What is AetherCon II?By Barry Lewis
AetherCon organizer, Stephen Holodinsky, just wanted a way of getting people to the table to play RPGs, but when he couldn’t get that to happen he looked for another way. He then went out and searched the internet looking for like-minded people willing to stare at a computer screen for long hours and work for no pay and thus AetherCon was born. Our mission is simple: get people together to play games, have fun and discuss various topics with no drama.
Now there will be people, of course, asking how would you run a convention over the internet? Well, nowadays that’s an easy question to answer with various online communication services for people to use such as Anymeeting and Skype. AetherCon will be using the services of Anymeeting for the majority of its needs. Another question will be how we will run all the great RPGs we have going on. There are a number of free browser based RPG programs available for just such a thing. The two that AetherCon will use are the Roll20, www.roll20.net, and Infrno, www.infrno.net, programs. As for the games themselves we’ll have a variety of RPGs ranging from fantasy to horror to cyberpunk.
AetherCon is just not games though. We’ll have great panels and Q&As with gaming industry talent such as Jim Pinto, Tim Kask, G. Earnest Gygax, and Wes Schneider with topics ranging from “Building Better Traps” to “Creating Believable Pantheons” to “How to Self-publish” with many more panels being scheduled every day.
Are you into art? We’ll have an artists hall featuring such talent as Jon Gibbons, Patrick McEvoy, and Jeremy McHugh. You’ll be able to purchase great pieces and even be taught a few techniques by the artists themselves.
What’s a con without vendors? Well we won’t disappoint as we’ll have a vendor’s hall as well, with such companies as Paizo and Chaosium just to name a few, in which you can purchase some great merchandise.
AetherCon is free to attend and registration is on-going as I write this. Make sure to register as soon as possible since there will be free goodies to give away, while supplies last, to those that do register and attend. Speaking of free goodies, we have a spotlighted artist create exclusive free downloadable wallpaper that is available on our website every Friday leading up to the con. We also just announced a contest in which you can also have your favorite AetherCon PC immortalized as AetherCon III wallpaper by one of our artists in our artist enclave. The winner will be picked randomly so the more games you sign up for and play the better your chances of winning.
That’s it! Please join us on November 15th – 17th, 2013 for games, knowledge, art and community.
Find us on the internet at www.aethercon.com and on Facebook at
www.facebook.com/AetherConRPG