Magic
Wizard of the Coast keeps up and publishes another adventure from the crossover campaign between Dungeons & Dragons and Magic: the Gathering, Adventures in the Forgotten Realms for free. Deepest Night, the fourth part of the campaign, comes after those already published in recent weeks, namely In Scarlet Flames, The Hidden Page, and A Verdant Tomb, and further expands this mash up between two of the most popular fantasy universes of recent decades .Deepest Night starts with an imposing and ancient grassy hill in the center, located in the High Moors region. It was commonly thought that the hill was actually a burial mound for someone not better identified, but the reality is different, it is in fact a prison. A prison for the damned souls who have sworn to defend its secret and have failed.
The hill in fact, or rather, the bowels of the hill have hidden for centuries a mysterious and very powerful secret, capable of destroying one of the most powerful artifacts ever among the Realms. The secret of the Deepest Night hill is therefore very well guarded, but someone is always willing to try to get hold of it, not caring about the dangers to which it faces. Will our party then be able to face the challenge worthily?
Deepest Night is available for free download at this link
As well as the adventures of the same campaign that preceded it, Deepest Night can also be enjoyed to the fullest after playing the other chapters but, with a minimum of effort on the part of the Dungeon Master, it is still possible to adapt it to be enjoyed also independently. Our advice, however, remains that of tackling the entire campaign, which we remember is available for free, so as not to miss a single element of this fascinating crossover between two of the most famous fantasy playful universes of recent decades.
Magic lands $27M Series A for its 'plug and play' passwordless tech
Magic, a San Francisco-based startup that builds 'plug and play' passwordless authentication technology, has raised $27 million in Series A funding.
The round, led by Northzone and with participation from Tiger Global, Volt Capital, Digital Currency Group and CoinFund, comes just over a year after Magic launched from stealth, rebranding from its previous name Formatic.
The company, like many others, is on a mission to end traditional password-based authentication. Magic’s flagship SDK, which launched in April 2020, enables developers to implement a variety of passwordless authentication methods with just a few lines of code and integrates with a number of modern frameworks and infrastructures.
Not only does the SDK make it easier for companies and developers to implement passwordless auth methods in their applications, but it could also help to mitigate the expensive fallout that many have to deal with as a result of data breaches.
“This is why the password is so dangerous,' Sean Li, Magic co-founder and CEO tells TechCrunch. 'It’s like a Jenga tower right now — a hacker breaching your system can download an entire database of encrypted passwords, and then easily crack them. It’s a huge central point of failure.”
The company recently built out its SDK to add support for WebAuthn, which means it can support hardware-based authentication keys like Yubico, as well as biometric-based Face ID and fingerprint logins on mobile devices.
“It’s less mainstream right now, but we’re making it super simple for developers,” says Li. “This way we can help promote new technologies, and that’s really good for user security and privacy.”
It's a bet that seems to be working: Magic has recorded a 13% month-over-month increase in developer signups, and the number of identities secured is growing at a rate of 6% weekly, according to Magic. It’s also secured a number of big-name customers, from crypto news publisher Decrypt to fundraising platform Fairmint.
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Wendy Xiao Schadeck, a partner at Northzone said: “We couldn't be more excited to support Sean and the Magic team as they redefine authentication for the internet from the bottom up, solving a core pain point for developers, users, and companies.
“It was clear to us that they're absolutely loved by their customers because the team is so obsessed with serving every single part of the developer journey across several communities. What's potentially even more exciting is what they will be able to do to empower users and decentralize the identity layer of the web.”
The company now plans to continue to scale its platform and expand its team to meet what Magic describes as “soaring” demand. The startup, which currently has 30 employees that work remotely on a full-time basis, expects to at least double its headcount across all core functions, including product, engineering, design, marketing, finance, people, and operations.
It’s also planning to hope to build out the SDK even further; Li says he wants to be able to plug into more kinds of technology, from low-code applications to workflow automations.
“The vision is much bigger than that. We want to be the passport of the internet,” Li adds.