Getting the PDF for SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE in time for Pelicon (online Pelgrane Press convention, in honor of GenCon which they can’t all go to because Pelgrane operates out of the UK) for eight bucks is a steal. I’d get it myself, except that I already have it in PDF/dead tree form. It’s basically GUMSHOE for fantasy adventure, and if it had been available as an OGL I would have frankly based my own upcoming Fermi Resolution TTRPG around it.
…Hrm.
I wish that I could; I truly do. Pelgrane does amazing stuff. But I got stuff scheduled to do for the next few months.
I have no idea if Robin D. Laws’ FIFTH IMPERATIVE is ever making it over to Amazon. I’m guessing it probably won’t, which is a shame, because the first book in the series (THE MISSING AND THE LOST) is a tight Carcosian-style thriller yet in Pelgrane Press’s YELLOW KING RPG universe. I’ve been waiting to read the sequel since forever.
Moe Lane
PS: Yes, no Amazon links and yet I’m putting it up anyway. That’s how much I liked the first book.
Pelgrane Press’s latest.
FEARFUL SYMMETRIES lets you play as English magicians in the interwar period who are trying to establish a perfect land, based on the mystical theories of William Blake. Alas, this is a campaign set in the Cthulhu Mythos, so it’s probably all going to go horribly wrong. Or worse: horribly right. That’s often even more fun.
Looks like it’ll be a good read. Maybe some day I’ll even get to run a game in it! Probably a con game; that’s usually my best bet for horror RPG playing.
SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE is Pelgrane Press’s sword-and-sorcery GUMSHOE game, and I’ve been looking forward to getting it. I’ve also pre-ordered it, so the news about the price change is only vexing in an academic way:
The ink issues have been resolved with updated files, and the printers have gone back to work on the print book. They’ve got some backlogs at the moment, and their expected ship date is mid-May. We’ll send out an email before they ship out to confirm pre-orderers addresses. If you haven’t pre-ordered your copy yet, you may be interested to know that, due to increases in the print costs, we’ve had to push up the MSRP of the print book to $59.95/£49.95; however, it will remain at its existing $49.95/£39.95 for pre-orderers.
Yay, inflation! And this is just going to get worse, folks. Now is the time to lock in sales prices.
…the book is available in your Pelgrane Press bookshelf. Been looking forward to getting SWORDS OF THE SERPENTINE for a while: Kevin and Em are good folks. I was glad to help playtest it. And, as I recall, some of the people reading this were in on that…
Tried it a bunch of different ways and formats. I gotta say, Zoom was better than Twitch which was way better than Discord; if we’re going to be doing conventions virtually for the time being, Zoom seems to handle it best. I also had the most fun at the Pelgrane Press panels. Heck, I even ran into an old online friend at one, which was pretty cool. I wonder how they’re going to do it for Dragon Con.
No, really. I’d like to know, because it’s gonna be in a month and there hasn’t been much in the way of info about their virtual program. It’d be ironic if this is the one that I can’t go to, because Dragon Con was absolutely the one con I was definitely going to go to this year…
Details for the Pelgrane Press GUMSHOE Community Contest here. Interestingly, I have something already in mind for both Ashen Stars (gritty reboot of 1960s science fiction series) and Timewatch (time travel). One of them is even already written down! So, no reason why I can’t put them both together for this…
I helped playtest Swords of the Serpentine…
…and when I clicked on the order link I was helpfully reminded that Past Me had pre-ordered it, too. Which was smart of Past Me. I mean, yeah, this would be on the list.
I gotta say: Pelgrane Press has excellent customer service. I had ordered WORLDBREAKER a while back, but I guess it was supposed to get fulfilled by a third party at the time and never got shipped. I noticed the problem recently (I had gotten the PDF, too, which is why it didn’t register to me that the print copy hadn’t been shipped) and when I brought it up they resolved the issue right away. No fuss, no muss, no nonsense. It’s one of the many reasons why I buy their products.
