View from the Pelgrane’s Nest: In Which Our Theme for the Year is Revealed

You might think that the horrendous rhythmic buzzing you hear emanating from our humble crag foretells doom, but never fear, it’s only the Great Pelgrane, snoring. The big fella slumbers deeply in his nest, hung over and sated from holiday feasting. Shall we all tell ourselves it was only cheese and crackers he was devouring at his festive parties as we huddle for the latest dispatch from Pelgrane Press?

Game companies don’t make New Year’s resolutions, but they can adopt unofficial themes. Pelgrane’s theme for 2026 is: the year books come out!

That starts with the current big banner achievement, the fulfillment of the 13^th Age Second Edition Kickstarter. With physical and electronic copies in backers’ hands, the books now head to general release. You may have already seen copies in stores, acquired by retailers as part of the crowdfunding effort. Perhaps you snapped one of these up yourself, as we have heard that these sold through fast. Knowing that you needed assistance against the owlbears rampaging through your bleak mid-Winters, we made a festive exception to our usual release pattern and rushed the PDF-only versions to our webstore and DriveThru RPG in December.

Next out of the gate, Page Turners, my game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM currently rolls off the presses at both our European and US printers. A few lucky attendees of Dragonmeet have already had it for a few weeks, as we debuted it in a special preview edition at that London show. It has been a long time since I was able to stand at a booth with brand new copies of a game I’ve designed. I was delighted to see the reaction to it and can’t wait for more of you to get your hands on it. Featuring scenarios by Wade Rockett, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, Ruth Tillman, it allows you and one other lucky player or GM to build intense stories of a single protagonist. Bring the spirit of Austen, Shakespeare or Fitzgerald to your gaming table. Explore doomed vampire love, rock and roll excess, or an android intergenerational saga. If you loved Hillfolk and want to see it distilled down to its crystalline essence, Page Turners can’t wait to meet you. The print edition is now available for preorder and will go out to preorderers in February. It ships to retail April 1^st, at which point it we will also make it available as a PDF-only purchase.

Paragon Blade, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s fantasy GUMSHOE One-2-One game, has slashed its way to the proof approval stage of the printing process. It will ship to preorderers in March. Preorders are still open so you if you haven’t already done so you can put yourself first on the list by purchasing now. It hits retail and becomes available as a PDF only purchase in May. Play a hero in a fantastical land, still scarred by the evil of the fallen Hellbound Empire. Gather your trusty companion and relic of archaic power to confront conspiratorial wizards, monstrous foes, and arcane intrigue.

PDFs of three books of the Fear Itself Shattered Veil Edition crowdfund, the core game, The Book of Unremitting Horror, and The Ocean Game, are scheduled to arrive in backers’ Pelgrane store bookshelves at the end of this month. The books are scheduled to ship to backers in April, with retail and PDF-only availability on June 1^st.

Another piece of big news this month: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s much-anticipated game of halfling investigation, Merryshire Detective Club, now seeks playtesters. Gather your friends in a cozy cottage, peel off those confining shoes, wiggle your toes, spread the clotted cream thick on an assortment of scones, and join us in taking it for a ramble.

Prior to the holiday break various projects in development made leaps forward on their paths to publication.

The English translation of Sirio Sensenra’s Fear Itself scenario Wamatse, brought to us by our friends at Spain’s Shadowlands Games, has been completed.

Hamlet’s GM Screen has a finished layout and will next head to proofreading. Normally this goes the other way around but my follow-up to Hamlet’s Hit Points, applying beat analysis to classic moments at the rpg table, needs to have its many diagrams compared to the text, which needed those diagrams completed and placed alongside the text.

The monumental process of illustrating Cassilda’s Song, my mega-campaign for The Yellow King Roleplaying Game is also taking place in partnership with Shadowlands, starting with cover images for its four books.

Ballad Hunters has a quarter of its interior art in. We are assembling other materials for its upcoming crowdfund.

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Pillars Built on Sand campaign for Swords of the Serpentine is now in art direction, with sketches and finished pieces now coming.

Boundary of the Darkness, the Trail of Cthulhu sourcebook of Enlightenment science and eldritch intrigue in Georgian England by Philip Masters and Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, has been fully illustrated and is now in proofreading.

Outside Entities, Ken’s book of Mythos gods and entities too unthinkable to include in the core book, is in the late illustration stage.

It has been reasonably observed that looking up the status of a particular project in development would be easier if we put status alerts all in one place. In response to this polite but firm entreaty we have set up a Google Sheet listing our announced GUMSHOE and story game projects with their current milestones. Eventually we will fold in 13^th Age projects, which follow a somewhat different path to publication which as I understand it involves a dangerous quest to a wizard’s tower.

I’d stick around to tease projects in earlier stages of creation, but I see that the Great Pelgrane stirs from his torpor and keens for breakfast. Before he fully wakes, let’s, like our 2026 books, proceed down the side of the crag in an orderly, well regulated fashion.