5 Million Worlds Rokaner Report #25, Zine Month Twisting Unseen Launch!
RR#25 January 2026, Rai
Calling all Avatars,
Happy New Year! Glad to see y’all on this side of 2026, I hope y’all are staying strong fighting the good fight, wherever you are in the world. Over here at 5MW Press, I’m doing what I can making games, and connecting with designers and their projects.
This means continuing with the Ansible Uplink podcast, and meeting with new folk to help showcase their games, which is good because it’s Zine Month! February is the fifth annual Zine Month, where indie ttrpg designers crowdfund new games and adventure zines. Check out what’s caught my eye for this year:
Zine Month 2026
First, my own Mothership adventure Twisting Unseen launches on BackerKit February 2nd through February 27th. Inspired by BLAME!, Half-Life, and yokai folklore, this build-the-dungeon module sends players through a dark and derelict megastructure linked by portal technology.
The zine comes with a map grid and three map piece inserts for the players to cut and paste their own path through the subterranean halls of this failed Jump-9 colony. Can the crew reach the Prime Gate before the continuum twists beyond their reality?
All first 48-hour backers get a free Rai Colony Jump-9 patch!
My pal Waco Matrixo also has a new Mothership scenario launching for Zine Month on Kickstarter: Cain Sun. In this module, players take on the roles of parasitic alien worms, all fighting for control of a single human host through a custom control mechanic.
You are fragile, forced to learn the social dynamics of the crew and exploit their relationships to conceal your presence. You’ll explore the ruins of a dead alien necropolis, learn what destroyed it, and if anything survived.
From the writer behind the one-page adventure Mutiny on the Montgomery comes this eldritch cyberpunk zine for CY_BORG: Dead Internet Theory. Fall down the rabbithole of throbbing cadavercore dance floors, a hidden city of sewer dwelling G0 mutants, a top secret corporate research lab, and a cult enclave with a hideous secret.
David has been working on and playtesting this module over the last couple of years, and I’m excited to see what he and Roque do with this big adventure.
Puzzle Dungeon Gang
I don’t think I can put it better than the puzzle dungeon king, directsun:
A puzzle dungeon is more than rooms filled with puzzles—it is the puzzle. Each space teaches something new, reuses old ideas in clever ways, and slowly reveals how every strange piece fits together. Players succeed not by rolling dice, but by reasoning about their surroundings—seeing how one chamber’s mystery connects to another’s.
After hosting the Puzzle Dungeon Game Jam on itch, three puzzle dungeons are making their way to Zine Month, check these out:
Cameron Maas is funding an upgraded version of their 16pg Puzzle Dungeon Game Jam entry, Reservoir for Shadowdark RPG. I feel like folks should know by now that I love body horror nonsense, and Reservoir pulls no punches there.
Incredible icky art, and a scenario that propels players into grappling with the Elemental Plane of Flesh, Reservoir is an adventure from a newer designer to check out, for sure.
The mountain bleeds potent arcane ooze from the long-abandoned Brackenhoorg mines, and now fey lords feed upon its power in Outcast Unseelie and the Ooze Between for Shadowdark RPG. In this puzzle dungeon, characters manipulate a powerful magical substance, the ooze, through a 30+ room dungeon.
This is Jesse Winter’s second crowdfund campaign, after last year’s successful Shadowdark showing, A Haunting in Glass. And for all first 48-hour backers, Jesse is delivering a free one-page dungeon!
Directsun’s whole thing is writing killer puzzle dungeons (see: the universally acclaimed Aberrant Reflections). A Familiar Tower, an escape room puzzle dungeon for Old-School Essentials, is the long-awaited follow-up!
Inspired by the puzzle box dungeons of The Legend of Zelda series, A Familiar Tower delivers challenges that feel organic to its world—mechanics that click into place the moment you discover how they work.
Wait, that’s not Zine Month!
Josh Domanski has asked me on to co-write an adventure zine for Orbital Blues, Paramour launching in April. I am writing locations, the impeccable Lur Noise is illustrating, and Josh is holding the reigns on it all.
Paramour borrows from Cowboy Bebop and that feeling of returning to your hometown after it has changed beyond what you once knew. I’m looking forward to writing about heartbreak and nostalgia, it speaks to the immigrant (and nomad) in me.
I hope you’ll give these different projects a looksee, they’re all my most anticipated for next Zine Month. Until next time!
Signing off,
Chris Airiau