Every year (for the past 3) the Liminal Horror team likes to run a grant program for the LGBTQIA2S+ members in the Liminal Horror community. This grant is used to provide direct support to one project, and highlight the runners up. Its a small program that is really important to us.
We had some amazing entries and are excited to announce the winner of the 2026 grant (along with highlighting some of the other entries)!
WINNER: KYLE TAM!
Kyle Tam entered the second mystery in their Ranpo Detective Agency series called Wisteria Street Ward.
What is the project? "So it's a medical horror type mystery that concerns a road side clinic on the titular Wisteria Street. The investigators of Ranpo Detective Agency are tasked with looking into a series of murders and incidents related to patients and staff of the Wisteria Street Ward, beginning with the death of the head clinician."
Why are you excited about the project? "I love the idea of having linked mysteries that you could build a series of sessions or a long-running campaign around, joined together by the focal Detective Agency. "
Other projects from Kyle worth checking out:
Ranpo Detective Agency vs The Moon God's Curse: You are members of the Ranpo Detective Agency, hired at the behest of the Mononobe Family butler in order to investigate the sudden demise of his master and the family patriarch, Mononobe Kazuo. This investigation has brought you to a far-off and lonely village, where superstitious villagers fear that on the nights of the full moon the dead rise from their graves. Ranpo Detective Agency vs. The Moon God's Curse is a murderous mystery for Liminal Horror, inspired by the Famicom Detective Club games.
Welcome To St. Julian's: A time-bending mystery set in a haunted school, rife with factions, multiple locations, divergent timelines, custom character creation and unique tables designed specifically for the story. Welcome to St. Julian’s Catholic School, where you can get the finest education…if you can survive long enough to graduate.
Track Rats: a Faction and Creature for use with Liminal Horror.
Ways to Follow:
http://whatkylewrites.carrd.co
https://bsky.app/profile/percypropa.bsky.social
The community made it really hard to choose a winner this year as there were so many great projects on the horizon. Enough so we wanted to highlight the rest!
Katt Kirsch: Lesser Saints of Lindisfairne
What is the project? My current project is The Lesser Saints of Lindisfairne, a piece of historical fiction about a group of banished queer monks within a remote island monastery who have the opportunity to radically alter history by preventing the viking evasion of greater Europe and Britain.
Why are you excited about the project? I've spoken at length recently with my lapsed Catholic LGBTQ friends and acquaintances in RPG-dom about religion's rich history and humorously ironic traditions, and how quite a few of us are strangely still on the "fringes of the fandom" regarding our spiritual beliefs. I wanted to highlight a pivotal historical moment while also bringing to the forefront the tendency of these monasteries to house and hide the queers, ne'er-do-wells, and cultural outsiders of their times, as a people apart from yet tightly within Christendom as it existed around them.
Ways to follow:
https://bsky.app/profile/kattkirsch.bsky.social
Sydney: SIGNALS Public Access Actual Play
What is the project? I currently have a project - SIGNALS - for which I am the showrunner, that is in the top 5 stage of the selection process for BlackwaterDND's Project Blacklight Program - and we have big goals! Signals is a 6-8 episode analog horror actual play podcast using PUBLIC ACCESS, by Jason Cordova. Three adults return to a town from their childhood to investigate a public access television station disappearing, only to find themselves in the broadcast. We're looking to produce a high-quality surreal/lo-fi audio podcast experience entrenched in analog horror, surveillance horror, identity exploration of marginalized characters! The team is over 50% queer and 100% holding of marginalized identities.
Why are you excited about the project? With Signals, we can impact the actual play scene by challenging our listeners to think in a way that they never have before - rocking their perception of their own participation and signals received. While our characters explore the mystery, the audience will explore their meta-connection to the plot at hand. How? Through the audience we bring, the product they hear, and the marketing we’ll do. Think, Fleabag but horror - breaking the fourth wall for maximum impact. Our audience won’t just hear the character’s experience, but they’ll hear some of the ‘other audience’ as well. Over the course of our show, the audience will not only be keenly aware of the strange double-reality the characters are in, but the realization that the audience the characters hear? That's alluding to THEM, the audience listening to the podcast. The production will include Voice Acting, meta-commercials for in-game and other horror content, sound design and editing by Josh Burgess of Man in Jumpsuit productions, and explore the nuance of identity performance for folks with marginalized identities - Every member of this team has experienced navigating expectations around identity, belonging, and self-expression. The character experiences are authentic to these experiences and these players are very strong in dramatic, nuanced identity performances.
Ways to follow:
https://shawkgames.my.canva.site/
Peaches: "Your Secret Admirer"
What is the project? I am part of a duo working on a set of one-shot/short modules based around various holidays. Right now we are working on a Valentine's day one, titled "Your Secret Admirer"! Here's a brief intro I wrote for the module: In the week leading up to Valentine's Day, people have gone missing in small town of Loveland, Illinois. Each victim has one thing in common: they received Valentine's cards and romantic gifts from someone known as Your Secret Admirer. For the Investigators, all of this turns into a matter of life and death when they arrive at Loveland right before Valentine's Day, becoming the newest obsession of this strange stalker.
Why are you excited about the project? There's a few big things I love about Your Secret Admirer. This is our first time making a module that's meant to be sold / used by the public so we're learning a lot about what goes into designing modules and how to give information to Facilitators in a clean, easy-to-read way.
Ways to follow:
https://www.tumblr.com/peachsequence
Joseph McCleave: "Renaissance Faire Scenario"
What is the project? I'm working on an investigation that takes place at a Renaissance Faire! A local faire owner recently purchased genuine medieval artifacts to adorn the fair. Once the gates opened, floods of people entered but nobody has been seen leaving in over 3 days. Raucous parties are known to be held at the fair, but locals have made complaints about a pig-like squealing that can be heard at night This adventure has a team of investigators entering the fairgrounds to uncover the truth behind what is happening. As they uncover the truth, they will quickly learn the threat the fair is preparing to unleash on the surrounding area Inspired by the myth of Culhwch and Olwen, Resident Evil 4, Crow Country, and the real life locations of the Kansas City Renaissance Faire and the now-closed Evermore Park
Why are you excited about the project? I think the setting holds a lot of potential for the strange. The anachronistic nature of a Ren Faire creates the possibility of things like Bureau Agents facing off against knights and creatures of myth. It also is partially inspired by my local faire which is near to my heart and I have been visiting since I was little, and this project is also partially a love letter to the space
Ways to follow:
https://magicalmonstar.itch.io/
Unit-083: "Tales from the Fog"
What is the project? Tales From The Fog, a solo survival horror game that has a focus on tight juggling of resources while fighting monsters, exploring 200 random encounters (many which have their own chain of outcomes depending on your stats or dice rolls), and trying to either escape, seek community, or succumb to the growing transformation rot spread by the Fog itself.
Why are you excited about the project? Psychological horror is this unit's favorite genre, and working on such a big project has been really rewarding, even if the szie of the encounters have really ballooned beyond the initial concept. This unit also has had a lot of fun taking inspiration from other pyschological horror works and weaving in ideas from them into the encounters and the setting! It's really challenged this unit to grow and develop as a writer, both creative and technical.
Ways to follow:
https://bsky.app/profile/dericbindel.bsky.social
https://www.patreon.com/cw/Deric083Bindel
Neru: "Patchwork Garden"
What is the project? My project is called patchwork Garden, is a game that uses the Celestial bodies Grid system to tell a story about Undead Dolls that hunt monsters for humanity that hates them, it started as a mix with the grid system and pbta but changed a lot out of the pbta part
Why are you excited about the project? Is a game that i'm making about my experience with gender and hate of assimilationism, is a game that scream "if you try to conform to be what those that hate you want you to be, you only will find pain, be a monster and find your happiness in your monstruosity" and is a game about building characters and doing hunts bloodborne style (it started as a bloodborne fan ttrpg)
Ways to follow:
https://bsky.app/profile/saiba-ramu.bsky.social
Eric: "The Pivot RPG"
What is the project? This game zooms in to tell the story of ordinary people in an ordinary place, caught up in a cataclysmic event known as the First Pivot. The world will never be the same. They'll lose Hope as the world warps around them, then they'll start changing...
Why are you excited about the project? I’m really excited about this project because I started with this big idea of making a game where you play in this post apocalyptic world that’s fusing with alien worlds and trapped in some kind of weird warp, but I was able to boil it down to what I actually wanted to do, which was to create these high tension, pressure cooked type of scenarios that can achieve a super fun play experience in exactly 2 hours of playtime. I’ve tested it about seven times between the two different scenarios and it’s really fun. It’s quick and it’s lethal and keeps players on their toes. I’m excited about it because this is kind of the culmination of maybe 4 years of tinkering with ideas, and I finally got to some thing that works at the table and achieves what I wanted to do which was to make some thing that I can play with my friends when we only have a two hour window. What I would like to do with it is to inspire others to create their own scenarios for the system. They can literally take place anywhere. I currently have one set on a beach, another at the cinema, and I’m working on one at the supermarket. In the current pdf I’ve written up somewhat of a guide, or a formula for doing so however, this is untested as nobody has done it yet except for me. I try to run a game of the pivot at least once a month for somebody new. I’ve been doing that since march. I’ve really enjoyed this kind of networking approach that I am doing to meet other people and tap into these different communities on Discord. It’s lead to me playing a lot more games as well.
Ways to follow:
https://evevsevil.itch.io/the-pivot-rpg
Branwyn: "Multi-Fandom Horror Fanfic/Audio Drama Podcast"
What is the project? I'm currently working on a multi-fandom horror fanfic featuring Kpop Demon Hunters, The Magnus Archives, The Addams Family and more. I have plans to also turn it into an audio drama style podcast.
Why are you excited about the project? I'm excited because I'm getting out of my comfort zone by writing longer form fiction as well as sharing not just my love of the fandoms I enjoy but also introducing people to the aspects of the horror genre I enjoy as well.
Ways to follow:
https://archiveofourown.org/users/EmbersPoe28/pseuds/EmbersPoe28