View From the Pelgrane’s Nest – March 2025

A big shout-out to our estimable Patreon backers! Thanks to Peter, Jim, Emma, Phil, Bryant, P. Troilus, Michael M, ScottKey, Michael B, Andreas, Ranting John, Michael H, Mark, Daniel, Jiří, Marcus, Cena and Thomas!!

NEW AT PELGRANE: Robin D. Laws!

I’m incredibly excited to announce that, after many years of cajoling, oystering-up, and outright begging, Robin D. Laws has finally agreed to take on the role of Pelgrane’s Creative Director!

Robin’s been involved with Pelgrane since Simon and Sasha founded it more than two decades ago, and his creative vision and design talent have been foundational to where, and what, Pelgrane is today. As Creative Director, Robin will have significant input into our…well, creative direction! Working with me and Simon, he’ll be reviewing our existing games, and dreaming up new ones. He’s also taken over management of our production schedule, working with writers, editors, artists and layout artists to produce our books. Another element of his remit will be codifying and documenting GUMSHOE design principles, to make it easier for new writers to work within the GUMSHOE system, and he’ll work closely with writers to hone their skills so we have a wider pool of authors to choose from when assigning projects.

I’m certain Robin will bring really positive change to our internal workflow, and while it might not look like much has changed on the surface for a while, expect great things!

CROWDFUNDING NOW: Fear Itself, The Book of Unremitting Horror, and The Ocean Game

Currently over on Gamefound are the Shattered Veil Editions of Fear Itself, The Book of Unremitting Horror, and The Ocean Game. For those of you familiar with the existing Fear Itself books, the text for FI and the BoUH is the same; the Shattered Veil Editions are full-colour hardbacks, using our good friends at Shadowlands’ art and layout. You can check out a preview of what the new editions will look like here, and of course, you can back the crowdfunding campaign at Gamefound!

WORK IN PROGRESS UPDATE: The Paragon Blade

The Paragon Blade layout is essentially done, and I’d hoped to have the final PDF to pre-orderers months ago, but we’ve discovered a lot of issues with the adventure flows that Thomas Deeny is in the process of correcting. Once he’s done with that, it’s just a matter of adding the appendices and passing it back to me for indexing. It’s got a very different look compared to our other books. I really like how it’s turned out!

WORK IN PROGRESS UPDATE: Page Turners

In between work on the 13th Age Second Edition Gamemaster’s Guide and Heroes’ Handbook, superstar Jen McCleary is somehow still finding time to work on Page Turners, which she’s turning into another work of art. She’s about three-quarters of the way through it now, so expect to see a pre-order for this next month. Here are some sample spreads to show you how it’s looking so far.

CONVENTIONS: We’re still looking for Gen Con GMs!

The first batch of events have gone through from our Gen Con GM recruitment, but there’s still plenty of time to volunteer to run games! GMs get early access to adventures for Trail of Cthulhu 2nd Edition, Fear Itself adventures from the upcoming Ocean Game, and 2nd edition 13th Age adventures, too. GMs also get a t-shirt, swag bag and our eternal gratitude – and if you run more than three games for us, you also get free entry! Email us now at gamemasters@pelgranepress.com to join the team.

Until next time,