The Fifth Season RPG Pre-Order Store

Hello backers!

Things are proceeding apace with the Fifth Season RPG. We've gotten the second draft of the setting map in and that will be going over to N.K. Jemisin for approval before the cartographer finalizes it. More art is also rolling in. We were delighted to bring Brazilian artist Claudio Pozas in on the project. We've been friends with Claudio for over 20 years now—since the early d20 days of the company—and in recent years he's done a lot of work for WotC on D&D. His work so far has been superb. 

Today I've got three more layout spreads of the game to show you, courtesy of graphic design maestro Hal Mangold. You can see some of Claudio's art in these (I love his emerald obelisk piece). Finishing the game is Hal's number 1 priority. We want to get the PDF out to you and send it to print as soon as we can, although we don't have a specific timeline for release just yet.

Have a fun Halloween, everyone!
Chris Pramas

Greetings, Fifth Season fans!

Hiromi Cota here with a guest update. For folks who don’t know me, I’m one of the co-developers for the Fifth Season Roleplaying Game core book and the developer for a few of the stretch goals.

Speaking of stretch goals, we’ve received the rough draft of the poster map! And it is gorgeous!



I didn’t make it easy for the cartographer; my brief for them was 14 pages long! I laid out huge amounts of vital information, as well as additional information that they could add if they had room to do so. They delivered in a big way! I love how the map looks ready to use in a game and how the features feel geologically-sensible and book-accurate. For example, Palela and Brevard, the first two towns we saw in Damaya’s tale, are about 40 miles apart or “a hard [day’s] ride” apart, which is reflected in the map.

A little behind the scenes for a portion of my process:
I scoured through the books, looking for any mentions of what roads connected which cities and how far apart the cities were. For many connections, miles weren’t given, so I had to take my best guess, based on how many days it took to complete the trek and whether the characters were on horse, wagon, or foot, and what kind of terrain they were traveling over. Not all city-to-city travel sequences mentioned days, so I had to read through and take my best guess, based on temporal clues in the prose (e.g. sunrise, meals, nightfall).

Why would I go through that much effort?

Well, 4 reasons:

A few additional fun facts about the map:

~Hiromi Cota, The Fifth Season RPG co-developer

It’s something of an understatement to say that August did not go as planned. We kicked it off with Gen Con, which as our biggest show of the year sucked up a lot of time and resources. The show was good, but the aftermath was not. Half the team came home with Covid, a real danger when you get 71,000 people in one place and very few take precautions. This was a particularly bad variant, and we had people sick in bed and quarantining for up to two weeks. Then our graphic designer on Fifth Season got food poisoning. So, I am sad to report this cursed month was not very productive.

As a mea culpa, we’re sending a $10 coupon for our online store to all backers who pledged at least $30. You can get a nice discount on a book or take advantage of our many PDFs under $10 at no cost to you. Recent PDF releases include Trades of the Expanse: Trader/Smuggler for you sci-fi fans, the Fantasy AGE adventure Return to the Valley of the Whispering Titans, and Engine #1. The latter is a magazine in support of all our games that are powered by Adventure Game Engine. That, of course, includes the Fifth Season.

Here's to a better September.
Chris Pramas



Check your email inbox (or spam folder) for a message from Backerkit containing the code for the Green Ronin Online Store. Or check the "Digital Downloads" section on your backer survey for this project. The code is being distributed after this update goes live, so it may take a little time for it to reach everyone.

As usual, please reach out to us at [email protected] if you run into any issues using or receiving the coupon code.

I know the primary thing you want to know is when you can expect the finished game, so I’m going to give you an estimate. If everything goes well, we will release the PDF in October and then send it to print. While we had considered printing the game in China, we will not be doing that so we can save time. Chinese printers have the best prices on hardbacks, but it can take up to four months. We’re going to spend a little more money printing elsewhere so it will only take two months. With the disruptions of the holiday season in December, this means a ship date of January.

Now let me explain why this is an estimate. Once everything is finished, we need to send the completed game to N.K. Jemisin for final approval. She’s already seen and given feedback on much of the material, but we need her sign off before we release the PDF to you. We’ve done a lot of licensed games in our 24 years in business and there is no standard answer for how long this takes. Really, it will depend on how busy she is when she gets the files. It could take 2 days, 2 weeks, or one month but final approval is a necessary step. In a month I will have a substantial update to share about the game. We will have both new art and a more refined layout to share.

Today, we are off to Gen Con, which is always our biggest show of the year. Come see us at Booth 101 in the exhibit hall! We will be debuting the Sol System sourcebook for The Expanse RPG. We’ll also be offering Condition Decks for Fantasy AGE and Cthulhu Awakens at a convention for the first time (they are also available print on demand through DriveThru RPG). Condition decks are super handy at the table. If your character becomes fatigued or stunned, for example, the GM hands you the appropriate card. That gives you the rules you need and serves as a visual reminder that you have the condition. 

Let us know in the comments if you’d like to see a Condition Deck for the Fifth Season RPG.

Until next time.
Chris Pramas