Fifth Season June/July 2023 Update
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 11:43:38 AM
Apologies for the time it took us to put this together, but it turns out we’ve got a lot of these plates spinning!
This month, we’re bringing you some of the worldbuilding detail of the Stillness, as distilled from Jemisin’s novels by one of our developers, Hiromi Cota. This is from a set of art notes for maps of comms that are one of our stretch goals, but we thought it might make a fun look at not just what we’re doing, but how we’re doing it behind the scenes.
Enjoy!
~Joseph D. Carriker
Common Features
Each settlement is enclosed by at least a partial wall, with the exception of the Islands Village. Walls generally have ladders or stairs on the city’s side for defenders and lookouts to observe the land around them. In addition to the walls, they also have a large gate, often with mechanical assists to opening, like levers, counter-balances, or pulley systems. The books don’t mention hydraulics, but wealthy cities and towns have the appropriate technology for it.
Technology
Streets
This world did not develop complex metallurgy, thus doesn’t have internal combustion engines or computers. So, there are no cars or trains here. Instead, transportation is largely by horse, some other beast of burden, or by foot. However, they have a highly sophisticated understanding of chemistry and geology, nearly on par with our own. So, some settlements — particularly wealthy cities — pave their streets with asphalt or some other polymer-based mixture.
Buildings
Similarly, stoneworking and masonry in this world are on par or beyond ours, even though we have computer aided design. Part of this is because there’s a type of magic that allows its wielders to raise perfectly supported structures straight out of the bedrock. This magic is too expensive for most places, but several settlements have buildings with utterly no tool marks and daring architecture that could be basically anything you can dream up. As an example, the emperor of this world and his family live in a massive, amber geodesic dome-palace that sits on top of an obsidian star pyramid that serves as the capital building.
Metal construction is generally frowned upon, but some places still have it, especially in places an architect might show off a little. (e.g. decorations, the city’s gate, railings). Because of the advanced geology and chemistry here, glass can be far stronger than in our world; the books mention “bridges woven of glass and audacity,” which implies load-bearing glass is rare but not impossible. Also, glass in this world is often quite colorful or even opaque.
Lights
The technology level varies wildly between these settlements, with the cities having geothermal & hydroelectric power and electric lights and the villages making due with candles. Places in between generally use oil lights. Natural gas, coal gas, and coal exist, but are rare because of the inherent dangers and historical reasons.
Eastern Coastals
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Climate: Tropical savanna. Dry winters with significant rainfall for over half the year, leading to relatively predictable growing seasons, albeit with occasional flooding.
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Climate touchstones: West Africa (e.g. Ghana, Nigeria)
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Trees: African mahogany, baobab, bamboo
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Local stone: Gneiss, amphibolite
#4 Eastern Coastals Town
An up-and-coming town. The residents are in the middle of doubling the acreage by building a temporary wooden wall.
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Wall: A 15 foot tall amphibolite wall surrounds the older half of the town. A 10 foot tall mahogany wall is under construction. A sturdy-looking stone-framed gate is already in place. This wall extends from the stone wall and encloses an area about the same size as the stone one. One side of the wooden wall is done. The other 2 sides have stacks of 10 foot tall mahogany logs and stacks of 40-50 foot mahogany logs near them.
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Surroundings: A mahogany forest that ends abruptly near the side of town surrounded by a wooden wall. There are piles of mahogany branches along the forest’s edge, as well as clear drag marks that lead off the map.
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Topology: The area is fairly flat, with a single 20-30 foot diameter boulder somewhere.
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Size: 32 acres
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Households: 40
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Construction details: Roughly half of the buildings are made of stone and the rest are made of wood. The streets are cobblestone or gravel.
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Points of Interest & Neighborhoods: Horse stables, a large farm with conical piles of hay (there are no hay bales)
Pledge Manager news!
over 1 year ago
– Thu, Jul 20, 2023 at 11:26:07 AM
Hello Backers!
Before we turn things over to Joseph Carriker for the latest progress update (we'll post that separately, because it's a pretty big one), we have some news about the Pledge Manger at last!
It's taken much longer than expected, but we're ready to start sending out surveys for your pledges! Some of you may have noticed that global shipping costs have dramatically increased over the last several months, but we've managed to finally arrange with our fulfillment partners for rates that accurately reflect our estimate during the campaign.
For those of you who are new to crowdfunding campaigns, here's what happens next: Along with this update, we'll be initially sending out surveys for what is called a "smoke test". This is a small percentage of backers across every pledge tier, so we can test out the pledge manager and make sure everything runs smoothly. We'll keep an eye on how things go over the weekend, and so long as we don't encounter any significant issues, we'll send out the remaining surveys on Monday (the 24th).
For anyone who wanted to add to their pledge to pick up a set of dice, or the Game Moderator's Kit, this will be the perfect opportunity to do so, since Backerkit's system wouldn't let folks add those items during the live campaign.
When the PDF is completed, we'll send that out to backers next, and once things have gone to press, we'll lock in your shipping addresses, and charge for any shipping fees once print production is underway! We'll also be sure to give everyone plenty of early warning before that's about to happen.
If you have any questions or concerns, you can always reach us at custserv AT greenronin, and we'll get things sorted out for you.
Fifth Season May 2023 Update
over 1 year ago
– Tue, May 30, 2023 at 08:58:52 AM
Hello, all. It’s time for your Fifth Season Roleplaying update!
Core Rulebook: In Production, with Miroq Festival adventure In Edits. With the exception of the Miroq Festival scenario (which was a stretch goal from the campaign), this is all ready and in the capable hands of our production department, who handle the layout and art! Here in the coming months, we’ll hopefully be able to show off some of the lovely work they do.
Game Moderator’s Kit: In development. My main task at the moment is planning for the contents of the Game Moderator’s screens, and the cards that come with it. The bonus scenario in this kit, Ruin-Under is back from editing and looking great!
Map of the Stillness + Fifth Season Digital Map Pack: In outlines. Hiromi has been hard at work getting the notes necessary to allow our cartographers to make these happen. Once they’re all wrapped and good to go, we may even share them with y’all! Still hard at work on them currently, though.
Comms of the Stillness: In outlines. Planning phase is nearly done with this, and writing is about to start. Looking forward to creating some fun places for the PCs to call home…or to count as neighbors.
Other Stretch Goal Projects: The other stretch goal projects are waiting in the wings for their turn on the table, and we’re anxious to get to them. More info soon!
~Joseph D. Carriker
Fifth Season April 2023 Update
over 1 year ago
– Fri, Apr 21, 2023 at 10:39:45 AM
Happy April, fans of The Stillness! Let’s get right into it.
Miroq Festival and Ruin-Under Adventures: To edits. Though I held back these adventures from seeing an editor to give me a chance to do a little creative reorganizing (mainly for both consistency between adventures and for ease of running), they’ll be in our editor’s hands by the end of this week! We’ll likely have them back by early May, which will make the core rulebook ready for production!
Game Moderator’s Kit: In development. With Ruin-Under headed to editing, this is our next focus: compiling the best and most useful GM’s screen we can.
Map of the Stillness: In development. The ever-delightful Hiromi Cota has undertaken the impressive task of putting together book and game references to every place in the Stillness so that we can work with a cartographer to build up our own map of the Broken Earth cycle’s setting.
In Outlines/Planning: Comms of the Stillness, Comm Creation Folio, People of the Stillness, and Fifth Season Digital Map Pack are in planning and outlining stages, but they’re next on the To Do List!
As always, thanks again for joining us and for your enthusiasm for this project. We can’t wait to show you everything we’ve got for you.
~Joseph D. Carriker
Fifth Season March 2023 Update
over 1 year ago
– Wed, Mar 22, 2023 at 11:53:23 AM
Is it really March already? Joseph Carriker is here with our monthly update to keep you informed of where we are in the process. One important note however is that the pledge manager is not quite ready for launch, as we are still negotiating the cheapest shipping rates possible, particularly for our international backers! But we should have more news there in the coming weeks.
Take it away, Joe!
Happy Spring, all!
Firstly, we’d like to take a moment to thank all of you for your enthusiasm and support in this little campaign of ours. We’re excited about the possibilities of exploring N.K. Jemisin’s setting of The Stillness, especially using our AGE system.
Let’s take a look at this project’s status at the moment, shall we?
Fifth Season Core Rulebook: With the exception of an adventure added as a stretch goal, this book has been written and edited. We’re incorporating some of N.K. Jemisin’s feedback into the text and gearing up the Great Art Machine to start on some awesome visuals, in the Green Ronin tradition. Once Miroq Festival (see following) is through editing, we can get this bad boy into layout.
Miroq Festival Adventure: This excellent adventure by Alice Rendell was a stretch goal for the campaign. At this point, it has been developed and is about to go into edits. Once that is done, all the text for the core rulebook will be finished and ready to go (as mentioned above).
Game Moderator’s Kit: In development. The bonus stretch goal adventure, Nell Raban’s excellent Ruin-Under, is written and developed, and about to go into edits alongside Miroq Festival.
We’ve just started work outlining the other campaign rewards: Comms of the Stillness, Comm Creation Folio, People of the Stillness, and the Fifth Season Digital Map Pack. More details about these as we solidify them! We’ve got a lot of cool stuff to look forward to, and we’re excited to share it with you in the coming weeks.
~Joseph Carriker,
