Tag Archives: See Page XX

Talking Swords and Magic Birds

All the pregenerated characters in The Paragon Blade – Conn the Unslain, Aletheia, and Puc – have a supporting cast consisting of a human Companion and an Artefact. Conn travels with his old trainer Genkai and the Paragon Blade; Aletheia has her mechanical owl and her servant Aram, and Puc has the Demon Amulet and […]

Dark Knowledge of Cthulhu City

Exploring a graveyard under Arkham, detective Martin Harvesson glimpses a hideous goat-headed, cloven-hoofed monster gnawing on a human skull. Stricken with horror, Martin turns and flees blindly down the tunnel – only to emerge into the grand concourse of a huge subway station, a vaulted ceiling of marble arching high above him, and engraved on […]

Playtesting: the Merfolk (Non-Human Heroes) in Swords of the Serpentine

By Kevin Kulp This is the ninth in our series on non-human heroes which has so far covered the Serpentine, the spider-like Arakene, the Considerata (humans whose souls are contractually linked to gods), Constructs, the fungal Drowned, fey Hidden Folk, Intelligent Animals, and Unsleeping Advisors (secret undead). The city of Eversink borders both river and sea, […]

Eight Random Weird Dockside Encounters

I was about to write up an article about the weird, quasi-Venician city of Tyros Ashem in the upcoming Paragon Blade setting, but we’ve also got the weird quasi-Venician city of Eversink in Swords of the Serpentine, and the less-Venician-but-even-weirder city of Drakkenhall in 13th Age (doge? No, no, Dragon), which triggered two thoughts in […]

View From the Pelgrane’s Nest – April 2024

I’m delighted to start off with a shout-out to our  estimable Patreon backers! Thanks to Peter, Bryan, Clark, Jim, Emma, Craig, Phil, Bryant, P. Troilus, Michael M, ScottKey, Michael B, Andreas, Ranting John, Samwise, Michael H, Andy, Mark R, Daniel F, Jiří K, heartdoc32, Marcus, and Cena!! NEW RELEASE: The Ocean Game pre-order Way, way […]

See P. XX: Payoff Interludes for GUMSHOE

A column about roleplaying by Robin D. Laws A recent observation I’m adding to my Things I Always Say file is that when players worry about a scenario being railroaded or linear, what they really mean is not that it lacked choices or branch points, but that they didn’t get to Do Their Thing. Many […]

Playtesting: the Serpentine (Non-Human Heroes) in Swords of the Serpentine

By Kevin Kulp This is the eighth in our series on non-human heroes which has so far covered the spider-like Arakene, the Considerata (humans whose souls are contractually linked to gods), Constructs, the fungal Drowned, fey Hidden Folk, Intelligent Animals, and Unsleeping Advisors (secret undead). This month’s Ancestry is inspired by the Conan story The God […]

GUMSHOE Whodunnits: Assess Honesty

Of all GUMSHOE abilities, perhaps the most confusing is Forensic Etymology. Wait, no, it’s Bullshit Detector. Or Assess Honesty in the more genteel environs of Trail, or Liar’s Tell in Swords. The tell-when-they’re-lying ability. The customary use of Bullshit Detector is to confirm when a witness is being truthful so the investigators don’t need to […]

GUMSHOE Whodunnits: A Bunch of Suspects

The classic murder mystery: a bunch of eccentrics gather, often at a remote house or other confined location, and then – thump! One of them’s murdered. In most roleplaying scenarios, red herrings aren’t needed. The classic advice is that the players create enough confusion as they maraud and blunder towards a conclusion that adding distractions […]

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