“Only from the darkness may we see the stars.”

The indomitable Human Empire vaulted itself majestically dick-first into space. On wings of angels and the backs of warlike men and ambitious women, the unprecedented union of Earth’s disparate global powers set forth to the heavens for glory, profit, and conquest. Slowly at first, this powerful force overtook the rest of Humanity and beyond. They spread across Orion’s Arm, taking planets-like notches on their belts: voraciously consuming cosmic resources, subjugating sentient species as they found them, and annihilating some wholesale. Like a cancerous tumor, Humanity surged ever-onwards, tainting the stars unchecked—until Humanity came upon a Murai Hiveworld. Cleansing the planet of its inhabitants in a corporate-backed military action dubbed “CloudFall,” Humanity declared war on the insectoid spacefarers, expecting to crush them like bugs. 

Humanity lost the war. The Murai had allies. 

The year is now 50 After Origin (A.O.), 50 Standard Solar Years since the formation of the Trinity, and Humanity has been given a new lease on life. After CloudFall, the Murai and their historic trade partners, the socially-complex, mammal-like Thren formed a wartime alliance known as “The Coalition of Sister Species” to defend the Murai from Human invasion. Realizing that simply repelling Humanity would solve nothing, the Coalition resolved to end the threat of the Human Empire in its entirety. After fifty long years of interplanetary warfare, death, destruction, and despair, the Sister Species claimed the Imperial capital of Mars.

The Great Transition followed for another fifty years.  After much violence and toil and uprising, Humanity rose to form the Artemisian Commune and join with the Sister Species to create the first truly multi-species stellar polity in Orion's Arm's history: the Trinity.  They stand together against the void's dangerous indifference and all sources of aggression and exploitation from without and within.  The war ended 100 years ago—this is the story of how, and if, the peace is won.

Fast Facts

• all-in-one Hard Scifi TTRPG with Setting+System
• d6 die pool with push-your-luck mechanics and common (with drawbacks) re-rolls to keep the action going, any 6 is a Success outside contests—extras augment
• inspired by Queer & Feminist literature, it imagines a world with decidedly more hope—but still conflict aplenty—than most in the genre
• ample room and mechanics for space bound play, planetary romance, and space opera
• tried-and-tested over years of Actual Play and private sessions across ours and others' Twitch\YouTube channels

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World & System in One

ChangedStars is a tabletop roleplaying game set in a more hopeful future struggling with the long legacy of war that ended 100 years ago.  

• Rich Setting with Copious Art: Brainchild of artist Patrice Long and our friends with additional lore expansion from Leland, ChangedStars is a visually and textually realized arm of the galaxy in close review—Orion's Arm and her species have hundreds of illustrations across the 'net and this book, filling with 304 page tome with endless visualization amidst lurid descriptions.
  • Close Review: the Lore Chapter covers 7 Species, 3 Precursors, and Artificial Intelligence in close review after a summary of history beginning in shrouded millennia past when the Sunderers passed through Orion's Arm til today, 50 A.O., and everything of note in-between.
  • Boundless Space, Bounded: 28 pages of major and minor star systems, all plotted on the introduction's star map, covering the conditions of life there and potential points of conflict and intrigue.
  • Thren'tling Conlang: Information detailing the common glyphs and linguistics basics of the in-universe conglang Thren'tling, found commonly throughout the Trinity from lips to neon signs with glyphs like "Hyulb," or "wine," indicating universal services—like bars.
• Simple Basics, Expansive Implications: d6 dice pool system with push-your-luck mechanics to add frequent rerolls lets smaller numbers of dice more readily achieve success.  Twists with additional Successes and Super Twists augment the outcome of your tests, just as Shocks from your accruing Edge Dice complicate (but do not negate) it.
• 5 Frames: Players can take any role or position in Orion's Arm using the Frame system provided for the DreamWeaver: Free Merchants trying to keep their ship flying, Science Teams heading out to uncover ancient mysteries and study unique life and stellar phenomena, Ordinary people who did not expect to do any heroics when they woke up today (and may yet avoid any!), Clandestine spies\separatists\criminals fighting a shadow war for a cause or cash, and Marines dropping into the bowels of hell to hold back a return to all-out war.

  
  

  • Ordinary People doing Extraordinary Things: From Barista to Freighter Pilot to SpecOps Commando, the characters in ChangedStars are people—stress and anxiety get to them, they make mistakes (oft due to Shocks), and their pool of hit points are not remarkably higher than anyone else's and do not inherently progress with Experience gain.  These limitations are part of the experience: you're not a cardboard cutout, you're a person, and you're really in the thick making it happen.
    
• Fast Character Creation, Bottomless Customization: A quick 5-step character generation process can be completed in minutes by vets and fully grok'd by a newcomer within tens of minutes.
  • 12 Archetypes with clear roles and easy instructions on selection act as painted-up bodies for the 3 underlying Archetype chassis—meaning you can make 1:1 substitutions on anything any Archetype gets for quick customization, and easily learn the underpinning system to make your own!
  • 17 Talent Trees & 1 catch-all Adventure Talents section have a total 119 Talents between them!
  • 9 signature Edge Breaks that allow characters to make stand out show-stopping moves where their Success is unbounded by probability, but the odds of lasting negative consequences after are high.  A character's Edge Break permits game-bending outcomes and extreme achievements while under incredible pressure.

Extensive Catalogues

• Gear Aplenty: ChangedStars has enough gear for every occasion without redundancy within category or undue incrementalism.
• • 6 Spacesuits, ranging from: 

    
    

    • SpecOps Hardsuits with jet boosters and spiky Barbed Military Hardsuits to Luxury Spacesuits and the signature Trinity Standard Spacesuit (wearable under other armour)!
  • 11 Personal Armours, from:
    • Ned Kelley-style bolted together metal plate suits and experimental reflective anti-laser panoplies to glamorous clothing made with premiere materials to wow connoisseurs and casuals of fashion alike and Ballistic Weave armour built to look like regular clothing—and of course the signature powered armour of our setting, the Ballistic Assault Personnel Armour, or BAPA!
  • 13 Melee Weapons, from
    • Plasma torches and shock staves to swords and garrotes!
  • 26 Ranged Weapons, including:
    • 6 Handguns—from less-than-lethal Electroshock Guns and traditional Revolvers to Bolt Guns intended for riveting metal but even better at riveting flesh!
    • 10 Rifles—from space harpoons intended to catch debris to pulse rifles with underslung shotguns for making a banging entrance!
    • 10 Heavy Weapons—EMP and Less-than-Lethal Shock Grenades, deployable turrets, Laser and Anti-Material Rifles, Plastic Explosives, Missile Launchers, and more!
  • 13 Drugs/Consumables, including:
    • 6 Medical items, from MediKits to anti-anxiety/stress Drop pills (with many fun flavours)!
    • 4 Recreational items, from the Trinity’s favourite cheap beer Pontiff’s Red to gengineered Toboxo smokes!
    • 3 Restricted items—deathly stimulants intended to coax combatants over the finish line before dropping (literally) dead.
  • 14 Tools!  Ranging from:
    • 4 Electrical tools, from electrical tester kits for diagnostics to a remote hacking tool!
    • 4 Maintenance tools, from the trusty MuLTi all-in-one tool to the venerable melee-weapon-double feature Plasma Torch.
    • 3 Medical tools, from surgical implements to a gun that shoots drugs across the room—for the medic on the go!
    • 3 Science tools: Chemical Analyzer, Chemical Synthesizer, and the all-in-one M-Pattern Field Deployer that does both!
  • 24 General Equipment items, this spread including:
    • 12 Rugged items for the traveler and camper (plus glowsticks)! 
    • 7 Comms items—from the omnipresent Slates for comms and personal computing to the S.O.S. beacon that summons aid or HiSec Drone Terminal to pilot your own helpful buddy from!
    • 5 Logistics items, from fuel canisters and power pads to stacks of ammo.
• Chrome Up: 14 pieces of Cyberware!  Augment your mind, jack into vehicles, subdermally armour yourself, embed swords in your wrists, better manage your emotions, and more!
• Spaceships Galore: the Space Engagement system has been (re)written numerous times to chase the ideal that everyone has a part to play in spaceship encounters and the rules should not be alien to the rest of the game's systems to the point where you're learning a whole new game to play.  Copious items throughout the book provide a basis for spaceship play:
  • 35 fully detailed and gameable Spaceships!
    • 10 Shuttles, including 1 generic floorplan and 1 bespoke floorplan for the Koi in 1m squares.
    • 14 Small Craft (out to 200m long internal space), with complete floorplans down to the 1m square for each.
    • 11 Large Craft (out to 2km long internal space) with large-form floorplans showing relative sizes and positionality.
  • 13 Spaceship Hardpoint Weapons (including countermeasures and salvaging arms) across 3 size classes.
  • 29 Spaceship Modules to fill those Hardpoints with non-weapon functionality—add a green house, another room, backup systems, armour plating, additional computer systems, afterburners, and more, oh my!
  • 12 Shipboard A.I. with lore entry and statistics for helping run your players' and foes' mobile space homes!
  • 4 Leviathans with details and art—hulking space constructs that can form the basis for entire campaigns, alongside broad outline of rules for how to run parts of them if involved in a Space Engagement.
• Vehicles and Drones and Mechs for Days!
• • 10 Drones at the person-scale to serve as your companions or foils!
    
  • 6 CCUs, small mechs that take the place of space forklifts, to pilot!
  • 18 Vehicles (not counting Spaceships) to fly, sail, and drive!
  • 9 Types of Space Drones across:
    • 4 Independent Drones—from miners and ambulances to scouts and fighters!
    • 5 Swarm Drones—from prospector and repair swarms to decoys and minefields!