doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
My regular group has begun a project to create a galaxy in which we can play a fantasy space opera, inspired by Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Flash Gordon, Titan AE, Treasure Planet, and others. We aren’t looking for science fiction hardness, or the ultra-weird or spelljammer, and we aren’t really worried about making sure that everything D&D has a home in the galaxy.
The galaxy is being explored, closer to early Trek than Star Wars’ well defined map.
FTL has two modes; Star Lanes are FTL highways that propel vessels over light years in hours, making travel between stars take days or weeks, rather than lifetimes. Aether Slipstream Drives propel a single vessel at a rate ranging from 1/10th the speed of a Star Lane, to 80% the speed of a Star Lane, depending on the quality of the drive. This is a very very new tech.
There is D&D magic, and sci-fi and sci-fantasy weaponry, and lots and lots of races.
There is a “good guy” coalition called the Commonwealth and a “villain” empire called the Authority, which are in astate of civil war. The Commonwealth is not humanocentric, and in fact humans used to be a separate power called the Federation of Human Worlds, but the remnants of the old federation are split between the core worlds, which joined the commonwealth as the Star lanes opened back up after a thousand years of darkness, and the colony worlds where the wealthy landlords and corporate owners consolidated their power into an oligarchy of the wealthy, complete with noble titles and pseudo-feudal hierarchies. (Imagine all the rich jerks who owned moons and such in Firefly formed a new government together).
There are Aether ships that sail on the gas clouds that concentrate around suns, allowing natural creatures to breath and live in solar space, and deep space vessels that look more like classic sci-fi starships.
So, the question I have is, what mechanics can facilitate all this, sticking to mostly stock 5e D&D, with as little homebrew as possible. I want to be able to make characters in dndbeyond for this.
The galaxy is being explored, closer to early Trek than Star Wars’ well defined map.
FTL has two modes; Star Lanes are FTL highways that propel vessels over light years in hours, making travel between stars take days or weeks, rather than lifetimes. Aether Slipstream Drives propel a single vessel at a rate ranging from 1/10th the speed of a Star Lane, to 80% the speed of a Star Lane, depending on the quality of the drive. This is a very very new tech.
There is D&D magic, and sci-fi and sci-fantasy weaponry, and lots and lots of races.
There is a “good guy” coalition called the Commonwealth and a “villain” empire called the Authority, which are in astate of civil war. The Commonwealth is not humanocentric, and in fact humans used to be a separate power called the Federation of Human Worlds, but the remnants of the old federation are split between the core worlds, which joined the commonwealth as the Star lanes opened back up after a thousand years of darkness, and the colony worlds where the wealthy landlords and corporate owners consolidated their power into an oligarchy of the wealthy, complete with noble titles and pseudo-feudal hierarchies. (Imagine all the rich jerks who owned moons and such in Firefly formed a new government together).
There are Aether ships that sail on the gas clouds that concentrate around suns, allowing natural creatures to breath and live in solar space, and deep space vessels that look more like classic sci-fi starships.
So, the question I have is, what mechanics can facilitate all this, sticking to mostly stock 5e D&D, with as little homebrew as possible. I want to be able to make characters in dndbeyond for this.