Tag Archive for: freeport

Fantasy AGE 2nd Editon—Set Sail for Adventure!

Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook Prepare to set sail for adventure!With the core book behind us, one would think I might be taking a moment to relax. We’ve got the book out, right? No need to rush ahead. Nothing could be further from the truth! I’m already neck deep in the first few supplements, with lots more to come! So what can you expect to see in the coming months? Well, sit back and let me spin you a yarn of what we’ve got in store for you.

One of the biggest complaints I’ve seen about Fantasy AGE is that previously, there was not enough setting and adventure support. Many of us have busy lives these days, and having good adventure and setting material can be vital to keeping a campaign alive. I’m here to tell you that we’ve heard you.

Right out of the gate, you’ll see several adventures for the Breakwater Bay setting from the core rulebook. Set Sail for Breakwater Bay (in the core book) is a shipboard adventure full of horror and intrigue. If you are so inclined, this adventure is well suited for introducing the new Horror rules. Quickly following will be the Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition Quickstart and the Fantasy AGE Game Master’s Kit. Both of these feature adventures written by the amazing Steve Kenson. The Breakwater Curse (included with the GM’s Kit) explores the dark history of Breakwater Bay, and Terror of the Ghost Ship (featured in the Quickstart) is an encounter with a derelict ship at sea. All three of these are designed to be used as part of the Breakwater Bay setting but could easily be moved to another location of your choosing. So, before you know it, you’ll have three adventures that can easily be linked together.

In case you thought that was all, hang tight—there’s much more! The first major supplement planned is a five-part adventure series called The Lost Isle of the Pirate Queen that begins in Breakwater Bay and explores much of Kassa Isle and beyond. This series is packed full of adventure, horror, and whimsy. There’s something in there for everyone. The series takes characters all the way to 11th or 12th level and should be enough to keep most groups busy for quite some time. The story and adventures are also easy to modify to suit your group’s style and provide a lot of additional background and setting material for Kassa Isle. There is also ample room for introducing your own adventures and encounters during the campaign. In fact, this is encouraged!

We’re up to eight adventures now, all of which could be strung into one campaign with little or no work on behalf of the GM. So what next, you ask? I don’t want to get too far ahead of ourselves, but I’ll give you a glimpse. A new, massive bestiary called Adversaries & Encounters is already well underway. This massive tome will feature monsters and other adversaries, both old and new. But even those you may have seen before have fresh new takes and variations. The book features story hooks for every monster and over a dozen encounters for monsters from Adversaries and the core rulebook. Each of these is a 2-page encounter with a map designed to be inserted into an existing adventure, either as a “random” encounter or to spice things up. Though, honestly, many of these could easily be fleshed out as full adventures in their own right.

Finally, we’ve got the book I’m most excited about—Stranger Shores. This book (slated for 2024) is going to provide the nautical-themed campaign setting for Fantasy AGE that you’ve always wanted (even if you didn’t know it). This book will be crammed full of details on new islands and continents made accessible with the Mystic Navigator talent. Most of these lands are completely new, but you’ll also find some old favorites, such as the ever-popular Freeport setting! It will also feature expanded rules for seafaring campaigns so you can live your pirate dreams!

All right, this is as far as I can go now without risking getting lost at sea. I hope this gives you a better idea of our current course heading and something to look forward to. I can’t offer you details on release dates at this time other than to say that all of these are in the works, and we want to get them to you as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, issues with shipping and printing are still a reality, so giving exact dates this far out isn’t a safe bet. Keep your eyes on the horizon. You’ll hear more from me soon enough.

Safe sailing!

Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition Coming in February

Fantasy AGE 2nd edition Core Rulebook

If you are looking for a new fantasy roleplaying game, your timing couldn’t be better because the Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook is almost here! It will be available as a PDF and go up for print pre-order next month. With our Pre-Order Plus Program, you can add the PDF for only $5 more when you pre-order the printed book, so you can start reading the game as soon as your order is in.

 

 

 

 


What does Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition have to offer? Glad you asked!

  • Fantasy AGE is easy to learn and fun to play. You can make a character in less than 30 minutes, and you only need three 6-sided dice to play.
  • Fantasy AGE is a class and level game so it’s easy to transition to from similar RPGs. The core classes are Envoy, Mage, Rogue, and Warrior (social, magic, sneaky, fighty). You can customize your character with specializations starting at level 1. Choose from duelist, diplomat, elementalist, mystic navigator, pirate, skald, sword mage, and many more.
  • The heart of the game is the stunt system, which brings dynamism and drama to the table. Roll doubles on 3d6 to pull off heroic maneuvers in combat, cast mightier spells, perform amazing feats of physical and mental prowess, or even cut a rival down to size with a few clever words.
  • Fantasy AGE is a toolkit you can use with the setting of your choice. Game Masters have many options to customize the rules for their campaigns. For example, the mage class represents all spellcasters and the game has no de facto stance on the nature of magic. In one campaign, all magic might come from ancestral spirits. In another, there might be a strict difference between arcane and divine magic with rules to reflect it.
  • Fantasy AGE features optional rules systems for Peril, which ramps up the challenges heroes face, and Daring, which allows those same heroes to pull off even more impressive feats.
  • The Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook is a complete game, with player and Game Master info and advice, an array of magical arcana and enchanted items, a selection of monsters and other adversaries, and an adventure so you can start right away.
  • The game is built with the Adventure Game Engine (AGE), which powers many other Green Ronin RPGs: Blue Rose, The Expanse, Modern AGE, and this year brings Cthulhu Awakens and The Fifth Season as well. Each game has some bespoke mechanics to reflect genre and setting (Blue Rose has psychic powers, Modern AGE has modes of play and forgoes classes, and The Expanse has rules for advanced weaponry and spaceship combat, for example) but they all share a common core of rules. If you play any AGE RPG, you already know the basics of the others.

If you are new to Fantasy AGE, you can see the game in just a few weeks. If you’d like to get a sense of the Adventure Game Engine in the meantime, check out the free Quickstart for our Blue Rose RPG.

 

Fantasy AGE: Origins

I designed the Adventure Game Engine in 2008 for our licensed Dragon Age RPG that came out the following year. This was a big hit for us, and it didn’t take long for fans to let us know that they loved the rules but wanted to see a more general version not tied to the world of Thedas. To coincide with Wil Wheaton’s RPG web series Titansgrave, which used the rules, we released the Fantasy AGE Basic Rulebook in 2015 to great acclaim. From there the Adventure Game Engine became our house system, with Blue Rose, Modern AGE, and The Expanse following. One reason we began work on the Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook was to take some of the cool mechanical innovations of those games and implement them in the game’s next iteration. Like the churn in The Expanse? It forms the basis of the Peril system in Fantasy AGE 2nd Edition, for example.

 

What Does 2nd Edition Mean?

Current Fantasy AGE fans know we’ve been working on the Fantasy AGE Core Rulebook for several years. We have not previously called it 2nd Edition because one of the original design goals was to make it 99% compatible with the existing Fantasy AGE line. Two things happened along the way. First, it proved difficult to communicate that this was going to be a brand-new rulebook with some changes but mostly compatible with the Basic Rulebook. Second, during development and playtesting, we found more things that we wanted to update or expand, so now it’s more like 90% compatible. For these reasons, we decided that just calling it 2nd Edition would be best. Still, most of the 1st Edition line works just fine with 2nd Edition. You can use stat blocks from the Bestiary and adventures with little tweaking required. While much material from the Fantasy AGE Companion has been updated and incorporated into the new Core Rulebook, Lairs and the Campaign Builders Guide remain quite useful for the Game Master.

We know Fantasy AGE fans have been waiting for the Core Rulebook for a long time, but now the hour is nigh! Thanks for all your support over the years. Your patience will soon be rewarded.

 

The AGE System is a Map

Nothing quite starts off a new year like a cryptic blog post title, so here we go! Seriously though, I’d like to chat about how I feel about what the Adventure Game Engine is as it now powers a wider array of games than ever: Fantasy AGE, Modern AGE, Blue Rose, The Expanse, Cthulhu Awakens, and as per our recent announcement, The Fifth Season. And of course, it all goes back to its roots in the Dragon Age roleplaying game and Chris Pramas’s design.

Unfamiliar with the Adventure Game Engine? We’ve got you covered with our handy “What Is AGE?” primer!

The AGE System provides nearly infinite story opportunities and options!

I’m the Modern AGE developer, and that means taking an expansive view of the system that has come to be my default. This makes AGE something of a map: The system has “bare metal” mechanical features I can play with in a number of different ways. Very few things about the system are fundamental, but what is there—the fixed points on the map—help me answer questions about how a given instance of the game is supposed to work, and what the play experience should be like.

Are classes essential? Modern AGE proved they weren’t, but that protecting unique niches still mattered. Spending points on spells and other powers? Not essential, but a sign saying power should have some kind of cost.

The core of the AGE experience is something I like to call a “punctuated curve.” The core mechanics are 3d6 + modifiers versus a target number. 3d6 outputs a curve of results, where some numbers on the dice, in the middle of the range, are more likely than others. So, a character’s abilities are fairly reliable. But this sort of thing wouldn’t be especially cool without an additional element. In AGE, this is scoring doubles and generating stunt points. Thus, in the set of successful rolls there’s just under a 50% chance of a more interesting success.

This principle doesn’t tell us what a “more interesting success” is, and of course, that’s up to what stunts the player will pick—and stunts turn out to be something we can greatly customize by a game’s genre and setting. In Fantasy AGE Trojan War, divine stunts can be acquired with the help of the gods. In Cthulhu Awakens, certain stunts represent mind-melting insights won through exposure to the Mythos. The Expanse has stunts related to spacecraft.

But that point on the map can be zoomed in on, divided by area, and customized even further. Stunts represent exceptional results, but we can split them off from doubles. This is how we get the stunt attack mechanic in newer AGE rules sets, and how we use Bonds, where we add an opportunity to do amazing things because of a relationship or belief.

This is the kind of flexibility that lets AGE work for multiple games—we strip it down, see what remains, and it shows us what we can play with to address themes and play experience. While we sometimes do aim for cross-compatibility between games, we usually don’t fret that option A in one game contradicts B in another. You can pick and choose when crossing over. The point is to generate familiarity that lets you make your own crossovers and house rules, while presenting lots of readymade options to choose from.

What do you think is essential to the AGE system? What’s flexible? What should be one, not the other? Feel free to let us know!

The 3rd Era Mega – Bundle

3rd Era PDF Mega-Bundle!

I started Green Ronin in 2000, so almost 23 years ago now. Our first release was Ork! The Roleplaying Game, a beer and pretzels RPG I designed with Todd Miller (now in its 2nd edition). A month later we debuted our second release at GenCon, an adventure I wrote called Death in Freeport. This was on the same day that Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition came out, and it took advantage of a new licensing scheme that allowed third party companies to publish D&D compatible material. Death in Freeport sold at an amazing rate. It’s the book that put Green Ronin on the map. This was the beginning of the d20 explosion, and we were at the heart of it. From 2000 to 2008 Green Ronin published scores of books and accessories of all sorts. Now you can get the lion’s share of our classic d20 books in the 3rd Era* Mega-Bundle. 71 PDFs for only $30! Sold already? You can get the bundle in our online store or at DriveThruRPG  right now.

Our 3rd Era offerings were so extensive that we created themed sub-lines like Arcana, Master Class, Mythic Vistas, and Races of Renown. Then, of course, we had our signature city setting of Freeport. The 3rd Era Mega-Bundle includes books from these lines. Here are just a few examples:

Advanced Rulebooks: Advanced Bestiary, Advanced Gamemaster’s Guide, and Advanced Player’s Manual.

Arcana: Book of Fiends, Book of the Righteous, and Secret College of Necromancy.

Bleeding Edge: Escape from Ceranir, Mansion of Shadows, and Temple of the Death Goddess.

Freeport: Black Sails Over Freeport, Denizens of Freeport, and the Freeport Trilogy: 5 Year Anniversary Edition.

Master Class: The Assassin’s Handbook, The Shaman’s Handbook, and the Unholy Warriors Handbook.

Mythic Vistas: Skull & Bones, Testament, and Trojan War.

Races of Renown: Aasimar & Tiefling: A Guidebook to the Planetouched, Hammer & Helm: A Guidebook to Dwarves, and Fang & Fury: A Guidebook to Vampires.

While the rules for our 3rd Era books are 3.0 and 3.5, you can use them with any edition of the game. There are NPCs, locations, magic items, monsters, adventures, spells, and complete campaign settings that are easily adapted. The Freeport books alone can fuel a campaign of many years. The bundle also includes some sourcebooks that have no game rules in them at all. Buccaneers of Freeport, Cults of Freeport, and the Pirate’s Guide to Freeport are ready to drop into any edition or any other fantasy RPG.

The Mega-Bundle includes many books that have never been offered in PDF format before. Why? Well, in the early 2000s there was still debate around electronic editions, with many companies concerned about how piracy might affect book sales, and how electronic sales would affect relations with game retailers. We didn’t jump into it right away, so many of our early books just never got done. For this bundle, Hal and Kara went into the archives, dusted off old layout files, and converted them into PDFs. We’re talking about titles like The Assassin’s Handbook, The Avatar’s Handbook, Freeport: The City of Adventure, Secret College of Necromancy, The Witch’s Handbook, and Wrath & Rage: A Guidebook to Orcs & Half-Orcs.

The 3rd Era material not in this bundle is mostly licensed books we no longer have the rights to, like Black Company, The Red Star, and Thieves’ World. Even then though, we can offer True Sorcery, which took the magic system from the Black Company and adapted it for use in other settings.

The 3rd Era Mega-Bundle is your chance to get a huge chunk of Green Ronin’s history for a frankly absurd price: $697.85 worth of PDFs for only $30. It’s the season of giving after all!

 

* For legal reasons, third party companies had to stop using the d20 logo. We now use the 3rd Era brand logo to identify these titles.

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.

Book Mashup: Apocalypse Freeport

Andrzej was getting tired. He swept his greatsword in a figure 8, pausing to lean slightly to let a crossbow bolt pass him by and bury itself in the shooter’s friend, coming up the other side. He hated killing but the briefing said these people, filthy doublets, poor dentistry, and all, might destroy several universes. He hated killing, but something had hollowed their souls out, and it seemed merciful to dispatch what remained.

He wasn’t fighting alone. A vicious, pointy-eared, green-skinned little man covered his blind side with some quick knife-work. He didn’t know the fellow, who’d apparently been burgling the lair, shrine, or whatever Andrzej chased the cultists back to, barreling through the ramshackle streets of Freeport (crisis point of the plane designated NG-05522).

Andrzej parried an incoming cutlass, but an adjacent burly cultist sent him staggering with a belaying pin to the face, of all things. The little green man hid behind Andrzej as the cultist with the fanciest hat stepped forward and snapped a finger, wreathing her hand in green flame.

Comforted by training, Andrzej was ready for death.

“Let me show you glories to boil your eyes,” said the woman with the fiery hand.

“Hey!” Was that Mei’s voice? “Come get me first!”

Mei was an Aethon agent seconded to their group. She could keep Earth technology working on the weirdest planes. Mei appeared to be unarmed, on the other side of the doorway, with nothing but a tiny box on legs between her and the cultists.

Andrzej looked, gasped, grabbed the little green man, and hurled them both behind a sturdy pillar. The fire-handed woman took the bait and led the charge toward Mei, paying no mind to the box and its to-her exotic lettering, which said FRONT TOWARD ENEMY.

Yes, It’s time for another book and setting mashup, coming on the heels of Lost Ilium and Vaporwave Rose (Part 1 here, Part 2 here). This time around we’re doing an epic one, combining Modern AGE’s Threefold setting and the Freeport setting (through a Fantasy AGE lens) for world-shattering adventure! And because it’s a big tapestry, it’s a big article—no split this time. Drink it all in.

Freeport Apocalypse! Freeport meets Threefold

Apocalypse Freeport Campaign Setting

Ingredients: You need the Modern AGE and Fantasy AGE core rulebooks, as well as the Threefold setting book and the Pirate’s Guide to Freeport. The Fantasy AGE version of Death in Freeport and other Freeport books will also be useful.

(Links to print or PDF as available in our online store. Titles also available in PDF at DrivethruRPG.)

Genre: Portal fantasy and cosmic horror.

The Setup

Freeport. There are many cities by that name, but the Sodality, who explore the infinite planes, tracks legends about one of them with special care. The Divine Empire’s demigod-tyrants keep secret files on it too because It’s no mere legend to them. Where the Sodality suspects, highly placed imperial Optimates know: Freeport is where the fate of the Metacosm will be decided.

The plane Freeport stands in appears to be an Otherworld, where sorcery and wonders abound, but it’s really a “hell,” or Netherworld, and had an Alastor: what the less educated call a “demon prince.” This being, the Great Serpent Yig, might have been unique among its kind: amoral, but lacking the instinct to torture the inhabitants of its realm.

This made its plane vulnerable to attacks from enemy Alastors, and even the primal energies of the Netherworlds, where reality unravels unless bulwarked by sacrificed souls. Yig sought sanctuary by pushing even deeper into the outer dark, further than even rival demons typically went. To prevent reality erosion, Yig reshaped its plane, giving it the power to seize parts of planes which possessed stronger natural laws. Freeport now exists on a patchwork plane at the furthest edge of the Metacosm.

A being imprisoned in this final darkness saw the lonely light of the plane. All this Unspeakable One needed to do was to whisper certain ceremonies in the dreams of Yig’s mortal children, the serpent people. They had become mighty sorcerers, and rulers of the Valossan Empire, claimed from a continent said to be Yig’s body. But the whispers taught the powers of the Yellow Sign, and its students founded a cult whose grand ritual destroyed Valossa, the empire, and perhaps Yig along with it (though death is always different for gods). Even so, the ritual was incomplete, because it failed to bring the Unspeakable One to the plane. But with Yig fallen, the intruder gained partial, weakened control of the plane’s ability to tear pieces from other realms.

This was enough to slowly tear away part of the Otherworld called Kalakuth, but in the process, the Unspeakable One abducted the Ghul, a Prefect of the Divine Empire and demigod of death, and the Herald, his shapeshifting consort. After determining no nearby gates survived the transition, and that he couldn’t return home, the Ghul set about conquering the plane’s largest landmass, simply called “the Continent.” The Herald could transport themselves to other planes, but no one else, and the Ghul bade them to stay, and keep the conquest a secret. Thus, the Ghul founded the Empire of Ashes as a personal dominion.

By ravaging the Continent, the Ghul unwittingly fed souls to the Unspeakable One, and improved the state of sorcery, which had fallen since the destruction of Valossa. This revived the Cult of the Yellow Sign, which set about undermining the necromancer’s empire. Eventually, the Empire of Ashes was as dead as the shambling legions that served it.

The new pirate city of Freeport profited from raids in the vulnerable, lawless Continent. It grew on A’Val, an island remnant of old Valossa. The Cult of the Yellow Sign followed wealth and the possibility of serpent people lore there—but the long-lived Herald, who survived the fall of the Empire of Ashes, followed. The Herald learned the truth: The Cult’s ultimate goal was to summon the Unspeakable One, who would then gain full control of the plane’s world-eating powers. Freeport’s plane would become a cosmic predator.

The Herald used their powers to flee to Alatum, capital of the Divine Empire, but its rulers were too consumed with politics and rivalries to listen. So, the Herald traveled to many other planes, leaving rumors and clues—nothing firm enough to mark them as a traitor to the Empire—about Freeport, the Unspeakable One, and the world that eats worlds.

And sometimes, people listened.

As rollicking life in the City of Adventure continues, factions on other worlds plan infiltrations and invasions. Ambitious Nighthost captains see another Netherworld to conquer, and a weapon that could further their mission to liberate them all. A few fringe war-furies in the Divine Empire see the key to conquering the Otherworlds, even arrogant Earth, and claiming the throne. A circle of Sodality wardens wants to preserve Freeport’s unique plane, standing up for its people, an eliminate the threat. On Earth, a highly placed member of Aethon reads secret reports, and inspects locked cryochambers containing apocalyptic living weapons.

So far, these groups have only been able to plan. Freeport’s plane has no known gates, and if there are any, it is extremely likely they pass through multiple Netherworld hells. The Herald cannot transport others, and the Ferrymen, a faction who can, doubt the tale. But it is only a matter of time until the status quo changes. These groups will either find a way, or the cult of the Yellow Sign will make further progress, and the Unspeakable one will reach out to feed.

The Campaign

There are two was to run this one. The first is as a Fantasy AGE campaign set in Freeport that undergoes a sudden turn when people from other worlds appear, eager to stop the Cult of the Yellow Sign. You can use this to shift your game from traditional fantasy adventure into plane-traveling portal fantasy, and you can even introduce elements like modern technology. The key to defeating the Unspeakable One may lie in a distant realm, whether it’s an artifact, spell, or the consciousness of Yig, flung to some distant world. Note that the Freeport setting here isn’t “canon” Freeport, since it redefines and tweaks several things, such as by saying the Ghul was a renegade Optimate from the Divine Empire.

On the flipside, you can use Modern AGE and Threefold to send a Mission or other group of plane-travelers to Freeport, to soak up its rough charms and mind-searing dangers. It’s hard to get in or out of Freeport’s plane, so there’s plenty of time to enjoy the rum-soaked ambiance while hunting followers of the Unspeakable One.

Modern AGE and Fantasy AGE are largely compatible, though if you use Toughness and Modes, they should apply to characters from both games. Focuses, talents, and specializations are largely cross-compatible, though the GM should consider carefully before allowing Fantasy AGE characters to take Modern AGE talents that mimic class abilities, such as pinpoint attack. Weapon proficiency doesn’t exist in Modern AGE either, so assume characters made with that game are proficient in weapons that inflict up to 1d6 (plus inherent weapon bonuses) per point in the abilities they are used with, so a Fighting of 2 permits proficient use of Fighting-based weapons that roll 2d6 (such as a long sword) for damage before other bonuses. A few other minor tweaks may be required, but nothing too onerous.

The Herald is intentionally designed to be an easy NPC to insert into the game, because they can go or be anyone—even a longtime NPC contact, if the GM wants. But even though they can travel the planes without a gate, they can’t take anyone with them, to preserve the plane travel rules that bind other characters, as mentioned here and in Threefold.

Finally, Freeport’s plane has the following profile in the Apocalypse Freeport campaign.

NG-05522— “Freeport’s Plane” (Provisional Name)

Incessance: +5 versus technology, +1 versus the occult. Technology developed within the plane by natives is unaffected, as seen in the emerging use of firearms.

Library Summary: Analysts estimate an 86% chance “Freeport’s Plane” exists due to the reliability and consistency of accounts. According to these accounts, the plane can absorb regions from other planes and is contested by multiple divine entities. A gate chain has yet to be defined. Technology generally does not exceed Earth’s 17th century, and local variants of known human types, with examples such as “dwarves” (and confusingly “humans,” used solely for the local jana subtype) are commonplace. Governments tend to be unstable, and magic use is common. Extreme caution is urged.

Green Ronin Publishing in 2021

 

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.

End of Year Sale and GR Gift Guide

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!

Under a Black Flag: Tales of Freeport

Under a Black FlagToday is Talk Like a Pirate Day, and in our newest anthology Under the Black Flag, the blood and salt of Freeport breeds a special kind of hero, one usually kicked out of all but the crustiest taverns and immortalized in bawdy songs. Ancient cultists lurk beneath the streets, unknown horrors prowl the depths, but the real trouble is the ne’er-do-wells who walk the city’s streets and alleys.

Under a Black Flag features nine rollicking tales of swashbuckling action centered around the City of Freeport, a fantasy pirate city unlike any other.

Under a Black Flag is available for Pre-Order in our Online Store as well as on DrivethruRPG.

About Nisaba Press

Nisaba Press draws the rich detail and excitement of collaborative storytelling from the world of roleplaying to create immersive fiction for all readers to enjoy.

We believe everyone should see themselves reflected in our stories. By actively seeking out and amplifying the voices of under-represented writers: women, people of color, and LGBT+, we strive to be inclusive of all readers.

While currently focused on exploring the richly detailed worlds created by Green Ronin Publishing, Nisaba Press’s vision extends to a future filled with speculative fiction set in all manner of places, times, and genres.

While you’re here… Would you like to know more about Freeport: The City of Adventure?

Check out our recent updates to the classic Death In Freeport adventure, now available for Fantasy AGE as well as 5th Edition!Death in Freeport

20 years ago, Green Ronin made a name for itself with Death in Freeport, a d20 System adventure released at GenCon the same day as the 3E PHB. It went on to win the very first ENnie Award and the Origins Award for Best RPG Adventure. Return to those halcyon days with this 20th Anniversary Edition of Death in Freeport, now updated to the Fantasy AGE rules!

Chris Pramas—the designer of the AD&D Guide to HellWFRP 2E, and Dragon Age—created the city of Freeport for this classic adventure for low-level characters. Add urban sprawl, pirates, and a touch of cosmic horror to your campaign with the City of Adventure.

Death in Freeport has already kicked off thousands of campaigns. Be part of the legend with the 20th Anniversary Edition!

Fantasy AGE Freeport

Death In Freeport for Fantasy AGELast month, in “Return to Freeport,” we talked a bit about the classic adventure Death in Freeport, which helped to launch Green Ronin Publishing twenty years ago, and the forthcoming anniversary edition of that adventure. Not only is Death in Freeport being offered for the fifth edition of the world’s most widely-played fantasy roleplaying game, we are also offering a Fantasy AGE edition for AGE System players who would like to experience the City of Adventure for themselves!

Just like the 5e version, the Fantasy AGE edition of Death in Freeport will be full-color and available in electronic (PDF) and print-on-demand (POD) formats, with the same exciting adventure, but designed for Fantasy AGE game-play. Since both Freeport and Fantasy AGE were designed by Green Ronin’s own Chris Pramas, their aesthetics fit together like they were made for each other! That includes some fun AGE System style touches, such as:

  • Roleplaying stunts while interacting with the various low-lifes and scoundrels of the city.
  • Exploration stunts while delving into the mysterious dungeons beneath Freeport.
  • Mechanics for the hazards of some classic fantasy traps found in the adventure.
  • The unique stunts of serpent people, skeletons, and other monsters the characters may encounter.

Death in Freeport introduces the player characters to the free city and pirate haven of Freeport, and entangles them in the mystery of a scholar who has gone missing, leading them to a much deeper threat, both figuratively and literally!

The adventure also includes Fantasy AGE versions of the four pre-generated player characters who were a part of the original Death in Freeport: Rollo (gnome warrior), Malevir (half-elf mage), Alaina (human rogue), and Thorgrim (dwarf mage and healer).

From Freeport to Lairs

Fantasy AGE Game Masters looking to expand things beyond the events of Death in Freeport can find inspiration in Lairs for Fantasy AGE, many of which can easily be situated on the islands of the Serpent’s Teeth:

  • Shifted to a jungle locale,The Valley of the Titans could be on one of the islands, possibly connected to Lost Valossa or another ancient, mythic civilization.
  • The Temple of the Stone Oath could be hidden on the slopes of the volcano at the heart of A’Val or in mountainous terrain on another island.
  • Madness Under the Sea suits Freeport quite well, with Coral Scar’s Island hidden amidst the Serpent’s Teeth.
  • The Night Market can appear anywhere, even just outside the walls of Freeport itself.

Other Lairs or published Fantasy AGE adventures can also be placed in and around the city of Freeport or on the islands of the Serpent’s Teeth, mixing-and-matching to create a fantastic setting for your swashbuckling AGE adventures!

Death in Freeport for Fantasy AGE, is now available in the Green Ronin Online Store, or on DrivethruRPG