Happy new year, all, and best wishes for a fantastic 2017! After a largely-good, sometimes-bad, always-tumultuous 2016, we’ve been steadily clearing the decks to usher in a new year of progress in 2017, including hiring a new Production Assistant to help us deliver the best possible customer service, and allow us to produce even more wonderful books. You can find out more about the whole application and hiring process below.
New this month is the limited edition Dreamhounds of Paris, featuring the same surrealist art and Trail of Cthulhu setting, but a lush faux-leatherbound cover, and a bookplate signed by the authors. And in PDF, we have Looking Glass: Hong Kong, a “Low and Slow” city setting for Asia’s most chaotic port; The Crown Commands and Map Folio PDF Bundle, with forty battles for four crowned icons of the Dragon Empire, and the final edition of 13th Age Monthly, High Druid’s World, available now.
New Releases
- Dreamhounds of Paris Limited Edition – Only 100 copies of this gold-foiled version – beautifully bound in a faux leather cover, with a signed bookplate – exist
- Cthulhu Confidential: Case Notes Edition Preorder – Fight the Mythos alone, in this noir-flavoured GUMSHOE One-2-One game for one player and one GM
- The Crown Commands and Map Folio PDF Bundle – 40 illustrated and mapped battle scenes for the Dwarf King, Elf Queen, Emperor, and Lich King: one set of battles for each of the three tiers of play.
- Looking Glass: Hong Kong – A “Low and Slow” city setting for Night’s Black Agents, The Esoterrorists, Fear Itself, and Trail of Cthulhu
- High Druid’s World – The final edition of 13th Age Monthly Volume 2 features playable monster stats for NPC druids and powerful druidic dragons.
Articles
- View from the Pelgrane’s Nest – Simon Rogers on what’s new in the Nest
- 2016 – A Year in Review – Cat Tobin does a guest post over on Flames Rising about Pelgrane’s 2016
- See P. XX: Cannibalism – Such a Loaded Term – Robin D. Laws talks design and reusing game system elements
- Who Would You One-2-One With Over the Holidays? – The Pelgranistas share their dream One-2-One players
- Using TimeWatch as an educational tool – Daniel Fidelman on how he uses TimeWatch to teach history
- Testing for Residue of the Outer Dark – A procedural guide for The Esoterrorists field agents, by Robin D. Laws
- Call of Chicago: 13 Olympikons – Kenneth Hite on how he’s mapping the Twelve Olympians to the thirteen 13th Age Icons for his home game
- Pelgrane GMs needed for Origins and GenCon – Full details on how to sign up on this page
- Mo Mythos Creatures. Mo Mythos Problems – Robin D. Laws on mythos creatures in GUMSHOE One-2-One
- Finding our Production Assistant – Cat Tobin on how the recruitment process worked
- Heeeeeere’s Alex – Welcome to Alex Roberts, our new Production Assistant!
- Call of Chicago: John C. Lilly, One-Man Mythos – Continuing the theme of things he ran out of room for, Kenneth Hite couldn’t fit all this man’s lore into Fall of Delta Green
- The Plain People of Gaming: From the Sylvanus St. Flea Market– Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan has saved some blasphemous tomes and cryptic relics from the pages of Cthulhu City
- January playtesting – Playtest Operation ALADDIN’S CAVE, the introductory adventure for Fall of Delta Green
13th Age
- 13th Sage: Requirking the Quirks – Rob Heinsoo on how to ensure magic item quirks remain funny
- 13th Sage: Death by Dire Raccoon – Rob Heinsoo introduces a critter that was originally going to be part of the High Druid’s World issue of 13th Age Monthly, but sadly rolled out of contention.
Resource Page Updates
- A write-up of Dorian Gray, by Nick Ingham
- A write-up of Good Lady Ducayne, by Nick Ingham
- Write-ups of the Edom Field Manual‘s szohordoks as innocents, by Nick Ingham
See Page XX Poll
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I don’t have a single show that helps inspire me, so here’s a short list.
The Expanse: I’ve just finished S1, and it’s great for hard sci-fi, so Ashen Stars.
Fortitude: I wanted to run a Fear Itself, Esoterrorists and/or Trail of Cthulhu after watching this.
Twin Peaks: I’ve been running World of Darkness and Gumshoe small towns based on Twin Peaks for over 20 years now. I doubt this will change.
Lost: A study in the importance of mystery and back story.
The Walking Dead: A fine example of how to progress individual and group storylines, how to finish sub-plots and how to foreshadow future storylines
Although I really enjoyed Luke Cage (and also Jessica Jones & Daredevil) and Stranger Things, here are a couple of TV shows I recently watched that I found inspiring:
* Veronica Mars: I so enjoyed this mix of noir mystery and teenage relationships. Fortunately, I recently got Bubblegumshoe.
* The Expanse: I love sci-fi, to bits, and this blend of action, political agendas and noir mystery is exactly what I need for any upcoming sci-fi detective games I’d like to run. Perhaps with Ashen Stars?
Mythbusters: Even if you don’t follow the series the build team has some pretty neat things to make with science! and tinkering spends for a timewatch game especially if players are encouraged to improvise there gadgets in-game.
The Expanse. I tend to like hard sci fi. I am working on a set of modifications to use it with Ashen Stars.
Blacklist and Agents of Shield to some degree have been inspirations for me…
As a huge follower of Nordic Noir and its US remakes I use a lot of characters from those series as NPC templates especially in investigative games. As a less popular genre amongst gamers the sources of my theft often remain hidden.
Trollhunter, the animated Netflix series. I really like the idea of the accidental human hero, and winning the hostile trolls over to his side. Also, any human adult can be a monster of a minion thereof. I think it would be great for some lighter (less fatal) gaming.
Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, especially for Time Watch games.
On a side note; I would be really interested in the fan material for a Ashen Stars to The Expanse. My players and self really liked that series. Even an Official spin off would be amazing.
Young Justice, especially the first season. It is a textbook for doing an arc where the bad guys inevitably succeed — but in such a way that the good guys have success after success, and these are never invalidated. And, personal arcs develop as well.