You play amateur detectives in a cosy-fantasy setting. Your band of plucky investigators solves mysteries (quite often, murder mysteries) that crop up with remarkable regularity in the lovely little halfling village you design together.
Community Goal #3: The Lost & Found Board, Playtest Report and More Art!
Hello, detectives!
We've got another Community Goal for you, a great playtest report to share, and another look behind the scenes at the art of Merryshire.
Community Goal #3: The Lost & Found Board
Every village has a Lost & Found board.
Most of the notices are perfectly ordinary.
Some... are not.
For our next Community Goal, we'd like your help filling Merryshire's noticeboard with wonderfully peculiar missing items.
Perhaps someone has misplaced a cursed spoon. Or an emotional turnip. Maybe you've found a haunted sock, a ceremonial butter knife, or something even stranger.
Leave your missing item in the comments below, or post it on social media using #Merryshire and tag Pelgrane Press. We'll gather our favourite entries from both the campaign page and our social channels.
Our favourite submissions will become a community-created random table of Lost & Found notices in the final book, ready to inspire rumours, adventures, and more than a little confusion.
So... What's missing in Merryshire?
Kevin Kulp's Playtest Report
Curious what it's actually like to play Merryshire Detective Club?
Designer Kevin Kulp recently sat down to play the game and shared his thoughts on the experience, the mysteries, and what makes Merryshire feel so different from other investigative RPGs.
If you haven't read it yet, it's well worth a look.
To finish today's update, we're sharing another time-lapse from artist Janio Garcia, showing one of Merryshire's illustrations coming together from the very first sketch to the finished piece.
A huge thank you to Janio for once again bringing the villages, mysteries, and wonderful little details of Merryshire to life.
We hope you enjoy the video, and we'll be back soon with more community activities and another look inside the Riding.
Some are respectable. Some are helpful. Some really shouldn't be left unattended near farm equipment.
For our second Community Goal, we're asking you to help fill the Cousin Registry.
Invent a halfling cousin by giving them:
A name
An occupation
The more wonderfully ordinary, delightfully eccentric, or suspiciously specific, the better.
Perhaps you'll introduce us to Cousin Bellweather, eel taxidermist. Or Cousin Pindle, competitive jam judge. Maybe Cousin Morley, disgraced parade marshal.
Leave your cousin in the comments below, then share them on social media using #Merryshire and tag Pelgrane Press. We'll gather our favourite entries from both the campaign page and our social channels.
Eight of our favourites will appear in the final book as a random Cousin Table, ready to help investigators with advice, rumours, transportation, baked goods, or whatever else cousins happen to provide.
Who's your cousin?
Art Reveal: Building the Murder Board
Before we send you off to invent cousins, we'd like to leave you with a little behind-the-scenes look at Merryshire.
Today's art reveal is a time-lapse of the Murder Board illustration coming together, showing the clues, notes, photographs, and tangled threads that every determined investigator eventually ends up surrounded by.
A huge thank you to Janio Garcia for bringing this wonderfully chaotic scene to life. We hope you enjoy watching it take shape as much as we enjoyed seeing it develop.
We have plenty more artwork to reveal between now and launch, so stay tuned!
Don't forget to share the campaign with friends and communities so that we'll have more cousins!
A place where the gossip flows as freely as the ale, where mysteries are debated over hearty meals, where suspicious neighbours insist they have absolutely nothing to hide, and where your detective club somehow ends up after every investigation.
The only thing missing is its name.
For our first Community Goal, we'd like your help naming Merryshire's local pub.
Leave your suggestion in the comments below, then share it on social media using #Merryshire and tag Pelgrane Press. We'll be gathering our favourite suggestions from both the campaign page and our social channels.
Once the campaign is over, we'll choose eight of our favourites to appear in the final book as a random table of suggested pub names. Your idea could become part of Merryshire forever.
Whether your name is cosy, mysterious, delightfully silly, or sounds like somewhere you'd happily solve a murder over a pint, we'd love to hear it.
We've got two things to share with you today: an update from Merryshire designer Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan, and some exciting news about what we've got planned before launch.
From Gareth's Kitchen
Imagine, if you will, a kitchen where a feast is being prepared.
The chefs have gathered delicious ingredients. Some fresh, some nicely aged, some a tad fermented. They’re running around chopping bits and skewering bits and adding bits. Trimming the fat off a random table here, salting some more clues to a mystery there.
The main course of the rulebook has been done for some time, although conversations with Robin have inspired a mini-mystery amuse-bouche that I need to tidy up before it’s ready for consumption. But right now, the kitchen is not on fire and no-one is getting murdered, so honestly, we’re ahead of the curve here.
There’ll be seats for everyone at this feast. If you’re reading this, then you’re already a follower of Merryshire Detective Club, so you are clearly someone of remarkable taste. A ludic gourmand, one might say!
Wait, I’m being told one can’t say that.
But the sentiment remains. By following this project, you've shown yourself to be insightful and cultured, a veritable tastemaker. Perhaps you have friends and fellow gamers who have yet to benefit from your remarkable discernment. Please invite them to join the Launch Party. The more at the feast, the merrier!
What's Happening Next?
Starting Monday, we're kicking off a series of pre-launch activities leading up to our July 21 launch on BackerKit.
Here's what you can look forward to:
Pre-launch games, where you'll get an early taste of life in Merryshire.
Community challenges and social campaigns, with plenty of opportunities to get involved.
Follower reward unlocks, where sharing, commenting, inviting friends, and helping the community grow will unlock surprises for everyone.
We'll also be sharing new previews, behind-the-scenes updates, and revealing more artwork from the world of Merryshire along the way.
First Look at New Art
An invention loving grocer
To finish today's update, here's a brand new piece of artwork from Merryshire. We hope it gives you another glimpse into the charming, curious, and occasionally murderous world we're building.
Thank you for joining us so early. We can't wait to welcome you properly to the Riding on July 21.
