View From the Pelgrane’s Nest

The recovery from our very successful GenCon has taken longer than expected, with many loose ends to tie, leads to follow and products to commission. Night’s Black Agents and The Zalozhniy Quartet are out now, the pre-order [REDACTED] Editions having shipped yesterday.  The 13th Age 13 True Ways Kickstarter has hit its funding goal and we are pushing for stretch goals while we start to fulfil the Stone Skin Press Kickstarter rewards.

13th Age

Kickstarter

The biggest news is the Kickstarter for the 13 True Ways supplement, which is now funded.This is shaping-up to be a fantastic supplement, but I really hope we get the necromancer, new monsters and the city. It’s going to be tough to hit the upper stretch goals, but I think doable.

My take on the Kickstarter is here. A shout out from Penny Arcade really helped the cause (thanks, guys) and improved rewards have caused some great bump-ups.

Escalation Edition Update

Version 4 of the Escalation Edition is available to pre-orderers on the order page and it’s very nearly finished. Layout has begun. Expect to see one final pre-layout version, then the full PDF. I am cautiously optimistic that we will have the final printed version out in December.

Anyone can get a glimpse of the laid out first chapter in here.

GenCon

Once again, this year’s GenCon topped all previous years in terms of sales, people and overall fun.

Beth and I missed the connecting flight from Boston to Indy, and spent five hours in the Hilton bar wrangling the Fire Opal 13 True Ways Kickstarter for its launch on GenCon Day One. Set up was relatively straight forward, with IPR bringing in our product and some booth equipment which Beth had organised. Doug Behringer (who has represented ProFantasy at Origins) shared ProFantasy booth duties with Ralf, and exuded efficiency and competence. Every GenCon booth needs at least one stalwart conservative American, and Ken Hite and Doug fill these roles admirably for Pelgrane and ProFantasy respectively.

Thomson Shore and Taylor our printers did not let us down, and a clutch of new books arrived without a hitch, beautifully printed. I was very pleased.

ARC copies of Stone Skin Press anthologies were on sale, and sold through, and we distributed signed authors’ copies to those authors present.

There was rarely a moment where someone wasn’t at the booth, and while many people were familiar, Steve Dempsey, Kevin Kulp and Matthew Sanderson’s demo games drove people into the the grip of Beth’s fiendish sales tentacles and the 4 for 3 offer.

I was amazed that we received two gold and two silvers in the ENnies, for Graham Walmsley, debut author Paula,  Robin Laws and Gareth Hanrahan. The highlight for me was Occult Guide author Paula Dempsey receiving her Gold ENnie award, and the serving of the West Mass Posse by Steve Dempsey in the acceptance speech. More on the ENnies here.

 Night’s Black Agents

Night’s Black Agents is on general release, and you can get it and the The Zalozhniy Quartet from the store now. The Dracula Dossier, Agent’s Companion and Dracula Unredacted are underway.

Trail of Cthulhu

• Christopher Smith Edair has finished copyediting Eternal Lies, with will confirming the edits by the end of this week. See our front page poll to help us with our publishing options.
• Scott Dorward will be adding additional material to the print version of Graham Walmsley’s Purist Adventures for which we are still to determine a title
• Gareth is working on the next chapter The Apocalypse Machine and adding, at last, the rewards promised for the completed Character Builder.
• Robin is continuing to delve into the Dreamlands with his Dreamhounds of Paris, and is also working on a companion volume in the mold of The Occult Guide called the Livre de Fourmis  – Book of Ants.

The Black Book Character Builder

While the character builder has been working now for many months, there were some features which I regret were not included on time. John “Detective” Clayton stepped into the breech to finish these – we now have Fear Itself, Esoterrorists, Bookhounds and the Apocalypse Machine supported. All rewards involving adventures are now in Gareth’s Hanra-hands to be included in the next part of Cthulhu Apolcalypse.

Access the Black Book Character Generator here.

DC is looking into adding Night’s Black Agents and our other games to the generator, too.

Ashen Stars

The final piece of the Ashen Stars Suite music by James Semple is just a gnat’s crochet away from completion. At GenCon we released a Tartarus / Terra Nova flip book which was really rather attractive, so we’ll put that on general release next month, with discounts for existing PDF purchasers.

Everything Else

Believe me, everything else is happening but this was supposed to be a mini Page XX, and I am now in danger of not getting stuff out in time!