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

BY KEVIN SIEMBIEDA

Happy Mother’s Day – Palladium Books^® – Weekly Update – May 9, 2025

Happy Mother’s Day. To all the Moms out there, may this Mother’s Day be a bright and happy one. All of you kids – young and old – make sure you tell your mothers (and all the wonderful women in your life) how much you love and appreciate them. You can never tell anyone that enough. Send a card and make a phone call if you cannot actually visit them, it will mean the world to them. Do it.

Out Sick. I was sick for half the week with some darn stomach bug. I almost went to the emergency room on Wednesday, but then my extreme stomach distress began to wane. Whew. Of course, I topped it off by covering half my body with poison oak! Arms, legs, belly! Thank goodness for Original Tecnu Outdoor Skin Cleanser; it’s a modern miracle. I discovered I’m super-allergic to poison oak and poison ivy 20 years ago, so I’m always prepared, but it was all so exhausting. I’m still feeling a bit worn out and a little queasy.

Thank you. I’m delighted so many of you enjoyed the free book offer. Caleb and I are kicking around ideas for future giveaways with a purchase.

COMING! Sean is about to announce something big. Really BIG for Palladium Books. If all goes according to plan, you’ll get your first glimpse of it next week. It has been a passion project for us all, but especially Sean. It’s something near and dear to our hearts, but we truly can’t do it without you. Watch for it and spread the word.

Palladium YouTube: The Defilers in Hell (Fantasy adventure) – went live on Thursday, May 8th, and we’re already getting excited feedback. I’m happy that so many of you are enjoying the Official History of Palladium Books, including stories about my beloved game group The Defilers. Many more stories about your favorite RPGs and the talented people behind them are coming your way in the months ahead.

See Closing Thoughts for another bit of Kevin Siembieda history. Apparently I’m historic. Meaning I’m a part of gaming, comic books, and Detroit history, which is both super-cool and a little weird for me at the same time. Read about it in Closing Thoughts at the end of this Update.

NEWS! World’s Largest Dungeon for D&D 5e, a Backerkit crowdfunder

Some Palladium pals have been busy creating a big project of their own. It launches on Backerkit next Tuesday, but if you follow the pre-launch crowdfunding campaign you get a free item when you back it later. Click on the link below.

https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/world-s-largest-rpgs/world-s-largest-dungeon

They have taken the epic, AEG World’s Largest Dungeon adventure sourcebook and have remastered and vastly expanded it to 1,500+ pages, divided into four attractive hardcover books with tons of new art, text, adventures and maps. You’ll never be without an adventure idea again! It uses 5e rules but you can plumb the adventures and ideas for any fantasy campaign. Take a peek.

• A super-adventure resource with more than 1,600 original dungeon encounters!

• 15 poster-sized maps and new interior detail maps.

• 16 miniatures of dungeon monsters.

• Exclusive Fanroll dice.

• Audiobook from AudioRPG.

• Palladium pals Frank Uchmanowicz, J-M Defoggi, Timothy Brown, and others are the primary madmen behind this epic, remastered and expanded WLD super-edition. Check it out.

Podcasts & YouTube Fun

The Glitterbois podcast revealing the backstory behind Nightbane®, Dead Reign®, and Systems Failure is now available for your listening enjoyment. We had a lot of fun and laughs during this one, so I know you’ll enjoy it. We’ll try to do another one in May. They also did a recent review on Matthew Balent’s Valley of the Pharoahs 40th Anniversary RPG.

Legion of Myth – April 27th chat with Kevin and Sean has been posted. It was another live chat about how to make O.C.C.s/character classes fun and uniquely your own by being creative and flexible. We touched upon other gaming insight too. We will try to do a new chat every month with LoM so keep your eyes open and join the conversation.

Palladium YouTube Channel featuring the Official History of Palladium Books with Kevin Siembieda & J-M DeFoggi. A new episode every other week. The 1980s Robotech RPG and sourcebooks is the most recent episode and a lot of fun. Always get behind the scenes insight and secrets about the making of your favorite Palladium RPGs and the people behind them, meet creators, and more. Please continue to spread the word about these fun videos and enjoy.

• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness RPG – available now.

• Secrets of the Defilers, Part 4: Battle through Hades – available now.

• Robotech RPG series – available now.

• The Defilers in Hell (Fantasy adventure) – available now.

• Ramon K. Perez artist interview – fan favorite comic book and game artist Ramon K. Perez – May 22nd.

• Ninjas & Superspies RPG – June 5th.

• Julius Rosenstein: Without whom there may have been no Palladium Books – June 19th.

• Beyond the Supernatural RPG, 1st Edition– July 3rd.

• Erick Wujcik Part 1: Meets Kevin Siembieda – July 17.

• Rifts RPG Part 1 – July 31st.

• Erick Wujcik Part 2: Game Designer – August 14.

• Watch for a new episode every other week and enjoy.

COMING! 20 reprint titles are at the printer

Palladium has sent 20 titles in for reprint. Most should be available before we sell out of our current print run, but a few will be temporarily out of print for a few weeks to a few months.

• Powers Unlimited One will be back in print by the end of May.

• Rifts Book of Magic will be back in print by the end of May.

• The Rifts Cyberworks Hardcover will be back in print in May.

• The Rifts Ultimate Edition SOFTCOVER will be back in print this fall.

UPDATE! Gen Con – July 31 - August 3, 2025 – Visit Palladium Books at Booth 1515

Please swing by the Palladium Booth to chat with me (Kevin Siembieda), Sean Owen Roberson, Wayne Smith (The Rifter), Mark Oberle (writer), Glen Evans (artist), and other Palladium creators and insiders, get autographs, buy new RPG releases and back stock, and have fun.

For those of you who always visit the booth, please note that we are in the middle of the exhibitor’s hall rather than where we’ve been the last several years. We have no idea how or why, but we are in good company near Catalyst Games, Steve Jackson Games, Modiphius, Renegade Game Studio, Cool Stuff Inc., and only a couple isles away from our friends at Pinnacle/Studio 2 and Upper Deck. Please find us and visit.

Here are other events I, Kevin Siembieda (and sometimes Sean), will be attending over the next 8 months.

• Gen Con – July/August (Kevin, Sean & the Palladium crew)

• Alliance Open House (Tradeshow) – September (Kevin and others)

• Granite State Comic Con – September (Kevin Siembieda & Sean Roberson)

• Philadelphia Game Expo – January 2026 (Kevin Siembieda & Matthew Balent).

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

I’m Historic!

Me and a bunch of other native Detroiters are part of an exhibit about comic books – Heroes vs. Villains: Detroit’s Comic Book Story – at the Detroit Historical Museum. THE DETROIT HISTORICAL MUSEUM.

That’s surreal for me. The Historical Museum has always been one of my favorite places. I have visited it and the neighboring Detroit Institute of Arts, and the main Detroit Public Library in downtown Detroit my entire life. Heck, my alma mater, the Center for Creative Studies, and Wayne State University are just down the street a block or so away. And there I am, part of a special exhibit about comic book creators from Detroit.

Of course there are much bigger names in comic books than me in the exhibit – Matt Groening (Simpsons), Arvell Jones (a mentor to teenage Kevin), Tom Orzechowski (another mentor), B.K. Taylor (National Lampoon), Richard Buckler (Deathlok), Terry Austin (X-Men), Jim Starlin (Thanos), Gary Reed (Caliber Press), Jim O’Barr (the Crow), Al Milgrom, Keith Pollard, Guy Davis, Vince Locke, and lots of others – many of whom are friends and acquaintances. But it’s cool (and more than a little amazing) to be recognized and featured in an honest to goodness historical museum in the city of Detroit, my home town! Wow. What an honor. I am humbled.

I must admit Alex Marciniszyn and I published 5 issues of Detroit’s First comic book, A+Plus, an independent comic 10 years before the independent comic book boom that would be ushered in by the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. How different might my life have been if that comic book had taken off? It was a disappointment at the time, but I’m glad it failed, because I found my true place, my home, my extended family, as a creator and publisher of role-playing games.

I was invited to the VIP opening night where I got to see a handful of those wonderful people including Arvell Jones, B.K. Taylor, Michael Kucharski, John Benson, and my old art collaborator on Palladium’s Weapons & Armor series, Mary Walsh. It was a fun night of memories and laughter. In fact. Alex and I had so much fun talking with old and new friends, that we never made it to the buffet.

I never dreamed I would be in a freakin’ museum about Detroit’s contribution to the comic book industry. Meanwhile, the museum is talking about doing a gaming exhibit that will prominently feature Palladium Books sometime in the future. Holy crap, right? I am so flattered and humbled. Kathy and my Mom and Dad would be so proud. I have lived an amazing and wonderful life. I can’t wait to see what the next 20 or 30 years brings me.

Cowabunga, Moms, Dads, and gamers everywhere. Dare to dream and unleash your own imaginations. It’s never too late to explore your creativity and live your lives to the fullest. And it all starts with a spark of imagination toward endless possibilities.

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