Everyone at Nocturnal is mourning the passing of King Arthur Pendragon creator Greg Stafford. Greg passed quickly and painlessly while in his sweat lodge at his home in California, an apt departure for the man regarded as the Grand Shaman of Games.

It is hard to overstate the tremendous impact Greg has had on the roleplaying hobby and artform. Greg founded Chaosium in 1975 and created or contributed to numerous games including creating Glorantha the setting of RuneQuest and creating the Prince Valiant roleplaying game. Greg considered King Arthur Pendragon to be his masterpiece, and his The Great Pendragon Campaign is rated the best roleplaying game book of all time on RPGGeek.

More information on Greg, including a forum where fans of Greg’s works can leave a tribute or anecdote about Greg, can be found at the Chaosium website.

We had the pleasure of knowing Greg for decades and benefitting from his wisdom, integrity, creativity and compassion. Greg has signed his emails with “Love without reserve, Enjoy without restraint, Live without dead time”, and his life embodied those words. We hope your life also benefitted from Greg and his many works.

A few months ago, Greg appointed David Larkins to take over as the creative director on the King Arthur Pendragon game. David and Nocturnal will have the honor of carrying forward a piece of Greg's legacy by continuing to publish KAP, including several manuscripts Greg had finished before his passing.

But now farewell. I am going a long way

With these thou seest—if indeed I go

(For all my mind is clouded with a doubt)—

To the island-valley of Avilion;

Where falls not hail, or rain, or any snow,

Nor ever wind blows loudly; but it lies

Deep-meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns

And bowery hollows crowned with summer sea,

Where I will heal me of my grievous wound.

—Idylls of the King

"Continental chivalry! At last the realm of chivalry and the system of Pendragon expand to include the mighty tales of Charlemagne's paladins! Great subject, great game--I'm looking forward to this!" - Greg Stafford, the creator of Pendragon

Nocturnal Media is proud to present PALADIN: Warriors of Charlemagne!

Written by Ruben in 't Groen and powered by the award-winning and bestselling ruleset from King Arthur Pendragon by Greg Stafford, PALADIN covers the famous exploits of Charlemagne and his loyal friends and warriors, the Paladins of Charlemagne!  

You can find it at this Kickstarter link!

Set in medieval Europe, PALADIN weaves together the historical Carolingian events and the medieval epics of The Matter of France into a single coherent chronology!  

In PALADIN the players play young Frankish squires or knights in the service of one of Charlemagne’s powerful vassals. By going on adventures they will acquire glory and riches, become lords of their own lands, build castles and found their own family.  

Hopefully, the road to fame will lead to the ultimate goal: becoming one of the legendary paladins themselves, along the likes of Rol and, Ogier the Dane, Renaud, Oliver, William Shortnose, and others!

PALADIN is a game of medieval fantasy, played using feudal standards of conduct, offering a chance to experience vicariously that long-lost world in both its brutal reality and its fantastic idealism.  

The player characters are knights, with the privileges of elite society and the deadly responsibilities of a warrior. These dualisms – brutal reality versus idealism, and elite privilege versus deadly burden – are the basis for the game.  

PALADIN is a game for knights. It is based on the standards of knighthood found in the original literature about Charlemagne and the paladins (epics such as Song of Roland, Ogier the Dane, Aymon's Four Sons and more).

It is not about magicians, thieves, or scholars. In this game, designed for playing the heavily armed and armored chevaliers of Carolingian literature, knighthood is complex enough!  

Nocturnal Media is thrilled to announce a new partnership with Ragnarok Publications, a division of Outland Entertainment! Nocturnal Media will be working alongside the creative team at Outland Entertainment's Ragnarok line of published products to make high-quality games and stories.

Nocturnal Media will assume most of the role traditionally associated with a publisher, including sales, marketing, and inventory. All games through this partnership will be co-branded with Nocturnal Media and the Ragnarok Publications brands. 

"I've backed several Nocturnal products," says Joe Martin, who co-founded Ragnarok in 2013 and acts as the company's Publisher, "...and I'm taken by their marketing and product intelligence. Jeremy [Mohler] and I are really looking forward to working with a company that knows the games market as well as [Nocturnal] does. They know what they're doing, it's as simple as that."

Nocturnal will assist in the finishing of the roleplaying game Shotguns & Sorcery, based on the novels by author Matt Forbeck (Guild Wars, Brave New World), utilizing the Cypher system ruleset, as well as helping to finish the Horsemen of the Apocalypse card game created by best-selling fantasy author Mark Lawrence (The Broken Empire, Red Queen's War), funded by Ragnarok in a previous Kickstarter campaign.

"Joe and I realize our strengths are in the creative spectrum," adds Jeremy Mohler, Outland's Creative Director. "So, this is an ideal partnership. We can focus on creation and curation of games, while Nocturnal utilizes their expertise and relationships to steer us through the trenches and, basically, lead us forward. It's exciting for all of us."

“The quality of the games, settings, and properties in Joe and Jeremy’s hands following the merger of Outland and Ragnarok is really impressive.” says Stewart Wieck, publisher. “Delivering games to their project backers and gamers everywhere is obviously a priority for these guys and I’m delighted that Nocturnal Media can fill that essential role.”

Look for more news soon regarding future projects!

# # #

Nocturnal Media is a Houston-based game developer and publisher. We publish tabletop roleplaying, card and board games, with primary focuses on storytelling and content-rich settings. 

The company was founded by Stewart Wieck, an award-winning game designer who previously founded and operated White Wolf where he created and published games set within the World of Darkness, such as Vampire: The Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension.

Ragnarok Publications, created in part by Joe Martin in 2013, publishes genre fiction and has released about 50 titles and worked with scores of authors. They are located online at www.ragnarokpub.com. In 2017, Ragnarok became the publishing division of the Topeka, Kansas-based Outland Entertainment, LLC, founded by Jeremy Mohler in 2008. Martin and Mohler are now acting partners. For more, email g.nix@ragnarokpub.com or s.grilo@ragnarokpub.com.

Nocturnal Media is excited and proud to announce a new slew of deals to provide funding and distribution for small game and RPG publishing houses! Games from publishers Ben Woerner & Woerner’s WunderWerks, Ryan Schoon & Loremaster Games, Tobie Abad & TAGSessions, John Kennedy & Smug Pug Games, and Robert Denton will be published jointly with Nocturnal Media. These new arrangements allow these creators to focus on designing, writing and creating evocative, compelling, and vivid roleplaying and board games, in the manner which they already do.

Nocturnal Media will assume most of the role traditionally associated with a publisher, including sales, marketing and inventory. All of the games with be co-branded with Nocturnal Media and the game’s designer. 

Games already available from two of these creators are now listed on the Nocturnal Media publisher page on DriveThruRPG.com. This includes Tobie Abad’s TAGSessions and Ben Woener’s Woerner’s WonderWerks. In fact, until the end of June, enjoy 20% off two fabulous Asian-inspired games by these two creators.

A Single Moment by Tobie Abad is an RPG for two players. The two samurai stared at each other. Once they were friends. Brothers. But time has come for honor to be regained, and vengeance to be unleashed. Footing adjusted. Grips tightened. Eyes narrowed. A single moment and it was over..

World of Dew by Ben Woener is a samurai noir game inspired by Japanese chambara films like The Seven Samurai, Sanjuro, and Memoirs of a Geisha. You play characters that can be dastardly yakuza, cunning geisha, jaded police detectives, or gaijin smugglers in noir cities with rain slicked streets and bodies floating in the gutter.

Both of these superior games deserve your attention!

Over the next few weeks, we will interview each of these creators, showcasing their upcoming games, what brought them to the industry, and the exceptional talent each of them brings to the table! These interviews will include previews of two upcoming 2017 projects, Pulsars by John Kennedy and Gears of Defiance by Ryan Schoon. Both of these games will seek funding on Kickstarter.

On Kickstarter June 6th, Tiny Wastelands is the next genre game in the TinyD6 line published by Nocturnal Media!

Based around the minimalist ruleset popularized in bestselling roleplaying game Tiny Frontiers and it's expansion Tiny Frontiers: Mecha & Monsters, Tiny Wastelands brings the post-apocalyptic wastelands to your tabletop in a small, affordable and easy to learn package!

Play as scavengers, mutants, tyrants, road warriors and more in any of the amazing micro-settings written by contributing authors! With every stretch goal, we add a new micro-setting to the game! These micro-settings are specifically engineered to get you playing quickly, and prompt your game master with awesome ideas that let YOU fill in the details!

So rev up your engines and get ready to scavenge for survival!

Nocturnal Media is proud to announce the Kickstarter launch of Moods of the Mad King. Published under the Gallant Knight Games imprint and the first in a line of micro-games, Moods of the Mad King is designed by Alan Bahr, with gorgeous full color art by Dani Powers, and graphic design by Robert Denton! Moods of the Mad King is a game in the vein of Love Letter, Coup and other small "micro-games"!

Moods of the Mad King is for 2 to 4 players and has an average playtime of 15 minutes! The game plays quickly, is easy to teach, and comes in a very affordable $15 package! Players assume the role of a Playwright in the court of the Mad King, trying to create plays that will please the King before he has them all executed. Lie, steal, write, and cheat to create the best play and keep your head!

The game includes: 

16 Play Cards

4 Mood Cards

12 Act Cards (in 4 Genres)

1 Rulebook

1 Tuckbox

The Kickstarter features stretch goals such as promo cards, an expansion to add a 5th player, and optional playmats as an add-on!

Check it out now!

Our Kickstarter project to fund five different rule system versions of Talislanta: The Savage Land has ben a smash success! We’re over 500% funded and the project has achieved stretch goals to add  more text, artwork, and even a free D6. With more to come! We’re offering a core edition in a revised set of Talislanta RPG rules, but also four additional versions: 5e OGL, Pathfinder, Savage World and Open D6.

Please support our Kickstarter before it ends Sunday April 30 at 10pm CST.

Talislanta is a fantasy roleplaying game and game-setting that was first published back in 1986.

Unlike most RPGs from the 1980s, the Talislanta milieu was not based on traditional Western mythology. It didn’t have the usual Tolkien-esque trappings of games like D&D; in fact, ads for the game proudly proclaimed, “No Elves”.

The original Talislanta RPG was inspired by the fantasy novels of Jack Vance, and by other sources such as H.P. Lovecraft’s The Dreamlands of Unknown Kadath, Michael Moorcock’s Elric novels, and The Travels of Marco Polo.

The game was set in a strange world of twin suns and seven moons that seemed to be practically overflowing with exotic peoples, places, and creatures. The time was the New Age, a Renaissance-like period that started a thousand or more years after The Great Disaster, a cataclysm that marked the fall of the once-great Archaen Age.

During this era, Talislanta was still a dangerous place, especially in the wilderness regions that lay beyond the walled cities. But for many who lived in the New Age, there was also a sense of hope, and the possibility of greater things to come.

That Was Now.

This Is Then...

Discover the dangerous past of the classic Talislanta RPG!

Nocturnal Media is thrilled to announce they will be teaming up with military fantasy author, television personality & avid wargamer Myke Cole to release a miniature based strategy board game based on Myke’s Shadow Ops novels!

    The game, tentatively titled: Shadow Ops: Reawakening, is a tactical board game played around small squads of soldiers and sorcerers between 2 or more players. Using military hardware, magical gifts, and played on a changing game board, players will customize and choose their forces and pursue objectives!

The core game will contain three playable factions:

The Supernatural Operations Corps (SOC), an organized and elite military force

The ancient and powerful magics of the Goblin tribes

The free and chaotic Selfers, on the run from the government

Fully realized with over 40 gorgeous minis, full color graphic terrain designed to be changed between games, and beautifully illustrated play aids, Shadow Ops: Reawakening will be a fun, strategic and gorgeous addition to board game collections around the world.

THE PREMISE OF THE GAME
The Great Reawakening has come, and magic is once again alive in the world. In every nation, people are “coming up Latent,” awakening suddenly to terrifying new powers, raising the dead, summoning storms, setting everything they touch ablaze.

The US responds to this threat by creating the Supernatural Operation Corps (SOC), a cadre of trained Sorcerers serving the national interest. Those magic users who refuse to submit to government control are deemed “Selfers” and mercilessly hunted down. Magic itself is legislated, with certain schools deemed prohibited, their practitioners known as “Probes” with no option but to flee the SOC teams sent to subject them to summary justice. The SOC secretly uses their own Probes, serving through defense contractors that are paid handsomely to hide the government’s hand.

The Reawakening has also brought humanity into contact with a parallel plane known as “The Source,” from which all magic flows. The US military’s exploration of The Source has brought them into conflict with the goblin tribes who live there, and come up Latent at more than double the rate of humans.

You will take command of either a SOC Fire Team, a Goblin Warband, or a Selfer Gang to battle for the freedom to control the most important resource in this dangerous new world: Magic itself.

From Stewart

Wait. Wait! A modern military setting but with magic too? Plus the author of the novels is not only a game player but he’s designed the game? A game with this list of qualities deserved a closer look. 

Everyone at Nocturnal Media was very pleased with what we found in Myke’s design. With a playing time of 1-2 hours, the game moves as quickly as the action in the Shadow Ops books. 

Indeed, Myke has proven such an adept game designer that he’s already playtested another game that we’re publishing. If we can manufacture “Reawakening” as well as it’s been designed, then game players everywhere are in for a treat.

From Myke

My interest in fantasy was built on D&D and early tabletop runs of Titan and Axis & Allies. I kept waiting to outgrow the gaming bug, and I still am, spending way too many hours and way too much money on Commands & Colors, X-Wing, Armada, Imperial Assault, X-Com, Warhammer 40K, and more.

All my life, I have dreamed of getting to design my own game. To have a chance to do that in the universe of my novels goes beyond that dream, and to get to work with the guy who created Vampire: The Masquerade and publishes Pendragon just about caused my brain to short circuit.

Many Shadow Ops fans have told me, “your books read like a wargame.” I’ve always taken it as a compliment. It’s by design, and I’m beyond psyched to be bringing it to you all.

About Myke Cole

As a security contractor, government civilian and military officer, Myke Cole’s career has run the gamut from Counterterrorism to Cyber Warfare to Federal Law Enforcement. He’s done three tours in Iraq and was recalled to serve during the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  He recently joined the cast of Hunted on CBS as part of an elite team of fugitive hunters. 

All that conflict can wear a guy out. Thank goodness for fantasy novels, comic books, late night games of Dungeons and Dragons and lots of angst fueled writing.

You can find the Shadow Ops novels (Control Point, Fortress Frontier & Breach Zone) wherever books are sold, and Myke himself on his website: http://mykecole.com , or follow him on Twitter at @MykeCole.

About Nocturnal Media

Nocturnal Media is a Houston-based game developer and publisher. We publish tabletop roleplaying, card and board games, with primary focuses on storytelling and content-rich settings. 

The company was founded by Stewart Wieck, an award-winning game designer who previously founded and operated White Wolf where he created and published games set within the World of Darkness, such as Vampire: The Masquerade and Mage: The Ascension.

Today on Kickstarter, Nocturnal Media is proud to launch the funding project for Cold Shadows, an espionage RPG inspired by John le Carre, Robert Ludlum, the Cold War, and narrative roleplaying.

Cold Shadows uses a ruleset licensed from John Wick Presents, and expanded and modified for the espionage genre. A talented team of writers, including Nocturnal Media associate producer and senior game designer Alan Bahr, Ben Woerner from Woerner Wunderwerks, Liz Chaipraditkul from Angry Hampster Publishing, and Tobie Abad from TAGSessions are working together to craft a narrative RPG that chronicles the elaborate plots and tensions that evolve over years of spycraft and espionage work. 

Cold Shadows will have the following in the core game:

• Rules for playing as high-level operatives in an Agency
• Rules for one player and one Narrator
• Rules for Narrator-less play
• A chapter on generating a City with rules for how that impacts your Agents
• Chapters on fighting styles
• Information about historical and modern espionage organizations
• A chapter on women in the Cold War and espionage cinema
• And much more!

The Kickstarter project includes:

• 150+ page core rulebook
• 40+ page “Black Book” with NPCs, enemy agents and more
• custom six-sided dice
• Trust tokens that are used between teammates but can be turned against the Agents.
• Stretch goals to add cards to the Storypath Cards deck Path of Shadows.

Also, we are participating in the make/100 initiative from Kickstarter. As part of an Honourable Operative pledge level, 100 backers will receive copies of unique communiques written by our team. These will only be produced for those pledge levels as part of this Kickstarter, and will be useful as props, adventure seeds, and handouts to players.

This project is live now. We appreciate your support!

We’re pleased to announce that Alan Bahr and his Gallant Knight Games (GKG) have joined Nocturnal Media. Effective immediately, Alan is a Nocturnal Media employee responsible for a number of games and product lines, including the games he created at GKG. These games, such as the ready-for-release Tiny Frontiers: Mecha & Monsters, will be published as Nocturnal Media products.

“Alan first came to my attention as an enormous fan of King Arthur Pendragon (KAP), so I know he has great taste in roleplaying,” says Stewart Wieck, owner of Nocturnal Media. “As Alan supported various — ok, all! — of my projects on Kickstarter, I could see that he has a wide-ranging interests. Then with his own Kickstarter projects, I found that Alan was talented, organized, and 100% enthusiastic for games in general.”

Alan started in gaming as the designer of the rules for Howard Tayler’s Planet Mercenary. He recently became the project manager for this game. It’s one of a handful of game projects that Alan will wrap up outside Nocturnal Media.

Alan says, “Not only does Nocturnal Media publish my absolute favorite roleplaying game (KAP), but they're a strong example of reinvention and growth in the roleplaying game industry. From the new wave of European RPGs being translated into English, the revival of stalwarts like West End Games, and the experience their leadership brings to the table, Nocturnal provides more than just games. They provide great stories and memorable experiences! And that's something I believe is the core of everything we do.”

Tiny Frontiers published by GKG is now a Nocturnal Media product, as is Tiny Dungeons, a property that GKG recently acquired to expand the “Tiny” IP, which is collectively now called TinyD6. All the games in this series are minimalistic, rules-lite games that emphasize setting and story. This game line will be widely expanded in 2017 with such products as Tiny Dystopia, Tiny Gunslingers and Tiny Supers.

Alan and GKG bring a number of other future products to Nocturnal Media, starting with Cold Shadows, an espionage roleplaying game featuring rules adapted from John Wick's Blood and Honor ruleset, built to help players tell Le Carre-inspired spy stories! A Kickstarter to fund this game launches on January 31st. Please follow Alan on Kickstarter to receive notice when this project launches.

More of Alan’s future projects at Nocturnal Media will be announced soon. These include both original games as well as games based on exciting licensed properties.

To celebrate this merger, we’re offering Tiny Frontiers at a 50% discount both on this website and DTRPG for the remainder of 2016.

Houston, TEXAS - December 1, 2016 - Games like Belly of the Beast and Perseverant by Ben Dutter will soon be available to thousands more gamers. This is a result of a new agreement between Ben’s Sigil Stone Publishing and Stewart Wieck at Nocturnal Media that will expand the availability of Ben’s games, including Hunt the Wicked and Vow of Honor. These games all successfully funded on Kickstarter and are available in digital form and print-on-demand formats, but in 2017 they will all appear in new offset printed editions.

“I supported Ben’s Belly of the Beast on Kickstarter after the setting captured my imagination,” said Stewart, also a long-time game designer. “As I looked closer, I found a D6 system with innovative changes that integrated with the narrative. This elegant relationship between setting and system reminded me of King Arthur Pendragon, the much-loved classic by Greg Stafford that we publish at Nocturnal Media.”

The agreement allows Ben to focus on his game and product design while retaining complete control over both new and existing properties. Nocturnal Media will assume most of the role traditionally associated with a publisher, including sales, marketing and inventory. All of the games with be co-branded by both Nocturnal Media and Sigil Stone Publishing.

Ben said, ”I've long-admired Stewart's work and impact on the industry, as well as his tenacious pursuit of invigorating game lines (new and old alike). With our new partnership, SSP will be able to produce more games at a quality standard that just wasn't possible before. In short, I can't express my excitement — fans of my work are in for a treat.”

Sigil Stone Publishing will fulfill the recent Kickstarter for Perseverant as Ben has outlined to the project backers. Those who missed the Kickstarter may purchase the PDF or POD editions on DriveThruRPG.com or directly on the Nocturnal Media website in the first quarter of 2017.

The first new game under this agreement will premiere on Kickstarter in March 2017. Clash of Steel is a tactical game of medieval duels that’s a departure from the narrative RPG games Ben has created in recent years. The game features a bidding mechanic and low-luck strategic outcomes. The two-player game features about 70 poker-sized playing cards with artwork by Devin Hoyt.

Several more projects are planned for 2017, including a supplement for Belly of the Beast and a brand-new RPG in the narrative style of Ben’s other games that will be his largest game yet.

You can find more about Ben’s current games and order them at DTRPG using these links:

Belly of the Beast

•     Information
•     Purchase
•     Free Quick Start

Hunt the Wicked

•     Information
•     Purchase
•     Free Quick Start

Perseverant

•     Information
•     First Look Quick Start
•     (Complete Game Available for Purchase in 2017)

Vow of Honor

•     Information
•     Purchase
•     Free Quick Start

Ben will continue to produce RPG supplements for his Patreon supporters. Gain access to this new material (such as this setting expansion for Vow of Honor) by becoming a supporter.

Jeff Barber’s new Upwind roleplaying game funded in only 13 hours on Kickstarter and generous backers have supported it to a fourth stretch goal. Now in it’s final week, the most amazing stretch goals remain. Next is Upwind Incursion, a complete print-&-play Skyship Combat Game. We may also unlock a new short story and then TickTock, a complete alternate setting for use with the innovative Q System introduced in Upwind.

A co-production of Nocturnal Media and Biohazard Games, Upwind is a narrative style RPG set in a strange alternate world of floating island nations, flying sailing ships, long-lost technology, wild elemental powers, looming war and forgotten legacies. The full-color hardcover RPG is already joined by four free bonus extras for project backers: an "illuminated” character sheet; a navigational poster portraying the uncanny geography of Upwind — the Kingdoms in the Light, the Twilight Frontier and the Dark; an Upwind mini-campaign written by Ross Payton, host of Role Playing Public Radio (a great site that features an interview with Jeff Barber); and a Ships of the Realms Identification Poster. The free adventure ties directly into and expands the gameplay for The Prophecy of the Grand Amplifier, a campaign sourcebook also available in the in the project.

Not only is the setting of Upwind exciting, but it features the Q(uantum) system that you may preview. The Q System is an original stakes-based, playing card-driven mechanic that gives every encounter consequences with meaningful, narrative-building outcomes. With its unique bidding rules, Upwind plays as fast as you can tell your story.

Please consider supporting this exciting new game by the creator of the acclaimed Blue Planet RPG.

Voyage of Fortune’s Star is our single-player, 3D, story-driven computer roleplaying game based in the rich world of Théah as presented in John Wick’s tabletop roleplaying game, 7th Sea. A project to fund this new cRPG is now on Kickstarter.

Here are some key elements of Voyage of Fortune’s Star:

You primarily experience the story first-person as the captain of Fortune’s Star, Anzolo Zorzi.

We hope to add the overlapping storyline of the Fate Witch, Magdalena Salvaza, so that for sequences of the game she becomes the primary character under your control.

You have a large crew of pirates and will be able to direct their actions as well.

Whether you experience it only from Anzolo’s point-of-view or if we can also add Magdalena’s narrative, the story is our priority. Experienced, award-winning writers will craft a rich, dialogue-based narrative.

The game is built in Unreal Engine 4 and features point-and-click gameplay.

The game is available as a digital release, as well as in standard and collector’s boxed editions loaded with extras.

We’re initially developing versions for PC, Mac and Linux.

Digital release for backers is via Steam and also DRM-free.

We have many language options planned, including English, French, German and Spanish.

We hope you’ll consider supporting our new game. The initial funding goal is $200k and that will allow us to create an exciting cRPG, but with enough support we’ll add more story, content and music!

Upwind is a new tabletop roleplaying game of lost science, elemental magic and uncharted skies from acclaimed game designer Jeff Barber (Blue Planet, Midnight). Originally developed at Biohazard Games, Upwind is now a joint production with Nocturnal Media. The new roleplaying game is the first of many potential projects.

Imagine Bakshi’s classic animated film “Wizards” has a head-on collision with Disney’s “Treasure Planet” and the resulting fire is put out with a whole lot of Studio Ghibli’s “Castle in the Sky.” That, in an unexpected, animated mash-up, is Upwind.

“Upwind is ‘Tesla-Punk’,” said Stewart Wieck, owner of Nocturnal Media. “Both in its setting and its unique game system, Upwind is unlike any other game I’ve ever published.”

Set in a strange alternate world of floating island nations, flying sailing ships, long lost technology, wild elemental powers, looming war and forgotten legacies, Upwind is a narrative style RPG. Gameplay is powered by the Q-system, an original stakes-based, playing card-driven mechanic that gives every encounter consequences with meaningful, narrative-building outcomes. With its unique bidding rules, Upwind plays as fast as you can tell your story.

"Biohazard is excited to partner with Nocturnal on the Upwind project,” said designer Jeff Barber. “The game has already benefited from Stewart's enthusiasm, experience and expertise. Our ambitions for the line have grown dramatically in the short time we have been working together and the game will be bigger, more beautiful and reach a much broader audience as a result. I share Stewart’s conviction that games can be forms of art as much as entertainment.”

Upwind will launch as a Kickstarter project next month - October 11th. The campaign will fund a portion of the printing costs for the Upwind core book, the “Knight’s Deck” custom cards and the “Prophecy of the Grand Amplifier” adventure and sourcebook. All these products benefit from a single artistic vision. Illustrator James Stowe has been part of the development process from the beginning and is helping to bring the unique world of Upwind to life.

The Nocturnal Media/Biohazard Games partnership may also mean new life for other Biohazard Games projects. Jeff Barber said, “Our award winning Blue Planet RPG turns 20 next year and fans have long hoped for a rejuvenation of the game and the completion of our original plans for the line. This, among other potential surprises, might finally happen through the new partnership.”

Everything begins this October with the project to fund Upwind. Join the Explorer Knights and sail into the Twilight Frontier!

The Explorer Knight’s Pledge

To honor the Guild.
I so vow.
To seek the Knowledge.
I so vow.
To defend the Kingdoms.
I so vow.
To defy the Dark.
I so vow.

Our project for a new edition of Greg Stafford’s classic roleplaying game Prince Valiant® The Storytelling Game is off to a gallop on Kickstarter. First published by Chaosium, Inc. in 1989 as a b&w softcover, the new edition is a hardcover book in glorious full color. The brilliant artwork by Prince Valiant® creator Hal Foster deserves this edition.

As does Greg’s outstanding game design. Prince Valiant® The Storytelling Game features a simple game system suitable for new and/or young roleplayers that uses coins instead of dice. While there are advanced rules that add addition careers and skills, the basic rules describe characters with two Attributes (Brawn and Presence) and fourteen skills.

The game is strongly oriented toward cooperative storytelling and allows for the everyone to become the Gamemaster. As GM you collect certificates that you can then use as a player for special effects like “Find Something Hidden” or “Knock an Opponent Senseless”.

Also available in the project are a Prince Valiant® gold coin, a new deck of Storypath Cards called Path of Chivalry, and copies of the new printing of King Arthur Pendragon that features the artwork of Jaime García Mendoza from last year’s Spanish translation of the game.

Based on the comic strip by Hal Foster that has been in continuous publication since 1937, Prince Valiant® The Storytelling Game captures the romantic and heroic essence of the Arthurian spirit. This edition allows a new generation of gamers and past admirers alike to tell tales in this gleaming and adventurous world.

Please visit the project page and consider supporting this new edition. The project runs through August 26th.

Gladiator: Quest for the Rudis has been in our Kickstarter backers’ hands for several months and the game recently became available in your FLGS too. Thanks to the questions and comments from players of the game, designer Jim Trunzo has fashioned an errata and update based on his correspondence, including on our forum. There are a number of clarifications of things we got right, but we did make some mistakes too!

Also, some players prefer to keep track of their gladiators’ information on paper instead of the game board, so we’ve made a scoresheet along the lines of one that Jim originally wanted to include in the game. We eventually omitted the pad of scoresheets because there are so many other components to the game and a pad of sheets eventually runs out anyway, right?

Included in the errata and update is a list of five cards from the main game and one card from the Famous Gladiators expansion deck that have been changed. All six of these cards are available free directly from Nocturnal Media. Instructions are included on the errata sheet.

These six new cards are also available via POD on DTRPG at “cost” (the least we can charge on that site). If you would prefer to order the cards from that site or download a PDF of the new cards, then please find each of the six cards listed individually on the Gladiator: Quest for the Rudis product page.

Here are links to these two free updates:

Errata and Update for Gladiator: Quest for the Rudis

Scoresheet for Gladiator: Quest for the Rudis

Stellar support for our recent Kickstarter project that funded five new decks of Storypath Cards has also cleared the way for a sixth deck that’s part of the current project to fund an English translation of Hellywood, a supernatural noir RPG from France. The new deck is the Path of Shadows.

We offered four decks of Storypath Cards when we launched the project and stretch goals unlocked a fifth deck that will be sent free to project backers. Two of these decks are new editions of the original decks Stewart Wieck published at White Wolf in 1990 — Path of Horror and Path of Intrigue. These plus the three new decks — Adventure, Hope, and the backer-selected Morality — are all available for pre-order.

The new Path of Shadows will be perfect for a noir-inspired game, but will help players of other RPG genres drive the narrative as well. It’s just one of the amazing add-ons, including art deco poker cards and custom d6, offered in our Hellywood project as we fund our second translation of a European RPG. The first was late 2015 when the Spanish RPG Aquelarre received incredible support on Kickstarter. That game is also available for pre-order, with special pricing for shipping.

Hellywood is very near to funding and there’s is a long list of scenarios available as stretch goals that we hope to provide to our project backers.

Nocturnal Media announces an agreement with John Doe Editions of France to publish their noir-inspired tabletop roleplaying game, Hellywood. Described by designer Emmanuel Gharbi as his “love cry” to the noir and hardboiled genres, the game is set in 1949 in the California city of Heaven Harbor, nicknamed “Hellywood”.

Originally published in France in 2008, Hellywood is supported by a GM Screen, several scenarios and the forthcoming Justice of Angels, a 12-part campaign. Translation of all of this material is underway, and following a crowdfunding project on Kickstarter, it will soon be available in English from Nocturnal Media.

The inhabitants of Heaven Harbor live in the shadows of a city consumed by corruption, greed, and violence. And this is before the so-called “Day of Ashes” in 1942 when the sky rained ashes for an entire day and something happened and Hell itself seemed suddenly closer. From south of downtown, in a ghetto now known as the Forbidden City, emerged the “hornheads”. These non-human creatures quickly insinuated themselves into all the seedy, corrupt and illegal operations of Heaven Harbor.

Players of Hellywood assume the roles of tough guys or girls making a living in the Heaven Harbor. They are the cops, bouncers, bums, thugs, artists, bartenders, and other everyday people who are trying to make sense of and hopefully survive events swirling around them that inevitably involve them. You may even opt for the role of a “hornhead” — a golem, succubus, seraphim or possessed — but the events of the Day of Ashes have left you as nearly in the dark as everyone else… and just as uncertain of whether true demons exist or not.

The Gamemaster (called the “Voice-over” in Hellywood) has the amazingly detailed city of Heaven Harbor at his or her disposal. The core rulebook contains eight pre-generated characters and two scenarios in addition to all the rules to play, though the organization of the material might change for the English edition or as a result of Kickstarter stretch goals.

In what may be a first, Nocturnal Media and John Doe Editions will launch parallel crowdfunding projects on Wednesday May 26th. The Nocturnal Media project will seek to fund English-language editions of all Hellywood products on Kickstarter, while John Doe Editions seeks funding for Justice of Angels and a new edition of the core rulebook on the French site Black Book Editions. Both projects are stand-alone, but there will be joint stretch goals unlocked for backers based on the combined funding of the two projects.

Following the success of our Kickstarter project to fund a translation of the classic Spanish RPG Aquelarre (pre-orders still available) published by Nosolorol Ediciones, we followed the advice offered by many backers to look at other quality Spanish games that are unavailable in English. Perhaps no other Spanish game is as overdue for translation as Aquelarre, first published thirty years ago, but we found an extraordinary variety of outstanding games that definitely deserve the attention of English-speaking gamers.

We are pleased to now announce that we have entered in agreements to publish a number of these games in English over the course of the coming year.

The first of these is Adventures in the East Mark (AEM), created by Pedro Gil and published by Holocubierta Ediciones. AEM is a pre-eminent example of OSR games that’s endorsed in an introduction by none other than Frank Mentzer. Frank’s 1983 revision of the D&D Basic Set started the run of boxed editions known as BECMI (Basic, Expert, Companion, Master and Immortal) and is the original “red box”. This first boxed set of AEM, also with a red dragon on the cover, is referred to as the “Red Box”.

AEM received a period of attention at the end of 2013 when Extra-Dimensional Publishing funded an English translation on Kickstarter. The project encountered various difficulties but backers did receive the vast majority of the promised rewards, including the Red Box.

Nocturnal Media has the last remaining copies of the Red Box in stock and available for sale, and translation of the “Blue Box”, which contains a vast campaign setting for use with the characters and rules presented by the Red Box. Translation is scheduled to be completed by early Summer, and a Kickstarter project to fund the publication of the second box of the series will be announced soon.

The Basic Rules from the Red Box are also available on DriveThruRPG.com. The game and setting as a whole is supported by an website called The Codex that is maintained by Angela Rivera Campos, the Editorial Director for both AEM and the second game of this invasion. The Codex is a website that offers fan-submitted material for the Red Box. It’s an English version of the very popular Codex de la Marca that has amazing support among Spanish fans of the game.

The second game, also created by Pedro Gil, is Walküre, published by The East Mark Creative Group.

A roleplaying game of hard science fiction and realistic military simulation, Walküre (pronounced val-ˈkir-ē) includes espionage, infiltration, intrigue, suspense, noir… and exploration — space exploration! It is a fantastical adventure in an alternate reality where World War II ended in an armistice creating a fragile détente between the Allies, the Axis and the Soviets.

Some fantastic images of this game are available in Pedro’s crowdfunding campaign that funded the Spanish edition of the game.

Walküre is the ultimate contemporary RPG, its system and setting allows play from the end of the WW II through the start of the space race to the near future, all meticulously detailed in the core book. You are able to play any character from the leading nations and alliances from 1945 to 2075 and enjoy an alternate world in which WW II did not end as we know it.

An enormous 400+ page book, Walküre will be seek funding on Kickstarter as a full-color hardcover rulebook. Translation has just started and is expected to be completed around the end of September. We hope to eventually also offer the two supplements also recently crowdfunded in Spain, Crossfire and Special Red Action.

The third game that’s the part of this Spanish Invasion is Akuma, created by Luis M. Peral and Juan Luis Marqués and published by Akuma Studio.

Akuma is an anime-themed roleplaying game set in a reality similar to our own. The modern world is changed because of a key event five millennia ago: demons from another universe entered the Gate, a huge portal between worlds. By this means, the Akuma arrived on Earth.

The sacrifice of an ancient civilization closed the Gate, but not before an advance party of demons in spiritual form entered our world. These spirits are now separated from the Mazoku, the six Demon Kings, but they incarnated in humans and began the titanic task of collecting enough souls to reopen the Gate.

Also a large book at nearly 400 pages, Akuma will seek funding on Kickstarter as a gorgeous full-color hardcover book. Translation is underway for August completion.

We’re very pleased to announce this trio of Spanish games that on the heels of our project for a English-language edition of Aquelarre mark the second wave of our Spanish Invasion. Sign up for updates at the bottom of the Nocturnal Media home page to receive news about the impending Third Wave!

A project to fund a new edition of Greg Costikyan’s award-winning game Web & Starship is now live on Kickstarter. Originally published in 1984, Web & Starship is an asymmetrical 3-player game that won the Charles S. Robert Award for the year’s best science fiction board game.
The new edition has upgrade components and is available in Standard, Delux and Special Editions. The Special Editions are limited to three sets of 100 copies featuring the three races at odds in the game: the bird-like Gwynhyfarr, the burrowing Pereen, and the Terrans of Earth. Play takes place on a two-dimensional game board centered on Sol that represents the three dimensions of space. Notations on the board indicate the distance of a star above or below ecliptic (the plane formed by the Earth's orbit around the sun).

Game-play is asymmetric as all of the three players have very different abilities and options at their disposal. And while "asymmetric" often means Euro-style games that are like "playing solitaire simultaneously", Web & Starship is a game of economic expansion interrupted by space battles and conquest. Namely: the conquest of Earth.

NOTE: The game includes two-player rules with the Terrans as an unplayed third position. Both players bid Economic Points to influence the Terran Diplomacy Track.

Cover art by Grzegorz Pedrycz.