See Page XX
Pelgrane Press Update – June 2006
The following article originally appeared on DyingEarth.com in June 2006.
June brings us to the completion of work on our webstore. Substantial progress has also been made on all of our outstanding manuscripts, and what’s more, new roleplaying games in the pipeline – yes, that’s plural. And remember at the store, you may obtain a free copy of the Quickstart Rules with any other DERPG purchase.
Dying Earth E-Books
All of our Dying Earth books and magazines except Demons of the Dying Earth are now available for purchase in PDF form from the webstore at a substantial discount from the print price. All of our print versions now include the PDF, sent straight away by email when you complete your order, so you can get started. Anyone who has ordered since 2nd November last year will find that they have a PDF version of any Dying Earth book they have bought to download from their order page. By popular request, we have also added the ability to accept PayPal.
Keep Page XX Going
It is the moment for a little unbecoming begging. Page XX is time consuming and expensive to produce. It’s great fun to do, and I’d like to release it more regularly. If you enjoy Page XX, please buy something from our webstore to help us keep it going. The new PDF products mean that your support won’t break the bank.
Dying Earth in the Pipeline
A flurry of activity this month means we have three artists and three layout people working away on “Rhialto’s Book of Marvels“, the “Compendium of Universal Knowledge” and Fields of Silver.
Rhialto’s Book of Marvels is the long-awaited source book for Arch-Magicians. Created by Robin D Laws, designer-in-Chief of the Dying Earth RPG, it features a totally new mechanics with which you can actually win the game. Expect fraught discussions, drunken magical brawls between manses, feeble attempts at seduction and childish one-upmanship. Combined with world-shattering magic, of course. One of the artists has a blog where you can see some of the illustrations for Rhialto (ed: this blog no longer seems to be active).
The Compendium of Universal Knowledge is a gazetteer, a bestiary and an encyclopedia of the Dying Earth. It includes entries by almost all our writers, and is being compiled and edited with additional material by David Thomas. It includes entries long and short, creatures, locations, spells, and people. We use the simple conceit that the book is sentient – the book wrote itself. Observe if you will a sample article from the Compendium, and a first cut of the layout style.
New Times Demand New Games
Pelgrane Press will also be producing new games with the following qualities:
- Easy to learn
- Easy to teach
- Easy to play
- Innovative
- Approachable
A GM should be able to learn each game in half an hour, nuances in a hour or so. It should be easy to teach the basics of the game to a novice in fifteen minutes. The design should take account of developments in gaming over the last ten years and offer something genuinely original. GMs will want to take the game out time and time again.
The Esoterrorists and Gumshoe core rules – The first of these new games will be created by Robin D Laws. We asked him to make a rule set which supports investigative roleplaying and a default background to go with him. I’ve seen and playtested the first draft, and the game is entering full play test on 12th June. Adrian Bott will be reworking the Book of Unremitting Horror for the new system, and we’ll be creating other adventures and rules supplements with an investigative theme. Robin says:
“Unlike other investigative roleplaying games, the Esoterrorist’s GUMSHOE rules system ensures that the plot never grinds to a halt due to a failed die roll. As the top paranormal detectives, you never fail in your areas of expertise. When necessary, you can expend extra effort to glean more from the evidence than any plodding journeyman could hope to find.”
Unreality – Something weird happened to you. Maybe you woke up one morning and found you were married with three kids, perhaps a bus tried to eat or maybe dogs no longer exist. You’ve been unborn. You can manipulate unreality, but it will slowly eat away at everything that is real about you – what anchors you to your humanity. It’s your job to prevent causality violation using your new-found abilities while avoiding the backlash. The system peculiarly makes it easier to do things with unreality the more improbable they are.
Steve Dempsey, long time Dying Earth contributor is creating this new game for us. We’ve run internal play tests and will be ready for a full playtest in a couple of weeks.
The Dying Earth — and its rules-lighter version the Revivification Folio — take you into the world of master fantasist Jack Vance, where a flashing sword is less important than nimble wits, persuasive words,and a fine sense of fashion. Survive by your cunning, search for lost lore, or command the omnipotent but quarrelsome sandestins. Purchase The Dying Earth or the Revivification Folio in print and PDF at the Pelgrane Shop.