Mysterium Convention

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

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

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 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:

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

Registration

We are thrilled to have so many of you interested in coming to Mysterium this year!

We have reached our maximum capacity of 250 in-person attendees, as Cyan can only accommodate 250 people. That being said, we have opened up 25 additional tickets at a discounted rate of $40 for those who are not interested in visiting Cyan. If you are interested in purchasing this type of ticket, you may do so by following this link. Additional “Standard Registration” slots may open up if people choose to let us know that they are not interested in touring Cyan on Saturday.

To that end, if you have purchased a ticket already and are interested in changing over to this type of ticket please use this form and we will be in touch with next steps soon.

Bus

A charter bus will be available for those who need a ride to and from Cyan on Saturday. We will have 48 seats available on the bus. To reserve your seat, please log in to Convention Master by following this link, go to the swag section and select Coach Bus to and from Cyan. A non-refundable fee of $15 will apply.

June’s Prompt

It’s almost time for Mysterium, ya’ll. So the creative prompt for June is “Scream”. Interpret this however you wish!

Scream into the void of the starry expanse, the scream of the piranha chicken, or the scream of being eaten by a whark! You decide.

We’re almost there! We’ve got some great stuff coming soon. Have a great evening!

– Rayne & m13 Mysterium co-chairs

Everywhere you go…

Mysterium is coming up quickly and there are a few important things we need to share with you.

Registration Cap

First, registration is capped at 250 people this year. We are approaching that number now, so if you intend to come but have not yet registered, now is the time! All of the information regarding registration can be found here. If you know you are no longer able to attend, please reach out to us so we can account for you and avoid turning any more people away than we need to.

Hotel Deadline

The deadline for the hotel is very soon. If you do not have a room booked by May 28th, you will not be able to get a room in our room block or at our special Mysterium rate. There may be other rooms in the hotel available, however we cannot offer nor guarantee any special pricing for those rooms. If there are any issues with availability of the room type you are looking for before the deadline, please reach out to Odo to see if any more rooms of that type are available.

Again, the deadline is May 28th. There are no exceptions to this deadline.

Swag Deadline

The swag deadline is June 3rd. While there will be a limited number of swag items available to purchase at the registration desk, it will be first come, first served basis.

If you’re interested in placing an order for items ahead of time with your registration, please do so before June 3rd.

Listening Aids Update

Due to lack of interest, we’ve decided to not rent the listening aid devices this year.

On-Site Activities 101

We put together a great page that talks about all the fun stuff that will be available for you to do on-site at Mysterium this year! Check out the full list on this page!

April Prompt Winner

The April Prompt (“You Fool!”) winner is redwoodroad, for their drawing of Achenar, Sirrus and Yeesha playing a prank on Gehn. Congratulations!

Shorah and happy Friday!

Schedule

The schedule is now live! We had a lot of great submissions come in and have some exciting events planned for the weekend. We’ve been hard at work contacting everyone and confirming everything, so be aware (as always!) that some of the schedule may be subject to change, at this time. Nothing will be changed very drastically, however, so you shouldn’t worry about making plans around the schedule only to have it shift dramatically.

You’ll notice that much of the schedule for Saturday afternoon is still TBD as Cyan has been a biiiit busy lately, but as we get closer and those events start to solidify, we will update the schedule ASAP.

Saturday at Cyan

Logistics are still being fleshed out but the most important part is that everyone will need a badge to go to Cyan HQ on Saturday. We will open the con room early Saturday morning to allow any attendees who have not yet checked in a chance to check-in and pick up their badge.

We will not be taking badges with us to Cyan so it’s crucial to pick up your badge at the hotel before you go to Cyan on Saturday. Cyan will be checking badges upon arrival and escorting folks off the premises if anyone arrives without a badge.

COVID Policy

As a reminder, Mysterium’s COVID policy has not changed. You are still required to be masked and vaccinated, despite the policies of any governing bodies or states. This will not change, so please refamiliarize yourself with our policies which can be found here.

There are no exceptions to our policy within the convention space at the hotel.

Mysterium is next month! Ahh!! We can’t wait to see everyone!

– Rayne & m13 Mysterium co-chairs

Shorah Everyone!

Mysterium is only two months away (cue the screaming here) and we of the committee are excited to see all of you come June 30th! That being said, we have a couple of reminders for you!

Reminders

Book your hotel room before the closing date on May 28th. If you reserve your room after that date, the code for the rooms will no longer work and you’ll have to pay the full hotel price. Reservations for the rooms can be found here. Any further information about the hotel can be found on our location page of our website.

Our cut-off date for swag is June 3rd! Any orders not finalized by this date will be unavailable. There will be a limited number of swag items at the registration table available for purchase on a first come, first serve basis.

Online Registration ends on June 16th. While we will allow walk-in registration at the door for 50$, we ask that you register before the deadline so that we can get an accurate head count for Cyan.

Which brings us to our next point…

Assisted Listening

This year, for the first time, Mysterium will be renting and offering assistive listening technology. We will be using Williams Sound PPA 457 Personal Assistive Listening System, so if you require one of these, please contact the committee through the [email protected] email ASAP (by no later than June 1st) so we can compile a headcount for the use of these. During the convention, please check in at the registration desk to pick yours up, but bear in mind that we will be requiring either a deposit or a form of collateral from you.

May’s Creative Prompt

And lastly, our Prompt for May is: Spring. (Give us all the plays on words, all the puns you can think of. No holds barred pun challenge is a go!)

We’ll be coming back to you soon with more information on a schedule, our final headcount, and any other important information, so be on the lookout.

Until then, m13, Co-Chair of Mysterium 2023

Shorah and happy weekend!

Mysterium is approaching quickly and we have a couple of quick announcements. 

Event Submissions Last Call

Event submissions are closing on April 29th at midnight, so if you have a presentation idea you’d like to share, please send that in! The morning of the 30th we will lock submissions and begin to finalize the schedule. If you have an event you’d like to submit, please check out the Event Submissions page.

Table Submissions Still Open

We still have openings for The Table (writing and art table) submissions! A perfect opportunity to show off your work without having to stand up in front of everyone. Please check out The Table submissions page for more information.

COVID Policy Update

As of April 18th, the FDA has simplified the COVID vaccination. Initial doses of the vaccine will no longer be available and US attendees will be considered fully vaccinated if they have received a bivalent dose as long as it was between the dates of September 2, 2022 and June 23, 2023. For more information, please check out the FDA announcement as well as our COVID Policy page. Note: this change only applies to attendees from the United States. Attendees from abroad should follow the existing policy.

Another note: If you’ve already registered, you may receive an email from our registration system with the updated policy.

March Creative Prompt Winner

And last but not least, March’s “Idle Hands” prompt! We had a lot of great submissions, but Kefrith’s Gemedet set took the cake.

We’ve got a lot of great stuff in the works so please stay tuned!

Much love, – Kelly “Rayne” & Drea “m13” Mysterium Co-chairs

Shorah! Things are moving along very nicely on our end, and we have a couple of things we wanted to share with you real quick.

Early Bird Registration Closing Soon!

Just a reminder that early bird registration and shirt orders close at the end of March. Starting April 1st: – Other swag items may still be purchased until June 3rd. – Regular registration will be open until June 16th. Regular registration is slightly more expensive, so if you’re on the fence about coming to Mysterium, now’s the time! Head on over to the registration page to get started!

February’s Prompt Winner

We had some great submissions for February’s “Heart” prompt! “Shadow” Dan submitted a fantastic Exile/Undertale crossover with pixel art by Kevin F. “Kefrith” Smith.

March’s prompt is “Idle hands” and submissions are still open for that one! Head on over to the “prompt-submissions” channel on our discord server if you have something you’d like to share! That’s all for today. Have a spectacular weekend!

Kelly “Rayne” & Drea “m13” Mysterium Co-chairs

Shorah!

The snow is melting, and we have some swag announcements to share with you!

Enamel Pins

We got a lot of fantastic pin submissions this year! We chose four designs to have available at Mysterium.

We all began this journey with the fissure! The Fissure design is by Katherine “Squee” White. You can see her work here: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Myst.

The Black Ships design is by Kelly “Rayne” Coston. Her website can be found here: Geek Girl Stuff

The Scarab design is by redwoodrroad. You can visit his website at https://redwoodrroad.tumblr.com/.

And the Clockwork Adjunct design is by Avior. You can see their other work at: https://twitter.com/avior_dev.

Buttons

We’re rolling out some brand-new swag items this year! One of them is 1.25” buttons, featuring art submitted by Neil Darbyshire and Kefrith. The buttons will be sold as a set.

The dome design was submitted by Kevin F. “Kefrith” Smith. His website may be found here: http://facebook.com/KefrithMyst.

The Miller Brothers and Scarab designs were submitted by Neil Darbyshire. His website may be found here: https://www.instagram.com/robaku.and.bear/.

The pins and buttons are now available for pre-orders in our registration system. If you have already registered, you can log in to your account and add these items to your cart for purchase. We will have a limited number of both sets available at the swag table at Mysterium.

Social Buttons

Speaking of buttons! We will have social buttons available for attendees, staff, and guests again this year!

These darling little buttons measure 1.25” and the purpose of these is pretty straightforward. Wearing a green “yes” button implies that you are comfortable with people approaching you and engaging in conversation. A yellow “ask” button implies that you would prefer people to ask before engaging in conversation. And a red “no” button implies simply that you would like some space and to be left alone.

These buttons will be available at the registration desk at no cost. Just come up, snag one, and feel free to wear it on your badge, lanyard, or shirt. These are completely optional, just a nice easy way to communicate comfort level.

We do ask that everyone please be respectful with these. We also ask that the buttons be returned at the end of Mysterium so that we can sanitize and use them again next year. 

Stay warm, folks! We’ve got more announcements coming soon!

– Kelly “Rayne” Coston & Drea “m13” Mysterium co-chairs

Shorah everyone! We have a couple of quick things we want to share with you.

Writing and Art Table Submissions

We’re thrilled to announce the return of the Table and submissions are now open! Spearheaded by our very own Annacat, the Table is an opportunity for folks to submit their fan work for display. Head over to the Submissions page for more information!

January Creative Prompt Winner

The Discord community has spoken! For “beginnings”, this piece was submitted by Grayson aka redwoodrroad.

February’s theme is “Heart” and submissions are still open until February 28th! Head over to our Discord server if you have a piece you would like to submit.

Covid-19 Updated Policy

We’ve modified the wording a bit to clarify what to expect during the Cyan visit on Saturday. The policy now states:

Importantly, a modified policy will be in effect for the Cyan visit on Saturday. We cannot guarantee that special guests and Cyan staff will be masked or vaccinated. We’re looking into the feasibility of streaming content from the Cyan visit for anyone who cannot attend. If you have questions about Cyan’s covid policy, please feel free to reach out to Jeff Lanctot at [email protected].

Please note that Mysterium’s Covid-19 policy remains unchanged. Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions!

That’s all for now. We’ve got more goodies to announce soon!

-Kelly “Rayne” & Drea “m13” Mysterium Co-chairs

Hello everyone!

We have some updates, some reminders, and one important piece of news. So let’s jump right in.

Covid Policy Update

We have added an FAQ to our Covid Policy page, to help clarify items in the written policy. In particular, we are now specific in the FAQ about how we will be verifying bivalent vaccines. Be sure to check it out if you aren’t sure if your last booster was a bivalent dose.

We have also updated the paragraph regarding the modified Covid policy while at Cyan HQ on Saturday. The new paragraph reads:

“Importantly, a modified policy will be in effect for the Cyan visit on Saturday. In particular, special guests and Cyan staff may remove their masks while presenting or taking part in a panel. We also cannot guarantee that all special guests and Cyan staff will be vaccinated. The normal policy as outlined below still applies to all regular attendees while at Cyan’s headquarters. We will do our best to stream as much as possible of the Cyan visit for anyone who cannot attend.”

Finally, we have been asked if we will be dropping our Covid policy given that the Federal government will be ending their Public Health Emergency on May 11th. The answer is: No, we will not be dropping our policy. We are a private event, and the end of the Public Health Emergency has no bearing on us or our policies.

Reminders

If you haven’t done so yet, be sure to go register! If you have registered, you may be interested to know that we’ve added an art print of our 2023 shirt logo to the swag shop. If you’d like one, you can log back into your registration account and add one on to your order.

Don’t forget that submissions for events and pin designs are still open, but act fast! Pin designs close in just over a week (February 12th)!

Also, in case you missed it in the excitement of reg opening last week, we have an accessibility survey open right now. If you have a couple minutes, we’d love to hear your thoughts on making Mysterium as accessible as possible. You can find the survey here.

Musical Chairs

Last, we want to let you know about a change in leadership for Mysterium 2023. Here’s a message from outgoing co-chair Taniith with the details:

Shorah friends. With great regret, I want to let you all know that I’m stepping down as co-chair of Mysterium 2023. I will also be winding down most of my involvement with Mysterium over the next year or so. Andrea Mountain (aka M13) will be stepping up to take my place alongside Kelly. Without going into great detail, I have a lot going on in my personal life, and I can’t devote the time and energy to Mysterium that I used to.

I have 100% confidence that Kelly, Drea, and the rest of the Mysterium team will put on an amazing con for all of you. I know they have some wonderful (and in some cases devious) things planned. You definitely don’t want to miss out!

It’s been a heck of a ride helping to run Mysterium since I joined the Committee in 2011. I hope to one day be able to attend again. You are all part of my extended Myst family, and I’ll miss hanging out with all of you. Until then, though, you can find me on Discord and all the usual places.

Stay safe out there!

-Taniith

No pressure or anything, right?

Thank you, Taniith, for your years of service and your guidance during this transition. We have a great team, and we will do our utmost to put on one heck of a show to celebrate 30 years of Myst!

-Kelly, Drea, and the Mysterium team

Hello friends!

We’re sorry it took so long, but we’re here to tell you that registration and hotel booking for Mysterium 2023 are officially OPEN!

Before we jump in, a quick reminder for your travel/booking plans: Spokane years are action packed, so ending at mid-day on Sunday just doesn’t cut it. Expect events to go until ~4pm on Sunday.

Registration

We’re trialing a new (to us) registration system this year. It should make registering easier, and includes the ability for us to offer easier pre-orders on swag. You can also log back in at anytime and review or edit your registration and purchase information.

Please note that t-shirts and early-bird pricing for registration will be only be available through March 31st. Starting in April, shirt sales will close, and the price for registration will increase.

You can get all the details and register over on our registration page.

Hotel Rooms

Similarly, head over to our location page to get all the details about our hotel. Hotel prices in Spokane, and around the country, have gone way up in the last couple of years. We know $149/night is pricier than what we usually aim for, but believe us when we say that this is a good deal for the Spokane area. If you need to split costs by sharing a room, consider posting in the #looking-for-people channel on our Discord server.

Covid-19 Policy

We wish it were gone, but Covid is still with us. So, as with last year, we have a policy in place. You can read all the details here, but the short version is:

Full vaccination is required, including a bivalent booster, by June 23rd

Masking will be required and enforced in Mysterium spaces

No exceptions – we’ll be streaming/recording most events for those who cannot attend

Cyan will have their own policy for our time at their headquarters (more on that soon)

Swag

Oh, did we mention swag? That’s right! We don’t just have shirts this year, we also have mugs, prints, and lanyard charms available for pre-order. We’re also cooking up some other goodies that might get added later, but for now you can check out all our available swag over here.

Accessibility Survey

We are always striving to make Mysterium as welcoming and accessible to as many people as possible. To that end, we’re putting out an accessibility survey to solicit feedback and ideas. We want to know what you’ve seen/experienced that worked well, what worked poorly, services we should look into, and concerns you have about accessibility at Mysterium.

The survey is short, and all questions are optional. So if you have a few minutes, please consider sending us your thoughts! You can find the survey here.

Submissions Reminder

A quick reminder that submissions are still open for both events and pin designs. Be quick, though, because pin designs are due by February 12th!

December Prompt Winner

As with last month, we once again had our Discord community vote on their favorite entry for our December prompt, “endings”. The winner was Grayson aka redwoodrroad, who submitted this animation of a scene from Riven:

Our January prompt, “beginnings”, is still open until the end of the month. So be sure to drop by our Discord and submit your work!

That’s all we have for now. Stay tuned for more news soon!

– Rayne & Taniith

Mysterium 2023 Co-Chairs

Shorah everyone!

It’s been a while since you’ve heard from us. We know you all want to know when we’ll be announcing the hotel and opening registration – things are moving forward there, and we expect to announce that in mid-January. In the meantime, here are some updates, announcements, and reminders:

Pin Submissions

As in recent years, we’re going to make a batch of exclusive enamel pins for Mysterium, and we invite you to submit your designs.

Some examples of our past exclusive pins

The community has made some amazing designs in past years, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with! Submissions are open until February 12th. Check out all the details here.

Other Submissions

Reminder that submissions for shirt designs and events are currently open. Shirt design submissions close on January 7th, so be sure to get them in by then!

Community Prompt Winners

We have two prompt winners to announce in this post. First, October. We received a bunch of great submissions for October’s topic of “Spooky”, including a few from some newcomers to these prompts. We’re happy to announce the winner is IwonK!

Next, for the month of November and the topic of “Fall”, we decided to try something a little different and let the community vote on their favorite. By a close vote, laughingpineapple’s Yeesha took the lead!

Submissions for this month’s prompt, “Endings”, are still open on our Discord. We’ll be continuing the community voting going forward, so check there in January to vote on the December submissions.

Policy Updates

Lastly, we’ve made some updates to our policies. As always, you can find all of our policies here, but below is a rundown of the major changes:

Privacy Policy

Added new Room Block section, detailing information the hotel may share with us

Other Policies

Adjusted how ages are handled for the minor and drugs/alcohol policies, to take into account legal age limits other than US federal ones

Added ‘medical devices’ to the harassment policy

Added a badge replacement policy

Updated photo/video policy to include language about official recording/streaming

Added an animals policy

Added a sales policy

That’s all we have for now – be sure to check back in January for more. Until then, we hope you all have a happy new year, and that you stay safe and healthy.

– Rayne & Taniith Mysterium 2023 Co-Chairs

Greetings friends,

Fall has started and spooky season is upon us, so it’s time to formally kickoff Mysterium 2023 planning! Let’s jump right in:

Mysterium 2023 Dates

We know everyone has been anxiously awaiting the dates for next year’s event, and the wait is now over. Mysterium will take place from June 30 to July 2, 2023.

“But wait!” we hear you cry. “Mysterium is always at the beginning of August!” Well, that’s true, we always aim for early August (or late July if necessary), but our hands were tied this year. It turns out that Spokane has become a popular city for events since we were last there, and they were basically booked solid for July and August. So we took the best compromise we could find, and snagged this weekend just before the 4th of July.

We can’t give you all of the hotel details yet, but we want to give you a heads-up that Spokane’s popularity has also resulted in price increases. We’re doing everything we can to keep our room costs down where our attendees expect (many thanks to our master negotiator Odo!), but plan for rooms to be pricier than usual. Not astronomically high, mind you, just higher than usual.

We promise we’ll get you more details as we have them, so stay tuned!

Mysterium Theme

As you may know, 2023 marks the 30th anniversary of Myst’s release. In honor of that milestone, we’ve chosen to make this year’s theme ‘The Evolution of Myst‘.

That’s not just talking about the age of Myst. We mean the game/world as a whole. There have been many revisions and additions to Myst over the years, not least of which is Cyan’s recent version from 2020. The world and the franchise have evolved over the years, and we want to showcase that evolution. Which is a fun segue into our next topic…

Submissions

Get those creative juices flowing, because we’re opening up a couple submissions today!

First up is t-shirt artwork. Every year we invite the community to create artwork to go on our coveted Mysterium t-shirts. We think there are a lot of cool directions you could take with this year’s theme, and we can’t wait to see what you come up with. You can find all the details on the shirt art submissions page. The deadline is January 7, 2023.

As always, the creators of the winning designs will each receive a free t-shirt. And, similarly to the past couple of years, the shirt design will be added to your wardrobe in Uru!

If you have any questions about the shirt art submissions, don’t hesitate to reach out. You can either email us, or DM Rayne (our resident art wizard) over Discord.

Second, we’re opening up event submissions. Have a project you want to show off? A deep dive into D’ni architecture you want to present? An awesome group activity? Well now is your chance! Head over to our event submissions page and send it over to us. The deadline is April 29, 2023.

Discord Housekeeping

We recently performed some minor housekeeping in our community Discord server. Most importantly, we’ve revised and clarified our server rules. There shouldn’t be any big surprises – most of this was codifying what we had already enforced – but please check out our #rules and #announcements channels when you have a chance. We are also now a verified server, which means we get a fancy custom invite link. So if you have friends that haven’t joined yet, send them over to https://discord.gg/mysteriumcon!

September Prompt Winner

We received 4 wonderful submissions to September’s prompt of “Rest/Sleep.” It was tough selecting a winner, but laughingpineapple‘s submission of a very tired Atrus just edged ahead:

There’s still time to submit something for our October prompt (“Spooky”) – head over to the Mysterium Discord to find out all the details.

That’s all for now. We’ll have more updates for you in the coming weeks and months.

Stay healthy out there!

-Taniith & Rayne Mysterium 2023 Con Chairs

Hello all! This will be my last blog post for quite some time (you can stop celebrating now), as I am handing off the reins to next year’s co-chairs - although first a few 2022 housekeeping details.

YouTube Videos

If you’d like to relive any moments from this past year’s convention, all YouTube videos from Mysterium 2022 are now available on our channel.

Survey Highlights

Thank you to everyone who filled out our 2022 survey. There were a few responses we’d like to highlight:

Meow Wolf went over quite well. We’ll look into similar excursions for future locations. (Chair’s note: I’m really glad people enjoyed this. I went there in January and my immediate reaction was “we have to do this during Mysterium”).

Cavern Feud was well-received. We’ll see if we can come up with enough questions to do it again, but regardless, we’ll aim for any game show events to involve larger groups like this.

A number of people asked about the possibility of ASL or captions. An ASL translator is most likely out of our budget; however, while we cannot yet make any promises, we are looking into captioning options for 2023.

August Prompt Winner

We received what might have been a record number of submissions for August’s topic of "Travel" and this was not an easy one to choose. However, we ultimately had to go with laughingpineapple’s submission of the three siblings on a trip together:

Mysterium 2023

As you may have heard at the end of this year’s Mysterium, we will be heading to Spokane for 2023! Cyan has once again invited us to their area, and we hope to see you all join us there. We have not yet determined dates, but we hope to announce those sometime this fall. That said, I’d like to introduce you to next year’s co-chairs:

Elliot "Taniith" Borenstein - Known primarily for chairing several Mysteria over the past 10+ years, you may also recognize him from his brief stint in the early 90s on the hit U62 show, "Cooking With Esher". Despite saying in 2019 that he would never chair a Spokane year again, his plan to talk Kelly into the role backfired spectacularly, leading to their partnership this year.

Kelly "Rayne" Coston - Kelly hails from the Pacific Northwest and has been drawing since she could crawl. Her days are usually filled with coffee, running a small business, and staring at her screen until art magically appears. Her evenings are usually filled with husband or cat snuggles and video games. A long-time Myst fan, she discovered her Myst family in 2014 and quickly joined the staff as the primary Creator of All Things Pretty and the Tormenter of Attendees on the Puzzle Team. She and the other members of the Puzzle Team are looking forward to tormenting attendees with brain melting puzzles this year!

Once again, thank you to all who joined us for Mysterium 2022 in Denver, whether in person or online. I’m glad I was able to welcome so many of you here, and look forward to seeing you all in Spokane.

Dan Mysterium 2022 Chair