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

Hiya creeps,

Scryptid Games Co-Founder Nat Mesnard has organized another rad livestream for tonight, 2/17, at 7pm ET/PT. Join them for a chat with game designers Sharang Biswas and Dillin Apelyan. Find out what these creators are working on right now--including the new game Sharang is designing for Tales from the Cryptids--and learn more about the thriving New York City tabletop game scene!

See you tonight on the Tales from the Cryptids Backerkit page!

Hey there, creeps!

Brigitte Winter here. I’m a Co-Founder of Scryptid Games and I’m also honored to serve as the editor for Tales from the Cryptids, our upcoming anthology of cryptid-themed TTRPGs, stories, poems, and other uncanny ephemera. 

You may know me from my work on Psychic Trash Detectives, my supernatural TTRPG about psychic trash animals like raccoons and possums solving mysteries no one else cares about. In my life outside of Scryptid Games, I write queer speculative fiction and horror about monsters, magic, and messy relationships, and I recently had the honor of serving on the editing team for the award-winning New Year, New You: A Speculative Anthology of Reinvention by Immortal Jellyfish Press. My debut novel, The Normal Monster Club, which will be published by Generous Press in 2027, is a cozy, sapphic horroromance set in a cryptid-obsessed small town in which two exes - a paranormal podcaster and a stubborn skeptic - must reunite to save a missing child as part of an investigation into an unsolved mystery from their childhood.

But my most important qualification for editing this cryptid-themed anthology is probably the fact that several years ago, my partner and I celebrated our wedding anniversary at the annual Mothman Festival in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The festival commemorates the legendary winged cryptid who was first reported in The Point Pleasant Register in a 1966 article titled, "Couples See Man-Sized Bird ... Creature ... Something". 

Mothman is also a queer icon, with thousands of people flocking to Point Pleasant each year to claim a piece of this magnificent cake…

Like many queer kids who grew up on monster-of-the-week stories, I’ve always been on the side of the monsters. 

I memorized transcripts of The X-Files, started a UFO club at my local pizzeria, and met famous paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren when they toured to my small Connecticut hometown, but I was always most interested in imagining the rich inner lives of supernatural beings.

All of this is to say that editing Tales from the Cryptids is a dream project for me, and I’m grateful to all of you for making my dream a reality. 

We will open to submissions for this anthology once crowdfunding closes in March, so get ready to send me your queer monsters, your monstrous women, your paranormal paramours. Terrify me, transport me, surprise me, move me. 

But in the meantime, tell me…

Who is YOUR cryptid Valentine?

Heya creeps,

We are officially one week into this campaign and well on our way to unlocking our first stretch goal!

Once we hit $10K, we'll be able to add 20 pages of additional cryptid content to this book. And that means we get to say yes to more game designers, authors, and other creators when we open to submissions in March. Let's do this!

In case you missed our first livestream last week, you can check out the recording on YouTube to watch Scryptid Games Co-Directors Brigitte Winter and Nat Mesnard share the story of how this project came to be, what Brigitte wants from submissions, and what to expect from the "Make Short Games" class Nat is offering as a campaign reward. They also ponder what "is" Cryptid and what is definitely Not Cryptid. (Spoiler: Cryptid = They Might Be Giants' entire catalogue of music, Not Cryptid = ICE.)

And if you can't get enough of Brigitte and Nat, they are also featured in this rad podcast episode from Tabletopped that dropped this week. 

Next up on our livestream, join us on our Backerkit page tomorrow, 2/11, at 7pm ET/4pm PT, to hang out with Scryptid Games Co-Founder Dustin Patrick Winter and Goosepoop Games Founder Jordan Dube.

If you back both Tales from the Cryptids and Goosepoop Games’ Food and Evil, a card-based TTRPG about demons running a food truck, you’ll receive a digital copy of Hogs, an exclusive TTRPG created by Jordan and Dustin.

In Hogs, you’ll play as warthogs, hedgehogs, and different kinds of pigs in a haphazard road trip across Pangea to find community with your fellow motorcyclists. Drop your keys on the map and start riding.

Thanks for your support and excitement for all of these projects, friends! We are grateful for you.

<3
Brigitte, Nat, Dustin, and Pat

Hey there, creeps,

YOU DID IT!

Thanks to you, we've already blown past our initial funding goal for Tales from the Cryptids!

This anthology of games, stories, poetry, and uncanny ephemera will be a REAL THING. We are so excited to bring you cryptid content by Avery Alder, Sharang Biswas, Shing Yin Khor, Jason B. Crawford, A.E. Osworth, and Shen Tao. And anthology editor Brigitte Winter will be selecting additional creators to include in this book through our open call this spring!

Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU from the bottom of our weird little hearts.

Next up, we'll be working toward our first stretch goal, which will allow us to add more pages to this book and include even more authors, game designers, and poets when we open to submissions in March.

We love artists and believe creators should be fairly compensated for their work, and we are committed to a pro rate of 10 cents per word for our contributing writers. We also pay professional rates for illustrations, graphic design, layout, and all the other labor that goes into producing a beautiful book packed full of human creativity. This commitment is non-negotiable for us, so we deeply appreciate your help making it possible. 

If you haven't had a chance to back the project, we hope you'll help us reach our next milestone!

And if you've already made your pledge, please help us spread the word. We're a small team, and we'd love your support bringing this project to communities who will love it.

With gratitude,

Dustin, Nat, Brigitte, and Pat



P.S. Come say hi to Brigitte and Nat tonight at 7pm ET/4pm PT when they go live for our first livestream conversation about Tales from the Cryptids! Just visit our Backerkit page at that time and the livestream should automatically appear. See you soon!