View from the Pelgrane’s Nest – February 2022

I hope you’ve all had a lovely holiday season, and wishing all of you – and all of us, and everyone else – a vastly improved New Year in 2022.

NEW RELEASE: Drakkenhall: City of Monsters pre-order

Text technical team DeFoggi, DeFoggi & Heinsoo have finished the final text of this city setting for 13th Age, and we’re delighted to have this on pre-order this month. Each chapter of Drakkenhall: City of Monsters looks at one aspect of the city, and each of the writers has presented their own unique view on that aspect. The result of this creative freedom is what we’ve sometimes referred to as a “mosaic” book. Filled with advice, iconic ties, adventure hooks, and monsters linked to the City of Monsters, GMs have a delectable buffet of resources they can dip into and use what they want from. The pre-layout PDF is available instantly to pre-orderers, and Aileen Miles is starting on the layout this week. If you want to contribute to the look of Drakkenhall, vote in our poll on the final colour of Roena I. Rosenberger’s gorgeous final cover.

Work in progress update: Swords of the Serpentine

Kevin’s been going through the final print proofs (you can read his article about the process, and see some pics, here). As he mentioned, our printers flagged up a “too much ink” situation with some of the illustrations. I personally thought that was pretty rock ‘n’ roll of us, but the printers disagreed and recommended we changed it. Rock star layout artist Jen jumped on the case and delivered a de-inked new interior layout, which is passing before the disagreeable eyes of the printers as I type.

Work in progress update: Even Death Can Die

Layout artist Aileen Miles has returned a new file which includes the extensive edits that eagle-eyed Trisha DeFoggi found in what we’d thought was our “final” document. However, there were some she was unable to change, as they required a more editorial decision, and that means it’s come back to me for some tweaking. I’m hoping this’ll be a fast process, but Aileen did flag up that the book is vast. Hoping to have the “final-final” PDF with y’all, and this monster tome with the printers, at the end of this month.

Work in progress update: The as-yet-untitled Ocean Game book

What, you might be asking, is the Ocean Game? Well. A long time ago, in a company far, far away, a writing and drawing wizard called Dave Allsop created a bunch of unremittingly horrific creatures and a creepy…campaign? setting? alternate reality? all of the above?…for Fear Itself. The plan was that Dave would build this idea out into a book, but other projects happened, and he never got around to it. And so, we handed it over to Master Completer, Style Emulator, and Father of the Twin With the Allsopian Art Style, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, who’s currently working on it in between house moves. If this reads as vague, it’s because I don’t know anything about it (except that one of my favourite Fear Itself convention adventures, Can You See Me?, will be making an appearance in it). That’s deliberate – Dave’s stuff is scary AF, and I sleep better at night as a result.

Work in progress update: The Borellus Connection

Jen’s work on the interior art & layout continues apace, and it’s looking amazing, as you’d expect. I wanted to include an images in this update, but there were too many cool illos and spreads and I couldn’t choose. So instead, here are crops of some of my favourite illos. Lush, no?

Work in progress update: Suburban Consumption

Our suburban food horror larp anthology Suburban Consumption of the Monstrous is bolting through the art process, with new sketches and final illos coming in every week. If you’re a Kickstarter backer, you can see more of these pieces in our most recent update; for those of you waiting for the Backerkit launch, which we’re aiming to release in the summer, here are some sneak peeks.