News, See Page XX
See Page XX – August 2026
See Page XX: The Pelgrane Press webzine
August 2026 Edition
VIEW FROM THE PELGRANE NEST: BACK TO SCHOOL EDITION by Robin D. Laws: Studio update covering Merryshire Detective Club after its successful crowdfunding campaign, new playtests for The Dreadful Hare, shipping for Fear Itself: Shattered Veil Edition and The Ocean Game, the release of Trail of Cthulhu 2E PDFs, and progress on Ballad Hunters, Hamlet’s GM Screen, and upcoming 13th Age projects.
13TH AGE 2E PREGENERATED CHARACTER BUILDS: THIEF ACROBAT ROGUE by Jay Godden: A highly mobile 13th Age 2E Rogue build that turns movement into damage, using Rush and mobility-focused abilities to reach vulnerable enemies and stay difficult to pin down.
13TH AGE 2E PREGENERATED CHARACTER BUILDS: SHADOW ASSASSIN ROGUE by Jay Godden: A 13th Age 2E Rogue build combining Sneak Attack and Rush for high melee damage, backed by the mobility and defensive tools needed to choose targets and strike hard.
THE TOP OF YOUR CLASS by Robin D. Laws: Adds historical flavour to The Yellow King RPG’s Paris setting by looking at real artists who might have studied alongside the player characters, giving GMs potential classmates whose later fame can add resonance to campaigns and flash-forwards.
CALL FOR PLAYTESTERS: THE DREADFUL HARE: Merryshire Detective Club enters another round of playtesting, inviting groups to try a new introductory mystery for the core book and scenarios from The Dreadful Hare and Other Halfling Mysteries.
THIS MONTH’S PREVIEW
My Briny Heaven
by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan
What is Briny Heaven, the mysterious destination at the end of The Ocean Game? Gareth offers several possible answers, each pointing the campaign in a different direction. It might be a drowned Atlantis full of occult wisdom, a realm of rebirth where Players retain their identities beyond death, the last refuge of an uncorrupted humanity, or a place where the horrors that began each Player’s Ocean Game can finally be understood and released. Rather than settling on one definitive truth, the article gives GMs different ways to make Briny Heaven strange, personal, and unsettling.
Order Now!
Pillars Built on Sand
Plunge the heroes of your Swords of the Serpentine game into an epic campaign of mystery, intrigue, and swashbuckling action with Pillars Built on Sand. Designed with dark bravura by fantasy master Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, this thrilling cycle of five interconnected investigations features warring merchant houses, resourceful urchins, ancient curses, loot-hungry pirates, and marauding toad folk.
Page Turners
Page Turners is the game of personal storytelling for one player and one GM.
Acclaimed tabletop roleplaying designer Robin D. Laws won the coveted Diana Jones Award for his game of dramatic group play, Hillfolk.
Page Turners scales its dynamic down to the intimate scale of a single main character whose fiction you weave on the fly with one other creator.
The Paragon Blade
Enter a realm of powers and perils!
In The Paragon Blade, you play a hero in a fantastical land, still scarred by the evil of the fallen Hellbound Empire. Mystery and magic collide in tales of conspiratorial wizards, monstrous foes, and arcane intrigue.
Gather your wits, your allies, and your blade!
Pre-Order Now!
Hamlet’s GM Screen
In Hamlet’s GM Screen, Diana Jones and ENnie award winning roleplaying game designer Robin D. Laws applies his rigorous story beat analysis to the staple moments of a roleplaying session. Sharpen your game moderating decisions with directly actionable advice teased from a close study of sessions zero, opening sequences, information gathering, character interaction, and combat. Explore the paradox of choice. Remove the buzzkill from treasure finding. Learn how to rescue the mood when an ultra-competent PC gets Worfed. Plumb the emotional mysteries of the Total Party Kill.
You can track the status of planned releases and works-in-progress from the Google Sheet in this article:
Boundary of the Darkness
The Lunar Society are a dining club of natural philosophers, industrialists, and radical intellectuals, the embodiment of the Enlightenment. They have wealth, knowledge, and principles. Simultaneously, members of the Bluestockings Society, who meet to discuss art, literature, and politics, have—in their most secret meetings—formed Friends of Blue, a private organisation set up to protect the world from the devastating knowledge of the Mythos. Boundary of the Darkness is an 18th century campaign frame for Trail of Cthulhu by Phil Masters and Sarah Saltiel. STATUS: Printing. PDFs are available through the Pelgrane webstore, DriveThruRPG, and BackerKit.
Cassilda’s Song
A massive scenario series by Robin D. Laws for The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, which spans all four of its core sequences.Its overarching plot turns on a contest between the two daughters of the King in Yellow, Cassilda and Camilla, who race with one another to destroy the timelines, winning the favor of their pallid father. Camilla seeks a cataclysm of blood and fire. Cassilda intends to dissolve reality into hallucinatory delirium. STATUS: Art is being commissioned.
Merryshire Detective Club
In Merryshire Detective Club, an upcoming core GUMSHOE game from the brilliantly comforting mind of superstar writer-designer Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, you play amateur detectives in a cosy-fantasy setting. Your band of plucky investigators solves mysteries (quite often, murder mysteries) that crop up with remarkable regularity in the lovely little village you’ll design together. Gameplay mixes deduction and investigation with comic absurdity and plenty of cakes. (No giant tentacle monsters or vampiric conspiracies, we’ve quite enough of those, thank you.) STATUS: Additional scenarios are in playtesting.
Outside Entities
Raging from the indifferent depths of a hostile universe, gods and creatures cut from Trail of Cthulhu Second Edition come rampaging back in Outside Entities. Chill once more to revamped envisionings of Daoloth, Mordiggian, Quachil Uttaus, and Y’golonac. Send your Investigators into deadly confrontations with sand-dwellers, shan, and lloigor. Submit to the bizarre imaginings of Trail of Cthulhu designer Kenneth Hite as he fever-dreams of a new titan, avatars of Y’golonac, those strangely under-utilized space vampires the Nioth-Korghai, and the malitia vetus, a never before gamified beastie straight from Lovecraft’s nightmares. STATUS: Holding for print.
13th Age Starter Set
Rob Heinsoo and Wade Rockett have been working on a 13th Age Starter Set. This slimmed-down rules set and a one-arc introductory adventure in a box will serve as a lower-cost entry point than the full two-book Second Edition slipcase. STATUS: Editing.
Crowdfunding News
Merryshire Detective Club
Merryshire Detective Club, our cosy-fantasy core GUMSHOE game of village mysteries, quick wits, and plenty of cake, is live now on BackerKit. Join the campaign to explore the Riding, meet its eccentric villagers, and solve mysteries as a club of amateur detectives. Click here to visit the campaign and get your copy!
Prophet of the Pyre and Iconic Adversaries
Our next 13th Age 2E crowdfunding campaign brings together two major new books. Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan’s Prophet of the Pyre is a full campaign that takes heroes from 1st level to an epic 10th-level finale, packed with maps, monsters, and set pieces. Iconic Adversaries is a huge bestiary featuring more than 500 NPCs, creatures, and organizations connected to the icons, ready to use in published or home campaigns.
Sign up now for campaign news, previews, and a free Iconic Adversaries sampler.
Eternal Lies Boxed Set Crowdfunding
We’re excited to announce plans for a crowdfunding campaign to reprint Eternal Lies! This edition will feature exciting improvements, which we’ll reveal soon. Eternal Lies Boxed Set crowdfunding is postponed to 2027. Follow our updates for first looks inside the box, schedule news, and a preview link ahead of the late 2026 campaign.
Pelicon 2026 Participant Registration Is Open!
Pelicon 2026 is coming on September 19th and 20th, and participant registration is now open.
Join us online for a weekend of Pelgrane games, meet other players from the community, and sign up for sessions across our game lines. Whether you’re returning to a favourite system or trying something new, there’ll be plenty to play.
POLL
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