The Outskirts, answered

Two full-colour hardback books for fifth edition: a Player's Guide and a Game Master's Guide, set on the ragged edge of the kingdom of ArcoMage. They are finished and ready to print, not a pitch for a book we hope to write one day.

ArcoMage proper is the capital: the castle, the tower and the mage tower, the quarry that feeds them, and a moat with something living in it. It is the seat of the kingdom and the place every road eventually leads back to. These books are not about that place. They are about its edge.

The hem of the kingdom. Walk out the gate marked to the Outskirts and the road turns to mud under your feet. A three-armed signpost at a crossroads points three ways: uphill and east to the Cemetery, downhill and south to the Bog, and west to Jane's Tavern. The capital sits over the hill, in sight and out of reach, which is the whole problem.

Nobody, and that is the point. The Verge Watch keeps a militia. The colleges keep their wizardry. The covens keep to themselves. The Crossroads Daemon keeps the Ledger. None of them rules. All of them deal.

Everything that belongs on the table. The Crossroads Daemon, a complete new class carried through all twenty levels, with three subclasses. A bestiary of 80 creatures, organised by where you actually meet them rather than alphabetically. 154 spells across the eight schools. 40 relics and treasures of the verge. Five backgrounds and three heritages native to the Outskirts. And the Outskirts themselves in full: the Crossroads, the Cemetery, the Bog, and Jane's Tavern.

The signature class of the book, and the reason it exists. You are not a warlock who borrowed a patron. You have daemon blood, you carry the horns, and you keep the Ledger yourself. You buy what a desperate person is willing to sell, you mark the debt, and sooner or later you collect. The class runs all twenty levels and it is built around the bargain rather than around a damage die.

They are called Brokers, and they are three answers to the same question: what do you do with a debt once you hold it. The Collector takes the contract seriously and takes it in person. The Hell-Broker has partners further down and sells the paper on. The Freelancer signs nothing they cannot walk away from.

The other half: what the roads are really for and who is waiting at the end of them. Sixteen chapters and six full quests, covering how to run the verge, how to run a Crossroads Daemon at your table, the five fealties, Jane's as hub and shop, the three roads as adventure sites, villains and patrons, encounters, downtime, relics, adventure building, the Shadow Campaign, secrets deliberately kept from the players, and how to build a verge of your own.

Because the book the table reads and the book behind the screen are genuinely different books, and pretending otherwise ruins one of them. A player should be able to read the Player's Guide end to end without spoiling a single thing the GM is holding. Most settings ship one book and a pile of swag. This ships the table's book and the secrets behind it.

No. Both books are full colour hardbacks, 8.5 by 11. The GM guide is a real print job with the same art the players get, on the grounds that a screen deserves as much as a table does.

Yes. It is a fifth-edition setting and it plays with the rules you already know. Nothing needs converting, and nothing needs the digital game. Drop the Outskirts next to whatever campaign you are already running, or start there.

The one warm room on the frontier, and the hub the campaign hangs from. Its own sign says it: where every adventure starts. The work is offered by the fire rather than posted on a board, which means somebody is always looking you in the eye when they lie to you.

A table version of the ArcoMage duel that your characters can actually sit down and play inside the campaign. There is a card table in Jane's, there are people at it, and some of them are not people. It doubles as a way to settle things that would otherwise be settled with a sword.

They are two different games in one world. ArcoMage is the head-to-head spellbook duel between two wizards, in your browser and as a boxed game. ArcoMage 5E: The Outskirts is the tabletop roleplaying line set in the same kingdom. You do not need either one to enjoy the other, and neither is a port of the other.

The Outskirts is coming to Kickstarter. Follow the build from the campaign page and you will be told the moment it opens, which is the only way to catch the early backer tiers before they go.

There is no luck of the draw: your wizard always knows their book, so every spell you prepared is ready when you are. You build an 8x8 main book plus a 16-spell sideboard and duel best of three, swapping spells one for one between games. It reads more like a three-game chess match than a coin flip.

The ArcoMage forums have a board for The Outskirts specifically: playtest reports, rules questions, lore, and feedback on the setting. You can also reach us through the support chat on the site or the contact options in the footer.