View from the Pelgrane’s Nest – Singalong Edition

Our big news this month is happening right now on Kickstarter, with Ballad Hunters now crowdfunding. In Tristan Zimmerman’s brilliant game of musical mystery, you play agents from the gritty side of the Regency era investigating a weird phenomenon that brings folk song lyrics to terrifying life. Its design pushes the boundaries of our signature game system so far that we had to create a new line, GUMSHOE Labs, to contain it. Already fully written and edited, with most of the illustrations already in, Ballad Hunters is the closest to publication of any project Pelgrane has crowdfunded to date. If you’ve already joined the chorus, be sure to tell your friends, and the Internet at large.

But what if I want something sent to me right away, I hear you ask? In that case the Great Pelgrane helpfully points his stabby beak at not one, not two, but three new releases.

Page Turners, my game of dramatic interaction for one player and one GM, has been in the Pelgrane store since February. As of the first of April you can grab it in retail. Scenarios by Wade Rockett, Sarah “Sam” Saltiel, Ruth Tillman, and yours truly allow you to build intensely emotional or hilarious stories that feel like novels, plays, and films featuring a single protagonist. Whether you and your bestie seek Shakespearean laughs, doom-shadowed vampire romance, Jane Austen wit, or a robotic generational saga, Page Turners has what you need.

If your one player, one GM needs instead call for mighty thews and slashing swords, Paragon Blade, Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s high fantasy GUMSHOE One-2-One game, is now shipping to preorder customers. Get in line by placing your own order today. Join your trusty companion, pick up your ancient relic, and gird yourself for fantastical challenges that lie below the Gloamwood.

Waiting to fulfill your multi-player F20 needs is 13^th Age Second Edition, already in retail and the Pelgrane webstore. The ultimate fusion of dungeon-delving crunch and storytelling creativity can be purchased separately as the 13^th Age Game Master’s Guide and 13^th Age Game Master’s Guide, but if you need them both surely you wish to cradle in your arms the 13th Age Second Edition Slipcase.

But wait, the Great Pelgrane grows restive and distracted from scanning the horizon for unwary Easter egg hunters. Tired of tawdry present-day commerce, it wants to know what books in the production stream have progressed since we last hung out together in its bone-strewn nest.

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Pillars Built on Sand earns the prize for biggest leap forward this month. It is now laid out and ready to print. This epic Swords of the Serpentine campaign sends the Heroes in search of a masked vigilante, a diabolical conspiracy, and a terrifying, uninvited wedding guest. We’ll put it on preorder shortly, in anticipation of its July 1^st web store release date.

Trail of Cthulhu 2^nd Edition’s many elements continue to correlate themselves. If only we could avert our eyes! After tweaks to a couple of pieces we’ll have all the core book illustrations in hand. The GM screen is in layout, with the Kingsbury Horror scenario about to join it. Boundary of the Darkness, the Georgian England Enlightenment-era sourcebook by Phil Masters and Sarah “Sam” Saltiel has reached the layout approval stage.

Eagle-eyed editor Emily Cambias has turned in her corrections for Hamlet’s GM Screen. This follow-up to Hamlet’s Hit Points, the first of the Gameplaywright line to debut under the Pelgrane Press banner, analyzes classic moments at the rpg tabletop, identifying ways to maximize their excitement and impact. Emily proved the wisdom of having her edit from a laid-out book by finding errors we would have missed in the standard manuscript > edit > layout process, including absent or incorrect diagrams. Thus the book returns to layout for these needed fixes.

Merryshire Detective Club returned from our biggest GUMSHOE playtest ever garlanded in praise and pastries. Gar has adjusted his game of cozy halfling murder here and there based on this invaluable feedback. For example he will now be providing a choice of two introductory scenarios, giving GMs more leeway in setting their games’ comic dials. As he polishes that up, he’s also crossing the first draft finish line on its accompanying scenario book, The Dreadful Hare.

On the 13^th Age front, Prophet of the Pyre has completed its development pass, allowing J-M DeFoggi to scoot it back to Rob Heinsoo for his usual attentive blandishment.

Other milestones reached last month relate to unannounced projects, so you can only imagine how spectacular those were. It’s about time to spill the beans on one or two of those, but not quite yet.

As always, for updates on the entire announced production stream, head over to our status page, which I update as news comes in.

Duelists from Paragon Blade by Vincenzo Sirianni

Georgian Antagonist from Boundary of the Darkness by M. Wayne Miller