April

See Page XX – April 2025

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On May 1, 2025

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See Page XX: The Pelgrane Press webzine

April 2025 Edition

In Store!

Hamlet’s Hit Points

Hamlet’s Hit Points presents a toolkit that helps make storytelling in any RPG easier and more fun by classifying story beats and letting you track their ups and downs from hope to fear and back.

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The most compelling stories move us emotionally. Up and down, between hope and fear, in ways we don’t always expect—but that you can harness as a writer, editor, and critic. This book shows you how to track, map, and understand the rhythm of a story. Whether you’re writing or rewriting, editing a manuscript or dismantling your favorite television episode, Beating the Story helps you understand how stories get hammered into shape.

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Friendly Local Game Store

Build the Store Your Community Deserves

Tabletop gaming is on the rise. If you love games like Catan, Magic: The Gathering, or Dungeons & Dragons; like the sound of being your own boss; and are willing to dive deep into what it takes to build a successful business, then this is a book for you.

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The Bones: Us and Our Dice

The Bones gathers writing about fandom and family—about gamers, camaraderie, and memories— and ties them together where they meet: our dice. These are essays and anecdotes about the ways dice make us crazy, about the stakes we play for and the thrill we get from not knowing what the next roll will bring.

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Things We Think About Games

Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball think a lot about games. At their commentary website, Gameplaywright.net, they think out loud about what it means to play games, make games, sell games, and love games. They are gamers.

Here, with fellow game designers and notable game players, they think out loud on paper in the first Gameplaywright book.

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The White Box Essays

The White Box is a learning, planning, and prototyping tool for tabletop game designers.

The White Box Essays is a book of 25 essays on game design and production. It covers subjects like where to find a great concept, how to use randomness, what to ask playtesters, whether you should self-publish, how to crowdfund wisely, and what to do at game conventions.

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COMING SOON

Threat Profiles

This sourcebook for Night’s Black Agents does for vampires and their ilk what Hideous Creatures did for the Cthulhu Mythos, offering a ravening pack of new monsters as well as reinterpretations and variants of existing horrors to catch even experienced Agents off guard. Each threat’s write-up gives potential clues and investigative vectors, as well as a sample lair, potential minions, a Conspiramid node or three – and Vampyramid responses and tactics. Status: Being written.

Page Turners

First Edition is the game of personal storytelling for one player and one GM. Incorporating new rules by GUMSHOE One-2-One and DramaSystem designer Robin D. Laws, First Edition features an accessible framework for creating compelling solo protagonist narratives.STATUS: In Layout.

Cassilda’s Song

A massive scenario series by Robin D. Laws for The Yellow King Roleplaying Game, which spans all four of its core sequences.Its overarching plot turns on a contest between the two daughters of the King in Yellow, Cassilda and Camilla, who race with one another to destroy the timelines, winning the favor of their pallid father. Camilla seeks a cataclysm of blood and fire. Cassilda intends to dissolve reality into hallucinatory delirium.STATUS: Art is being commissioned.

A Poison Tree

A campaign for Trail of Cthulhu, a generational saga that spans the globe and 350 years of history as the players take on different roles across five chapters and three interludes. The campaign culminates in world-changing events in the present day, as the players correlate all of their findings, and decide on the destiny of humanity itself!A Poison Tree was originally conceived and written by Matthew Sanderson, Paul Fricker and Scott Dorward, and has been developed and updated by Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan.STATUS: First draft manuscript done and in editing.

Boundary of the Darkness

The Lunar Society are a dining club of natural philosophers, industrialists, and radical intellectuals, the embodiment of the Enlightenment. They have wealth, knowledge, and principles. Simultaneously, members of the Bluestockings Society, who meet to discuss art, literature, and politics, have—in their most secret meetings—formed Friends of Blue, a private organisation set up to protect the world from the devastating knowledge of the Mythos. Boundary of the Darkness is an 18th century campaign frame for Trail of Cthulhu by Phil Masters and Sarah Saltiel.STATUS: In Playtest

ARTICLES

VIEW FROM THE PELGRANE’S NEST – APRIL 2025: Cat Tobin informs us on how Pelgrane production and delivery will be affected by the latest tariffs and also is looking for Gen Con Staff!

SANCTUMS OF EVERSINK: Kevin Kulp introduces new playtest rules for Swords of the Serpentine that let players establish powerful strongholds—called sanctums—infused with pooled abilities and dripping with story potential.

WEIRD GUYS OF THE DRAGON EMPIRE: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan profiles a bunch of delightfully odd 13th Age NPCs with quirks, goals, and ready-to-run plot hooks, perfect for enlivening your next campaign.

TRAIL OF CTHULHU – CLUES ON THE FLY: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan offers improvisational tips for generating compelling clues mid-game in Trail of Cthulhu, turning uncertainty into mystery-building momentum.

NARRATING GENERAL ABILITY SPENDS: Learn how to spotlight your players’ General ability spends with narration advice from Robin D. Laws, designed to make rolls feel impactful and cinematic.

SCENARIO CHECKLISTS: Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan presents practical checklists to help GMs design, structure, and troubleshoot investigative scenarios across GUMSHOE games with clarity and confidence.

THIS MONTH’S PREVIEW

Page Turners Preview: The Beacon

Page Turners is a two-player game of dramatic interaction focused on emotional conflict, where one player and one GM build a story through scenes of petition and resistance using drama tokens. In the Jazz Age scenario The Beacon, the player takes on the role of either Steve Stark or his wife Delia as they become entangled in the glittering, dangerous social world of their wealthy neighbor, navigating relationships, ambition, and heartbreak in a story that shifts tone based on the player’s choices.

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