The Fifth Season RPG Launches Crowdfunding Campaign

A roleplaying game based on the award-winning Broken Earth trilogy has launched its initial crowdfunding campaign. Green Ronin Publishing has raised over $120,000 for the publication of The Fifth Season RPG, which adapts the popular N.K. Jemisin fantasy trilogy into a tabletop roleplaying game. Players create characters who live in small comms trying to survive in a world devastated by unpredictable tectonic and volcanic activities. Each person in a comm has a use-caste, which defines their role within society. These use-castes are each crucial to the survival of a comm during a Fifth Season, a period of severe tectonic or volcanic activity that often includes unpredictable disasters ranging from acid rain to poisoned water supplies to extreme heat or cold.

The RPG uses Green Ronin’s Adventure Game System, with characters choosing a caste, a drive, and a specialization during character creation. Players make checks by rolling 3D6, with one of their dice designated as the “Drama Dice” that is used to determine the degree of success or failure and also generates Stunt Points. Stunt Points can be spent to use Stunts, abilities that can be triggered in exploration, roleplay, or combat with different effects. In the Broken Earth RPG, Stunt Points can also be used to fuel Orogene abilities, if a player choose to make a character that’s secretly an Orogene. 

The Broken Earth and its sequels all won Hugo Awards, marking the first time a book trilogy won the top science fiction/fantasy book prize. Sony Pictures is also adapting the series as films, with Jemisin herself working on the movie scripts. 

You can check out the full crowdfunding project on BackerKit. A PDF copy of the game costs $30, while a hard copy costs $60.   

You can keep up with our full tabletop game coverage here, and subscribe to The Character Sheet, ComicBook.com’s new YouTube channel covering all tabletop RPG and fantasy news.