Announcing Valor Live: Best in Class

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We’re excited to announce our next Live Play! Valor Live: Best in Class will debut with episode 0 on Saturday, February 27th at 2:00 PM Pacific Time on our Twitch Channel! This will be a bi-weekly game run by Valor Co-Creator Austin MacKenzie. This game will explore our Best in Class module which we  hope to release physical copies of within the next few months. It will follow the exploits of a group of students within the Knighthood program at the illustrious Silver League school Mercurial University.

As with the original Valor Live: Wind Riders campaign this game will take place in our modern fantasy Valress setting. We’ll reveal the characters with session 0, but first, let’s meet the cast!

Asher Dmitri

Asher Dmitri is a curious little nonbinary individual living out of the Pacific Northwest. They discovered a love for art and comics at a young age and chose to follow the bonkers path of a self-taught artist, which brought them to conventions, and ultimately to a seat at an early Valor playtest panel. From there, they not only found a love for the Valor system, they also joined Austin’s team as a baby artist, providing some of their work to the core manual. They’ve since gone on to work in Kickstarter projects, comics, music, and voice acting, as well as finding time to take their first art class through Syn Studio. Today, they’re a freelance illustrator working out of their home with their spouse, still in the dampest corner of Washington state. Eleven months living indoors and counting – Stay safe out there, everyone!

Jason de Kanter Gualberto

Jason de Kanter Gualberto is a Texas-born IT professional, occasional freelance writer, and host of the podcast Come Back a Star: A Movie Award Podcast. He had an unusual childhood with parents who both grew up in fascist Spain. He went to one of those high schools that taught Creationism and had Latin as a required course. College at the University of Chicago opened Jason’s eyes up to a broader world of social science, movies, and acting – all worlds that he still loves to this day.

Jason has been a proud supporter and play tester of Valor ever since he befriended creator Austin MacKenzie when they both worked in the aerospace forges of Washington state. Buying metals for the might of the Boeing Empire took its toll and the two witnessed many lives sacrificed to the success of the dreaded Project Polymos. After a while, the furnaces became too hot, and, after a daring escape, the two left for greener pastures. Theirs is a bond forged in blood, loss, and triumph against overwhelming orcs.

These days, Austin is a game dev and Jason supports Project Polymos from the comfort of his home office.

You can catch Jason’s Come Back a Star podcast, covering every Best Picture winner and nominee since 1927, every week on Thursdays.

Jenna MacKenzie

Jenna MacKenzie has been with Valor for over a decade, being introduced to the system during its first convention demo in 2009. From then on, she was hooked, hopping on board as a playtester, PR/event manager and one of the founding members of Valorous Games. A Midwestern transplant with a background in vocal performance and stage acting, she looks forward to bringing nearly a decade of opera, musical and improv theater experience to Valor Live: Best in Class. When she isn’t flexing her managerial muscles or doing weird voices on the internet, she can be found streaming old-school RPGs and randomly bursting into song on Twitch.

Zack Maher

A self-proclaimed “King of Screaming,” Zack Maher is a voice actor who’s work you can hear in various indie animations and video games all over the internet. Notable credits include Dr. Sylvester Ashling in the animated series Epithet Erased, and various characters in the So This is Basically webseries.

For that past five years Zack has been creating laughs, delivering tears, and making unforgettable memories in various tabletop games. He is a frequent GM and player in different streamed shows that can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/surpriseroundrpg. He also served as the GM for the first show of Valor Live: Wind Riders, happily excited to work on the player side of story telling.

When he’s not booking jobs or playing games, Zack is also pursuing the field of school psychology, where he hopes to provide kids the resources they need to succeed in their education. He also hopes to develop a specialty for transgender advocacy in the schools he’ll be working with in the future.

Tools of the Trade Community Content Requests

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As we develop Tools of the Trade content (currently available on Early Access here), we want to tailor the content to make sure the community gets as many options as we can provide. To that end, we’re opening up requests! If you’re interested in requesting some kind of content, email us at info@valorousgames.com with the subject header “TOOLS OF THE TRADE REQUEST”. This will be open indefinitely as we refine Tools of the Trade, although depending on the request we will not guarantee that we will make that content or that it will appear exactly as you requested with consideration to game balance and thematic appropriateness. The submissions can be broad or narrow in scope, things like “I want more abilities to use while flying” to “I want a power that lets me jump under a target’s feet and throw them out of their space”. Please do not submit full writeups for skills or abilities, we will not be able to use your original text so keep this conceptual wherever possible.

We’ll regularly talk Tools of the Trade on Developer Streams via our Twitch Channel so keep an eye out there or on our Twitter for more announcements and content! So long as you own the Early Access, you’ll get the updates for free as they come out.

New Year Update

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Happy New Year everybody! A few quick updates on Valor and what we have in store for the next year!

First, we’ve added a PDF to the Errata page – we were initially thinking we might be able to get the fully updated PDF pushed through but given our current development timeline we decided it’d be best to just release the Errata-only document. You can find the Errata here

Second, Best in Class development continues with the final layout, we have some final text double-checks that need to be completed before the full layout can be placed, we’re hoping that will be finished within the next few days pending layout schedule. Announcements on Best in Class will generally still remain on the Kickstarter page.

Third, we’re looking forward to the conclusion of Season 1 of Valor Live! The current Valor Live will continue later this year – we want to give Zack a chance to develop the next arc, but in the interim we’ll probably have some other streams with different casts running. More details to come on that!

Fourth, we’ve made a quick update to our Patreon. We recently put out the first call for series submissions to do a stream on how to run various Anime and video games in Valor. Based on the response, we’re going to make this a regular fixture, going forward Patrons can submit potential series for us to cover and we’ll put it to a vote on Twitter as to what to cover. Topic submissions start at the $5 Patreon tier, so if you’re interested in making submissions our Patreon can be found here! If we receive enough submissions, we’ll let the Patrons narrow down the topics to about 5 before putting it up on Twitter, and any Patron, no matter the contribution tier is eligible to vote on the narrowed down topic list.

Finally, conventions. We’d love to do them, but we’re not going to start until we have vaccines ourselves and the vaccine situation in the country has dramatically improved. Unfortunately, there’s no saying when that’s actually going to be, but we are guardedly hopeful we may be able to do some conventions during the latter part of the year. More to come on that as we know more.

Episode 9 Guest – Lisa Ortiz

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Valor Live Episode 9 will feature our third Guest actor and the final Guest of this season! Please welcome Lisa Ortiz, who will be playing the National Defense Initiative Agent Roxy Steele!

Lisa Ortiz is a NYC native, bicoastal, veteran voice actor, director and producer. Her career as a voice over artist began under the shroud of an attempted auto larceny gone awry. Luckily for her, and for her sibling, the perpetrator in question, the car battery died. (No seriously, my brother tried to steal my car. That’s how I got into voice over. Just ask me. I’ll tell you.).  

 

As a VA, she is most well known  for her role as Lina Inverse, and Amy Rose in Sonic the Hedgehog, but she began her voice over career as the high elf Deedlit in Record of Lodoss War. Since then she has gone on to record dozens of animation series, live action, audiobooks, looping, video games, commercials, podcasts and films both as a voice and as a Producer, Director and Adapter. Her voice has been heard internationally on Disney XD, SciFi, Cartoon Network, WB, Nickelodeon and Netflix amongst others. And she has appeared most recently onstage in the one woman show “I Couldn’t Possibly love you” at 53 above at the Broadway Comedy club and Don’t tell Mama, as well as the Anime Cabaret Improv Jam. 

 

Lisa  is currently the director of Pokemon Journeys and has worked on the show in various capacities over the years since Indigo League. Directing credits include 200+ Episodes of the Pokemon TV Series (Journeys, Sun and Moon, XY) , Robo Car Poli, Psychic School Wars, Pokemon the Movie: I Choose you,  Norm of the North and  mobile games for, The Dark Night Rises, Dungeon Hunter 5, Modern Combat 5 and Netflix’s Heroes United amongst others*. 

 

She is President of Noise of O Productions, co-founder of www.voicesforfosters.org and is bicoastal, New Yorker of Puerto Rican descent, a Nuyorican, currently residing in LA, with her fabulous felines Littie and Boudica (Boudie). She is classically trained in theatre and voice, and in her free time, she loves to sing jazz. 

You can find more on Lisa’s extensive work below:

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0651184/

www.lisaortiz.com

www.noiseofo.com

Episode 6 Guest – Joe Zieja

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Valor Live Episode 6 will feature our second Guest actor! Please welcome Joe Zieja, who will be playing the fey Purifier Probasus Spasimo!

Joe is a writer, voice-over actor and general creative with a huge array of notable credits. His EPIC FAILURE series, inspired by his time with the US Military and their unending inscrutable bureaucracy is described by critics as “Terry Pratchett in space”. His voice-over credits include Bumblebee from Transformers, War for Cybertron: Siege, Claude von Riegan in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Fox McCloud in Star Fox Zero: the Battle Begins, and Kurt Vander in The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III & IV. When not voicing your favorite characters, Joe can be found enjoying a number of physical pursuits such as parkour, scuba diving, and flying planes. Joe currently resides in the city of Los Angeles, where he frequently criticizes the driving “talent” of West Coast drivers.

 

On Valor Live, Joe is bringing the character Probasus Spasimo, an Unseelie Fey Purifier. Purifiers are tasked with eliminating mortals and immortals that have, through their own evil action become consumed by Soul Taint lest they become demons, a job Probasus carries out with gusto and brutal efficiency.

 

Joe can be found all over the internet, and you can find those links below:

Website 

Twitter

IMDB

EPIC FAILURE

Twitch

YouTube

Patreon Launch and Tools of the Trade on Early Access

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Hey everyone, a few announcements today!

First, we are pleased to announce that the Core Rulebook Valor: Tools of the Trade is now available on Early Access! You can find it here: https://valorousgames.itch.io/tools-of-the-trade

This is the first of our Early Access and Micro-Content projects, with a more complete version of Villains, Creatures and Foes expected a bit later after we get all 400 pages of it into some semblance of a workable format for export. You can read a bit  more about our Early Access program here

Second, we have officially launched our Patreon! It can be found here

While we will still be working behind the scenes to customize the page, the core goals are providing alternate ways to support Valor development. Patreon proceeds will go toward supporting programs such as Valor Live, as well as full product releases so we appreciate your support!

Third, we are launching a second stream over on our Twitch channel, which can be found here

This stream will be every Tuesday at 6:00 PM Pacific time. We’ve currently slated it to run one hour, but depending on the response we are open to increasing that time as needed. These streams will feature Valorous Games owner and Lead Designer Austin MacKenzie, who will walk through in-development content such as rules used in Valor Live or some of the Early Access content. He will also take questions from the stream, and unveil development content requested by Patrons. The Valor Development Stream will launch on October 27th, where we will explore the freeway rules used in Valor Live Episode 3: Immortal Wind (episode found here)

Finally, we’re down to the final map for Best in Class art! Expect an update on Best in Class hopefully in a few days!

Episode 3 Guest – Vanessa Hoskins

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Valor Live Episode 3 will feature our first Guest actor! Please welcome Vanessa Hoskins, who will be playing the fey performer LuminousGrove!
Vanessa is a table-top role-playing game author and actual-play podcast performer. She’s been creating games and adventures since she was 10 and raided the family board games for dice while using her vast LEGO collection for minis and locations. While currently living in upstate New York, her imagination and internet connection often transports her around the world. When not writing, running, or playing role-playing games, she enjoys narrative based video games, musical theatre, and spending time with her wife and their adorable cat.
She’s written dozens of titles for the Pathfinder and Starfinder RPGs from rules mechanics to adventures. Her latest adventure, Hands of the Devil (Abomination Vaults, Book 2) releases in February of 2021. As well as several short-form adventures for Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society organized play programs. In addition to Valor Live, you can hear her play on Roll for Combat’s Fall of Plaguestone and Three Ring Adventure actual-plays, or Know Direction Network’s Stellar and Adventurous! podcasts.
On Valor Live, Vanessa brings the character of LuminusGrove to life. Lumi is a fey social influencer and online personality who uses performance art and pseudo-investigative journalism to fight for the Equalist cause! Accompanied by her heavily modified BZ-20 hover drone, nicknamed “Buzzy,” she exposes Traditionalist lies and scandals LIVE to thousands of eager fans. Lumi’s biggest fan is PageBoy74, a human man from Kelebree, who’s ready to come to Lumi’s aid at a moment’s notice. Find out what trouble Lumi and her little sprouts get into on episode 3 of Valor Live!
You can find a collection of Vanessa’s work and contacts below:
Roll For Combat: https://rollforcombat.com/
Know Direction Network: https://knowdirectionpodcast.com/

Valor Live Coming Soon!

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Get ready, Cavaliers! Valor Live will be launching on September 25th! The Stream will be hosted on our Twitch Channel and will run from 7:00 PM to 10:00 PM Pacific Time every Friday. The 25th will be Episode 0, our initial character creation session, with the game officially starting on October 2nd. Look forward to it!

Valor Discord Community and Creative Commons

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With Best in Class almost complete and the launch of Valor Live just around the corner, one of the things we want to provide is a way for people who play Valor to build a community around it. Valor was designed to be highly modular and work with a lot of different stories and styles, so it’s important to us to make sure that those who want to play it are able to find other players, share their own homebrew, and receive support for playing the game.

To that end, we are deploying our official Valor Discord which can be found here: Valor Tabletop RPG Discord

The Discord will allow players to connect with each other, share notes, and organize online play sessions. It’ll also serve as a place for Patrons to discuss content as we roll out our Patreon, as well as discuss Valor Live as the show launches.

Another major aspect we want to highlight is the Creative Commons License Valor operates under. The operating license can be found here. It allows you to, with appropriate attribution, freely share and adapt the Valor rules. What’s notable under these rules is that users are able to create their own rulesets and even publish them for profit without any royalty requirement. The only major requirement is that all material published in this fashion must also be published under the same Creative Commons License, in essence you pay it forward by allowing creators that come after you to benefit as you did (those wishing to utilize a private license may coordinate with and license the system from us directly if desired).

We also have some logos for those hoping to make use of our Creative Commons License. These are free to use for all Valor Creative Commons projects, and can be found here:

 

Announcing Valor Live!

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We are excited to announce our first live campaign!

For our first campaign, we’ll follow the exploits of a group of Cavaliers, semi-professional adventurers as they help solve problems in their community. This game will take place in our first official campaign setting, Valress, a world of magic and fantasy that has reached the modern era. While many things within the world have changed, some things remain the same and among them are the need for skilled individuals to take care of unusual problems. Valor Live will take place Fridays from 7-10 PM Pacific Time. The official start date will be announced soon!

We’ll be revealing everybody’s characters a bit later, but we’d first like to introduce our players! We had a lot of amazing people apply for a spot and it was a really tough decision. Every player in this group really stood out in terms of what they could bring to the table, and we could not be more excited to have this crew on board!

Game Master – Zack Maher

A self-proclaimed “King of Screaming,” Zack Maher is a voice actor who’s work you can hear in various indie animations and video games all over the internet. Notable credits include Dr. Sylvester Ashling in the animated series Epithet Erased, and various characters in the So This is Basically webseries. If you need unrivaled exuberance with a professional attitude and sound to match, look no further than having Zack involved in your next project!

Zack also isn’t a stranger when it comes to telling stories and crafting characters in tabletop RPG’s. For that past five years Zack has been creating laughs, delivering tears, and making unforgettable memories in various tabletop games. He is a frequent GM and player in different streamed shows that can be found at https://www.twitch.tv/surpriseroundrpg. This includes the Valor: The Heroic RPG system that has become a favorite of his in recent years. With the combined efforts of the rest of the cast, Zack hopes to tell an exciting and important story that inspires everyone to further pursue tabletop gaming, voice acting, or hopefully both!

When he’s not booking jobs or playing games, Zack is also pursuing the field of school psychology, where he hopes to provide kids the resources they need to succeed in their education. He also hopes to develop a speciality for transgender advocacy in the schools he’ll be working with in the future.

Francesca Calo

Francesca Calo is a New York City born and raised actor, MoCap performer, and voice actress.  She is half Chinese and half Spanish, and spent her childhood on film and television sets with her parents.  She began acting at the age of seven, and has since enthusiastically followed her passion.  She studied and performed with theaters such as the Moscow Art Theatre Company, New York Stage and Film, as well as with acclaimed international director, Adolf Shapiro.

She can be seen alongside Sandra Bullock in the Warner Bros film, Ocean’s 8, and with Tom Hanks in A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.  Select THEATER credits include: Julius Caeser (Casca), King Lear (Earl of Kent), Macbeth (Lady Macbeth).

Finally, Francesca entered the foray of voice over six years ago, and can be heard on shows like Pokemon (Disney XD), Regal Academy (Nickelodeon), Webby nominated children’s podcast, Grimm, Grimmer, Grimmest (Pinna Audio), and more! More information about her can be found on her website at: https://www.francesca-calo.com/

Lily Lammers

Lily Lammers is a voice actress from Valencia, California. After studying theater at Mills College in Oakland, she’s returned home and currently resides in Los Angeles. Lily’s provided additional voices for anime including HunterXHunter and Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun as well as voicing main characters in indie games such as Chronicon, Negative Atmosphere, and A Field of Flower and Stars. During her time at Mills, she was lucky enough to study at both the American Conservatory Theater and Middlebury Language Schools. Lily staged numerous productions at Mills and ACT, often acting as a sound designer as well as a performer. At Middlebury, she studied Japanese language and culture, with a focus on performing arts, from rakugo to anime. In her free time, Lily enjoys listening to old radio dramas, practicing lightsaber combat, and learning new languages.

Paul Greene-Dennis

Paul Greene-Dennis is musician and voice actor who hails from Brentwood, NY. Paul recently graduated this year from CUNY Queens College with his Masters of Music in Classical Performance. Paul loves to sing opera. Recently, Paul has done productions at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Greenwood Cemetery and Queens College. When Paul is not doing voiceover or singing classical music, he is either working out, watching anime, or reading novels.

Tamara Fritz

Tamara Fritz is a British-American Voice Actress who has been producing work online under her handle ‘totalspiffage’ for more than 10 years, including original music, parody songs, and covers. She got her start in VO in 2014, in the MMO Hounds: The Last Hope, and has worked as a full-time VO ever since. She works primarily in the commercial sector, but video game VO is her passion.

Her more notable credits include Wargroove, where she played Queen Mercia, and Warframe, where she played a giant, evil spider called Profit-Taker as well as the lead quest-giver in the expansion Fortuna. She was also a cast member on Live Play series URealms for two years, where she provided voices for animations as well as performing on the show.

She currently lives in Columbus, OH, where she spends her free time writing music, streaming, and memorizing obscure video game lore.