Category Archives: News

Quick Update

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Hello! Just a small update on a couple matters here.

T-Shirt Design Submissions

We are extending the deadline for t-shirt submissions by one week. The deadline will now be February 27. Again, we will not be able to make exceptions to the (updated) deadline. Find the details on our T-shirt Design Submissions page.

January Prompt Winner

Once again we’d like to highlight a submission to our creativity prompt: this story “Hunters of Ivory” by Talashar: https://archiveofourown.org/works/36635113. Once again you can find this and others’ works on our Discord server.

That’s it for now. We’ll have some larger announcements fairly soon!
Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair

Activity Book

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Happy new year! We have a few announcements on submissions for this year’s convention.

Activity Book

As we hinted at in our last post, we plan to produce an activity book this year, similar to the digital one we released for Mysterium 2020. If you submitted a page for the digital book and would like it printed in the physical edition, please resubmit it. You may submit as many pages as you like, and since this is not a contest, the normal rules around prior public displays of the work do not apply. See our Activity Book Submissions page for details. The deadline for page submissions is April 24.

Discord Creativity Prompts

We received a number of great entries for our December prompt: “Gift Giving”. We’d like to highlight one in particular: this excellent piece of artwork by laughingpineapple:

Saavedro and Yeesha Gifts

Come check out hers and others’ talented works on our Discord server in the #submission-gallery channel!

T-Shirt Reminder

Remember: submissions for this year’s t-shirt designs are open until February 20, and once again the two winning designers will each receive a free shirt! Check out the details on our T-shirt Design Submissions page.

Email Issues

It has been brought to our attention that some emails haven’t made their way to the committee, particularly those sent from Yahoo addresses. If you send us an email (especially for any art submissions) and you don’t hear back from us in a day or two, please reach out via Discord or the Contact page on our website. Note: Event submissions are handled directly through the website, and we are not aware of any problems with that functionality. We typically don’t respond to event submissions until closer to the convention, when we begin planning the schedule.

Until then,
Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair

Registration

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Shorah! We have a few more updates before we start the new year, including opening registration for Mysterium 2022.

Registration

First is the biggest announcement for this month: registration is now open! Until May 15, early bird registration will be available at two different rates: Standard ($25) will provide admission to the event and any swag we produce, such as pins. Premium ($40) includes everything from Standard as well as a Mysterium 2022 t-shirt. We have not yet chosen a t-shirt design, so if you’d prefer to wait you’ll still have plenty of time to purchase a registration once we announce that. If you are planning to submit a t-shirt design, we’d recommend holding off on registering, since your shirt will be free if your design is selected. Details are available on our registration page.

COVID-19

While we are in a substantially better situation than we were a year ago, we are not out of the woods with regard to COVID-19. As such, we are planning to require all attendees to be up to date with COVID-19 vaccinations. Most likely this will mean the CDC’s definition of “fully vaccinated” at the time of the event. We will provide more details closer to the convention on logistics such as how to provide proof of vaccination.

Submissions

A couple quick notes on submissions. If you submitted an entry for the Writing & Artwork table for 2020 or 2021, you will need to re-submit it for this year. Additionally, remember t-shirt design submissions are open until February 20. We’d love to see your artwork, and the two winning designers each receive a free t-shirt! See our submissions page for details. Finally, some of you have asked about an activity book for this year, similar to the digital one we produced for 2020. We are planning to put one together, but are still working out some of the details, so we can’t open submissions quite yet.

We’ll have more to announce in the new year. In the meantime, enjoy the season!

Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair

Art and More Art

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Hello again! We have more to share regarding Mysterium 2022.

Submissions

First off, we’re ready to open up more submission opportunities. Event submissions as well as content for the writing & artwork table are now open. Check our Submissions page for details and deadlines.

Pins

You might notice we’re not opening pin submissions this time. That’s because we still have the designs submitted for 2020 and we plan to use those this year. Here’s a reminder of what those looked like. The first is a lamp by Xemylixa, based on the ones in Kirel and Serat. The second is a pinecone from Obduction by laughingpineapple, and finally, we have a bomb from Obduction by Rayne.

Creativity Prompts

It’s no secret there are a number of talented people in the Mysterium community. As such, we’ve decided to try something new on our Discord server. You may notice a new section titled “Creativity Prompts”. Periodically, we will post a topic and invite everyone to submit any creative works you can come up with. It doesn’t just have to be art – music, fanfics, costume designs, etc. are all welcome. The only requirements are that it must incorporate the posted topic and somehow be related to Cyan’s games. We will be applying a loose definition here, so as long as your work is in some way related, it’ll qualify. Take this as an opportunity to show off what you can do! If you’re not currently on our server, you can join via this link: https://discord.gg/xXvSA7E.

That’s all for now. We’ll have more to announce soon.

Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair

Mile High Mysterium

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Dan

Mysterium will be in a hotel, not on top of a mountain

Greetings from your Mysterium 2022 chair! You’ve probably seen my name on some blog posts and announcements over the past few years, and I’m looking forward to welcoming you all to Denver next summer! That said, we have quite a bit to announce regarding next year’s event.

Dates

This is probably the information you all are most looking for. We can officially announce Mysterium 2022 will be August 12-14, so feel free to start planning! We will be returning to our traditional in-person schedule with events being most of the day Friday and Saturday and ending around noon on Sunday.

Theme and T-shirt designs

Mysterium 2022’s theme will be based around Myst III: Exile, celebrating its 21st birthday next year (so buy it a beer while you’re in town!) with a particular emphasis on Voltaic (think Colorado’s red rock and canyons). With that we are also opening submissions for t-shirt designs. If you’re looking for ideas, aside from this year’s theme, Colorado is particularly famous for its mountains. We will also favorably look upon any design incorporating Blucifer, Denver International Airport’s demon horse sculpture. See our submissions page for more information.

Survey Highlights

Thank you to everyone who filled out the Mysterium 2021 survey. We hope you all like the more streamlined format relative to previous years. A few recurring items we noticed:
  • Rand Miller’s let’s play was really popular. We can see if he’d be up for doing something like this again, as well as adding Robyn to the party!
  • People appreciate the opportunity online activities give when it’s impossible to be physically present. Going forward we will look into some hybrid events that are held both in-person and online.
  • Back-to-back panels are tiring. When we run panels in the future we’ll plan for short breaks between them.

Starry Expanse

We additionally received several survey responses asking for an update on Starry Expanse. While Mysterium provides a platform for announcements, we cannot guarantee regular presentations or updates on specific topics. Future updates regarding Starry Expanse are solely at Cyan’s discretion.

We’ll have plenty more to share in the coming months, including more details about next year and additional participation opportunities.

Until then,
Dan
Mysterium 2022 Chair