Good Friday, everyone! Josh here again, checking in firstly with a couple plugs from across the internet, then I'll tag in Michael to give y'all a closer look at our hopefully-to-be-unlocked first stretch goal vendor - the Menagerie of Krosus'del!

First: this week, Michael and I made an appearance on The Dungeon Plunger Podcast hosted by Jason Wiebe, fellow Canadian and Dungeon Master! He had us on to talk about how we got our start in RPGs, and all about Grim Merchants - our creative process, touchstones, and more. It's a great listen and Jason has a great show going in general! Check it out here: Spotify Apple Podcasts YouTube Music

Second: Also this week, Stu Willis kicked off his Mothership Actual Play show, 1DZero, with a play-through of my second module, A Mansion Most Vile - which crowdfunded almost exactly a year ago now! It's run using the campaign framework of Arkyvr by Alewood Games, so instead of teamsters and marines it's a film crew trying to capture a grisly and profitable story on-camera. It's really well-produced with a fun cast and great tension building heading into its second episode. Take a listen on this Hallowed Night! Spotify Substack

Now, handing things over to Michael for our fifth...

In the dark parts of the Dream, beyond Tempest-guarded airlocks, lies Doptown and here, nightmares fill the streets. Life is cheap here and the grasp of commerce reaches even to these slums. It is in this hell that the desperate, damned, or rich will find Krosus'Del and her menagerie of monsters.

It's Michael again to talk about our new stretch goal! First of all, thank you all so much for your overwhelming support. Both Josh and I have been blown away by all of you getting behind our project and we are so excited to expand this book even more. Without further preamble, let's get into it: our next stretch goal is at $21,000. If we can hit that, you will all get a full fifth merchant added to the zine, and we're just going to blow the lid off and show you what they might look like. Are you ready??

What if you could have the xenomorph as a pet? Josh and I had (and still have) many awesome ideas for more merchants but by far the one I was most excited about outside of the core four was a pet shop. The core mechanic here is that these are very dangerous creatures that can be very useful but, at the same time, have a chance to turn against you and become a new horror to overcome. The basic pet rules in the core box provided a framework but these aren't house pets we are talking about; these are killers. The other chief concern in the design phase was making sure that they didn't add any extra work for the Warden to keep track of while still making the creatures feel dynamic.

Krosus'Del is by far the most out-there merchant we have designed. She is terrifying and strange, crazy enough to run a business out of the Choke and deadly enough to make it work. She represents not only the dark side of the Dream, but also the weird. It is a big station and while the majority of it is going to be down the line space station, in the nooks and crannies you can find things that do not exist anywhere else on the Rim. Krosus is that part of the station in Grim Merchants. She is from somewhere no one has ever heard of and she sells creatures most people don't believe exist. More than that, she runs her business with the blessing of Yandee, begging the question — how much do the leaders of the station know, and how much is a mystery to even them? Check out her killer art from Simon Taylor below (and watch a process sketch here!)

We tossed quite a few versions of this merchant back and forth but ultimately settled on carrying over the Loyalty rules for contractors and introducing a Reactions Table to basically give pets programmed behaviours beyond the player's control. These reactions are modified by their Loyalty and the responses range from “Look to their owner for orders and waits” all the way up to “Turns on their owner and will do everything in their power to kill them.” Every pet will have the trigger “When its owner rolls a panic check, roll on the reaction table” as well as their own unique trigger. Each of them has been designed to serve the dual purpose of an alien threat the Warden can deploy independent from a player's purchase, so adding this to a scene immediately has the potential to make everything much worse. The risk of owning these creatures is significant but so is what they can do. While we are still drafting a good chunk of this one still, here are the design notes on three of the potential pets:

If we have done our job right, these pets should feel awesome as players, add even more drama to scenes with panic checks, and require little extra brain power from the Warden. It should also serve as something of a blueprint for anyone who wants to turn their own creatures into player pets without making them grossly overpowered. Krosus's origins and identity are intentionally vague which opens the door for all sorts of connections to other modules that are less traditional sci-fi or have a bizarre premise. Is she an alien? A cyborg? Or just a human from a far off civilization? All are on the table and up to what works best for the kind of game the Warden is running.

Again, all of this is still in the draft phase (and dependent on us hitting $21,000 raised!) but I am so excited and grateful to get to do this. Stay tuned for the last week of this campaign! There is some truly awesome stuff beyond this stretch goal and I am really hoping we get to include it all. Thank you all again and happy Mothership Month.