ONE GAME SYSTEM – EVERY GENRE – COUNTLESS WORLDS – ENDLESS ADVENTURE

BY KEVIN SIEMBIEDA

Palladium Books^® – Weekly Update

March 6, 2025

The GAMA Trade Show was an interesting and fun experience. We saw a lot of excitement for TMNT & Other Strangeness RPG Redux and other upcoming products for various Palladium game lines, namely Rifts, Palladium Fantasy, and Beyond the Supernatural. There were some very nice moments with pals Mike and Lisa Pondsmith of R.Talsorian Games, Brandon Aten and Matthew Orr of Wet Ink Games, Christina from LongPack, as well as with friends Shawn and Lisa Hall, Blake, Doug, Ryan, other pals and various retailers and fans.

Our arrival to Louisville started with a surprise upgrade to what Wayne and I called our luxury suite. It was followed by a pleasant evening and delicious home cooked meal at the home of Shawn and Lisa Hall. The zaniest night of the week, however, was with the madmen at GamesQuest and Ark Transportation – specifically Nigel Matthews, Peter, Jeff Sheets, and Kyle Paxton. We just hit it off and enjoyed a raucous evening filled with good food, spirits and laughter. Our waitress Bobbi Jo was fun too, and I would soon discover that the front manager at the hotel was a big gamer thrilled to have all the rooms of his hotel filled by fellow gamers. Funny.

Thursday, the Exhibit Hall was painfully slow. Very few retailers for some reason, but that gave me and the R. Talsorian folks a chance to talk and catch up at their booth without interruption for at least 45 minutes. When I came back to the Palladium booth I had a surprising and nice Dynamite moment, before it was time to pack up and leave. The slow hours also gave me time to talk about the craft of writing with Shawn and Lisa, both aspiring authors. Our trip was bookended by the Halls taking me and Wayne to the Texas Roadhouse for our last dinner in Louisville.

We found downtown Louisville is a nice location for a convention. It felt safe and offered plenty of excellent dining places at every turn. The warm temperatures in Louisville made me long for the arrival of spring especially after returning to a cold and wintery Michigan. Thankfully the drive back home was uneventful, other than I caught another darn cold. It must be one of those years for me. Anyway, we’re back at the Palladium Studio working away.

Game Masters Needed to Run Palladium Gen Con Game Events – we need YOU

Palladium is looking for experienced Game Masters to run Palladium RPG events at Gen Con. That can be any of our game worlds using our rules as well as Rifts® for Savage Worlds. If you were thinking about running games at Gen Con or want to help out Palladium, please coordinate with Palladium Books in order to get a dedicated room and other perks like a free Game Master badge, and discounts on your purchases at the Palladium Books booth.

To earn a free GM badge, all you need to do is run 4 games with 6 or more players in each game, 4 hours each. This will earn you enough credits with Gen Con to earn a GM badge - $155 value!

We hope to add to our usual crew of Gen Con Game Masters to run Palladium game events for any Palladium setting:

• Rifts®

• Rifts® for Savage Worlds

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles® & Other Strangeness

• After the Bomb®

• Chaos Earth®

• Palladium Fantasy RPG®

• Heroes Unlimited

• Ninjas & Superspies

• Nightbane®

• Dead Reign®

• Beyond the Supernatural and any of our other settings.

We need your commitment, game description and info by February 28. Send to Jeff Ruiz, aka NMI, via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Game Masters and Game Event Descriptions NEEDED by March 18, 2025.

(See Gen Con’s website for details about the info needed for each game listing; G.M.’s name, number of players, length of time, name of game, difficulty level, etc.) Submitting your games to us enables Palladium to coordinate and submit them as a batch to Gen Con and guarantees to have your event listed in the onsite Gen Con Program Book. Being listed onsite is very important to have full attendance for your event. This date gives us enough time to compile and send Gen Con everything they need. Thank you!

Prospective Game Masters, please contact Jeff Ruiz, aka NMI, via email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

News Bits

NEW! Audio RPG launches its Nightbane® Survival Guide crowdfunder on Backerkit today! Join the RPG Audiobook revolution and order yours today. See complete details below.

NEWS! What’s hot this week at Palladium? All hardcovers, but we are also seeing strong interest in Rifts®, Palladium Fantasy, Heroes Unlimited, Ninjas & Superspies, and Dead Reign® RPGs this week. Our thanks to everyone who participated in the hardcover sale that ended Wednesday.

A Worthy Cause. Please Help if you can. The BRIC crowdfunder to save lives. We know times are tough and money is tight for some of you, but this charity is very important to me and Sean. Even a $5 or $10 contribution helps. All proceeds go directly to this charity and honestly protect and save the lives of children and families in the Congo. Use the link to donate and get more details. Thanks!

NEWS! A new episode of the Official History of Palladium Books posted last week. It is another tale of the Defiliers focusing on The Hitler Mouse saga. Yes, you heard that correctly, a mouse. Not an After the Bomb or TMNT & Other Strangeness mutant mouse, but a little ol’ mouse on the verge of destroying the Defilers and taking over the world. Tune in for the whole crazy story. Next week’s episode is all about the Heroes Unlimited RPG. Every episode is fun, friendly, and reveals the making of a specific game line and other bits of Palladium history. TMNT and Robotech are coming soon. Watch for a new episode every other week and enjoy.

NEWS! Live chat with Kevin Siembieda (and Sean if he’s up to it) and the guys at Legion of Myth coming in March. Sean will be back from his secret mission in Asia and if he’s recovered from adjusting to the time zone difference, will join our monthly chat. No we cannot discuss what Sean was up to in Asia, but it’s all good. Real good.

NEW! Catalog of Palladium Books®, Spring/Summer 2025 – Folks are loving Palladium’s new, printed, color catalog. There’s just something about holding a physical catalog in your hand, especially one as fun and colorful as this one. Due to popular request, we’ve made it available for purchase. The price is what it cost Palladium to print them. Enjoy.

• Full color, 8½ x 11 inch (magazine size), glossy paper stock, beautiful color.

• The 48 page catalog describes and shows nearly the entire RPG library and features the TMNT & Other Strangeness RPG Redux Edition on the cover and the first few pages.

• $2.50 retail – 48 pages – Cat. No. C2025-1

BACK in Stock: Yin-Sloth Jungles, Updated and Expanded, 2nd Edition Rules – The epic jungle adventure book is back. 15 O.C.C.s (like the Beastmaster, Holy Crusader, Undead Hunter, and Witch Hunter), 18 jungle people and monsters, new and expanded Shamans and their magic, the Battle of the Gods, setting overview, and more. $24.99 retail – 160 pages – Cat. No. 459. Note: Yin-Sloth Adventures with 30+ maps, notable locations and a lot of adventures and adventure hooks is coming soon.

BACK in Stock: Rifts Vampire Kingdoms – Everything you need to know about Rifts vampires, variant types, vampire abilities, combat notes and henchmen, plus the Hero Vampire, Deluded Vampire, Vampire Hunters, vampire slaying weapons, monsters, town creation rules, the cities of El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, and more. $26.99 retail – 224 pages – Cat. No. 802-E.

BACK in Stock: Nightbane® Dark Designs – This Nightbane focused book collects and expands upon Nightbane Morphus Tables (18 in all), plus offers 60 new Common Talents, 38 new Elite Talents, Talent creation and conversion rules, Ancient Nightbane, and more. $24.99 retail – 160 pages – Cat. No. 736.

Nightbane^® Survival Guide – Audiobook Crowdfunder has gone live – March 6, 2025

AudioRPG is cranking out the audiobooks and is offering the Nightbane® Survival Guide sourcebook (one of my personal favorites) as their newest audiobook! It is live. They and we appreciate your support because it’s all leading toward other Palladium game lines like Rifts, Palladium Fantasy, and all the rest. Personally, I think Dead Reign® will make a great audiobook series.

We have been blown away by the quality production and that listening to the audiobook makes the sourcebook feel brand new. It’s a whole new experience. I love ‘em, check it out. The buy-in is only around $25.

An RPG audiobook may sound crazy, but it won’t after you listen to the samples presented in this Nightbane® Survival Guide Audiobook crowdfunder taking place on Backerkit by one of Palladium’s new licensing partners. It sounds amazing! We were all blown away by the quality.

• Fun to listen to.

• Relaxing game prep.

• Professional narration.

• Convenient for the busy G.M.

• Hearing the words spoken by a professional narrator makes the book come to life in a whole new way and feel brand new.

• Hearing it also makes you notice game and adventure details you may have missed reading it yourself.

• EVERYONE at Palladium endorses this product 100%. Go to the page and listen for yourself. You’ll be as pleased as we are.

• Dive into the thrilling Urban Fantasy world of Nightbane® with Nightbane Survival Guide.

• Your new adventure starts here when you listen to the Nightbane Survival Guide filled with details about surviving in the world as a Nightbane, the Becoming (the first time they transform into something inhuman), transformation rules, how to make allies and contacts, the hidden war, the Nightbane underground railroad, more on Factions and rules for creating them, adventures, and adventure hooks. Fun for players and Game Masters.

• The audiobook is perfect for enhancing your Nightbane campaign or exploring its lore on the go.

• The project crowdfunding happens on Backerkit and it is happening right now. Game on and join the RPG audiobook revolution! The campaign only runs for two weeks, so don’t delay.

300+ RPG products on DriveThru – a dozen unique world settings – one game system – endless possibilities. No other game company offers game worlds for so many different genres. Best of all, learn to play one Palladium RPG and you can play them all, because each uses the same basic core rules and combat. There are differences, but the fundamentals are the same. This also means you can bring characters, villains, monsters, powers, magic, weapons, gear, and adventure ideas from one setting into another or mash them together!

In addition to PDF titles for entire game lines like Rifts®, Palladium Fantasy®, Heroes Unlimited™, Ninjas & Superspies™, After the Bomb®, Beyond the Supernatural™, Dead Reign® (zombies), Nightbane® (Urban Fantasy), Rifts Chaos Earth®, Systems Failure™, Splicers®, RECON®, The Rifter® #1-85, and others, there are Game Master and player aids, character generators, paper minis, map packs, and FREE Previews of books like Creature Feature™, Dead Reign, Coalition Manhunters, Titan Robotics™, Rifts Bestiary Volume One, World Books, Dimension Books, and more to give you a glimpse of what’s in the book. Enjoy endless adventures across the Megaverse®.

Palladium Collectibles – at Kevin’s Online Toy & Collectibles eBay Store

I am adding new collectibles of all kinds to my Ebay store every few weeks. Some are Palladium negatives, rare and out of print books, original Palladium artwork, prints, posters, as well as other collectible toys, action figures, Nightmare Before Christmas items, one-of-a-kind proofreader copies, books, and other good stuff – including Erick Wujcik’s rare and sought after Amberzine #12-15. Check in every week or so to see what’s new. All items come from Kevin Siembieda’s personal collection.

One-of-a-kind Palladium Books negatives (special and rare collectibles). Negatives are always very popular items at the Palladium Open House, Gen Con, and conventions, and are catching on as rare collectibles, unique in and of themselves. Before digital printing, pages of a book were laid out by hand on a board, and each page was photographed.

• Each negative is truly unique, attractive, and fun to have.

• Own a piece of Palladium Books and RPG history you will treasure.

• Each was used to print the very book you may have in your collection (1981-2004).

• Each is signed in silver ink by Kevin Siembieda and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity.

• Each negative is a one-of-a-kind work of art (on rare occasions, two-of-a-kind if a page or section of pages were replaced or a second edition was made).

• Looks great matted or framed! Fits an 8x10 inch matt opening. Each neg is roughly 8 ½ x 11 inches.

• Prices vary depending on the title, the art, and quality of the negative. Note: Many have scratches, or blemishes, and/or an opaque medium on the negative. Still, they look great and are a piece of RPG history. We recommend you carefully examine the photographs of each item to avoid disappointment. The negatives of many books are sold out or were never available.

CLOSING THOUGHTS

Boiling beneath the surface

So much is boiling below the surface here in Palladiumville. We are busy all the time working on one thing or another.

As the TMNT & Other Strangeness RPG Redux editions and related Kickstarter exclusives approach going into manufacturing, everything is coming together nicely. Distributor orders are starting to come in, retailers are taking advantage of the Kickstarter Retailer Package still available in the TMNT & Other Strangeness Pre-Order Store and individual gamers who missed the Kickstarter can still get the core books and select items at the lower Kickstarter prices too, though not for very much longer. (Backers, you can still add or change your Kickstarter selections, but do so soon.)

I met with our printer rep and shipping partner at the GAMA trade show to discuss logistics and things are looking good. A few Backers swung by the Palladium Booth to see samples and were quite thrilled with what they saw. That included one of our top tier Backers who said he’s even more excited than before.

Secret projects, new business partners, and long awaited books (Rifts Bestiary Volume 2, Rifts Antarctica, Yin-Sloth Expeditions, BTS: Beyond Arcanum, etc.) are also coming along. When we are able to announce many of the unnamed products, I think you’ll be pleased and, in some cases, very pleasantly surprised.

Keep the faith and game on. 

– Kevin Siembieda, Publisher, Game Designer, Writer and Friend