January 2014: View from the Pelgrane’s Nest

This month column’s is short and to the point. I’ve hived off a big 2013 business report into a separate post, and written about the similarities between the release of Trail of Cthulhu and 13th Age here.

New releases – The Gaean Reach – a game of space vengeance set in the universe of Jack Vance is on pre-order – PDF now; Ken’s Mind Control brings telepathy and Inception-style mindgames into GUMSHOE, and we release two new fiction anthologies, Schemers and The New Gothic. They are all available in the store.

TimeWatch RPG

The TimeWatch RPG Kickstarter is off to a flying start – hitting $20K within 24 hours. I am hoping we’ll hit the hardback at $35K in the next few days. Pledge here and get the playtest document straight away.  If we hit $1bn, we get a time machine and a dinosaur.

An excellent review of TimeWatch can be found here. “I’ve run four sessions with these characters, with the fifth due on Monday, and they’ve all been hilarious, tense, challenging and creative.”

Jack Vance – The Gaean Reach

The Gaean Reach is a new RPG based on the science-fiction works of Dying Earth author Jack Vance featuring a GUMSHOE-meets-Skulduggery system. It is available on pre-order form the store. It will be followed soon by a Gazeteer.

The Dying Earth

If you are reading this in time, an extensive selection of Dying Earth books in PDF form is available as part of the current Bundle of Holding. Pay what you want for the collection. Because of its level of success at the time of writing, we will be releasing a new issue of The Excellent Prismatic Spray featuring more Vancean material.

Stone Skin Press

We have two new release from our sister imprint Stone Skin Press, Robin D Laws Schemers, a Stone Skin Press fiction anthology about Machiavellian maneuvering and grand schemes and The New Gothic, a Stone Skin Press fiction anthology reclaiming the Gothic tradition from vegetarian vampires and friendly ghosts, by Beth Lewis.

In the pipeline is Letters to Lovecraft from Jesse Bullingdon, which is ready for proofreading

DramaSystem

Series Pitch of the Month – This month’s edition is Hold the Chain, by Matthew McFarland. You are the entertainment in the gladiatorial arena of a steam-powered flying city on the brink of revolution. DramaSystem will be available in PDF form next month.

We have not forgotten super-limited edition backers; their covers are being handcrafted in the next couple of weeks.

13th Age

• Enter the 13th Age Bestiary caption competition
• All the art is in from Rich Longmore and The Bestiary is in layout with 13th Age layout artist Chris Huth.
• Rob and his team are making progress with 13 True Ways – read more about that here.
• More of Gareth Ryder Hanrahan’s Eyes of the Stone Thief is available for playtesting.
• Finally, I’ve written an article comparing what we did with Trail to what we will do with 13th Age, which includes a bunch of supplements we are contemplating.