Green Ronin News Archives • Page 7 of 159 • Green Ronin Publishing

The M&M PDF Mega-Bundle

September 14, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Steve Kenson

Where do I begin to tell you about how awesome the new M&M PDF Mega-Bundle offer from Green Ronin is…?

Ah, yes—at the beginning!

That’s certainly fitting, since the Mega-Bundle goes all the way back to the beginning of Mutants & Masterminds: with its first edition in 2002. (Have we mentioned this is the 20th anniversary of Mutants & Masterminds?) This was before Green Ronin was even selling PDFs of most of its products, so many of the first edition products included in the bundle are being released electronically for the first time ever. That includes both the first edition of the Mutants & Masterminds RPG and the Freedom City setting, the books that launched it all.

How many first edition books? Well, all seven of them, including classics like Noir and Gimmick’s Guide to Gadgets. Pretty great, huh?

But then we get to the second edition.

Because the M&M PDF Mega-Bundle also includes 45 second edition M&M products: virtually everything Green Ronin published for the second edition of the game. Not just the core rulebook and sourcebooks like Ultimate Power or the second edition of Freedom City, but also PDF-only products like Archetype Archives, Freedom City Atlas, and much more!

With fifty-two different products (editor’s note: oh there’s more than 52!) and a bundle price of $29.99, each is only a little more than fifty cents! That’s a fraction of the cost of a digital comic book these days, much less a digital game product. Honestly, even if you already have 45 out of the 52 PDFs in this bundle, it would still be a bargain for the remaining seven.

With Mega-Bundle Comes Mega-Opportunity

So, if you’re a third edition Mutants & Masterminds player or GM, how useful is this Mega-Bundle to you? Very!

Take a look at the free Mutants & Masterminds Second Edition to Third Edition Conversion notes. With these simple guidelines, you can make use of any of the second edition source material in your third edition games. Since most of the numerical values (ability modifiers, power ranks, etc.) remain the same, it’s easy to use many stats on-the-fly without converting them over in detail.

In addition, these sourcebooks contain a wealth of setting information, adventure material, and Gamemaster advice independent of game system updates and all useful in any M&M game.

The products in this bundle are the entirety of Mutants & Masterminds history: Want to set your Freedom City campaign in the era before the Silver Storm changed Emerald City, or even before Bowman graduated from high school and joined the Freedom League? You can, with these references at-hand. You can explore classic adventures like Time of Crisis and Time of Vengeance, either running them as-is or updating them to the present day for your game.

Of course, the earlier edition material is also still perfectly usable as-is. Do you want to run a first or second edition Mutants & Masterminds game? This bundle gives you everything you need, and then some! Do you have some gaps in your M&M collection? The Mega-Bundle is the ideal opportunity to fill them in and get some products that haven’t been available in print for several years, or have never been available electronically prior to this.

What About the Third Edition?

While most third edition Mutants & Masterminds products are still in-print and not included in the Mega-Bundle, don’t think we’ve forgotten them! We also have an M&M Reprint Extravaganza to bring some of those rare and hard-to-find third edition books back into print, while offering you the opportunity to get them at the previous cover price before rising costs for printing, shipping, and distribution require us to raise prices. Be sure to sign up to be notified when the Reprint Extravaganza crowd-funder goes live so you don’t miss out on this opportunity.

This incredible Mega-Bundle Collection is also available on DrivethruRPG!

Last Chance Warehouse Sale

August 30, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Troy Hewitt

After 22 years in business, the Green Ronin warehouse is looking a little crowded. With reprints and new products incoming, it’s time to make more space! These deals are for print products only. With limited stock and priced to clear some pallets, this is a screaming deal (75% off!) you don’t want to miss. With that, we offer you the LAST CHANCE WAREHOUSE SALE!

Please note the sale does not extend to shipping, and shipping fees are determined by the carrier.

Wanted: Bounty Hunters – The Expanse RPG

August 16, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Ian Lemke

Available Soon!

Coming soon to the Green Ronin Online Store and DrivethruRPG, Bounty Hunters kicks off the new Trades of the Expanse PDF series of short, well, expansions for The Expanse RPG, looking at different trades and professions in the setting: how to create characters practicing that trade, game systems for handling their jobs, and adventure hooks and ideas for them, to name a few. Bounty Hunters starts off with the basic premise “Throughout human history there have been people who posed problems for other people, and those willing and able to deal with such problems—for a price. It may have been someone who needed to be found, apprehended, given a message or a warning, or simply eliminated.”

Makes a certain amount of sense to start with bounty hunters, since The Expanse essentially starts off with a “kidnap job” assigned to StarHelix detective Miller. Coincidentally, bounty hunters are also prominent in other science fiction media of late and might provide some additional inspiration.

The product takes a look at the practice of bounty hunting in the System of The Expanse, including its relative legality, the types of bounties, and the clients offering them. It provides guidelines for bounty hunters looking for work, and the ways in which they find it, from standing bounties to agency assignments. It also looks at the bounty hunting process from start to finish, from getting the job to tracking the target to getting paid.

Bounty Hunters offers AGE game system material as well. It includes handling bounty hunting as an investigative challenge, income rewards, “Tools of the Trade” equipment, a Bounty Hunter specialization, and a couple of ships suited for bounty hunters. It even has special bounty hunting stunts like “The Upper Hand,” “What Makes Them Tick” and my personal favorite, “Saw That Coming,” which lets you spend Stunt Points to retroactively declare that you planned for something that your target ends up doing and you’re prepared for it.

The product also offers resources for Game Masters, including dealing with bounty hunter reputations, some ideas for Churn effects while hunting a bounty, and a “Jobs Board” with some potential bounties you can use as starting points for your own Expanse adventures focused on bounty hunting.

All in all, Trades of the Expanse: Bounty Hunters is a powerful little package, whether you want your crew to try their hand at the trade for a change-of-pace, or you’re interested in a whole series focused on bounty hunting in the System (and even many systems, with the Beyond the Ring sourcebook).

Trades of the Expanse: Bounty Hunters will be available very soon!

Gen Con Indy 2022

August 6, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Evan Sass

The Green Ronin Convention Crew reports from Indianapolis that Gen Con is going well! Alex and Jonesy are running sold-out games, and some products are already sold out as well. Here is a view, care of Disembodied Troy, of what’s for sale at Booth 101.

Here’s a view from inside the dealer hall at Gen Con 2022 in Indianapolis, Indiana, showing off all of the goodness available for sale this weekend at booth 101, right inside the hall entrance next to Paizo. If you’re at the show, stop by and see us!

New at Gen Con are Cyberpunk Slice and Five and Infinity for Modern AGE RPG, Danger Zones and Starhaven for Mutants & Masterminds, Six of Cups for the Blue Rose RPG, the 5e adventure A Shadow in the Downs for The Lost Citadel, and a novel for The Lost Citadel, A Song of Eagles! And, as you can see in the video, we have tons of other great game products, like Sentinels of Earth-Prime, The Expanse RPG, Freeport, and more. Plus, we are running awesome bundle deals at the show. Booth 101!

We’ve since sold out of some things, necessitating some revised bundle deals, which look like this:

A Haven in the Stars

August 2, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Steve Kenson

It’s all Alex Thomas’s fault. We said so on Mutants & Masterminds Monday. Alex wanted to run a streaming game for Team M&M and asked “so what else do we know about this Starhaven place mentioned in The Cosmic Handbook?” To which Crystal Fraiser and I said, “Nothing.” The paragraph or so of info about the alien settlement on Jupiter’s moon Europa was just that, a kind of throwaway description intended to inspire Gamemasters.

I guess it worked, because Alex took it upon himself to spin out a whole adventure which he ran on-stream for us. It certainly got Mutants & Masterminds fans wondering, too, and asking “So when do we get to find out more about Starhaven?” If you are a part of the Mutants & Masterminds Patreon you already know the answer to that (and, if you’re not, honestly, you’re missing out). Last summer, we launched a “Summer of Starhaven!” series to design more material about the setting and how to use it in an M&M game.

Now, this summer, we can announce that The Guide to Starhaven is now available for purchase! The 76-page, full-color product goes into detail about the alien settlement of Starhaven, repurposing an ancient, ruined city located on the Jovian moon Europa. Built by the mysterious and powerful Preservers, the domed city has lain abandoned for millennia. Now, a mix of alien refugees fleeing the fall of the Lor Republic and the rise of the Stellar Imperium have been resettled there by Earth’s superheroes.

The Guide to Starhaven looks at the city and all of its various districts, the Green Zone “nature preserve” surrounding it (including all manner of prehistoric Earth animals brought here as specimens) and the unexplored areas of the ruins and what they contain. It also details the inhabitants of Starhaven, their newly established government (voted on by our patrons!), political and social factions, and three main antagonists Starhaven heroes might face.

It goes beyond the bounds of Starhaven to look at survival on the icy surface of Europa and other locations on the frozen moon such as the fascinating Facetwild, with its random energy storms and crystalline creatures. It even dives beneath the surface, into the endless dark ocean under Europa’s ice, and the mysterious life dwelling there, which even the people of Starhaven aren’t aware of … yet.

The Guide also looks at creating your own Starhaven heroes, adventures, and campaigns, including four campaign concepts and nearly a dozen different adventure ideas. All of this, plus a developed, full-length version of “Seige of Starhaven,” Alex’s exciting adventure, where a team of power level 10 heroes take on smugglers, alien cultists, a murder mystery, the dangers of the Facetwild, and an all-out invasion of the city! It’s a great inspiration for a Starhaven series of your own. (As the Untold Stories Project demonstrates with Guardians of Haven.)

The Guide to Starhaven is available now on the Green Ronin Store and DriveThruRPG as a downloadable PDF, and now print-on-demand via DriveThruRPG. For those who will be at Gen Con this August, we hope to have a limited number of print copies there for sale!

If you do decide to reach for the stars and visit the alien frontier of Starhaven, remember to thank Alex. After all, he started it!

Gen Con Events!

July 26, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Alex Thomas

Hello heroes! We are running some events at Gen Con this year! We are so excited for the chance to play with all of you. To help you find us, I have compiled this rough schedule of our events so you can come play with us at the con. I know our events are sold out, but you can still add them to your wishlist in case of cancellations, and I usually keep a secret seventh slot for my events if you show up with generics. I’ve laid our schedule out chronologically and have included event descriptions/GM as well. We hope to see you there!

Wednesday

8pm

Event Title: Freedom League: All in the Family
- Synopsis: All isn’t as it seems when Zeus requests the Freedom League’s assistance in foiling his brother’s latest scheme to take over Earth-Prime.
- System: Mutants & Masterminds
- GM: Alex

Thursday

8am

Event Title: A Familiar Quest
- Synopsis: After years of planning, the foul sorcerer Soulban has returned, springing his trap, & capturing the brave heroes of Crestwall. Now it is up to their animal allies to save them & all of Crestwall.
- System: Fantasy AGE
- GM: Jonesy
Event Title: The Mummy: The Lost Library
- Synopsis: Rick O’Connell & crew dive into danger seeking the ruins of the Great Library of Alexandria.
- System: Mutants & Masterminds
- GM: Alex

Friday

9am and 4pm

Event Title: Secrets of Renwick Manor
- Synopsis: As members of Beckmen & Hall’s “special handling” department, you are trusted to complete jobs of a more esoteric nature. The job: recover some dangerous items from the estate of August Renwick.
- System: Modern AGE
- GM: Jonesy

7pm

Event Title: The Siege of Starhaven
- Synopsis: Eyes from across the galaxy are focused on Starhaven, eager to make use of its citizens, its ancient Preserver technology, and its close proximity to Earth. It is a city in need of heroes…
- System: Mutants & Masterminds
- GM: Alex

Saturday

9am

Event Title: Secrets of Renwick Manor
- Synopsis: As members of Beckmen & Hall’s “special handling” department, you are trusted to complete jobs of a more esoteric nature. The job: recover some dangerous items from the estate of August Renwick.
- System: Modern AGE
- GM: Jonesy

2pm

Event Title: Titan City Chronicles: Blood Run
- Synopsis: Vampires are roaring through 1920s Titan City, and it’s up to a ragtag band of noir heroes to stop them.
- System: Mutants & Masterminds
- GM: Alex

Sunday

10am

Event Title: A Familiar Quest
- Synopsis: After years of planning, the foul sorcerer Soulban has returned, springing his trap, & capturing the brave heroes of Crestwall. Now it is up to their animal allies to save them & all of Crestwall.
- System: Fantasy AGE
- GM: Jonesy

And don’t forget to drop by Booth 101, and come check out all the new things Green Ronin has available for Gen Con this year!

Modern AGE, Four Years On: Modern Adventures

July 19, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Malcolm Sheppard

In my last two articles I talked about where the Modern AGE line currently stands with its core, setting-agnostic books, used to customize the game as you please, and its published settings, from sketches to two full-blown game settings: The World of Lazarus and Threefold. However, I ran long on the second article and didn’t have a chance to talk about the adventures we have—and that’s what this one is for.

Two Versions of the Quickstart

One weird thing that happened during Modern AGE line development is that we ended up with two quickstarts.

Original Quickstart (Burning Bright): Back in 2018, Modern AGE’s quickstart included an adventure about going to another dimension, Tannebrim. To inform you anew or refresh your memory, a “quickstart” contains cut down rules, pre-made characters, and an adventure to run them through, so you can get a taste of what the full game is like.

Expanded Threefold Quickstart (Burning Brighter): Fast forward a year, to when the Threefold game setting was on the cusp of release, and we wanted to participate in Free RPG Day. Well, Threefold was one of the inspirations for the original quickstart adventure anyway, so we produced an expanded, updated version with additional content and pregenerated characters that were fully integrated with the Threefold setting. We made that available in print for Free RPG Day, but you can still get it for free electronically.

Both versions are still available for download, but be aware that the latter version, with the adventure “Burning Brighter,” is an expansion of the original and its adventure, “Burning Bright.” You’ll have to run one or the other in any given campaign.

Backs of the Books

The Modern AGE Basic Rulebook comes with an adventure called “A Speculative Venture,” about bad things happening at a fancy party…and special options to let the Game Master decide what the central secrets of the adventure really are, to make it work with as wide a range of published or homebrew settings as possible. It’s for Level 1 characters.

Both setting books also include adventures for new characters, though these don’t have a choose-your-own premise option.

The World of Lazarus scenario “Taking the Stone,” is firmly set during the rule of the families, decades after Year X, but can be adjusted based on which of the setting’s campaign models you employ—and whether you’re a serf or one of the elite.

Threefold’s included adventure, “Identity,” takes characters across multiple planes of existence to deal with transdimensional political intrigue, bound in the question of what it means to have a soul.

Modern AGE Missions

The Modern AGE Missions series presents a variety of adventures, some of which might appear in any modern setting, and some of which are more specific. These adventures are not necessarily connected, and can be dropped into your game, or used as the anchor for a campaign if you expand them. The first two were developed by me, while the rest come courtesy of Meghan Fitzgerald.

Warflower: Sudden, strange violence at an auction leads to the disappearance of a late medieval book on warfare and alchemy. Who took the Warflower, and why? And who gets killed with a sword nowadays? Like “A Speculative Venture,” Warflower lets the GM choose the ultimate secret behind it all. For characters levels 1 to 4.

Feral Hogs: A pop-culture infused apocalyptic ATV-riding, meshback-wearing fever dream. The end came with mutagenic chemicals, abundant energy drinks, pyramids of cardboard boxes, and of course, 30-50 mutant feral hogs, running into your yard. And what will you do when they come? Huh? HUH? For characters levels 1 to 4.

Flight 1701: A routine flight turns into humanity’s first contact with extraterrestrial life—and first trip to an alien biosphere. The passengers and crew must work together to discover what happened, communicate with an alien species, and figure out a way to get back home. The decisions they make may alter the course of human civilization forever—and like Warflower, its central secrets are up to the GM. For characters levels 5 to 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 designed to be suitable for characters between levels 13-15, showcasing Modern AGE in the urban fantasy genre. It provides multiple paths for the Game Master to follow, allowing it to stand on its own or fit into a larger campaign.

Infinity and More

We’re expecting at least one more Modern AGE Missions adventure. Beyond that, we have the Five & Infinity adventure series for the Threefold setting. We’ve presented the individual adventures before, but at Gen Con we’ll be premiering the collected series alongside special tools to generate stories and even planes of existence. I’ll talk about that another time. If you’re headed to Gen Con, check it and the rest of Modern AGE out at Booth 101.

Modern AGE, Four Years On: Our Modern Worlds

July 13, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Malcolm Sheppard

In my last article, I talked about the state of the Modern AGE line as we move into its fifth year. I started out by dividing the line into two loose categories and exploring the first, of “core” book releases. While Modern AGE is completely playable with the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook, the other releases I placed into the core category assemble numerous tools and ideas to customize the system generally, and to suit the worlds you invent.

But Modern AGE has worlds of its own which you can use as-is, or to influence settings of your own creation. In fact, we have various degrees of setting material, ranging from loose outlines to entire setting books.

Core Inspiration

In Modern AGE, we try to provide concrete examples so that you have something to work from. The Modern AGE Basic Rulebook talks about settings and genres in general terms, but subsequent books get more detailed.

Chapter 9 of the Modern AGE Companion offers firmer outlines of the possible settings associated with various genres, including the age of sail, 1800s gothic horror tales, 1950s UFO sci-fi, 1960s spy-fi, and modern or near future cyberthrillers. These treatments include recommended rules, sketches of settings, and possible NPCs of interest. The rest of the book provides ways to customize the game for these and other settings.

Chapter 7 of the upcoming Modern AGE Powers book also features outlines for supernatural and other power-filled worlds, from the mystic martial arts of “Immortal Ring,” the modern sorcery of “Phoenix Band,” and more, all in a book that gives you the “crunch” of powers as well, and strong guidance on how to use them in your own worlds. I can’t wait to share it with you.

In addition, Modern AGE has two full-on setting books. Each requires nothing more than the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook.

World of Lazarus

Created by Greg Rucka and Michael Lark, the Lazarus comic (with follow-ups including Lazarus X + 66 and Lazarus: Risen), World of Lazarus introduces the world after Year X, when governments have collapsed and the families behind the world’s mightiest corporations and political influence blocs take over, effectively reinstituting feudalism. These ruling families use various forms of human enhancement, from cybernetics to gene alteration, to create the Lazari, champions who settle disputes on their families’ behalf.

The World of Lazarus setting book isn’t just about Lazari, however, though the book provides in-depth rules for playing them. You can play wasteland renegades, desperate serfs, or privileged members of the Families, navigating a world with notes of cyberpunk, post-apocalyptic fiction, near-future military technothrillers, and feudal intrigue.

In addition to the setting book, individual issues of the Lazarus: Risen comic include expansions to the new rules in World of Lazarus, written by World of Lazarus developer Crystal Frasier.

Threefold

Intended to be the “flagship,” or exemplar setting for Modern AGE, Threefold is a vast setting designed to make use of the game’s full potential. Threefold contains notes of cyberpunk, cosmic horror, and portal fantasy, as it reveals Earth is one of many inhabited worlds in the Metacosm, an array of universes primarily linked by gates.

Threefold’s stories center on the exploits of the Sodality, explorers, diplomats, and agents of utopian democracy that spans multiple planes of existence, as well as the operations of Aethon, cybernetically enhanced operatives who shape alternate universes to, perhaps, produce a transcendental AI. These aren’t our only options, however. You might want to play a renegade psychic, defending their guild from families who treat psychic powers as a divine right. Maybe you want to be a plane-crossing mercenary, or a disoriented, semi-human wizard, stuck in our modern world. Threefold provides the greatest possible scope for characters in Modern AGE, including rules for cybernetics, the supernatural, and strange ancestries.

Characters explore Earths with alternate histories, Otherworlds, where magic reigns, and the Netherworlds, ruled by demonic forces. The planes are countless, and Threefold uses them to allow virtually any adventure and genre, but unlike many multiverse settings, there are strong core factions and influences that drive stories, such as the rebel hell-conquering soldiers of the Nighthost, or the tyrannical demigods of the Divine Empire. If you want a taste (and an introduction to Modern AGE generally), try the Threefold Quickstart for free!

In addition to the setting book, Threefold gains an adventure collection this summer, as the combined and expanded Five and Infinity adventure series is due to premiere at or around Gencon. Five adventures take characters through multiple worlds, and levels 1 to 16. A capstone chapter includes table-based tools to outline further adventures, and even generate new planes of existence in the Threefold Metacosm.

From Worlds to Stories

This article was originally going to talk about Modern AGE’s adventures as well, but as things are already running a little long, I’ll save it for next time. Until then? I’m going to recommend you check out Threefold in play (YouTube playlist) by the Fresh Out the Box (Twitch.tv) crew. Cheers!

Modern AGE, Four Years On: The Creative Core

July 5, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Malcolm Sheppard

Modern AGE is four years old! It was released back in June 2018, ahead of its formal debut at Gencon of that year. Building on the ideas of Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE was designed to work within the 200+ year span of the “modern era,” up to the near future. This was a bigger challenge than you might think. Especially in gaming, the fantasy genre has a lot of standard conventions and default assumptions. But there’s no “modern genre,” but several, from urban fantasy, and pulp adventure, to Noir, and espionage thrillers.

The multiplicity of possible games shaped Modern AGE into the most customizable manifestation of the Adventure Game Engine, where we provide the most options to adjust fundamentals. Once you understand Modern AGE is this kind of creative platform, it should, I hope, make you feel bold enough to tweak it until it’s just right for your table—but if you want a more straightforward experience, we don’t demand you do it. Don’t worry, it still works straight from the store.

These features have driven the line’s development ever since. We can roughly split Modern AGE into “core” releases, designed as creative toolkits, and supplements that provide a more specific play experience in the form of settings and adventures. This time around, let’s talk about core Modern AGE.

Core Modern AGE

Modern AGE Basic Rulebook: This is the essential rulebook for the game and despite being in the “core” category, doesn’t require anything else except for your campaign ideas.

Modern AGE Game Master’s Kit: Screen and reference materials to accompany the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook

Modern AGE Companion: Expanded tools and options covering new character options, custom systems for numerous situations such as inventions and duels, campaign events, extraordinary powers—this should be your first pick when you want to tailor Modern AGE into a bespoke rules set. “Sibling” of the Modern AGE Mastery Guide.

Modern AGE Enemies & Allies: Friends and foes separated by genre, along with genre supporting systems, for modern fantasy, horror, action and espionage, crime dramas, and near future science fiction.

Modern AGE Mastery Guide: A guide for Game Masters and players, too, featuring advice for both sides of the GM’s screen before presenting a host of new rules options as a “sibling” to the Modern AGE Companion. This includes updates to rules from the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook that we developed after a few years of additional play.

Modern AGE Cyberpunk Slice: A distillation of reworked and new rules covering numerous aspects of the cyberpunk genre, from classic 80s stories to the latest takes on it. Artificial life, cybernetic enhancements, AI, automation, corporate branding, drones, powered armor—it’s here, in a compact, settingless rules supplement.

Did you see this preview of the upcoming Modern AGE Powers cover!?

UPCOMING—Modern AGE Powers: This book has been written, and it is currently waiting its turn for release. While the Modern AGE Companion provides new options for extraordinary powers, Modern AGE Powers collects and expands that previous material, and adds new options for magic, psychic disciplines, inherent extraordinary powers, rituals, gifts from unusual ancestries, freeform thaumaturgy, and an enormous catalog of extraordinary items with supernatural, scientific, or just plain weird origins.

Beyond the Core

Next time, we’ll talk about the setting and adventure focused releases for Modern AGE, covering two settings and multiple adventures. But while we’re still talking about the core, let me ask you this: What would you like to see released as the next creative toolkit? A new genre done in the style of Cyberpunk Slice? A full-fledged hardcover on how to design a modern city to play in? I keep an eye on social media and will read what you have to say. For now, though, I hope you’re getting inspired and playing. Cheers!

Six of Cups for Blue Rose AGE: The Storm of the Century and Other Stories

July 1, 2022/in Green Ronin News /by Joseph D. Carriker

Six of Cups is Blue Rose’s second anthology of adventures (the first was, of course, Six of Swords). Of course, at center, this book is about providing a set of interesting, self-contained adventures for Blue Rose campaigns. Perhaps your group will play Sovereign’s Finest, traveling the lands, playing through all of these. Or, one or two might form the basis for a new campaign, or at least an arc within one. But that’s not all Six of Cups has to offer. This anthology does a couple of things – and some of them were even intentional.

Themes: The Suit of Cups

From the get-go, I wanted the stories in Six of Cups to be about emotions and relationships. In the minor arcana of the Tarot, the suit of Cups focuses on the connections between people and the emotions that both inspire and come about as a result of those. It’s the “emotions that run deep” suit (in comparison to the “emotions that burn bright” of Wands).

Above everything else, Blue Rose and the genre of romantic fantasy are about those ties, and I wanted a set of adventures that expressed that. From the connections between orphans in Witching Weather to the desire for redemption in Out from Exile to the questions about compassion and mercy at the heart of Hemlock’s Bane, the tales in Six of Cups all center on the themes central to this suit.

Gazetteers: Around the Kingdom

The Blue Rose AGE core rulebook is a whole lot of book. Even so, we had to paint with some fairly broad strokes while describing the Kingdom of Aldis in that book. Now, we had the chance to get a slightly more zoomed-in look in Aldis: Kingdom of the Blue Rose, and we decided we weren’t quite finished doing so.

One of the guidelines given to the authors of Six of Cups was to include a gazetteer section that described the place in the kingdom where that story takes place. The intention, of course, is to help make the book useful even beyond the adventures it includes. Find in these pages the major cities of Elsport, Garnet, and Lysana’s Crossing, as well as Khaldessa in the central Aldin valleys, Hemlock in the northern Pavin Weald, and the Scatterstar Archipelago!

Happy Accidents: The Storm of the Century

One of the things I asked of our authors was to send me proposals for their adventures and gazetteers. In short order, it became apparent that (perhaps inspired by the elemental association of Cups with water) no less than three of the stories feature a massive coastal storm. Rather than require some of the authors to change their ideas, I thought I could include them all to highlight one of the interesting ways to use generally unrelated adventures.

Finding a common thread to run between adventures is an awesome way of building a sort of “accidental” campaign. The tumultuous weather plays a role in all three of the stories, and they are not written as being interrelated. An enterprising Narrator might, however, come up with some connecting concepts to help tie them together. Perhaps these are all part of a single, major storm system of some kind, a sort of terrifying storm of the century to strike the southern coast of Aldis? Or, perhaps there is something (or someone…) nefarious at work, hurling storm after storm into the world.

Conclusion

There is a lot that might be done with the contents of Six of Cups. And that’s not even including the new Specializations (Storm Rider and Marsh Shaper), or even the devastating Arcane Lightning arcana knack for those who wield the Weather Shaping arcana! Join us, with an open heart and a sense of courage – we’ve got a lot more stories to tell.

Six of Cups is available now for pre-order here, and don’t miss out on that $5 PDF add-on! As well as on DrivethruRPG!