Category Archives: General

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

Policy Updates

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Happy (belated) Thanksgiving! We have a couple quick items to announce. No, we do not have dates for Mysterium yet but are close and expect to announce that before the end of the year.

Policy Updates

We made a few changes to the Mysterium policies. Note the following:
  • We received some complaints about heckling and shouting out during presentations. While audience reactions and cheering are fine, repeatedly interrupting presenters is not.
  • Attempts to circumvent our refund policies via charge dispute may result in a permanent ban from future events.
The full set of policies is available on the Policies page of our website.

October Prompt Winners

We have our two winners for October’s community prompt topic of “Noir”. First, the visual winner angelmyst with this photo collage:

Captioned:

“There it stood, in all its splendor, pulling me to its craggy feet. Not just a mountain, The mountain. The mountain of my dreams…calling, ever calling. My childhood games were all compassed in its majesty. I had to see what it held.
Home, cozy and dark, it enveloped me in its depths, and held me breathless. Echos from my past played on the vaulted ceiling.
I shall never leave.
I can never leave.
I am its prisoner.”

Next, Talashar was selected as the written winner with “The Hidden Way”.
There are still a few days to submit entries for November’s topic of “Found Family”.

That’s it for this one. Again, we expect to have dates very soon and should be following up with another post in December.

Mysterium 2024 co-chairs
Annacat and Dan

2023 Wrap-Up

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Shorah!
Wow, y’all! That was quite a weekend!!
First of all, an enormous thank you to everyone who came to join us at Mysterium this year. We had a record year and the largest crowd Mysterium has ever seen! It was truly a pleasure to be able to celebrate 30 years of Myst with you all.

Survey

Every year we try to make Mysterium a little better. To that end, we’ve put together a survey to gather your thoughts and feedback. Please take a moment and fill it out! The Survey.

Photos with Rand

Did you have your photo taken with Rand? Great! We will have digital copies available until the end of July. The group photo we took at Cyan is also up here, so please snag your photo while they’re up! The Photos.

Friends of Mysterium

We’ve got a lot of great folks at Mysterium who make some pretty amazing things. And they need your help!

Dan’s Good Cookies

If you visited Cyan this year, you probably got to enjoy one (or three) of Dan’s amazing cookies! He has also put together a survey and would appreciate feedback from you! Dan’s Survey.
What was your favorite kind of cookie?

Unwritten

Did you participate in one of the Unwritten sessions over the weekend? Are you interested in playing more? Good news! They launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund a sourcebook called Modern D’ni! This book expands beyond the initial core rulebook diving deeper into the present-day era of the Cavern! They even have an exclusive hardcover of the Core Rulebook as a reward for one of the tiers which was previously only available during the initial Unwritten kickstarter. Check it out over at Kickstarter.

Video Game History Foundation

Ok we have to admit, that was one of the coolest presentations we’ve ever seen! In case you missed it, the amazing folks over at the Video Game History Foundation are working directly with Cyan to restore, digitally archive, and preserve their entire video archive. Yes, this includes the old VHS tapes with original Riven footage. However, they need funding to achieve this remarkable goal. More information may be found here: Video Game History Foundation.

Whew! What a weekend!
Post-con blues are a thing, folks. Please be kind to yourself. Hydrate. We love you.

And hopefully, we’ll see you again next year in Montreal! Wait, Montreal? In case you missed it, yes! We will be in Montreal next year! Take a look at the announcement here!

Rayne & m13 signing off as
Mysterium 2023 co-chairs

2 Weeks Away

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Shorah!

We have a few last things to cover before Mysterium, which brings us to our first point:

Mysterium is 2 weeks away!

Scream!! We can’t wait to see everyone, and we’re all hard at work getting last-minute details ironed out. The Committee has a few things to go over with everyone, and we’re all looking forward to our weekend with you.

Registration Closes Tomorrow

Huge reminder to everyone that registration closes tomorrow, Friday, June 16th. While we will have a limited number of standby tickets available to sell at the Registration table, those will be on a first-come, first-served basis on Friday, June 30th only. Stand-By tickets include admission for the weekend, and Mysterium 2023 Lanyard (while supplies last), but DOES NOT include admission to Cyan. Anyone buying a Stand-by ticket (either online, or at the registration table) will have their name placed on a standby list for any last-minute spots that may open up for the Cyan trip on Saturday morning. However, please be aware this does not guarantee a ticket to Cyan.

Bus ticket Deadlines

Bus ticket online sales will end when Registration closes tomorrow, Friday, June 16th. We will be selling the tickets at Mysterium until 8:30am on Saturday July 1st, before leaving for Cyan at 9:00am.

Meet & Greet Details

There will be a few Cyan staff for folks to meet during the Meet & Greet portion of the Cyan visit on Saturday.

For meeting Rand, folks may choose to have either one selfie with Rand or one autograph with Rand. If you choose to have an autograph, it should be a simple autograph without personalization. This is to keep the lines moving and not overwhelm Rand. Please be respectful of Rand’s time during the meet & greet and save your questions for the Q&A panel at 3:00 pm later in the day.

May Prompt Winner

Keith “Tweek” Lord  won the May Prompt! See the submission here:

Con Room Rules

Some reminders for the Convention Space Room as we are quickly approaching convention time.

  • NO food inside the Convention hotel space
  • All drinks must be in covered containers
  • Masks must be worn in the con room (surgical, N95, or equivalent). See COVID page for more information.

See our Policies page for a full list of policies related to Mysterium and the convention room.
Reminders of rules for inside con room (no food, drink etc)

See everyone in two weeks!
Rayne & m13
– Mysterium co-chairs

Saturday Logistics

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Shorah and happy weekend!

Mysterium is right around the corner and we wanted to share some important information regarding some logistics of how Saturday is going to work.

Convention Room Opens

The first thing everyone needs to know about Saturday is that the con room will only be open briefly, between 8-9:00 am, primarily to give everyone time to gather and make their arrangements for getting to Cyan. We strongly encourage you to pick up your badges before Saturday, as we are at capacity.

Badges that are not picked up by 8:30 am on Saturday morning will be considered a no-show and their seat will be given to someone on the stand-by list.

Cyan staff will be checking for attendee badges. If you do not have your badge, you will not be allowed to participate in the events that take place at Cyan. Please check for your badge before we leave for Cyan.

Bus

If you have a seat on the bus, please gather in the con space with staff member Ace at 8:30 am. At 8:45 am, Ace will lead those with bus tickets to the bus to begin boarding through the East entrance of the hotel to where the bus will be parked. At 9:00 am, the con room doors will close and the bus will depart for Cyan. Be punctual!

Arriving at Cyan

Map of Cyan campus

Map of Cyan HQ

The con room doors will close and we will leave for Cyan at 9:00 am, and it will take about a half an hour to arrive. Cyan will be prepared to accept arrivals at 9:30 am (and not before). If you’re taking the bus, it will drop you off in the bus and ride-share drop-off area indicated in green on the map below. Neither bus nor ride-share should attempt to drive past the drop-off area toward the campus. Drivers, please park only in the designated parking lot in blue (the Mag-Lev Depot) below.

Welcome to Cyan

Once you have arrived at Cyan, please proceed into Gehn’s Temple for a welcome message, updates, announcements, and a quick review of the order of events. From there, we will have Cyan’s State of the Union.

Round Robins

Due to the number of people we’re expecting this year, and the variety of activities to do on Cyan’s campus, it can be hard to fit everything in. To make it easier, we’ve split everything into threes:

  • Three time slots
  • Three activities
  • Three groups

The groups are named for three iconic Riven animals:
Three groups: Whark, Ytram, and Sunner

You’ll know what group you’re in from the email you get before the convention, and your animal will be printed on your badge. Each group will have a minimum of two Mysterium Committee members to serve as guides. If you get lost, just find a staff member.

Groups will alternate between eating lunch (“lunch”) at the Squee Conservatory, a guided tour of the campus (“tour”) at DRC Headquarters, and an opportunity to meet some Cyan employees and guests (“meet and greet”) at Gehn’s Temple in three time slots.

Sunner: 11:15-11:55 am: Lunch; 11:55 am-12:35 pm: Tour; 12:35-1:15 pm: Meet and Greet.
Whark: 11:15-11:55 am: Tour; 11:55 am-12:35 pm: Meet and Greet; 12:35-1:15 pm: Lunch.
Ytram: 11:15-11:55 am: Meet and Greet; 11:55 am-12:35 pm: Lunch; 12:35-1:15 pm: Tour.

We will begin to funnel back into Gehn’s Temple at 1:15 pm for the afternoon’s presentations.

Presentations

We have several presentations this year, all of which are fascinating and most of all, a secret! You’ll have to come to Cyan (or stream in!) to see them. 😉

Keynote with Rand Miller

After the secrets presentations, Rand will give a keynote talk, followed by a question and answer session. There will be a microphone in the aisle of Gehn’s Temple, so if you have a question, this will be the time to ask! If you’re watching the stream, feel free to ask your questions there or via Discord; we will have moderators gathering them to ask Rand for you.

Wrap-up

From there, we will leave Cyan around ~4:45 pm to head back to the hotel and break for dinner. We have some fun activities to do in our evening hours.

Alright, that’s all we have for today! More details are coming soon. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions! Discord is the easiest way, but email works as well.
Have a great rest of your weekend everyone!

– Rayne & m13
Mysterium co-chairs