View from the Pelgrane’s Nest – September 2025

As a company that makes horror games, Pelgrane looks forward to the Halloweeny month of October. From tentacled gods of cosmic indifference to cognitively dissonant demons to pallid-faced Carcosan aristocracy, we celebrate many terrors.

One fear I don’t care to truck with, however, is a frozen production schedule. Let’s head down into the basement together, flashlight in hand, and part the cobwebs to see how various projects bubbled along since my last update.

13^th Age Second Edition is in its final stages of printing. Cat devoted a chunk of her September to readying this crowdfunded project for fulfillment. In addition to the obvious steps needed to prepare a big print run for shipping to backers, that included a number of tasks you might not immediately think about. To name one example, refreshing first edition PDFs with updated errata, in your Pelgrane store bookshelves, DriveThru and Bits and Mortar. Meanwhile Rob has been working with Miguel Friginal to create class-specific character sheets. Backers will find links to these in their campaign updates.

The three Fear Itself: Shattered Veil books now form a sinister cluster in various stages of layout. The Book of Unremitting Horror is in layout. Ocean Game has a finished layout and is being checked for errors. The core book has reached the all-important index stage.

Speaking of crowdfunded projects, Trail of Cthulhu 2^nd Edition has also moved to layout. I’ve seen a visual concept pitch for it and can’t wait to see more.

Further along in layout, Page Turners has part of one scenario and a few final touches left before completion. This is my game of dramatic interaction for one GM and one player, with scenarios by me, Wade Rockett, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel and Ruth Tillman. We’ve been seeing the layout come in a few sections at a time so I expect a smooth glide to printing when Jen McCleary assembles it. Her sure balance of visual appeal and information design continues to knock me out.

Another of my own projects, Hamlet’s GM Screen, entered layout this month. It studies key roleplaying moments with the beat analysis system from Hamlet’s Hit Points.

Paragon Blade, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s epic fantasy GUMSHOE One-2-One game, sits alongside Fear Itself in the indexing phase, perhaps occasionally poking it with its mighty sword.

Illustrations have started to creep in, with accent on the creep, for Outside Entities, Ken’s book of obscure Trail of Cthulhu gods and monsters.

We have settled on March 2026 as our window for the Ballad Hunters crowdfunding campaign. Tristan Zimmerman’s GUMSHOE Labs game of Regency investigators who step in when folk songs come to life has now been proofed and the first wave of illustration sketches approved.

Playtesting wrapped this month on Pillars Built on Sand, the Swords of the Serpentine scenario anthology. Playtest coordinator Becky Smith is wrangling the reports to pass along to author Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.

In the meantime Gar turned in the first draft of Merryshire Detective Club, the cozy game of halfling investigation. It is every bit the delight I expected. I don’t know what I love more, the copious story hooks built into each home village GMC, or the cornucopia of random tables, not all of them breakfast-related. Merryshire will follow Ballad Hunters as a 2026 crowdfund campaign.

Scenarios for a pair of unannounced anthologies have started coming in. I look forward to telling you more about them after I have all the contributions in hand.

All in all, a treat bag overstuffed with goodies. Enjoy a happy and safe month of Halloween and don’t let those cobwebs hit you on your way back out of the basement.