Oh man, I’m glad I took a bit of a vacation, because it is fully on right now. Usually I try to start these out with some relatively mundane anecdotes about my life, but I just don’t have the time! I have to roll right into the Pugsteady…
News
First off, I have two crowdfunders going on at the moment.
The first is the Storypath Ultra Core Manual. This has been a really different project for me in a couple of ways. Not only is it the first time I’ve been developer on a book that’s primarily just about mechanics with no world attached, but it’s also one that I mostly developed and wrote myself. I worked a lot with my colleagues at Onyx Path Publishing on it, to be sure, but in the end I pulled everything together on my own, filled in a lot of gaps, and carefully rewrite it several times until I got it just the way I wanted it. Plus, I added an entire game world to the back called Pinfall From Grace, Body Slams From Hell, which is about literally wrestling with literal demons in an alternate year 2000 where the Apocalypse happened. It’s nearly 300% funded already, so it’s a safe back to try and get some cool stretch goals.
The second is Transgressive Horror Resurrected! It’s another collection of essays talking about horror movies that broke the rules. I’m talking about Santo en La Venganza de la Momia (1970). They even did a little profile on me! It’s still unfunded with six days left to go, so if you want to read my take on luchador horror movies, so back it!
I’m also working on a huge new Kickstarter with a team of people. It’s for Curseborne.
So what is Curseborne? From the website:
It’s a stand-alone core rulebook detailing a shadowy urban setting of mysteries and legends, romance and betrayal, and more. This is the first book in a game line that will have multiple source books, fiction, dice, fashion items, accessories, adventures, and much more.
The Kickstarter for that will launch in October, and I’m really excited for it. I’m just one small piece of this amazing team, but I’m really excited for this one as a chance for me to return to horror after a long time away. Keep checking out the website, curseborne.com, or this newsletter!
Speaking of things in the works, I’ve been busy in the Realms of Pugmire mines, too! The core rulebook for Realms of Pugmire is wrapping up layout, with an early access backer version already out to people who supported the original crowdfunding campaign. Once we get an index done, it should be off to printers soon after that, so it’ll be in your hot little paws soon.
But during that we also got a whole entire second book done! It’s a collection of enemies, antagonists, and monsters called Threats and Curs, and it’s a loving homage to classic fantasy gaming. Just check that cover out!
Even better, it’s entirely illustrated by long-time artist Rich Thomas, who was also one of the original artists for Magic: The Gathering. So you know he understands that classic fantasy art vibe. This one has bypassed crowdfunding and will be available on DriveThruRPG really soon, so keep an eye out.
And, on top of keeping things moving like various stretch goal projects and the incredible Curious Cats of Mau, I also have finished the outline for yet another Realms of Pugmire book. It’s tentatively titled Expansion of the Realms, and it will be the longest Pugmire RPG supplement I’ve ever put together. Stay tuned.
By the way, do you like Realms of Pugmire, and want to make your own stuff in it? Right now, DriveThruRPG has a game jam going on! Called “The Next Adventure,” it’s a challenge to create and publish a new adventure that takes place after a jumpstart’s adventure. Pugmire is proudly a part of this game jam, and my book on advice on how to write for Pugmire, “Buried Bones,” even gets a shout-out in the article! You have until September 30th, so get your keyboards clicking.
You thought that was everything? Oh no. On top of all of that, I’ve also been announced for a new project for Cyberpunk RED! Check out the announcement from the R. Talsorian website:
Yes, the Night City 2045 Setting Book is officially announced and in full production. This will cover districts, points of interest, gangs and corporations, and a full street map of Night City. We have over 15 writers contributing to this project. Want an idea who? You’ll see the likes of N Jolly, Linda Evans, Alison Cybe, Anne Morrison, Fernando Damas, Melissa Wong, Rachel Savicki, Eddy Webb, Tsuneo Tateno, Chris Spivey, Fran Stewart, Steve Kenson, Graeme Barber, Mike MacDonald, Trace Wilson, Crystal Mazur, and more! It’s turning into one of our largest projects we’ve undertaken, and we can’t wait to share more details!
And friends, this is only the stuff I’m allowed to talk about. I have a lot of things going on in the background, including a fair number of interviews, podcast appearances, and actual plays lined up. It is, as they say, a lot.
My Media
Of course, I’m still finding time for other things. In fact, I’ve started painting miniatures for the first time in well over a decade. You can see my initial efforts on my Instagram (spoiler: it ain’t great).
I’ve also been reading Doctor Who books. Kind of. I need to explain.
So, when Doctor Who got big in the early 1960s, it was so popular that a couple of movies were made of two of the stories (which happened to feature the Daleks, who were also incredibly popular at the time). But Doctor Who was still forming as a series, so a lot of what we consider to be established information about the show wasn’t set in stone yet. So instead of a show about a Time Lord flying in a beautifully alien and self-aware time machine, we got Peter Cushing playing a very human inventor who invented a time machine in his garden and takes his family on strange adventures. That’s the first bit.
As the show got popular, but before home video technology allowed people to really revisit the old episodes, there were novelisations of the stories. These were often written by the original script writers or people involved with the show, and it gave folks a chance to adjust and nudge the story in different ways, allowing them to talk about things that couldn’t have been done on television, or on the show’s budget, or just got cut for some reason or another. But the Peter Cushing movies never got official novelisations.
Enter Obverse Books.
They produced two unofficial novelisations covering the two Peter Cushing movies, written in the style of the original, official Doctor Who novelisations. So they’re not exactly like the original movies, but rather an idealised version of them. Which in and of itself is pretty neat.
But there are thirteen novelisations on their website.
What they did was to posit an alternate world where the movies kept going, continuing to adapt and modify Doctor Who stories throughout the 1960s and 1970s. They even noted that Peter Cushing did a pilot for a radio series that was never picked up, so in their world the radio show did happen, and they do anthologies of these fictional radio shows.
So it’s an unofficial series of books (where all the profits go to charity) featuring a non-canonical Doctor in a series of adventures that are three steps removed from the ones we know: because they’re adapted from video to prose, because they feature a different Doctor and companions from the ones we know, and because they’re part of an entirely fictional history of the show that never happened. There are even “historical” references at the start of the books, beginning with the third one, that tell you which actors were hired for which movies, and some of the “behind-the-scenes” stuff that happened to produce these entirely made-up movies and radio programs.
These books are utterly, utterly mad. And I love them.
Anyhow, back to the grind. See you next month!