Shark Week! Free Rogues Gallery PDF: Megalodon

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#sharkweek Free Rogues Gallery PDF: Megalodon the Man-Shark

Free Rogues Gallery PDF: Megalodon the Man-Shark

Thursday’s Shark Week freebie is a bonus entry for the Rogues Gallery: a new update of one of Freedom City’s tragic villains. Dr. Connor Kirkstrom is a brilliant man, but knows a savage, remorseless killer dwells inside him. Megalodon the Man-Shark, his bloodthirsty Mr. Hyde, is perversely proud of his place at the top of the world’s food chain, considering all other creatures beneath him. Only other sharks are potential peers, and even they must bow to his superior will.

Tomorrow, fans of our A Song of Ice and Fire RPG will get their Shark Week freebie.

Rogues Gallery: Purple Haze and Scarlet Mist

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Rogues Gallery: Purple Haze and Scarlet MistNew today for the Rogues Gallery series of villain PDFs for Mutants & Masterminds, it’s Purple Haze and Scarlet Mist.

Experimented on by SHADOW in hopes of giving them powers like the reformed villain, Mr. Mist, the twins now known as Purple Haze and Scarlet Mist were always going to be trouble. Adopted by Mr. Mist, who tried to raise them well and teach them to use their powers, but Purple Haze left to pursue a hedonistic lifestyle and dragged Scarlet Mist in his wake. Now the two do what they have to in order to survive!

Get Purple Haze and Scarlet Mist for just $1.29!

Shark Week! Aquaman and Shark

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#sharkweek Download Shark and Aquaman for Mutants & MastermindsShark Week Tuesday is a DC Adventures two-fer: Aquaman and Shark. Yeah, we know Shark fought with Green Lantern a lot more than Aquaman, but how can we let Shark Week go without sharing Aquaman? (And, honestly, we’re a bit excited about Jason Momoa in the role.) Check out page 268 of the DCA Hero’s Handbook for stats for normal aquatic animals, including dolphins, whales, and (of course) sharks. Fans of DC Adventures know that everything is fully compatible with Mutants & Masterminds 3rd Edition, too.

Access Aquaman

Share Shark

Tomorrow, we’ll return to the fantasy side with a free Shark Week download from Freeport: The City of Adventure for the Pathfinder RPG.

Rogues Gallery: Embalmer

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EmbalmerNew today for the Rogues Gallery series of villain PDFs for Mutants & Masterminds, it’s The Embalmer!

Handling the dead can be off putting. No one knows that better than the Embalmer. He was once a normal businessman, but a lifetime of being shunned and treated as an outcast finally pushed him over the edge. Now he’s turned his genius to evil and uses a variety of weaponized tools of the trade to get whatever he wants—if he can’t have love and respect, he may as well be rich!

In case you missed them, the previous two weeks’ releases in this series include Lady Lightning and Eclipse Syndicate. You can get those you don’t have yet for just $1.29 apiece!

Rogues Gallery: New Mutants & Masterminds PDF Series!

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Lady LightningToday we are pleased to present Rogues Gallery, a new series of PDFs for Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition!

Rogues Gallery … villains galore! Each Rogues Gallery entry includes a complete super-villain profile and character sheet with Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition game information. It also includes the villain’s background and various adventure hooks to use the character in your own game. Each entry is illustrated and, as a bonus, includes the villain’s game information in Hero Lab format, so you can import it right into the character management software and use it in your game (or modify it as needed) right away. Where else can you get a super-villain for less than the price of a cup of coffee? It’s positively criminal!

Lady Lightning

An old friend and colleague of Captain Thunder, this villain was transformed into pure energy and horribly unhinged in the process! Now she’s obsessed with Captain Thunder’s own son, Thunderbolt … or any other energy-using hero who might happen to catch her attention! Can your heroes resist the super-powered cougar known as Lady Lightning?

Get Lady Lightning today–just $1.29!

 

Green Ronin in 2015

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Hello gamers!

It doesn’t seem that long ago that we were waiting to find out if the Y2K bug was going to destroy civilization, but somehow it is 2015 already. This is a milestone year for Green Ronin Publishing. We are now officially 15 years old! It was in February, 2000 that I decided to take the plunge and start a new company. By July we had our first game out (Ork! The Roleplaying Game) and then a month later we launched Death in Freeport, the book that really put us on the RPG map. Certainly I had no idea at the time that Green Ronin would be still be publishing 15 years later. So a million thanks to all of the gamers who have kept us going, as well as the legion of writers, artists, editors, and other professionals we’ve worked with over the years. We could not have done it without you!

So what do we have planned for 2015? Glad you asked!

Dragon Age

Dragon Age Core Rulebook

Dragon Age Core Rulebook

We are starting our Dragon Age line off with a bang this year. We are releasing a Core Rulebook, which replaces the game’s previous boxed sets (all of which are out of print). The Dragon Age Core Rulebook consolidates all the material from Sets 1-3 into one big 400 page book. It replaces the Set 1 adventure with a new one, since we figure The Dalish Curse is the most played Dragon Age adventure out there. There is a small amount of other new material (monsters, specializations), but the bigger change is that the game no longer assumes you are fighting through the Fifth Blight. That is one option of many campaign frameworks. The setting has matured quite a bit since the release of Dragon Age: Origins, so we thought it made sense not to tie the game to one particular time or event. The Dragon Age Core Rulebook is in layout now and will be going up to BioWare soon for approvals.

After that we’ll be releasing a new version of the Game Master’s Kit, since the old one is outdated and out of print. The new one updates the screen to represent the full game rules, and includes a new adventure as well. Then we have a sourcebook tentatively titled Inquisition that incorporates material from the recently released Dragon Age: Inquisition video game. As many of you no doubt know already, that game introduces a huge amount of new content and we want to bring as much of that as we can to the tabletop game.

Lastly, we turn to Faces of Thedas. This was originally a PDF series that focused on characters from the Dragon Age setting. Jack Norris, our line developer, is revisiting Faces of Thedas, this time as a full-on book. After three video games and several novels and comics, the setting has a lot of memorable characters and we want to bring more of those to the game. GMs can uses these characters in a variety of ways, and you can even play them if you want to.

Fantasy AGE

Since we first released Dragon Age, people have been asking us if we were going to release the game system—known as the Adventure Game Engine—separately from the setting. The answer is yes! Our plan for this year is to release Fantasy AGE, a core rulebook for the system that I am working on right now. This will be strictly a rule book with no attached setting. The core of the game will be well-familiar to Dragon Age fans but there are some differences, the biggest of which is the magic system. That of Dragon Age was meant to emulate how magic works in Thedas, so I am modifying it heavily for Fantasy AGE.

Our goal is to release Fantasy AGE in May. Then at the end of July we will release the game’s first setting book. This is our big GenCon release and part of something super exciting … that I can’t talk about yet. This will be the focus of our GenCon presence this year and perhaps the biggest RPG story of the year. Watch for an announcement in a few months.

Mutants & Masterminds

It is a great time to be a superhero fan, that’s for sure. We’ve got movies, TV shows, and Mutants & Masterminds! We’re starting out the year with The Cosmic Handbook, which developer Jon Leitheusser recently turned over to production. If you liked Guardians of the Galaxy, you’re going to love this book! Our other big project is Freedom City, the signature setting of Mutants & Masterminds since 1st edition. Now Freedom City will come to 3rd edition at last, in a book similar in format to Emerald City.

We’ll also be continuing the Atlas of Earth-Prime. This is a PDF series we started last year that describes the world of Freedom City and Emerald City in greater detail. When we’re done, we’ll collect the PDFs up into a print book, as we did with titles like Power Profiles and Threat Report. The Atlas of Earth-Prime should resume in a few weeks.

Pathfinder

Advanced Bestiary for the Pathfinder RPG

Advanced Bestiary for the Pathfinder RPG

Our Pathfinder plans have begun to bear fruit under the auspices of developer Owen K.C. Stephens. At the end of last year we released the Advanced Bestiary to terrific reviews. If you are a Pathfinder GM, you should seriously check out the Advanced Bestiary. It’s a tremendously useful resource that makes every other monster book you own more valuable.

We’ve also sent Freeport: The City of Adventure to print. This monstrous tome is the biggest book we’ve ever published. 544 glorious, full color pages detailing a setting that goes back to Death in Freeport 15 years ago. It’s classic fantasy + pirates + Lovecraftian horror. Lots of great Pathfinder content too: new classes, feats, spells, and more. The pre-order for Freeport is still going on, so you can get the PDF for only $5 if you pre-order the book now.

The follow-up is already in the works. Return to Freeport will be a six-part adventure series perfect for kicking off a new campaign. We will release this as a PDF series over the course of the year and then collect it up into a print book when it’s finished.

A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying

We have two releases planned for A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying this year. The first is Dragon’s Hoard, a 160-page adventure. This is written and edited and has been submitted for approval. Meanwhile, developer Joe Carriker is working on a Player’s Guide for the game. This is a rules companion with expanded options for, well, just about everything. As always with this game line, I must caution patience. We can’t really predict how long approvals will take, but will do our best to get these books out as soon as we can.

Joe has also been working on a series of PDFs in support of the Chronicle System, the game engine that powers A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying. We’ve released three of these already: Woodland Creatures, Out of Strife Prosperity, and Chronicle of Sorcery. The latter introduces a magic system for the game for the first time, so is well worth a look if you missed it. Expect more bestiary PDFs this year, as well as some other surprises.

Love 2 Hate Rules (PDF)

Love 2 Hate Rules (PDF)

Love 2 Hate

Last but by no means least is our first party card game, Love 2 Hate! We ran a successful Kickstarter for the game last year and it is scheduled to release in April. The rules are now online and you can learn to play in like two minutes. This game is obviously quite different from our usual RPG fare, but it’s a hoot and we hope you check it out.

And More!

At the start of this article, I mentioned our very first release: Ork! The Roleplaying Game. Well, it hardly seemed fair for Freeport to be the only 2000 release to get some love on its fifteenth anniversary, so watch out for a new edition of Ork! The Roleplaying Game this summer. Original mastermind “Crazy” Todd Miller has revisited this beer and pretzels RPG, so you can expect even more psychotic mayhem.

That is quite a lineup, but believe or not, there’s more! Nothing we can talk about right now unfortunately, but stay tuned for some exciting announcements over the coming months. What has Steve Kenson been working on the last five months? Find out in April!

Thanks for a great 15 years. Join us in 2015 for a host of gaming goodness!

Chris Pramas
Green Ronin Publishing

Ronin Roundtable: Bring on the Bad Guys!

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Villains. What would a superhero game be without them? A lot less interesting, that’s for sure. Super-villains are the primary challenge for super-heroes, apart from stopping disasters and nabbing the occasional mugger or bank-robber. Villains and their schemes drive stories and the rivalries they build up with heroes become the stuff of legend. A hero is often defined by his or her "rogues gallery"—dark and twisted reflections of the hero’s own goals.

That’s why the "Foes of Freedom" forms a substantial third of the upcoming new edition of Freedom City. While the setting book still looks at some of Freedom’s heroes (past and present), the focus is on fiendish foes you can use in your own Mutants & Masterminds games, some 118 pages of them altogether!

Read more →

Atlas of Earth-Prime: The Mediterranean (PDF)

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Atlas of Earth-Prime: The MediterraneanOur crack team of Super-Geographers is back from a long research mission, having saved the world a few times along the way. Thanks to their efforts, Earth-Prime still turns and today’s Atlas of Earth-Prime issue for Mutants & Masterminds, The Mediterranean, is available now!

Once the center of the western world, the Mediterranean is still a land rich in history, culture, and opportunities for adventure. From the Straits of Gibraltar and the secrets of the great rock, to the ancient gods of Greece and modern heroes like the cyber-centaur Professor Chiron and Stella d’Argent, the Star of Italy. Nations once part of the communist bloc face new challenges with the aid of their own heroes, while lands once part of ancient myth see the mingling of magic and modernity.

Atlas of Earth-Prime: The Mediterranean

Ronin Round Table: A Supernatural Opportunity

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It’s the week of Halloween here in the States, which means it’s an opportunity for kids of all ages to put on costumes and do a bit of LARPing! Okay, not quite, but it’s pretty close. Actually, what Halloween means to me as a GM and gamer is that it’s the perfect time of year to run or play in a horror-themed game!

With all the werewolves and goblins walking the streets, scary movies on TV, spookily-decorated houses on every block, and ghost stories on everyone’s minds, your friends are primed to play in a Halloween-themed game.

Fear and horror are difficult to elicit in roleplaying games, but this is the perfect time of year to play a one-shot featuring monsters or other scary fare. Break out the candles (or battery-powered tea lights), some subtle, spooky music, dim the lights, and have your friends over for a game featuring the supernatural. Consider it a self-contained story for your heroes that may or may not take place within the continuity of their normal series. Perhaps they take on some of the Cryptids in the forests around Emerald City, or come face-to-face with Frankenstein’s Monster as he searches for the ancestors of his hated creator on the streets of Freedom City. Maybe the walls between worlds grow thin this time of year and real monsters haunt the city for the day—some of them more dangerous than others—so the player characters get to play "ghostbusters" for a while. Anything is fair game this time of year.

When I was in college, I ran a Halloween game that became a yearly tradition. Everyone played the heroes they usually played, but the villains were both a little scarier and sillier than usual. One of those games featured what’s now a classic line among my gaming friends, "You cannot possibly defeat me, for I am made of straw," spoken by the villainous Scarecrow. Another year’s most memorable moment was when a little girl dropped a trick-or-treat bag next to one of the heroes and before he could do anything, a teddy bear tumbled out of the bag, grew to be a full-sized demonic bear that could fly and mauled the poor hero.

This year, I get to play in a one-shot in which a bunch of us, including Green Ronin president Chris Pramas and freelancers Jason Mical and Seth Johnson, will be facing off against vampires, werewolves, and zombies in a haunted castle. It should make for a tense and fun game of supernatural horror, and I’m looking forward to blasting some monsters to smithereens!

Gaming has always been about being social and having fun with your friends. When you can combine that with a bit of suspense, the laughs are even bigger than usual. It’s the start of the week, so you still have time to set up a game for the weekend. It doesn’t have to be Halloween- or horror-themed, but that certainly seems like a natural fit! Check out the Supernatural Handbook for Mutants & Masterminds: both the PDF and the printed book are on sale for 25% off until Halloween. It’s the perfect book if you’re looking for inspiration for a game, or looking for an excellent book on horror games.

Whatever you do this weekend, stay safe and have fun!

Happy Halloween!
Jon Leitheusser
M&M Line Developer

Ronin Round Table: The Food Trucks of Freedom!

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We take our inspiration from all kinds of places, particularly real life, working events, people, places, and ideas from our own experiences into our fictional work and our games. Take Freedom City for example, in addition to being a love-letter to many of the things I treasure about superhero comics, Freedom City features a number of “Easter eggs” that are essentially bits of my own experience sprinkled throughout. So there’s no reason the new update of the setting wouldn’t feature the same sorts of things.

Food trucks aren’t normally a thing for me, since I live in a suburban town in southern New Hampshire, a bit outside the usual food truck culture, unless I’m at a particular festival or event. On the other hand, the staff of GenCon in Indianapolis very cleverly decided a few years ago to get the local food trucks involved in supporting the convention, and vice versa. So for the week or so that downtown Indianapolis is crowded with thousands of gamers, there’s also a small fleet of food trucks offering all kinds of cuisine to those hungry gamers who might not have time to visit one of the equally crowded restaurants.

That experience got me thinking, and so one of the additions to the Visitor’s Guide section of Freedom City is the “Food Trucks of Freedom”:

Freedom City enthusiastically embraced the food truck trend in urban catering and restaurants: mobile vendors who can set up their business for a day (or just a portion of one) almost anywhere in the city, serving the needs of passers-by and attracting customers via online social networking and word-of-mouth. Food trucks also often gather near or around major event venues. Some of the more popular local food trucks include:

  • Falafel Tower: Owned and run by two brothers (Maurice and Yusef Larrache), Falafel Tower offers French-Middle Eastern influenced cuisine, including their eponymous falafels, shawarma, hummus, and kabobs.
  • The Fatmobile: This food truck embraces “all that makes food good” with a rotating menu of items focusing on fat- and salt-laden savories, including more uses for bacon than one can imagine.
  • Freedom Fries: A truck best known for their delicious french-fried potatoes (and sweet potatoes) with a variety of sides and toppings. Especially popular are the duck-fat fries with poutine (topped with gravy and cheese curds, Canadian-style).
  • The Soul-Van: A truck offering fried chicken and waffles, collard greens, corn-breads, fried green tomatoes, and other traditional soul-food dishes.
  • Sweet Chariot: A successful food truck business with several trucks in the Freedom City metro area offering a variety of freshly made desserts and baked goods, particularly pies, crumbles, and cookies.

Do you use urban fixtures and trends like food trucks in your own Freedom City, Emerald City, or Mutants & Masterminds game? Drop by our forums and share some of them! Meanwhile, I don’t know about you, but I’m feeling like having a snack…