A Pearl of Necessity

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They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and that is certainly as true in the tabletop gaming business as it is anywhere else. One of the necessary reasons for writing adventures for the various game-lines that I work on is the need to have something to run when I am a guest at various conventions. For example, I originally wrote the Expanse adventure Salvage Op as a demo adventure to run at conventions before the game was even released. I likewise wrote the Blue Rose adventure Flight of the Snow Pearl (on-sale now!) in order to have something to run at a convention. I honestly don’t recall if it was originally OrcaCon, GaymerX, or one of the big summer conventions where I ran it first, but I’ve used it as a demo adventure at a number of conventions over the past couple of years since I wrote it.

Flight of the Snow Pearl

Cover art by Rita Fei

Without giving away too much about the actual plot of the adventure, Flight of the Snow Pearl is about what poet T.S. Eliot called “a wilderness of mirrors” which has become common parlance for talking about spying and espionage. In a situation or subculture where trust is a dangerous luxury, how do people maintain trust as an essential value? It’s a fairly short, focused, adventure but deals with some essential themes from Blue Rose, including characters helping those in need.

Flight of the Snow Pearl also demonstrated to me the way a fairly simple plot can play out in so many different ways at the table. I’ve lost count of the number of times that I have run the scenario at conventions, and it plays-out differently almost every time, with players focusing on different aspects of the plot and characters, and with certain rolls of the dice sending things off in different directions, even in cases where I’ve provided the same pre-generated characters to play. I love how such variability and variety are a part of tabletop RPGs.

So, if you’re looking for an adventure for your ongoing Blue Rose game, or have always thought of giving running the game a try—especially if you might want to run Blue Rose for a virtual convention or online event this summer—check out Flight of the Snow Pearl and give its story a go.

Mastering Time Travel (Part 2)

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Gamemastering Time TravelIn the second part of my Ronin Roundtable guest-spot on the Time Traveler’s Codex (part 1 is here, in case you missed it!), let’s look at how the sourcebook talks about Gamemastering time travel, the nature and use of time travel in the Earth-Prime omniverse, and a peek at the Silver Age time period and some familiar faces found there.

As Chapter 3 of the Time Traveler’s Codex points out, Gamemastering time travel stories can be a challenge. The chapter looks at a number of considerations, building on the intro material from Chapter 1, including deciding how changeable the timeline may be, what methods of time travel exist, the various hazards of time travel, and the important question…

Who Controls the Time Machine?

A major element of a time travel story or series is: Who is in control of the means of time travel? If it is the Gamemaster, then time travel can be largely a plot device for getting the player characters to a new era for the start of a new adventure. They might need to figure out exactly why they are there, but how they get there is taken care of. The same is largely true of time travel is under control of a non-player character, particularly some powerful patron who sends the heroes back and forth through time. The characters might occasionally be able to request some “bending” of the rules but, otherwise, the mechanics are out of their hands.

On the other hand, if the heroes are in control of their means of time travel, the Gamemaster will want clear rules as to how time travel works in the setting and the limits of the heroes’ means of travel are, if any. Be prepared for players to come up with unexpected uses of time travel and to test the limits of that ability. Having some type of limit in place, such as only being able to make so many “jumps” before having to recharge or refuel, or a need to avoid excessive stress on the space-time continuum by spacing out the use of time travel, can provide some boundaries.

The Omniverse

The Earth-Prime setting for M&M is not just one world or even one universe but a vast omniverse of parallel realities and alternate dimensions, of which your own series is a part. Whether it diverges only a little from what’s seen in sourcebook like Atlas of Earth-Prime and Emerald City, or diverges a lot, there’s room in the omniverse for everything! The Time Traveler’s Codex looks at time travel as a phenomenon in the context of the Earth-Prime setting, from cosmic beings like the Time Keepers and their Cosmic Clock, to characters like Doctor Tomorrow, Zeitgeist, and the notorious Tick-Tock Doc and his Counter-Clock Culture.

A Silver Age Retrospective

Since a guidebook to time travel requires times to visit, the Time Traveler’s Codex also looks at a wide range of historical eras, including the Golden Age, Silver Age, and Iron Age of the Earth-Prime setting, focusing on Emerald City, Freedom City, and New York City, respectively. Even if the only “time travel” that interests you is setting your M&M game in an earlier era, this part of the Codex has a wealth of material for you!

The Silver Age section looks at the heyday of the original Freedom League, from their founding after Hades’ attempts to invade Freedom City with an undead army in 1960 up through their first meeting with Pseudo during a secret invasion of the Grue in 1969. It also looks at the original Atom Family and their eventual “discovery” of Farside City, and important Silver Age villains like August Roman, Queen Khana, and Set the Destroyer (along with the slightly less important but still notable Red Death and Bee-Keeper).

And don’t forget, alongside the Time Traveler’s Codex, we also have the amazing bonus content PDF “All Time, No Space!” available FREE for download.

Sagas of Sword … and Sorcery!

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For the release of Green Ronin’s Chronicle System as the Sword Chronicle fantasy RPG and setting, a lot from its earlier incarnation as Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (SIFRP for short) was preserved, but a few things have also changed. One of those most notable things is the inclusion of sorcery.

Sorcery in the Chronicle System

Magic in SIFRP was a rare and mysterious thing, the province of a few unusual qualities and not much more than that. For Sword Chronicle we needed a more robust system of magic, suitable for everything from hedge-witches to scholarly thaumaturgists and the adepts of spiritual mystery cults. At the same time, the system needed to be more rooted in the kind of fantasy chronicles the system was designed to tell, rather than the notion of spell-caster as “mobile artillery.”

As the beginning of the Sorcery chapter of the book notes:

Sword Chronicle sorcery is not the overt, flashy spells of many roleplaying systems. It is a “lower” sort of magic, without the pyrotechnics, earth-shaking manifestations, or epic reality-altering of “high-magic” fantasy systems. In fact, many sorcerous Arts provide effects that could, to the skeptical eye, be regarded as coincidence, chicanery, or some combination of the two. Indeed, the price of many of these Arts is so high that even true sorcerers often resort to sleight of hand, tricks of chemistry, and taking credit for things that are genuinely coincidental, in order to avoid paying it.

Fortunately, we had a working basis to start from in the form of Joseph Carriker’s Chronicle of Sorcery release for the Chronicle System, which outlines the essentials for a system of sorcery. Sword Chronicle takes that concept and runs with it, expanding it out into an essential system for magic-workers of all kinds. The “price” mentioned in the introduction previously is Destiny, the Chronicle System “currency” of character potential. Sorcerers harness the power of Destiny to influence and change the world through their Arts, in both subtle and profound ways.

What are those Arts? Sword Chronicle outlines four, each with its own magical Works:

  • The Art of Benediction, which invests people, places, and things with magical blessings and power. Its Works include attunement, blessing, anointing, consecration, and investiture.
  • The Art of Divination, which draws aside the veils of space and time to grant sorcerers knowledge. Its Works include casting, dowsing, reading, and vision for the greatest of prophecies.
  • The Art of Malediction, which brings misfortune and harm to one’s enemies or to bind their wills. Its Works include Castigate, Curse, Ensorcell, Ruination
  • The Art of Warding, which turns away unwanted magic and guards against sorcery. Its Works include various types of wards and sorcerous protections.

Each Art has its Works, which range from quick-and-immediate spells to more complex and powerful rituals, from an immediate Castigate spell to wrack a target with pain to a more involved Rite of Cursing to destroy them from afar, from an immediate Blessing, to the Consecration of a great temple or Investiture of an enchanted blade, intended to last a lifetime or more.

Of course, in addition to Destiny, true mastery of sorcery requires a significant investment of a character’s qualities, and sorcerous qualities determine what Arts a character has learned, or mastered, much like fighting styles and other qualities that define characters in the Chronicle System. Indeed, there are also some qualities suitable for characters who have just a touch of magic, like the Beast-friend, the seer with Prophetic Dreams, or the chosen of Destiny with Prophetic Alignment.

So whether your concept for a Sword Chronicle character is a wise elder wizard, a cunning woods-witch, a zealous warrior of the faith, a rune-crafter, or the former member of a secretive cult, you can create them and their arcane Arts in the Chronicle System.

Even More Perilous! (Ronin Roundtable)

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This week sees the release of NetherWar, Part 2: The Pentagram Peril, the segment of the mystic-themed campaign for M&M that I helped to write. I say “helped” because Pentagram Peril wasn’t originally planned as part of a series at all. It was a stand-alone adventure involving the Factor Four and Hellqueen going after some magical treasures when I originally wrote it. But when M&M Developer Crystal Frasier came up with the NetherWar series, the concept fit right into it, so Crystal worked her own particular magic upon my original adventure to make it suitable as a chapter in the series and … voila! The Hellqueen’s scheme now fits into a larger plot involving Earth’s magical power and legacy.

Pentagram of Peril!

Art by Alberto Foche

Peril Times Two!

Speaking of larger plots, Crystal and I were talking for a Mutants & Masterminds Monday broadcast a while back about other magical villains who could fit into the NetherWar series, and Pentagram Peril would be an interesting place to include Dr. Azoth and his Homunculi (from Threat Report, also featuring in the M&M novel Roadtrip to Ruin) as additional or substitute foes. While it would be possible to replace the Factor Four with the evil alchemist and his minions, an even more interesting option is to have Dr. Azoth after the Bloodstones of Vhoka as well!

Perhaps the confrontation at the museum with the Factor Four plays out as-written, but the earlier theft of the other bloodstone from Freedom City University was actually carried out by the Homunculi, leaving each faction with one bloodstone each to start.

This turns all of the middle scenes of the adventure into a three-way competition for the bloodstones between the Factor Four, the Homunculi, and the heroes:

  • The stealthy and shape-shifting Takwin is dispatched to Dakana to infiltrate and steal the bloodstone from the treasury there.
  • The mighty Man-Drake is sent to Agartha to contend with the Terra-King and take the bloodstone from the grasp of Granite and Pyre.
  • Petra is sent to the Antarctic to retrieve the remaining bloodstone from Nullatempus, as easily able to survive the bitter cold there as Sylph.

Do the heroes try to play the villains off each other? Do the villains cooperate to deal with the heroes first before they settle who gets the bloodstone?

Since it’s likely only some of the stones will end up with each faction, the final confrontation at the Maw of Vhoka is both for control of the artifacts and to cast them into the Maw to release and control their accumulated power. It’s possible for multiple villains to gain additional power from the bloodstones, or maybe it is a struggle just between Hellqueen and Dr. Azoth, each using their minions to run interference, as well as summoning bloodstone gargoyles to aid them.

You can also decide if Dr. Azoth is an interloper interfering in the larger scheme of NetherWar or just another part of the larger plan, perhaps a “back up” to ensure the scheme involving the bloodstones is successful, should the Hellqueen and the Factor Four not prove up to the challenge. Either way, the added villainy is sure to make Pentagram Peril even more perilous!

Now Available: Five and Infinity Chapter 1 – Hunting Night

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The call goes out: Giant spiders stalk the city. Bystanders have seen their leader in the form of an enormous arachnid or a strange woman. Warriors hardened by assaults on Hell itself hunt her on a mission of vengeance. The Metacosm-spanning criminal conspiracy called the Krypteia seek her too, to profit from her powers—or whatever secrets they can steal from her corpse. But why is the spider-goddess Vabhis on Earth, and how can you stop her from revealing the existence of many worlds to the public—or keep the public safe when her children get hungry? 

Five and Infinity: Part 1 Hunting Night

Hungry Spiders and Fallen Demigods 

Hunting Night is an adventure for Modern AGE characters levels 1 to 4 in the Threefold setting, though with some adaptation it can be used for other Modern AGE campaigns. For full use of the adventure, the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook and Threefold campaign book are required.  

This adventure can stand alone, but it’s also the first part of Five and Infinity adventure series, which takes your Modern AGE Threefold characters from levels 1 to 16. 

Get Five and Infinity Chapter 1: Hunting Night 

…and generate your own adventures with Chapter 0 

Sword Chronicle: Feudal Fantasy Roleplaying Returns

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The fury of battle. Court intrigue. Games of blood and status. That’s Sword Chronicle, a complete roleplaying game for the Chronicle System. We’ve been working on it quietly, with no official announcements before now.

Sword Chronicle: Feudal Fantasy Roleplaying

(not final cover)

Where’s the Hype?

Well, this is the hype. Sword Chronicle was designed under the radar as a response to the COVID-19 situation, which we’ve discussed here. We took a hard look at what we could do in this emergency, and this not only fit the bill, it sent a message that we’re not going to just survive, but survive aggressively, by producing a core rulebook.

The Chronicle System Returns

Originally designed for the A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying game, the Chronicle System was devised to work on multiple scales and fields of conflict, from duels to battles to courtly intrigue. Green Ronin’s license to make the game has concluded, and we remain grateful for the opportunity to explore Westeros through the game. But we’ve always wanted to support other settings for the Chronicle System. We started that with setting-agnostic Chronicle System material available through our website and DriveThruRPG. Sword Chronicle is the next step: a core rulebook designed to bring the Chronicle System’s unique characteristics to classic fantasy gaming.

What’s The Same, What’s Changed 

Sword Chronicle uses the Chronicle System you’ve seen before, but adds new elements to support fantasy games, including the following: 

  • Rules for fantasy ancestries, including elves, dwarves, and ogres 
  • A revised version of the magic rules first presented in the Chronicle of Sorcery supplement, integrated into the core rules 
  • Revised and reorganized rules for intrigue: the art of victory in the social arena 
  • The Shattered Era, an optional fantasy setting featuring 19 houses, the nonhumanoid kurgulan people, and the Breachlands, a region fit for empire builders and uprisings

Furthermore, while you don’t need to purchase Chronicle of Sorcery for magic rules if you get Sword Chronicle, all other published generic Chronicle System supplements remain compatible, including creature supplements such as Desert Threats and rules expansions such as Out of Strife, Prosperity. Thus, Sword Chronicle comes with immediate support. You can play it with one book, but the options are there.

Beyond the Sword Chronicle

Sword Chronicle is an expression of the “classic” Chronicle System, but there’s more to come. Don’t forget that The Fifth Season Roleplaying Game, which will use a version of the system tailored to the world of N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth Trilogy, is on the horizon. It’s a good time to be a Chronicle System fan. Stay in touch—we’ll tell you when.

Sacred Band Cover Reveal

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Last year, Nisaba Press announced that they’d acquired the rights to rerelease my first novel, Sacred Band. Today, I’m thrilled to announce that we’re revealing the incredible new cover as well as opening pre-orders for the new edition, both in print and ebook in the Online Store, as well as on Amazon.

Sacred Band 2nd printing

Sacred Band tells the story of a team of LGBTQ+ superpowered individuals set in a post-superheroic world. When no one in charge is taking the disappearance of queer and other marginalized folk from around the world seriously, this team bands together to do it themselves. They find themselves facing down official scrutiny even while racing against the sinister conspiracy that is steps ahead of them and closing in on their goal.

This new second edition of Sacred Band has been treated to additional caretaking behind the scene, including a re-write of the original final chapter and an epilogue chapter of entirely new material! It is, without question, the book I always wanted it to be.

As much as I love the cover from Sacred Band’s first edition (it is, after all, the cover of my first novel), this incredible piece of dynamic art from the legendary Melissa Uran really captures the spirit of my novel. 

When I first started writing it, I turned to my long-time friend Melissa and commissioned a set of images of each of the members of the team, just to help me solidify what they looked like as I wrote. Melissa’s gorgeously detailed art has been a part of Sacred Band from the beginning, and I cannot tell you how over the moon I am that it now bears a cover from her as well.

Sacred Band Concept Art

Original Sacred Band concept art, by Melissa Uran. From left to right: Sentinel, Gauss, Deosil, Optic, and Llorona.

There’s lots more Sacred Band goodness on the horizon. Thank you so much for joining us on this journey!

Lost Citadel Roleplaying: The AGE of Redoubt

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Lost Citadel RoleplayingThe Lost Citadel Roleplaying is out (currently in PDF, but coming to print as soon as our COVID-19-altered industry can manage). This setting for 5e presents a world where the Dead have risen, and the living survive behind the walls of Redoubt, a great dwarven city seized from its original rulers. In Redoubt, many cultures mix, each trying to maintain its traditions in a new, desperate environment, while Woe—the power of corruption brought by the Dead—manifests in unquiet corpses and magic alike.

While The Lost Citadel is designed for 5e, our Kickstarter campaign unlocked a stretch goal promising rules to use the setting with our own Fantasy AGE roleplaying game, and those rules are currently in layout ahead of their eventual release to backers. They’ll also be made available in PDF form. I was selected to write them as I happen to have experience working on both The Lost Citadel setting (I wrote a story for the anthology and did both rules and setting work on the roleplaying book) and Fantasy AGE, I became the designer for this particular supplement.

One thing I tried to do was to formulate The Lost Citadel as a Fantasy AGE setting from the ground up. Instead of simple conversion rules, the character options, equipment, magic, and the rest were done from a Fantasy AGE perspective. For example, custom Fantasy AGE backgrounds, compatible with those in the core book, provide a history for your character specific to the setting. This approach has the added side effect of adding a number of things that might be of interest for general Fantasy AGE players and GMs as well, such as the 17 specializations available. While a handful have been adapted from the Fantasy AGE Companion, a number of them are brand new, such as the Witch talent, previewed here.

Witch

You represent the remnants of rural folk wisdom traditions from across Zileska. In the age of the Dead, the power of nature has been twisted and suppressed, but your studies and meditations have revived ancient bonds, and may even evoke the powers of nature spirits that have long lain dormant in the land. Herbalism is a mandatory field of study. Witches are often employed by the Foresters, as their knowledge is of use to the organization, and it provides an opportunity for them to explore the wild beyond Redoubt.

Class: Any

Requirements: Must have Intelligence and Constitution of 2 or higher, the Intelligence (Natural Lore) focus, and the ability to cast spells using magic points, such as by being a mage or Arcane Initiate.

Witch Talent

You study the ways of nature.

Novice: You can speak to natural animals, and they can communicate with you without vocalizing, though you hear them speaking back to you. You may use Communication tests to influence animals you communicate with, and add your Animal Lore focus bonus (typically +2) on top of any other Communication focuses bonuses you have for them.

Journeyman: You can charge non-metal weapons with natural energy. This requires an Activate action, which charges one weapon that has no metal components for the duration of the encounter. If this is a ranged weapon, the ammunition can incorporate metal, but not the weapon itself. When activated and used by you, your weapon is considered magical for the purposes of harming creatures vulnerable to magic weapons, and inflicts an additional 1d6 damage.

Master: Nature is your ally. Your movement is never impeded by natural terrain (brush, mud, etc.) that would otherwise slow you down. Furthermore, you can use a minor action to create a space up to 4 yards by 4 yards in diameter up to 20 yards away, where natural impediments reduce everyone else’s Speed by half. Any creature that moves through this space or ends their turn in it takes 3d6 penetrating damage inflicted by the poisonous plants and wildlife that arise in this spot. You are immune to the hazards created by your own space, as is anyone you designate, as long as you can perceive them as they enter the space. You can create a space like this as often as you like, but creating a new space eliminates the old one.

Justice for all. Black lives matter.

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Justice for All
Everyone at Green Ronin was outraged by the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis, and we support the protests demanding justice in his name, and in the names of countless Black people murdered and mistreated by the police. Black lives matter, and it’s long past time white America acknowledged that, and took responsibility for the deep-seated racism at the roots of our nation’s history, poisoning our nation’s present.

From the very beginning, the American ideal of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” was reserved only for some. That is unjust and cannot be allowed to continue. The injustices of the past must be redressed and, more importantly, present-day systemic racism and white supremacy must be torn out of our nation, root and branch. For there to be peace, there must first be justice. Justice for George Floyd. Justice for Breonna Taylor. Justice for Ahmaud Arbery, and so many, many others. Because until there is justice for them, all of them, there cannot be justice—or peace—for all.

Justice for all. Black lives matter.

Justice Now Sale
In conjunction with this statement we are launching a new Charitable Giving sale. From now until July 6, the Mutants & Masterminds Basic Hero’s Handbook is on sale for $20 in print and $15 in PDF. $10 of each sale will go to Black Lives Matter Seattle-King County. Comics have often been used to tell stories about the fight for justice and heroism in the face of oppression, and you can write your own chapters with the Mutants & Masterminds RPG.

We also encourage you to donate directly to BLM Seattle or the nationwide organization. Seattle Met has a good list of other ways to support the protests here in our home town.

You may also consider supporting social justice organizations we’ve donated money to in previous Charitable Giving campaigns.
Center for Justice and Accountability
Innocence Project
National Immigrant Justice Center
Pride Foundation
RAICES
Southern Poverty Law Center

What Even Is Time (Travel)? (Ronin Roundtable)

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With the 20th anniversary of Green Ronin Publishing and the 18th anniversary of Mutants & Masterminds this year, we’ve been doing a lot of looking back at the past. But what about visiting the past or, for that matter, changing the past? Well, that’s where the Time Traveler’s Codex for M&M comes into play, arriving “just in time,” so to speak.

Time travel is a favorite sub-genre of mine, and the superhero genre is especially fertile ground for it, given the “anything goes” approach of my comic book universes. It’s not all that unusual for a character to be someone else’s potential offspring from an alternate future, or for one’s nemesis to be someone you haven’t even “met” yet, but who is trying to erase you from history! Naturally, when M&M Developer Crystal Frasier proposed the Time Traveler’s Codex, I was first in-line to write part of it!

Time Traveler's Codex on sale now!

 

The parts of the Codex I got to write include: The overview of time travel as a sub-genre, temporal mechanics and rules options, the role of time travel in a series, creating characters with time travel in mind, Gamemaster advice on handling time travel and running time travel adventures (or series), time travel in the Earth-Prime omniverse, and a revisit to the Silver Age of Freedom City as a time travel destination. Here on the Ronin Round-Table, in this installment and the next, let’s take a sneak-peek at a few of these in more detail.

Infinite Possibilities

Well, there wasn’t room in the sourcebook for infinite possibilities (if there is later, maybe I’ll jump back and revise). Still, the beginning Time Traveler’s Codex takes a good look at how time travel might work, and at the various staples of the sub-genre, including alternate timelines (and alternate selves), non-linear time, paradoxes, fixed points in time, and temporal enforcement agents (both natural and supernatural). Gamemasters can decide for themselves what time travel options exist in their own games, with some guidance as to the possibilities and repercussions.

Temporal Mechanics

The first chapter of the sourcebook also looks at optional rules systems for handling things like temporal navigation, temporal drift, temporal mishaps (complications specifically related to time travel), temporal transformations (either from revisions in history or exposure to chronal energies), and retroactive continuity. It’s a place where some of the M&M game systems get to shine, from transformative afflictions to time-related complications. I particularly like the following extension of the hero point mechanics for time travel:

Hero Points and Retcons

Temporal manipulations allow for an additional option for hero points, using the Edit Scene ability to “retcon” changes in history! Essentially, so long as the player can come up with a time travel scenario that explains it, they can spend a hero point to edit the scene to make it the case. For example, heroes might find themselves trapped and without their devices; a player suggests their hero will, at some point in the future, come back into the past and leave an extra set of equipment behind a false panel nearby! The GM approves, the player spends the hero point, and voila! The heroes open the panel to find the gear that they need.

In addition to the normal limit imposed by the number of hero points they have to spend, the GM may wish to impose temporal consequences for an excessive use of this option, perhaps causing a character to start to develop time sickness (following) with the DC of the resistance test based on 10 + the number of hero points spent retconning that game session (or over a certain number that session).

Next Up: Mastering time travel, time in the Omniverse, and a look back at the Silver Age!