For countless years the old empire has stood, ruling a lion’s share of the galaxy from its seat around Jupiter. Once more has the emperor died under mysterious circumstances; the old emperor is dead, long live the empress. Yet even while the outer systems are filled once more with mutterings of dissent, the bureaucracy rumbles on; great freighters still flow along the leylines as they radiate out from Earth and keep the lives of countless trillions in order.
Do the leylines and human life really come from Earth, as official doctrine says, or is is merely a convenient fiction to justify rule from its system, coinciding with how no other nexus is quite so rich in magic? A question for scholars – few of whom, no matter their achievement, will ever be permitted to look upon the verdant planet, let alone step on it.
For those few not fortunate enough to be born there, Earth’s soil is the preserve of mages, as here magic is at its strongest, and here the empire trains those with the aptitude: healers, navigators, sorcerers, and stranger arts yet. It is naught more than a name spoken in hushed whispers or with derision, a myth more than a place.
But what do you care? For one reason or another, you find yourself on the fringes of the empire, free from its rigid stratification but also its relative security. Free to mingle with aliens and things stranger yet… and always wondering where the next job will come from.
Your captain is a strange one, a woman somehow born on Earth, and with the magical background to show for it – a good healer, and enough of a knack for navigation to flit between systems without proper leyline routes – but now constantly indebted and with naught more than her clothes and ship. But she’s the one who brought you on board, and why you’re still here.
So, the idea is a very science fantasy vibe. Yes, there’s spaceships and plasma guns and robots; but there’s also mages, weirdos running around with swords, and zombies. The Empire might be restrictive and stratified, but for the majority of its citizens it still keeps things running well enough – and its size is so huge that a full uprising, even of multiple systems that once formed rival kingdoms, can scarcely dislodge it.
But out on the edges, things are free and riskier and, for one reason or another, you’ve found yourself with a link to this ship and its captain (for better or worse) and form its crew. Very much an authority in name only, she’s one to go with whatever seems interesting…
So, space-fantasy thing, very much a kitchen sink. For inspirations… mostly I was thinking Rogue Trader for something of the aesthetic, but I suppose the structure is more Traveller? And in non-TTRPG logic, I really had Outlaw Star on the mind, and a couple of other things here and there.
Do the leylines and human life really come from Earth, as official doctrine says, or is is merely a convenient fiction to justify rule from its system, coinciding with how no other nexus is quite so rich in magic? A question for scholars – few of whom, no matter their achievement, will ever be permitted to look upon the verdant planet, let alone step on it.
For those few not fortunate enough to be born there, Earth’s soil is the preserve of mages, as here magic is at its strongest, and here the empire trains those with the aptitude: healers, navigators, sorcerers, and stranger arts yet. It is naught more than a name spoken in hushed whispers or with derision, a myth more than a place.
But what do you care? For one reason or another, you find yourself on the fringes of the empire, free from its rigid stratification but also its relative security. Free to mingle with aliens and things stranger yet… and always wondering where the next job will come from.
Your captain is a strange one, a woman somehow born on Earth, and with the magical background to show for it – a good healer, and enough of a knack for navigation to flit between systems without proper leyline routes – but now constantly indebted and with naught more than her clothes and ship. But she’s the one who brought you on board, and why you’re still here.
So, the idea is a very science fantasy vibe. Yes, there’s spaceships and plasma guns and robots; but there’s also mages, weirdos running around with swords, and zombies. The Empire might be restrictive and stratified, but for the majority of its citizens it still keeps things running well enough – and its size is so huge that a full uprising, even of multiple systems that once formed rival kingdoms, can scarcely dislodge it.
But out on the edges, things are free and riskier and, for one reason or another, you’ve found yourself with a link to this ship and its captain (for better or worse) and form its crew. Very much an authority in name only, she’s one to go with whatever seems interesting…
So, space-fantasy thing, very much a kitchen sink. For inspirations… mostly I was thinking Rogue Trader for something of the aesthetic, but I suppose the structure is more Traveller? And in non-TTRPG logic, I really had Outlaw Star on the mind, and a couple of other things here and there.
