November: View from the Pelgrane’s Nest

We are still reeling from the success of the DramaSystem / Hillfolk Kickstarter, which raised $93,845, but we have not taken our eyes off other projects – this month sees the release of The Love of Money for Esoterrorists the Out of Space collection in print, plus the PDF of Zalozhniy Quartet for Night’s Black Agents from the store. 13th Age news has been shifted to a new feature Through the Scrying Glass.

Our biggest news, though concerns Kenneth Hite…

Deep Pan Deep One

Following the success of Operation Wikipizza, I’m pleased to announce that I have wooed Kenneth Hite into the the Pelgrane fold full time for at least a six-month stint, with offers of epicurean delights, bourbon and lucre.  I’ve enjoyed everything Ken has produced for Pelgrane, and for other people, but want more of the former and less of the latter. So yah boo sucks other publishers (with limited exceptions). He’ll be working on Night’s Black Agents supplements, managing and writing for the Trail line, and you’ll read more from him here on the Pelgrane site.

Hillfolk

The Hillfolk Kickstarter is funded. It was amazing – Robin described it as a 30-day virtual GenCon. We leave the process with two books, upgraded to hardcover, upgraded to color interior, filled to 240 pages apiece. Hillfolk theme music. Plus nine installments of the Series Pitch of the Month Club, free to all backers.

I’ve played DramaSystem myself at IndieCon, in its original Hillfolk incarnation and with an Elizabethan twist, and I’m playing again on Friday with Ken, Robin, Paula and Steve, this time in Chris Lackey’s series pitch the Whateleys, featuring Cthulhu cultists.

Robin is polishing up the manuscript, and you can give feedback here.

GUMSHOE Open Source

Of particular interest to Pelgrane Press customers; the Kickstarter enabled us to release GUMSHOE under an open license. My own view is that I’d like to make it as unconstrained as possible; for example I’d like people to share innovations but I don’t want to force them to do it. There is an issue over the trademark – do I do a separate trademark license which includes standards, or just release a new logo anyone can use, whatever they want to do with it?

Esoterrorists 2.0

Christopher Smith has finished his editing pass on Esoterrorists 2, and it’s ready for layout. It’s been fun looking through it, and seeing how GUMSHOE has evolved. It’s not quite as compact as it was – as you might expect, it deals with special cases and incorporates innovations from other GUMSHOE lines, but in actual play it is designed to be quicker, with a streamlined iniative rule. Artwork is underway. In the mean time, why not pick up Love of Money, Matthew Sanderson’s knock-out adventure, which has some of the best designed pregens I’ve ever seen.

Trail of Cthulhu

• Out of Space is a print collection of adventures previously avaialble in PDF and with additional material by Jason Morningstar Robin D Laws and Adam Gauntlett. It’s available from the store.
• Now we have Ken onboard, Mythos Expeditions should be underway before the New Year.
• The second part of Cthulhu Apocalypse, Slaves of the Green Man, is ready to playtest. It includes long-awaited rewards for the Trail of Cthulhu Character Builder- the Black Book. Sign up to playtest here.
• The Final Revelation is Scott Dorward’s campaign frame for Graham Walmsley’s Purist adventures is ready for playtest. It was quite a task to link these unrelated adventures, but he’s done. Sign up to playtest here.
• Work on Dreamhounds continues, with Steve Dempsey researching the surrealists in original books and documents from the time. In the words of André Breton “The man who cannot visualize a horse galloping on a tomato is an idiot.”
• Will Hindmarch is laying out Eternal Lies

Night’s Black Agents

The PDF and ebook versions are available now from the store. Ken has written the outline for the provisionally titled Double Tap – a companion for NBA featuring Tradecraft, ability uses and techniques, new cherries including weapon cherries and an expansion of the chase rules to encompass other thematically similar activities such as hacking.

Owl Hoot Trail

Kevin Kulp has has delivered the final manuscript and it’s ready to be laid out and illustrated by Rich Longmore. The final draft includes rules for poker, gunfighter duels and improved spellcasting and an adventure – They Rode to Perdition. It’s brilliant.

Ashen Stars

Bill White has written an adventure – the Justice Trade – which is in need of playtesting. Apply here.