Tag Archive for: Blue Rose

Rose Petals: A PDF Preview

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Blue Rose Adventurer's Guide for 5th Edition While the technologies of portable document format (PDF) files and print on demand (POD) has allowed us to bring The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide to you in spite of the current pandemic and limits on book printing and distribution, not having the book in stores does rather limit the ability to look through it when you’re weighing buying it. It’s certainly something I like to do when I’m considering a new book.

Fortunately, we can provide some options. Our partners at DriveThruRPG already offer a PDF preview function: You can look at the first fifteen pages of the book, and even read through the table of contents and The Introduction on the site to get a feel for the book. But we can do better than that. How about a “sampler” tour through the book with this PDF Preview?

The Power of Shadow

Chapter I delves into the power and dangers of Shadow on Aldea, as shown in this excerpt on the Shadow-Touched, the Corrupt, the Shadow-Taken, and the long road to redemption.

The Regions of Aldis

Chapter II is all about Aldis, the Sovereignty of the Blue Rose, and this excerpt looks at some of its key regions, including an overview of the great city of Aldis itself.

The Sovereign’s Finest

One of the central organizations of the Blue Rose setting is the Sovereign’s Finest, special envoys of the Crown, as detailed in this excerpt.

Serpent’s Haven

Deep within the Veran Marsh, the criminal stronghold of Serpent’s Haven features prominently in Joseph Carricker’s novel Shadowtide, and is detailed in this excerpt from Chapter II.

The Shadowed Seven

What is a fantasy world without monsters, much less a nation ruled by monsters? This excerpt from Chapter V looks at the Shadowed Seven, the so-called “regents” of Kern since the fall of the Lich-King at the hands of the Queen of Aldis.

Aldean Ancestries

We’ve already mentioned how The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide handles ancestry a bit differently. This excerpt gives you a better look at that, along with the traits for human ancestry and including other ancestries on Aldea.

Spirit Dancers & Rose KnightsOne of the Sovereign's Finest

Spirit Dancers, who combine movement and physical mastery with spiritual insights, and the Knights of the Rose, the sworn defenders of the Sovereignty, are two important types of heroes in Blue Rose detailed by the sub-classes in this excerpt.

Backgrounds & The Reawakened

This part of Chapter X gives you a look at how various backgrounds are handled in The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide as well as one of the new backgrounds: The Reawakened, for characters whose background is literally multiple lifetimes long!

The Occult & Telepathy

The Adventurer’s Guide focuses on using the 5e magic system for maximum compatibility, but we still give some things an important Blue Rose spin in this except with a look at the dangers of the Occult and the ability of telepathy possessed by various characters (including the rhydan and vata ancestries and those with the Telepathy feat).

The Fey

The untamed forces of nature on Aldea sometimes manifest as faerie beings, and this excerpt from Chapter XII introduces you to one of them, the Fey Noble.

A Wolfenmoot Gift

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Wolfenmoot Web

Some time ago, Green Ronin staff were introduced to the wonderful notion of Wolfenoot, a holiday created by a boy in New Zealand as “a celebration of canines, kindness, and humans who embrace both.” We were so charmed by it, that we incorporated our own version into the world of Blue Rose, the holiday of Wolfenmoot, back in 2018. For what could be more Blue Rose than a holiday about kindness along with furry friends and family?

This past holiday season, I wrote “The Wolfenmoot Web,” a Blue Rose adventure focused on that holiday celebration, and a deadly threat that arises during it. It is an adventure for 5th level AGE System characters using the Blue Rose Romantic Fantasy Roleplaying game. Since we were also releasing the new Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, in PDF and print-on-demand, “The Wolfenmoot Web” includes a conversion appendix with all of the 5e game information needed to play the adventure as well.

Best of all, “The Wolfenmoot Web” is available as a Pay What You Want release for the Adventures in Aldea line on DriveThruRPG. This type of dual-supported adventure, usable for two different game systems, is a bit of an experiment for us, so we’re eager to hear what you may think about it. Would you like to see more 5e conversions of Adventures in Aldea for use with the Adventurer’s Guide? Drop us a line at letsplay@greenronin.com and let us know!

Green Ronin Publishing in 2021

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Green Ronin in 2021

It seemed like 2020 lasted for a decade but at last we are here in 2021. As is traditional, I’m going to tell you about some of our plans for the coming year. What is not traditional is that a global pandemic still rages and even with the vaccines rolling out things won’t be back to any kind of normal this year. We still face many challenges. Some game stores closed their doors permanently during this crisis, while others are operating at reduced capacity. Simply put, we aren’t selling as many print books through distribution as we did pre-Covid and it’s unclear when that trend might reverse. We’ve been adjusting to this in various ways, but it has impacted our schedule. Some planned projects were put on hold, others will be delivered in different formats or though different methods. It’s a juggling act and so far, we are getting by. If you’ve supported us this past year, thank you so much! Now let’s talk about what we’ve got planned for 2021. Rather than break this down by game line, I’m going to talk about the different approaches we’ll be taking to bring you games and fiction.

Ships of the ExpanseTraditional

Some titles we will still release in our standard way, which means a PDF release followed by a traditional print job. These books then go to game stores, the book trade, and our online store. We’ve just recently released the Time Traveler’s Codex for Mutants & Masterminds. The next book to go to print will be Ships of the Expanse, along with a reprint of game’s rulebook. Later in the year you can expect to see Modern AGE Mastery, the Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook, Book of Fiends, and Envoys to the Mount, an epic campaign for the Blue Rose RPG. We also have our continuing line of fiction through Nisaba Press. Tales from the Mount is a fiction anthology that ties into Envoys to the Mount. Our latest novel is Sacred Band by Joseph D. Carriker.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is nothing new for us and it’s a method we’ll continue to use in the future. Our next campaign will be for the Fifth Season RPG, based on N.K. Jemisin’s terrific novel trilogy. We also have several previous crowdfunding campaigns that are nearing completion. Q Workshop has manufactured The Expanse Dice Sets for us and they should be shipping over from Europe soon so we can begin fulfilment (Pre-order now for an Exclusive set of Protogen Dice before they’re gone!). The Book of Fiends—our gorgeous 5E monster books of demons, devils, and daemons—is in layout with art pouring in. Then Sentinels of Earth-Prime, a card game that combines the Sentinels of the Multiverse rules with our Mutants & Masterminds setting, is art complete and we’re sending it to print. All of these titles will be available through normal channels after the fact if you missed the crowdfunding campaigns.

Virtual Tabletops

I don’t know about you, but I’ve done a lot of online roleplaying during quarantine. While we have had Mutants & Masterminds available on Fantasy Grounds for years, we now have a team that’s working to bring more Green Ronin titles to various virtual tabletops, including Roll20, Fantasy Grounds, and Foundry. We’re now working on getting some of our AGE games, including The Expanse, up for play. We’ll also be doing things like token and map packs.

Sword Chronicle

Now available in Print On Demand at DrivethruRPG!

Print on Demand

Previously, we haven’t done much with print on demand books. In the early days I just didn’t think the quality was there, but this has improved vastly over where it was 10 years ago. We’re thus going to be offering more titles on DriveThruRPG with a print on demand option. Just last week we launched the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, which brings our world of Aldea to the 5E rules, with both POD and PDF options. The Sword Chronicle RPG that we launched last year also now has a POD option.

Electronic

We continue to release new fiction anthologies in epub/mobi/PDF. Recent titles include For Hart and Queen (Blue Rose), Powered Up! (Mutants & Masterminds), and Under a Black Flag (Freeport). Then we have RPG titles that are PDF only. These tend to be shorter releases like the Astonishing Adventures for Mutants & Masterminds. We have similar adventures in the works for Modern AGE and The Expanse. We also have our continuing series Danger Zones for Mutants & Masterminds.

Patreon

Another new avenue we are exploring is Patreon. We just launched a Mutants & Masterminds Patreon so check that out if you are a fan. It’s proving a convenient way to bring some older characters back in the Third Edition rules. Right now, we are just a few patrons away from unlock even more exclusive content. Once we reach that milestone, we will be adding location write-ups, with the top-tier patrons being included as shop owners or NPC characters in new monthly releases. That would be in addition to the weekly character stat blocks we release every Monday. If M&M goes well, we may explore Patreons for other games as well.

Streaming!Streaming

You may have noticed that we’ve been ramping up our online presence thanks to Troy, with things like Mutants & Masterminds Monday with Crystal Frasier and Steve Kenson and the new ThursdAGE with Owen Stephens. Expect to see more of that in the future. We’re also interested in hearing from you if you are streaming our games. Do you host a stream or podcast that uses a Green Ronin title? Do you have a favorite streamer/podcaster we should know about? Send those cast social details and a short explainer to letsplay@greenronin.com.

Onward

That’s the story for 2021. Hopefully, we can get through this year without rains of frogs or plagues of locusts or the like! If you enjoy what we do, please consider supporting any or all of what I’ve talked about today. We’d love to see more of you on the M&M Patreon, for example, or reading our Nisaba Press fiction. Right now, we also have two offers going on the Bundle of Holding, one for Dragon Age/Fantasy AGE and one for The Expanse/Modern AGE. Those are great deals on the PDFs if you want to check those games out.

Thanks for all your support! We sincerely appreciate it. Stay safe out there and we hope to see you at cons again in 2022.

Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide: Call It a Humble-BRAG

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Blue Rose Adventurer’s GuideIt’s here! This week marks the release of the 5e-compatible Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, or “BRAG” as we call it around the Green Ronin company Slack and e-mails. If you didn’t know that BRAG was coming, well, we need to network better, because we have talked about and anticipated it a lot:

An Added Release

Originally, we planned Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide as an electronic-only PDF release. This was in the midst of pandemic shutdowns when it was unclear what, if any, printing options would be available. As we got closer to release, it was clear that print-on-demand through our partners at DriveThruRPG remained quite stable and available, and the book is honestly too nice to deny an in-print option, so we took the additional time necessary to set BRAG up for print-on-demand sales (including ordering print proofs). I think you’ll agree that it was worth the effort and the wait!

 

So now you have the option of getting just the PDF edition of the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, a print copy, shipped directly to you, or both, so you can read and flip through the PDF while you’re waiting for your print copy to arrive (like I do).

The Night People in AldeaA Rose of a Different Color

So whether you are a longtime fan of Aldea, the world of Blue Rose, or entirely new to the setting, you might be wondering “Is the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide a book meant for me?” Good question! Let’s look at the main audiences for the BRAG:

5e Players Interested in a New World

The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide presents a complete overview of the Western Lands of the world of Aldea as a 5e fantasy setting. We focused on keeping BRAG highly compatible with the 5e core rules, so while you will find all-new ancestries in the book, and no native dwarves or elves, for example, you will find a setting that is easily used with the 5e core rulebooks. You’ve hopefully already heard about Aldea as an inclusive romantic fantasy setting with some different takes on the notion of fantasy roleplaying and settings, making it a great opportunity for 5e gamers looking for a change-of-pace or more inclusive setting for their games. Best of all, because planar travel was once a common element of ancient Aldea (and still exists, to a degree) you can make the world a place for plane-hopping adventurers to visit, or import your favorite elements and characters from other 5e settings.

Blue Rose Players Interested in 5eAn Adept and a Rhy-cat

Let’s be honest: When it comes to finding a game group, or getting a game group to try out a new campaign or setting, familiarity is important and, when it comes to familiarity, the 5e system is sovereign. Maybe the thing that was keeping you (or your game group) from trying Blue Rose was learning a different game system? Maybe you would have an easier time getting friends (or folks at conventions) to play adventures in Aldea if they could use the familiar 5e rules? Then the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide provides just that: The fantastic world of Blue Rose and the familiar rules of 5e, with just enough unique twists to make things fresh, new, and interesting.

Similarly, if you are a long-time Blue Rose player who was interested in 5e, but not inspired by its existing fantasy settings, now you can try out the game system and bring your favorite setting along with you!

Of course, since relationships on Aldea can often exist in more complex constellations, we don’t expect players to remain exclusive to either the AGE System or 5e versions of the setting. Enjoy both if you like!

5e Players Interested in New Options

Maybe you’re not particularly interested in the world of Aldea per se (although you might change your mind once you’ve had a chance to visit!). Even then, 5e players will find a wealth of new game material in the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, including:

  • Four new ancestries (night person, rhydan, sea-folk, and vata) and a new approach to human ancestry as well.
  • A new sub-class for each of the core 5e character classes.
  • Eight new feats.
  • Three new backgrounds.
  • Options for Narrative Wealth and Equipment.
  • An optional system for occult and “forbidden” magic and the corruption that results from wielding it.
  • Dozens of new magic items, including accursed occult items.
  • Four new creature templates, including rhydan (intelligent psychic animals).

You can easily borrow any or all of the new game material from the BRAG and import it into your own 5e campaign, either translated to your own setting or perhaps even literally “imported” from Aldea to your own campaign world.

A warrior with her Rhy-wolf companionBlue Rose Players Interested in a Concise Guide

Since it is made up primarily of setting and supplemental 5e material, the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide is a comparatively slim 176 pages compared to the hefty 384-pages of the Blue Rose Romantic Fantasy Roleplaying core book (What can we say? At Green Ronin, we like big books and we cannot lie…) That alone makes the BRAG a handy, concise guide to the world of Aldea, reorganized for ease of use, with the first 33-page chapter a good overview of the key elements of the setting. Even if your focus is on the setting material rather than the 5e game systems, the BRAG is a useful and easily portable reference guide in either its electronic or print formats.

Now, if you don’t fall into any of the previous categories, such as if you are an AGE System Blue Rose player perfectly content with the beautiful Blue Rose Romantic Fantasy hardcover, then the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide may not have enough new, useful content for you to want to pick it up. It does offer more detail on the Rezeans and their lands to the west of Aldis, a preview of what AGE System fans will see in the forthcoming Touching the Wild sourcebook, and a few other tidbits, but otherwise may not be of much use. Even then, it’s an opportunity to introduce your 5e-dedicated friends and fellow gamers to the wonderful world of Aldea and the Sovereignty of the Blue Rose!

For a limited time, the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide Print-on-Demand option will be available at a discount on DrivethruRPG. This Romantic Fantasy offer will be available through Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 2021.

The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide is now available in the Green Ronin Online store, and on DrivethruRPG!

Joe Carriker’s Top 5 Green Ronin Picks

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Like other Ronins, I work at Green Ronin because I love what we do. So narrowing this list down to just five products? Not easy. That said, here we go! “Joe Carriker’s Top 5”

Ork! The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition5. Ork! The Roleplaying Game, Second Edition

This updated version of the original Ork! is a glorious revisit of the sheer bonkers chaos of the original Ork! In this beer-and-pretzels game, you play…an ork. And it is your job to unleash all sorts of ork-like mayhem in the world. Being a systems wonk, though, it’s not (only) the premise that sells this for me, but the system that makes me love it.

Every check in Ork! is an opposed roll. Sometimes against enemies, but quite often the roll is opposed by…well, by the ork god, who is a surly, ill-tempered sort of deity who delights in the suffering of his people. The sheer gonzo premise of a game system based on “God hates you and wants you to fail, except that you’re doing your best to spit in his eye” is absolute catnip for me.

4. Book of the RighteousThe Book of the Righteous for Fifth Edition

I’m a big Fifth Edition player, for starters. I am also a huge nerd when it comes to worldbuilding, and I find one of the best disciplines of worldbuilding to be the construction of pantheons, creation myths, and the forms of religion that populate a setting. The gods of a world say so much about that place, and how its people revere them adds to it.

For my money, the Book of the Righteous does the best job of addressing some of that style of worldbuilding in Fifth Edition material to date. Fully realized pantheons, religious orders, creation myths, and all the rest of it, with tons of player-facing mechanics (including a wealth of new cleric Domains and paladin Orders)? I’m so in.

Threefold A Campaign Setting for Modern AGE3. Threefold

It is no secret that I love me some big universes. I’m a world-builder at heart, and I love sprawling, deeply interconnected, and flavorful settings with room to tell all kinds of interesting stories in. It’s probably no wonder then that I love me some Threefold. A setting that includes organizations for player characters to belong to, each with specific goals and modes of operation. A theoretically infinite variety of worlds to explore, including a whole bevy of them right up front, and potentially more to come? Alien tech and psychic abilities and weird history timelines? Seriously, this is exactly the kind of high-stakes rollicking adventure that I love, and developer Malcolm Sheppard has wrapped it all up in the extremely accessible Modern AGE system for me.

And uh you, too, of course. :)

2. Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition Deluxe Hero’s HandbookDeluxe Hero's Handbook for Mutants & Masterminds

Superhero RPGs and I go way back. During the Satanic Panic, my mom and pastor confiscated all my D&D goods to burn them. They left my Marvel Superheroes RPG stuff, assuming they were comics, and I kept right on gaming. If I have anything close to an Ultimate Universal System for my tastes, it’s probably M&M. It is very capable of doing superheroes, and a whole lot more. I’ve used it for cyberpunk, urban fantasy, and weird dimension-hopping type games, and I know folks who’ve used it for lots more. It is extremely flexible, but also easy to use.

Honestly, I just love using its system to build power sets. Mutants & Masterminds Third doesn’t present finished powers for you to use for your heroes. Instead, it presents an extremely exhaustive set of power effects. “What does this power do, mechanically?” the system asks, and encourages you to determine how it interacts with the rules. Does it do damage? Inflict penalties? Reduce an enemy’s power? Debuff with negative conditions? Once you figure that out, you can select the appropriate effects, slap a Descriptor (like Psychic, Magic, or Fire) onto it that describes what is responsible for those effects, and your power is ready to go.

The fact that you can play games that range in power from street-level shenanigans where a knee-breaker with a bat is dangerous, all the way to hyper-dimensional cosmic epics is nothing short of incredible. Best still, both types of games are extremely playable, too – I sometimes brag that unlike some other games, Mutants & Mastermind’s “high level” games are perfectly playable and just as fun. I love the system so much, in fact, that when I was first putting together the main protagonists for my novel Sacred Band (available now from Nisaba Press), I built them using Mutants & Masterminds Third Edition rules! (You can get them here, for free, by the way.)

Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy 1. Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy

I am the developer for the Blue Rose line at Green Ronin  precisely because this book is in my number one spot. I didn’t contribute to this book myself, so I feel entirely justified in just how much of a ridiculous fanboy I am for this game. I did some writing for its first edition, and fell in love then. Why?

Romantic fantasy is my jam, for starters. Fantasy that postulates magic that makes the world better and more accessible rather than more dangerous and more awful, narratives in which the people one meets and connects with are as important to the resolution as one’s skill with sword or spell, and a sense of egalitarian aspiration are all mixed together to form a sort of inspiring, uplifting fantasy that I just love. This edition of Blue Rose specifically is fantastic, as well, for its use of the AGE system. Stunts give exactly the sort of swashbuckling feel that should pervade these stories, and its magic system which allows the use of magic as long as one can resist the psychic exhaustion that comes of doing so is really enjoyable.

But anyone who knows me probably knows that I love this game because of how abundantly queer it is. Queerness is not an afterthought here – I commend a lot of games for their “well, nobody cares if you’re queer” approach to inclusion, but in Blue Rose queerness has impacted the culture and social identity of its people…in a good way. It also explicitly makes room for different types of queer characters, from those characters who have no idea what bigotry against them is (which can be very comforting to play for some queer gamers who don’t need marginalization in their gaming) to those whose heroism includes having come from very restrictive backgrounds and having fought their way to freedom (which can be a cathartic gaming experience for some queer folk as well).

Plus, honestly, the ability to play a sapient, psychic animal? Yes, please.

Crystal’s Top 5 Green Ronin Picks!

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It’s hard to pick just 5 items from the Green Ronin catalog as favorites, because the company’s library covers an enormous variety of genres and system, but here’s the best I could do. Presenting “Crystal’s Top 5 Green Ronin Picks”

Mutants & Masterminds Condition Cards!

5. Mutants & Masterminds Condition Cards

Mutants & Masterminds is mostly a fast, intuitive system that’s easy to adjudicate on the fly with little or no prep. Everything is a d20 + modifier resolution, with the modifier usually being related to your campaign power level. The only place I tend to stumble is in remembering the rules for the two-dozen or so conditions that powers and failed checks might apply to a character. That’s when game stops and I have to flip back to page 18 of the Hero’s Handbook and remember what rules to apply. That’s why I made a homemade condition card deck back when 3rd edition first released. Now that we have an official condition card set made from shiny cardstock and featuring iconic art so I can deal out conditions in style and I love them!

4. Mutants & Masterminds Superteam Handbook

Superteam Handbook for Mutants & Masterminds!

Alright, spoiler alert: I’m making my list assuming you already have a Hero’s Handbook for M&M, so that’s not even going on my list. But once you have the Hero’s Handbook (Deluxe or Basic), then what? There are the obvious choices—the Deluxe Gamemaster’s Guide if you’re the Gamemaster or Power Profiles if you’re a player—but for my money the handiest book for the whole group is the SuperTeam Handbook. It’s got expanded rules and character options for players and talks about building your superhero team as a collective, deciding roles and strengths and weaknesses that you rely on your teammates to shore up. But beyond that, the SuperTeam Handbook is a stealth campaign guide, showing you 8 distinct models for how you can run your Mutants & Masterminds game. You’ve got your standard “big heroes on the block” campaign, but also “fugitive heroes,” “urban vigilantes,” “super sentai,” and “quirky agents,” all with examples of the kinds of adventures and opponents those heroes might face. For Gamemasters, it also has a giant catalogue of characters that you can pass out to new players, or file the serial numbers off and use as villains if you don’t have time to make your own.

Modern AGE Basic Rulebook3. Modern AGE Core Rulebook

I have a soft spot for modern games, as illustrated by the large catalogue of d20 Modern manuals that observant readers may have seen in the background of M&M Monday streams. To mean, there’s a lot more excitement in bringing fantastic elements to a familiar world than in showing off fantastic elements in an already fantastic world. Modern AGE is a fun, fast, and flexible system that works great for any game set between the golden age of piracy and the near-future cyberpunk dystopia. The basic rules make it easy to put together a player character or NPC in no time, while the stunt system adds depth to combat and investigations. I’ve been running a monster-hunting campaign set in 1890’s San Francisco using just the core book and a copy of Modern AGE Enemies and Allies (a little side plug there) and having a great time.

2. Mutants & Masterminds Hero HighHero High Revised Edition for Mutants & Masterminds

I’m a sucker for X-men and Legion of Superheroes. It’s hard not to be when you spend puberty feeling like an outcast, so roleplaying in a world setting where you’re empowered for being the weird kid is just the chef’s kiss of roleplay options. This setting book for M&M is from before my tenure on the line but remains my evergreen favorite as a setting to run, play in, or fantasize about expanding. The 3rd edition version takes one of the strongest supplements for 2nd edition and revises and expands it to fill out the flavor and options of playing teen superheroes (or villains) while still worrying about getting your homework in on time.

Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy Core Rulebook 1. Blue Rose: The AGE RPG of Romantic Fantasy

I know, I know. I’m the Mutants & Masterminds developer. Shouldn’t my number one product be an M&M book? Well, it isn’t. As much as I love comic books and superheroes, I love things that are unapologetically queer more. And I love romance and fairy tales and drama and people trying their hardest to be better than they were before, and Blue Rose offers all of that. While I usually sell it to my friends as “you can play a sassy psychic cat,” the selling point for me is that encounters are meant to be talked down or puzzled out at least as often as they’re meant to be fought, and all against a backdrop of gorgeous art.

 

Blue Rose Cover (work in progress)

Blue Rose Cover (work in progress) by Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

 

 

Steve Kenson’s Top Five Green Ronin Picks!

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When Troy Hewitt (the disembodied host of Mutants & Masterminds Mondays, amongst other schemes) asked me to compiled a list of “Steve Kenson’s Top 5 Green Ronin products“, that constituted a challenge, because I’m terrible at self-promotion and felt like it would be disingenuous to pick products I’d written the majority of, or had a substantial hand in designing or developing. So I’ve tried to steer clear of those things on this list, since I contribute to a lot of Green Ronin’s products.

I’m also focusing on products currently available in the Green Ronin Online Store, rather than the company’s entire twenty year history—maybe another “Top 5 of All-Time” or “Top 20 of the last 20 years” list is something to revisit at a later date. Lastly, I’ll note that my list is in alphabetical order by title, rather than being ranked from 1–5 in order of preference, because I’m lazy and had a hard enough time narrowing things down to just five products.

So, without further digression, here’s my list.

Aldis: City of the Blue RoseAldis: City of the Blue Rose

I love city books—as anyone who is familiar with Freedom City knows—so the Aldis: City of the Blue Rose sourcebook could have been written just for me. It describes the center of Aldis, the default setting of Blue Rose, in loving detail, jam-packed with characters, local flavor, and adventure hooks, such that you could run a whole Blue Rose game where the characters hardly ever left the city. I’m also quite happy with my own contribution to the book, the introductory adventure “The Case of the Rhydan Swine.”

Envoys to the MountEnvoys to the Mount

Envoys is the first full-fledged campaign book for Blue Rose Romantic Fantasy Roleplaying and offers a series of adventures leading up to an epic conclusion, with some breathing room to add in other “side” adventures, either of your own creation or various stand-alone published adventures. One of my favorite elements of Envoys is the establishment of various character “roles” for the series—like the Envoy, the Historian, and the Rhy-Bound—which you can “cast” with your own characters. The adventures then provide prompts for subplots and other story elements involving those character roles.

Modern AGE Basic RulebookModern AGE Basic Rulebook

I sometimes feel like the Modern AGE rulebook is an under-appreciated implementation of the AGE System rules, because it packs a lot into a fairly slim rulebook: enough character design and game-play material to run countless campaigns ranging from the early-modern (Industrial Revolution) era up through the near-future or even far-future science fiction (although the latter may benefit from some stuff in The Expanse RPG, which was developed concurrently with Modern AGE). With the inclusion of arcane and psychic powers in the book as well, Modern AGE is also a system for urban fantasy or “secret powers” settings in any of its various eras. It’s hard to beat in terms of bang-for-your-buck game-play value.

Mutants & Masterminds Basic Hero’s HandbookMutants & Masterminds Basic Hero's Handbook cover

Mutants & Masterminds developer Crystal Fraiser has done some great stuff with the game: launching the Astonishing Adventures series (which has already produced more adventure content for M&M than we managed in all the years prior combined) and developing the terrific Time Traveler’s Codex, but my favorite is a project that could have only been developed with Crystal’s vision and guidance: The Mutants & Masterminds Basic Hero’s Handbook. Because sometimes, as a designer, you really need someone else to come along and lay out how the whole thing works. This book does that. If you have ever been intimidated by the rules or character design of Mutants & Masterminds, well, this is the book for you. It’s easy, accessible, and gets you right into creating a new hero in minutes and ready-to-play. Plus it is 100% compatible with the Deluxe Hero’s Handbook rules, so everything you learn is of value. I especially love the comic book examples of game-play that really bring the rules to life while providing clear and concrete examples.

Threefold: A Campaign Setting for Modern AGEThreefold

Because I’m a fairly jaded tabletop gamer, it’s not often that I get excited about a new game world or setting, but the Threefold setting for Modern AGE drew me in from the get-go with its concept and depth. It’s a meta-setting of sorts, in that it encompasses a “metacosm” of parallel worlds, a manifestation of the breadth and depth of the Modern AGE rules themselves. But Threefold goes further in setting up a unique and detailed cosmology that puts particular spins on the manifestations of magic and psychic (occult) powers, along with creating unique character backgrounds. Developer Malcolm Sheppard pitched it to me as “John Wick and Harry Potter team up to fight Satan’s robots” and I was in from that moment on. Personally, I’d change “team up” to “join Starfleet and Stargate Command” because, yeah … it’s like that. Check it out.

Austium (Envoys to the Mount)

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A Map of Austium

Map by Cartographer Liz Courts.

Envoys to the Mount is a full-length Blue Rose chronicle that takes players from origins as newly-graduated envoys of the Sovereign’s Finest to heroes of the kingdom of Aldis. The threats they face as part of that rise are dire and deadly, but perhaps none are more so than the wickedness of the lost city of Austium.

Once the capital of Faenaria, Austium was ground-zero for the Doom that destroyed the homeland of the folk who came to be called the Roamers.

Today, Austium is a Shadow-corrupted place, with four cabals of monstrous evil crouching in the ruins of the city. Above them sits arguably the most powerful darkfiend to ever slither out of Shadow into the world of mortals, the entity known only as the Lord of Austium.

Author Steven Jones did a spectacular job of detailing Austium, giving us a place that is not just a seemingly unending source of threats for Blue Rose heroes, but creating a place that seems to live, breathe, and positively bristle with potential threats. Because I do love me some hags and witches, I’m sharing the Coven of the Iron Cauldron here!

The Coven of the Iron Cauldron

The Queen’s Ward

The Coven of the Iron Cauldron is composed of sorcerers, hags, and other beings gifted in the arcane arts. It is immensely powerful and concentrates on uncovering the city’s lost lore with the intent of twisting it to the Shadow’s ends. While both the Guild of the Tarnished Coins and the Order of the Bloody Blades are larger, no other faction holds as much sway in the city with the Lord of Austium as the Coven of the Iron Cauldron.

Envoys to the Mount and Tales from the Mount bundle offer!

Don’t forget to pick up a copy of the Tales from the Mount fiction anthology as well!

Since this faction’s focus is on lost lore and the secrets of sorcery, they give little thought to the activities of the other factions and do what they can to remain neutral in their political games. When the Coven does get pulled into these powerplays, it’s usually due to some Guild of the Tarnished Coins’ scheme; these political maneuvers have created some animosity from the Coven towards the Guild.

 

The Coven was formed and is led by the Inside-Out Lady (one of the Talons), and since its early days, the Coven’s power has grown greatly. It was instrumental in raising Austium from the wastes of the Shadow Barrens. Since the Inside-Out Lady is kept occupied in service to the Lord of Austium, most of the daily duties of running the Coven fall on the Inner Circle, which consists of the Coven’s other founding members who are still alive and in Austium. Three members of the Inner Circle—Cendis, Doromin, and Lady Viddia—can be found in Appendix 3; Narrators should feel free to add additional members as they see fit.

The remaining faction members are structured into lesser circles consisting of three or seven members, and it is common for these lesser circles to have a low ranking darkfiend in their service. Most of the lesser circles choose one of the exarchs as their patron. Among the lesser circles, there are rumors of former Inner Circle members who clashed with the Inside-Out Lady and were forced to flee Austium or be destroyed.

The Coven holds dominion over the eastern section of Austium (the Queen’s Ward), with the coven’s main rites taking place in a ring of standing stones on Cauldron Hill, located close to the Tempest Gate. The lesser circles all have their own ritual spaces throughout the twisted mockery of the city.

Be sure to check out our previous articles previewing what you’ll find in Envoys to the Mount! And while you’re at it, don’t forget about our Year End Sale! going on right now. There are quite a few books and adventures in the Blue Rose line available, just in case you have any gaps in your collection!

End of Year Sale and GR Gift Guide

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Happy holidays from all of us at Green Ronin! I don’t think 2020 was the year any of us hoped for but on the upside, it’s almost over! Right now, we’ve got our Year End Sale going on, which offers 20% off most of our titles through January 3. Get gifts for your friends and family, or just treat yourself. If you survived 2020, you deserve it! Two important notes. First, we do offer gift certificates in our online store, so if you don’t know what to get for the gamers in your life, that’s always an option. Second, shipping is particularly slow this year, so if you want things in time for Xmas, get your orders in early. If you aren’t sure what to get, I’ve put together a gift guide that may help. Let’s get to it!

Death In Freeport for Fantasy AGEAs you may heard, 2020 was Green Ronin’s 20th anniversary. One way we celebrated that was with new editions of one of our earliest releases. I wrote Death in Freeport 20 years ago, and now it’s available in two formats: Fantasy AGE and 5th Edition. Pick your system and then set sale for Freeport, the City of Adventure! Fantasy AGE fans will also enjoy Lairs, another new book for this year that features a host of ready to use encounters. 5E fans should check out The Lost Citadel Roleplaying, where players are survivors of an undead apocalypse in the last city standing.

 

Enemies and Allies for Modern AGE

If you want a flexible RPG that can handle just about every sub-genre of action adventure, check out Modern AGE. It got its character/adversary book this year with Enemies & Allies. If you want a kickass setting, also check out Threefold. It got some adventure support with Five and Infinity, which we serialized over the course of the year. We also launched Modern AGE Missions for even more PDF adventure support. We’re certain you need 30-50 feral hogs in your Modern AGE campaign, so make sure to check that out!

 

Envoys to the Mount for Blue RoseBlue Rose, our Romantic Fantasy RPG, is also getting (and giving) a lot of love right now. If you’ve never checked it out before, there’s a new Quickstart that gives you a complete adventure with rules and pre-generated characters. For more experienced players, we’ve just put Envoys to the Mount up for pre-order. This is a complete campaign for Blue Rose that takes characters through all four tiers of play. There’s also a tie-in fiction anthology called Tales from the Mount that’s available now. You can get a bundle with both Envoys and Tales too!

 

Sacred Band 2nd editionSpeaking of fiction, our imprint Nisaba Press has some great titles for holiday reading. Blue Rose fans will definitely want to check out Sovereigns of the Blue Rose, an anthology of stories about the fourteen rulers of Aldis. We’ve also just released Sacred Band, Joe Carriker’s critically-acclaimed LGBTQ+ superhero novel. Supers will also enjoy Roadtrip to Ruin, the latest Mutants & Masterminds novel. If short stories are your jam, we’ve released three anthologies this year: For Hart and Queen for Blue Rose, Powered Up for Mutants & Masterminds, and Under a Black Flag for Freeport.

 

 

Time Traveler's Codex for Mutants & MastermindsSuperhero fans should look no further than Mutants & Masterminds. If you haven’t tried it before, jump right in with the Basic Hero’s Handbook. We’ve just release the Time Traveler’s Codex (now available in print!), which is a whole book about timeline hopping shenanigans. If you’ve been wanting adventure support, we’ve really leaned into that this year with the Astonishing Adventures PDF series. These include stand-alone adventures and the five-part series NetherWar. Danger Zones is another new series. Each entry details a new location for superheroic action. And, by popular demand, we’ve also just released a deck of Condition Cards!

 

Ships of the ExpanseBut what if you want to go to outer spaaaaccceeee? That’s where The Expanse RPG—based on the terrific novels by James S.A. Corey­—comes in. There’s a free Quickstart if you haven’t dived in yet. This year we released Abzu’s Bounty, a series of six linked adventures for the game. Salvage Op offers a one shot for an evening or two of play. We’ve also just put Ships of the Expanse up for pre-order. This is the long-awaited book full of deck plans and details about the spaceships of the setting.

 

Sword Chronicle RoleplayingLast but by no means least, we launched the Sword Chronicle RPG this year. This takes the system we designed for A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying and spins it off into as an independent fantasy system. This has been available as a PDF for several months but just this week we’ve made it available as a Print on Demand title on DriveThruRPG.

 

Happy holidays, everyone! See you in 2021!

Character Hooks in Envoys to the Mount

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Envoys to the Mount for Blue RoseIn a previous Ronin Roundtable, we mentioned a little bit about the Character Hooks mechanic we developed for Envoys to the Mount. In this Ronin Roundtable, we’re going to introduce you to not only the Hooks themselves, but how players select and use them, along with a sample of one of them.

The Summary

At the beginning of game play, the Narrator will pass around a sheet that summarizes the Hooks used in the campaign. Players choose these Hooks based on the summaries, allowing them to focus on the role they want to play within the chronicle. This is an example of the Vata Hook summary:

The Vata

The arcane runs through your veins as surely as blood does. You might be one of the pale vata’an, graceful and ethereal. Or you might be one of the umbral vata’sha, whispered about by the ignorant and superstitious. Regardless, you are an inheritor of the ancient legacy of the lost vatazin people. You might have been born to entirely human parents, or perhaps one (or both) of your parents are vata themselves. No matter your origins, you have found a place among the Sovereign’s Finest.

Choose This Hook: If you want to play a vata character in this campaign, a character with a mystical heritage who will begin to uncover ancient secrets about their people.

 

A Vata character for Blue Rose

The HandoutsCharacter Hook Handout for the Vata

Once all of the players have chosen their Hooks, the Narrator then gives each a handout which contains the following information. We have included the Handout for the Vata Hook here as well, so you can see what it all looks like.

  • Flavor Text: A quick paragraph that summarizes the character’s relationship with the Sovereign’s Finest, and very loosely defines their motivations. Ultimately, it simply contains a few evocative suggestions, which players should use as many or as few of as they like to help round out their characters.
  • Bonus Traits: Each Hook includes one or more additional benefits the character receives for taking on this role. Many of them are mechanical in nature, a core conceit for the Hook. Because the hero basically has to have them to function in that Hook role, we’re giving it to them for free, so as not to unduly limit character creation choices elsewhere.
  • Character Creation: This section makes some suggestions for character creation, suggesting focuses, talents, and specializations that expand the theme of the Hook in interesting directions. None of these are requirements, although the suggestions are made with the Hook’s role in the campaign in mind.
  • Drawbacks: Of course, nothing comes for free, so each Hook also includes a Drawback. In many instances, this is a unique mechanic or even story limitation that isn’t so much to balance the additional benefits as it is to drive home the themes of the Hook and further enwrap the hero in the role the player has chosen.
  • Backstory: Finally, each Hook includes three bullet points that are events or details that should be folded into the player’s concept of the character’s past. In many cases, these are not only tied into the assumed history of the character in that role, but they will also impact events that occur within the campaign. They include questions meant to help the player customize these details for their hero. They don’t have to share these details with the other players but should discuss them with you, the Narrator.

Envoys to the Mount is available for pre-order now in our online store, and on DrivethruRPG!

Don’t forget, you can also pick up the Nisaba Press anthology Tales from the Mount along with your PDF (also available on Drivethru), or select the add-on offer with the print version of Envoys to the Mount, for just $5!

And did we mention there were free pre-generated characters for Envoys? Just in case you wanted to get playing right away! Shocking no one, they are on DrivethruRPG as well!