPG (NNRPG) and what’s going on behind-the-scenes…
First, the big headline:
@Mike and I are damned and determined to have an alpha pdf version of the handbook available for sale by March 27th. That just happens to coincide with the drop-dead expiration date of my Neithernor game trademark. 
Boring Trademark Application Information
I applied for the trademark almost four years ago and kept paying to extend the expiration. For those who don’t know, including me until very recently, you have a certain amount of time to start selling the thing which you’re trademarking, which is what actually locks in your application; otherwise, you have to keep extending the time by paying fees, and if you run out of extensions and aren’t selling the thing, you lose the trademark and have to apply all over again, which is costly, time-consuming, and you’re not guaranteed to regain the trademark.
End Boring Trademark Application Information
Fun Stuff
SO, starting this week, we’re going to begin posting NNRPG content pretty regularly. Before the end of this week, we’ll post the current leveling system framework, then move to reveal the 18 guild-bearing “classes,” in chronocompass order, starting next week!
Once those are revealed, we’re going to need your assistance and input to help fill in and finetune the Affinities that are specific to each bearing (think of affinities in NNRPG as the spells that only your guild-bearing can learn) as well as the massive shared bank of “utility spells” we want to build to help each player round out their character.
From there, we’re going to dive into the new concepts of Coven Tomes, Coven Spells, the new stress track we’ve designed to monitor Spellsickness, leveling within your guild-bearing, augmented skills, and finally, building a level 0-3 mini-campaign to include in the handbook.
We already have a good chunk of the handbook done, thanks to @Mike, and now is when we get into the nitty-gritty so we can release the alpha pdf and get it in your hands to playtest! We’ll continue updating the pdf throughout the year as we all continue working and playing, with a final hardcover, paperback, and pdf version releasing before the end of the year. And if you buy the pdf in March, you’re entitled to all subsequent updates and additions leading up to the final product release!
Once the alpha handbook is released on March 27th, we’ll also open an area of the forum specifically for all of you to begin adding playtesting notes, but more importantly, you’ll be able to use it to chronicle your coven’s adventures! Whether you play here, IRL, or somewhere else online, I want to read your adventures. One fascinating element of all this for me is that although these stories are their own canonical pocket universe, that’s kind of the whole point of the NNRPG, to allow you to wild in the Briarverse, if you post your adventures here and I really like an element you add to the Briarverse, it could become canon. 
Look out for the leveling system update this week, and next week we’ll put up the specific “classes” for each guild-bearing, starting with Weatherwatch!