5 Million Worlds Rokaner Report #24, 2025 in Review
RR#24 December 2025, [Local] Ansible
Calling all Avatars,
This is your monthly Rokaner Report on all things 5MW Press.
It’s been a month of continued podcasting on Ansible Uplink, development on Flatline on the Blocks, and writing for 5MW RPG. But before digging into that stuff, I’d like to take a Year in Review for 2025.
Year in Review: 2025
A sort of perpetual problem popped up of me aiming too big, and having to pull back or pull out, again and again to prioritize crowdfunding and freelance work. Like, clearly it’s impossible to Do It All, and I need to stop trying (even though there is SO MUCH cool stuff happening in the indie ttrpg scene all the time).
Here’s a rundown of what I can recall working on over the past year:
Not Enough Scoundrels, completed and fulfilled on schedule.
Third print run of When in Rome ordered!
SWN to MoSh development work for Anodyne Printware’s Sci-Fi Rosetta Stone
Joined watt’s Cloud Empress Jam with the one-page dungeon, The Frozen Wings
Straight Arrows development and editing
Johnson Squared development and editing
Resonant Artifacts of Gnaw Bone, IN, a Horrors of the Americas LH supplement
Edited two Mothership adventures for Marco Serrano
Proofread The Dose Makes the Poison
Wrote Perihelion Crossfire for MagnumGalaxy’s Dying Hard on Hardlight Station: Anthology Edition
Printed postcard Mothership adventures that I sent out to folk from the beach
Was creative director and crowdfund manager for Flatline on the Blocks
Won OVER/UNDER with the Canyonheavy Collective
Did some community dev and editing for some brandnew Mothership writers
Started Ansible Uplink, a sci-fi ttrpg module review podcast with a regular, semiweekly schedule
Sold games at Dragonmeet for the second year in a row, this time with Peregrine Coast Press
Not too bad, despite the numerous unfinished projects I’ve left in my wake throughout 2025, hah. And as I mentioned last month, the editing work is not going to dry up any time soon! The major writing accomplishments I want to hit in 2026 are:
Twisting Unseen BackerKit launch and production
Basically finished, just waiting for the Zine Month crowdfund
Flatline on the Blocks editing, layout, and production
In the fun editing sequence, now
5MW RPG: Avatar’s Primer digital release
Trad & Emulant version coming soon! (See below.)
5MW Sector: CIN Tail editing, layout, and production
The hard part is going to be learning software for the planetary maps
Paramour BackerKit launch, and writing
Crowdfund managing and location writing for Orbital Blues adventure
Children of Thalassa writing for Islands of Weirdhope (David B.'s Newsletter)
Weirdhope adaptation of When in Rome
All Roads Lead to Rome, with Chaoclypse
Fleshing out the skeleton of this city hexcrawl adventure
Probably a Mothership Month 2026 project because, let’s be real, I can’t help myself.
And finally, this year’s casualties (that aren’t on the 2026 roster yet):
Strings of the Puppetmaster (sorry Strega, art brief is on my plate for January)
Rise of the Carvers (The full Horrors of the Americas Jam submission)
House of Light (languishing TripTech 25 submission)
Zungeons: Mobra’s Hole / Irric Gate Passage, for Emiel Boven’s The Electrum Archive / Castle of the Vampire (my six year-old’s zungeon, haha)
Pillars of Creation, Appendix-N Jam (what a hype train that was)
Ice Caverns of the Toothless, Prismatic Wasteland’s Hexmas
5MW RPG: Avatar Primer
The beta for 5MW RPG: Avatar Primer is still in progress. Check out the updates I’ve been making on my blog:
This is still all very WIP, but digital copies of the player’s rulebook will always be Pay-What-You-Can when it releases. I’m planning on adding the two tables, and two Forms: Trads and Emulants. These are the two closest to Mothership, and since I want to test out the system by running Mothership modules with the 5MW ruleset, I feel like it’s a good starting point.
With Roque Romero’s Form art, I can start on those spreads soon, and I am trying to get a digital zine version out next month.
Ansible Uplink Podcast
Ansible Uplink, the sci-fi ttrpg module review podcast, for what little exposure and few episodes I’ve produced received some surprising end-of-year stats on Spotify: Instant Hit and Most Shared.
Since the last Rokaner Report, I’ve released three more episodes (I delayed this newsletter to get in the final episode link):
TIME WARP episode: Tatooine Manhunt for West End Games’ Star Wars the Role-playing Game, with Josh Domanski.
Binary Stars episode: Piece by Piece and The Ship Who Swallowed a Spider for Mothership RPG, with Reece Carter, a.k.a. Scarius.
What We Give to Alien Gods for Mothership RPG, with Christian Sorrell, a.k.a. MeatCastle.
Follow or support the show on Patreon! Ansible Uplink currently has a semiweekly schedule, and only with more patron support would I be able to record, edit and mix more bonus episodes.
I’ve found it cathartic to talk shop with other game designers, folks I’ve mostly known over Discord. Seeing friends, colleagues, and peers even over a videocall has been rejeuvenating, it makes me feel like I am a part of the community and not just an outskirter riding round the castle walls. In addition to having a good laugh, I feel like my design intentions and motivation have focused since the show started. And I do hope y’all have been enjoying our reviews, too.
That’s all from me for 2025. Catch you very soon.
Signing off,
Chris Airiau
Whoa Rosetta stone sounds cool, published yet? If not I subbed to the podcast, so I'm sure you'll talk about it ob there!
Wow what a busy year! Congrats on all the completed projects, and wishing you the best for the new ones to come in 2026!