It’s almost here! Kickstarter backers of The Expanse Roleplaying Game should be on the lookout for the PDF of Abzu’s Bounty this coming week. Pre-orders and PDFs will be available on the Green Ronin website soon after that, and those of you at PAX Unplugged will have a chance to get your hands on physical copies. All of us at Green Ronin want to give a heartfelt thank you to everyone who backed The Expanse RPG and made this possible. As my first development project for Green Ronin, bringing Abzu’s Bounty to life has been an exciting ride, and I’m really proud of the work the writers and artists put into making this amazing book.

Art by Andrey Vasilchenko

I’ve discussed many of the details in previous posts, but for those of you who may have missed them, here’s a summary. Abzu’s Bounty is a six-part, system-spanning campaign for The Expanse Roleplaying Game. The campaign can take place during the early Expanse novels (Levianthan’s Wake and Caliban’s War). The story opens with characters onboard an ice hauler collecting ice from the rings of Saturn. The crew discovers a strange silicate in some of the ice. The characters soon find themselves enmeshed in a conspiracy that takes them from Prometheus (one of the moons of Saturn) to the inner planets of Earth and Mars and places like Titan and Luna in-between. The book is full of NPCs and locations that are important to the Abzu’s Bounty campaign but could just as easily show up in your own stories. The campaign is designed in such a way that you can play it straight through or pick and choose the parts you want to add your own stories as the characters untangle the mystery. For a more detailed look at what you’ll find inside, check out my earlier posts.

I wish I could say more, but I can’t give away all of the secrets. I look forward to hearing about the adventures of the crews of the Abzu’s Bounty. I hope you all have as much fun playing it as we’ve had creating it.

Abzu’s Bounty, the first campaign for The Expanse RPG, is almost ready to go. The layout is complete, and we’re waiting for a few final pieces from the artists. And speaking of art, I want to take a moment to say that the artwork in this book is gorgeous! It has everything you’d expect to see in an Expanse campaign: space battles, incredible planetary vistas, pirates, OPA terrorists, abandoned asteroid bases, and more. This book has it all!

As you’ve probably read, Abzu’s Bounty is a six-part, system-spanning campaign filled with action and adventure. We’ve given you the broad strokes, but today I want to delve further into the details without spoiling the plot. The story opens on board the ice hauler, Abzu’s Bounty, gathering ice in the rings of Saturn. The default setting has the characters as members of the Bounty’s crew. However, established characters can just as easily be on board for their own reasons. The crew of the Bounty discovers something unusual in the collected ice. The characters quickly find themselves swept up in conspiracies involving multiple factions from around the solar system. Not long into the campaign, the crew has the opportunity to claim a ship for themselves–an old pirate vessel called the Anne Bonny. With a ship of their own, they’re set to take on all of the challenges that await them: OPA terrorists, private security companies, space pirates, Martian secret agents, corporate masterminds, and more.

Abzu’s Bounty has a direct tie-in to the adventure To Sleep, Perchance to Dream in the core rulebook, but it is not necessary to have played that adventure. But for those who have played it, they finally get to meet Alexander Pope, the villain and mysterious entrepreneur who remains behind the scenes.  Players and GMs who have read the novels will also recognize several characters lifted right from those pages, and there are a quite few fun Easter eggs scattered throughout.

One of the aspects that I think is really cool about this book is that besides being a book full of adventures, it also provides a wealth of useful setting information. You’ll learn more about Luna, the pleasure domes of Titan, the tunnels of Mars, hidden and abandoned space stations, and even a pirate radio station–not to mention new organizations and factions and a shipload of NPCs. Lots of cool stuff that you can use in your own campaign or beyond the events in Abzu’s Bounty.

The campaign is designed so that you don’t necessarily have to run every adventure. You can easily skip those that don’t feel appropriate for your group. If you decide to tell this story, beginning to end, there is plenty of room for GMs to insert their own side stories or expand on the existing adventure. The campaign is designed for characters beginning at 2^nd level and advance through 7^th or possibly higher. A lot of flexibility is built into the story. The finale even provides an alternate ending for GMs who want to raise the stakes or offer the players a more challenging climax to the story. Be wary though, the odds of all the characters surviving this option are grim.

So, there you have it! I’ve endeavored to give you a more in-depth look into Abzu’s Bounty without giving away any of the secrets. Hopefully, I’ve succeeded. I look forward to hearing stories of how different groups tackle the challenges in Abzu’s Bounty–how they succeed and rise to the challenge.  Until next time!