April 2016: View from the Pelgrane’s Nest

This month we’ve been working on Time Watch, honing Fear Itself 2nd Edition and the working on outstanding Dracula Dossier books and papers. Our friends at Campaign Coins have honoured us by running a 13th Age-based-Kickstarter featuring Icon Tokens and dwarven tower coins. As a tie-in, this month’s 13th Age Monthly Coin Tricks discusses coinage and currency in the Dragon Empire, but with the jackpot zombies, dwarven drinking games and coins which tranform into imps , it’s a far cry from the dry economics of our world!

New releases:

• The Many Deaths of Edward Bigsby – A PDF Trail of Cthulhu adventure in the vein of The Prestige
• Coin Tricks  for 13th Age Monthly Give those monster-guarded piles of coins a fun twist with ghoul-stamped currency, hellhole gold, coin zombies, and more!
• The Seven Wonders PDF version – a collection a seven brilliant games from UK writers

TimeWatch

The layout artist for the TimeWatch RPG core book, Charles Wright, is in hospital following a succesful operation, and we all wish him a speedy recovery.

The credits are done, and the index is about 70% complete, to be completed next week.  The adventure collection Behind Enemy Times  is being illustrated, and the Book of Changing Years is being laid out. I posted a full update on the Kickstarter here.

Fear Itself 2nd Edition

Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has been concentrating on two pages of the text. Why just two pages? As you would hope, at the core of Fear Itself is the characters’ reaction to horror, whether it’s creeping gloom, masked slashers or existential peril. The relatively small section on how to play Stability loss is therefore vital to the players’ portrayal of their characters’ terror. So we’ve extended and revitalised that section, giving new options, while taking account of more modern sensibilties. The tag line for the Book of Unremitting Horror is new times demand new horrors; in Fear Itself, different perils require different reactions, so Gareth suggests which of the new options are appropriate for each new campaign frame, fainting away, beserk rage or perhaps risk taking. We are testing these new options internally.

Campaign Coins

At Gen Con last year, Mark Morrison dropped a velvet bag stuffed with Dwarven Tower coins on the table in front of me. They landed with a satisfying clank. While we discussed the Kickstarter, I was irresistibly drawn to holding them, stacking them and weighing them up in my hand. Pixels don’t do justice to their weight, solidity and sheer tactile pleasure of them. I have a set of prototypes for the icon coins here in the office, and they do justice to Lee and Aaron’s art. At the table in 13th Age games they can be used to represent succesful or complicated icon relationship rolls, and you definitely get more for a succesful roll if you show one of these babies instead of a scribble! Back it here!

Fantasy Grounds and Roll 20

The Fire Opal Media team have been working with virtual tabletop software providers Roll20 to produce a 13th Age toolset and adventure. Cat and I tried it out with Rob Heinsoo, Jonathan Tweet and other Fire Opalites, and while it’s rough around the edges, it will be great when it’s ready. Similarly, Doug Davison of Fantasy Grounds is working with a group of 13th Age fans to create a set for 13th Age. It’s the futures, people!

Cthulhu Confidential / GUMSHOE One-2-One

Cthulhu Confidential is has had a first round of playtesting. We’ve prepared playtest packets for war veteran and investigator Langston Wright and ace reporter Viv Sinclair and , and these should be going out soon. If you want to playtest, please go here.

 13th Age SRD

This month we’ve added new content from 13 True Ways to the 13th Age System Resource Document. This includes my favourite character class the Monk, but also the versatile Druid, the ever-helpful Commander and the weird and wonderful Occultist, as well as new creatures and dual class rules.