5 Million Worlds Rokaner Report #23, Ansible Uplink Podcast
RR#23 November 2025, The Uplink
Calling all Avatars,
This is your monthly Rokaner Report. It feels like several full months has passed since the last newsletter went out, mostly because of Sam Sorensen’s megagame OVER/UNDER. The game helped Mothership Month 2025 reach great success, with Flatline on the Blocks gaining support from over 1000 backers! If you missed the campaign, be sure to follow the page, if you want us to notify you when pre-orders open up.
In other news, I started a podcast called Ansible Uplink, signed on for development and editing to five other MM25 projects, and will be at Dragonmeet in London on November 29th!
Ansible Uplink Podcast
Ansible Uplink is a sci-fi ttrpg adventure review podcast where I invite on guest indie designers to review a module, or a pair of short modules. The show primarily focuses on Mothership RPG adventures, but also includes reviews of system agnostic adventures, and will include TIME WARP episodes for Classic Traveller and other older systems. Current episodes include:
VR_DEAD, with Waco Matrixo: Discussing Waco’s GM perspective in an adventure with a unique mechanic that hides the macabre.
The Drain, with Norgad: The first review of a funnel, from Ian Yusem’s Inferno Trilogy. We plan to follow up to finish reviewing the trilogy, later on.
Thousand Empty Light, with David Blandy & Daniel Locke: We discuss Alfred Valley’s solo Mothership adventure.
Nautilus of Time & Mutiny on the Montgomery, with Adam STATIONS: This was the inaugural Binary Stars episode, where the guest and I review two one-page or pamphlet adventures.
Bonus Episode, OVER/UNDER Debrief with Reece Carter & Luke Gearing: Reece was a mod, and Luke a fellow Boss in Canyonheavy Collective.
Support the show on Patreon! I have 5MW spaceship stickers to send to folks, and am hoping to eventually gain enough support to shift from a bi-weekly schedule into releasing weekly episodes.
I’ve got four \guests on the docket, through the new year. Patrons get a sneak peek on upcoming guests and modules, and I’ll eventually hold polls to hear what patrons would like to see added to the review queue. Hope to see you over there!
5MW Press: Editing Division
((Small joke, since 5MW Press is just me.))
I’m honored that several third-party Mothership publishers have asked me onto their projects to share my gameplay and writing experience with them. The work, especially game development, feels almost like the collaborative fun of bringing a game to life at the table. Editing is my favorite part about writing. Working on revisions with other authors to help them bring their vision to life, and create a digestible, fun-to-read manuscript, has been very fulfilling work.
Keep an eye out for these projects that I’ll be working on in one capacity or another:
The Sunlit Path: I worked with Ryan Creedon on their last project, Straight Arrows. It’ll be great to work with her again, alongside Joshua Justice!
All on Red: Another writer duo, Jordan DeWitt & Abe Chester, who came to me with for some development work a medical mystery adventure. Great NPCs and gross problems, haha.
Breathe Easy: A SpicyTuna RPG joint by D.G. Chapman and Marco Serrano. I worked with this pair over the summer, and look forward to see what they’ve cooked up with this F-Zero-infused module.
Rites of Renewal: From writer Joshua Cable through Peregrine Coast Press, their new Mothership adventure shifts tone into creepy space folk horror. The second Solarian adventure!
Drink from the Hippocrene: After a workshare, Andrew and I decided to work together again on his new psychedelic mindfuck MM25 project.
Flatline on the Blocks: We had a round of crossfire development between the authors on first drafts. This week, I start on the second development pass, which is aiming for a holistic approach to interlink and punch up for global cohesion.
Current Writing Projects
Each week (even during OVER/UNDER), I’ve been able to get in at least one afternoon of writing in on All Roads Lead to Rome. This is shaping up to be a big hexcrawl adventure, very much the short campaign tv series adaptation to match the one-shot film adaptation. The monster writing is done, and I’m working on the hex contents now. The city is coming to life, hex by hex.
Josh Domanski asked me to join him to co-write a new sci-fi project. I can’t say much about other than it’s called Paramour, and centers on revisiting a city (and ex-lover) one of the PCs used to call home. Josh set up the framework, commissioned Lur Noise for a cover, and soon I’ll be starting in on location writing. Setting is probably what I’m best at, and I adore exploring homecoming nostalgia with a town not so much your own anymore (immigrant vibes: activate), so I’m aswirl with emotions of lived experience for writing up these snowy city locales.
My most ambitious goal is to fulfill the Year of the Beta Challenge, and release a digital version of 5MW RPG: Avatar Primer by year’s end. More pressing obligations will likely eat up my time, but here’s what’s left to write:
1d100 Mementos / 1d100 Past Lives
Forms: Limit Breaks, Loadouts, and Homes Left Behind
Equipment / Weapons
How to Play (Panic Engine + World-hopping loop)
Skills / Skill Training
Violent Encounters / Death and Rebirth
Living the Inner Light (maybe for later?)
This looks like a metric ton, but mostly boils down to four 1d100 tables. Wish me luck!
Come Say “Hi” at Dragonmeet!
This year at Dragonmeet, a ttrpg convention in London, I’ll be working with Eryk Sawicki and Peregrine Coast Press, at Booth L-15/16! I’ll have some copies of Bio-Drones & Cryo-Clones, When in Rome, and Not Enough Scoundrels for sale alongside the Peregrine Coast Press offerings including the Milk Bar: Cut Your Milk Teeth edition. Look for me, Eryk, and Laura slingin’ zines all day Saturday!
We’ll be right next to Soulmuppet, Forbidden Psalm, and Copy/Paste Coop! I just had David & Daniel on the podcast, and I’m giddy to be booth neighbors with them. They’ve also got a BackerKit going now, a standalone expansion of ECOMOFOS!!, Islands of Weirdhope. I was humbled that David asked me on to write an adventure for this book, which is gonna allow me to explore some weird transhumanism in a strange vein that might seem familiar to some readers…
Thanks for sticking it out for the Rokaner Report!
Signing off,
Chris Airiau
The Binary Stars format for reviewing two one-pagers at once sounds perfct for the podcast. With so many pamphlet adventurs coming out, it's smart to pair them up. Also curious how the collaborative editing work on Flatline's second pass will go, thats a lot of interlinked moving parts to coordinate between authors.