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.
"Space", obviously, but space is big, especially an entire Galaxy, so let's break it down some more:
A sprawling, bureaucratic mess. Nonetheless, the Empire exercises hegemonic control over all humanity – and de facto, the entire known inhabited galaxy, as other species have never had quite the success at spreading everywhere that humans seem to. Ceremonially, the capital remains Earth; but for all practical purposes, the capital is Jupiter and its moons – natural, and the sprawling network of shipyards and habitats that have built up around it over the millennia.
As always with a succession, there are rumblings of discontent from those polities it has absorbed, or those frustrated with the slow responses from the central government – though the Empress holds little power herself, the rare case of the monarch passing away is a stark reminder that not even this institution is permanent. But with the only organised, equipped interstellar navy, they remain as just rumblings and spikes in below the table jobs.
Close to the core, and definitively beyond it, the Empire's control fades to nominal and then non-existent. But then, so too does the network of leylines weaken and fade, making the journey increasingly fraught… but for those looking for freedom and self-sufficiency, perhaps it's worth it?
Not a single polity, but more a descriptor: as the leylines themselves weaken, so does the Empire's grasp, and at the very fringes it remains possible to claim true independence, without need to pay homage or tax or troops. Ringing its entire vastness across the galactic plane exist every kind of alternative government that can manage a system or two; democracies and monarchies, systems full of their own wars and systems so empty that you can just move in without a word to anyone.
Here, too, are many of the non-human homeworlds, and rumours of shady research far, far from prying eyes.
And here, or on the edges of Imperial space proper, is exactly where you find yourselves.
It's said that, once, humans believed magic to be nothing but a story, but only devoted archaeologists would really know. Magic is the foundation of effective interstellar travel, both in its technological form to enable FTL, and to navigate at such speeds. The great freighters and warships of the Empire, and most civilian traffic too, rely on computers that can lock onto the currents where magic runs strongest and plot a course along those – but there are plenty of those willing to rely on their own skills, despite the massive risk of going off course, to move more directly, or even to go beyond the safety of the leylines proper. And then there are those who, personally, know the navigation spells that the computers use only in part, who can reliably find their way from place to place through far more esoteric means.
But that, like most magic, isn't taught freely and openly: legally, the only centres of study for the arcane are on Earth, where all leylines seem to run eventually – and where they continue to grow for one reason or another, spreading out with humanity across the galaxy. Healing is taught here, navigation, sorcery for battle, and every form of specialisation that defies common reason. But only an elite few, in comparison to the full population of the Empire, are permitted such an honour.
Most with magical talent instead learn from doing, from what disgruntled official mages are willing and able to share, or from their peers. Talents best kept hidden from the authorities, but often no less effective for it – if lacking the same academic breadth, or the few arts that will be cracked down upon if shared. Navigation and longevity among them.
Of course, for those with the talent but not the time to learn, technology has shortcuts. Caster guns remain a favourite: load up the right bullet, and when fired you get some combat spell in addition to the shot – drawing upon the shooter in order to fire, safely or not; the creation of such bullets is hardly regulated outside the navy. Endless specialised tools of greater or lesser refinement can be bought freely, especially in the fringes where nothing better is available…
Humanity is the dominant life in the Galaxy, to the point of near-overwhelming majority. Whatever luck allowed humans into space and other systems has thoroughly escaped everyone they encountered thus far, the typical example having used sub-light speeds to colonise a nearby system or two before humans showed up. Still, for all the near-religious zeal surrounding Earth, the Empire is not inherently ethnocentric, and any species absorbed early into its expansion have benefited nearly as much from the meteoric growth.
Interestingly enough, the standard body plan of such intelligent races is often near-human, although no reason why has yet been shown.
Not that all life has arisen organically; mad experiments have certainly contributed more, and the most advanced models of robot – or, indeed, AI with no body at all – are accorded full rights… which makes them correspondingly rare, both from expense and the lack of a reason. At least, an ethical one.
As stated in the IC, this is a sort of space fantasy thing, very much with Rogue Trader and Traveller on my mind, but also things like Outlaw Star. Every character is, without fail, somehow part of the same little crew – all on one ship constantly on the edges of its budget, but willing to stay on despite the difficulty of getting by, out here on the fringe.
The idea is to have a rather episodic structure; we'll probably get an overarching plot along the way (if this goes well), but for the most part it's your usual "well, what's the job of the week?" deal.
I'll be accepting 4-6 players. And without further ado:
also if anyone has a better name, please suggest it
i cannot name things
but i do like the derpiness here
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.
Setting
"Space", obviously, but space is big, especially an entire Galaxy, so let's break it down some more:
The Empire
A sprawling, bureaucratic mess. Nonetheless, the Empire exercises hegemonic control over all humanity – and de facto, the entire known inhabited galaxy, as other species have never had quite the success at spreading everywhere that humans seem to. Ceremonially, the capital remains Earth; but for all practical purposes, the capital is Jupiter and its moons – natural, and the sprawling network of shipyards and habitats that have built up around it over the millennia.
As always with a succession, there are rumblings of discontent from those polities it has absorbed, or those frustrated with the slow responses from the central government – though the Empress holds little power herself, the rare case of the monarch passing away is a stark reminder that not even this institution is permanent. But with the only organised, equipped interstellar navy, they remain as just rumblings and spikes in below the table jobs.
Close to the core, and definitively beyond it, the Empire's control fades to nominal and then non-existent. But then, so too does the network of leylines weaken and fade, making the journey increasingly fraught… but for those looking for freedom and self-sufficiency, perhaps it's worth it?
The Free Systems
Not a single polity, but more a descriptor: as the leylines themselves weaken, so does the Empire's grasp, and at the very fringes it remains possible to claim true independence, without need to pay homage or tax or troops. Ringing its entire vastness across the galactic plane exist every kind of alternative government that can manage a system or two; democracies and monarchies, systems full of their own wars and systems so empty that you can just move in without a word to anyone.
Here, too, are many of the non-human homeworlds, and rumours of shady research far, far from prying eyes.
And here, or on the edges of Imperial space proper, is exactly where you find yourselves.
Magic
It's said that, once, humans believed magic to be nothing but a story, but only devoted archaeologists would really know. Magic is the foundation of effective interstellar travel, both in its technological form to enable FTL, and to navigate at such speeds. The great freighters and warships of the Empire, and most civilian traffic too, rely on computers that can lock onto the currents where magic runs strongest and plot a course along those – but there are plenty of those willing to rely on their own skills, despite the massive risk of going off course, to move more directly, or even to go beyond the safety of the leylines proper. And then there are those who, personally, know the navigation spells that the computers use only in part, who can reliably find their way from place to place through far more esoteric means.
But that, like most magic, isn't taught freely and openly: legally, the only centres of study for the arcane are on Earth, where all leylines seem to run eventually – and where they continue to grow for one reason or another, spreading out with humanity across the galaxy. Healing is taught here, navigation, sorcery for battle, and every form of specialisation that defies common reason. But only an elite few, in comparison to the full population of the Empire, are permitted such an honour.
Most with magical talent instead learn from doing, from what disgruntled official mages are willing and able to share, or from their peers. Talents best kept hidden from the authorities, but often no less effective for it – if lacking the same academic breadth, or the few arts that will be cracked down upon if shared. Navigation and longevity among them.
Of course, for those with the talent but not the time to learn, technology has shortcuts. Caster guns remain a favourite: load up the right bullet, and when fired you get some combat spell in addition to the shot – drawing upon the shooter in order to fire, safely or not; the creation of such bullets is hardly regulated outside the navy. Endless specialised tools of greater or lesser refinement can be bought freely, especially in the fringes where nothing better is available…
… and the Galaxy's Inhabitants
Humanity is the dominant life in the Galaxy, to the point of near-overwhelming majority. Whatever luck allowed humans into space and other systems has thoroughly escaped everyone they encountered thus far, the typical example having used sub-light speeds to colonise a nearby system or two before humans showed up. Still, for all the near-religious zeal surrounding Earth, the Empire is not inherently ethnocentric, and any species absorbed early into its expansion have benefited nearly as much from the meteoric growth.
Interestingly enough, the standard body plan of such intelligent races is often near-human, although no reason why has yet been shown.
Not that all life has arisen organically; mad experiments have certainly contributed more, and the most advanced models of robot – or, indeed, AI with no body at all – are accorded full rights… which makes them correspondingly rare, both from expense and the lack of a reason. At least, an ethical one.
As stated in the IC, this is a sort of space fantasy thing, very much with Rogue Trader and Traveller on my mind, but also things like Outlaw Star. Every character is, without fail, somehow part of the same little crew – all on one ship constantly on the edges of its budget, but willing to stay on despite the difficulty of getting by, out here on the fringe.
The idea is to have a rather episodic structure; we'll probably get an overarching plot along the way (if this goes well), but for the most part it's your usual "well, what's the job of the week?" deal.
I'll be accepting 4-6 players. And without further ado:
- Name:
- Age:
- Gender:
- Species: Human (this will be the majority; please speak to me before requesting something else
- Appearance:
- Personality:
- Brief Backstory: Should include why on Earth you're part of this crew. The captain's a fairly lackadaisical sort (and much older than she looks), but if you've got something complicated in mind, just ask.
- Equipment:
- Skills:
also if anyone has a better name, please suggest it
i cannot name things
but i do like the derpiness here
