View From the Pelgrane’s Nest – January 2024

First up, a shout-out to our Network, our estimable Patreon backers! Thanks to Daniel F, Mark R, Andy, Michael H, Samwise, Ranting John, Andreas, Michael B, Scott, Michael M, P. Troilus, Bryant, Michael K, Phil, Craig, Emma, Jim, Clark, Bryan, and Peter!

NEW RELEASE: The Paragon Blade pre-order

This month, we’re releasing the pre-order of Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s fantasy One-2-One game, The Paragon Blade. Set in a world still recovering from the trials of the Hellbound Empire’s reign of terror, The Paragon Blade offers classic adventure, intrigue, and politics in a full-colour, hardback book.

Similar to Cthulhu Confidential, each of the three protagonist characters comes with a full adventure and detailed descriptions of their part of the world.

Players can choose between Conanesque barbarian Conn, who roams the wilds of the Tremis with his companion, Genkai; the scholarly Aletheia, with her Sage Owl companion, who must keep her sorcerous ability a secret from the restrictive anti-magic rulers of her homeland, Hekte; or the mysterious masked Puc, who assists the spymaster Gerana Vos in navigating the intrigues of the island city of Tyros Ashem.

Pre-order now and get the pre-layout draft PDF straight away. The art is finished and the text is going into layout next week, so final PDFs should be available at the end of March, with the print books ready in June.

NEW GM MONTH: Learn how to run Trail of Cthulhu by February

Regular readers of See Page XX will know that every January, we join our colleagues at Monte Cook Games, Chaosium, Evil Hat, Atlas, and Arc Dream Publishing to help and support new GMs to run their first RPG as part of the New Gamemaster Month initiative. Designed for those who’ve made a New Year’s resolution to learn to run games, the month-long program provides weekly articles taking new GMs through progressive stages of preparation and planning for their first ever session, so that they’re ready to run a game by February 2nd.

Jumping into GMing can be daunting for novice GMs, and this program addresses that by providing a Facebook group and Discord server where GMs can ask team members and experienced GMs for that system for advice on aspects they’re struggling with. If you know someone who’d like to learn how to run Trail of Cthulhu, or you’re a seasoned GUMSHOE GM available to provide support and encouragement to new Trail GMs, be sure to check out the resources available at the New Gamemaster Month website!

CONVENTIONS: Run games for us at Gen Con!

I swear Gen Con early event registration gets earlier every year! It’s kicking off this coming Sunday, 7th January, and so we’re starting off our Gen Con GM recruitment now, too. This year, we’ve got a host of new adventures for GMs to choose from. As well as a sneak peek at what adventures Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition will be bringing, the new Fear Itself adventures from the upcoming Ocean Game will be available, and 2nd edition 13th Age adventures, too (we’ll have more details of these over the coming months). GMs also get a t-shirt, swag bag and our eternal gratitude – and if they run more than three games for us, they also get free entry! Email us now at gamemasters@pelgranepress.com to take join the team.