UNLOCKED Cam Banks brings us a global catastrophic rescue organisation dedicated to the safety of world citizens and constantly dogged by ruthless enemies and a growing climate crisis. Cam is best known for his work on Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Dragonlance, and many other licensed roleplaying games. He is currently RPG director at Atlas Games by day, and a feverish game designer by night. Check out his Patreon at patreon.com/cambanks.
UNLOCKED David F. Chapman brings us a secret organisation that aims to build its influence by manipulating the unconscious minds of those in power. Dave has previously been responsible for the Vortex system that powers the Doctor Who RPG by Cubicle 7, and the resurrection of Conspiracy X for Eden Studios. He is currently working on Star Trek Adventures for Modiphius, and his own creation - WILD - a roleplaying game of dreamshare.
UNLOCKED Luca A. Volpino will introduce you to an organisation whose members believe themselves heirs to the Inquisition. Luca has been working in the games industry for a few dozen years, and he's the author of a string of RPGs mostly published in Italy, so he's sort of big in Japan. He blames the fall of the Roman Empire on Andrew.
UNLOCKED Jason Durall will be covering an organisation of renegade inventors, engineers, and scientists who've been working in secrecy for thousands of years on... something. Pieces of it have escaped into the world. The Antikythera mechanism is theirs, and fortunately no one's yet figured out how to use it, or what it's for. Jason has worked with Cubicle 7, Chaosium, Decipher, and others, and is now frantically overworked as the line developer for Modiphius' new Conan game line, and editor for the new RuneQuest coming from Chaosium.
UNLOCKED Gillian Pearce will be adding more art to the book. Gill has been illustrating professionally both as an artist and cartographer for approximately 18 years now and has numerous publishing credits for roleplaying game companies including Savage Mojo, Chaosium, Cubicle 7, Moon Design and Pelgrane Press as well as fiction credits in publications by companies that include Mercia Books. Her website is
www.hellionsart.com and she can be found at conventions such as UK Games Expo dressed as a pirate. Always as a pirate!
UNLOCKED Darren W. Pearce brings us a hidden society of techno-mages, masters of magic and technology who have existed since machines were first invented. Darren has worked on the Doctor Who RPG, and helped resurrect the Nocturne setting for 13th Age. Darren currently works as the lead writer on Shaintar for Savage Mojo and has a few more irons in the fire yet to be unveiled.
UNLOCKED Linda M. Jones brings her art to the book. Linda has been a professional artist for going on eight years. Her art has graced garments, giftware, aeroplanes and army patches, and much more. Within the games industry she has worked with Cubicle 7, Mongoose Publishing, Triple Ace Games, Postmortem Studios and Chaosium, to name just a few. You can see more of her art at
www.sheblackdragon.com and catch her at a few choice conventions through the year.
UNLOCKED Nimrod Jones invites you to sell your soul to an ancient order of demonologists secretly manipulating the world's politics and economy for power, wealth and all those other things demons offer. At a price! Nimrod wrote about demons in Liber Magika for Cubicle 7's Victoriana and is running up to launching his own Kickstarter for a card game about demons (
www.talkingskull.co.uk/faustus). Oddly, Nimrod is yet to gain power, wealth and all those other things demons offer. But you never know.
UNLOCKED Mark Hiblen will be adding more art to Cabal. Mark is a self-taught illustrator, heavily influenced by a love of 70's & 80's horror and pop culture. He has created vampires and werewolves for a popular Facebook app and works mainly in watercolour, acrylics, inks, Photoshop, illustrator and any other media he can get his hands on (budget allowing). He has worked for several independent publications as well as a couple of well-known ones, Facebook apps and Carte Blanche re-imaging for game producers (Assassins Creed). Slither/Super director James Gunn, who follows his work, kindly used it to commemorate the first anniversary of the release of Guardians of the Galaxy.
UNLOCKED Chad Bowser will pen a tale of gothic horror where the shadowy masters of the ancient art of bookbinding fight not only for their relevance, but to put down what once they called up. Chad Bowser might be remembered as the co-author of Cthulhu Invictus and Cthulhu Dark Ages 2e, writer for Victoriana, and creator of the fun-in-the sun Cold Harvest.
UNLOCKED Alrissa Sia will be adding more of her art to Cabal. Alrissa has been drawing since she moved to the UK at the age of 14 and has pursued her passion through a course in BA Games and Art Design at Norwich University of the Arts. She has been commissioned recently to illustrate a comic short titled Gone Fishing. To see more of her work, you can visit her gallery at
http://alrissa.wixsite.com/portfolio
UNLOCKED Andi Newton will introduce us to a group that researches the stories of people whose headstones have been worn away by time so they can recruit their spirits in the fight against evil. Andi is a horror and urban fantasy author who has written and published poetry, short stories, and -- of course -- RPG books. She is best known for her work in the Victoriana and Call of Cthulhu role-playing games, especially Cthulhu Invictus and Cthulhu Dark Ages 2e. Andi is currently working on a novel set in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina.
UNLOCKED Monica Valentinelli will create a cabal hidden in plain sight that seeks to bring back the gods and goddesses of ancient times--real and imagined. Monica writes stories, games, essays, and comics for media/tie-in properties and her original works from her studio in the Midwest. She’s a former musician of 20+ years and a graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Creative Writing program who now writes full-time. Monica is the developer for Hunter: the Vigil Second Edition, and was the lead developer/writer for the Firefly RPG books based on the Firefly TV show by Joss Whedon. Her new book The Gorramn Shiniest Dictionary and Language Guide in the ‘Verse recently debuted from Titan Books. Her sanity is kept by her two cats, water frog, and her long-time partner. When she’s not obsessing about deadlines, she designs jewelry and dabbles in other artistic endeavours. For more about Monica, visit
www.booksofm.com and
www.theonyxpath.com
UNLOCKED Kristian A. Bjørkelo will bring you a secretive foundation who has decided to take a more proactive approach to fighting human rights abuse, and can serve as both enemy or ally to your Cabal. Kristian got his feet wet writing scenarios for the Victoriana RPG. He went on to become a somewhat popular writer and speaker in Norway. His interest includes extremism, sexual history and secret societies, and his latest book is a primer on extremism. He is currently doing a PhD-project on Games & Transgressive Aesthetics.
UNLOCKED Evgeni Maloshenkov will bring more art to the book. Evgeni has been working as a concept artist and character designer for InSomnia, a story driven dieselpunk RPG influenced by classics like Fallout and Planescape Torment, which will be out early next year. He also worked on Barkley 2 doing some additional art for them. Mostly he creates illustrations for board and card games having worked for Kobold Press, Petersen Games, Catalyst Game labs, Helmgast (Kult: Divinity Lost), and a few other independent projects. His works can be seen at
http://emaloshenkov.carbonmade.com
UNLOCKED Chris Hartford is setting aside his familiar Big Stompy Robots (BattleTech, Heavy Gear), the undead (Dark Ages: Vampire, Orpheus) and things Victorian (Victoriana, Victorian Age Vampire) to brings us something infinitely more twisted and dangerous: the deadly struggles of high school clubs!
UNLOCKED Angus Abranson explores an unusual group of blackmailers and hitmen whose identities are always hidden by the furry outfits they wear to both society meetings as well as when 'on the job'. Custom hits a speciality so if you want to destroy your business partners marriage, get him investigated by the police before finally send him over the edge with a custom designed 'suicide' - we've got the ideal rabbit for the job. Angus was the co-founder of Cubicle 7 and founder of Chronicle City. He was also one of the owners of Nightfall Games (SLA Industries), spent over 20 years working at Leisure Games (a specialist game store in London UK) and part of the launch team for the classic British games magazine, Valkyrie. He's currently the Business Manager for EN Publishing, where he's also writing a weekly crowdfunding column for EN World. The last time he was a 'stretch goal' the book was nominated for an ENnie... he has been seen planting giant lightning rods around Mr. Peregrine's house whilst trying to invoke Thor...
UNLOCKED Jon Hodgson will be adding his art to the book. Jon is Cubicle 7 Entertainment's Creative Director and a successful freelance artist for over a decade and a half. He has worked for a host of games, including D&D 3e, 4e and 5e, Pathfinder, The One Ring, WFRP 1e and 2e, Pugmire, Runequest and Glorantha, as well as for more mainstream interests like video games, beer bottle labels, TV and film. Jon is based in Scotland. His favourite colour is brown. You can see his work at
www.jonhodgson.com
(Jon is also currently running his own Kickstarter project with his son Rory called The Forest Dragon check it out!)
UNLOCKED Gareth Ryder-Hanrahan will detail the Chipping Caldron Tidy Towns Committee, one of the combatants in a viciously polite struggle for occult power and influence around an ancient earthwork. Gareth is a writer and game designer whose recent projects include the award-winning Dracula Dossier campaign, the award-winning Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, and the not-technically-award-winning-but-still-awesome Eyes of the Stone Thief.
UNLOCKED Walt Ciechanowski details the most enigmatic cabal of all – even its own members don’t know why their lives are linked together. They have managed to find each other and secretly investigate why they’re all missing memories from particular times in their lives. Walt has worked in the RPG industry for over a decade and is currently a staff writer for Cubicle 7 Entertainment. He’s worked on such lines as Dungeons & Dragons, The Doctor Who Roleplaying Game, DC Adventures, Mutants & Masterminds, Victoriana, Witch Hunter, and World War Cthulhu. He was also a founding member of the Gnome Stew Gamemastering Blog and co-author of several system-neutral RPG books for Engine Publishing. In his free time he is also a budding fiction author and spends most of his daylight hours ensuring that his own ‘cabal’ gets to school and their extra-curricular activities on time!
UNLOCKED Aaron Aurelio Acevedo will add more art to the book. Aaron is a full-time artist, art director, and game designer living in New York. He is most widely known for his work in the tabletop games industry. He's currently art director for Pinnacle Entertainment Group, an illustrator for Savage Mojo, and he owns and operates an art production studio, Sigil Entertainment Group. Aaron has worked on some well known properties, including: A Song of Ice & Fire, Babylon 5, Call of Cthulhu, Deadlands, Legend of the Five Rings, Rifts, Solomon Kane, Suzerain, Torg, Unknown Armies, Wheel of Time, and World of Darkness, among others, and produces art and design for bands, comics, films, games, and concept work. You can find more of his work at
www.aaronace.com.
UNLOCKED Jennifer Brozek will bring you a secretive society of older, wiser, and meaner "seamstresses" and "tailors." With a minimum age of sixty, these skilled assassins have taken on the duty of making retired bad guys pay. Just because a criminal has gone straight doesn't mean they don't have sins to atone for. Jennifer is a Hugo Award nominated editor and a Bram Stoker nominated author. Winner of the Scribe, Origins, and the ENnie awards, her contributions to RPG sourcebooks include Dragonlance, Colonial Gothic, Shadowrun, Serenity, Savage Worlds, and White Wolf SAS. Jennifer is the author of the award winning YA Battletech novel, The Nellus Academy Incident, and Shadowrun novella, Doc Wagon 19. She has also written for the AAA MMO, Aion, and the award winning videogame, Shadowrun Returns. When she is not writing her heart out, she is gallivanting around the Pacific Northwest in its wonderfully mercurial weather. Read more about her at
www.jenniferbrozek.com or follow her on Twitter at @JenniferBrozek.
UNLOCKED Ben Allen will be adding more art. Ben is a freelance animator and illustrator from Norwich, Norfolk. Ben uses a blend of traditional and digital media for his cartooning. He is currently working on a science fiction webcomic titled Schism, which will be available to read in 2017. Ben is also working on an (unnamed) all-ages horror comic. To see examples of his work, you can click here:
www.behance.net/benecilin
UNLOCKED Stuart Boon will introduce the Gant-Myers-Shotoku conglomerate, a mysterious multinational responsible for recent ground-breaking advances in genetic engineering and whose shadowy operations extend into regions far darker than anyone might expect. Stuart is an author, editor, and game designer, best known for the multi-award winning 'Shadows Over Scotland' setting for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game. He continues to write for Chaosium, Cubicle 7, Golden Goblin Press, Sixtystone Press, and others. In addition to writing for games, Stuart is currently writing a novel blending historical fiction and cosmic horror set in 1920s Glasgow.
UNLOCKED Lynne Hardy will reveal a society of crafty (and crafting) nanas hiding in plain sight and determined to save the world one stitch at a time. Lynne is a writer and editor who has worked on a wide variety of games, including her own Cogs, Cakes & Swordsticks, the multi-award winning Achtung! Cthulhu, Victoriana 3e, 13th Age, Blue Rose 2e, the Seven Wonders anthology and Dying Earth. She also occasionally writes short stories and is now busily creating the Children of Fear campaign for Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu (as well as a host of other things she could tell you about, but she'd have to kill you if she did...).
UNLOCKED Ken Spencer offers a fanatical group that listens to the prophecies spoken by a voice inside the hull of a sunken ship. They seek to bring these about, yet they do not know the source of these predictions nor what they are leading towards, just that they should be allowed to come to pass. Ken is a freelance writer best known for the ENnie Award winning RPG Rocket Age. He has worked for Cubicle 7, Chaosium, Frog God Games, Steve Jackson Games, and Alephtar Games, as well as secretive cabals dedicated to producing RPGs and fiction. Ken certainly does not base any of his writing on his misbegotten youth as an adventuring archaeologist.
UNLOCKED Nick Robinson shows us that while knowledge is power, misinformation trumps knowledge. The Conspirators are a shadowy group that peddle lies and conspiracy theories in order to undermine their political and business rivals and to promote their own agendas. Nick has worked for Mongoose Publishing, Cubicle 7 and EN Publishing. A fan of all things Judge Dredd he also wrote the digital gamebook Judge Dredd: Countdown Sector 106 for Tin Man Games.
...and that's it, they are all done!