A wild nautical adventure zine full of bizarre locations, rules for travel and chase scenes, and random tables for your crew!
Latest Updates from Our Project:
We are just about there, you all.
4 days ago
– Tue, Apr 28, 2026 at 07:59:52 AM
Good morning everyone!
Getting to the Finish Line
Time for another update on the progress of These Bloody Sails. The book is currently most of the way through layout. It turns out a 52-page book is an ENDEAVOR, but Josh is still going strong. I have some more spreads to show you, and the plan is to have the PDF ready end of May. That is still within our original timeline, so I am feeling pretty good about that, especially since this is the first project I have tried kickstarting on my own. The spreads are in rough draft form, but overall, we are just needing to make minor tweaks here and there.
The two page spread introducing part 2 of the adventure. Look at those pirates run!
Intro spread to part 3 of the adventure. That poor lookout is having a rough day.
Oh hell yes, new stat blocks.
Damn Josh is so talented.
Additions to the Book
So, it turns out we had a few pages we needed to fill, so you all are going to get a treat. Added into the book will now be NEW SHIP UPGRADE ITEMS, NEW SHIP BASED RELICS, and NEW CREW ACTIONS FOR SHIP COMBAT. We are also adding a Random Village Generator (turns out I needed this at my table a lot) and a Random Pirate Crew Generator (composed of the NPCs who were play tested in the process of designing this book).
I have run this module about 8+ times now since the Kickstarter launch at various conventions and through my home game, and I have learned that when the table grows, the number of times crews use the Something Else option grows. So, I figured it may be useful to add more options to the game and have written out rules for Taunting (almost every table mooned another ship which is chef's kiss) and Intimidating (Finally, a Toughness option for ship combat).
As for the items and relics, I think the fact that this module grants tools for long term ship sailing means that the group may want more options to customize their mobile base. So, get prepared for mechanical pumps, extra hammocks, tentacle cannons, and mysterious cookpots (AND MORE).
New Add-On for Backerkit: A Few Quick Stops Along the Way
After working on the mini adventures for These Bloody Sails, the ideas just kept pouring in for other locations to challenge and delight your pirates. This, combined with the enthusiasm for writing Pirate Borg goodness shared with a few of my designer friends, led me to create a new product called A Few Quick Stops Along the Way.
Will's attempt at a cover for a Pirate Borg product, showing you exactly why he needed Josh for These Bloody Sails
This new product includes Four Mini Adventures for Pirate Borg, Brought to you by John Baltisberger, Steven Hamilton, and William Tramp.
Within this 10-page pdf you will find:
The Village Chorus: A strange fishing village with a catchy tune invites you to sing along.
A Deserving Death: An African god charges the pirates with a task: Bring him the head of a notorious press ganger.
Belly of the Beast: Your ship has been swallowed; how do you get out?
Hoist the Colors: A Lovecraftian object has landed in a pirate hideout and things are getting weird.
The adventures in A Few Quick Stops Along the Way are designed to be used as extra locations for the tables in These Bloody Sails but can also be used as drop in adventures for your other Pirate Borg games. It will be available as PDF only for $4 on Backerkit, $5 when it hits Drivethru RPG.
Did you know I also write Shadowdark projects? I have started an initiative where, at least for the near future, I am releasing an adventure a month for the Shadowdark TTRPG on Drivethru RPG. If you are interested in that rad game, you might enjoy some reasonably priced mini adventures.
Folk are getting sick in the river front district of the big city. Investigation leads adventurers to determine that the cause of the debilitating ailment is a portion of the river being purposefully polluted. Someone needs to delve into the sewers beneath the district and take out the culprits once and for all before things get any worse.
Oh, Rats! is a Shadowdark adventure for levels 1-2
The Rising Star is an ancient structure nestled in the Azure Mountains, dedicated to the world’s first goddess of art. This location once served as a performance hall for petitioners of the goddess in her aspect as a patron of song and creativity. After her death at the hands of a powerful archmage over a millennium ago, the performance hall was abandoned and fell into ruin.
It is rumored that an aspect of the goddess still lingers near the main stage, having grown vengeful and sullen from her destruction. Would-be virtuosos have tried to gain the goddess’s favor by performing on the stage over the centuries, but those who displease her are doomed to forever lose their creativity. It is said that no one has managed to please her yet.
The Rising Star is a Shadowdark adventure for levels 3-5
GrApHiC dEsIgN iS wIlL's PaSsIoN
Thats all for now
We are nearing the finish line everyone. I cannot wait to get this in your hands.
-Will "This Effin' GM" Tramp
Working Hard and Gary Con 2026
about 1 month ago
– Thu, Mar 26, 2026 at 07:01:56 AM
Good morning everyone!
Work in progress
Thought I would give you all an update as to the progress of These Bloody Sails. The book is currently a huge way through Layout. Josh has been knocking out page after page and we have been pouring through them to make sure what you are getting is what we promised. Check out some spreads! They are in a rough draft form, but we are cleaning them up to prepare for publication
The Adventure Overview shows a skeleton crew about to take an unsuspecting ship
New Rules! Chase Scenes and Careening Tables
Non Player Characters and their Ships!
Gary Con 2026
I headed to Gary Con this year to work with Limithron and run a good amount of Pirate Borg and let me tell you, it was a blast! Limithron asked me if I wanted to run These Bloody Sails for a couple of tables and I couldn't help but say yes.
The Results? Good times.
The (Serrano) Sargents, Raquel and Matthew, came by and brought me a little feathered friend.
Josh drove up so he would hang out for a day and was flooded with commentary about his art in this project. Probably because he's GREAT.
Josh and Will are excited
And the entire Limithron crew celebrated a remarkably successful convention.
You can see the back of my head right here ^
All in all it was a great time. We got a lot of good feedback on the project and are even more excited than before to get this across the finish line.
Winds of Hell
Chomping at the bit for more Pirate Borg content? Check out this project I worked on that is kicking BUTT on Kickstarter right now.
Winds of Hell is a full-length Pirate Borg campaign that takes your crews to the depths of hell and back. Packed with content, it features:
Black-on-Matte-Black with Red Foil Cover
Approx. 96-page, 6 Adventure Storyline
Detailed Overview of Port Royal
20+ Devils, Pirates, & Inquisitors
Also featured in the Kickstarter Campaign are 🏴☠️ Saltwater Sacrament, an Inquisition-heavy adventure zine, 🏴☠️ new pamphlet adventures On a Trail of Blood and Apex Ruin, 🏴☠️ hand-made Buckskin Buccaneer's Pouches, 🏴☠️ and plenty of previously published PIRATE BORG adventures! I wrote the introductory adventure to the campaign, and I am so proud to have been a part of what should prove to be one of the greatest 3pp pirate borg projects I have ever seen.
Thats all for now
Stay tuned. It won't be long now, my friends.
-Will "This Effin' GM" Tramp
We made it!
2 months ago
– Tue, Feb 24, 2026 at 07:52:16 AM
WE MADE IT AND IT'S ALL THANKS TO YOU!
We are humbled, excited, in awe, and ready to keep pushing forward. 595 backers? $16,151 raised? You all are AWESOME.
Josh is currently working on layout. This is going to be a lengthy process, as the man is a perfectionist and we both want to make sure what you are getting is something worthy of your time and support.
He did hand me over an art piece to show you all. Check it out!
Expect a lot of fun skeletons in this book, you all.
Sometime in Mid-Late March / Early April we will open the backerkit to lock down shipping and make sure we have everything we need to get these in your hands.
After that: PDFs get into your hands.
After that: test prints from Lulu (international) and Mixam (Local).
AFTER THAT: We order the print runs and start the process of getting books into your hands. We can't wait.
Thank you.
There isn't much more to report at this moment other than thank you. We will be making periodic updates, so you know where we are (I hate it when Kickstarter campaigns go dark for long periods of time).
In the meantime, if you head to Gary Con 2026, look for me at the Limithron Booth and the Limithron Game Room! Say Hi!
Later,
William "This Effin' GM" Tramp
Land Ho! The journey is coming to an end.
2 months ago
– Sat, Feb 21, 2026 at 05:06:46 PM
Land Ho!
Well folks, we have only a few more days left of this incredible journey with These Bloody Sails. Together, you have made our dream of making a zine for Pirate Borg a reality we could not have anticipated and we are so grateful.
For those of you still on the fence, you still have some time to nab our zine. The Kickstarter ends at 8 AM CST on Tuesday, February 24th. We hope you plan to join us in this venture!
Spread 'em
Josh has been working really hard on layout and art for These Bloody Sails and wanted to get something to show you all before the Kickstarter ended. Though this is a draft, I personally think it's amazing and am super excited to show to you the intro scenario for our adventure, In Which the Pirates Steal the Gilded Swine.
Wow, is Josh talented or what?
Check out the gilded swine figurehead!!!
I would die for this pig.
GaryCon 2026
I will be heading to GaryCon 2026 this year for the first time to work with Limithron in their booth and to run games! Silver Ticket Event sales begin this weekend and if you are interested in playing with me at a convention, you can! Here is my schedule.
I'll be at the helm, so prepare for a lot of energy. A lot. Check out events right freaking here.
Ship of the Dead
I recently had a chance to speak with Luke Stratton and Jon Pohl on Limithron's Ship of the Dead show (Though the episode won't release until AFTER this Kickstarter is over). We discussed this project, Luke and I's shared love of depth crawls, and Jon and I offer tips on how to run Venom in the Veins, a new adventure found in Limithron's Down Among the Dead supplement. If you didn't have a chance to back that Kickstarter in 2024, you really should give it a look, it's a fantastic adventure. Pre-Orders are open Limithron's Web Store.
Me posing with Down Among the Dead among other great booty.
Other Great Kickstarter Projects
I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating: There are some great projects going on through Zine Quest. Let's talk about a few of my favorites.
An Acre of Barren Ground is another Pirate Borg based project, this time in a nifty trifold. According to Randall, the goal of this adventure was to create a dungeon with limited real estate (e.g., the lighthouse) but the events of the adventure occur in such a way as to have each location have a variety of potential events in it, some of which can shape the structure of the dungeon itself, and to result in no location ever being permanently "cleared." That is, until the end, whether it will be victory or defeat. It also comes with a neat cocktail recipe!
Tales from the Locker #1 is a Pirate Borg project we have talked about before and we are pretty happy to see how well it has done. Ed has put together a really great project here with some heavy hitting writers, and it only has a few days left! Led by Ed Bourelle, who brings creators together under a shared visual and creative vision, each issue features a collaboration of well-known, experienced, and new Pirate Borg creators from around the world. Adventures, articles, NPCs, character classes, monsters, and table-ready tools come together in a single, modular zine built for play.
Expeditions into the Blood Sands is an Old School Essentials project I worked on, and I couldn't be happier for Jeff in how well its doing. In this Kickstarter, Jeff is offering four books, all of which are either printed, or ready for print:
Adventures in the Blood Sands: Rising Tides | 16-page adventure module.
Denizens of the Blood Sands | 56-page weird-science fantasy bestiary.
Journal of the Blood Sands 1 | 24-page system-light setting guide.
Journal of the Blood Sands 2 | 44-page player class & tech guide
Make sure to nab Rising Tides, the short intro adventure I wrote. Its disgustingly good.
Magika Nostalgika is a D&D 5e project from Mathew Sargent. Matthew is amazing and I can't wait to see this climb higher, cause that guy deserves the best. Inspired by popular toys of the 90s and the wish-inducing catalogs that contained them, Magika Nostalgika is a zine of magic items for D&D 5e. In this 5.5" x 8.5", full-color, 12-page TTRPG zine, you'll find 20+ new magic items like:
Bonk-It
Soaker Supreme
Yeoman’s Oscillating Yewen Orbicular (Y.O.Y.O.)
PlayWell Bricks
Figures of Action
And more!
Checking this out is a must for anyone who appreciates flights of fancy and the winds of whimsy.
Tales from the Tape Deck comes to us from Suffety Games and promises to be a unique experience. Tales from the Tape Deck is a TTRPG system that explores a series of post-apocalyptic adventures set to genre-specific playlists with art from the world beyond…all contained in one cassette case. The scenes and adventures vary from cassette to cassette, using a variation of the Mork Borg, Shadowdark, DCC, and OSR systems.
They launch the day we close. Let's GOOOOOOOO.
Our Upcoming Projects
Both John and I have projects on the docket, releasing after ZineQuest is over.
Winds of Hell is a full-length Pirate Borg campaign that takes your crews to the depths of hell and back. Packed with content, it features:
Black-on-Matte-Black with Red Foil Cover
Approx. 96-page, 6 Adventure Storyline
Detailed Overview of Port Royal
20+ Devils, Pirates, & Inquisitors
Also featured in the Kickstarter Campaign are 🏴☠️ Saltwater Sacrament, an Inquisition-heavy adventure zine, 🏴☠️ new pamphlet adventures On a Trail of Blood and Apex Ruin, 🏴☠️ hand-made Buckskin Buccaneer's Pouches, 🏴☠️ and plenty of previously published PIRATE BORG adventures! I wrote the introductory adventure to the campaign, and I am so proud to have been a part of what should prove to be one of the greatest 3pp pirate borg projects I have ever seen.
Its Shadow Means Death is John's baby and it's a big one. Its Shadow Means Death (ISMD) is a rules-light roleplaying game where players take on roles of massive kaiju. John and team wanted to create a fast and easy game where players could step into the scales of giant monsters and duke it out while causing glorious destruction.
Inspired by our love of kaiju films like Godzilla, Gamera, and Pacific Rim, the team wanted a way to recreate that feeling. If you have the toys available, they fully recommend busting them out and recreating the action on the table as you play. Which is RAD. AS. HELL.
That's it.
And that's all! As I mentioned, we have only a few more days of this Kickstarter left, and I just wanted to gush for a second about how proud and humbled we are. We look forward to seeing you at port.
-William "This Effin' GM" Tramp
Whoa! We're Half Way There!
3 months ago
– Fri, Feb 13, 2026 at 08:46:47 AM
Halfway to Journey's End
Hello all! William Tramp, also known as This Effin' GM here. The funding journey for These Bloody Sails is halfway done and the response has been thus far amazing. We have over 10K in funding, 350+ backers, and have obtained the coveted Projects We Love from Kickstarter. We could not have imagined a better outcome, and it's not even done yet.
I know I have said it before, but it bears repeating: Thank you all for believing and supporting this project.
Ok. Lets talk about where we are currently.
Editing is Complete
John Baltisberger, editor extraordinaire, has completed the editing on These Bloody Sails. What does that mean? It means one of the largest hurdles in producing a book is in our rearview and we are neck deep in layout.
We are super proud (and honestly in awe) of the editing work John has done on the zine. I took a singular joy in watching John take my rambling prose and turn it into something worthy of a Borg book. The man is a surgeon and one I am happy to have gotten on our team. Thank you John.
Speaking of John and his amazing work, have you taken a look at his new project coming to Kickstarter? It's Shadow Means Death is not only a phenomally named book, its also one promising to be larger than life. This game of explosive Kaiju battles and unchecked destruction is 100% a must buy for me and I hope you all join me in supporting it. Go click that notify on launch button, you won't be dissapointed.
Layout and Art is Underway
With editing completed, Josh Christoffersen is diving into layout and art. In our view, there isn't really a difference between the two because every spread Josh has put together so far is a masterpiece in and of itself. With his blessing, check out the introductory spread he shared with me the other day.
This is awesome to me. Josh captures the essence of the adventure perfectly here, a ship being precariously pressed forward through the Dark Caribbean. I love it and I hope you do too.
Out in the World
Adrian is the mad genius behind Dungeons and Dyslexia and has taken it upon himself on his youtube channel to highlight great works coming out through Zine Month. One of his first discussions was about These Bloody Sails! Take a gander.
In addition, I had an interview with my good pal Sergio over at Dungeons and Dragons Lorecast, wherew we discused the history fo Pirates in Forgotten Realms. That episode will be airing sometime next week, but I want to direct you to his show so you have a chance to hear it when it drops (I talk about this project quite a bit too).
Our Friends Make Cool Stuff Too
As it is Zine Month, there are just so many cool things being made. I wanted to take a moment to highlight some projects by friends of ours that I am backing and I hope you do too.
Expedition into the Blood Sands is an OSE Science Fantasy setting that has three new supplements for you to sink your teeth into. I did some writing on this and am extremely proud to see Jeff's vision hit your gaming tables.
Magika Nostalgika is a fun creation by Matthew Sargent (Who did the art on Expedition into the Blood Sands). It's a D&D 5e magic item supplement invoking toys from the 1990s and I know it's going to be a hoot.
The Necromancer of Exetus is another D&D 5e project brought to us by David Barrentine, who has a strong track record of making really engaging 5e material for his World of Oranth series. I am betting that this adventure will be a hit in any world.
Courts of Rememory is my friend Mark Meredith's follow up to his successful ttrpg, Song of the River Prince. In this, he introduces a variety fo fey factions that permeate the Riverlands. This kickstarter only has a couple of days left, is so close to hitting funding, and we hope this one goes all the way.
I Have Lived a Thousand Lives is a solo journaling ttrpg brought to us by Rachel Bennett and being produced by Alex Rinehart. This was an insta back, as the two have already brought my collection a ton of fun with Cyberrats (which is also getting a follow up soon, Cyberrats in Space).
The Curse of Stoneshatter Tomb is a Shadowdark adventure written by Jeff Mueller and is intended for one shot or convention play. Me, I love short games like this because they are so easy to drop into an existing game.
There are so many amazing products coming out at this time, some of which have yet to hit funding, and I encourage everyone to take a look at what is being offered and help support indie writers in getting their names out there and work published.
Speaking of Amazing Products on the Horizon...
Zac Goins, probably my 14th most best friend on the entire earth, has a phenomenal new Pirate Borg adventure coming out in March called The Winds of Hell. I bring this up for two reasons.
It's rad.
I'm writing on it.
The Winds of Hell is a daemonic campaign swarming with bloodthirsty undead, Inquisition zealots, and enough pirates to fill all the hulks in the Colonies. An entire Campaign! For Pirate Borg! This is really exciting and we have a lot of great people working on this one. I had the opportunity to read through it and when I saw the types fo shenanigans the player pirates will be getting into, I had to be a part of it.
That has a few more weeks until we will see funding begin, but Pirate Borg fans across the board should prepare because this one is going to be a doozy.
That's it for now.
That's all I have! I want to thank you all again for being apart of our journey here and helping us get as far as we have. I look forward to making another update once we get closer to that 48 hour mark. For now, I hope you all have a wonderful day and smooth sailing.
