Happy Spooky Season! Are you feeling the chill in the air? In Kansas, we definitely aren’t—it’s 85 degrees (30 C)! But for the sake of immersion, let’s all read this update as if we’re snuggled in blankets, with a nice cup of tea, and a friendly ghost peeking over our shoulder.
Face Your Fears is being printed as we speak!
Face Your Fears is a book specifically for the GM, offering new monsters, artefacts, and more. It even includes a detailed layout of both the Magnus Institute itself and Salesa’s Storage where the dealer of cursed objects keeps all his horrible goods, and the protocols for keeping them safe (or rather, keeping him safe from them)—both written by Jonathan Sims!
We’re excited to share that this supplement, the last of the three main supplements crowdfunded in this campaign, is on press and will soon be made physical in our world! And what better way to share this news than with a sneak peek of the inside layout:
We’ll let you know as soon as these books have finished printing and are on their way to our warehouse. This process takes a few weeks, but as soon as we have them, we’ll be sure to update you!
We have even more exciting TMA news to share—but of the digital variety! The Magnus Archives XP Deck has been added to the Datasphere Deck Tool as part of our ongoing support for online play.
When you purchase one of our digital decks, you receive it not only in PDF format, but also via the Datasphere Deck Tool. This unique product format makes our digital decks as useful for online play as the print decks are at the physical game table.
Draw random cards, or view the entire deck and pick one.
Copy the card image and “hand” it to your player via your VTT, in a Discord chat, or however you communicate when you play online.
Or click to copy the text and send them just that.
Peruse a deck easily, sort cards, and organize them as you see fit.
The Datasphere Deck Tool gives your deck the same time-saving and inspirational utility in the digital space as a print deck delivers at the physical game table—and it’s free, in addition to the PDF file. (In fact, you will probably find the Datasphere Deck Tool to be much handier than the PDF.)
Anyone can use a Basic version of a deck for free, or, if you own it on the MCG Shop, load your purchase straight into the Datasphere Deck Tool and start pulling cards. That means, if the Magnus Archives XP Deck is among your rewards from this campaign, and you redeemed it through the MCG Shop, you can start using the full version right now!
Log in with the same username and password as you use here on the MCG Shop. You must log in via the MCG Shop to access your purchased decks.
Under Decks in the upper-left, click Add Deck.
You’ll see a list of all your purchased decks, and, below that, other available decks. Click on the deck you wish to use.
If you don’t see a deck you own, under your account icon (in the upper-right), select Refresh My Decks.
You can also the free basic decks—their card selection is limited, but they’re fully functional.
Click the deck to draw the top card. Or click the deck name in the Decks menu to see all of your cards—and pick the cards you want.
Once a card is out on the canvas, double-click it for a closer look. From there you can copy an image of the card, or the card text, to send to a player.
If you also want the deck in PDF, simply download it from your account on the MCG Shop.
We’ll have more news about The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game online implementation to share soon—make sure to stay tuned for our next update for those tidbits as well as Presentation Box manufacturing updates!
We faced the Fear of many, many, MANY people, but had the joy of meeting a huge number of both Cypher and Magnus Archives fans at UK Games Expo last week. We ran demos all day, every day introducing folks to how to play and GM The Magnus Archives RPG. Thanks to everyone who came to see us, catch up, and share the enthusiasm for this terrific game!
Podcast to Tabletop Seminar
We also chatted with Rusty Quill (creators of The Magnus Archives) and Sydney from Indie Boards & Cards (creators of The Magnus Protocol Mysteries) about converting podcasts to tabletop games. It was wonderful to see so many at this seminar, and great to be able to answer questions from folks interested in doing just this!
Live Play at UK Games Expo
The Magnus Archives RPG Live Play: Or How to Avoid Getting Eaten by Your Own Podcast! was a great hit. Loads of folks turned up to see Gregor, one of our UK Asset Team GMs, run the folks below through the demo scenario:
Jonathan Sims – Writer and Co-Creator of The Magnus Archives/Protocol: Playing as Pretentious Occultist
Sydney Engelstein – Indie Games Studios / Indie Boards and Cards, Designer of The Magnus Archives Mysteries and The Magnus Protocol Mysteries: Playing as Suspicious Investigator
Anusia Battersby – Voice Actor for Gwen Bouchard in The Magnus Protocol: Playing as Cheerful Elocutionist
These seminars were all recorded by Rusty Quill and we’ll let everyone know when they’re available to watch!
As summer slowly encroaches, we retreat to the dank, dark archives. These hallowed walls promise safety, understanding, knowledge, and power—or at the very least the illusion of them. Thump, thump, thump on the door. Who could that be?
Thump… thump…thump…
Wait, don’t—
Take a peek inside Do Not Open!
We’re thrilled to share that Bruce Cordell, the lead designer of Do Not Open, has some updates about the progress of the manuscript!
This is how the Table of Contents for Do Not Open is shaping up:
Introduction
Chapter 1: Descriptors
Chapter 2: Foci
Chapter 3: Backgrounds
Chapter 4: Connections
Chapter 5: Creating New Statements
Chapter 6: Playing The Magnus Archives with Cypher
Index
Here’s what he says about the contents:
In Chapter 6 “Playing The Magnus Archives with Cypher,” we're providing explicit guidance if you want to bring aspects of your The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game (“Magnus” for short) into closer concordance with the new Cypher rules (debuting later this year in the Cypher Character Rulebook).
If you don’t care about that, well, Chapter 6 isn’t a huge part of Do Not Open, and you can easily... not open it.
However, throughout the preceding chapters, the design elements that appear in Do Not Open are being written in such a way that they’re already compatible with both the Magnus rules as they currently stand and with the new Cypher.
How can that happen, you wonder? Well, the games aren’t that far apart. Moreover, some aspects of Magnus were secretly test beds for things we wanted to try out in Cypher. The Magnus descriptor format, in large part, was one of those!
In other cases, we are simply designing certain new abilities in a way that happens to coincide with a design decision in Cypher, but is fully comprehensible from the ability description. For example, we might write a new ability that lasts until your character takes a one-action or longer recovery roll, instead of one that lasts for a minute or so. Makes sense as written, and hey, that’s how durations work in Cypher, too.
Changing the topic just slightly—check out chapter 5, “Creating New Statements.” It contains a host of prompts to serve as inspiration for you to generate brand-new statements for use in your games. Lists of prompts are provided for each part of the statement process, which can really help PCs and/or the GM quickly generate new and creepy scenarios to investigate.
We'll level the "lifepath" options in chapters 3 and 4 for a future update, since this is going a bit long. Let me finish by noting that the first draft of Do Not Open should be done and ready to go into development very soon. This week, I've been working on a few interesting additional foci that should raise a few eyebrows. If it’s wrong to be someone who Buys All The Wrong Books, well, I don’t want to be right.
Keep your eyes peeled for the next update where Bruce will share some info about the character backgrounds and connections chapters!
Have you redeemed your copy of Make Your Statement?
Make Your Statement has been fulfilling from our warehouse for the last few weeks! We’ve been hard at work making sure your rewards are shipped as quickly as possible. If you haven’t redeemed your copy yet, read on!
Every time a reward from this crowdfunding campaign is ready for you to redeem, we contact you by email to begin the fulfillment process. Generally, we’ll direct you to the MCG Shop, where you’ll log in, “buy” the product (for free, because you’ve already paid for it through this campaign), and check out. If you have any questions about this process, please visit this helpful step-by-step guide!
This is an important part of the process because it ensures we have accurate delivery information for every item we send out. (With thousands of backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) You'll pay for shipping at that time.
Please pay attention to communications from us—don't let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you could miss out on some of your rewards.
Happy April! We hope the first few months of 2026 have treated you well. We’re glad to report that things have been moving along steadily with Make Your Statement and Face Your Fears!
Make Your Statement
Make Your Statement will soon be in your hands! Delve into the Archives with nine chilling new statements and ten brand new investigations—ready-made adventures for players to embark upon.
The bright art on this dark book really pops!
These pallets will soon be broken apart to ship books!
These gorgeous books arrived in our warehouse last week, and we’ll begin shipping them in the days to come! If you haven’t received crowdfunding campaign rewards from us before, or need a refresher, we go into more detail below.
Face Your Fears
As we mentioned in our last update, Jonny and Bruce have made great progress on the draft of Face Your Fears. In case you missed it, Jonny has written a couple of amazing locations, complete with maps. Encounter The Candlemaker, Mr. Cold, and fossils of future past; discover new books such as Art Appreciation, Children’s Tales, Das Buch der Wiedergänger; and more. We’ll have a lengthier update about Face Your Fears soon!
How To Redeem Your Copy of Make Your Statement
Every time a reward from this crowdfunding campaign is ready for you to redeem, we contact you by email to begin the fulfillment process. Generally, we’ll direct you to the MCG Shop, where you’ll log in, “buy” the product (for free, because you’ve already paid for it through this campaign), and check out. If you have any questions about this process, please visit this helpful step-by-step guide!
This is an important part of the process because it ensures we have accurate delivery information for every item we send out. (With thousands of backers getting rewards, it's amazing how many people will change their address over the fulfillment period.) You'll pay for shipping at that time.
Please pay attention to communications from us—don't let our updates or emails go to your spam folder, or otherwise ignore them, because if you do you could miss out on some of your rewards.
Apologies for the delay in communications. There are many moving parts to the crowdfunder, some of which are being heavily influenced by the new global Fear: tariffs! We want to reassure everyone that they will receive everything that we’ve promised and thank you again for your continued support.
We have terrific news on not just one but two of the new books you helped to bring to life.*
*Books are not actually alive and no sacrifices were made to either The Stranger or The Flesh for the creation of these tomes!
Book cover for Make Your Statement: giant clawed hands burst through a window showering the couple on the sofa with glass
Make Your Statement
With nine new statements and ten terrifying challenges, Make Your Statement is back from proofing and, after final checks from Rusty Quill, will be going to print this month! Delve into the Archives with nine chilling new statements and ten brand new investigations—ready-made adventures for investigators to embark upon.
Those lucky enough to attend Gen Con, GameHole Con or Dragonmeet this year might be able to grab a space to play one of these adventures at the con.
Book cover of Face Your Fears: A busy city street shows everyone with a mark painted on their cheeks. A frightened looking woman without this mark has turned to look behind her.
Face Your Fears!
Bruce and Jonny have been hard at work on Face Your Fears and are expecting to make the first draft turnover to development and editing by the end of this month (February). Jonny has written a couple of amazing locations, complete with maps. One of those is Warehouse Complex B. The Artifact Dealer (known as Salesa in the podcast) is the purveyor of wonders and the trader of terrors, with an arsenal of bizarre and grotesque items in their inventory. Naturally, however, they need somewhere to keep these things when they are not being bought and sold. The dealer's main warehouse (Complex A) is where the dealer keeps their mundane and less harmful goods: weapons, drugs, black market technology, etc. The really messed-up stuff, though, that gets stored in Warehouse Complex B.
Face Your Fears is also replete with new monsters and NPCs (like The Candlemaker, Mr. Cold, and fossils of future past), new books (with titles like Art Appreciation, Children’s Tales, Das Buch der Wiedergänger), new artifacts (including the harbinger's head, the tombstone of the unknown soldier, the darkness flashlight, and the enticing cookie jar), new cyphers (such as bury it for yourself, curled into the spiral, drinking alone, and enjoy your sky), and a few additional locations designed for quick use.
Weirdness and Mystery a Billion Years in the Future
Numenera logo and word mark
It seems that The Apocalypse is a Fear which keeps on giving. Eight previous epochs have risen and fallen. Now, after a billion years, Earth’s Ninth World has arisen from the ashes, welcoming you to its wonders, mysteries and terrors. The truly valorous delve for the secrets of the prior worlds not for the riches they bring, but because the mysteries and wonders of the numenera are a pathway toward a better future. Who will lead us into this new world? Who will tap the wonders of the ancients to defend the weak, bolster the sick and starving, and illuminate the ignorant? Who will build a new and better community, and bring vision to a world in darkness? Will it be you? Sign up now to find out!
Early sign up and pledge reward for Numenera: a sharp edged purple/blue d20 die
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