Tag Archive for: Fifth Edition

Patreon TTRPG Halloween Collaboration “All Treats, No Tricks” – Free TTRPG Downloads!

Hello fiends!

It’s only the 11th day of Halloween, and we’ve really amplified the creepy for you! As many of you know, we are coordinating two Patreons, the Twilight Accord and Mutants & Masterminds!  This spooky collaboration comes as a result of my role as a Captain of the Patreon TTRPG Creators A. Club (The A stands for Accountability). Originally intended as a short-term gathering  of TTRPG creators on Patreon, the idea was to gather fresh perspectives from fellow creators, our group hit it off so well that we expanded our meeting time to 90 minutes and we’re still at it 6 months later.
Now, it’s a lot like a weekly gathering of friends, each offering their expertise, coaching, counseling, and creative problem-solving! So you can imagine, when I mentioned the high-level concept of a terrifying  TTRPG Creators A. Club collaboration, this crew of RPG enthusiasts were next-level excited!

No Tricks, Only Treats TTRPG Creator’s Ring!

Here’s how it works: Every creator in this group has a free digital treat, and all you need to do is visit, and click! It’s a great way to catch up with some incredible TTRPG talent, some who have been doing this for some time, and some who are just beginning to focus on showcasing their work through Patreon — well, you will see for yourself!
Patreon Collaboration No Tricks, Only Treats!
I really wanted to show off each individual contributor to our collaboration – so as you click through to each Patreon for your free treat, take a moment to say hello, check out their work – and did you know you could follow their Patreon content for free?
You should do it! Oh look, here they all are now!

Conflux Creatures
Terror Unto Madness: The Book of Aberrations
Over 100 pages of improved monsters and new spells for 5e D&D

Everhearth Inn
A spooky fantasy-inspired recipe to cook for your next DnD session!

Worlds of Parodia
The Mischief Festival of Yielding

LeRoiDeCarreau
DnD 5e Spooky Compendium

Oixxo Art
Autumn Queen

ARTventuring Guild
Spooky PC/NPC portrait

Nerdsmith
“Welcome to the Estate” adventure module

The Twilight Accord:
THE NIGHT ROAD PROCESSION

Angela Maps
5 Animated Battle Maps & Foundry VTT mod

Epic Levels
Mad Dungeon 20: Song of the Shriekfrapp w/Erol Otus

Deep Breadth RPG
Miser Hag, the Literal Wolf on Wall Street

Dizzy The Bard
Song: Warlord What if Spinal from Killer Instinct… was a rapper?

BonusActionRainbow
Rotten Roots – a Space Fantasy oneshot

Domille’s Wondrous Works
Changing Maze Phased Battle Map
It is a maze that changes!

Mutants & Masterminds
The Nightmare Rider Stablock!

Beyond the Screen
To Mistheart: a 5E one-shot adventure

More Treats, still no Tricks

Author’s Note: I pilfered this part from my weekly agenda email to the 72 person of the group

 

I volunteered to be an Accountability Club captain because I desperately needed to connect with people who understood what a unique proposition it was to operate a Patreon supporting a TTRPG project. More than just “another meeting”, the TTRPG Creators A. Club has quickly become the highlight of my week. The group consists of people from all experience levels across multiple disciplines – and the conversations always lead to interesting insights, as well as practical, material things people can do to take their respective Patreons to the next level.

So a huge shout-out to my A. Club Comrades. You are incredibly talented, wise beyond your years, joyful collaborators, with top tier spoopy content!

A Few Words on Languages

Tabletop roleplaying games can give us some funny ideas about languages and linguistics. At least, I know they did for me in some regards. Starting with a certain Popular Fantasy Roleplaying Game comes the notion that player characters are all multi-lingual, speaking three, four—as many as seven or eight languages fluently! This is often compounded with the notion that entire species share the same language, or that there are special languages for fantastic creatures from dragons to elementals to the denizens of different planes of existence.

Later RPGs have taken a more nuanced, and certainly more detailed approach to languages, including various levels of fluency, and things like complex charts showing the relationships between “language families” of earthly or imaginary languages, which may grant some greater understanding or closely-related tongues.

understanding the Language can be very important

“I’m not sure what you just said, but I don’t care for your tone!” Art by James Ryman

The Modern AGE rules have a somewhat laissez-faire attitude about languages. The sidebar on page 16 of the Basic Rulebook says characters should “be able to speak, read, and write whatever languages” they “would pick up due to their cultural and social class” suggesting a limit of three. The Linguistic talent in the game handles learning additional languages and requires a fairly significant investment, since talent degrees aren’t easy to come by, and each degree in the talent grants only one additional language. It would take a new specialization to create the true polyglot character who speaks a dozen or more languages.

Fantasy AGE likewise offers a Linguistics talent, for characters truly dedicated to speaking other languages. The game’s ancestries follow the fantasy standard of an ancestral language (all elves speak Elvish, for example) along with a “Common tongue” used and understood by everyone, for the most part.

Mutants & Masterminds treats language fluency as an advantage, one rank grants an additional language the character can speak, but each additional rank doubles the number of languages, so it’s fairly cost effective to create someone who speaks a dozen or more of them. Of course, in M&M, the ability to speak and understand all languages is on the table for just 2 ranks of the Comprehend power, so there isn’t a lot of point in having more than a few ranks in the Languages advantage, other than to represent the character’s own skill and knowledge.

Individual Game Masters have to decide the role languages—particularly unknown languages—will play in their campaigns. In some cases, the language barrier can be an important element of adventures or the setting. Others prefer to generally ignore the problem in order to get on with things; the Threefold setting for Modern AGE, for example, includes magical “universal translators” for characters working for the world-spanning Sodality, so GMs don’t need to worry about whether or not the characters speak any of the local languages—at least not until their translators are lost or stolen! Likewise, the Cosmic Handbook for M&M recommends Comprehend as a “default” power for star-spanning campaigns, unless you want to institute some form of “Galactic Common” that all alien species speak and understand.

When building worlds of your own for RPGs, you might want to give some thought as to how people say things, and what languages they are saying them in.

Last Chance Warehouse Sale

Last Chance Warehouse Sale: 75% off select print books, while supplies last!

 

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.

75% off on select titles

 

Gen Con Indy 2022

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:

The Twilight Accord Patreon: Paying It Forward for Pride

Twilight Accord Celebrates Pride MonthIn May, Green Ronin Publishing launched its Patreon for Twilight Accord: The Fallen City, a 5e fantasy setting and campaign that centers the experiences of LGBTQ+ heroes and community in that setting. A collaboration between tabletop industry veterans Steve Kenson and Joseph D Carriker Jr., the Patreon is intended to build a collaborative community of supportive patrons with input into the creation and details of this exciting new product.

In celebration of Pride month, Green Ronin Publishing has announced that all funds raised by the Patreon, during the launch and continuing over the course of Pride Month, will be used to hire additional queer creators to infuse Twilight Accord with their creativity and experience. In keeping with the collaborative intent of the project, Green Ronin Publishing will be working with patrons of Twilight Accord to understand their top priorities for additional content: writing, concept art, or concept cartography, and their choices will help guide the allocation of resources towards the hiring of interested creators.

Creators that would like to be involved can email twilightaccord@greenronin.com with their published credits and sample work. LGBTQ+ creators, including LGBTQ+ creators of color, are strongly encouraged to apply and are asked to include details on the aspects of the queer experience they would like to help include in the setting, its culture, and its characters.

 

Steve Kenson shares: Everyone playing a fantasy RPG deserves the opportunity to be the hero of their own story. We want to create a setting and series of adventures where queer people of all kinds can do just that.”

 

Joe Carriker adds: We’re really excited about this project. In the years I’ve been gaming, we’ve seen more and more games make a point of including queer people. It’s high time that we see some games that don’t just include us, but that are actively about us.”

 

You can learn more about the project, and how you can join, by visiting: Twilight Accord: The Fallen City on Patreon.

Straight Talk About Twilight Accord

So, you may have heard or read about the new Twilight Accord Patreon launched last month to develop a queer-focused 5e fantasy setting and campaign. Given that the majority of the tabletop RPG audience is likely straight (although I’d like to see some proper demographic research, myself) I figured it was a good idea to highlight the “What Is Twilight Accord?” post and its FAQ, particularly the question, “Is this for me, if I’m straight?”

Twilight Accord for 5E "straight" to the patreon!

The answer is yes … and no. Okay, it’s complicated, but not that much. Let me explain.

The high concept of Twilight Accord is that the Twilight Advocate, the spirit of the Fallen City in the Gloom, calls out to kindred spirits, namely queer (LGBTQ+) people, who are the ones who have found and followed the Night Road to the city and founded the Twilight Accord. So the default assumption of the setting is that the vast majority of the Accord, and therefore its Champions, the player characters, are queer folk. Our stories are the focus of this campaign.

That doesn’t mean straight (cisgender and heterosexual or “cishet”) people are excluded. As the FAQ points out: “No doubt there are some cishet-folk among the Accord: family members or other loved-ones who accompanied them into the Gloom or otherwise found their way there, but they’re very much among the minority.” So you can use the Twilight Accord as-planned with some straight characters, if you prefer, it’s just not the focus of the setting. (We could talk a lot about how that is essentially the same kind of inclusion queer people experience with most tabletop RPG products that bother to include us, but that would be a whole other article.)

If you’re not looking for a queer-focused narrative, will you get anything out of Twilight Accord or supporting the Patreon? Yes. We already have planned a lot of 5e content for the book, including new subclasses, ancestries, backgrounds, spells, magic items, and creatures, along, of course, with an entire ruined city filled with monsters and challenges to explore. You can use all of this in a Twilight Accord game or in your own campaign setting, as you see fit. We’re playtesting this content at the Counselor and Champion tiers of the Patreon, and encouraging feedback about the design to ensure it’s the best it can be.

If you’re straight, will you be welcome in the Twilight Accord Patreon community? Also yes. We welcome everyone who wants to support and participate in this exploration of new territory. Again, turning to the FAQ: “We welcome everyone’s support and love our allies! There is a place for everyone, even if the focus isn’t necessarily on you. That said, we are not going to tolerate any homophobia, transphobia, sex-shaming, or misogyny on the Patreon (or racism, ablism, or agism for that matter). The reality and personhood of queer people is not ‘up for debate’ in any way, shape, or form, and we will gladly remove anyone who signs up just to stir up trouble.”

Folks who get in on the ground-floor of the Patreon will get access to all of its content, as some older posts may be moved “out of circulation” over time. So if you’re interested in what we’re doing, don’t miss out! Visit the Twilight Accord Patreon, check out the public posts, and sign up if you want to see more. You’ll be most welcome.

The Twilight Accord

Twilight Accord for 5th EditionThe guards shifted nervously, coughing a bit, breath fogging in the chill night air. They were all a bit uneasy, and with good reason. One glanced again at the wood piled and arranged in the courtyard, and thought about the hours until dawn.

“Some of them are little more than children,” he announced aloud to no one in particular.

“Then they can repent their ways,” the other guard replied, “and perhaps His Holiness will see fit to spare them, although if you ask me there’s no hope for their sort. Perverts. Unnatural. We’re well rid of them before they corrupt anyone else.” He spat in the dirt in disgust. The first man sighed and shook his head.

“I don’t expect there will be any mercy for any of them,” he said, “repentant or not…unless.”

“Unless what…?”

“Well…” the guard hesitated to go on. “You know. You’ve heard the stories.” That earned him a dismissive snort.

“Just stories. You don’t believe them, do you?”

“I don’t…” he began.

Then there was a deafening sound like thunder and the heavy wooden gates of the keep exploded inward, fragments raining down over the courtyard. The guards who were not knocked down by the blast stood in shock, mouths agape.

Figures appeared in the clearing smoke, wreathed in flames of seven colors that glimmered from their armor and weapons and in the hard glare of their eyes. They were not “just stories.”

“We are of the Accord and we have come for our people,” one of them announced. “Let none who hope to see the dawn stand in our way.”

The battle, if it can be called that, was brief, and so we were freed, and walked the Night Road to Gloamingate, to the promise of hope, freedom, and a home to call our own, if we can claim it—and we will.Twilight Accord On Patreon!

TWILIGHT ACCORD: THE FALLEN CITY: A Queer-focused #5e #TTRPG Fantasy Setting and Campaign, now on Patreon for Development.

Not “gay as in happy” but “queer as in ‘roll for initiative.’”

Do You Hear the Call…?

Added Ancestries for the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide

BRAG and 5E AncestryOther Fantasy Folk for Aldea

The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide describes the romantic fantasy world of Aldea for Fifth Edition fantasy roleplaying. Aldea is a bit different from some fantasy settings, including the ancestry of its people: the Adventurer’s Guide describes the humans, night people, sea-folk, vata, and the rhydan (psychic awakened animals) of the setting.

Other fantasy folk common to Fifth Edition settings are not found on Aldea, at least by default. A sidebar in the Adventurer’s Guide talks about adding other ancestries to the setting, if you want them, and this Ronin Round Table takes a closer look at how those folk might fit into the world of Blue Rose.

Dwarf

Dwarves are people of the deep earth, their holds often found in the high mountains or deep underground. In Aldea this means ranges like the Ice-Binder Mountains separating Aldis from Kern or perhaps the Golgan Badlands of the mountains near Jarzon. Their elemental associations and the presence of giants might connect with hidden dwarf-holds there as well. Perhaps dwarves once trafficked with the peoples of the surface world, but the rise of the Shadow Lords and their long reign drove the dwarf clans to close and seal the gates of their holds. Only now, centuries later, do they consider returning to the surface, and some dwarves may have changed during their long exile.

Elf

Elves have some similarities to the arcane Vata: both inherently magical and long-lived folk. Perhaps the elves of Aldea are closely related to the Fey described in the Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide. Since Aldean fey are elemental spirits (not possessed of souls from the Eternal Dance), elves might be something different: fey who are possessed of souls! If souls of the Dance have incarnated as folk with fey heritage, perhaps this indicates some change within the Fey, or a “bridge” of sorts between their Courts and the peoples of Aldea. It would certainly be a momentous development of interest (and concern) to many.

Halfling

Homey and pastoral halflings would find themselves well-suited for life in Aldis. Perhaps there are halfling communities scattered through the fertile hills and valleys of the Sovereignty of the Blue Rose, with other halflings mixed-in with the people dwelling in the great cities and larger towns. Halflings may have always dwelled alongside the different folk of Aldea, or they may have been created by the experiments of the Shadow Lords, similar to night people or vata’sha. In the latter case, halflings may have originally founded their settlements as refugees, giving them a tendency to keep to themselves and an understandable wariness concerning “big-uns” and larger folk. Regardless of their origins, halflings might also dwell in the other lands of Aldea: They make hardy and devout farm-folk for Jarzon, particularly with their own focus on family, and interesting dwellers on the Rezean plains, either as members of the clans or part of their own wandering bands.

Dragonborn

Although Aldea has no (known) true dragons, it does have draconic and reptilian creatures. Aldean dragonborn might be flesh-crafted creations of the Shadow Lords, intended as arcane warriors, now liberated from their rule. They could be descended from otherworldly visitors who arrived through a shadow gate, who have long since lost the world of their birth, or they might be folk of Aldea, arising from the elemental forces of the Golgan Badlands, the Shadow Barrens, or some land far beyond the shores of Aldis and its neighbors. Whatever the case, dragonborn are likely fairly rare and an unusual sight on Aldea. While they might experience some polite curiosity in Aldis, dragonborn are likely to have a more difficult time in Jarzon, where they’re likely to be mistaken for shadowspawn, or in Kern, where they’re likely to be forced into the service of the Regents or simply killed out of hand as a potential threat.

Gnome

Like dwarves, gnomes might have hidden themselves underground for some time following the rise of the Shadow Lords, such that they have become only legends by the modern age of Aldea. With their talents for artifice and illusion, gnomes could easily remain hidden, only now returning to deal with the other folk of the world. Gnomes fit right in to both the pastoral and urban aspects of Aldis and of Jarzon. Their ability to communicate with certain animals may make them friends and allies of the rhydan, at least of the small and burrowing sort, and they might dwell alongside them in their communities.

Half-Orc

Half-orcs imply the existence of orcs, which also don’t exist on Aldea. Their role in the world is largely assumed by the night people, the occult creations of the Shadow Lords. True half-orcs on Aldea might be visitors from other planes (via shadow gate) or descendants of other experiments or cross-breeding programs initiated by the Shadow Lords, with similar reactions from the nations and peoples of Aldea as to the night people.

Alternately, half-orcs on Aldea might not be “half” anything, but a unique people unto themselves. They might easily have come into being in the rugged mountains, the haunted lands of Drunac, the Shadow Barrens, or the Plains of Rezea, to name a few, and be as populous as you wish in your own setting.

Half-Elf

If there are elves on Aldea, then there may also be half-elves, or at least folk of mixed human and Fey ancestry. In some regards, half-elves would be much like the vata, descendants of human and vatasin ancestors. If there are no Fey with souls (as described under Elves, previously) then it is possible all elves have a mix of human and fey ancestry, with half-elves more equally in-between the two and elves favoring their fey heritage, along with a few of mixed ancestry who have the abilities of humans (perhaps variant humans with a particular feat or other unusual “talent”).

Tiefling

Tieflings are certain to be an oddity on Aldea. The only fiends known there are the darkfiends of Shadow, and any ensouled folk who can claim ancestry to them will be a test of Aldin inclusiveness indeed! Given the long reign of the Shadow Lords, it may well be that tieflings are descendants of ancestors who practiced the occult or otherwise trafficked with darkfiends and the powers of Shadow, now manifest in their heritage. Of course, tieflings are ensouled beings with free will, so they can choose their alignment and their behavior. That won’t stop some from considering them inherently corrupted by Shadow, however, just like night people, vata’sha, and others, perhaps even more so. Tieflings are likely to be persecuted and openly killed in Jarzon, feared and sought in Kern, but treated fairly for the most part in Aldis and Rezea, in spite of the ignorant few who mistrust them because of their heritage.

…and Beyond!

Who knows what other folk might dwell on Aldea, housing the souls of the Eternal Dance in endless varieties of form? You can bring almost any ancestry you wish to your Blue Rose setting, keeping in mind the following avenues:

  • An ancestry might have arrived on Aldea via shadow-gate from a far-off land or other plane. Depending on how long ago that was, they might be populous and well-integrated into the present day lands or relative newcomers.
  • Many ancestries might have arisen as experiments of the Shadow Lords during their rule, now free of their occult overlords to determine their own destinies. Such folk may find others prejudiced against their origins, but enlightened and fair-minded people in the world know better.
  • Finally, you can simply decide any added ancestries have always existed on Aldea, created by the gods alongside all of the other peoples to preserve the souls of the Eternal Dance. In this case, you may want to consider the roles the ancestry has played in this history of Aldea, where they are most commonly found, and what other folk tend to think about them.

And while we’re at it, hey did you know that Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide already has two adventures you can run for the game?
Be sure to check out Flight of the Snow Pearl and The Night Market in our online store, or on DrivethruRPG!

5E Jamboree!

Mix-and-Match Green Ronin’s 5e Fantasy Offerings

Green Ronin publishes a lot of games. It figures: We’re gamers, and we like a lot of games! We also publish material for a number of different game systems. While the Adventure Gaming Engine (AGE) System sees a lot of use these days, and is as close as we get to having a “house system,” Green Ronin also supports the d20-based Mutants & Masterminds, the Chronicle System of Sword Chronicle, and standalone systems like Ork! The Roleplaying Game.

Among all of those game systems, Green Ronin also publishes material compatible with, or based on, the Fifth Edition of the World’s Most Popular Roleplaying Game. We have some experience in that area, having worked directly with Wizards of the Coast on the Out of the Abyss campaign and the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide sourcebook, and having worked with Matthew Mercer on the Tal’dorei sourcebook for Critical Role.

Our 5e products include The Lost Citadel, Book of the Righteous, the 20th anniversary edition of the Death in Freeport adventure, and The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, bringing the romantic fantasy world of Aldea to 5e. We’ve just finished production on a new 5e edition of The Book of Fiends as well, and wanted to look at some of the ways you can mix-and-match our Fifth Edition offerings and use them in your own games. So, let’s take a look!

Blue Rose Adventurer's Guide for 5EBlue Rose Adventurer’s Guide

The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide is primarily a setting book, in the vein of our work on the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide. It features material on the world of Aldea, particularly the nation of Aldis, the Sovereignty of the Blue Rose, and its surrounding lands. (You can find out much more about Blue Rose and its setting elsewhere on our website.) The goal of the Blue Rose guide was to introduce the world of Aldea to 5e players and provide an additional, alternative setting, rather than an alternate game system.

That said, the book does contain a wealth of game system material to account for the differences between Aldea and various other 5e fantasy settings. In particular, it offers new character ancestries (and its own take on handling ancestry) for the peoples of Aldea. Each character class has a new subclass suited to the setting, and there are unique backgrounds, specific modifications of the magic rules, magic items, and a Corruption system that reflects the power of Shadow, to name a few.

Even if you don’t use Aldea as a setting for your 5e adventures, the game system portions of the book are easy to import to other settings. The lands and peoples of the world of Blue Rose could also be places for plane-hopping characters to visit, or part of some distant land on the far side of the world where they currently adventure.

Book of FiendsBook of Fiends for 5E

The Book of Fiends is a massive tome of the most vile denizens of the lower planes, not just the familiar demons and devils, but also daemons, qlippoth, Fallen celestials, and more. They range from minor low-level threats to godlike rulers of their own infernal realms and everything in-between. The Book of Fiends is a supplementary catalog of foes for a 5e campaign, especially one focused on fighting the forces of corruption and evil, such as Out of the Abyss, or a campaign like Descent into Avernus where the heroes descend into the lower planes themselves to fight their inhabitants! Who can’t use more fiends as foes?

The Book of Fiends dovetails with our Book of the Righteous in that they share the same basic cosmology. The Book of the Righteous works in conjunction with 5e planar cosmology and mentions the Abyss, Gehenna, Hell, and their various fiendish denizens, while the Book of Fiends details them. So the two books form two halves of the same cosmology for a campaign setting: the mythos and religion of the world and all of the forces of evil aligned against it.

The Book of Fiends connects with Blue Rose’s Aldea: The seven Exarchs, the great daemons of Gehenna, are also known as the Exarchs of Shadow on Aldea. The various daemons can serve as further darkfiends for your Blue Rose games, and you can plunder the dark depths of The Book of Fiends for other foes for your Aldean heroes. Fiends also offers its own Corruption system associated with infernal temptation. Use it in place of the Corruption rules from Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide, or for a specific kind of corruption associated with the Exarchs and their minions.

The Book of Fiends also comes with a chapter of character options: subclasses, feats, spells, and backgrounds usable in any 5e setting where the forces of evil are abroad. The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide specifically points to them as possible options for corrupt and Shadow-aligned characters in that setting.

Book of the Righteous for 5EBook of the Righteous

The Book of the Righteous provides a complete pantheon and cosmology for a 5e fantasy setting, along with numerous interconnected deities, faiths, and religious practices. It’s a fantastic resource to mine for options and inspiration, even if you don’t adopt the entire thing wholesale.

Like Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide and The Book of Fiends, The Book of the Righteous comes with a hefty rules chapter packed with 5e options: at least one new sub-class for every core character class, a dozen new clerical domains, five new paladin oaths, backgrounds, feats, spells, and magic items. It also has celestial and fey creatures associated with the gods and higher planes. The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide notes that many of these game options fit well into the world of Aldea and are quite useful there.

Death in FreeportDeath in Freeport for 5E

The 20th anniversary edition of the adventure Death in Freeport offers a self-contained, low-level 5e adventure set in the independent pirate city of Freeport. Since it is a tiny island nation, Freeport is easy to include in any setting you may wish, or usable as a jumping-off point to any mainland you want the characters to travel towards. Freeport’s temples and churches may be devoted to the pantheon from The Book of the Righteous (that’s deliberately left open for you to decide) and the eldritch horrors lurking in the setting can make good use of material from The Book of Fiends. As The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide notes, Freeport could well exist among the Pirate Isles of that setting, bringing all of its unique character along with it.

What’s more, Death in Freeport is not just adventure: It has an appendix with game information on the sinister Serpent People, two new magic items (the staff of defense and the wand of escape), and four new class archetypes: the Valor domain for clerics, the terrifying Buccaneer archetype for fighters, the cunning Alley-Rat archetype for rogues, and the preternatural Serpentkin sorcerous origin. Any of all of these could find use in any 5e campaign.

The Lost CitadelLost Citadel for 5E

The Lost Citadel differs from Green Ronin’s other 5e offerings, which are designed for use with the core rulebooks, whereas Lost Citadel customizes more of the class, background, and magic options to suit the setting, along with adding some new options. Nevertheless, all of these options are compatible with the core 5e rules, so you can import Lost Citadel character options into other campaigns or settings, if you wish. The same is true of the book’s extensive collection of creatures, especially undead, which can certainly inspire new unliving foes for Blue Rose, for example.

What’s more, Lost Citadel offers another system for measuring supernatural corruption (do we sense a theme here?). Called Woe, it deals with the price of magic and supernatural knowledge and of places given over to the powers of death and despair. It would be suitable for use to model the effects of some domains of the foes from The Book of Fiends or places on Blue Rose’s world of Aldea where the power of Shadow has grown deep, indeed.

Gen Con Report 2021

Another Gen Con is in the books, and what an unusual Gen Con it was, in many regards.

Green Ronin booth at Gen Con 2021!As folks may know, this year Gen Con held a “hybrid” event, consisting of online and “pop-up” Gen Con events hosted by local game stores, in addition to the traditional in-person event at the convention center in downtown Indianapolis, where Gen Con has been hosted for over twenty years now. In-person Gen Con observed a number of restrictions due to the COVID-19 pandemic, including a cap on attendance, a mask requirement for all indoor and crowded outdoor areas of the con, and closing the convention center overnight for a complete cleaning. Along with reduced attendance came a reduced number of exhibitors: Many Gen Con stalwarts did not attend, and many others cancelled their plans to do so.

Green Ronin, like many exhibitors, reduced our presence at the convention: smaller booth space and minimal staff, just four of us, the smallest Gen Con staff we’ve had since I started working for Green Ronin back in 2003! We still managed to include our full lines of product on the tables that we had, and were pleased to be able to offer a limited number of copies of the new Ships of the Expanse, along with other new offerings like the Envoys to the Mount campaign for Blue Rose. We cleared out our remaining copies of The Expanse Quick-Start by giving a free copy with any purchase of $25 or more. They were all gone by Friday!

Ships of the Expanse was available in print for Gen Con!

While Gen Con 2021 was by no means an ordinary Gen Con, it was still a success. Sales justified our costs for being there and attendees expressed their gratitude at seeing us and having the opportunity to check out our products, both new and new-to-them. We saw lots of interest in The Expanse, Blue Rose, Mutants & Masterminds, and the AGE System, as we expected, but were also pleased to see to see interest in both our 5e products like The Lost Citadel, Book of Fiends, and The Blue Rose Adventurer’s Guide as well as our older Pathfinder products for Freeport.

Mask discipline in the exhibit hall and within the convention was generally excellent. While I occasionally saw a few noses hanging out, I didn’t see anyone unmasked anywhere they weren’t supposed to be. We generally took a cautious approach, avoiding a lot of the crowded events and areas, and combining taking our meals in our hotel rooms and visiting less crowded restaurants, especially those offering outdoor seating. Hand sanitizer was our constant companion and Nicole implemented a barcode scanner for sales checkout to help minimize the handling and passing back-and-forth of products. Because of our minimal staffing, and ownership’s preference not to ask anything of volunteers this year, we didn’t run any in-person events or games ourselves. As it was, we barely got away from the booth to walk the show floor (although we did all manage it).

Gen Con classics from the AGE system games.In spite of all of the differences, the heart of Gen Con remained very much the same: People were excited to be there and happy to see us, and enthused about their favorite games, while curious about what was new and coming next. We even met more than a few attendees who told us it was their first Gen Con ever! Certainly, we’re looking forward to welcoming them back to the show under better conditions in the years to come. We certainly appreciate everyone who visited the booth and who shopped or took the time to offer their kind comments.

We’ll have an even smaller presence at the Origins Game Fair in Columbus, Ohio, in just two weeks: Two staff members are scheduled to be there, but will be there nonetheless. We’ll have a similar-sized booth and all of the same product and are looking forward to greeting our friends, old and new.

Chris Pramas also recorded a quick interview with 1-2-3 D&D History at Gen Con. Check it out!