Check Out Twenty-One New Pieces of Monster Artwork for the Xeno Files!
about 4 years ago – Sun, Apr 12, 2020 at 09:15:55 PM

Grimmerspace Monsters Are Now Close Enough To Pet!

Greetings Grimmers!

April showers may bring May flowers, but March brought twenty-one new monster paintings to the Xeno Files book, so April is really going to have to up its offer. Below you'll see a thumbnail of more than half the monsters in our bustling bestiary! 

(From left to right repeating, starting from the top row) we have the: Pang, Gyreling, Catabol, Halite, Thuurg, Undreen, Hodrak, Keroq, Thew, Epid, Insidion, Skree (name change a comin'), Radjacker, Chompnoggin, Jacitator, Living Eye, Sinbiot, Ormo, Attien Colossus, Zyrag, and Mish. 

If you Facebook, click HERE to see details about each of these monsters. 

WINNER WINNER ZYRAG DINNER!

We conducted a live Grand Prize Raffle drawing on Facebook Live to determine the winner of Larry's Elmore's original "Zyrag" illustration. A monster Larry helped design!

With over a thousand entries on the wheel, the winner was... 

Oh, who really wants to watch a six-minute long video? Our winner was Dave Townsend and he's going to frame it and put it up on his wall where it belongs. Congratulations, Dave!

Adventures, Classes, and Polities, Oh My!

Owen Stephens sent in the third of our five Grimmerspace character classes for development. 

Internal playtesting on the first two Grimmerspace character classes Owen submitted is already underway!

Adventures continue to be written by our team, and we now have in hand six of the planned fourteen adventures for Grimmerspace: Settings & Adventures.

We expect to get Scavenger's Voice, the follow-up to Abattoir 8,  into internal playtesting next week. After incorporating the initial results of that playtest, we'll then run our Playtester tier Kickstarter backers through it.

Hal Maclean Joins The Team

Game Designer/World Builder Hal Maclean was actually the very first writer we chose to join our team, and it only took us a few years to finally get him in the saddle. After creating the Pang and the Mish monsters for us, he's drilled down into our voluminous polity notes and is making Grimmerspace's sweetest nightmares come true.

Hal Maclean was one of the most prolific freelance contributors to both Dragon and Dungeon magazine during the final three years of their print runs (twenty-nine and nine). His Pathfinder credits include; Elves of Golarion, Gnomes of Golarion, Halflings of Golarion, Goblins of Golarion, Blood of Fiends and The Advanced Race Guide. He created significant swathes of setting for the cyberpunk game Interface Zero. 

Hal said, "I also wrote Blight Elves; Architects of Despair along with its companion volume The Blighted Bestiary, and I designed the rules and co-created the setting for the science/fantasy Traveler game supplement, Netherell - Planet of Magic; each of those last three books edited and overseen by Rone "The Dark Prince" Barton, Hey, whatever happened to that guy?"

Well, Hal... the answer there is that he grew up to write long Kickstarter Updates.

MONSTER MARCH: A Monster a Day and a Chance to Win!
about 4 years ago – Wed, Mar 11, 2020 at 08:24:12 PM

March 11th to March 31st

Monster March is upon us!

Starting today, every day for 20 days straight, master illustrator Matthias Kollros will paint a monster from  our upcoming Xeno Files bestiary from Wednesday March 11th to Tuesday March 31st!

Visit the Grimmerspace facebook group and enter our daily monster contest to win a a 24"x36" poster of Matthais Kollros' amazing "Onslaught" (that’s it, above), and maybe even win the Grand Prize... 

Larry Elmore's original, signed pen-and-ink illustration of the "The Zyrag," an iconic Grimmerspace monster he helped design, worth $1000!

Get all the details, see the monsters, and take your shot to win here.

Grimmerspace is the new sci-fi horror setting for Starfinder™from actor/director Sean Astin and ENnie-winning game designers Lou Agresta and Rone Barton.

When a rational galaxy is invaded by magic, it's bullets versus fireballs against a backdrop of alien terrors!

Update: Adventure Summaries and More
about 4 years ago – Fri, Feb 28, 2020 at 08:22:03 PM

 Still Accepting Late Pledges at the Grimmerspace Pre-Order Store

  Greetings, Grimmers!
  Just a quick update to let you know what's going on in the Gliding Rim galaxy...

THE PROJECT IS MOVING

Classes Owen KC Stephens said he's about to send in his Recombinator character class over, and we'll get that into play-test shortly thereafter. He also reports plans to send in another character class every few days after that. The Recombinator is an Emanant Spectrality geneticist who vat-grows hideous simple lifeforms that protect and kill for their creator.

Starships Jason Bulmahn, Paizo's lead system designer, has our Grimmerspace spaceship notes and is designing away. He's crafting signature starships for the Grimmerspace polities and factions, as well as unique starship technologies to add to your game.

Monsters In March we’re going to be doing a special promotion called Monster March on our Grimmerspace Facebook Group page. The promotion features Mathias Kollros, the artist who painted our Hodrak, the Sundermages, the Grimmerpace Player’s Guide cover, and Big Boy Thrask from the cover of Abattoir 8. 

Starting the second week of March, Matthias will be cranking out a painting for one monster from the Xeno-Files (our Grimmerspace bestiary) every single day. That’s twenty monsters in twenty days, half the monsters in the entire book! And besides heading over to our Facebook Group page to see his amazing efforts appear each day, we’ll also offer creative prompts to give you a chance to win prizes. Stay tuned for details! In the meantime, consider joining our Facebook group to talk Grimmerspace with fellow backers and fans.

On the Adventure Front Quite a bit of work is underway, and we thought you'd enjoy a sneak peek at every adventure in the main book, plus a few more...

To start, we're close to finished with the working draft of Scavenger’s Voice, the full-length adventure that immediately follows Abattoir 8. Unlike the splatter horror and survival horror offered in our first adventure, nothing will prepare you for the cosmic and body horror you’ll find on the recently depopulated Scavenger's Voice. Learn the secret behind the disaster that transformed Abattoir 8 into a hellscape! Together Abattoir 8 and Scavenger's Voice comprise the Casket of the Cull adventure arc.

After a bit more editing, we’ll begin playtesting Scavenger’s Voice. So, Playtester Pledges, expect to hear from us in the next week or two to discuss dates and times to game!

In other adventure news, we're currently reviewing a completed adventure by author Jason Brick set on the planet Vigil. Your party takes a pest-exterminating odd job and lands on an abandoned world where all the creature comfort technologies mysteriously still function… the lights are on but no one is home. And no one has been home in a very long time. You’ll soon learn this planet isn't as empty as you thought, and coming here might be the last trip you ever take.

Additionally, we’re expecting four big polity adventures to hit the editing desk soon: one from Paizo’s Amanda Hamon, who is writing the adventure set in the Attien Combine; the second is multiple ENnie award-winning designer Ben McFarland’s Votikun Empire adventure; and the third and fourth are from famed designer Greg Vaughan delivering his Somnium Meld adventures… plural. One for the Setting & Adventures book and one for Grimmerspace Adventures Vol 1.

Amanda setStrat Attack in an Attien Combine mega-arcology, wherein your party stars on a reality show called The Strat Attack. You compete against other teams, but you do so while under the effects of a boutique virus created specifically to debilitate show contestants over time. While trying to win your way to your next re-up of antidote, you discover the virus slipped its leash and that something unthinkably terrible now spreads among the 400 million occupants of the mega-arcology.

In Ben McFarland’s Votikun Empire adventure, you start on the water world of Kundara where they are experimenting with a cutting edge technology designed to teleport water to the volcanic planet of Voti. But hey… technology right? Sometimes you blow a fuse, sometimes the world ends. Find out which as soon as you get this adventure in your hands!

Our Thriftic Binary adventure is titled Zugzwang. You’ll start on Gylorr as part of a team hired to find the reptilian, cyber-enhanced equivalent of a junkyard dog and soon be drawn into a nuclear weapons plot that will range from the Endless Mall on the moon of Diliff -- and the worst restaurant experience you're likely to have all year -- to the fully robotized planet of Fazhura and the inner workings of a dangerous plot to drive a wedge between two worlds.

They Go to Stone is our Emanant Spectrality Adventure. While visiting one of the Spectrality’s crypt moons, you’re hired to find a rich couple’s missing daughter. News says her ship crashed soon after taking off, on its way to attend the Tarthaziel festival in space, but the GPS built into her personal comms says otherwise. As you investigate you'll discover that the unbelievable things Emanants fear are real and, unless you’re really good at pushing the right buttons, we think you might just suffer one of the most memorably horrific moments you've ever experienced while gaming.

Besides our big polity adventures, shorter adventures set in The Edge, away from the relative safety of The Crux, are rolling in too. Just like in They Go to Stone, we have another over the top shocker, only this one is set on the planet Vernath. It’s called Mating Season, and starts when you land near a research base conducting experiments on a world where, during a certain season, all forms of life interbreed. And if you survive the native fauna to reach the facility, you’ll see something you just… never wanted to see. After playing this adventure, we doubt you’ll ever think of the phrase mating season again without cringing. 

From the forest world of Paravesh we present, When the Gods Creak. Your party has been sent to collect botanical samples from a realm inhabited by the dimly sentient skree, mammalian flyers who glide down to feast on you from the high branches of the mysterious and haunting 1000 foot tall Locha trees. Survive and you may uncover the secrets that made this strange world what it is... and how chaos itself rules here.

On the planet Tarmire, we set Salt in the Wound. You’re hired to protect archeologists as they dig on this moisture-free, white-salt desert world. They’ve been digging up strange, coiled stones from beneath the salt, some stretching meters high. Meanwhile, another group seeking to exploit Tarmire is trying to make it rain on an alien planet that hasn't seen a drop of moisture in millennia. However, the actions of both parties are but cocktail ingredients for a top-shelf disastertini on the rocks. Drink up!

 On the radioactive world of Culimec, where an apocalypse left a wasteland in which only the most twisted things survive, we present the adventure Nothing but Rubble. Your PCs land on Culimec's surface seeking a priceless and ancient technological item known as a memestick. Will you find it? Maybe, but you're certainly going to find a few things you weren't looking for. Our Mad Maxthulu is not for the faint of heart. Prepare to meet one of the most disturbing monsters ever created, the chompnoggin.

Kahl Halazon is an infamous concentration of shipwrecks, discussed in nervous whispers by captains throughout the G-Rim, and we set an adventure there titled The Pulse That Binds. Stay at Kahl Halazon for too long and you’ll fuse into your spaceship. And do you recall those technology-fused human monsters that the Grimmerspace iconics fight on the cover of the Grimmerspace Player's Guide? Well, you’re about to meet them. 

Next, set in the City of Morn, we offer The Tontine Séance. Escort a grizzled Voti Marine to meet his fallen comrades in a place where it might just prove possible to speak with those who’ve died. But rememvber, when you try to reach the dead, you really must come correct or something might pop off. And in this adventure… it'll rain champagne corks.

Finally, deep in the Ceptris Development Zone float the Ice Mines of Aun, on which we offer you the chilling adventure Cold and Numb. A refinery hires you to travel through a blizzard and return with a retired and reclusive engineer. Are there monsters out in those frozen wastes? Sure. But some things are more terrifying than any monster, and we welcome you to find out just what those things might be.

UNFINISHED SURVEYS
 As of today, 62 Backer surveys remain uncompleted. That means two backers who hadn't filled out thier surveys responded! Unfortunately without a completed survey, where we collect your delivery address, we can't send backers their rewards.

Nearly everyone who contacted us had indeed filled it out. For anyone who hasn't yet, it only takes a few minutes. And if you haven't received your Grimmerspace survey, and it's not in your spam, please let us know. We'll resend it right away.

STILL ACCEPTING LATE PLEDGES
 Please help us spread the word and tell your friends that it's not too late for them to get their cold, dead hands on Grimmerspace. While pledge bundles are no longer available, we're still accepting late backer pledges through the Backerkit preorder store.

PS FROM RONE Not being as precise as Lou when it comes to knowing the workload, Rone went off to outline a 15th setting adventure for the Golem Moon that was never supposed to be written and likely won’t fit into the Setting & Adventures book. If it doesn’t, we’ll eventually find a way to publish it. It’s called Slaves to the Grind and within it, you’ll meet a terrible new monster and learn how and why the piratical Shung Corsarium revere the Golem Moon while using it as a rite of passage for aspiring Shung captains.

UPDATE: Abattoir 8 PDF Now In Your Inbox
over 4 years ago – Wed, Jan 22, 2020 at 10:54:34 PM

Just a quick update to let everyone know that we sent a link to download the Abattoir 8 PDF to all backers who completed their surveys and final payments. The updated Abattoir 8 in your inbox includes:

• Improved Bookmarks
• Additional tools to help run horror games
• Scene revision

PRE-ORDER STORE IS OPEN
Please help us spread the word and tell your friends that it's not too late for them to get their cold, dead hands on Grimmerspace. While pledge bundles are no longer available. We're still accepting late backer pledges through the Backerkit preorder store, available here: https://grimmerspace.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders

UPDATE: Digital Delivery of Abattoir 8
over 4 years ago – Sat, Jan 11, 2020 at 10:09:48 PM

BACK IN THE SADDLE
Just a quick update to let everyone know we're back in the saddle after the holidays and hard at work on Grimmerspace. Rone and I split our time between writing and providing guidance and development feedback to our designers. We also check-in over at the Grimmerspace Facebook group pretty regularly. So, if you want to discuss Grimmerspace, ask questions, or just stay more on top of the project's pulse than updates allow, that's the place to do it!

SENDING THE ABATTOIR 8 (PDF) TO BACKERS EARLY
A number of backers contacted us to say they had missed downloading the Abattoir 8 PDF during the Kickstarter. We've decided to deliver the Abattoir 8 PDF early, as soon as we've updated the bookmarks and made a few minor revisions. 

It's usually a better idea not to deliver digital content piecemeal, as that increases the chances of errors (forgetting to send it to someone, sending it twice to someone else, that sort of thing), but we're making an exception in this case. It doesn't seem quite fair to make backers stare at the PDF for sale on DriveThruRPG when they already own it, so look for your copy later this week.

ABATTOIR 8 FOR FANTASY GROUNDS & D20 PRO

We sent the Abattoir 8 PDF over to Fantasy Grounds and D20 Pro. At this time we don't know what their timetables are for converting it to their platforms, but it's in their queues. We'll keep you updated as we know more!

UNFINISHED SURVEYS
As of today, 64 Backer surveys remain uncompleted. As mentioned last time, this is a fantastic rate of response! However, without a completed survey, where we collect your delivery address, we can't send you those backer rewards. 

Nearly everyone who contacted us, worried they hadn't filled out the survey, had indeed filled it out. For anyone who hasn't yet, it only takes a few minutes! And if you haven't received your Grimmerspace survey, and it's not in your spam, please let us know. We'll resend it right away.

Our Pre-Order Store is Open
Please help us spread the word and tell your friends that it's not too late for them to get their cold, dead hands on Grimmerspace. While pledge bundles are no longer available. We're still accepting late backer pledges through the Backerkit preorder store, available here: https://grimmerspace.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders