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Tales from the Cryptids: Games, Stories, & Uncanny Ephemera

Created by Scryptid Games

An anthology of narrative games and other writing that flips the lens on conventional cryptid lore. In this zine, cryptids are beings with vivid lives, goals, and stories of their own to share. Don’t solve the mystery. Be the mystery.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Greetings from Goatman Bridge!
16 days ago – Tue, Aug 04, 2026 at 06:36:06 PM

Heya Creeps,

It's been a minute. We are thrilled to share that Tales from the Cryptids is headed to the printer this month, and we are on track to deliver the book to our backers in October, just in time for Halloween.

We were overwhelmed by the positive response we received to our open call for games, fiction, poetry, and weird ephemera (we read hundreds of fabulous submissions!!!), and we CANNOT WAIT for you to see the weird and wonderful content that Brigitte selected.

Illustrator Amber Ramirez created new cryptid art to introduce every section of the book, and Nat Mesnard has done a fabulous job on the interior and cover design. Here's a preview of one of our new art pieces.


We also designed and ordered the exclusive Squonk "Feelings" patches we created for this crowdfunding campaign. They are absolutely friggin delightful, and there's still time to add one (or 10) to your order.

Brigitte also kept her promise to photograph the Goatman Bridge. She and Dustin went on a harrowing adventure through a torrential downpour to find this spooky Maryland landmark at the end of an abandoned road in Bowie, Maryland, and Brigitte got some truly eerie shots. These photos will be featured in our bonus zine, The Real Cryptids of Baltimore, alongside the true tales of supernatural experiences that we received through our anonymous tip line. This zine is also still available as an add-on to your order!

All of these goodies are headed your way in just a few short months. In the meantime, stay tuned for Backer Surveys, book launch event announcements, and other fun.

xoxo
Brigitte, Nat, Dustin, and Pat

P.S. Nat and Brigitte are CRIT Award Finalists!! Assemblage, Nat's card-based TTRPG of world-building and world-breaking is a Finalist for Best Multiplayer TTRPG. And The Goodest Girls, Brigitte's sitcom-inspired story game about aging shelter animals living their best lives together, is a Finalist for Best GMless TTRPG! If you want to show Scryptid Games some love, vote for Nat and Brigitte by August 23rd. There are quite a few award categories this year, and you can vote in as many or as few categories as you want. Just hit "submit" on the last page of the form to ensure your votes are counted.



Submissions are OPEN for Tales from the Cryptids!
6 months ago – Mon, Mar 02, 2026 at 10:55:42 AM

Hey there creeps,

We want you to be the first to know that Tales from the Cryptids is now open for submissions!

Submit now.


For this anthology, we are keen to acquire TTRPGs and other narrative games that embody a sense of the liminal. We love unusual original game systems and mechanics. Send us games that could be poems and poems that could be games. Send us immersive experiences and thoughtful explorations. If we read your game and say, “Wow, is that game actually a cryptid?” you’re probably in. 

For fiction and poetry, we want cryptid content that prioritizes the agency of liminal beings, places, and experiences. Your work does not need to feature a cryptid protagonist or an optimistic point-of-view, but your monsters must have agency and depth. 

We are also interested in micro-submissions of uncanny ephemera to literally occupy the margins of this book. Send us cryptid scribbles, doodles, haikus, photographs, and other 2D marginalia. Even we don’t quite know what we want in this category. Surprise us.

For games and fiction we are accepting submissions of up to 1,000 words, 10 cents a word for originals, 5 cents per word for reprints. For poems, we accept submissions of up to 3 poems, and pay $50 per accepted poem, and $25 for reprints. Uncanny ephemera pays $25 per accepted submission. For original work, we will license your work under First World English Rights. All accepted writers will receive a contract for review and signature upon acceptance.

You may submit once per category. If you receive a rejection and submissions are still open, you may re-submit with a different piece. Please do not re-submit the same piece again. Simultaneous submissions are allowed. Please withdraw your piece if it is accepted somewhere else.

Submissions will be open March 1 - April 30, 2026 or until we hit our submission cap of 100 real non-AI submissions in each category. We will endeavor to send responses by June 15, 2026.

We can't wait to read what you create!!

<3
Brigitte, Nat, Dustin, and Pat

This is it, creeps. Last chance to back Tales from the Cryptids!
6 months ago – Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 06:30:48 AM

Hiya creeps,

We are officially in the final few hours of our crowdfunding campaign for Tales from the Cryptids, and we are SO close to reaching our $10K goal to add more pages to this anthology of games, stories, poems, and other cryptid content.

A huge thanks to our backers who already made this book a reality! There's still time to change your pledge if you want to include an add-on or upgrade your reward tier.

Speaking of reward tiers, we have one final slot in Nat's Make Short Games class at the Scryptid Scholar tier, and someone should definitely snag that coveted spot before it's gone.

If you are a new follower or just one of those slow cryptids (did you know there's a giant sluggish sloth cryptid called the Gorth that's been sighted in the Ozarks and Appalachian Mountains???), you have just a few hours left to back Tales from the Cryptids!

So, to all our beloved Gorths out there, head over to our Backerkit page before the clock runs out this afternoon! We believe in you.



We are so grateful for everyone's support for this project, and we can't wait to introduce you to weird and wonderful new worlds when these books land in your mailboxes this fall!

<3
Brigitte, Nat, Pat, and Dustin

LiveSCREAM Tonight at 7pm ET/4pm PT
6 months ago – Wed, Feb 25, 2026 at 07:19:28 AM

Hi there creeps,

With only two days left to back Tales from the Cryptids, join us on our Backerkit page tonight at 7pm ET/4pm PT for a treat (and maybe a few tricks) as Nat and Brigitte chat with Will Roth of Creature Publishing for our final Tales from the Cryptids campaign livestream!



We are thrilled to collaborate with Creature Publishing to offer a special Creature's Cache reward tier for this campaign.

Founded in 2019,  Creature Publishing is a rad small press specializing in feminist, queer, and trans horror, dark speculative fiction, women-driven thrillers, and spooky fantastical and literary fiction. 

Here's a little bit more about them:
Creature Publishing was founded in 2019, and publishes stories with an inclusive, transgressive, and intersectional understanding of what horror is and who can make it. From the beginning, we’ve embraced cathartic, subversive, socially conscious, and innovative writing that widens readers’ understanding of the world. Our books have won or been finalists for the Bram Stoker Award, the Ladies of Horror Fiction Award, and the Foreword Indies; most recently, THE SCALD-CROW and MY LIPS, HER VOICE were named to the 2025 Stoker preliminary ballot, and ROOT ROT was #5 on the NYPL's Best Horror of 2025.

With this discounted Creature's Cache bundle, you not only receive Tales from the Cryptids and three Scryptid Games releases featuring weird punk creatures and ecosystems, you also receive Mine: An Anthology of Bodily Autonomy Horror from Creature Publishing, which includes 16 original horror stories exploring the ownership and control—or lack thereof—that we have over our bodies.

Hang out with Nat, Brigitte, and Will tonight to learn more about both anthologies, hear what's new at Creature Publishing, and nerd out about queer and feminist horror!

See you on Backerkit at 7pm!

Vote to send Brigitte to a haunted Maryland location!
6 months ago – Mon, Feb 23, 2026 at 06:30:28 AM

Hi there, creeps!

We are officially only FOUR DAYS away from the end of this campaign and over 70% of the way to our $10K stretch goal, which will add 20 more pages of content to this already fabulous anthology of TTRPGs, fiction, poetry, and other uncanny ephemera.

We really want to hit this goal, so we'll be getting progressively more unhinged with our backer incentives this week.

Between now and Friday, when the campaign ends, all backers are eligible to vote in a poll to send Brigitte Winter, our anthology editor, to a probably haunted Maryland location!



When she is isn't writing books and games and editing rad cryptid anthologies, Brigitte is a professional photographer. She mostly does portraits and weddings and product photography and whatnot, but she's agreed to deploy her skills for an investigative photo shoot at an infamous haunted location of your choice. If she makes it back in one piece, her photos and reflections on this journey will appear in The Real Cryptids of Baltimore, the companion zine available as a campaign add-on and at our Bigfoot's Bundle and Old Briney's Bounty reward tiers.

Only backers are eligible to vote, and the poll closes this Friday, 2/23, along with this campaign. If you haven't had a chance to back Tales from the Cryptids, act fast to snag your goodies and then vote to decide Brigitte's fate!