Travel the Stars—Trades of the Expanse: Scout

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Scouts! a new supplement in the Trades of the Expanse seriesExplore the galaxy! Chart new systems! Study new stellar phenomena! See what no human has ever seen!

Sign up today and join this new branch of Pope Enterprises family – The Pope Scouting Service!

 

Just a little over a month ago, I brought you the news that the new edition of Trades of the Expanse was coming out. Now I can tell you that the next is ready to go. The PDF for Trades of the Expanse: Scout is now available! So, what exactly are scouts in The Expanse RPG? Well, let me tell you….

The 1300 new worlds beyond the ring gates are ripe for exploration, colonization, and plundering. However, before these worlds can be explored, they must be located and determined and their safety analyzed. While much of the initial exploration and observation is uncrewed, using probes and other remote-operated ships, nothing beats the human touch. A scout can often notice dangers or anomalies that a remote probe might miss. They can also react immediately and make on-the-fly decisions if an unusual situation arises rather than waiting for hours due to the time delay in communications.

Scouts and planetary surveyors often work hand-in-hand, with a scout ship leading the way and then a team of planetary surveyors arriving soon after they give the all-clear. Sometimes, the ships explore a system in tandem, or you may even find planetary surveyors on the same ship.

Of course, not all scouts explore new systems and stellar phenomena. The MCR and UN Navies make heavy use of scouts to monitor their enemies, and the Belters also have their own scouts for spying on the MCR and UN as well as other Belters. The megacorps are also not averse to using scouts to ferret out information about the competition. This type of scout overlaps somewhat into the territory of spying, although in most cases, they never leave the ship. It can also prove to be incredibly dangerous. No military or corporate entity takes well to surreptitious scans of their stations, factories, or colonies. The response to this sort of snooping can often be lethal.

Trades of the Expanse: Scout offers the trove of information folks have come to expect from all of the Trades books. You’ll find lots of fun details about the life of scouts, who hires them, and what kind of jobs they can find. Then there are new rules, including sample advanced and challenge tests for scout-oriented adventures, new stunts, reputations, and a scout specialization. And finally, the fun part—new ships and equipment!

For new equipment, you’ll find expert systems for scout ship computers and an array of probes and drones that can come in handy while exploring new systems. Ships are a necessary tool for any scout, and we’ve got four new designs. The Mosquito-class (dubbed the “Tin Can”) is a tiny one-person scout vessel. The Dove-class Stealth Scout is a slight step up, with serviceable living quarters for its crew of two—both of whom had best get along. This ship is designed for getting into and out of places without being seen. With a standard crew of six (perfect for a group of player characters), the Orion-class Heavy Scout is designed for long-term missions. However, most are constructed on a decommissioned class of  UNN patrol ships, and sometimes the age shows. Last but not least is the Beta-class Scouting Platform. While technically a ship, the Beta is more of a mini-space station meant for long-term missions and observation.

Keep your comms open for more information on upcoming books for The Expanse RPG at a space station near you!

Disembodied Troy and I will be taking a deep dive into the material, during ThursdAGE!, the official livestream Powered buy the Adventure Game Engine. Come join us on YouTube at 2P Pacific, 5P Eastern.

Trades of the Expanse: Scout is also available over on DrivethruRPG

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Exploring the Expanse—Trades of the Expanse: Planetary Surveyor

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Trades of the Expanse: Planetary SurveyorI know I’ve been talking about it for a long time, but it’s finally here—Trades of the Expanse: Planetary Surveyor! The perfect companion for Beyond the Ring, this book offers an in-depth look into the dangerous trade of planetary exploration. Not only will you find details about the nuts and bolts of planetary exploration but there are lots of new gadgets and new rules for expanding gameplay.

Prior to the discovery of the ring gates and the 1300 worlds that lie beyond, planetary exploration by humans had become a thing of the past. By the timeframe of The Expanse, all the major worlds and many of the major moons and asteroids in our solar system had been extensively explored. While new discoveries are still being made, the need for human-centered exploration missions has dwindled. However, with the opening up of so many new worlds and systems, planetary surveyors (and their companion scouts) have become hot commodities sought out by governments and mega corporations in the gold rush to the stars.

Planetary Surveyor offers a wealth of new information on the life of a planetary surveyors and includes details on the types of missions surveyors are likely to find and who might be hiring them. Governments, corporations, and even religious and special interest groups are all seeking information about these new worlds. Which planets are habitable (suitable for a colony), what are their resources, what are the dangers. Planetary surveyors are expected to report back with all this information and more. Of course, as the first colony on Ilus/New Terra proved, exploring new worlds is a dangerous task and suitable for only the bravest hardiest individuals.

Of course, scientific exploration breeds innovation and planetary surveyors have a wealth of new tools of the trade to make their job easier and maybe even a little safer. The new gear described in this book includes animal capture gear, chemistry decks, survival kits, drones (reconnaissance, surveying, sampling, snare, and submersible) as well as aircraft, aquatic vehicles, and ground vehicles. They even have their own special designed ships including the Giza-class research vessel, the Liu Hui-class scout, and the Narwhal-type submersible skiff. Yes, you read that correctly, a space craft designed for underwater exploration as well!

The book also features new rules including a planetary surveyor specialization, new reputations, and Churn results targeted specifically at exploration-based stories and campaigns. You’ll also find a few ready-made contacts, clients and fixers who might hire planetary surveyors.

So, what’s next? Trades of the Expanse: Scout, sort of the companion for this Trades book is right around the corner. And this fall, we’ll be bringing you Sol System which has everything you’d want to know about our very own solar system during The Expanse era as well as new rules including augmentations for player characters. And we’re not done yet! The Trades of the Expanse series continues with new entries and we have new books planned that take us through the Free Navy Conflict and beyond! So, keep your eyes on the stars, watch out for killer robots, and stay tuned to this channel for more updates.

 

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Out Now: Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition!

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Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook out now!I am delighted to announce that Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition is here, there, and everywhere! It’s in game stores this week and we will, of course, have it at our Gen Con booth in August. The print edition of Fantasy AGE 2E is, of course, available through our online store, and you can get the PDF there or at DriveThruRPG. Virtual tabletop wise, we’ve got a character sheet, short adventures, and tokens available on Roll20 and we’re hard at work on a full compendium for Fantasy AGE 2E as well. The Fantasy AGE GM’s Toolkit—with a hardback screen, reference cards, and an adventure—is already at print and coming soon.

If, like many people this year, you are looking for an alternate swords & sorcery RPG, check out what Fantasy AGE 2E has to offer. It’s a complete RPG in one book that gives you the tools to run a game in the world of your choice, our new Stranger Shores setting, or one you create yourself. The class and level system gives new players something familiar, but the stunt system and other design innovations set Fantasy AGE apart. If you’d like to read more about it, we’ve got a series of Ronin Round Tables that delve into various aspects of the game.

You can start here, with our January announcement.

You can learn about the ancestries available for your characters here.

You can read about classes and specializations here.

You can get in a fight here.

You can learn about magic here.

You can see what’s great about stunts here.

Fantasy AGE 2E is a relaunch of the whole line and you can learn more about what’s coming up for the game here.

We have been working on Fantasy AGE 2E for many years and it’s exciting to see it get into people’s hands. I hope you all have fun with it. There’s still plenty of time to start a summer campaign!

 

Storm Warning: A New Modern AGE Missions Adventure!

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Storm Warning a new adventure for Modern AGEIn a small, seaside town, a cult lurks in the shadows and prepares to fulfill the dark prophecies it’s harbored for years. Now, the time is finally right to bring their patron into the world, using an incoming natural disaster as both cover and a source of fell energy. Heroes must work against the clock and the elements to discover the cult’s plot and decide what to do about it, rescuing or dooming the town while doing their best to simply survive.

Written by Jose R. Garcia and developed by Meghan Fitzgerald, Storm Warning is a new adventure for the Modern AGE roleplaying game, designed to be suitable for characters between levels 1-4, showcasing Modern AGE in the survival horror genre, as the cult, its bizarre servitors and, perhaps, the unspeakable being behind it all, arise in wind and water. It provides multiple paths for the Game Master to follow, allowing it to stand on its own or fit into a larger campaign. Therefore, it requires the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook.

 

 

Storm Warning is part of the Modern AGE Missions adventure series. These adventures aren’t tied to any detailed setting, though they sometimes loosely imply a setting. This makes them ideal for one-shots, as a campaign kickoff, or as a break from your game’s primary story arc. Check out the other Modern AGE Missions:

Warflower

Alchemy, drug dealing, corporate intrigue, and medieval sword fighting combine in a modern-day murder mystery with a side of action and a little mysticism—or is it just strange chemistry? Warflower is an adventure for characters of levels 1-4.

Feral Hogs

After civilization fell apart, and the people of ‘Murica retreated to desperate villages and the enormous walled distribution fortresses of the Bozos clan, a new threat arose—no, not the rise of strange mental powers triggered by energy drinks, the other threat: feral hogs. In case the adventure title didn’t give it away. Whether in squealing hordes of 30-50 or in singular mutants of towering porcine glory, they stand in the way of recovery. Feral Hogs is a lighthearted adventure for characters of levels 1-4.

Flight 1701

A routine flight turns into a challenge to survive and humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life, as the plane somehow crashes on another world. The passengers and crew must work together to discover what happened, represent all humans while struggling to communicate with an alien people, and figure out a way to get back home. The decisions they make may alter the course of human civilization forever. An adventure for characters of levels 5-8.

Assault on the Aerie

A skilled strike team must find a way to breach the defenses of a nigh-impenetrable mountain fortress, rescue the hostages inside, stop a threat to humanity, and get out alive. That alone would be hard enough, but the mystical wards and magical creatures standing in their way makes the mission all the more dangerous. Assault on the Aerie is a new adventure for the Modern AGE roleplaying game, designed to be suitable for characters between levels 13-15, showcasing Modern AGE in the urban fantasy genre.

Playing With Stunts

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Stunts are one of the pillars of the Adventure Game Engine, the system we use in Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE, Blue Rose, The Expanse, and the upcoming Cthulhu Awakens and Fifth Season roleplaying games, all descended from design work on the grandfather of them all, Dragon Age.

Heading into the new edition of Fantasy AGE and Cthulhu Awakens, as well as some proposed and to-be announced projects, I played with how stunt point generation and stunts functioned. Part of game development is exploring ideas that won’t necessarily make it into the final game—and sometimes even ideas that would never have done so, but act as conceptual landmarks.

Relationship Bonds and the newer Stunt Attack option aside, the basic way to generate stunt points is to match any 2 dice on a 3d6 test. This prompts a look at the Stunt Die (Drama Die in some games, or Dragon Die in Dragon Age), which tells you how many stunt points (SP) you get. But what if we did it differently?

Let’s take a look at some of these options.

Creating your own house-rules like stunts is part of what makes AGE so fun!Highest Die is Stunt Die: Instead of having a fixed Stunt Die, it’s always the highest die. Since you get SP on the set of successful tests your SP will always tend toward the higher range in the first place, but this exaggerates the effect even further. I don’t recommend this as a standard practice, but it might work as a special ability provided by a talent or extraordinary effect.

Lowest Die is Stunt Die: Woah, this one is interesting on a few levels, and in fact, is the most mathematically “logical,” but it isn’t fun enough to replace the ordinary Stunt Die. For one thing, that means you need a natural 18 to get 6 SP—and there’s a 0.46% chance of getting that. That’s why it isn’t fun enough, as part of the purpose of the Stunt Die is to add more variable results— “swinginess,” we call it, sometimes—to the regularity provided by the 3d6 curve.

SP and Degrees of Success Are Separate Dice: As we also use the Stunt Die to measure your degree of success, making the highest or lowest rolled die the Stunt Die becomes a problem for things like automatic weapons in Modern AGE, as well as advanced tests and other things that rely on degree of success. So, you might retain a visually distinctive die called the “Success Die” or “Power Die.” Even if you keep the usual Stunt Die you might split it from the Power Die. I looked at this pretty seriously as it opens up a lot of design-level opportunities, but in the end, I didn’t think it was worth it.

Anti-Stunts: Cthulhu Awakens actually has a limited version of this, but the version here is simpler. If you blow a roll but get doubles, you generate SP—for bad things. The simplest application is to hand them over to an opponent who spends them on stunts that are bad for you on their turn, in addition to the SP they might gain. Enemies who do the same naturally give you SP in return, so if you use this option SP ebb and flow from one side to the other. Besides the convolutions necessary outside of straightforward situations like combat, the problems with this one are the sheer number of SP that can concentrate in one place, which can get out of hand.

Degree of Success to SP: One recent idea I had was to award degree of success -5 SP regardless of whether a roll scores doubles or not. This means 1 SP on a 6. It gets really interesting when characters gain the ability to add focus bonuses to degrees of success. In newer AGE games this bonus maxes out at +4, so a roll of 6 with that bonus on the Stunt Die would provide a degree of success of 10, which converts to 5 bonus SP. The tricky bit comes when we score doubles. We could drop that completely, which would be miserable because low level characters could only ever get 1 SP from a roll, but if we keep SP from doubles the range of SP would be (degree of success -5) + Stunt Die, which might award up to 11 SP, which is too much.

Everything is Stunts: The answer to too-many-SP variants of course is, “What if it’s all stunts?” In this scheme we would add a Base Effect stunt table and the General Stunts from the Modern AGE Companion, and instead of stunts being an extraordinary result, we use SP as the building blocks to do anything—but no SP, no result. This would produce a really formal set of AGE mechanics which don’t fit the GM-guided goals of the system but might be fun to experiment with, nonetheless.

What do you think of these ideas? Would you try any of them? AGE is house rule and variant-friendly by design, as shown in the optional systems in Fantasy AGE. Modern AGE has two books that are filled with optional and variant game systems: the Modern AGE Companion and perhaps more relevant to this article, the Modern AGE Mastery Guide. Regardless of what we cook up in the lab, so to speak, we like it when you make the games your own.

We’ve Been Secretly Making a Game

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We've been secretly making, Swords of the Shadow Planet!That’s right, we have. Well, kind of. We mentioned it briefly in 2019, at Gen Con, but the reference was so short and sparse that it didn’t spread. This was a blessing in disguise because of course the very next year COVID-19 spread across the world, forcing us to change our plans.

We changed them back this year. We’re doing it.

Let me tell you about this game. In fact, let me get a little cute about it since it’s truly under the radar.

  • It uses a system we’ve used in RPGs before, but it isn’t the Adventure Game Engine, 5e, Pathfinder, M&M, or any form of D20. Well, sometimes it uses D20s, but it usually doesn’t.
  • It’s not going to be a big tome of a game. It’s simple and direct. In fact, the utilitarian straightforwardness of the system is what made me want to use it.
  • It’s not a Chronicle System game, either.
  • Some of the design ideas harken to the roots of RPGs. There’s definitely a flavor you might associate with what we call “OSR” games, but more on the weird and problem-solving procedural realm of things, and not so much nostalgia. For instance: no make-you-do-things social mechanics, so characters gather social information to apply while roleplaying instead.
  • We’re talking about how we might get innovative with the visual presentation of this one, from its format to its interior.
  • Freeform magic—for certain values of “magic”—that any character can use.
  • This isn’t an AGE game, but we still love stunts, so rules for exceptional feats—and disasters, and trying for the former by risking the latter, are part of the system.
  • This one is classless.
  • You can play a Neandertal, or someone made of rock. Or a dinosaur. You can even play yourself. Note that this is not a hint that it’s a generic game. I’ll have you know rock people, dinosaurs, Neandertals, and even people like you each have specific roles in the setting.
  • Yeah, it’s got a setting. An imaginary world aiming to be strange in its familiarity.
  • Where Cthulhu Awakens started from the premise, “What if we made a Cthulhu Mythos game setting in the modern day?” this one asks the same question about another subgenre well known for its roots in the past.
  • The game has a potential cover already. It’s the one you can see beside this article.

The game is called Swords of the Shadow Planet, and it’s coming…when it’s done!

Stay tuned.

Check Out Our Pride Merch Catalog!

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Ronin Pride Collection

LGBTQIA+ Ronin Supports the National Center for Transgender Equality

We’ve added a whole bunch of new items to our Merch store in celebration of Pride this month! But don’t worry, they’ll still be available afterward. And even better, a portion of every sale from the Ronin Pride Collection goes to supporting the National Center for Transgender Equality. To learn more about this organization, and how you can help, visit https://transequality.org/

Modern AGE, Post-Pandemic

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Modern AGE Powers!One of the challenges of the pandemic was a “logjam” of content we couldn’t publish yet for a number of reasons. Printers were unavailable. Shipping was awful (and hasn’t improved as much as anyone would like, honestly—remember, we don’t set those prices!) and people got sick. Bad times, and we’re still emerging from them.

One of the effects of this has been that Modern AGE has had to deal with a number of delays, compounded by new delays as some priority items are earlier in the queue for publication. Modern AGE is my game and I love it, but we NEED Mutants & Masterminds in print over Modern AGE supplements, for instance.

Where We Were

We did manage to release a few things for the line over the pandemic, however, and just to refresh your memory, they are:

Enemies & Allies: Modern AGE’s book of friends, foes, and bizarre beings from the slipstream SF, procedural, technothriller, horror, and urban fantasy genres. Enemies & Allies dropped in 2020.

Modern AGE Missions Series: Did you know Modern AGE has adventure support? The electronic Missions series started in 2020, and now encompasses the following titles:

Five and Infinity: Threefold Adventure Series: This is the one that was probably the most affected by the pandemic. Originally intended to drop as a thin hardcover hot on the heels of the Threefold setting book, we had to make do when the printing, shipping, and timing opportunities to sell the thing dried up. This collection of five adventures for the dimension-hopping Threefold setting include some of the best work ever done for Modern AGE, in my opinion—and story and planar generators, too! After releasing the adventures one at a time we eventually opted for a collected softcover print release of Five and Infinity in 2022.

Modern AGE Mastery Guide: Released in 2021, the Mastery Guide is, at this time of writing in May 2023, the most recent hardcover release, covering official rules updates, tons of optional rules, and best practices for players and GMs.

Cyberpunk Slice: This one dropped last year, in 2022. Cyberpunk Slice (PDF link; POD at Drivethru here) was a half-unexpected hit—unexpected because we designed it to make sure there was fresh Modern AGE content, but only half so because fans had long asked for dedicated cyberpunk genre support.

All in all, not a bad roster for the Bad Years.

Where We’re Headed

I originally had a more aggressive schedule for Modern AGE planned for the past three years, but looking forward, timing and industry changes mean we’re not necessarily going to dump a glut of products we’ve had saved up out there.

One change that impacted the line was Cthulhu Awakens evolving from a Modern AGE supplement to an autonomous game still largely compatible Modern AGE but able to stand on its own.

Beyond that, here’s what’s coming. Well, some things are almost for sure, while others are more speculative—definitely versus maybe, below!

Definitely More Missions: We have a pair of Modern AGE Missions adventures working their way through the production process.

Definitely Modern AGE Powers: The big book of extraordinary powers, revised and expanded from the Modern AGE Companion to include superpowers, more magic, more psychic powers, strange ancestries, and a whole bunch of extraordinary items. This book is currently awaiting its turn for art and proofing.

Maybe More Slices: Cyberpunk Slice has raised the possibility of other short works that concentrate on a genre. Which ones would you buy? I’ve kicked around Modern Fantasy Slice, Apocalypse Slice, Horror Slice, and so on. Also, I mean “buy,” not “wish existed but would not necessarily buy,” which is why I didn’t list pulp or steampunk.

Maybe More Settings: I always wanted to do settings beyond World of Lazarus and Threefold but for various reasons this sort of thing has been delayed. Plus of course we have the challenge of settings for a base game line, where we can’t provide more support without further divvying up gamers by their level of interest in a given setting.

I look forward to resolving the “maybes,” and also really getting Modern AGE down as a solid body of work that stretches the possibilities of the Adventure Game Engine, especially as I explore potential new AGE games, iterating from the ideas we’ve worked on….

A Gathering of the AGEs: Consolidated Rules in Fantasy AGE 2e

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Fantasy AGE Core RulebookHey folks, Malcolm here. I’m not the developer of the new edition of Fantasy AGE but I am one of the developers of the core rulebook. While I can’t give you a first-person perspective on the whole game, I can tell you a bit about the parts I helped work on. So, I thought I’d write a couple of pieces about that!

One of the goals of Fantasy AGE’s second edition was to consolidate various rules developments from multiple AGE games and supplements. If you’re an Adventure Game Engine completist you might recognize the following new and updated rules as familiar—with a few exceptions, because they’re from AGE works that haven’t come out yet but influenced development nonetheless! In any event, this is one of the factors that led us to eventually decide the new core rulebook was a true “Second Edition” of Fantasy AGE even though much of 1e remains compatible.

Challenge Tests: Challenge tests are advanced tests with certain special conditions, meant to emulate heists and other forms of dramatic extended tasks where characters need to apply multiple focuses, and fallout from failures can occur mid-test. Originally created by Crystal Frasier (and called “breaching tests”) for Modern AGE’s World of Lazarus supplement, it proved to be such a good idea we moved it to the core rulebook. The Expanse merged challenge tests and Modern AGE’s chase tests, and that final evolution is part of Fantasy AGE now.

Daring: Daring, an optional rule that promotes dramatic reversals in encounters, is an evolution of the rules for Serendipity, originally from the Modern AGE Companion.

Daring is one of the cool new optional rules in Fantasy AGE 2nd edition

Peril and Daring!

Defeat Conditions: Despite making their first appearance in Fantasy AGE 2E, Defeat Conditions were originally invented for Cthulhu Awakens, to provide alternatives to death as the result of dramatic combat.

Fortune: Fortune is an invention of Steve Kenson, originally devised for The Expanse roleplaying game, where escalating Health wasn’t appropriate but “script immunity” was a better fit. It was a great idea in that game, and it’s a cool option in Fantasy AGE, too.

Minor Arcana: These petty spells originally hail from the Threefold setting for Modern AGE.

Peril: Peril, where success lands you in deeper trouble, began as the Churn spiral in The Expanse. Interestingly, in the Modern AGE Companion it’s present and called Complications.

Relationships: Relationships, an optional rule to strengthen character connections in Fantasy AGE, was first introduced in Blue Rose.

Revised Spellcasting: In the new edition of Fantasy AGE spells only fail to be cast when a mage decides to abandon them or doesn’t have the magic points for them, because we determined spending MP on nothing happening wasn’t fun. Instead, if you fail a casting roll, the MP cost goes up. This is another option that was originally piloted in Modern AGE’s Threefold setting.

Simple Tests: A “test that doesn’t use stunts/SP” has existed in an ad hoc fashion since the beginning of the AGE system but the Simple Test concept, introduced in the Modern AGE Mastery Guide, gathers them all together as versions of simple tests and lets the GM use them at their discretion as well.

These nine examples aren’t the only ones, and notably, much of the Fantasy AGE Companion from the game’s first edition has been updated and added to the core of Fantasy AGE 2E.

Works Cited!

Want to know about the games that provided input for the new Fantasy AGE? Check them out:

Blue Rose: The AGE Roleplaying Game of Romantic Fantasy

Cthulhu Awakens

The Expanse Roleplaying Game

Modern AGE

Modern AGE Companion

Threefold (Modern AGE)

World of Lazarus (Modern AGE)

Fantasy AGE 2nd Editon—Set Sail for Adventure!

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Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook Prepare to set sail for adventure!With the core book behind us, one would think I might be taking a moment to relax. We’ve got the book out, right? No need to rush ahead. Nothing could be further from the truth! I’m already neck deep in the first few supplements, with lots more to come! So what can you expect to see in the coming months? Well, sit back and let me spin you a yarn of what we’ve got in store for you.

One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen about Fantasy AGE is that previously, there was not enough setting and adventure support. Many of us have busy lives these days, and having good adventure and setting material can be vital to keeping a campaign alive. I’m here to tell you that we’ve heard you.

Right out of the gate, you’ll see several adventures for the Breakwater Bay setting from the core rulebook. Set Sail for Breakwater Bay (in the core book) is a shipboard adventure full of horror and intrigue. If you are so inclined, this adventure is well suited for introducing the new Horror rules. Quickly following will be the Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition Quickstart and the Fantasy AGE Game Master’s Kit. Both of these feature adventures written by the amazing Steve Kenson. The Breakwater Curse (included with the GM’s Kit) explores the dark history of Breakwater Bay, and Terror of the Ghost Ship (featured in the Quickstart) is an encounter with a derelict ship at sea. All three of these are designed to be used as part of the Breakwater Bay setting but could easily be moved to another location of your choosing. So, before you know it, you’ll have three adventures that can easily be linked together.

In case you thought that was all, hang tight—there’s much more! The first major supplement planned is a five-part adventure series called The Lost Isle of the Pirate Queen that begins in Breakwater Bay and explores much of Kassa Isle and beyond. This series is packed full of adventure, horror, and whimsy. There’s something in there for everyone. The series takes characters all the way to 11th or 12th level and should be enough to keep most groups busy for quite some time. The story and adventures are also easy to modify to suit your group’s style and provide a lot of additional background and setting material for Kassa Isle. There is also ample room for introducing your own adventures and encounters during the campaign. In fact, this is encouraged!

We’re up to eight adventures now, all of which could be strung into one campaign with little or no work on behalf of the GM. So what next, you ask? I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I’ll give you a glimpse. A new, massive bestiary called Adversaries & Encounters is already well underway. This massive tome will feature monsters and other adversaries, both old and new. But even those you may have seen before have fresh new takes and variations. The book features story hooks for every monster and over a dozen encounters for monsters from Adversaries and the core rulebook. Each of these is a 2-page encounter with a map designed to be inserted into an existing adventure, either as a “random” encounter or to spice things up. Though, honestly, many of these could easily be fleshed out as full adventures in their own right.

Finally, we’ve got the book I’m most excited about—Stranger Shores. This book (slated for 2024) is going to provide the nautical-themed campaign setting for Fantasy AGE that you’ve always wanted (even if you didn’t know it). This book will be crammed full of details on new islands and continents made accessible with the Mystic Navigator talent. Most of these lands are completely new, but you’ll also find some old favorites, such as the ever-popular Freeport setting! It will also feature expanded rules for seafaring campaigns so you can live your pirate dreams!

All right, this is as far as I can go now without risking getting lost at sea. I hope this gives you a better idea of our current course heading and something to look forward to. I can’t offer you details on release dates at this time other than to say that all of these are in the works, and we want to get them to you as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, issues with shipping and printing are still a reality, so giving exact dates this far out isn’t a safe bet. Keep your eyes on the horizon. You’ll hear more from me soon enough.

Safe sailing!