When we commissioned a color map of Freeport from Andy Law for Pirate’s Guide to Freeport, we received such an amazing piece of cartographic art that it was a shame not to be able to show it off any larger in the book. We’re pleased to have a solution, in the form of the Freeport Poster Map. This lovely, 28″ x 19″ poster map is perfect for hanging on the wall next to your gaming table, or rolling up and taking out whenever you need it.
Get your Freeport Poster Map today!
Freeport and Walk the Plank fan Philip Minchin from Australia has written and packaged up a free PDF, “Reading the Skull and Crossbones.” In it he presents a divination system from the City of Adventure, using the cards found in Walk the Plank.
And in case you haven’t noticed, now is the perfect time to pick up both Pirate’s Guide to Freeport and our family-friendly pirate card game Walk the Plank, since if you buy the book, you’ll get the card game too, for free! (Offer good only in our Green Ronin Online Store, until such time as the boss tells the webmaster the deal is over. Free card game presented as option during checkout if the print version of Pirate’s Guide to Freeport is present in cart.)
Also of note is our still-ongoing RPG Stimulus Package Sale, in which several Freeport books are still available at great prices.
John Baichtal of the GeekDad blog on Wired.com posted an entry today that’s all about Pirate’s Guide to Freeport. Read all about it!
The Pirate’s Guide to Freeport Takes Systemless To a New Level
The nominees in this year’s ENnie Awards have been announced, and we’re honored to have garnered several nominations:
Congratulations to all the nominees!
Voting will run on enworld.org from July 21st through August 3rd.
Unless you’ve been detained illegally in a black site prison, you probably know that Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition came out this month. Many folks are giving it a try and I’ve heard a lot of GMs lament the fact that there aren’t any ready-made 4E settings available yet. Even WotC won’t have their new Forgotten Realms campaign setting book out until August. This is the beauty of the Pirate’s Guide to Freeport. It is a pure setting book that can be used with any fantasy RPG. It has no game stats at all, so you can just pick your game, add Freeport, and enjoy. If you are looking for a campaign setting for your new 4E game, you can start with Freeport right away.
The city can be used on its own or you can drop into any other campaign setting you like. You could even start a campaign in Freeport now, leave the rest of the world vague, and decide on the details of the larger campaign setting later. If you do want a full campaign setting right away, the Pirate’s Guide includes an optional chapter on the World of Freeport. This details “the Continent” in some detail and provides a ready backdrop for all kinds of adventures.
To complement the Pirate’s Guide, we have been doing a series of rules companions over the past year, which provide mechanical support for various game systems. We’ve done True20, d20, and Savage Worlds so far, with Castles & Crusades coming up next. We may do a Fourth Edition Freeport Companion if we can figure out how to do so under the terms of the new Game System License. In the interim, however, here are a few ideas on how to adapt Freeport to the 4E rules.
Levels: The Pirate’s Guide notates each NPC as being an apprentice, journeyman, or master. This translates easily into 4E, since characters now have a level range of 1-30. Apprentice characters are heroic tier (1-10), journeymen are paragon tier (11-20), and masters are epic tier (21-30). Now Freeport is a lot grittier than the new D&D, so you might consider making max level 15. In that case, apprentices would be levels 1-5, journeymen level 6-10, and masters level 11-15.
Races: Dragonborn are a new race of draconic humanoids and they have not featured in Freeport products before. However, Freeport is known as the Crossroads of the World and all sorts of strange folk make their way to there. Adding a few dragonborn to the mix is easy enough, particularly as the PHB paints them as wanderers without a home. They may even have come from another plane of existence.
Another sort of new race is the eladrin. They are basically high elves, which makes them the best match for most of the elves that appear in Freeport. The PHB’s elves would be the World of Freeport’s wood elves and they’d mostly be found in Rolland.
Freeport does have gnomes, and although they are not an option in the PHB there are rules for them in the Monster Manual. Those looking to make villains out of gnomes need look no further than the World of Freeport’s Autocracy of Iovan.
Classes: All the classes in the PHB can be found in Freeport. Pirates are best modeled by rogues, though fighters and rangers can also work pretty easily. Warlocks work well with the Lovecraftian elements of the Cit of Adventure. A warlock with a star pact with the Unspeakable One would make a quite suitable cultist.
Points of Light: WotC is pushing the idea of “points of light” campaign settings. The basic idea is similar to that of Warhammer’s Old World. There are villages, towns and cities that are pockets of civilization but between them are large areas of untamed wilderness that are by no means safe. At Green Ronin we like to offer many different models for campaign play, but if points of light is your thing the Ivory Ports is probably the best area of the World of Freeport for that. A border area of Hexworth could also work, with adventures focused in the Bone Lands.
These are just a few ideas on how to use Freeport with 4th edition. If you have more, come on over to the Campaign Settings message board on GreenRonin.com and share them with your fellow gamers.
We have posted a preview directly from the pages of Buccaneers of Freeport. “Among those pirates of whom legends are sung and drunken tavern-tales told, few are as infamous, or spoken of with such awe, as Scevola Hest, captain of the Black Contessa.” Read all about this spiteful spirit of a sea captain, and get a taste of Buccaneers of Freeport.
Buccaneers of Freeport PDF Preview: Scevola Hest
Buccaneers of Freeport is now available in PDF format our Green Ronin Online Store. This game sourcebook fully details eight pirates, many new, some infamous, in lavish detail. Each entry explores the rogue’s history and his or her goals and agendas, while hinting at the curse that keeps them at sea and the treasures they guard. In addition, the pirate’s key crewmen receive extensive attention, presenting them in all their cunning and brutality to breathe life into the thrill-seeking corsairs. Finally, the pirate ship, allies, and enemies round out the chapter, culminating with a campaign framework to help you build adventures centered on these various characters. This book is free of stats, so it works with any roleplaying system, such as our own True20 Adventure Roleplaying.
Add these scurvy dogs to your campaign today!
The print version of the d20 Freeport Companion is now shipping from our Green Ronin Online Store. Pre-orders will be showing up on your doorsteps soon, and you’ll also start finding the book on store shelves. There’s never been a better time to be a fan of Freeport!
d20 Freeport Companion
The d20 Freeport Companion is now available in PDF in our Green Ronin Online Store. This massively crunchy tome brings you d20 rules for the people, monsters, magic, and more of Freeport, the City of Adventure. This is the last product we will do in support of the version 3.5 of the d20 System, so whether you’re a fan of the system, the city, or both, you’ll want to pick up this companion to Pirate’s Guide to Freeport.
You may now also pre-order d20 Freeport Companion in print, to ship for delivery as close as possible to when the book will appear on store shelves.
As a special deal, if you order the print version of d20 Freeport Companion, upon checkout you’ll be offered the PDF version at 50% off! To get this deal, make sure the print book in is your shopping cart when you check out, and then accept the special offer for the PDF when it comes up. (If you just put both the print and PDF versions in your shopping cart and check out, you will be charged full price for both.)