This Week in RPGs: 13 Omens Races Past Its Goal and WotC Declines to Recognise the D&D Union (16 October 2026)

Paizo’s new horror RPG, 13 Omens, launched on Kickstarter on 13 October and was already at more than double its $100,000 goal at last check. The week also brought a surprise modern-horror adventure for D&D, Critical Role’s full fall schedule, and a development in the story we flagged last week about Wizards of the Coast staff unionising.

Further down you will find a closing-soon crowdfunding roundup, a look at D&D’s Warcraft and Star Wars crossovers, and a GM tip that borrows the best idea from 13 Omens.

At a Glance

Story	Category	Key Detail	Why It Matters
13 Omens Kickstarter	Crowdfunding	Live 13 Oct to 13 Nov, $234,279 raised against a $100,000 goal	Paizo’s rules-lite horror debut is a hit
WotC declines union recognition	Industry	D&D and Studio X units, recognition deadline 13 Oct passed	A vote is likely next if recognition stays off the table
Project_Lamordia	D&D release	$14.99 on D&D Beyond, released 13 Oct	New species, backgrounds and feats for modern horror
Critical Role fall lineup	Actual play	Shows from 18 Oct, Daggerheart series in November and January	Plenty to watch, including two Daggerheart runs
D&D Warcraft and Star Wars	Upcoming books	Warcraft 3 Nov, Star Wars book 15 June 2027	Two big crossovers now have concrete details
Crowdfunding closing soon	Crowdfunding	Dark Mythos 22 Oct, Portland Oregon Trail 23 Oct	A good week to back horror and odd formats

Headline News

Paizo’s 13 Omens Launches on Kickstarter

13 Omens is a rules-lite supernatural horror RPG from Paizo, designed by Jason Bulmahn with narrative development by James Jacobs. Its Kickstarter went live on 13 October and runs to 13 November. At last check on Kicktraq it had raised $234,279 from 1,697 backers against a $100,000 goal, with stretch goals at $200,000 (a story zine by Jonathan Sims and Sasha Sienna) and $250,000 (five Universal Archetypes).

For Paizo, best known for Pathfinder, this is a genuine change of pace, and the early numbers suggest the horror audience was ready for it. A $5 reservation unlocks a primer and a patch, and the preview rulebook and a Gen Con scenario called Bequeathed were available as free PDFs beforehand. Check the campaign page for the full pledge tiers.

Key Details:

• Campaign dates: 13 October to 13 November 2026
• Funding goal: $100,000
• Where to back: Kickstarter, under the Paizo account

WotC Declines Voluntary Union Recognition

Last week we covered D&D staff moving to unionise. This week, United Wizards of the Coast (CWA) said the company does not intend to voluntarily recognise the D&D and Studio X units ahead of a vote, after the 13 October deadline passed. Bell of Lost Souls reports that voting is likely next month.

It matters because the D&D team’s stated concerns include AI, personal IP rights, layoff fears and crunch. Whatever happens next will shape how the people who make your books are treated. We will keep tracking it, and our previous roundup has the background.

New This Week

Tabletop Releases

Project_Lamordia – D&D Beyond | $14.99 A modern horror adventure that reimagines the Ravenloft domain of Lamordia with a sci-fi, Control-style feel. It adds a new species, the Reborn (a character whose consciousness was uploaded into a synthetic body after death), four backgrounds and four feats called Dark Gifts. Available: D&D Beyond

EN5ider Monthly #18 – EN Publishing | price not listed A clockwork-themed issue with a playable species, spells, the Cult of the Unforged God faction, clockwork traps and an adventure for levels 3 to 4 called Hickory Dickory Clock. Available: EN Publishing

Also in print: EN World’s print news flags Hot Spring Island, Fifth Season RPG and Age of Vikings, and the site also highlights two new solo adventure gamebooks, one slasher horror and one cyborg chase.

Digital Releases

Nothing confirmed this week that fit the RPG brief, so we are holding this section until we have verified details. For a newcomer-friendly way into the new D&D backgrounds, see our D&D backgrounds guide.

Actual Play Corner

Critical Role published its fall 2026 programming on 14 October, and it is packed. The Long Rest, a family-friendly podcast of short stories, premieres on Beacon on 18 October. Tale Gate goes live on 20 October with Whitney Moore, Luis Carazo, Aabria Iyengar and Alexander Ward discussing Aramán and Campaign 4, and All Work No Play returns on 28 October with Sam Riegel and Liam O’Brien.

Daggerheart fans have two things to circle. Shattered Legends, a six-part canon Exandria mini-series with hololive, starts in mid-November with Matthew Mercer running the game, and Reign of the Weredragon, a Daggerheart series based on the Hope & Fear campaign frame, starts on 13 January 2027 with Chris Perkins as GM. Live shows include Red Moon Requiem at The O2 in London on 26 October, and Battle of the Bards is on 17 November.

If you want to catch up on where Campaign 4 stands, our earlier note on Critical Role confirming Campaign 4’s return is a quick refresher, and last month’s Critical Role and Control roundup shows how that thread has moved.

Crowdfunding Watch

Featured: Portland Oregon Trail from 9th Level Games is a GM-less RPG that reimagines Oregon Trail as a road trip across the US. It uses single-die rolls against static charts, and the creators state that no AI art will be used. The most popular pledge is $45 plus shipping for the PDF and print rulebook, a folding map, a card deck and a playlist, and the Backerkit campaign closes on 23 October.

Quick Hits:

• Dark Mythos (RPG Ramblings Publishing): Cthulhu-style horror for Shadowdark with a setting book, a five-adventure book and a fiction anthology. $80 plus shipping for the print bundle. Ends 22 October.
• Kingdoms Carved: The 7th Order & Ritual Deck (Plus One EXP & Friends): Carved from Brindlewood games about low-paid security guards stopping the apocalypse and a school full of card-dealing student warriors. $85 plus shipping. Ends 23 October.
• Curseborne Covenant (Onyx Path Publishing): a Storypath Ultra sourcebook on elder Curseborne. $30 for the PDF. Ends 31 October.

Free League’s One Ring campaign was listed to close on 15 October, so check Backerkit for the final numbers. Our roundup on The One Ring’s record run has the story so far.

Community Spotlight

Harvinger Studios showed 3D renders of a 1/12-scale Pathfinder figure at the Titan Toy Expo in Nashville. Fumbus the Goblin Alchemist is part of the Savage Crucible line, made with Paizo, and is scheduled for 2027 with no price yet.

On the D&D side, the Warcraft team revealed that Shadowfang Keep was playtested with Blizzard staff in Irvine, California, under the code name “the secret arcana”. The designers say the dungeons are built for a single run rather than repeated boss farming, which suits table play well.

Media and Entertainment

D&D: World of Warcraft arrives on 3 November as a 256-page world book. It includes 13 new classes including Death Knight, Demon Hunter, Evoker and Shaman, plus dungeons such as The Deadmines and Onyxia’s Lair.

Wizards also confirmed more Star Wars plans. Tyro Squadron is a new adventure set in the Original Trilogy era, early images were shown at New York Comic-Con, and the Season of Rebellion book is listed for 15 June 2027. Our Gen Con D&D announcements explainer has the wider roadmap.

GM Toolkit: This Week’s Tip

The Tip: Show your players the omens before they land.

Why It Works: 13 Omens builds dread around a visible countdown of signs. When players can see the pressure building, they feel it in a way that a surprise ambush never delivers. Anticipation is doing the work, not the monster.

How to Use It: Pick a number of omens, for example six, and write them down privately. Each time the party ignores a warning or fails an important roll, reveal one omen in the fiction, such as a flickering light or a missing bird call. When the last omen appears, the threat arrives. Let players spend actions to reduce or delay the count.

Example: In a haunted lighthouse, the keeper’s lamp dims one notch each time the party lingers in the dark. By the third dimming, the players start rushing, and the finale hits with real tension because they have been counting down alongside you.

Bonus: Make some omens false. Players who learn to doubt the signs will search harder for the real ones. For more on pacing, read how to build dread in Call of Cthulhu and our Call of Cthulhu first-time Keeper’s guide. If you run Daggerheart, Hope and Fear as GM tools shows how to keep tension fair.

Coming Next Week

The Long Rest premieres on 18 October and Tale Gate streams live on 20 October. Dark Mythos closes on 22 October, Portland Oregon Trail and Kingdoms Carved on 23 October. MCM Comic Con returns to ExCeL London on 23 and 24 October. We will also keep watching the WotC union story as it develops.

Community Question

Which Kickstarter caught your eye this week: 13 Omens, Portland Oregon Trail or something else? Share your pick in the comments, and tell us whether you would run an omen countdown at your table.