View from the Pelgrane’s Nest — In Like a Lion Edition

Your part of the world may be balmy or merely damp but here at the Pelgrane’s Nest winter retains its grip on the land. Like our other cold-blooded staff members, the Great Pelgrane gets cranky at this time of year. With prey hiding beneath the snow he must spend more time on the wing, hunting. This leaves the nest available for the latest update on our production schedule.

13^th Age Second Edition is now available everywhere. If your friendly neighborhood game retailer doesn’t have it, tell them you’re looking for it. Sweeten the request by offering a positive relationship with the icon of their choice. The aid of a quasi-divine entity can’t go amiss in today’s challenging retail environment.

Page Turners, my game of dramatic storytelling for one player and one GM, is now in the Pelgrane web store. Order now for immediate shipment of the intensely personal, or uproariously funny, experiences that spring from scenarios by Wade Rockett, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, and Ruth Tillman, and yours truly. From haunted childhoods to rock and roll excess, from Jane Austen wit to a generational saga of robot civilization, your drama tokens await.

And the core books keep on coming! Freshly printed copies of Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s high fantasy GUMSHOE One-2-One game Paragon Blade have reached our UK warehouse and will arrive in the US warehouse in mid-March. When our fulfillers on both continents have them we will start shipping preorders. In mere weeks you will be able to run it for the barbarian warrior, covert magician, or master of shadows in your life.

In keeping with its theme of personal terror, Cat’s preparation of the Fear Itself: Shattered Veil PDFs, including Ocean Game and the refurbished Book of Unremitting Horror, encountered more jump scares than anticipated. Now she has bested the dread forces of the Outer Dark, emerging as the Final Publisher. The Gamefound pledge manager has either opened or is about to open, allowing the PDFs to creep to backers via their Pelgrane webstore bookshelves or DriveThru.

We’ve been busily readying the Kickstarter for Tristan Zimmerman’s innovative Ballad Hunters, in which determined working class heroes of the Regency era confront a wave of supernatural happenings in which folk songs come to life. Gareth Moore of Moonblade Creations knocked us out with his inspired take on the book’s graphic design. Meanwhile Tristan has been making the interview and podcast rounds.

Gar Hanrahan’s campaign for Swords of the Serpentine, Pillars Built on Sand has completed proofreading and now moves to layout.

Playtest feedback will soon be in for Merryshire Detective Club, Gar’s game of cozy halfling investigation. In the meantime, illustrations have begun to roll in, including some stunners from Claudio Pozas, for example the classroom physics lesson depicted below. I’ve started running my own series for my own game group and may wind up contributing a scenario or two to the accompanying scenario anthology, The Dreadful Hare.

That leaves the playtest window open for two scenarios from Sudden Frights, an anthology of one-shot adventures for Fear Itself. Please join us to help sharpen Emily Cambias’ kids in peril tale “Milk Teeth,” or Gar’s exercise in classic campground horror, “Faust Blood.”

Since stepping in as Creative Director close to a year ago I’ve made a point of delaying announcements on new projects until they’re well along the way to release. Accordingly this last month saw solid progress on several books I’m not even telling you about. By delaying announcements we avoid the feeling that our books stay in development forever. The poster child for that is Threat Profiles, a much needed new book for Night’s Black Agents. We dreamed up this tome of vampire adversaries at the booth during Gen Con 2024 and excitedly announced it at the Pelgrane panel the next day. Some outlining occurred before Ken and Gar had to attend to their more immediate priorities. Since then it’s been waiting for a moment when both of them could dig back in. At last the telluric forces aligned, and we now have a complete outline. From the alp to the vrykolakas with the nachzehrer in between, a new crop of bloodsuckers hungrily awaits upcoming writing availabilities from Ken and Gar. I won’t be announcing other projects at the outline stage, but in the case of this previously touted and much-desired title I’m stoked, or is it stokered, to see it rise from the crypt and inch menacingly toward us.

13^th Age fans have been asking for deeper info on its upcoming releases, so it’s time to let you in on a little secret. Designer / impresario Rob Heinsoo lovingly crafts its products at another desk. Unfortunately for swift inter-office communications, that desk is located far from the Pelgrane nest, on the distant horizon, in the Oubliette of Owlbears. At great personal cost, including several perfectly good henchmen, Rob clawed his way momentarily to the dungeon exit to attach the following update to a messenger pigeon’s ankle.

“The 13^th Age Starter Set: Trisha DeFoggi is editing the rules section. I’m revising the adventure after playtest feedback. Maps are in progress, with two of three finished. Also finished, the cover shown below, as created by Aaron McConnell’s pencils and Lee Moyer’s paints!

“Prophet of the Pyre: J-M DeFoggi is halfway through his development pass on Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s mega-adventure. J-M plans to be finished by the end of March, at which point I’ll go over monster stats. Cover art is underway with pencils by Rich Longmore and paints by Lee Moyer; interior art and maps haven’t started yet.

“Bestiary III, Icon Followers: After the recent poll asking what people wanted to see on the cover, we’re rolling with an Imperial tax golem, a village hedge wizard, a strange three-headed dragonic sorcerer, and a guest star from lower in the voting. Lee has done a rough layout. Aaron’s pencils are pending, and Lee will paint the final.”

The portion of Rob’s message we were able to piece together ends there. Perhaps we will hear more from the Oubliette of Owlbears in future.

Other projects continue to move along toward their next milestones. For an up-to-date listing of books on my plate and the stages they’re at, bookmark our Google Sheets status page.

Ballad Hunters illustration by Juha Makonnen

Merryshire Detective Club illustration by Claudio Pozas

13^th Age Illustration by Aaron McConnell & Lee Moyer