New Year, New Updates!

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Hello everyone and welcome to 2025! Mysterium grows ever closer with the turning of the calendar. Are you excited?

We have a few quick updates to ring in the new year.

Riven Spoilers

We’ve received a few inquiries regarding whether spoilers for Riven (2024) will be allowed at Mysterium this year. Following some discussion, the committee will permit spoilers at the convention.

We wish to provide a space where attendees and fans are able to discuss Riven freely, especially knowing that over a year will have passed since its release. We will do our best to indicate whether events and presentations contain spoilers so attendees can plan accordingly. Presenters will also be encouraged to let attendees know if their content contains spoilers before starting.

While we won’t be able to enforce it, we’ll have some small star stickers available at registration for you to apply to your badge holder if you wish to indicate to others that you would like to avoid Riven spoilers in conversation.

Submission Reminders

As a reminder, submissions for shirt designs, pins, events, writing, and artwork are all open. The next deadline is shirts and pins, which will close on February 26th.

For more information, check out the Submissions Hub.

Creativity Prompt Winner and Updates

The winner of September/October’s Creativity Prompt of “Falling” is Talashar’s “Many Colors.” Please do give it a read!

Voting is underway for November/December’s “Hearth” topic and submissions are currently being accepted for January/February’s theme, “Rime.” Check out the Discord to participate!

 

We wish everyone the best start to 2025! Stay tuned for more updates soon…

Curator and Drew
Mysterium 2025 Co-Chairs

Dates and Policy Updates

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Hello everyone!

We have some big announcements to make, so let’s dive right in.

We Have Dates!

We’ll be returning to our roots and hosting Mysterium 2025 during the first weekend of August. We look forward to seeing you from August 1st – 3rd!

Additional details about our venue will be announced and posted on the Location page as it becomes available.

Health and Safety Policy Updates

Masks and COVID vaccines will be strongly encouraged at Mysterium 2025. Masks will continue to be available for attendees who did not bring their own, should they wish to use one.

A change to our conduct policy has been implemented to support the health and safety of our attendees and staff. Please review it. In summary:

  • Attendees agree to immediately stop participating in Mysterium if they exhibit symptoms of a contagious illness.
    • You may engage via the live stream as an alternative.
  • Failure to follow the conduct policy’s health and safety guidance may result in removal from the event, or additional actions as necessary.

Submissions Updates

We are ready to accept submissions for this year’s Writing and Artwork table, run once again by the fabulous Annacat. Submissions will be accepted through July 15th. For more information, please see the Writing & Art Table Submissions page.

Information about all open submission opportunities can be found on the Submissions Hub.

Creativity Prompt Voting and Submissions Open

We’re in our final days of voting for our previous creativity prompt, “Falling.” We received a number of submissions, so be sure to vote on Discord by the end of this week!

Submissions for our current theme, “Hearth,” are also being accepted on Discord through the end of December.

 

That’s all for now! Until next time…

Curator and Drew
Mysterium 2025 Co-Chairs

An Eventful Autumn Entry

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Hello everyone!

With autumn and location planning well underway, we turn our attention towards events!

Event Submissions

This year, we are opening event submissions a bit earlier than usual. While we work on solidifying our dates, we hope this affords you some extra time to think of any great activities, presentations, or showcases you’d like to see or run yourself.

We will be accepting event submissions until April 30th. You can head over to the 2025 Submissions Hub to learn more and send in your ideas.

Other Submissions

As a reminder, we are currently accepting submissions for next year’s t-shirt and pin designs through the end of February. You can find more information at the 2025 Submissions Hub.

August Creativity Prompt Winner

We had two winners for this August’s creativity prompt, “Revelation.”

Submissions for our current theme, “Falling,” will be accepted through the end of October on Discord.

Written Winner:

Kevin F. “Kefrith” Smith’s Revelation Limerick

Yeesha was a young D’ni descendant

Who could see memories through her pendant

But she couldn’t foresee

Sirrus ceasing to be

At the hands of their brother repentant

Visual Winner:

Black and white line artwork depicting three sections. On the left shows the Myst IV Revelation age of Spire, on the right, Haven. In the middle shows Sirrus and Achenar behind a young Yeesha, each with an object held or floating above their hands. At the top are the words "Revelation IV" and at the bottom, "MYST."

By ZeTomato

 

We look forward to sharing more with you soon. Until then, have a great start to October!

Curator and Drew
Mysterium 2025 Co-Chairs

All Aboard to Atlanta!

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Hello everyone!

We are extremely excited to be bringing Mysterium to Atlanta in 2025. Planning is underway, and we have a lot in store for you all.

2025 Theme Announcement

We’re going big this year. With 2025 being the 20th anniversary of Myst V: End of Ages, we’ve decided to make our theme… Myst V: End of Ages!

We hope this encourages you to find an opportunity to revisit and reflect on the game itself. As for submissions, we think this will allow you to find ample chances for creativity (though The Committee certainly won’t frown on anything piranha chicken related).

Open Submissions

On that note, we are excited to announce that t-shirt and pin design submissions are now open through February 26th, 2025. To learn more, head over to our 2025 Submissions Hub. As always, designs incorporating elements from our theme, Myst V, and the host city are favored.

Downloadables Update

By popular demand, the 2024 Puzzle and Coloring Packets are now available for download! Bring a bit of Mysterium home with you by heading over to our Downloadables page.

July Creativity Prompt Winner

The honor of July’s Creativity Prompt title goes to Harley for their written work, “O, Serenia.” The prompt was Serenia.

Only a few days remain to submit entries for our August prompt, Revelation.

 

That should do it for now. Please stay tuned for more announcements in the coming weeks!

Curator and Drew
Mysterium 2025 Co-Chairs

Eat a Peach

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Hello! We are ready to wrap up Mysterium 2024 and kick off 2025!

Survey Highlights

Thank you to all who filled out the 2024 survey. A few trends we saw in the responses:
  • Guildmaster was really popular. We will try to continue doing game shows in the future.
  • There is a general demand for interactive activities such as WWCB and Ransom Notes. We will aim to have a few of these each year.
  • Several people expressed an interest in more excursions. We had a great attendance at the unofficial outing to the Biodome this year, and Atlanta has a number of options, so we should be able to do something again next year.
  • We have received a fair amount of feedback on our COVID policies and questions as to when/whether they will be changing. We will discuss these for next year.

YouTube Videos

The videos from this year are now all up on YouTube. Check out the playlist on our channel.

Mysterium 2025

We will be heading to Atlanta next year! It will be a while before we announce dates, but as usual, it will be in July or August. And leading the con next year will be our co-chairs:

Drew Salad (Yuki)

Drew has “attended” seven Mysteria since 2011. Why quotes? Well, he’s somehow always been on the committee. Since year one. Weird, isn’t it? Outside of Mysterium, Drew leads Apple device management and Zoom platform administration for a large university. His favorite games include Riven, Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and Mario Kart.
You can usually find him repeatedly planning large events and trips (for whatever reason), studying Japanese, or taking pictures of landscapes and flowers.

Fant Steele (Curator)

Curator attended his first MYSTerium in 2020 virtually. His first in-person MYSTerium was in 2022 in Denver Colorado. He joined the committee following the 2023 convention in Spokane.
Curator can also be found doing various things relating to the Unwritten RPG published by Inkspark including a monthly stream showcasing various facets of the game.
During the rest of the year Curator manages a security team for a fortune 500 company and additionally manages (or attempts to) his three children. Aside from the MYST franchise, he can be regularly found playing a number of games from the Zelda and Monkey Island series, the occasional Mario Party bout, and odd indie games like Kindergarten or The Last Door.
His other hobbies include writing, GMing for a smattering of TTRPGs, camping, miniature painting, and woodworking.  You may have even seen some of his Unwritten based creations at a MYSTerium in the past.

Thank you again to all who joined us this year in Montreal or on our Twitch stream, and we were pleased to see how many newcomers there were! We look forward to seeing you next year in Atlanta.

Signing off,
Annacat and Dan
Mysterium 2024 co-chairs