View from the Pelgrane’s Nest: Roses are Red Edition

Roses are red

Violets are blue

The Great Pelgrane is hungry

And so are you

…for tidings of the newly bustling Pelgrane production line.

While the Great Pelgrane flaps lazily over unsuspecting cities and towns looking for chocolates to snatch from the grasp of unsuspecting Valentine’s celebrants, we can once again rifle his nest for the emails, receipts and art commissions that reveal the status of our upcoming games.

Among them we find this month’s new release, Page Turners. The game of interpersonal drama for one player and one GM, designed by yours truly, with scenarios by me, Wade Rockett, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, and Ruth Tillman, debuts in the Pelgrane web store this month. Get ready for intense and/or joyful storytelling featuring vampires, robots, space stations, fading rockers, American strivers, Shakespearean servants, and the cream of Regency society.

Meanwhile last month’s epic release, 13^th Age Second Edition, is in stock and continues its epic journey toward retail stores. Appropriate for Valentine’s month, our easy-to-run, fast-to-play, freewheelingly creative spin on the F20 tradition will have you falling in love with the dungeon all over again.

Speaking of high fantasy and innovative game design, next month’s release, Paragon Blade, rolls off the presses even as we speak. Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s GUMSHOE One-2-One game of fantasy adventure. Its three thundering scenarios feature a barbarian warrior, a magician who must hide her gifts, and a mysterious master of shadows. Have us ship it to you as soon as we get it by jumping aboard the preorder.

Next to head to the printers are the three books from the Fear Itself: Shattered Veil edition crowdfunding campaign. In addition to the gorgeously shiverful revisualized edition of the core book, these releases include a revamped Book of Unremitting Horror and the Gar’s long-awaited head-bending campaign, Ocean Game. Late pledges remain open on Gamefound.

The wheels continue to turn on projects we’ll be releasing later this year and in 2027.

Tristan Zimmerman has been interviewing and actually playing up a storm for the imminent Ballad Hunters crowdfunding campaign. We’ve had fun brainstorming fun add-on items for this innovative GUMSHOE Labs game of Regency-era working class heroes fighting to contain a supernatural catastrophe bringing folk songs to dire life. The text is complete and ready to go. We have a quarter of the illustrations in already, with the rest commissioned or waiting artist availability.

Hamlet’s GM Screen, my follow-up to Hamlet’s Hit Points analyzing the emotional beats of archetypal moments at the gaming table, has been laid out and is now being proofed. As previously mentioned we have reversed the usual order of things to check that the many diagrams match the text.

All illustrations are now in for Pillars Built on Sand, Gar’s mystery-filled, swashbuckling campaign book for Swords of the Serpentine. It is now in the proofreading stage.

Our biggest project in the pipeline, now that 13^th Age 2^nd Edition has shipped, remains Trail of Cthulhu 2^nd Edition. Last month I jumped on board the team to commission a last few items, aiding its inexorable rise. These include maps, Occupation portraits, and illustrations for its pulp scenario. The text is complete as its graphic design undergoes tweaks and approvals. A proofed version of the manuscript for the Georgian-era companion book, Boundary of the Darkness, has now been turned in.

Outside Entities, Ken’s bestiary of quasi-canonical Trail gods and monsters, has all of its art in and has a complete, edited text. It will proceed to layout when the 2E graphic design is set in stone.

Gar’s halfling investigation GUMSHOE core game, Merryshire Detective Club, is now in playtest. Meanwhile I’ve been assigning its full color interior illustrations. Its scenario anthology, The Dreadful Hare, is in the late writing stage.

We have cover illustrations for Cassilda’s Song, my epic campaign for The Yellow King Roleplaying Game. Next step: interior art.

For a comprehensive look at the state of our announced projects, bookmark our recently inaugurated Google Sheets status page.

Page Turners layout and illustration by Jen McCleary

Ghost King from Paragon Blade by Falk Haensel