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. […]
Tag Archives: ballad hunters
In the latest episode of their sturdily constructed podcast, Ken and Robin talk creating protagonists for Page Turners, architect Julia Taylor, Ballad Hunters with Tristan Zimmerman, and Sam Phillips’ Cuba diplomacy.
Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG Ballad Hunters — described in this Page XX article — is about the Child Ballads. They’re named for their compiler, Harvard folklorist Francis James Child. His five-volume collection, published as The English and Scottish Popular Ballads in the late 1800s, is today the standard. Child did not tramp through the British countryside […]
by Tristan Zimmerman Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG Ballad Hunters — described in this Page XX article — is set in 1813 England and Scotland. This is the Regency era of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, of the Napoleonic wars, and of the Luddite revolts. It’s called the Regency because the reigning monarch, George III, is incapacitated […]
by Tristan Zimmerman Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG Ballad Hunters — described in this Page XX article — does something new for Pelgrane Press’ GUMSHOE games. Ballad Hunters adventures are only two or three hours long. Each adventure is centered around a single traditional folk ballad, and such songs contain only so many gameable details. If […]
by Tristan Zimmermann “Compass verses” are the best mechanic in Pelgrane’s forthcoming RPG, Ballad Hunters, a game described in this Page XX article. It’s the mechanic my playtesters consistently talk about after they play the game: how much fun they had with their verse, and how differently the game would have gone if they’d had […]
A mere few weeks ago terrible heat gripped much of the northern hemisphere. Now the temperature has cooled, signaling the whispered approach of fall. Back to school is one of the Head Pelgrane’s favorite seasons. He flaps his leathery wings over quiet suburban streets, ready to swoop down and, with his piercing beak, snatch up […]
It feels like a mere month since I last peered out from the nest to let you know what’s up with Pelgrane Press. That’s because it was a month. Among our efforts to ramp up our activities with my coming on board as Creative Director, we’re endeavoring to return to regular publication for this very […]
by Tristan Zimmerman ‘My boy was scarcely ten years oldWhen he went to an eerie landWhere wind never blew, nor cocks ever crewWoe for my son, Leesome Brand!’– Leesome Brand, Child Ballad 15 Britain, 1813. You are amateur folklorists working as agents of the Crown. Across the island, the folk ballads of the common people […]