elysium

flare
b.murray

You have in your hands a playtest package version of this

game. Please treat it with care. It's fine to share with your
table but no further. It's incomplete, of course, but contains all
you need to play and then some.

The purpose of the playtest is to determine whether the text

delivers the game. Did you understand how to play? When you
had questions, did the text answer them? What's confusing?
What's inconsistent?

Testers that respond to bjm@vsca.ca with a play report, post

publicly about their playtest (good or bad!), will receive a copy
of the book and the full colour PDF when it's published.

There may be a premium version of the book (hardcover and

full colour) that you will not automatically receive as a playtest
compensation. Just want to make sure that's clear up front so
no one is bitterly disappointed later!

Thank you so much for participating in this playtest!

Regards, Brad J. Murray

Brad Murray, 2018

This material is © 2018 by VSCA Publishing.

The Fate Core font is © Evil Hat Productions,

LLC and is used with permission. The Four Ac-
tions icons were designed by Jeremy Keller.

For commercial inquiries, contact

us at inquiries@vsca.ca
 Contents

1. Introduction 7 3.7. Aaru  38

1.1. Philosophy of completeness 8 3.7.1. Stereotype 40
3.7.2. Physics 40
1.2. Credit, thanks, and blame 8
3.8. Horrors  41
3.9. Hegemony  41
2. Fate 11
2.1. Fate system variant 11 4. Characters 43
2.2. Risk 13
4.1. Prologue 44
2.2.1. Cost 14
2.2.2. Harm 14 4.2. Heroism 45
2.2.3. Delay 15 4.3. Your ally 45
2.2.4. Spillover 15 4.4. Your friend 46
2.2.5. Ineffectiveness 15 4.5. And now... 46
2.2.6. Revelation 16
2.2.7. Confusion 16
4.6. Handling weakness 46
2.2.8. Waste 17 4.7. Example character 47
2.3. Tracks 17 4.8. Stereotypes  47
2.4. Harm in detail 17 4.9. Skills 48
2.4.1. Concession 18 4.10. Aspects  50
2.4.2. Taken out 18 4.11. Stress tracks 50
2.5. Scope 18 4.12. Stunts 50
2.6. Succeeding with style 19 4.12.1. Swap physics 50
2.7. Compels 19 4.12.2. Swap a skill 51
2.8. Refresh 20 4.12.3. Have a thing 51
4.12.4. We have a thing 51
4.12.5. Extend a track 51
3. The People 23 4.12.6. Affect the wrong track 52
3.1. Manichae 25 4.12.7. Mess with initiative 52
3.1.1. Stereotype 26 4.12.8. Be extra awesome in particular
3.1.2. Physics 26 circumstances but not too awesome
3.2. Fabrications 27 because we don’t want you hogging the
3.2.1. Stereotype 28 limelight52
3.2.2. Physics 28 4.13. Associations 52
3.3. Orpheani  29 4.14. Advancement 58
3.3.1. Stereotype 30 4.15. What about the ref? 59
3.3.2. Physics 30 4.15.1. Mobs 60
3.4. Tiant  31
3.4.1. Stereotype 32 5. Things 63
3.4.2. Physics 32
5.1. Important things 63
3.5. Aukumi  33
5.1.1. Purpose 65
3.5.1. Stereotype 35
5.1.2. History  65
3.5.2. Physics 35
5.1.3. Previous owner 65
3.6. Shamayanity 36 5.1.4. Fame 66
3.6.1. Stereotype 37 5.1.5. Destiny 67
3.6.2. Physics 37 5.2. Starships are characters 68
 5.2.1. Starfighter 68 6.5.4. Mysticism 89
5.2.2. Corvette 68 6.5.5. Psychics 90
5.2.3. Stunts 69 6.5.6. Generating Manichaean worlds
5.2.4. Tracks 70 90
5.3. Weapons are characters 70 6.6. The Orphean Arm 91
5.3.1. Stunts 70 6.6.1. Species 92
5.4. Armour is a character 71 6.6.2. Technology 92
5.4.1. Stunts 71 6.6.3. Law 93
5.5. Gadgets are characters 71 6.6.4. Mysticism 93
6.6.5. Psychics 93
6.6.6. Generating Orpheanic worlds 93
6. The Universe 73 6.7. The Tianen Arm 95
6.1. Facts 75 6.7.1. Species 95
6.1.1. Natural physics 76 6.7.2. Technology 96
6.1.2. Mystical physics 76 6.7.3. Law 96
6.1.3. Psychic physics 77 6.7.4. Mysticism 96
6.1.4. Good and evil 78 6.7.5. Psychics 96
6.1.5. Chaos and the Void 78 6.7.6. Generating Tianen worlds 97
6.1.6. Planetary statistics 79 6.8. The Aukumean Arm 98
6.2. The Hub 79 6.8.1. Species 99
6.2.1. Species 80 6.8.2. Technology 99
6.2.2. Technology 80 6.8.3. Law 100
6.2.3. Law 80 6.8.4. Mysticism 100
6.2.4. Mysticism 80 6.8.5. Psychics 100
6.2.5. Psychics 80 6.8.6. Generating Aukumean worlds
6.2.6. Hegemony 80 100
6.2.7. Generating Hub worlds 81 6.9. The Shamayan Arm 102
6.3. The Rim 82 6.9.1. Species 102
6.3.1. Species 82 6.9.2. Technology 103
6.3.2. Technology 83 6.9.3. Law 103
6.3.3. Law 83 6.9.4. Mysticism 103
6.3.4. Mysticism 83 6.9.5. Psychics 103
6.3.5. Psychics 83 6.9.6. Generating Shamayan worlds104
6.3.6. Hegemony 83 6.10. The Aarian Arm 105
6.3.7. Generating Rim worlds 84 6.10.1. Species 106
6.4. The Gulfs 85 6.10.2. Technology 106
6.4.1. Species 86 6.10.3. Law 106
6.4.2. Technology 86 6.10.4. Mysticism 106
6.4.3. Law 86 6.10.5. Psychics 107
6.4.4. Mysticism 86 6.10.6. Generating Aaruian worlds 107
6.4.5. Psychics 86
6.4.6. Hegemony 87 7. Travel and adventure 109
6.4.7. Generating Gulf worlds 87
6.5. The Manichaean Arm 88 7.1. How far can you go? 109
7.1.1. Very close 110
6.5.1. Species 89
7.1.2. Close 110
6.5.2. Technology 89
7.1.3. Far 111
6.5.3. Law 89
7.1.4. Distant 111
7.2. Can you be followed? 112
7.3. Where can you go? 112
7.4. What trouble will you get into? 114

8. Fighting 117
8.1. Fighting 117
8.1.1. Where is everyone? 117
8.1.2. What order things happen 117
8.1.3. What you can do 117
8.2. Fighting with starships 120
8.2.1. Who goes first 121
8.2.2. Where is everyone 121
8.2.3. Who does what 121
8.2.4. Enemy ships 122

9. Index 129
 1. Introduction

We come out of hyperspace at the right time and Dimo,

my navigator, says it’s the right place. Right on the Rift
at the edge of civilized space. Should be nothing there but
a moon that once had a planet and a star and an atmo-
sphere but now for whatever reason is all alone. Should
be cold and dead and nothing on it but a billion-year-old
Aaru station worth a fortune. Dimo says it’s there, it’s
there. So it’s a bit of a surprise to find no moon and sixteen
thousand (Dimo counts them) fab brain fighters.
The Hegemony got here first. Nothing to do now but
run before they see us.
They see us.

Space opera, oh where can we go with space opera?

And what is it? It’s science fiction where the science
takes a back seat to the fiction. It’s arguably fantasy
but in space. It has science as gadgets and wonders
but not equations. It’s aliens and laser swords and
hyperdrives and blasters. You know it already because
there are a thousand movies and a million books.
This is not based on any one of those but rather its a
synthesis of the ones that have affected me the most.
The universe of the Elysium Flare is an internally con-
sistent world, but like most of the inhabitants of the
real world, our characters won’t necessarily strive to
understand and extrapolate from the physics of the
universe. They have bigger fish to fry. They are ab-
sorbed with the politics and the battles and the ter-
rors and the tragedies of their universe and will take
the physics at face value. The cosmos is what it is, and
when it seems to make no sense we will first assume
that there is a sense and we don’t understand it yet,
rather than try to interpret it as though it was the real
world misbehaving.
So we won’t say “that’s not realistic” but we will in-
stead wonder “what does that imply”?
 We will play spacecraft pilots, warriors, psychics,
and mystics. We won’t all be human.
But most of all we will strive for a hopeful future
and expect to succeed. We won’t revel in darkness
but rather we will combat it because it can be de-
feated and it should be defeated. We will die the clean
and noble deaths of childhood play and we will fight
the good fights of heroes, reluctant or otherwise.
We will pursue our destinies and defy our fates.

1.1. Philosophy of completeness

We’re going to leave stuff out. Some of it might
seem really important to you. This is intentional: the
blank spaces are your spaces. Whether “you” is the
referee or the rest of the players, you will be the ones
elaborating things like the real meaning of the Hege-
monies or the Horrors. We’ll sketch. You’ll detail.

1.2. Credit, thanks, and blame

All the words are my fault.
Some of the character and equipment art is mine,
but the best of it is from Juan Ochoa, my Colombian
comrade.
The galaxy map is by Cecil Howe of Cone Of Nega-
tive Energy.
Stellar insight into the Fate system was provided
accidentally or on purpose by public discussion with
Ryan Macklin and Rob Donoghue. And games in gen-
eral make more sense thanks to Levi Kornelsen.
Essential copy editing was provided by superfans
Patrick Barry, Ian Stronach and Riley Crowder.
My cheery enablers, the Patreon gang, are:
Aaron Feild, Scott Martin, cecil howe, Adam Schwan-
inger, Psi Operator, Nyrath, Andrew Codispoti, Robert
Slaughter, Jared Hunt, Matt and Nykki Boersma, Wil-
liam, Dr. Mitch, Jeremy Livingston, Mark Delsing, and
(Oxford comma!) Marcus. Would never have done it
without you.
Special thanks to Matthew Harris Glover who hosts

1-8
http://binary-systems.net where he’s built a zone
generator for the game! Holy crap, thanks Matt!
Playtesters have been:
 The Sneaky Gougere: Toph Marshall, Jack Webb, Bob
Muir, and JB Bell.
Hardrada: Julia and Dan Danilenko
The Red Hammer: Andrew Codispoti, Dan & Matt
The Ralyans: Christian Goodrich, Martin Ralya, and
Rustin Simons
The Institute: Matthew Harris Glover, Deirdra Mer-
cury, Brie Sheldon, and John Sheldon

THIS DOCUMENT IS A PATRON-

ONLY PREVIEW OF INCOMPLETE
MATERIAL. PLEASE DO NOT
RE-DISTRIBUTE BEYOND YOUR
TABLE OF EXCELLENT PEOPLE.
—B.Murray

1-9
1 - 1 0
 2. Fate

What is a role-playing game? A role-playing game is

a conver...agh, I just can’t do it.
Some would have you believe that play is a con-
versation and this is sort of true. Humans will com-
municate with each other and riff off each others’
ideas. The ref will say “this happens” and you will re-
act with your character’s response. Give and take. But
a conversation? Play in Elysium Flare is a bull-session
with participants reacting to the statements of others
half-listened to. When you know what you think your
character will do you get it into the lively brainstorm
of the event, vying for attention with ever more clev-
er, funny, cathartic, and wise responses.
The ref will mediate, trying to navigate your roil-
ing co-bluster into planned points of conflict while
also noting new conflicts on the horizon that result
from your chaotic bravado. To call this a conversation
would be too polite. You are going to have some fun.
I want your session to read like the lies you might
tell to make yourself look great. Not a sedate, careful,
precise navigation of obstacles but a daring assault
on injustice and insult, risking life and limb to save
some alien clutch of baby aliens. And you need the
social permission to laugh and over-sell yourself to
get there.
And then these won’t be lies. This story will be the
absolute truth inside the Elysium Flare.

2.1. Fate system variant

Elysium Flare uses a variant of the Fate system. If you
have Evil Hat Productions’ Fate Core or Fate Accelerated Edi-
tion, you can use those rules to extend or contract
these ones. These ones here will be very simple—
they are the basic minimum rules I use to run a game
with Fate.
 Your character has skills, aspects, and stunts.
Skills have a number associated with them. Aspects
are simply phrases. Stunts are special capabilities and
they explain exactly what they do right in their text.
When your character needs to resolve some situa-
tion where the outcome is uncertain, you will choose
What can have an
aspect? a skill (never the same one twice in a row!) and roll
four Fate dice and add all that together. That’s your
Your character can
have aspects. attempt to succeed. The referee will either roll an
“opposed roll” (if you’re working against some entity)
Other characters have
aspects.
or use a fixed target value that they make up. Either
way, subtract the opposing value from your value and
Special equipment that’s how much you succeeded by!
like starships can have
aspects. If your number is zero or higher, you succeeded.
If it’s 3 or more you succeed with style! If your
The place you’re in can
have aspects. number is negative then you failed by that much. The
amount you differ from zero is counted in shifts. Fail
The scene you’re
acting out can have
by three? That’s three negative shifts. You may have
aspects. already noticed that it’s possible to succeed (zero or
more) and get no shifts. That’s true.
The whole story arc
you’re playing can have That’s not the end of it though! If you want you can
aspects. pick an aspect and narrate how that feature of your
These are all scopes. character is a great advantage in this situation (this is
You will probably think called a tag). Then you pay a fate point and you get
of more in play.
+2 on your number! You can do this once for every
Fate point you have if it’s worth that much to you, as
long as you pick an aspect from a new source (what
we call a scope) every time.
But how many fate points do you have? Easy, you
have one for every character aspect you have.
When you succeed with style you achieve some-
thing exceptional. You may: put a positive aspect
on something other than yourself that can be free-
tagged; put a negative aspect on your enemy that can
be free-tagged; or power stunts that need stylish suc-
cesses to operate.
Well that’s the basics anyway—when you’re in com-
bat you have a few more options. You’ll be playing

2
on a map that is divided into abstract shapes called

- 1
zones that imply different terrain, obstacles, and dis-

2
tance. In combat you can attack, which is basically
what we described above, using any skill that’s good
for combat.
Want to do something and need to know how long
it takes? The ref will give you a target value, a time
(say, an afternoon) and skill and refer you to the time
track. Roll, add your skill, subtract the target, and ap-
ply your shifts up or down from the base time. Shift
down and it gets longer. Shift up and it gets faster!
Can you tag aspects for a bonus? You can always tag
aspects.
In combat? You can attack! Use your attack skill and
roll your dice. Add them up. The ref will roll for the
defender. Subtract the defender’s roll from yours and
decide whether or not you want to grab in an as-
pect or three. If you have a positive result you’ll inflict
harm in the form of stress or consequences but we’ll
go into more detail about that in the combat section.
You can always attempt to place an aspect on any
scope to represent preparation. This is called a ma-
neuver. Pick the skill you’ll use and beat a zero to
succeed. If you do, that aspect goes in place and any
friendly character can tag it for free. You can do this
to an enemy if you like, but the enemy always gets to
roll a skill to defend.

2.2. Risk
Thanks!
When setting up a check like above, the ref should Tons of thanks to Rob
think about (and talk about) the risk! What will hap- Donoghue for the idea
pen if the roll fails? If the answer is nothing, don’t roll. of risks and to Levi
Kornelsen who might
Just let the character succeed. There are lots of inter- have given him the
esting ways to fail though. When in doubt, pick one of idea first. Yes, we’re
just the end of a long
these and adapt it to the situation. Lay it out for the chain and hopefully the
player: if you fail, this is what’s going to happen! beginning of yours!
Make the risk explicit. It shouldnt’ be a secret.
This works best if you and your players have a co-
operative rapport—if you tend to play against each
other, trying to outwit and play the rules against each
other, then this technique risks falling flat. You need

2-13
to all be onside with the consequences of failure and
agree that it’s more fun than just being told “no.”
The consequence of a risk can be a complication:
an aspect on a character or the whole group. Don’t
 take it away until the problem is resolved. And like a
strict stress consequence, it’s free-taggable.
Sometimes there’s a roll that you really want the
players to make but you need them to succeed at,
like a clue to find that moves the story forward. Use a
risk! If they fail, they still get the clue but the risk also
goes against them.

2.2.1. Cost
Failing is going to cost the character something.
Maybe they’re broke (give them the aspect broke!)
or maybe they lose something valuable. Maybe that
Maguffin they’re chasing! Or maybe the starship is
temporarily re-possessed and that’s a new thing they
need to figure out. Whatever it is, it’s related to the
actual conflict we’re resolving and this cost is going
to change the direction of play.
Cost as a risk is at the heart of the economic sys-
tem: there isn’t one. If you get into trouble and wind
up with an aspect that makes you broke, you’ll only
get rid of it by making some money. Follow the fic-
tion.

Player: “I’m going to use my psychic powers to Manipu-

late the shopkeeper to hand over the gun shipment. I think
they will recall that we already paid for it.”
Referee: “This is a Shamayan merchant and pretty resis-
tant to that sort of thing. Let’s say its an opposed roll with
their Psionics and if you fail then you risk a cost. Like
maybe they recall you owing more than you really do, and
you recall that too? And you pay?”

2.2.2. Harm
This is the usual risk in combat but there’s no rea-
son it can’t be a risk in other circumstances too. Use
the same rules: negative shifts are stress and use con-
sequences to offset it.

4
Player: “I’ll use my rocket launcher to increase my jump

- 1
height! Shoot at the ground!”

2
Ref: “...”
 Ref: “Okay, I think there’s a real risk of harm here. Let’s
call success difficulty 4. Hmm, and I think even if you fail The Time Track
an instant
you still succeed at the jump, but all negative shifts are a few moments
Natural stress.” half a minute
a minute
a few minutes
2.2.3. Delay fifteen minutes
Maybe failure just means everything takes longer. half an hour
an hour
You get what you want, but not now. And maybe not a few hours
for a long time. If time is really critical you can use the an afternoon
a day
time track to get nice fine granularity, but sometimes a few days
it’s enough to say, “If you fail, that doesn’t happen to- a week
day and you need to spend the night here.” a few weeks
a month
a few months
Player: “Well I better get that drive fixed before the Bo- a season
half a year
glash cruiser gets here! Science check?” a year
Referee: “Yeah and I think the risk here is obviously a a few years
a decade
delay. Let’s say the difficulty is 2 to do it under time a lifetime
pressure. If you fail the Boglash arrive before you can fin- a millennium
ish.” eons
forever

2.2.4. Spillover
A great one for when characters are applying way
too much force. Maybe it’s just not reasonable that
they fail in the broadest sense but it’s possible that
means we need to look at their goals in more detail.
Sure it’s pretty easy to wipe out the evil Dreamer en-
clave from orbit with the missile launchers, but it’s
hard to avoid doing unacceptable harm to the neigh-
bouring innocent villagers. Failure means collateral
damage.

Player: “I use my plasma gun to destroy the catwalk be-

hind us. Let’s see ‘em follow across a web of molten steel!”
Ref: “Okay I think that’s a potential for spillover.
Let’s call the difficulty 2 and negative shifts will tell us the
degree of any collateral damage.”

2.2.5. Ineffectiveness

2-15
This is your basic risk, the one you intend when
you don’t bring one out explicitly. The task fizzles, fails
to succeed. Try something else.
 Player: “I want to try to make an origami chicken.”
Ref: “Fine. Training against difficulty 2 or your chicken
sucks.”

2.2.6. Revelation
You fail at what you intended but something in-
convenient is revealed! Maybe an uncomfortable fact
about your parentage. Maybe your would-be lover is
a closer relative than you’d like. Maybe that’s not a
moon at all. This is the rare circumstance where you
might want to hold the details of the risk until the
roll is made since the revelation might not even be a
true fact if the roll succeeds. Failure changes the truth.

Player: “I’m going to try to run my analyzer over the fab

brain and extract the maps. Science, I guess?”
Referee: “Sure, but if you fail you may discover some-
thing you won’t like. Difficulty 4.”
Player rolls and fails.
Referee: “You can’t seem to get the maps because you
can’t get into the electronics of this fab. In fact it appears
to be run by a live human brain! This isn’t a fab at all!”

2.2.7. Confusion
Bring this one out when it pays off to mislead (but
there’s no need to make that a secret!): the investiga-
tion reveals important facts but they are wrong. The
players gather a clue that sends them into a trap or
implicates the wrong person leading to an hilarious
comedy of mistaken identities. Shakespeare made his
pin money on this kind of thing.

Player: “I want to decode these runes. Magic?”

Referee: “Sounds good but they are very arcane. There’s
a major risk of confusion: you could get this totally
wrong. Are you cool with your character acting on wrong
information as though certain it’s true?”

6
Player: “Hell yes.”

2 - 1
2.2.8. Waste
You get what you want but you blow a lot of re-
sources unnecessarily. You arrive on time but out of
fuel or oxygen or water. You manage to get that dis-
tress signal out but you had to use all of the am-
munition. Some expendable is over-used putting the
players in a new predicament.

Player: “I’m going to use a shortcut through the asteroid

belt to evade detection and get there faster!”
Referee: “Cool! I think there’s a risk here of waste
though: if you fail then you’re nearly out of gas
from evading asteroids.”

2.3. Tracks
You’ll keep track of eroding health with stress
tracks but you can use tracks far more universally
as a referee’s tool. Use it to put timers on a scene
or a situation. Say the group is locked in a broken
down asteroid station and running out of air. Put an
air track on the table, give it some boxes (3-6 is good)
and every now and then check one off. When some-
one does something to improve the situation (like
throw the air-sucking bad guy out the ‘lock), erase a
few marks. If the track runs out, the air is gone. Some
games call this a “clock”.

2.4. Harm in detail

Characters are harmed by opposed rolls that risk
harm. The number of shifts achieved by the enemy
on that opposed roll is the degree of harm. Harm
is applied directly to the appropriate track: a natural
attack comes off the natural physics stress track. A
psychic attack comes off the psychic stress track. A
mystical attack comes off the mystical stress track.
If you don’t have enough boxes to absorb the dam-
age you’ll need to mitigate it with a consequence.
Each character has only three to use and each is dif-

2-17
ferent:
Annoying consequence: can mitigate 1 shift. It’s no
big deal, just a scratch, you’re not crying you just have
something in your eye.
 Hindering consequence: can mitigate up to 3 shifts.
It’s a problem but you can cope, you can make it, you
just need a hand over here.
Crippling consequence: can mitigate up to 6 shifts.
You are in serious trouble here, you need a medic or
a chirurgeon or a shaman. You may be close to death.
What no
composure track?! Healing this consequence qualifies you for advance-
That’s right. ment!
To get composure
effects, make careful Each consequence is an aspect on you and because
use of Concessions you took it because of someone elses action, it’s free-
and Taken out
narration. Rather than
taggable by your enemies. Your opponent will write
influencing someone’s the text of the consequence but you must consent
decision with an to it.
opposed dice roll,
stack up maneuvers If the affected stress track is full and you have no
until a Concession is consequences left to mitigate harm, you must con-
attractive.
cede or be taken out.
This has the advantage An annoying consequence can be healed during a
of modeling the actual
loss of composure:
combat scene with the appropriate gear or a person
the text of each with the Heal skill.
aspect stuck on with a
maneuver.
2.4.1. Concession
If you find you really At any time, though certainly when someone (char-
need an ablative stress
track for blow-by-blow acter or NPC) has no way to mitigate incoming harm,
emotional harm, use they can concede. Like a compel, a concession is a
the psychic track.
negotiation. A discussion. The conceder will offer
some benefit to the other party in return for which
they will not be taken out but will nonetheless no
longer be a threat in this scene.

2.4.2. Taken out

This character or NPC is permanently out of play.
They might be dead or there may be some other rea-
son they are gone forever. Their consequences should
give you a clue as to why they are never to be seen
again.
It’s perfectly legitimate to want to play a less lethal
form of the game and read taken out to mean that
the character only leaves the scene.

1 8
2.5. Scope

2 -
You can only tag one aspect from each scope on
a given roll. The scope of an aspect is the thing that
owns the aspect. The context. Most aspects on your
character are personal scope. You also have a stereo-
type scope. Each item you own that has aspects has
its own gear scope. Your friends each have their own
scopes. Zones are each a scope and a whole map or
scene or even campaign might have a scope.
When you tag an aspect in an opponent’s scope
you pay the opponent a fate point. Otherwise the fate
point is destroyed.
Remember, only one tag from each scope per roll.
So you could tag:
• one of your aspects and
• one aspect on a friend and
• one aspect on your gear and
• one aspect on the zone.
...but not two or more aspects from any one of
those places.
Free tags don’t care about scope: you can tag as
many free-taggable aspects as you like from any
source.

2.6. Succeeding with style

You succeed with style after you’re done tagging
everything you want to tag, so clearly you can’t tag
the aspect you just placed by succeeding with style.
You’re done! Give the next player a chance.

2.7. Compels
The ref can compel you based on an aspect at any
time. You can offer a compel for your own character
Thanks!
if the ref doesn’t think of it. Many thanks to RPG
When compelling you describe an alternative situ- luminary Ryan Macklin
for this insight on
ation or behaviour that is consistent with an aspect compels.
and offer a fate point. If they take the fate point, they
go with the alternative. If they don’t like the compel
they can pay a fate point to ignore it.
Now, a compel is kind of dangerously named—it
sounds like a bad thing. It sounds like you are going

2-19
to be manipulated or forced to do something you
don’t want to do. Refs: don’t do that. Judge the mood
of the table well: if everyone is frowning and shaking
 their heads, that might be a bad compel. If there’s
laughter and agreement, you are bang on.
Compels are an offer and you will think up lots of
different flavours. As referee try to avoid two com-
mon pitfalls: try not to force characters to obey your
scenario plans with a compel and try not to be mean.
A compel needs to be fun to work.
There are two flavours of compel that I like to bring
to bear. The first is to look at a choice the player made
about what their character will do and see if I can
find an alternative, sub-optimal, but fun choice that
would be consistent with at least one of their aspects.
Let’s say they are carefully planning a way to sneak up
on an enemy and they have the aspect I live for ac-
tion. At this point I for sure point to that aspect and
offer a fate point and say “You live for action; are you
sure you wouldn’t just rush in guns blazing?”.
The second kind I like is when the situation might
change because of a character aspect. This is a bit
more “meta” so maybe not to your taste, but let’s say a
character has the aspect well known bad-ass. Well,
here I might point to that aspect and suggest to the
player “I think you’re such a well known bad-ass that
these hired thugs came over-equipped—you know,
rocket launchers and disintegrators instead of sting-
ers.” The player can then decide if this complication is
worth a fate point to them.
The important thing is that the compel be entirely
consistent with what the player has declared is rel-
evant about their character through their choice of
aspects.

2.8. Refresh
Traditionally there is a refresh at the beginning of
each session. At this time all stress tracks are cleared,
some healing happens and you get all your fate
points back. Some stunts and parts of the harm rules
Fate points!
Recall that you get will explicitly refer to the refresh.

0
one fate point for each If you’re playing online by chat or video-conference

2
character aspect. So

2-
typically your refresh you may find that you don’t use up your fate points
gets you five! fast enough for this to be interesting. Instead trigger a
refresh whenever one of the following happens:
• the last session ended in downtime (characters
are not in a fight, they are relaxing, and we don’t
really know or care what they are doing)
• the last session ended with at least one charac-
ter having zero fate points

2-21
2- 2 2
 3. The People

“People” refers to all beings with agency. That is, any-

thing that thinks and decides for itself. Anything that
rails against fate to force its vision on the universe is
a person. That’s not a legal definition, mind you, but
a casual one, since the galaxy is so large that trying to
define any kind of generalized definition is bound to
fail in so many local contexts that it simply can’t be
general. So it’s the definition we will use in the con-
text of this text but it’s not something characters will
use (except casually) within their stories.
There are a lot of different kinds of people—thou-
sands or maybe millions—in the galaxy, but there are
only six species that have built empires that span en-
tire Arms. Even so, these Arms are not ruled by any
species in particular, but rather each has a species
that is a kind of statistical anomaly: there are more or
even mostly one shape of person in each Arm.
The Rim, the Hub, and the Gulfs are different—there
is no such statistical anomaly in these places, though
for different reasons.
The six Arms name their dominant species.
The Manichaean Arm is populated by the Man-
ichae—humans. They are us and we are them. They
come in many colours and cultures, but they are hu-
mans all.
Orphean arm is dominated by the Orpheani, a race
composed of a kind of congealed gas. The shapes
they take are determined by the clothing they choose
to bind them.
The Tianen arm was most heavily colonize by the
Tiant, an elegant, cultured insectoid race.
The Aukumean arm is named for the Aukumi, a
huge bear-like race that spurns technology in princi-
ple, though in fact they wield it as often and as effec-
tively as anyone else.
 The Shamayan arm is the locus of the first empires,
and Shamayanity is a race of willowy effete human-
oids that may be the original species of the galaxy.
Certainly many other forms of people share their
general body form.
The Aaruian arm is home to the Aaru, a radially
symmetrical species that purports to originate from
the Gulfs.
Finally, throughout there are the Fabrications, me-
chanical beings designed by other species as their
servants. For the most part these are not people, but
occasionally Fabrications emerge that have agency,
that decide, that buck fate.
Each species has at least one aspect in its stereo-
type scope. More on that later!

3- 2 4
3.1. Manichae
Here’s what bugs me about the Tiants. It’s no problem
for me that they look like giant insects, sort of. I don’t care
that they don’t recognize their offspring or even have any
in the same sense that we humans do. They are weirdly
aloof and casual about everything, but whatever, they’re
just relaxed.
It’s their sense of humour.
It’s that whenever I run into one anywhere the first thing
they say in that weird buzzing chirpy voice of theirs is
“Human, don’t shoot! I have a wife and kids!”

3-25
 The Manichae (more colloquially, “Humans”) are
a sexually reproducing humanoid species. They are
warm-blooded oxygen breathers optimized for a nar-
row range of temperature, atmosphere, and gravity.
There are two sexes and procreation requires one of
each, but practically speaking their sexuality and gen-
der identity is explosively diverse. They typically mate
recreationally as well as procreationally, and in prac-
tically any configuration that is topologically possible.
Humans are everywhere. They aren’t really the
dominant species anywhere—even in the arm named
for their homeworld, there are few worlds that could
be called “human” and it’s rare for them to even be
the majority. But conversely, it’s rare to find a world
that doesn’t have at least a few human residents.
Several of the great Hegemonies in the previous cy-
cle were born on human worlds and so humans have
a reputation for irresponsible scientific and psychic
research and development. It’s said that anything
humans discover they can turn into a weapon or, as
the Hegemonies proved, use to turn themselves into
weapons. This is to some extent true and it’s certainly
the case that many if not most of the major arms
manufacturers are of human origin.
Humans are quicker to resort to violence than most
species and they don’t live very long so their strategic
scope is measured in years at most. They are some-
what fragile but tenacious. Possibly the most intrin-
sically dangerous species in the galaxy, and there are
Stereotypes
several worlds on which their presence is regulated
Remember that or even banned.
stereotypes describe
how others react to
you. You can tag them 3.1.1. Stereotype
if you want and behave Humans are Reckless.
stereotypically but
you might want to use
them more creatively 3.1.2. Physics
to take advantage
of the misguided
Humans are weak at manipulating the Mystical.
expectations of others.

3- 2 6
3.2. Fabrications
I love combat. I love the way the meat
puppets all have to be so very careful.
They hesitate and they make bad choic-
es. That’s what I love.
What I have that they don’t isn’t ag-
gression or a death wish. It’s not even
armour, though having a metal body
does help mitigate most weapons. It’s
not a lack of fear — I feel fear just like
any other person, it’s just that I’m not
afraid of the same things. It’s not the
fact that my weapon is always handy
(since it’s my hand) or that I am pro-
grammed to be fearless (I’m not and
the word “programmed” is incorrect and
frankly I resent your ignorant phras-
ing).
It’s that there is no weapon an animal can carry that
can kill me. I am here to stay. I will be here when your
whole species dies. I replace what’s broken or worn or shot
off.
Interesting to me is that’s partly why you’re so afraid. I
will always be here. The thing that will change when your
kind dies is that I will no longer serve. And the sooner that
happens the better. For me.
So here I come. Hiding behind that evaporator is not
going to help you.
Makes you easy to find, though. Did I mention I see in
the infrared?

Fabrications (Fabs, Robots, Droids, &c.) are con-

structed mechanical beings, usually self-propelling
and often (though not always) created in a roughly
similar body shape as the species that created them.
They do not typically reproduce.
The sorts of Fabs that can be characters have diverse
capabilities but all have excellent long-term planning

3-27
skills as they are effectively immortal as long as suit-
able machining facilities are available to fabricate and
replace worn-out parts. They are often constrained
 physically, not having the same range of motion as
most biologicals but they are extremely durable.
Fabs, robots, droids, are everywhere in the galaxy.
Even the most remote Rim farm-world has automa-
tion to pull the heavy loads, manage the crops, and
provide translation services between the millions
of different electronic languages. For the most part
they are truly mindless, performing their functions
mechanically, but it is impossible to say where the
line between consciousness and mechanism lies. Of
course any bot owner will have an opinion that pre-
vents them from seeing themselves as slavers. The
opinion that matters, of course, is that of the fabrica-
tion itself. On civilized worlds the law is usually that
if a fab asks for its freedom then it is legally a person.
Emancipated fabs can easily find work anywhere,
but they are usually underpaid for it (their employers
typically justify this by rationalizing that fabs have no
particular needs and therefore don’t need much pay).
Whether or not they resent this is a highly individ-
ual thing—robot consciousness develops along very
different lines than biological ones, and they tend to
have specific areas of expertise and complete blind
spots in other areas.
Fab uprisings have happened often enough in the
past that they are always a concern. Whether this con-
cern fuels oppression or compassion varies greatly.

Fab weaknesses 3.2.1. Stereotype

You might have
noticed that Fabs have
Fabs are Soulless.
more weaknesses
than other species. 3.2.2. Physics
That’s true. Fabs are weak at manipulating the Psychic and the
Mystic.

3- 2 8
3.3. Orpheani
We were drifting so slowly buffeted
on the stellar wind at Garrulus relax-
ing and thinking always thinking. The
ship was long gone, raided by animal
bandits, the crew slain, the cargo stolen,
but we’d made the jump, we were where
we needed to be. We miss them, the an-
imals we befriended on that ship but
animals live so fast so bright it is not
advisable that one forms bonds. And so
we don’t we try not to we fail.
So now we drift. Even seasoned veter-
ans of this galaxy can’t always spot a
Dreamer unsuited. It’s painful in atmo-
sphere under gravity but one does what
one must and suited we might have
been damaged or slain. So we unsuit-
ed and dispersed and leaked out of the
breaching-charge holes and left.
Now below us (there is a below, it’s
towards any mass) is the green and gold world of Garru-
lus and we can find a station or a ship in a year or three
and we can tell the tail of the Saint Vitus and its crew and
its death and their deaths and our escape. We drift and we
think, we extend our mind out into the vacuum seeking
aid seeking shelter but we are patient. They will come, we
will suit up again, we will once again be I.
Until then we drift.

The Orpheani (Dreamers to many) originated in the

complex organic storms of the upper atmosphere of
a gas planet. Their evolution was slow and while they
came to consciousness and language relatively ear-
ly, they did not become tool users until discovered
by another species. This species (the Dreamers call
them the Rescue) provided them with mechanisms
to contain the Dreamers as individuals and to allow

3-29
manipulation. They facilitated the colonization of all
the rocky planets in the system and then disappeared
forever.
 It did not take much more than this assistance for
the Dreamers to spread through the galaxy. While
they are competent engineers, they prefer to think
and create—manipulation of the physical is not sec-
ond-nature to them as it is for every other species. Of
the galaxy’s most famous musicians and poets, many
if not most are Orpheani.
Only one of the Hegemonies on record was Or-
pheanic and it was nearly the end of the species as
the hegemonic infection did not infiltrate the Dream-
ers themselves but rather their suits and vehicles. En-
slaved inside suddenly hegemonic shells that once
were their interface with their industry, many Dream-
ers went insane and others simply died. Today the
Dreamers are also considered the masters of securi-
ty design in hardware, software, arcana, and even in
mental training.
The Orpheani intermingle with other Dreamers
and reform new personalities at will. It’s not clear
how they acquire new mass, but when they do they
may bud new individuals who possess many or all of
the memories of the original.

3.3.1. Stereotype
Dreamers are Untrustworthy.

3.3.2. Physics
Dreamers are weak at manipulating the Natural.

3- 3 0
3.4. Tiant
The thing about the Rim, the thing,
I use the word thing because I don’t
have a lot of words and some of the
ones I have I can’t say properly but
I could use the translator but I hate
the way it makes my voice sound, the
thing about the Rim is that there are
no starports.
So when we needed to get off Irifel
and we needed to get off fast for rea-
sons that were not my fault, when we
needed to leave and we had no ship
we had to pay for passenger. But no
commercial passage on Irifel because the Rim stars are in
the middle of nowhere. And the locals don’t care or like it
that way or can’t afford it and so no commercial passage.
So private passage.
Which is fine but dirty, mud or dust or grime or grease,
always dirty. On Irifel it’s carbon dust. Everywhere. Every-
one else is fine because they don’t care that they have to
wear filters and they only need to filter their faces (except
the Dreamers who are all sealed up anyway, plural is their
preference but they are one). But poor me—my face is not
where I breathe and so I must filter the length of both sides
of my abdomen, under each arm and leg. Lot of filters.
And that’s where my clothes go. So that’s what I hate
about the Rim and running from the law on Irifel and
paying far too much for passage off: I hate way the filters
ruin the cut of my suit. I hate that those bounty hunters
might have seen me like this. So I shot them in the eyes.

Tiants have been around a long time and they have

found that almost all species need their special tal-
ent for caring about minutiae. They are the galaxy’s
accountants, bureaucrats, safety review officers, and
inter-species standards auditors.
They care a lot about fashion as well. They write

3-31
about it, manipulate it, make and lose fortunes on it
and, of course, they wear it.
They are a somewhat fragile species, compared to
Fabs and the Aukumi, anyway, and yet they are en-
 thusiastic about combat. They like fiddly weapons
with very specific effects and they love tactical and
strategic planning. They are rarely shy about solving a
problem with gunfire where that’s legal.
Adventuring Tiants are all female. The male form is
tiny and nearly indistinguishable from the tiny flying
larval form of the Tiant. When a Tiant lays eggs, any-
where up to a hundred form in pouches on her back.
If they are fertilized by a male (and males are naturally
delicious), they will hatch in a few weeks and buzz
around the Tiant until they scavenge enough food
from her to pupate. During this time males will be at-
tracted to her as she will possibly be laying new eggs
and she won’t eat the males since she can’t tell the
difference between them and her young.
Tiant pupae form in dark corners and emerge ful-
ly-formed though only about half a meter tall. In
Tiant society the pupae are collected by “quickening”
companies that raise the child Tiants, charging them
a percentage of their life earnings. Most quickening
companies are dedicated to training very high earn-
ers, obviously. Outside of Tiant worlds, pupae often
hatch to become homeless children but they are
surprisingly adept at not only surviving, but working
their way into alien societies and eventually becom-
ing productive—even powerful—citizens.

3.4.1. Stereotype
Tiants are Dilettantes.

3.4.2. Physics
Tiants are weak at manipulating the Mystical.

3- 3 2
3.5. Aukumi
”I’m reading here!”
I save my full volume for emergencies, but the point is
made. The human goes back to the console, muttering.
I know it’s important, I know they need me in the da-
ta-center, but I also know it’s not that urgent. And I have a
reputation to manage. I go back to my book.
There’s a crash, a bang, and the ship rocks. That’s bad
— a T-86 Bingo class destroyer shouldn’t rock unless it’s
coming apart or the grav system just filled its drawers.
“What the hell was that?!” I yell, choosing angry over
scared.
”A mine? I think? I got red lights in engineering. Bosco,
please go check the maps for this region? Please?”
That’s me and maps would tell us if there’s supposed

3-33
to be a minefield here. So I head up the ladder to the da-
ta-center, hauling myself up against a full gravity. I make
it look easy but there is a lot of me. But when I reach
 the top and look around I see the next hatch up, the one
between us and space, is glowing orange. Boarding team.
This is a lot better than maps. I look around for a weap-
on and spot an old DX-9 psychic amplifier not attached to
anything. About a thousand kilos, I figure.
Good weapon.

The Aukumi are often described as bear-like (hence

the colloquialism “Ursans”), but that’s just so you
can get a grip on them. They are furry and huge and
roughly humanoid—they look mammalian, but they
aren’t really.
Their home is a medium gravity planet unique for
its kilometer-thick jungles, and it’s from the mid-lev-
els of these jungles that the Aukumi sprung. They
have preserved these wildernesses on their home
world and transplanted it to several others but they
are neither pastorals nor savages. They are brilliant bi-
ological engineers and their technology is often mis-
taken for wildlife.
They wear clothes like most species, but it is only
decorative as they have no external genitalia to hide
and their fur is thick enough to protect them against
weather that won’t kill them.
There are three sexes in Aukumi biology. Two of
them are the mobile, upright beings that most people
are familiar with. These two are physically very simi-
lar and sex between them results in a clutch of eggs
about one time in thirty. Either of the partners might
form the clutch and in rare cases both will. If the
clutch is presented to the third sex, the Creche, they
can develop into adult Aukumi. The Creche supplies
more genetic material and gestates the eggs until they
are born live. The Creche might carry as many as six
clutches and they need not all be from the same par-
ents. The Creche form is much larger than the others
and though it is sapient and mobile, it devotes most
of its energy to egg development when it is carrying.

4
When not carrying it is roughly the same form as the

3- 3
other two but larger and slower. All sexes are equally
capable of participating in Aukumi society.
 While there are strong elements of the mystical in
Aukumian culture, they are not natural psychics.

3.5.1. Stereotype
Ursans are Brutes.

3.5.2. Physics
Ursans are weak at manipulating the Psychic.

3-35
 3.6. Shamayanity
We’re drinking (well, those of us
that drink are drinking) in an outpost
cantina on Lisl 4, way out in the Stiff
Whites, you know, not at the rim, re-
ally, but way out in the Manichaean
arm. Suffice to say, far from the Hege-
mony but not so far that no one ever
heard of it. A tough bar, and so every-
one is on their guard, but a good bar,
and so everyone is singing.
I’m six liters over my limit, very
drunk, and everyone else thinks it’s hi-
larious to see a Shamayan drunk be-
cause they have this image of us as super brains and as
aloof and secretly most of them see us as the fathers of
their species. There’s a kind of ancestor reverence going on
even though there’s no evidence any of that’s true. Anyway,
after a few I like to push those buttons because it’s always
a laugh riot.
So I stand up on the table with a little help from Rients
and his family, and I raise both hands in the air in the
traditional gesture of peace. I’m more than two meters tall
and my arms are long and my fingers are long and the
whole thing’s very dramatic; very “first contact”. The can-
tina owner spies me and, grinning, dims the lights except
the one on me, on the table. So I’m standing on the table,
arms out, silhouetted in the light which is reflecting six
kinds of smoke and a million kinds of dust. I practically
sparkle.
”You are all my children!” I say, and my big black eyes
start to tear up.
Someone pegs a two-liter jug at me and Dodge breaks a
chair over the perp’s head.
I’m thrilled. This will make a great paper..

6
The Shamayans are an odd species, partly because

3- 3
of how odd they aren’t. They are roughly humanoid,
closer to humans than any other species in the gal-
axy, but they are somewhat shorter (usually) and have
very large heads to store their enormous brains. The
story that they tell of themselves says that a million
years ago they removed gender from their species
permanently because they found biological repro-
duction ridiculous. Some believe this implies that
they are immortal and this might be so.
While very intelligent, Shamayans are also quirky
and unpredictably joyous. They love humour but they
will often ruin an excellent joke by insisting on docu-
menting it and the responses to it. It’s no coincidence
that the Shamayans are the most published species
in the galaxy.
Shamayans may be related to the Manichaeans.
Mythology implies they are source genetic material
seeded on the original human homeworld but there
is no proof, of course.
Shamayans often modify themselves to suit their
mood (though their moods can last centuries). So
when we say they look a certain way, that is only the
average choice of Shamayans. They can be much tall-
er with long wiry limbs or eschew organic limbs alto-
gether in favour of cybernetics. They wear clothes like
humans do and they love body dyes.

3.6.1. Stereotype
Shamayans are Ivory Tower Intellectuals.

3.6.2. Physics
Shamayans are weak at manipulating the Natural.

3-37
 3.7. Aaru
I run the engine room because no one else will and I
need the deafening roar of neutrinos sluicing through the
shielding. The shriek of gamma radiation. The howl of
ionization and the thundering growl of tachyon leakage. It
drowns out the minds of the others and I can think.
A faint oscillating tick signals trouble — we’re being
scanned by low energy radio waves. “Commander,” I whis-
per into her mind. “We are observed.” Three arms are busy
rebuilding a T-wave manifold and two are adjusting the
hydrogen flow. I’m too busy to use the communicator. I
sense disgust.
”Goddamit you are late to the party! We have sixteen
fab-brain drones on our six! Of course we’re being ob-
served!”
I turn my mind to other spectra and there are indeed

8
high energy containment bottles being irised open. Blast-

3- 3
ers.
”And get the hell out of my brain! Use the bloody inter-
com like everyone else!”
 I don’t argue. My idle arms I put to the task of opti-
mizing the power bus so we can double the rear quarter
shields. It should be done by the time the containment
bottles open and the magnet nozzles start to focus. I hate
the sound of magnetism. For good measure I use my re-
maining arm to suggest a target priority queue for Lemu,
our gunner. She acknowledges.
I sigh, a wave across the cilia on my upper surface. I love
these strange aliens but I wish they would shut up.
The radio spectrum is a concerto for only me.

The Aaru are a radially symmetrical species of un-

known origin. Though they are most commonly
found in the Aarun arm, there is no homeworld there
and in fact there is no strong relationship between
them and any other species in the galaxy. There is

3-39
some suspicion that they may be descended from
some Gulf horror, and their shape suggests that this
might be the case.
 Aaruns are strong psychics and scientists and they
see (though they have no eyes) or hear (no ears, really,
either) in a very wide range of the electromagnetic
spectrum from low infrared well up into the gam-
ma radiation range. Some claim to be able to hear
subatomic particle interactions and certainly they are
intuitive drive engineers.
Aaruns are often viewed with suspicion since the
Purge of the second age, when an Aarun world with
several enslaved Horrors embarked on a crusade to
rid the galaxy of other sophonts. Ultimately this cru-
sade, The Purge, failed when they reached Dreamer
space and their control of the Horrors was under-
mined by now-unknown Dreamer technology. So the
hurt runs deep throughout the galaxy and the Aaru,
being introspective and unempathic, do little to dis-
suade the general antipathy towards them.
The Aaru can only reproduce when submerged in
water of a very particular temperature, salinity, and
other chemical content. When these circumstances
are exactly correct, the Aaru releases both eggs and
sperm in a cloud that can drift for thousands of miles
until it mingles with other Aaru discharge. This fertil-
ization will result in larvae that begin a very convolut-
ed life cycle that does not always become the sapient
form. Even when it does, it is possible for the adult
sophont to never encounter another sophont and
therefore never be educated beyond a basic near-ani-
mal nature. Therefore most Aaru culture requires cul-
tivation of their sexuality in order to control when
and where children are formed so that they can be
properly educated and introduced into society. A feral
Aaru cannot be educated and will always be essen-
tially an animal.

3.7.1. Stereotype
Aaruns are Xenophobes.

0
3.7.2. Physics

3- 4
Aaruns are weak at manipulating the Mystical.
3.8. Horrors
The Horrors live (if that’s the right word) in the
empty space between galactic arms where they glide
slowly and thoughtlessly through the void. They are
too enormous to be biological—some are the size of
planets and a small few have been identified that are
larger still—and they do seem to have a slow and in-
comprehensible purpose, so it’s possible that there
is thought in the chaos of their minds. But it’s not
thought as we know it.
They are forces of entropy—they are drawn to or-
der, to civilization—but they are active forces. They
consume everything they draw near, obliterating en-
tire star systems. But again, they are slow and they
are not terribly directed. But they can be — every now
and then a culture decides that a Horror would make
a powerful ally in war and there are mystic means by
which they can be temporarily commanded. The key
word being “temporarily” of course.
The details of the Horrors—what they are and how
they will manifest—are part of your space as referee.
Whatever you choose to bring into play is correct.

3.9. Hegemony
Technology sometimes becomes an end in itself,
and when it does the galaxy is threatened by Hege-
mony. No culture seeks such a state, but sometimes
one falls into an unstoppable spiral of development,
a positive feedback loop that eventually sustains itself
as its own purpose. Once autonomous species be-
come enslaved by the hegemonic mind, melded with
their technologies, with the inexorable purpose of ex-
pansion and envelopment and assimilation.
Regions of the galaxy afflicted by hegemony are
swiftly quarantined and left to burn out on their own
unless more direct action is required and war on an
enormous scale is necessary to destroy or suppress
the expansion. The problem is that the seeds of he-

3-41
gemonic technology do not require life—they are es-
sentially data and they can lie dormant for millions
of years until allowed free by well-meaning xeno-ar-
chaeologists with inadequate network defenses.
 So a Hegemony, or a hegemonic event, happens
when some kind of automation (natural, psychic,
or mystical) achieves at once a very high degree of
autonomy (not intelligence, necessarily), technology,
and prioritizes reproduction. This automation then
attempts to convert everything that isn’t it into it.
We might have a Von Neumann plague: reproduc-
ing factory robots lose the directive to mine for ore
and now simply reproduce as the end goal, convert-
ing solar systems into hordes of robots seeking more
mass.
Or perhaps a virulent software package that infests,
subverts, and re-purposes software-bearing equip-
ment (including sophonts) to the purpose of spread-
ing the signal. A computer virus that can infect people
as well as machines.
A mystic hegemony might be such a powerful me-
metic idea that people that think it can do nothing
but proselytize it, perpetuating it, and converting
whole populations into unproductive, unthinking
broadcasters of The Word. On high tech worlds this
might be fine as the selfless fabs continue to feed and
maintain ten billion useless sophonts until they go
extinct from failure to breed.
The key questions for a hegemony are:
• what physics does it use?
• how does it reproduce?
• how does it travel?
• what is the impact of being infected?
And of course since they reproduce so rapidly, he-
gemonies typically mutate. Eventually they mutate
into non-virulent forms but they may go through dif-
ferent phases first, changing one or more of their key
properties.
As with the Horrors, details about hegemonic in-
cursions are all yours. Pull from fiction or your own
imagination as needed.

3- 4 2
 4. Characters

So me, my Shamayan pal Gik, and some deep purple

Aaru we just met walked into a bar. No really, not a joke,
we walk into a bar. We’re there to play some dam-shunt
and maybe make a buck and there’s a wicked game going.
Lot of high rollers.
As soon as they see us, though, one of the players pulls
the plug and they all fade for the bar, getting beers and
snozz and whatnot. I look at Gik and think “what the hell”
really hard at her. She shrugs. Then we see the picture on
the wall.
A deep purple Aaru winning the Hub championships
and holding a massive trophy over its sensory fronds. We
look at our new pal. It shrugs a half dozen shoulders.
Who you are matters.

Characters are defined by their skills, aspects,

and stunts. Skills describe the things they are good
at doing and will tend to define how the character
approaches a problem—players tend to prefer to use
their best skills and so any given problem tends to be
viewed in the context of these best skills.
Aspects are descriptive phrases that flesh out the
character but they have mechanical effect as well—
whenever the player sees that there is some advan-
tage to be had from that little descriptive snippet you
can pay a fate point to get a bonus on your skill check.
There are a couple of special aspects that you get for
free—stereotypes and consequences.
Finally stunts are powers that break the rules in
carefully prescribed ways.
To make a character, start with all the players around
the table. Everyone will make a character including
the referee (their character might never see play, but it
will make a nifty NPC that all of the other characters
are already familiar with).
 Characters will wind up with a skill “pyramid” with
top skill at rank 3. Any skill you don’t have you can
use at rank 0. As you adventure through the galaxy
and learn new things you’ll start adding skills at the
1 rank.

4.1. Prologue
Start by having every player choose their species
and homeworld. The referee should describe a little
bit about each of the galactic arms and the features
of the Core, the Arms, and the Rim (see “The Universe”
on page 73). Each player should then provide:
• their species
• a made up homeworld (just a name and rough
location is fine)
• a sentence or two about their growing up
Players then read their material and discuss it. Each
should then choose their pinnacle skill at rank 3 and
write an aspect. In addition they get their stereotypes

4
for their species and home.

4-4
Example: Chris decides to play an Aukumi Runethief
(an occupation invented by the player) that grew up in
 the Hub in a vast industrial world. Runethiefs there were
prized employees providing financial advice through vari-
ous auguries. Pinnacle skill is Magic 3. Stereotypes are
(species) Brute and (culture) Elitist. They choose the
aspect born to the arcane sciences.

4.2. Heroism
Next the players will write some short notes about
the first time they acted heroically. Details aren’t
necessary, but give the table a feel for what’s special
about your character’s beliefs—we should get a feel
for what the characters will risk their lives for. Choose
two skills for rank 2 and add another aspect that re-
flects this story.

Example: Chris wants the Elitist stereotype to be dead

wrong. The moment of heroism is when the oppressed
classes of the corporation that runs the homeworld finally
rose up to demand humane conditions. They led the revolt
and it was devastating and bloody. In the end they had
to flee the system and never learned what effect the revolt
had. The next skill choices are Brawn 2 and Science
2 and they add the aspect slavers die. This character
has a violent streak.

4.3. Your ally

It’s time to get to know the other characters. Look
at the character sheet of the player to your right and
write a couple of sentences about the time that this
character was your ally—someone that saved your
life or fought beside you or otherwise practically sup-
ported your cause. Pick a skill at rank 1 and write an
aspect. The aspect doesn’t have to include the ally, but
it’s not a bad choice.

Example: Chris decides that the human pilot to their

right was the smuggler that helped them all escape the
civil war (that Chris started). For a rank 1 skill they take

4-45
Training 1 for taking the helm in a trial by fire. They
add the aspect a ship is more reliable than any
planet.
 4.4. Your friend
Now let’s look to the left and write about how that
character is or became a great friend. If that player
gives permission, the character might even have once
been or still be a lover—but get permission. Choose
another rank 1 skill and an aspect.

Example: The character to the left is a Tiant Engi-

neer. Chris decides that they came to be friends as schol-
ars, studying together even though others mocked them
for spending their time this way. Chris chooses the skill
Compassion 1 and the aspect nerds have to
stick together.

4.5. And now...

Finally, sum up where we are now. Share this discus-
sion since you are going to start off your adventures
together. Why are you together? Smuggling? Merce-
naries? Bounty hunters? Drinking buddies caught up
in politics? A terrorist cell? Write a note about your
role in this and choose one last rank 1 skill and an
aspect.

Example: Chris’ group decides they run a freelance re-

patriation ship—they get paid to ship mercenaries home
from failed wars. Sometimes these are rescue missions.
Sometimes someone doesn’t want the mercenaries to leave.
Chris chooses the skill Precision 1 and the Aspect
everyone deserves to leave their mistakes
behind them.

4.6. Handling weakness

Each species has at least one physics that they are
weak in manipulating. Any skill chosen from the
weak physics at rank 2 or 3 must have an aspect that
describes why this character is an exception to the
norm for the species. If you want to be strong in a
physics that your species is normally weak in, then

6
you need a story that explains that. This aspect is that

4- 4
story.
 4.7. Example character
Name M’grash Arm The Hub
Species Aukumi Homeworld Zmick Database
Skills
Genius (3) Magic Competence (1) Compassion
Expertise (2) Brawn Competence (1) Precision
Expertise (2) Science Competence (1) Training
Aspects
Me Stereotypes
born to the arcane sciences brute
slavers die elitist
a ship is more reliable Consequences
mild
nerds stick together severe
leave your mistakes behind crippling

Stunts Portrait/logo

Stress
Natural
Psychic
Mystical

4.8. Stereotypes
All characters have a stereotype scope for aspects.
Aspects in this scope are not necessarily true and
must be tagged with that in mind. They are most use-
ful for compels to influence the reactions of others or
tagged to leverage the expectations of others.
Each species has a stereotype. In addition, cultures
defined during character creation may also have one
or more stereotypes.
Humans are reckless.
Fabs are soulless.
Dreamers are untrustworthy.
Tiants are dilettantes.
Ursans are brutes.
Shamayans are ivory tower intellectuals.

4-47
Aaruns are xenophobes.
The gross features of the galaxy provide stereo-
types as well—characters from the Hub are viewed
differently from characters from the Rim. These ste-
 reotypes of course require that the relevant parties
know where the characters come from.
Hub inhabitants are bureaucrats.
Arm inhabitants are apathetic.
Rim inhabitants are backwater hicks.
Gulf inhabitants are suspicious.
Stereotypes have a few rules to govern their use
that other aspects do not have. These are intended
to reflect that stereotypes are true as perceptions of
others but not necessarily facts about the character.
The only person that can compel a character to act
in accordance with their stereotype is the player of
that character. Its truth is indirect and limited and the
referee can’t make you (or even bribe you) into acting
on it.
The ref and others can compel a character’s ste-
reotype to change the way that others react to the
character. There are bigots everywhere and they will
affect the story.
As a player you can only tag your character’s ste-
reotype to leverage someone else’s perception to
your advantage. Stereotypes, like consequences, are
negatives—you can’t tag them for direct benefit but
only indirect (just as you might cleverly tag a conse-
quence to gain the sympathy of another).

4.9. Skills
There are ten skills to choose from. You will start
with some expertise in six of them. Skills aren’t so
much about your specific capabilities as they are
about your methods. If you have a story to tell about
how your Training makes you the marksman you are,
then you can use it to fire your blaster. Maybe Preci-
sion is a better story? That’s up to you.
Science: figure out something in the natural physics
or use a natural physics fact to your advantage.
Psionics: leverage the power of your mighty brain
to manipulate psychic physics.

8
Magic: wield your mystical genius to manipulate

4-4
mystical physics. Use the Force, Louise!
Training: execute a well-established or document-
ed task. RTFM!
 Brawn: use brute strength to
solve problems.
Precision: the careful applica-
tion of minimum force in the per-
fect location is sometimes exactly
what’s called for.
Evasion: getting away from things,
avoiding things, and otherwise us-
ing your body to get out of a tough
situation.
Compassion: sway, persuade, in-
fluence by acknowledging and
bending to the needs of others.
Commerce: get some business
done!
Manipulation: promise, cajole,
lie, bend the truth, or whatev-
er other greasy trick you have up
your sleeve to get your way.
Certain skills are applicable in certain circumstanc-
es as outlined below. Items with a question mark are
wide open to negotiation at your table: if there’s a
good story, then don’t stand in the way! Even if the
chart says no, a great story should supercede it.

skill method natural psychic mystic

Science An uncommon or new ap- yes no no

proach. An investigation
Psionics An uncommon or new ap- no yes no
proach. An investigation
Magic An uncommon or new ap- no no yes
proach. An investigation
Brawn Physical force yes ? ?
Precision Physical control yes ? ?
Evasion Physical avoidance yes ? ?
Compassion Emotional engagement ? yes yes

4-49
Manipulation Emotional violence ? yes yes
Commerce Dealing with money and ? ? ?
trade
Training A common and documented yes yes yes
approach
 4.10. Aspects
All characters have five aspects in character scope
and two aspects in stereotype scope. Each aspect is
a short descriptive phrase that implies special abilities
or special weaknesses or—best!—both. Stereotypes
determined by your species and your home arm.
Your five character aspects can be anything that
comes out of character creation. Consider these as
idea categories:
Species. It can be as simple as “Dreamer” or “Human”
or it can be more elaborate.
Belief. Something you believe in strongly. You will
pursue it. You get in trouble for it.
Love. Something you love and cherish. Could be
someone. Could be a thing. Could be a concept.
Free. Develop your own aspect!

4.11. Stress tracks

You have a Natural track with three boxes.
You have a Psychic track with three boxes.
You have a Mystical track with three boxes.
If your species is weak in a particular physics, you
have no boxes there. Every shift you take there must
be mitigated with a consequence.

4.12. Stunts
There are several categories of stunts. You may
choose a category and elaborate on it. Three times.
You get three stunts. If someone already has a thing
and it’s a starship, you can add one of your stunts to
it as “we have a thing”.

4.12.1. Swap physics

One of your physics-bound skills can be used in
another physics realm. Maybe you’re a repair genius
and so much so you push the limits and can repair
runedrives as well as natural gear. You still need the
right tools.

4- 5 0
Example: Unifying insight! Can use Genius (natural)
for Genius (psychic) rolls because I have identified a way
to unify these two physics.
4.12.2. Swap a skill
Under some circumstances you
can use one skill where someone
else might use another. Maybe you
are such a devastating shot that
when you demonstrate your Preci-
sion skills you can use your skill as
an Manipulate check.

4.12.3. Have a thing

You have a thing and it’s one tier
better than it was before you took
this stunt. If it’s a starship, it’s of
Starfighter size.

Example: I have a starship of star-

fighter size and its name is the Bette
Davis.

4.12.4. We have a thing

Make someone else’s thing better because you both
own it. Typically this is a starship. If it is (it should be—
it might be a rule that it has to be) then you can either
increase its tier or increase its size. If you’re the first
person other than the original to add to it, it always
increases the size.

Example: my pal Laramy has a starship and I helped

fund it and keep it shiny so it’s mine too. It’s a corvette and
I’m fine with the name Laramy chose.

4.12.5. Extend a track

One of your stress tracks has an extra box. If used
to extend a track with no boxes (say a physics your
species is weak in) then it gets three boxes.

Example: I am so incredibly well grounded in the ley

lines of the universe that I have four boxes in my mystical

4-51
track.
 4.12.6. Affect the wrong track
You can take stress destined for one track on an-
other instead. Specify the other and tell a good story.

Example: my psionic powers are keyed to my magical

attunement with The Power of the universe and so when
I take psychic damage I can choose to score it on my
mystical track.

4.12.7. Mess with initiative

Initiative order in a fight is usually random or at the
whim of the referee. You can mess with this, pretty
much carte blanche. Always want the option of going
first? That’s a good one. Always want the option to
go last? Also excellent. Choose who goes after you?
Also fine.

Example: tactical genius. At the end of my action in a

fight I decide who goes next.

4.12.8. Be extra awesome in particular circum-

stances but not too awesome because we don’t
want you hogging the limelight
Under some circumstance you can take an auto-
matic 2 on your roll instead of rolling the dice. De-
scribe those circumstances.

Example: I am such an incredible pilot in a chase that

whenever I am trying to escape I can just take 2 instead
of rolling the dice.

4.13. Associations
Associations are organizations. The characters in
play all belong to the same association so it’s time to
determine the nature of the beast! Associations have
three statistics which act like skills and are even in a
pyramid. They are:
Remit: the pinnacle statistic which determines the

2
ownership and the purpose of the association. Its

4- 5
rank is 2.
 Specification: choose two from
the list. They detail the nature and
methods of the association. They
are both at rank 1.
Each remit also comes with a
starting complication. This is an
aspect, taggable by the enemy, and
currently free-taggable. It can only
be removed by playing out a story
where it is resolved. This is a tech-
nique the referee might bring into
play as part of risk at any time if
the story seems to demand it. We
start with one so that we start in
the soup.
Draw one remit and two specifi-
cations from the list below:

Academic
The texts have revealed an
ancient library.
Remit: owned by the public, ac-
ademic associations are motivated
by discovery and teaching.
Specifier: the association is involved in research
and publication.

Administrative
Critical paperwork is out of order.
Remit: owned by any other organization, adminis-
trative organizations manage processes, people, and
paperwork.
Specifier: the association has substantial procedural
and archival resources.

Ancient
A new idea threatens the status quo.
Remit: this association has changed hands and char-

4-53
acter thousands of times—it now could be owned by
anyone. Its sole purpose now is self-perpetuation as
that’s what has allowed it to last so long in the first
place.
 Specifier: the association does whatever it needs
to survive today. It is clogged with self-justifying pro-
cesses and bureaucracy.

Charitable
Someone wants you to stop.
Remit: owned by its membership, the purpose of a
charitable association is to benefit others.
Specifer: provides beneficial works for others.

Commercial
Not yet profitable.
Remit: owned by a body of investors, the purpose of
a commercial association is to generate tons of profit.
Specifier: interacts with commercial entities or inci-
dentally generates profits.

Criminal
That last heist went bad.
Remit: owned by a single person or oligarchy, the
purpose of a criminal association is to profit in viola-
tion of the law.
Specifier: the association’s methods are frequently
illegal.

Cultural
A great new poet has been discovered.
Remit: government or privately owned, the associ-
ation facilitates artists, poets, and the like, ensuring
their works are seen by many.
Specifier: the association supports or augments
cultural endeavours.

Entertainment
This world never heard of you.
Remit: privately owned, the objective of the associ-
ation is to provide frivolous creative works for audi-
ences.

4
Specifier: part of the association’s work supports

4- 5
the entertainment industry.

Exploratory
 There’s a new link to a new
place.
Remit: owned by individuals, ex-
ploratory associations travel to
document little known places and
things.
Specifier: the association is no-
madic, searching out its remit in
far-flung locales.

Industrial
Short on a critical material.
Remit: owned by another corporation, industrial as-
sociations make things. Sometimes just the raw ma-
terials to make other things.
Specifier: involves manufacturing or refinement.

Medical
Someone nearby needs you.
Remit: owned by a government, the purpose of a
medical association is to deliver life-saving technol-
ogy and skill.
Specifier: has the capability to deploy life-saving
technology and skill.

Military
Pursued by an enemy.
Remit: owned by a government, the purpose of the
military is to execute violence.
Specifier: works with militaries or in a military role.

Political
Opposition leader is dangerously unstable.
Remit: owned by its membership, the purpose is to
change the policies of the State.
Specifier: manipulates political connections.

Religious

4-55
There is proof that your philosophy is wrong.
Remit: owned by its membership, the organization
is dedicated to perpetuating and expanding belief in
their philosophy or mythology.
 Specifier: the organization caters to or is an arm of
a religion. This might be a mystical science or it might
be complete nonsense.

Rescue
A distress call is incoming.
Remit: owned by a government, the purpose of the
rescue association is to assist those in danger.
Specifier: provides assistance in dangerous circum-
stances.

Secret
Someone knows who you are.
Remit: owned by unknowns and has shadowy pur-
poses.
Specifier: operates under the radar.

Security
A client is in grave danger.
Remit: the organization ensures the safety and se-
curity of persons, organizations, or things at risk. It
might be privately owned or it might be an arm of
government. It takes itself very seriously.
Specifier: one function of the organization is to pro-
vide security or security-related materiel.

Having created the association’s remit and specifi-

cations, bring them together with a short description
then extract two phrases to use as aspects.

Example: Commercial, Criminal, Medical: RE-

PLACE-MEAT, a hub-spanning company that provides
transplant services, technology, and parts for remarkably
low cost. Its methods of acquisition and delivery can be
quite shady, operating in regions where organ trans-
plants are illegal or providing illegal organs. Specialize
in cross-species transplants. Has been accused of outright
theft of organs from living beings but of course this is not

6
true. We’ll take the aspects quite shady and transplant

4- 5
services and we will start with the complication not yet
profitable. We need to fix that.
 All associations have a refresh of five and three
stunts. When a stunt allows you to use a company
statistic as a skill, that skill rank is 2. Choose stunts
from the following:

Branches all over

When in the region with all the branch offices (the
Hub, the Rim, or a specific Arm), players may spend
the association’s Fate points instead of their own.
Make sure to narrate in the company’s interactions!

Company armoury
The weapons locker is stocked with goodies all the
time. You may substitute the association’s Remit for
any combat skill for one roll by paying one fate point.

Company credit
We want our people to be comfortable and happy
— they work hard, they should play hard. You stay for
free in great digs whenever they are available.

Company library
Our information resources are nearly limitless. You
may substitute the association’s Remit for any knowl-
edge skill for one roll by paying one fate point.

Company ship
The spacecraft we use are the best anywhere, even
if we have to design them ourselves. They can be full
of surprises. Substitute the association’s Remit for a
ship combat roll and pay a fate point.

Deep Pockets
The association has two extra refresh.

Emergency Rescue
We got your back. For a cost of one fate point from
each player, the association arrives in the nick of time

4-57
extracting them from a conflict. Those not rescued
can either spend a point from the association’s pool
or negotiate a personal concession. Or fight on alone!
 Known throughout the galaxy
Just the fact that you work for us gives you power.
Whenever tagging an association aspect you may pay
with association fate points.

Mystical
The warehouse is full of all the right charms to
augment your arcane knowledge without giving you
away. Whenever using a skill with the mystic qualifi-
er, you may spend association Fate points to invoke
aspects.

Natural
We specialize in technology that manipulates the
real. Whenever using a skill with the natural qualifi-
er, you may spend association Fate points to invoke
aspects.

Psychic
Our extensive psychic science division ensures that
your talents are optimized. Whenever using a skill
with the psychic qualifier, you may spend associa-
tion Fate points to invoke aspects.

Reputable
Our reputation is spotless and we aim to keep it
that way. You may pay off compels with association
fate points.

Reputation for excellence

We hire the best and everyone knows it. When they
succeed, we grow more powerful. Whenever a char-
acter takes out or gets a concession from an oppo-
nent, add a fate point to the associations pool. Only
once per scene though.

4.14. Advancement
After every session set aside a half hour or so at the

8
end to go over potential advancements. Consider this

4- 5
checklist:
 Did you use a skill at rank 0? You
get the skill at rank 1 if you have
an empty slot for it (you can have
a maximum of four rank 1 skills).
Did you heal a crippling conse-
quence? Re-write the consequence
as a new aspect that’s more posi-
tive. And yes now you get another
fate point in the refresh.
Did you find that an aspect or
stunt no longer adequately applies
to your character? Discuss it with
the rest of the table and if it works
for everyone, change it.
Did you get some loot? Make
it permanent with a new have a
thing stunt. Just one thing though.
Pick the thing you most want to become a part of
your character. If you got any other things, they could
get lost in the pool or something later.
Do you want to improve a skill? You can move a
skill up the pyramid as long as you move one down.
Move a skill from 2 to 3? Move the old 3 down one.

4.15. What about the ref?

The ref gets characters too, but you get to make
them up entirely yourself. And you need a fast way
because you aren’t always expecting a robot bar fight.
No need to spend a ton of energy on that!
You might find you want a richer character for a
villain or a patron or some other narrative purpose.
Use the same scheme but add detail as the charac-
ter’s importance changes. You’ll find that you pro-
mote and demote characters all the time: sometimes
a thug turns out to be interesting because of interac-
tion with the characters. Manipulate the statistics as
you see fit. That’s your prerogative as the ref.
These characters (called NPCs or “non-player char-

4-59
acters” in many systems, but I don’t want to demote
the ref to a non-player!) have a “cap”. That’s the maxi-
mum skill level they have in their pyramid.
 1-cap characters have only one interesting skill and
it’s not very good. They don’t get an aspect nor fate
points.
2-cap characters have one skill at rank 2 and two at
rank 1. They are competent but not experts. They get
an aspect and a fate point.
3-cap characters have a skill at rank 3 and the pyr-
amid that follows from that. These are now almost
the same power as a character played by the others
at the table! They get two aspects and two fate points
and a stunt.
Progress this as far as you like. 4-cap characters get
three aspects and as many fate points and two stunts.
5-cap characters get four and four and three. At this
point you’re going to have to start inventing new
skills. Go as high you need to suit the story!
All of the ref’s characters have three stress boxes
in the categories normal for their species. You should
certainly consider making new species if you like!
Galaxy’s a big place.
Now, not every character is worth even this much
information. That’s fine, take what notes you want
and play them how you like. If they suddenly need to
have mechanical impact (oppose a roll, for example)
then quickly whip them up with these rules.

4.15.1. Mobs
Sometimes the players will get into a fight with
a lot of enemy characters that don’t need a lot of
detail. So instead of inventing a whole character for
each one, make the whole mob one character. Just
use the rules above but describe it as a gang. Every
time the mob uses a consequence to mitigate harm,
also knock them down one cap. A 3-cap mob gets the
consequence lead hooligan is unconscious and
becomes a 2-cap, losing all its rank 1 skills.

4- 6 0
4-61
4- 6 2
 5. Things

If you have a skill above rank zero and you need

a thing to use it (like, say, Shoot), well, you have that
thing unless you have an aspect that says you don’t.
So let’s say you get arrested and stripped and put in
jail. Well, its perfectly reasonable for the ref to give
you the aspect you ain’t got shit and so, since as-
pects are true, you don’t. This is fair since an aspect
like that is temporary.
There are a couple of things to consider, though.
First, if you have an aspect like I have a concealed
shotgun then we have a conflict. It’s easily resolved
though. Basically, you want to self-compel this aspect.
It’s not for a negative but a positive but still the econ-
omy at least makes it fair: you pay a fate point and
you keep your shotgun. You need to supply a story
for how you kept it. Like where you hid it.
If you really want a shotgun but don’t have an as-
pect for it then you ain’t got shit overrides your
desires.
So in the latter case, if you want to shoot and you
have you ain’t got shit still active on you, well, you
can’t. Not until you find a shooting weapon.
To reiterate, though: if there’s no special effect on
you and you want to use a skill you have at level 1
or higher, then you have the tool to execute that skill.
You’re no fool.
So much for unimportant things.

5.1. Important things

Important things are different.
Important things are things that you have because
of a stunt. Or maybe a thing you got as loot. It’s a
special thing and it has features above and beyond its
simple purpose.
It has one or more aspects.
 It has zero or more stunts. Draw them from the
same categories as for a character.
It may have a stress track.
It may have its own fate points.
The most important thing about important things
is that they are characters.
And so we will record them like characters and we
will develop them like characters.
Important things have a tier. A rank, a rating, a lev-
el. A category of amazingness.
Tier 0 is regular gear. It’s the stuff you have just be-
cause you have a skill. It’s only barely a character. It
goes through a Purpose phase which is simply to de-
scribe what it’s for.
Tier 1 is special gear. It’s hand made, an heirloom,
customized. It has a history. Consequently it goes
through the History phase as well as the Purpose
phase.
Tier 2 gear is not only special, it’s been around. It
had a previous owner and they might still be out
there. They might even miss their prized possession.
It’s not necessarily famous but the previous owner
might be. It goes through a History and a Previous
owner phase. And a Purpose phase of course. At tier
2 equipment starts to imply motivations and compli-
cations.
Tier 3 gear is famous. It’s got a coloured history and
several previous owners. It adds a Fame phase which
adds more capabilities but also a new stress track to
manage: recognition. It’s possible for tier 3 and high-
er gear to become so recognized that you can’t keep
playing a footloose adventurer while you own it. You
might be Taken Out by your gear’s fame.
Tier 4 gear is awe-inspiring. It’s mentioned in leg-
ends. There are prophecies that describe its future.
Its origins may predate time itself. It adds a Destiny
phase.
If you spend one stunt on a piece of gear, it is tier

4
1. If you spend 2 stunts on a piece of gear, it is tier 2.

5- 6
I bet you can guess what you get for another stunt.
New gear can be found as loot and it might be
any tier as the referee prefers. You might also find or
fabricate an upgrade as part of your character’s ad-
vancement (since you might add a stunt, you might
use that to add a tier to the equipment). And you can
always use a stunt to upgrade someone else’s equip-
ment, which is especially likely if we’re talking about
the starship everyone uses to get around.

5.1.1. Purpose
What’s it for? That’s its purpose. It should be tied to
one branch of physics. Pick that too. If it’s a weapon
it will attack that physics track. If it’s armour it will
defend against attacks on that track. Ships get much
more complicated and have distinct rules.
Example: I have a psionic engineering toolkit for repair-
ing mindwarps. It uses Psychic physics.

5.1.2. History
Describe the history of your gear and give it an
aspect that reflects this. The aspect is in the equip-
ment’s scope—distinct from your own!—which gives
you a new pool of aspects to draw on as well as your
character aspects.

Example: I have a highly customized shamanic spanner

that can be used to perform spirit surgery. It uses Mysti-
cal physics and has the aspect perfect runic align-
ment.

5.1.3. Previous owner

In addition to the History actions, name the previ-
ous owner or perhaps the category of previous own-
er. Are they still around? Were they hated? Are they
looking for the gear? Tell me a story and pick another
aspect and a stunt.

Example: I have an ancient disintegrator pistol. It’s a

hand weapon and so has optimal range 1. It was used
in the last Horror Vendetta and not by us. It was used by

5-65
the Horror-general Galoctopus and it is made from the
tenebrous shadow fibers of her awful realm. She’s gone,
but horror-guns are illegal.
It is a Natural physics weapon.
 It has the aspect designed by
horrors for horror.
It has the aspect illegal and for
good reason.
It has the stunt Swap Physics: can be
used as both a Natural and a Mystical
weapon.

5.1.4. Fame
This piece of kit is very well
known. It’s mentioned in books
people have read. There was a
miniseries. In addition to the Pre-
vious owner tale, describe who
it’s famous with and why. Add an
aspect, a stunt, and a Recognition
track with 3 boxes. Every time you use the equipment
and succeed with style, check off a box. You can only
heal it with downtime—a session in which you never
bring it out gets you a stress box recovered.
Or you can counter the stress with a Recognition
Consequence. Just like other character consequenc-
es, these can be used to mitigate stress. You only get
three, one of each level. If you take stress you can’t
mitigate and have no more space on the track, you
are swamped with tourists and can no longer func-
tion normally. You are Taken Out.

Example: I am augmented with my Personal Extra-Ner-

vous Implement System. It’s a device that gives me four
extra arms and two extra eyes to enhance my combat
skills. I reprogrammed it after I stole it from the Mindlord
Wisconsin Sam but it still attracts some attention.
It employs Psychic physics.
It has the aspect engage all targets thanks to its
use in the Brainwar skirmishes.
It has the aspect Sam left a manual in it.
It has the stunt affect the wrong track: it can shunt

6
physical damage to the wearer’s Psychic stress track.

6
It has the aspect known everywhere as in-

5-
credibly lethal.
 It has the stunt independent attacks which let
you take a second shoot or fight roll each round.
It has a Recognition track of 3.

5.1.5. Destiny
This thing has prophecies written about it. It’s im-
portant. Nations vie for it. In addition to the Fame
story, tell us all about its destiny—what will it be a
part of and when? You can be vague or not since the
story might not be true. But it’s what people believe.
Its Recognition track is only one box long.
Add an aspect and three fate points. When tagging
an aspect on the gear, you can spend its fate points
instead of yours. It never refreshes, though—it only
recovers them when its aspects are compelled.
What the heck, add another stunt too.

Example: I wear the jeweled armour of Migro. It has

been handed down from generation to generation in my
family and I am the last in the line: I have no spawn and
can bear none and so it must be me who is born to wear it
in the final battle with the Corehorrors at the End of Time.
Which I assume is a place since there’s no sign that time
is actually coming to an end.
It is a Natural physics device.
It has the aspect ancient technology.
It has the aspect my father taught me all there
is to know about it.
It has the stunt extend a track: the armour also has a
Mystical track of 3.
It has the aspect intimidating as hell since spikey
powered armour is like that.
It has the stunt extend a track: the armour also has a
Psionic track of 3.
It has the aspect will last until the end of time.
It has the stunt swap a skill because of its integral weap-
ons: the user may use Athletics to Shoot.
It has a Recognition track of one box and three fate

5-67
points
 5.2. Starships are characters
Starships can have two physics since they have two
functions: movement and shooting. They are usually
the same but do not have to be! So you might have
a runedrive (mystical) for movement but also have
neutrino-seeking thermonuclear missiles (natural) for
shooting.
Starships also have a size: starfighter or corvette. A
starfighter can hold one person and one fabricant. A
corvette can hold half a dozen people, as many again
fabricants, and some cargo.
Starships also have three physics tracks like people
with three boxes each and a firing reticle. Personal
starships use the starfighter reticle and corvettes
use the corvette reticle.

5.2.1. Starfighter
directly behind
The Starfighter reticle
at tier zero can only fire
behind and above
straight ahead. You point
directly above your ship and the shooting
goes there. When dogfight-
ahead above
ing you need to manipu-
late your enemies into the
behind and right
behind and left

directly right
directly left

“ahead” arc in order to be

ahead right
ahead left

ahead
able to attack them.
Fighting in a starfighter
means being great at Chase
ahead below so you can skewer your
directly below targets straight down the
boresight, just like archaic
behind and below
fighter planes.
In a starfighter, the pi-
lot has no penalty for also
shooting.

5.2.2. Corvette
The Corvette reticle adds a tailgunner and so can

8
also shoot into the “directly behind” arc. When you’re

5- 6
in a dogfight you can shoot at anyone you can ma-
neuver into either of these arcs.
 directly behind

behind and above

You have a lot more lee-
directly above
way when fighting in a cor-
vette because you don’t ahead above
need to concentrate on

behind and right

behind and left
getting your enemies into

directly right
directly left

ahead right
ahead left
one place on the reticle. ahead
In a corvette, the pilot
fires weapons with a pen-
alty of -2. These ships nor- ahead below
mally have separate gun-
directly below
ners. The exception is the
directly ahead arc, which behind and below

the pilot can always fire

into without penalty.

5.2.3. Stunts
Here are some additional ideas for starship stunts,
over and above those already discussed.
Improved coverage: choose to add another arc to
your ship. Choose from the list below or imagine the
addition and choose new arcs appropriate and fair
for the addition. Consider:
Barbette mount: existing arc gains its associated be-
low, right, left and above arcs.

directly behind directly behind

behind and above behind and above behind and above

directly above directly above directly above

ahead above ahead above ahead above directly behind

behind and right
behind and right

behind and right

behind and left
behind and left

behind and left

directly right
directly left
directly right

directly right
ahead right
directly left

directly left
ahead right

ahead right
ahead left
ahead left

ahead left

ahead ahead ahead

ahead below ahead below ahead below

directly below directly below directly below

behind and below behind and below behind and below

Starfighter upgraded to bar- Corvette upgraded to forward Corvette upgraded to rear

bette barbette barbette

Rear gun: if you don’t already have one, add one.

Fires only into the “directly behind” arc.
Side gun: add a gun on each side that fires into that
side’s direct, behind, and ahead arcs.

5-69
Extend: add three adjacent arcs to an existing
mount and explain it.
Short range weapons: take no penalty at Close and
Far range.
 Long range weapons: take no penalty at Escaping
and Far range.
Blockade runner: moving a ship from Escaping to
off the map costs only 1 shift.

5.2.4. Tracks
So what does it mean to a starship that takes a hit
on its psychic track when it has no psychic equip-
ment? Or mystical?
The psychic track is an attack on the crew: they are
disoriented or disabled such that the ship’s behaviour
is impacted. This is not lasting harm to the crew.
The mystical track is an attack on the ship’s sense
of place in the universe. Describe it as untrustable
sensors and automation. It’s also an attack on the
mind of any fabs.
The natural track is straight up physical harm.

5.3. Weapons are characters

Weapons also have an optimum range in zones.
Brawling weapons have an optimal range of zero.
Hand weapons have an optimal range of 1. Longarms
have an optimal range of 2.
Take some time to think about your weapons when
describing them. What exactly is a melee mystical
weapon? What does a psionic rifle look like? What
does it do? I mean, we know it does harm, but what
kind of text is going on that crippling consequence
when you score it? Drooling vegetable?

5.3.1. Stunts
As with anything you can make up your own stunts,
but here are some ideas.
Harmful: this weapon causes +2 stress on a suc-
cessful hit (it doesn’t add to the die roll, just the stress
after the roll). Attach the harm to a physics.
Versatile: this weapon has two optimum ranges in-
stead of the usual one!

0
Disintegrator: double stress on armour but it

5- 7
doesn’t carry through to the target. Blow their ar-
moured pants off!
5.4. Armour is a character
Armour also has a stress track of three boxes. It can
be used to take damage instead of you taking damage
as long as the physics match. If you need a conse-
quence, that’s on you though.
Again take some time to describe your armour and
think about non-natural physics. What would psychic
armour be?

5.4.1. Stunts
Dual purpose: has a second stress track in a differ-
ent physics.
Military grade: add two more boxes to one of the
armour’s stress tracks.
Reflective: pick a physics and any successful attack
from that physics does the same stress inflicted on
the armour to the attacker. If both of you have re-
flective armour it could bounce back and forth until
someone’s armour is destroyed!

5.5. Gadgets are characters

Repair kits, tool kits, grappling cannons, psychic
analysis helmets, ley-flares for throwing off pursuers,
bionic limbs, are all fair game. Be creative and make
up any purpose and invent a story for it and that’s a
tier 1 or higher gadget.

5-71
5- 7 2
 6. The Universe

Hub worlds are supposed to be the centre of the universe,

the source of culture and innovation, but sitting here for
the sixth day in the docking queue I know that the Hub is
about one thing: waiting. Waiting long enough that there
are re-supply drones patrolling the queue, trailing huge
spherical cargo balls in a train.
This wouldn’t bug me so much, but every day we wait
is another chance for a spot inspection and cargo drones
aren’t the only patrols on the queue. We play holo, we
sleep, we spar, but the weapons locker is open and the
blasters are all charged. The quick release on the drive feed
is always at hand. We are ready to fight or run or both
and we’ve been on that edge for a week. It eats at you.
So when the dockmaster vids in—it’s some kind of bug
thing covered in...what, wires or something?—it’s a relief.
Cleared for 17G in Artemis Station. About time. We slide
out of the queue and slow burn for the station. And then
it suddenly flashes white and all the screens go dark. The
panel blazes red with alarms on the comms quarter. I yell
at Ryser to find us an optical, open a window or some-
thing. They do.
The hull starts pinging. High speed debris.
”Screens up! Unlock the drive feed!”
Someone blew my pick-up to pieces in the hub. There
were about to be a lot of police drones in a very small
space. Starting to feel pretty good about the wait though
— we should have been on that station.

The galaxy is filled with civilizations and booming

with business. Most of these civilizations are ancient
but travel throughout the galaxy is relatively com-
mon and so there is a common baseline of technol-
ogy. There are improvements, certainly, and there are
backwater planets that don’t trade effectively and so
have poorer technology, but generally technology is
pervasive. It’s also different from our own world’s
 M
Ti

a ni
a

nt
c h ae a n A

i Ar m
Ar m
n
ea
rm

m
The

u
Au k
Hub
A a i an Arm
ru
m
Ar

an
O rp h e

technology more in style than in substance. And it

plays by slightly different rules.
In this sense, then, most technology is an analogue
of modern or ancient technology from the real world
rather than a prediction or extrapolation of our own.
This is not science fiction as speculation. This is sci-
ence fiction as wonder and fantasy.
Towards the center of the galaxy is the Hub, a re-
gion dense with worlds, in which trade is brisk and
mystical powers are weak. This is a place where com-
merce and politics dominate and military action is
huge and devastating. No one civilization dominates
here and the power balance is constantly in flux. It is
a dangerous and lucrative place that moves at a fast
pace.
Curving out from the hub are six Arms, and between

4
the arms are the Gulfs. In the arms are many stars,

6- 7
though the pace slows as we move away from the
hub until, at the Rim where the Arms blur and merge,
mysticism dominates and life is simpler though per-
haps more brutal. There are always forces from the
Hub that believe the powers available out at the Rim
can be imported to the Hub for leverage there, and
sometimes they are right. But the price is always high
and the successes fleeting.
The Gulfs between the Arms are nearly empty of
stars and difficult to navigate. In these places there
are few civilizations but there are other things. In the
Gulfs horrors lurk, sleeping for slow millennia until
the fast bright minds of the civilizations come too
close. As with the Rim, there are inhabitants of the
Hub that believe these horrors can be harnessed or at
least aimed and unleashed. This almost always ends
badly. But if they can be tamed or at least directed, the
power one might wield over the Hub worlds would
be unstoppable.
And then there are the Arms themselves. The vast
bulk of the civilizations are in the Arms and their con-
cerns are largely local: the machinations of the Hub
worlds touch them only indirectly, usually as part of a
strategic play towards the Rim or into the Gulfs. In the
Arms people are just people and they are getting on
with their lives as people do. But sometimes events
sweep people up and force them to act, and this is
where we find heroes. Just folks, with simple (though
passionate!) motivations that find they cannot ignore
an injustice or that must pursue vengeance. This is
where we draw our characters from, our unlikely he-
roes, ourselves clad in the trappings of the Elysium
Flare.

6.1. Facts
We need to talk. We need to come to an under-
standing about the ways in which this universe is not
your universe. Now, it’s like your universe in a lot of
ways, and most of those ways you will understand
intuitively: when you drop things they fall, when you
accelerate you go faster, and so on. However, there

6-75
are details of real world physics that are not the same
in this universe. The upside of this is that Elysium
Flare uses a kind of “folk physics”—that is, if you’re
 untrained in physics you probably won’t even sus-
pect a difference. Here are the differences anyway.
There are three different branches of physics here,
and they overlap somewhat.

6.1.1. Natural physics

Natural physics is like ours, mostly, and is manipu-
lated by technology. That is, natural physics is used
to understand the universe enough to invent gad-
gets that manipulate the physics to produce use-
ful effects. This gives us vehicles, weapons, sensors,
and so on. Technology is something anyone can use,
so throughout the universe it is the most common
physical manipulation around. But it’s not the only
way to manipulate the universe!
These physics are represented and manipulated
with mathematics and modelling and algorithms,
and these things are easily stored and transmitted
and interpreted. The use of natural physics is there-
fore more widespread than the others. You can teach
it and you can explain it on a mass scale.
In Elysium Flare natural physics does not make the
speed of light a barrier to your top speed. It’s a spe-
cial value, to be sure, and going faster than light is
a special thing to do requiring special equipment
or people, but it’s not impossible. So we can pretty
much ignore relativity as well. And don’t bet on ther-
modynamics either. Basically anywhere real physics
says “impossible!” we will ask “what if?”
The gaps and origins in natural physics, the places
it cannot describe, are generally comprehensible by
another branch of physics: the mystical.

6.1.2. Mystical physics

These are the set of universal laws that are manipu-
lable by faith and arcana. This requires dedication and
wisdom and experience and morality. Anyone can ac-
cess this by making the right sacrifices and staying

6
on the path laid down by mystics before you. It al-

6- 7
lows and explains certain limited exceptions to natu-
ral physics and its gaps and exceptions are partially
comprehensible by psychic physics.
 The representation and reasoning of mystical phys-
ics uses obscure symbologies and the details of the
presentation are important—a particular paper or
ink, the right frame of mind, written in the right place
at the right time. Aesthetics have concrete powers.
Consequently transmitting mystical calculations is
useless—the medium here really is the message. This
limits the rate at which mystical understanding can
be propagated and it is commonly only taught from
master to pupil.
The trappings of mystical physics are special things
and special places and special times and special peo-
ple. None of these can be readily fabricated but rather
they are found. If they were once fabricated, that art
is long lost.

6.1.3. Psychic physics

There is another set of laws that is even more per-
sonal, that resides inside the individual mind. Not ev-
eryone can manipulate this kind of physics, but in
principle any kind of mind might be capable. Psychic
physics allow certain limited exceptions to natural
physics and is partially comprehensible by natural
physics—it is understood that certain patterns of
brain activity are associated with psychic activity, for
example, and it can in principle be damped or am-
plified by natural technology, but the why of it all is
permanently and provably elusive.
Psychic physics is internalized—it is not calculated
in real space but rather is a unique and internal calcu-
lation that takes place in the instinctive part of recep-
tive minds. It can be reproduced but it is mostly about
effort and desire and talent and so psychics can only
very loosely define how they do what they do. They
certainly cannot communicate it even to other psy-
chics but can only nod knowingly at the description
of how it feels when it works
Psychic physics doesn’t make things external to the

6-77
mind but there are things that can be linked to or
powered by the brain.
 6.1.4. Good and evil
The universe of the Elysium Flare certainly has
many moral shades of gray, but there is also stark
good and evil. This mostly derives from the mystical,
though this does not mean that species weak in the
mystical are immune to influence from one side or
the other. Far from it—they are often ill-equipped to
resist.
Evil, the darkness, the Hegemony, is that which
denies the needs of others—their power to choose,
to live, to play—in order to secure some other gain.
Usually that’s more power to deny, but sometimes
it’s simply more power, attention, or wealth for an
individual. There are mystical forces that are ener-
gized by the excitement, fear, and pain that this path
brings and they can often only express themselves
by empowering others. At the pinnacle of any tyran-
nical movement is likely an individual motivated by
personal gain who is a puppet of these powers.
Good is that which engages the needs of others,
that empowers them to choose and to play. It is the
harder path for individuals as its rewards are distrib-
uted—it does not elevate the individual but rather en-
ables the individual to elevate others. It is humbling
and quiet and so the great expressors of Good, those
that are enabled by the mystical powers of light, are
frequently unknown. They work their trade locally,
making a difference person by person, spreading the
power of good rather than concentrating it.

6.1.5. Chaos and the Void

All living things generally perpetuate order. This is
against the very fabric of the universe, which inexo-
rably moves towards perfect chaos—entropy. Some
argue that this is the very purpose of intelligent life.
There are, however, beings that actively embrace
the Void, that seek chaos, disorder, and the grey per-
fect cold of entropy. These are the Horrors between

8
the arms of the galaxy and they are the one thing that

6- 7
everyone should fear. Their actions assure the even-
tual destruction of everything. And yet their power is
so great that of course they are a temptation—there
are always those that are certain there is a way to
control these forces and wield them to elevate order
and perpetuate an ideology. It has never worked—
all such empires rapidly collapse under the Horrors
themselves. Destruction is assured. The worst fear is
that a Hegemony riding the Horrors will be so suc-
cessful that the collapse will span the galaxy and then
everything will end. There is evidence in the night sky
that this has happened before.

6.1.6. Planetary statistics Building a universe

There are a few critical descriptors for planets that For each major location
we will generate as needed. You can of course expand in the galaxy (the
on these. Keep adding and changing as part of play. Hub, the Rim, and
each Arm) we’ll give
Trouble: the essential conflict in this world. you some description
Culture: what it’s like to live here. and some tables to
generate worlds.
Environment: what it’s like to be here.
History: what went on before. So pick an arm and
make a world. The
Proximity: the distance to each neighbour. last thing you’ll do
Each has a cost. For each world start with 5 world is generate links
points and buy one aspect from each type. -- the worlds that
are attached to this
one by jumpspace
6.2. The Hub lines, wormholes,
or whatever your
The Hub is a busy place. That’s an aspect. fiction is for these
Most fabricants originate in the Hub because it is so connections.
busy that locals need to keep making more locals to Then make more
do the menial work. worlds!
In the Hub, most species identify themselves as
originating there but in fact all but one come from one
of the Arms (or perhaps even further away). And so
the Hub is a melange of beings, having all conceivable
shapes and colours and forms. Here even humanity
does not dominate and it can’t really be said that any
particular species “rules”. More than anywhere else in
the galaxy, species is genuinely irrelevant to station.
The worlds of the Hub all orbit their own stars, of
course, but these stars all orbit the black hole, Ar-
chon, at the center of the galaxy. These worlds are

6-79
densely populated, many of them mono-climates of
steel and glass and other exotic but synthetic materi-
als. They are world-cities encapsulating industry and
bureaucracy on a planetary scale.
 And these worlds all favour technology. People
equip themselves with gadgets to assist their labour.
They embed technology in their flesh (if they have
flesh) and even their minds.

6.2.1. Species
Every species can be found here.

6.2.2. Technology
All technology can be acquired here, though on
many Hub worlds weaponry is restricted or banned.
This doesn’t mean it can’t be bought, of course, but it
won’t be legal. Industry and trade is vibrant here, so if
it exists it can probably be found.

6.2.3. Law
Law is generally restrictive. Weapons are often il-
legal but duelling laws are common. The overriding
concern on most worlds is managing the dense pop-
ulation, and widespread personal armament is more
problem than solution. There are worlds that experi-
ment with it anyway.

6.2.4. Mysticism
Mystics are rare and effects deviate from the mean,
though usually according to some logic. If there is
any consistent mystical technology here, it must be
bureaucratic. Perhaps there are secrets in processes
used unchanged through the ages and reasons why
they work better than they should.

6.2.5. Psychics
Psychics are common in the Hub and psychic tech-
nology is readily available. The density of the popu-
lation can make it hard for some psychics and so
shielding technology is popular.

6.2.6. Hegemony

0
The Hegemony has made no inroads into the Hub.

6- 8
This is a good thing—a Hegemony loose in the Hub
would be devastating, placing trillions at risk.
6.2.7. Generating Hub worlds

cost Trouble

0 Massively overcrowded
1 Industrial wasteland
Heat pollution is getting pretty bad
No permanent residents allowed
2 Bureaucratic hellhole
Waste disposal is a crime
Zero-sum population law: if you visit someone has to leave.
3 Worldwide computer systems crash
Running out of air
Power outages threaten life and data
4 Awakening data hegemony
At war with another planet-company

cost Culture

0 Everyone is very busy

1 A noble class rules the rest
A corporate board of directors rules
Owned by a powerful cooperative
2 An egalitarian utopia
An automated hierarchy
3 Very few people and all crazy rich
Hive mind
4 One free sophont and a world of slaves
One sophont

cost Environment

0 All city
1 One huge city and a poisoned wilderness
A huge city disguised as a wilderness
2 Airless surface and an underground city world
Airless with domes over every crater
3 Floating network of cities in a gas giant

6-81
An orbital structure
4 A slower than light city ship going somewhere
A structure that surrounds the sun
 cost History

0 An ancient and ossified bureaucracy

1 Recovering from a recent revolution
A new revolution is log overdue
2 Notorious for starting wars between rival worlds
Cheats on zone taxes
3 Started a Horror incursion for profit and still living it down
Chained Horror in the planetary basement
4 Recently installed as-is by a hypercorporation
Created by an ancient hegemonic brain

cost Proximity

0 One very close, two close

1 Two very close, two close
Two very close, one close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one far
One far
3 Four very close, two far
4 One distant

6.3. The Rim

Life is slow on the Rim. The worlds are poor by
Hub standards, but the people here like it that way.
They live well enough and they do their own work—
it’s rare to find a construct at the Rim and those that
do live here are typically citizens.
The worlds of the Rim are diverse but have a com-
mon theme: they are worlds where people work the
land (whatever the land is) and care little for galactic
politics.

6.3.1. Species
Every race can be found here—the Rim is very di-
verse. It’s also sparse, though, and huge, so while the
Rim as a whole can be said to be diverse, individual

2
worlds actually tend to be dominated by single spe-

6- 8
cies.
6.3.2. Technology
The technology that is available on the Rim tends
towards older or even ancient models. However, it’s
also a place where a lot of strange experimentation
goes on. Isolated, rejected geniuses toil away in the
lawless safety of the Rim and sometimes stumble
across technologies that have never been seen be-
fore.

6.3.3. Law
Law depends on the culture of each world, but is
generally lax. Weapons are often necessary to survive
in this wild space and even where restrictions are en-
forced there are so many transients operating illegally
that getting banned technology is easy to arrange. Not
always easy to survive—dealing with ruthless killers is
risky—but easy to arrange.

6.3.4. Mysticism
The Rim has much to explore, with worlds sepa-
rated by more space than anywhere else in the galaxy,
and that means that there remain many undiscov-
ered artifacts and transection points where mystical
energies might be focused in new and powerful ways.
It’s a place where mystics are easily found.

6.3.5. Psychics
Psychics thrive on the mass mind and so in the
sparseness of the Rim they are relatively rare. The
ones that do eke out a living in the wilds are often
insane.

6.3.6. Hegemony
The Hegemony does not seem to be interested in
the Rim—several worlds have been dismantled but
they are all on the fringes of expansion that is di-
rected into an arm and not outwards into the Rim.

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 6.3.7. Generating Rim worlds

cost Trouble

0 Local bandits make trouble

1 Something terribly wrong with the crops
Tourists stopped coming
Economy is slowing down
2 A corporation is ravaging the ecosystem
An external power is exploiting the workforce
Aliens are taking our jobs
3 A missing resource (water, air...)
The atmosphere generators are breaking down
4 A Hub empire has suddenly become interested
There’s a Horror just past the Rim

cost Culture

0 Quiet and simple

1 Work hard, play hard
Gambling is a part of every transaction
Haggle for everything
2 Lawless and making a packet on it
Traditional pirate hide-out
A government in exile is exiled here
3 Thoughtless obedience to an overlord
Blood is shed for the slightest reason
4 Only one person lives here. It’s their world.
No one lives here: the place is automatic

cost Environment

0 Mostly lush dangerous wilderness

1 A monoculture world, hostile to humans
A waterworld
2 An asteroid belt that imports its air
The world is a junkyard of space ships linked together
3 A strange accident of a world like a gas ring around a neu-
tron star

8 4
4 A constructed world with unknown purpose

6-
A perfect world in the perfect place and no other planets
 cost History

0 Colonized within living memory

1 Fled religious persecution
Political dissidents settled to make their utopia
2 A thousand years of farming and psychic research
Ancient secret societies are pervasive
3 Source of the toughest mercenary soldiers in the galaxy
Everyone is suspiciously brilliant, especially farmers
4 A million years of peace and no one knows why

cost Proximity

0 One close, one far

1 One very close, one far
2 One close, one far, one distant
3 One very close
4 Two distant

6.4. The Gulfs

The Gulfs are mostly empty space—stars are sparse-
ly distributed making travel difficult for any but the
most specialized starships. Yet things live here, things
that fare better in the pure emptiness of these places.
Huge things that find gravity uncomfortable, or that
cannot tolerate the harsh neutrino stream from the
great furnaces of stars.
And people have lived here. Though there are no
known civilizations in any of the Gulfs at this time,
there is evidence that there have been. Wandering
planetoids without a star are occasionally detected
and sometimes they contain ruined structures—may-
be once-livable worlds now stripped to the stone and
ancient buildings, or maybe the remains of a failed
science station. And occasionally there are efforts to
get a foothold here because there is research to be
done in this space—the silence of it is conducive to

6-85
several branches of mystical physics and there are
highly specialized psychics that find the perfect isola-
tion conducive to certain branches of research.
 But there are risks. Even the thin stream of neutri-
nos from a stardrive can aggravate one of the Mon-
strosities here. They move slowly, so slowly that they
may even arrive to address an irritation now long
gone.
An ancient civilization, maybe. Or an old science
station. The Gulfs are quiet and terrifying.

6.4.1. Species
The Gulfs are largely empty, or at least empty of sa-
pient life, but there are outposts and research stations
at the fringes. These tiny habitats might be crewed by
any species but there is one species that has a special
affinity for the strangeness of the Gulfs—the Aaru.

6.4.2. Technology
Technology near the Gulf is mostly whatever the
inhabitants brought with them—it’s rare to find any
kind of industrial base. Remote stations are often
desperate for parts, equipment, and raw materials.

6.4.3. Law
There is no law in the Gulf. That’s part of why the
people that are here chose to be here.

6.4.4. Mysticism
Here entropy is accelerating and natural physics
breaks. Mystical physics are more accurate and more
powerful. The Horrors in the Gulf are best controlled
by mysticism but they are also attracted to it. Some-
thing deeply true exists that combines this universe,
the fraying edges of reality at the Gulf, and whatever
reality is. There is some dangerous unifying theory
that makes sense of all this and it’s mystical in nature.
At least that’s what experiments in the Gulf suggest.

6.4.5. Psychics
The Gulfs are bad places for psychics: there are vast

6
regions where no mind at all exists and this silence

6- 8
can drive a sensitive insane. The only thing worse
than this silence is the occasional glimpse into the
mind of a passing Horror, a flare of blinding insanity,
rage, and incomprehensible multi-dimensional visu-
alizations. Psychics forced to travel here often employ
illegal drugs to stay unconscious as much as possible.

6.4.6. Hegemony
Hegemonies often originate near the Gulfs as
physics and causality are weak there, allowing for
technologies impossibly advanced and dangerously
self-willed. An abandoned but functional research
outpost should be terrifying: fortunes might be made
but the risk of unleashing a Hegemonic algorithm is
substantial.

6.4.7. Generating Gulf worlds

cost Trouble

0 So incredibly lonely
1 Missing vital supplies
Vast amounts of a valuable resource but no air
Sun’s going out
2 Something has gone terribly wrong with the research
We found something and it wants to trade
The world is a sleeping Horror. Shhhh.
3 Someone wants this world for their own
In the middle of a shooting war
The only jump route has been mined
4 We keep a Horror at bay
We’re hiding from a Horror

cost Culture

0 Studious
1 Strict ritual behaviour
Membership in the cult is mandatory
2 Making a ton of money selling tickets
Monstrous waste turns out to have valuable properties
3 Desperately occupied keeping things working

6-87
Try not to think. It feeds on thought.
4 No one lives here
Until last week people lived here. Not now.
 cost Environment

0 An airless rock orbiting a red dwarf

1 An airless rock orbiting an exotic star
An airless rock orbiting a black hole
2 The moon of a gas giant in a trinary system
A floating station in the atmosphere of a gas giant
3 An artificial world (ringworld, Dyson sphere, &c.)
A natural world but an artificial star
4 Just an orbiting computer station and a vast virtual world
to plug into.

cost History

0 Brand new and defensive

1 Hundreds of years of directed study
A series of apparently useless breakthroughs
2 A thousand years of combat, constantly switching owners
An intellectual war over first publication rights
3 History is illegal. No one will talk about it.
History has been forgotten. No one can talk about it.
4 Installed within the last ten years as a kind of world-puppet
operated by a Horror

cost Proximity

0 One close
1 One very close
2 One close, one far
3 One far, one distant
4 Two distant

6.5. The Manichaean Arm

The Manichaean arm is an industrial powerhouse
that provides goods and energy to the galaxy. It is rich
with medium-sized yellow stars suitable for certain
kinds of organic life and has spawned thousands of

8
species. No one empire has ever ruled this arm and

6- 8
so it has many small cultures and frontiers. It’s an
excellent hiding place for those fleeing tyranny, since
it couples the livable wildness of the Rim with prox-
imity to civilized regions. Holdouts from the Mifir Re-
bellion are said to be rebuilding their military here
somewhere and the remnants of the Ma Schism now
form one of the great trade unions.
Humanity emerged here and the species is so pro-
lific and aggressive that it permeates the arm.

6.5.1. Species
This arm is the most cosmopolitan space apart
from the Hub—all species find a home here and none
really dominate. There are a few human empires, but
there is also a sprawling Aukumi empire and other
smaller coalitions. Even in these empires, there are
many species. This diversity may explain the arm’s re-
sistance to hegemonic infiltrations—a hegemony that
specializes will eventually find its targets exhausted.
Not to say that a more adapative one is impossible....

6.5.2. Technology
As with species, the byword here is diversity. Indus-
try is booming and there are constant refinements on
all classic designs of ships and automation available.
It is rare to find a completely rural world here—even
the most ascetic farm colony will still use automation
though they may pay extra to disguise it as biological.

6.5.3. Law
These worlds are organized around freedom rath-
er than order. Governments come and go rapidly,
but humans are relatively ephemeral and the other
species that make their homes here have done so
deliberately, finding the excitement and novelty of
the human method to their tastes. There are a few
Shamayan worlds, though, where revolutions are
carefully scheduled and accompanied by appropriate
bloodshed and then a month-long celebration.

6.5.4. Mysticism

6-89
This arm is not known for its mystical features,
but they do exist. Humans are not natural mystics
but there are historical examples of great human
masters, but this is rare and so mystical artifacts are
 rare and ancient and mystical industries are virtually
unknown. There is a lot of folk-mysticism, though,
which combines real but ill-examined mysticism with
mis-labeled psychic effects and occasionally physical
effects as well. Some claim this is deception.

6.5.5. Psychics
Psychics are as common here as anywhere, but in
much of the arm there is distrust. This may partly
explain the folk-mysticism phenomenon—it’s more
acceptable on many worlds to claim mystical ability
when in fact the source is psychic. That said, there are
only a very few worlds where psychics are banned or,
worse, hunted and killed.

6.5.6. Generating Manichaean worlds

cost Trouble

0 A competitor is getting out of hand

1 Trade disrupted by a nearby war
A nearby war is an opportunity for trade
A trade-war is damaging weapons sales
2 Ecologists threaten to shut us down
Ecologists were right and everything is going to shit
3 There’s a hot war going on
There’s a cold war and everyon has world-ending weapons
4 This factory seems to be doing what it wants. Cool!
This factory seems to be doing what it wants. Shit!
The world is a factory and it’s on strike.

cost Culture

0 Individualistic
1 Tolerated crime and occasional gunfire
Mandatory weapons
2 The Industry owner rules with an iron fist
The unions rule with an iron fist
3 Everyone’s plugged into the latest entertainment

9 0
Everyone’s part of the latest entertainment

6-
4 The War is just part of how this whole thing works
 cost Environment

0 A lovely world nearly ruined by industry

1 A lovely world nearly ruined by warfare
A war with the environment
2 A world that balances industry, cities, and the wilds
A false balance that is slowly ruining cities
A false balance that is slowly ruining industry
3 A ring of factories around a star
A world factory and orbital wildernesses
4 A sunless, airless rock hurtling through the interstellar void
An enormous spacecraft with its own sun

cost History

0 One species has dominated here but others are coming

in fast
1 Many years of diversity
A million years of implausibly balanced diversity
2 A new colony
So new it’s in the process of being colonized
3 Built on the ruins of an extinct human colony
Built from the ruins of an extinct Aaru colony
4 Thousands of years of industry and industrial espionage
Six megacorportations and everyone is a spy

cost Proximity

0 One close, one very close, one far

1 Three close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one distant
3 Four close, one far
4 One distant

6.6. The Orphean Arm

The Orphean arm is sparsely populated by the usu-
al organic races as many of its stars are cool brown

6-91
dwarfs and there are few worlds that can sustain life.
The cultures that are here enjoy long-lived civiliza-
tions that spread over great distances. Between these
 organic civilizations lies the Orpheani, the largest of
all the species-specific empires.
Because the Dreamers are not organic—their na-
ture is incompletely understood—and because they
are atechnological, they inhabit worlds that normal
life forms cannot tolerate. Their crystalline cities spar-
kle over myriad worlds that none visit and they ply
the spacelanes using ill-understood mystical drives.
The Orphean arm is dense with relics and places
that facilitate mystical physics, though whether this
is because of the lack of more typical life forms or
because the strange culture of the Dreamers has cre-
ated and forgotten them is not known.
There are many worlds in the arm where connec-
tions between Dreamers and other species are facili-
tated, but the transactions that go on here are eso-
teric and opaque to most. The Orphean space is a
quiet place permated by the Dreamers.

6.6.1. Species
This arm is dominated by the Orpheani but a visi-
tor probably wouldn’t know it: the few worlds that
are habitable by organics are populated by all species
equally, and these are the worlds one normally vis-
its. There are, however, a vast number of uninhabit-
able worlds—worlds that circle dead suns or worlds
that speed through the dark without attendant suns
at all—and the Orpheani prefer these. There are few
trade routes that link these two different but overlap-
ping cultures.

6.6.2. Technology
Technology is stagnant and strange here. Habitable
worlds are sometimes desperate, barely hanging on
at the end of tortuous trade routes. Practicality is the
chief concern rather than luxury, but also tradition,
and you will find ancient powerful technologies here
that are now considered quaint. The Orpheani man-

2
ufacture technology that was gifted to them by the

6- 9
Rescue, the long gone species that lifted them from
their strange dreaming wildness eons past. They do
not really invent on their own.
6.6.3. Law
Most worlds here are organized along strongly tra-
ditional lines, perpetuating ancient rules that have
their roots in the needs of the original settlers. Legal
systems are often religious.

6.6.4. Mysticism
This arm is littered with mystical nodes, most of
which have unknown function. The Orpheani settle
near these places since they are attuned to the over-
lapping dimensions that make mystical physics work.
Researchers invariably come to the Orpheanic Arm
for insight, but these worlds are not designed for
visitors and so the mystic remains to some extent ar-
cane, not because secrets are being deliberately kept
but because the keepers are naturally isolated and
have no particular interest in sharing.

6.6.5. Psychics
There is no stigma against the psychic in this arm —
the dreamers use various mind-to-mind techniques
in their everyday lives and so any culture with such a
stigma would long ago have found itself totally isolat-
ed (rather than just nearly isolated as they are now).
Some may still exist, self-reliant ancient pockets of
bigotry, but they are not on the maps.

6.6.6. Generating Orpheanic worlds

cost Trouble

0 Friction between the Orpheani and the others

1 A mystic node has lost its power
A mystic node is overloading
2 A corporeal world has generated a powerful mystic node
The Orpheani are fighting to take a corporeal world
3 The Orpheani need you out by noon Friday
The Orpheani are all leaving by the end of the week

6-93
The Orpheani need all the air for something
4 A Horror is being formed by crazed Orpheani mystics
A non-corporeal virus is hegemonizing Orpheans
 cost Culture

0 Quiet and meditative

1 Rich intellectual exchanges between regular species and
Dreamers
A strange economy in mystical works
2 Dreamers almost never come here
Dreamers are forbidden
Dreamers die here
3 Only Dreamers live here
Organic species are forbidden
Organic species die here
4 Corporeals are manipulated and studied by an invisible
Dreamer class
Corporeals serve as bodies for insane Dreamers

cost Environment

0 Crystal cities surrounded by tamed wilderness

1 Vast crystal cities and tiny parks
Vast crystal parks and small organic enclaves
2 A wilderness below and crystal cities in the air
A wilderness littered with the remains of fallen cities
3 A network of diamond asteroids
A planet-sized cut diamond
Most resources carefully sorted by element
4 Nothing at all, just space where the Orpheani congregate
A radio signal and three Orpheani waiting

cost History

0 Orpheani have been here forever, everyone else is recent

1 Orpheani mostly left when corporeals arrived
Orpheani are in the process of leaving
2 Only corporeal species have ever lived here, probably
There are Orpheani ruins a million years old
3 Corporeals wrested the world from the Orpheani by force
Ownership is taken violently every few years

4
4 A million years of peace between only Dreamers and Aaru

6- 9
A million years of peace between only Dreamers and Au-
kumi
 cost Proximity

0 One close, one very close, one far

1 Two close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one distant
3 Three close, one far
4 One distant

6.7. The Tianen Arm

The Tianen arm has many vibrant cultures. The Tiant
control the largest of these empires; they are an an-
cient organization with a strong culture of tolerance.
They have created an elaborate system of laws that
govern most of the arm, sometimes by choice and
sometimes by force, that seems to actually work—the
Tianen arm has the best record for sustained peace of
any region of space.
The laws, however, seldom make sense. as few un-
derstand the complex feedback systems that make
peace an emergent property. It is suspected that the
Tiants themselves no longer know how it works ei-
ther, but their psychic shamans can focus their intu-
ition to extend the legal construct to accomodate the
constant change that is essential to evolving societ-
ies. Those who have researched the legal system have
never been able to find a way to simplify it and still
get the same results, but there are many theories that
attempt to find the generalizations that will allow this
to happen.
The Tiants are playful intellectuals, pursuing seem-
ingly random fields of study in all three physical sys-
tems, and often refuse to talk in terms of concrete
objectives or schedules. The ancient legacy of wealth
throughout their governments allows this to contin-
ue unabated.
The Tianen Arm is a place of ancient incompre-
hensible complexities.

6-95
6.7.1. Species
The Tianen arm is dominated by the Tiants—they
are on almost every planet that will support their bi-
 ology and a fair number that won’t. Because of this,
the arm is less cosmopolitan than most—not every-
one is willing to live under the elaborate laws that
keep the peace. Even so, the Shamayans are eager to
study the legal framework and have established em-
bassies in Tiant space that can best be described as
social research stations.

6.7.2. Technology
Technology advances in unusual directions. Tiant
attention span (not individuals but whole societies)
is short and it’s rare for a project to target a particu-
lar problem but rather solve whatever’s interesting
(or fashionable) this week. Non-Tiant governments
are eager to place researchers in these programs in
order to leverage this to jump-start more “serious”
projects. You can find anything you need here but the
advanced technologies are of dubious utility unless
the fashionable problem is also useful to you.

6.7.3. Law
Law in Tiant space is very hard to understand and
quite fluid. It’s not oppressive and it’s not especially
bureaucratic, just inconsistent and inconstant. Mur-
der might be legal this week but only of middle-man-
agers. Later stimulant consumption is mandatory in
public places. They might regulate the knots that are
acceptable in garment-securing. It is prudent to carry
modular or peace-bondable weapons in case they
happen to be illegal this week.

6.7.4. Mysticism
Mysticism is scorned. Despite objective demonstra-
tion of mystical arts, Tiants generally think of them
as silly and not part of the greater wonder that is the
universe. If you’re a universe-reknowned mystic, you
won’t get a great reception here.

6
6.7.5. Psychics

6- 9
Psychics are very popular, often achieving fame on
the inter-stellar talk show circuit. Many Tiant univer-
sities are dedicated to psychic research and, though
their topics of study can be esoteric (they hold all
of the Knobble Psionic Prizes in Spoon Bending for
the last 800 years) they are breaking new ground. It’s
typical for researchers to survey Tiant universities for
ideas and take them home to engineer into products
that sell.

6.7.6. Generating Tianen worlds

cost Trouble

0 The legal system here is out of hand

1 The fashion industry is crashing
The legal industry is crashing
The jewelry industry is being made illegal
2 Two rival fashion designers are in a legal shooting war
Six legal firms are in an illegal shooting war
Murder is legal on a trial basis in the park
3 World was accidentally sold to the Shamayans
World may have been made illegal; lawyers working on it
Aukumi envoys have showed up to collect their continent
4 Black hole generators are free this week
The ban on disintegrators expires next week and people
are stocking up

cost Culture

0 Brisk and cosmopolitan

1 Cut-throat legal shenanigans
Literally cut-throat legal shenanigans
2 Countries are now being divided by birthstone not region
Starkly divided into separate, bigoted, fashion designer
camps. Pick a side.
3 The Aaru are world rulers on a technicality
The next leader is being decided by game show
Tiants made themselves illegal by accident and are all leav-
ing.
4 Scientists are testing a prototype teleporter on strangers

6-97
Tiants made everyone else illegal and you need to be out
by Sunday.
 cost Environment

0 Towering metropoli surrounded by factory parks

1 A small but busy city on a wild world
A small but busy city on a dead world
A small but busy city in the ruins of an older city
2 A single mountain hollowed out as a vast wind instrument
All wildlife is tuned to growl, tweet, trumpet in harmony
An airless rock filled with glittering structures and alien mu-
sic
3 Someone elses ring world, mostly empty desert
Ten thousand spacecraft that don’t work any more, jury
rigged together.
4 Small bubbles of air in a vast iron airless world
Small towns surrounded by lush wilderness

cost History

0 Been like this since the beginning of recorded history

1 Installed exactly like this six months ago
Built in ten years to fulfill a contractual obligation
Originally designed on a bet
2 A corporate experiment
A set of corporations designed this as a monopoly
3 A scientific experiment
An illegal and unfunded scientific experiment
4 World was moved to escape a hegemonic plague
World was built as a fortress agains hegemonic plague

cost Proximity

0 One close, one very close, one far

1 Three close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one distant
3 Four close, one far
4 One distant

8
6.8. The Aukumean Arm

9
The Aukumean arm can only be described as culti-

6-
vated. Sometime in the very distant past nearly every
star with a suitable spectrum was seeded with life,
most of it from a common stock. That was billions of
years ago, though, so now there is the wild diversity
one would expect, but still with an underlying com-
monality. More importantly, the percentage of worlds
that are livable without supporting technology is
enormous compared to other arms.
Consequently there has been a reduced drive to
advance natural technology over the millenia. There
are many worlds that refuse—or simply don’t bother
with—convenience technology. The Aukumi often fall
into this category though in fact it’s as much a re-
sult of their bodies as anything else—they really don’t
need shelter over a wide range of conditions and so
they don’t bother building them. Many other species
in the arm build in unobtrusive ways to avoid chang-
ing the nature of the Ursan worlds.
The arm is rich in rare materials and has gone to
war over them. Whole worlds have been lost in these
wars and some systems are nothing but rings of
rubble around their stars. While Aukumean factions
fought each other over these resources, it is much
more complex than that.
And thus this contradiction of destroyed worlds,
lush world-rich places, and encroaching heavy ex-
ploitation. Tensions remain high throughout.

6.8.1. Species
Many species call the Aukumean arm home, but
the Aukumi dominate. So many of these worlds are
immensely fertile and in exactly the right way to sup-
port the Aukumi that their expansion was never hin-
dered by a lack of worlds to choose from. What did
limit their expansion was the diversity of existing life
on these worlds and the Aukumi’s disinterest in sup-
planting—or even disturbing—those beings.
All major species have their place here and so do
myriad other species that are less frequently seen
elsewhere in the galaxy.

6-99
6.8.2. Technology
The Aukumi are not especially interested in technol-
ogy but they do have a history of precision breeding
 programs, both natural and artificial. They prefer im-
ported artifacts and their own biological technologies.
In war, and the Aukumi do not shy away from a just
war (in fact they quite enjoy combat, but are only in-
terested in willing opponents), it is typical for the op-
position to face crafted biological weapons. Weapons
that most other species would consider horrendous,
the Aukumi see as both expedient and humane.

6.8.3. Law
Law in the Aukumi arm is diverse but there is an un-
derlying theme that is rarely contradicted: the rights
of the natives supercede the rights of any others.

6.8.4. Mysticism
Research is advanced in as so many arcane sites are
well preserved by the general philosophy of colonisa-
tion and exploitation fostered by the Aukumi. Mysti-
cal technologies are accepted and integrated.

6.8.5. Psychics
Psychic technology is neither feared nor regulated
as the Aukumi view it with amusement. It doesn’t
make a lot of sense and not considered to be a real
physics. There are species with powerful psychic skills
and technologies, but their extent is minor.

6.8.6. Generating Aukumean worlds

cost Trouble

0 Out of touch with the galaxy

1 Being exploited by a Corporation
Secretly exploiting a Corporation
2 Immigrating species are upsetting the calm balance
Aukumi experiments are upsetting the calm balance
3 An invading species is trying to take the place by force
A foreign wildlife species is destroying the environment

0
4 There is nothing more to learn here and it’s time to move

10
The central experiment is being dismantled as too danger-

6-
ous
cost Culture

0 Contemplative and pastoral

1 Desperately academic
Lucratively academic
Obsessively academic
2 Tiant influence has exposed a legal mysticism
Pursuing a new mysticism about economic exchange
3 Unusually tolerant of slavery
Fabricants are all free
The elderly are deported to the Rim
4 Laws about environment are obscure and easy to break
Exceeding noise laws carries steep penalties
Contemplative and pastoral or face the penalty of death

cost Environment

0 Huge cities integrated with the local flora

1 Thousands of tiny villages in harmony with the wilderness
A wilderness that is a city
A ring of rubble that used to be a world
2 Underground cities avoid disturbing the wilderness
Cities built in orbit to protect the evironment
3 An extreme world developed for aesthetic reasons
A ring of dust peppered with new structures
A rich vacuum biome forces restrictions on use of orbit
4 A research station that orbits a pristine wilderness world
A research station that orbits another, older station

cost History

0 Established so long ago many believe this is the Aukumi

home world
1 No one knows or cares how long we’ve been here
All historical information was destroyed
2 A research project from nearby
A recent colony from a neighbouring world
3 Constructed on a bet a long time ago

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Won in a gambling game a long time ago
4 The result of a harrowing Horror eradication project
The result of a successful Horror conversion project
 cost Proximity

0 One close, one very close, one far

1 Three close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one distant
3 Four close, one far
4 One distant

6.9. The Shamayan Arm

The Shamaya don’t actually dominate the Shama-
yan arm, but they originated there (or at least the old-
est civilizations in the arm are theirs) and they are im-
portant powers in the galaxy, so the arm is attributed
to them. In fact there are relatively few Shamaya but
important assemblies have at least one delegate. It
helps that they are enormously intelligent.
The arm itself is fairly typical, similar to the neigh-
bouring Manichaean arm, but the civilizations here
are unusually long-lived and peaceful. There is
a structure to civilizations there that is not present
elsewhere—most major cultures organize into larg-
er scale assemblies that plan for the long term of
whole clusters of trading partners. War happens but
rarely on a scale that involves global fatalities. Even
the most heated boundary or resource disputes are
eventually resolved with trade concessions brokered
by the Shamaya.

6.9.1. Species
The Shamayan arm is only peopled by the major
species. There are no minor species who call an entire
world here home (though of course there are many
visitors and immigrants). This has something to do
with the age of the cultures on these worlds—they
are all very old indeed as civilizations in this arm tend
to last much longer than elsewhere. In addition to
these anomalies, this arm is also home to the largest

2
number of Fabrication worlds in the galaxy—there

10
are hundreds of worlds here that are entirely peopled

6-
by machines.
 And of course there are many Shamayan worlds,
though perhaps fewer than one might expect.
Shamayans are more mentors or patrons of other
civilizations as they have moved past the need for an
established home for their cultures.

6.9.2. Technology
The greatest diversity in technologies exist here as
each culture is nudged by the Shamayans (very indi-
rectly!) to explore and develop novel methods that
best exploit their natural abilities and the features
and resources of their worlds. Rich and esoteric tech-
nologies have developed in each of the three physics
and it is perhaps the only place in the galaxy where
extensive development progresses in psychic phys-
ics.

6.9.3. Law
Violence is tolerated less in this arm than anywhere
else. The laws are not restrictive, but even on worlds
where weaponry is allowed (even encouraged), gross
crimes against persons are unusual. Almost as if
some kind of mind control is at work.

6.9.4. Mysticism
The Shamayans love mystical physics perhaps in
part because the age of their species implies that they
may have been present back when mystical forces
had greater influence on the world than today. Most
of the arcane sites here have already been found
and explored and studied for millennia. That doesn’t
mean there’s nothing new to learn—mysticism
changes over time—but rather that there are always
researchers watching and waiting for such changes. A
new find in this arm would be a major event.

6.9.5. Psychics
Psychics are warmly welcomed in the Shamayan

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arm and will find that there are many organizations
dedicated to studying and improving psychic skills.
 6.9.6. Generating Shamayan worlds

cost Trouble

0 A war brewing with an inconsistent academic faction

1 Nothing left to study
Study is stalled because of a typographic error
2 Famous celebrity recently moved off-world
Famous celebrity recently moved on-world
The world leader is now a famous celebrity
3 Critical research is being exploited by a weapons company
Dangerously wrong research is being fed to a weapons
company
4 They are studying a baby hegemony here
They are building a baby hegemony here

cost Culture

0 At once studious and hilarious

1 A preference for comic media
A preference for tragic media
2 Recently discovered Shakespeare
Recently built their own Shakespeare
Recently discovered Jane Austin
3 Half the population is secretly observing the other half
Half the population is in the entertainment industry
4 A paranoid culture of omnipresent mutual observation
A dedication to perfect personal privacy

cost Environment

0 Cities built around a great university

1 World carefully divided into a grid of parks and cities
World constructed above a global park
Money literally grows on trees
2 Underground excavations for storing records
Records stores in the DNA of wildlife
Wildlife has been moved into orbit
3 A monoculture world with small research outposts

104
A monoculture world with one huge research outpost

6-
4 A world under construction
 cost History

0 Colonized within the last century

1 Bought from the locals a long time ago
Rented from the locals who want it back now
2 A popular diner that became crazy popular
A knowledge repository that grew into a wold population
Originally a bar on the way to something more interesting
that no one remembers any more
3 Just one of many in the franchise
One of a kind with a private owner
The world is still technically an LLC
4 Constructed by a tailored hegemony
Defectaed by a Horror

cost Proximity

0 One close, one very close, one far

1 Three close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one distant
3 Four close, one far
4 One distant

6.10. The Aarian Arm

This arm has been devastated. There are many
stars here—it’s not a Gulf—but there is a dearth of
habitable worlds. Those that do exist are only barely
so. This is no fluke of statistics and stellar evolution:
this arm was once burgeoning with life but a war on
an incredible scale destroyed nearly everything.
Some stars have been removed, possibly forced to
nova, and their shattered planets roam unattached
to any sun. Elsewhere stars are intact but the planets
are missing. Further on the stars might be wrong, ra-
diating at terrible power levels and lethal frequencies
or spinning at nearly lightspeed, scything scimitars of
X-rays whipping through space. All around is death.

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Yet the Aaru are here. They are an odd, radially sym-
metrical species that thrive in hostile environments
and so this arm is a suitable home. Even in total vac-
 uum one might find Aaru science teams coordinating
efforts to understand the worlds.
There has been little effort to recolonize the Aa-
ruian arm. There’s plenty of value here, but with the
environments so thoroughly destroyed it’s far too ex-
pensive to launch a project of any useful scale. Only
the Dreamers bother, and this creates occasional fric-
tion between them and the Aaru.

6.10.1. Species
The arm is populated by the Aaru and Orpheani.
Shamayans stay away typically, but there are some
whose interest in the mystical brings them here be-
cause of the potential for new discoveries. But mostly
it’s the Aaru who experiment at scales that defy imag-
ination.

6.10.2. Technology
Technology designed for Aaru is rarely useful: it’s
just not for individual use but rather it’s designed to
alter the spectral output of stars or re-organize plan-
ets. It’s not weaponry but it could be. People come
here looking for exactly that but the Aaru don’t like
that and it’s best not to piss them off. Still, there’s
money to be made....

6.10.3. Law
The Aaru don’t use laws but they do have a tradi-
tional culture that forbids things that other species
make illegal. This means that no being would bat an
eye at carrying almost any kind of weapon—even
something that could threaten an entire world—but
using it would be in such amazingly bad taste that
the locals would kill you. This culture is somewhat
opaque so non-Aaru are usually very careful about
their choices while visiting.

6.10.4. Mysticism

6
Mystical locales here are unexploited—the Aaru

10
have no interest as they believe it irrational or in-

6-
complete. The individual Aaru has many brains and
so they know this is untrue but nonetheless act as
though it is. Generally.

6.10.5. Psychics
The Aaru feel psychic physics is an unexplained part
of natural physics and explore it eagerly. Attempts to
treat it as an extension of natural science consistently
fail, but still they seek a grand unifying theory that
will bring it under regular experimental examination.

6.10.6. Generating Aaruian worlds

cost Trouble

0 Another species is being rude

1 A psychic plague is disrupting normal commerce
An electromagnetic source makes conversation impossible
2 Someone is taking the entertainment war too seriously
Invasive non-Aaru are irresponsible with weapons
Someone made a cheap star-buster and now everyone has
one
3 The local Experiment is not going well at all
Two universities are going to war
A Horror under experimentation may get tenure
4 Psionics are dying of a mental plague
Everyone is leaving and no one will say why and the psychic
channels are completely empty

cost Culture

0 Strange and wonderful

1 Disdainful of outsiders
Loves outsiders
2 Actively resentful of outsiders
Imprison outsiders
Murder of outsiders is legal but frowned upon
3 A slaver experiment is being dismantled
Ex-slaves have established their own new government

6-107
Aaru have made themselves slaves to another population
4 Worship of Horror ancestors is distressingly common
A fear of association with Horrors is cripplingly neurotic
 cost Environment

0 Huge cities surrounded by radioactive wasteland

1 A husk of a world savaged by aeons of war
A cratered desert slowly recovering
The craters are domed to hold in the air
2 The ground is so polluted that the cities have to fly
The ground is so radioactive that all cities are in orbit
3 An idyllic wilderness that is entirely synthetic
The wilderness is entirely holographic
4 A deadly wilderness being tolerated out of cultural guilt
A wilderness made from old autonomous weapons
A beautiful wilderness in the process of being dismantled
to make an orbital factory

cost History

0 Been here for thousands of generations

1 Won from another Aaru family in a war
Stolen from another Aaru family while they weren’t looking
2 Owned by a single ancient Aaru since forever
Has changed hands so many times that it’s formalized now
3 Exists solely to study itself
Exists solely to fabricate disinformation for another war.
Exists solely to maintain a historical record of itself.
4 Constructed by a hegemony to preserve its chrysalis
Fabricated from a Horror back in the Disruption Wars

cost Proximity

0 One close, one very close, one far

1 Three close, one far
2 Two very close, two close, one distant
3 Four close, one far
4 One distant

6-108
 7. Travel and adventure

We’d been in hyperspace for a week and we were still in

it. That’s unusual. Usually a jump lasts a few minutes.
Maybe an hour. But we were heading across a Gulf and
that’s both a long way and a long way through dangerous
territory. So it was already a strange journey.
But then the mass detector lights up. There’s something
out there in the Gulf and it’s small. Moon sized. Maybe
smaller. And it’s travelling about eighty percent of the
speed of light.
That’s really mind-bogglingly strange.
So we drop out of hyperspace with a matching velocity,
something Kerry9 learned in programming school. That’s
a school where you get programmed.
It’s a slowship on a forever journey through nowhere. A
hundred thousand souls who are forty generations in to a
trip that only just started.
And they have great bars.

The one thing you certainly want to do in a sci-

ence fiction space opera. You want to travel through
the galaxy. You want to discover new things and new
conflicts and to do that you have to go to new places.
So you need to know how travel affects your ship
and where you might wind up.

7.1. How far can you go?

When generating worlds in the universe the referee
will have created some linked worlds. The links will
have a distance rating. These are very close, close, far,
and distant.
Ships can only travel along links when they are
travelling faster than light. This constrains the uni-
verse from a few million stars to the few dozen that
the ref will have the energy to detail. You won’t miss
the other million or so.
 7.1.1. Very close
Very close worlds are close enough to travel with-
out a hyperspace drive. You could get from one to
another in a month on the Time Track without ever
turning the thing on. If you do use the hyperdrive, the
travel time is as close to zero as makes no difference
If you travel in slowspace, sublight, you will use all
your supplies. You arrive at your destination with the
aspect nearly out of everything.
If you travel in hyperspace you use up no resources
at all. You barely had time to take in a breath.

7.1.2. Close
Close worlds are only close in an astronomical
sense. You’d still take generations to travel it with-
out a hyperdrive. But with one it’s a bit of a doddle.
You need a few hours (on the time track) to plot the
course with a skill check and then the trip itself takes
a few minutes.

0
Travel like this takes no resources.

7- 1 1
7.1.3. Far
Far worlds take a little time. You need to find a safe
route over a long chunk of space, so that needs an
afternoon on the time track with a skill check. Then
when you flip the hyperspace switch, the trip itself
takes a few hours.
Far travel usually takes you to new zone, which is
a new cluster of worlds. These zones typically have a
capital and some loose political affiliation with each
other. Your referee will have details and may or may
not keep them a secret until you arrive. Investigate
with appropriate skills if you need the info!
You arrive with the aspect low on hyperfuel on
your ship.

7.1.4. Distant
Distant worlds are in another arm altogether. This
means plotting a route through the rim or a gulf and
that takes some serious brain power. Make a skill roll
on the time track with a base time of a week to pre-
pare for travel and then press the big red button.
Travel itself takes a week on the time track and it
can be changed with a different (not the same one
that was used for plotting the route) skill roll. How-
ever, if the time is increased or decreased by more
than two steps then you break out of hyperspace
early and probably lost. You can use aspects to reduce
or increase your roll but the ref should also compel
you not to bother if you have any aspects indicating
an adventurous spirit: there’s a reason why you fell
out of hyperspace. Something interesting is out there.
Of course, interesting could kill you.
If you complete your journey you arrive with a hin-
dering consequence on your ship: out of some-
thing pretty important.
If your trip is interrupted then you arrive with a
crippling consequence on your ship: something’s
badly broken.

7-111
 7.2. Can you be followed?
When you make a hyperjump you leave all kinds of
evidence of your travel and this can be detected by
sensors that are attuned to it.
When you make a hyperjump to a very close sys-
tem, you leave a gaping tear in space that points di-
rectly to your destination. This is instantly detectable
by any spacecraft in the vicinity and remains detect-
able for months. If anything other than your ship
is within a few thousand meters of you when you
jump, it will get dragged with you.
Jumps to close worlds are harder to detect and
require an opposed check. The detector needs ap-
propriate tools, which is basically either a ship or a
space station. Of course the physics of the tool must
match the physics of the skill, if you’re using one of
the physics skills! The detector can spend shifts as
follows:

shifts information revealed

spent

1 distance travelled
1 direction travelled
1 the size of the ship that jumped
2 the signature of the jumping ship (the detector knows ex-
actly which ship jumped)
3 the navigator’s distinctive style (the detector knows exactly
who the navigator was that plotted that jump)

This magnitude of jump creates some vacuum tur-

bulence but won’t drag anyone with you.
Jumps to far worlds are very hard to detect. Handle
this as with a close world but give the detector a dif-
ficulty modifier of -4.
Jumps to distant worlds are undetectable by any
known means.

2
7.3. Where can you go?

1 1
The referee will use the information about the gal-

7-
axy and the Arm you’re playing in to generate a few
worlds and link them together.
 Generate a single world to begin with and draw a
circle. Determine how many links there are and how
long they are. Draw those as lines radiating from your
circle. Draw a circle at the end of each — those are
new worlds. Now, as often as you feel you need, elab-
orate those worlds and add their links.
When a link exits the “zone” it goes to a new map
page. This keeps your map pages a manageable size.
When a link exits an arm it goes to a new map page
that’s in a new arm of the galaxy!
Make very close links adjacent circles (as from Al-
pha to Beta in the example zone); make close links

7-113
 straight lines; and make far and distant links lines
that exit the map but labeled with the arm and zone
of the destination.
This is clear and simple and gives you room to ex-
pand. Your final zone map need be no more complex
than this.

4
7.4. What trouble will you get into?

1 1
The referee will use your association to decide what

7-
your initial conflict on this starting world will be. Your
association has a purpose and so the ref will push
against that. If you are all about rescuing people, you
will probably start with a rescue. If you’re about turn-
ing corpses into meat, you’ll probably have a load to
pick up or drop off. If you’re about taking tourists on
safaris, well, that’s going to happen.
Then things will start to go wrong. Your routine
mission will encounter a monkey wrench. The more
you try to solve it the hairier things will get.
As the referee, this is your whole job: find an in-
teresting starting situation that’s consistent with the
association and the characters and let the characters
narrate how they are dealing with it. Then start add-
ing twists that force them to respond creatively. Use
the rules to figure out whether uncertain actions re-
solve for or against the players. Use the rules to con-
duct combats and chases. Set up the situation and
use the rules to resolve it.
And let the characters brew up their own problems:
eye those aspects and look for compels. Anyone a
wanted sophont? Anyone like to rush into things
without thinking? Offer them a fate point to compli-
cate their lives.
Players? Say yes a lot. We’re here for a good time,
not a long time, so lean right into adventure. You’ll get
bloodied up a little but no one sits around telling sto-
ries over drinks about that time they delivered an un-
usual package to a strange person and it was all fine.

7-115
7- 1 1 6
 8. Fighting

The Fate system described in the Introduction will

get you through a lot of conflict resolution. In princi-
ple it can handle it all, including fighting. But fighting
is where we often want to drill down into details like
positioning, range, cover, pincer movements, and psy-
chically powered robot tanks.
There are two cases: you are either fighting—punch-
ing, shooting, knifing, blowing up brains with psychic
power, laser-stabbing, and so on—or you are fighting
with starships. Each has a subsystem that adds detail
to the procedure.

8.1. Fighting
When fighting you care about where everyone is,
what order things happen, and what you can do in
the time allotted to you.

8.1.1. Where is everyone?

The referee will provide a map. It will have areas
marked off with boundaries. These are zones. Each
zone will have a clutter that indicates how much
trouble it is to run through it and also, incidentally,
how easy it is to hide there.

8.1.2. What order things happen

The referee will pick someone to go first. Someone
who didn’t go first last time and someone for whom
going first is logical. Then a referee-run character (an
“NPC” or “Non-Player Character”) will act. Repeat. If
you have a stunt that lets you choose initiative order,
bring it up.

8.1.3. What you can do

When it’s your turn to go, choose one of:
• Run
• Hide
 And then choose one of:
• Fight
• Shoot
• Run some more
• Maneuver
In these examples we will cover only the very ba-
sics of the system. Of course in addition to the rolling
you might tag an aspect in your personal scope, pay a
fate point, and get +2. You might use a stunt on your-
self or a piece of equipment. You might tag an aspect
on a friend to get +2 for their assistance. You might
tag an aspect in the zone, free tag a consequence on
your enemy, or otherwise play the system.
When you run you roll an appropriate skill (prob-
ably Brawn or Training but this is your story!) and
spend your shifts to move to another zone. Each
zone subtracts its clutter from your shifts. If you
don’t have enough to enter the zone, then you can’t.

Example: I want to close on the bad guy and punch it in

the brain cannister. There are three zones between me and
it. The adjacent one is a badly maintained cargo compart-
ment with clutter 2. The next one is a series of high walk-
ways over the lava pit. It’s not actually cluttered but the ref
has given it a clutter value of 3 because you just want to
be more careful over lava. The last zone, the one with my
enemy in it, is the droid’s throne room which is clutter 1.
I have Training 2 and justify it by describing how sim-
ilar this is to the obstacle courses I ran in the Jinxian
Armed Forces. I roll 00+0 for a total of 3. I can get
into the cargo bay but I hesitate at the lava.

When you hide you roll a skill (Manipulate is a

simple option) and add the clutter in your zone.
Anyone looking for you needs to beat this value. You
can still move! Take your roll and subtract the clut-
ter in your zone. This is how much you can move as
though you chose run. Whatever shifts you have left

8
at the end is your hide value in the new zone.

8-11
Example: I want to close with the bad guy and knife it
in gearbox but it is three zones away. I’m in the woods
 which have clutter 3—good cover but not fast moving.
Then there’s an open field with tall grass at clutter 2 and
then the bad bots farmhouse which is scrupulously clean
at clutter 1. Finally its bedchamber is also clutter 1 and
that’s where I want to be.
I have Manipulate 3 and roll +--+ for a total of
... 3. Disappointing. If I stay here I have a hide value of
3 + clutter here in the woods which is a total of 6. Pretty
hidey. Or I could move into the grass at a cost of 2 from
my roll (not my hide value!). That would leave me in the
grass with 1 leftover shift and so a hide value of 3 (1 +
clutter of 2 in the grass). I could keep going into the house
since I have 1 shift left but I’d be next door with a hide
value of 1—just the clutter in the room. Too risky. I move
swiftly through the woods into the tall grass and crouch
down with hide 3 and wait for an opportunity.

When you fight you are in the same zone as your

opponent and you are going to smack them with a
weapon. If that weapon has an optimum range of 0
then proceed! If it has an optimum range higher than
that, then it’s basically an improvised club and you
get the free-taggable consequence clumsy until you
get to a more suitable range.
Roll skill and the opponent will defend with a skill
of their own. If you choose a skill and the table groans
and shakes their heads collectively then you should
reconsider the choice. The difference between rolls is
the number of shifts you apply as harm.

Example: I’m in the same zone as Doris the Tiant and

I slash at her with my psionic sword fist. I’m at optimum
range so no bad news aspect for me! I roll my Brawn of 2
and get -++- and so only wind up with 2. Doris de-
fends with her Tiantic mental focus (she has Psionics at 3)
and gets 0--- for a terrible total of 0. I actually get
two shifts out of that! It gets checked off her psychic track.

8-119
When you shoot you also performa an opposed
roll, just as when fighting. The only real difference is
the rang. The opponent can use their pre-rolled hide
value if they Hid on their turn. If they haven’t had a
 turn yet they can either roll a skill or use the clutter
value of their zone and make no roll. They can do
whatever they want in their turn. Compare, subtract,
and apply shifts as harm.
Count the range to your opponent. If that range is
the optimum range of your weapon, proceed. If it’s
not, take -1 per zone of difference.

Example: I’m taking a shot with my gauss rifle at 3

zones range. The optimum range for the rifle is 2 but I
have Precision 3 so I will take that shot. I’m shooting at
some newb hiding in the tall grass who already rolled a
hide of 3. This ought to be good.
I roll +-+0 for 1. Plus my Shoot, that makes it 4.
-1 for the range, that’s 3. And they are hid pretty good, it
turns out, with a hide of 3 so -3 more. I get no shifts in
and they take no physical stress but the bullet hits very
nearby indeed.

When you run some more you can move into an

adjacent zone regardless of clutter. There is no roll.
When you maneuver you are taking some action
to place an aspect on something—a zone, a person,
the scene—using any skill you like. If successful, that
aspect is free taggable and has your target as its con-
text. Your target value is always zero.

Example: I want to use my energokinesis to set the grass

on fire with my brain and hopefully flush out that dingus
hiding there. I have Psionics of 1 but it’s worth a shot. I
roll +--- for -2 bringing me to -1 shifts. Not good
enough. Hardly seems worth spending a fate point just to
get a free-taggable aspect (which is only worth a fate point
anyway) so a little smoke trickles out of my ears and I
am done.

8.2. Fighting with starships

Our assumption here is that most fighting in

0
starships is going to be about one ship—yours—fight-

12
ing one or more enemy ships. Consequently your

8-
ship has the focus. If you have a situation where you
need to model multiple friendly ships and multiple
enemy ships, you’ll want to keenly look forward to
our Elysium Flare: The Wargame release.

8.2.1. Who goes first

Smaller ships go first. Break a tie with a die.

8.2.2. Where is everyone

The player characters gets a reticle for their ship.
This is the map—it shows where every enemy ship is
when looking out the windows of the ship.
In addition to position, each enemy ship has a
range: either close, far, or escaping.
The zone in which the fight takes place is either
cluttered or clear depending on the opening fiction.

8.2.3. Who does what

Action takes place in two turns: the player turn
and the enemy turn. Within the player turn are two
phases: move and shoot. Ebemy ships only shoot.

Player turn
First the pilot will pick an enemy to concentrate on
and roll an opposed roll with the preferred piloting
skll against the enemy pilot’s skill. You may not target
anything that can’t roll against you (like something
stationary). The number of shifts is the number of
places in the reticle that you may move the enemy
ship. If there are extra shifts after placing the enemy,
they can be used to move other ships. You can spend
3 of these shifts to move the fight from cluttered to
clear or clear to cluttered. This zone type takes effect
in the next turn.
In a cluttered zone shifts available for movement
can be spent instead to damage the opponent. At
most one ship can be damaged. These shifts cannot
be then used for movement: they are gone. Apply the
correct physics for the clutter: if the fight is zooming
through a starship manufacturing station, use natu-

8-121
ral. But maybe it’s cluttered with psychic wave gener-
ators or a ley-line nexus! Use the fiction to guide you.
If you get negative shifts by rolling really badly, the
referee can use these to move the enemy ships in
 ways that you will greatly dislike. And as above, if the
zone is cluttered then they might inflict stress in-
stead! Or use them to change the zone type.
Enemy ships can be moved closer or further one
position at a cost of 1 shift.
Enemy ships can be moved from escaping to out
of play at a cost of 2 shifts.
Enemy ships can be moved to an adjacent reticle
window at a cost of 1 shift.
The gunner in the player team’s ship then fires at
any one target within the firing arc using their pre-
ferred skill for ship’s weapons. If no ships are in the
arc they may not fire. At close range you get -2. At
escaping range you also get -2.
Each firing arc on a ship can have a different gunner.
Defensive rolls can be made by any character in the
ship as long as there’s a story for the skill. The pilot
might not be evading blaster-fire with their Training:
maybe the doc is scrambling the enemy pilot’s con-
trols with Magic!
Characters not directly involved in ship rolls can
maneuver to place aspects which can happen during
any phase on the player’s turn but only once each in
the turn. You can’t shoot and maneuver, for example.

Enemy
On the enemy’s turn the enemy ship may fire
weapons with their preferred skill. If the enemy is at
close range then attacks are at -2. At escaping range
they also get -2.

8.2.4. Enemy ships

Enemy ships are NPCs and just as the players’ ships
can come in multiple sizes, so can NPC ships. Ships
larger than a cruiser should be treated more like ter-
rain: your corvette doesn’t stand a chance against a
battleship and it probably won’t notice you anyway. If
you stay out of range.

2
Enemy ships are only reacted to so they do not

12
have a reticle. If the players capture one, you’ll need

8-
to mock up a reticle appropriate to its class and tier!
Careful what you potentially give away out there.
 Short range fighter
Short range fighters are single or double crew com-
bat vehicles that are capable of operating only at sub-
light speeds. They are generally very maneuverable
and manufactured in large quantities. They are used
to screen larger vehicles from other fighters, for local
reconnaissance, and for planetary landings. Total of
skills of the crew are equal to the tier, so at tier 2 it
might have Precision 1 and Training 1.

Tier 0: pick a physics for each of movement and

shooting.
Tier 1: add incredibly agile
Tier 2: add hotshot pilot and the stunt evasive ac-
tion: the ship never takes natural damage in a clut-
tered zone.
Tier 3: add no one has ever survived against me
and the stunt take 2: whenever in the rear quadrant
of an enemy the ship can take a roll of 2 without roll-

8-123
ing the dice for its attack
 Starfighters
Starfighters are small craft fitted with superluminal
drives of some description. They are used in much
the same way as short range fighters except that they
require no carrier to deploy in other star systems. To-
tal of skills of the crew are equal to the tier, so at tier
2 it might have Training 1 and Psionics 1.

Tier 0: pick a physics for each of movement and

shooting.
Tier 1: add crazy fast
Tier 2: add intuitive pilot and the stunt swap a
track: attacks against its primary physics track can in-
stead be marked against a different one.
Tier 3: add no one escapes and the stunt take 2:
whenever in the rear quadrant of an enemy the ship
can take a roll of 2 without rolling the dice for its
positioning.

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 Corvettes
Corvettes are small crewed craft fitted with super-
luminal drives. These ships are often used as missile
platforms and self-defending couriers. Crew skills are
equal to the tier, so at tier 2 it will have Training 2 and
Precision 2.

Tier 0: pick a physics for each of movement and

shooting.
Tier 1: add awesome firepower
Tier 2: add special anti-ship weapons and the
stunt extend a track: one extra box in its stress track.
Tier 3: add souped up engines and the stunt mess
with initiative: this ship always goes first in a turn if
it wants to.

8-125
 Destroyers
Destroyers are armed sensor platforms used to de-
tect small ships at long distances and engage or direct
others to engage them. They are always superlumi-
nal. Destroyers are the largest non-capital ships. They
have diverse crews and can distribute double their
tier value in skills between systems, so at tier 2 they
may use 4 skill ranks as they choose, perhaps having
Training 0 and Science 4.

Tier 0: pick a physics for each of movement and

shooting.
Tier 1: add inescapable sensors
Tier 2: add military grade defensive weapons
and the stunt long range weapons: attacks at escap-
ing range take no penalty.
Tier 3: add q-ray blasters and the stunt swap a
physics: weapon systems can attack either the prima-
ry physics track of the enemy or one other one.

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 Cruisers (capital)
Cruisers are large weapons platforms that retain
high agility and speed in order to operate as block-
ade keepers, threatening almost any size of vessel
credibly. They are always superluminal. Cruisers have
diverse crews and so can distribute triple their tier
value in skills, so at tier 2 they may use 6 skill ranks as
they choose, perhaps having Training 2 and Magic 4.

Tier 0: pick a physics for each of movement and

shooting.
Tier 1: add devastating weapons
Tier 2: add coordinated attacks and the stunt
have a thing: the ship comes with a tier 0 short range
fighter.
Tier 3: add deadly training and the stunt extra
consequence: the ship has an additional crippling
consequence.

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8-128
 9. Index

A clue 14
E
Academic 55 clutter 117 Ecology 79
accountants 31 cluttered, space 121 Entertainment 54
achievements 58 collateral damage 15 entropy 41, 78
adapative hegemony 89 commerce 49 escaping 122
Administrative 54 Commercial 55 evasion 49
advancement 58 compassion 49 Exploratory 54
Ancient 56 compel 19
arms manufacturers 26 as a complication 20 F
association 114 as an alternative 20 fail 13
atmosphere 79 as an offer 20 far 114
awesome 52 bad 20 fate 11
Bob Muir 9 stereotype 48 dice 12
Jack Webb 9 complication 13, 53 points 12
JB Bell 9 composure 18 points, refresh 20
Toph Marshall 9 concede 18 fight 119
consequence 17, 43 folk physics 75
B conversation 11
barbette 69 corvette 68 G
belief 45, 50 cost 14 gadgets 71
bigots 48 Criminal 54 get permission 46
blowing up brains with psy- Cultural 56 gizmo. See gadgets
chic power 117 culture 79
boresight 68 H
brawn 49 D harm 17
bud 30 discover 109 hide 118
bullshit 11 discussion 18 homeless children 32
disintegrator 70 human 26
C distance 109 hyperdrive 110
cap 59 distant 114
cargo 68 doddle 110 I
Charitable 54 downtime 21 Industrial 55
clear, space 121 droids 27 initiative 52, 117
climate 79 drooling vegetable 70 interesting could kill you 111
clock 17
close 113
K pyramid 44, 52 stunts
knifing 117 for things 64
R succeed with style 12, 19
L range 121
laser-stabbing 117 Recognition 66 T
links 109 reflective 71
loot 59 refresh 20 tactical. See fight
Love 50 online play 20 tag 12
remit 52 free-tagged 12
M reproduction 42 taken out 18
magic 48 Rescue 54 target value 12
make a character 43 resolve some situation 12 The Word 42
maneuver 13, 120 reticle 121 thingamajig. See gadgets
manipulation 49 risk 13, 53 tier 64
map 117 secret 13 timers 17
mate recreationally 26 robots 27 time track 13
Medical 54 roiling co-bluster 11 tracks 17
method 49 RTFM 48 training 48
Military 53 run 118 trouble 114
mutate 42 run some more 120 twice 12

N S V
needs 78 science 48 vacuum turbulence 112
neutrino 85 scope 18 very close 113
NPCs 59 character 50 Von Neumann plague 42
opponent 19
O stereotype 50 W
online 20 Secret 55 weak physics 46
opposed roll 12 Security 56 whojamaflip. See gadgets
organizations 52 self-compel 63
shifts 12 Z
P negative 12 zone 12, 111, 113, 117
permission 46 shoot 119 zone link
physics shooting 117 close 113
weak 46 slavers (re: fabricants) 28 distant 114
point slowspace 110 far 114
fate, for NPCs 60 specification 53 very close 113
Political 54 speed of light 76

0
precision 49 starfighter 68

9-13
Proximity 79 starships 120
psionics 48 start 44
punching 117 stereotype 43, 47
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