Since the premier of Near_Present at Connections last week and the Discord talk over the weekend, we've received a number of messages about the future of this Patreon.
Josh and myself(JC aka Token) are continuing work on Awbari Book 9 (of 10). We anticipate releasing the final chapter of Awbari in early 2026.
In tandem, Design Team Ember has brought in multiple additional artists to help bring our new work, Near_Present to life. We are developing both a graphic novel series and a tabletop wargame with the first release of the world book and game anticipated by November, 2025.
We intend to expand this book over the course of 2026, premiering a teaser of the new graphic novel in the core book which will be a mixture of Hypernotes, graphic novel, and game with a full chapter of the graphic novel landing (possibly) in Q4 of 2026.
To get everyone up to speed, Near_Present is a conflict extrapolation that started as a wargame based on feedback from entities within the USMC in 2024. Fleshed out with the same level of authenticity and detail as BPRE, Near_Present is set in the Indo Pacific circa 2046. Like BPRE, it is a military thriller, but with hard science fiction elements (technology and strategic extrapolations based on trajectories of events playing out today).
Near_Present is not the end of Black Powder Red Earth by any stretch, but it will give our team the opportunity to work on something new after almost 15 years on BPRE.
Thank you as always for your support. We look forward to sharing our work with you all soon.
Jon Chang ++ Series Creator ++ Design Team Ember ++ _ECHELON