NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Steampunkette" data-source="post: 8421473" data-attributes="member: 6796468">Three big conceits: 1) Star Trek's core conceit is Submarine life. No. Really. That was where Roddenberry got the idea. He just turned the Sea into Space and added weird islands to solve problems on. It expanded from that core, which is still super present in all other Star Trek Media.2) Star Wars' core conceit is that it's not one thing. It's a War Movie, a Drama, a Romance, a Fantasy Epic, Etc. Star Wars took important elements from various types of media and boiled them in one pot.3) Star Wars' central "Evil Empire" is great, that's why Star Trek had the Klingons for Kirk, Cardassians and Dominion for DS9, Romulans and Borg for TNG, Etc. But while Star Wars really only had the Empire as a real threat (Okay, there was some crime happening) Trek is better about juggling villainy.So... here's my suggestions:1) Space -is- the Astral Plane. Stars at night are other worlds out there, each one it's own Material Plane. No need for the Gates.2) There's a Spelljammer in one of the D&D Adventures for 5e rules. [SPOILER="Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Not much of a spoiler, but some people probably haven't played it, yet."][/SPOILER] So you could use that for your game if you want to make travel be Mage-Dependent.3) Have a central Evil Empire made up of the same people in the Good Guy side, but add in secondary Empires for different themes. This helps create narrative parity and ground things in terms of "War"So yeah. You've got your Heroic Rebellion lead by charismatic humans uniting an army of various species... maybe have the Evil Empire be Human-Centric, too. Possibly lead by an Elder Brain that is slowly converting members of the Evil Empire into illithid in a sneaky manner. And then on the side have your Klingons and Romulans and Borg and Dominion. The other empires that are alternately united with or against the Evil Empire based on what story you're hoping to tell.You want Borg? Modrons making humanoid species into Warforged and Autognomes (Based exclusively on size of the original body)You want a hive species with bug-spaceships? The Kitax Regnum which is lead by the "Voice of the Queen" (a Regent) and is a buncha Thri-Kreen and other insectoid creatures that fly around in living ships birthed by the Queen.How about setting it during an Illithid/Gith war, where Gith basically fulfill the role of Wookies or Bothans next to the heroic party who takes the death star plans to blow up the illithid Star-Darkener (Many Gith died so we could use this information...)Yeah. You read that right. Star-Darkener. The illithid want to BLOT OUT THE STARS and leave the universe a cold dead wasteland where only those who submit to Ceremorphosis get to enjoy the warmth of a spring day in star systems that bow to their demands for BRAINS and CONVERTS. Bonus points: Every star darkened increases the horror of reality by allowing horrible Lovecraftian entities more power by increasing the "Darkness between the stars" where they thrive. Soon, they may have enough power to overtake all the bonds the gods placed on them and snuff out all light in the galaxy, whether the illithid want it or not!You wanna make your evil empire Dragons and Dragonborn? Far out, man, just have them fly through Astral Space without starships (The dragons, I mean). Give the Dragonborn enhancers that turn their natural breath weapons into long-ranged attacks or let them somehow use them more often. Imagine the Gunnery Deck where 20 Dragonborn get together and blast their breath weapons into a cannon that fires them all at an enemy ship in one big blast of energy. Heck, have the Dragons themselves act as living starships with elaborate "Backpacks" that give the Dragonborn crew somewhere to stand.</blockquote>

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