[Dawning Star] Helios Rising has Arrived!

[Justin D. Jacobson]

It's been a long journey, but I'm ecstatic to announce that Dawning Star: Helios Rising has been released in pdf format.

The print version is perfectbound and retails for $44.95. The pre-order is up now at Indie Press Revolution. Anyone who pays for a pre-order between now and August 2nd will receive a free copy of the pdf. If you pre-order, you can pick the book up at Gen Con or have it shipped to you afterwards.

The pdf is 540 pages (and around 50 megs!), retails for $17.95, and is available at both the EN World Game Store and RPG Now. (It will also be available at Drive-Thru RPG in watermark format, but I'm having problems with the upload.)

Here's the skinny on the fattest sci-fi setting in town:

THE BRIGHTER THE STAR
THE DEEPER THE SHADOW

To the humans, Eos offered a whole new world to explore with all of its challenges, threats, and rewards. But that was just the beginning. The critically acclaimed and ENnie-nominated Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch introduced the Dawning Star Campaign Setting. In Helios Rising, it explodes with the fury of a thousand suns. Dawning Star is the only full-scale science-fiction campaign setting built on d20 Modern and powered by d20 Future.

Helios Rising presents the rest of the Helios System in all its glory, from the prison-planet Hephaestus to the steamy jungles of C’thalk to the deserted Tentaari Gateway Station. Each planet is described in exacting detail with extensive new rules uniquely tailored to it:

• A dozen playable PC species, including the fierce saurians, the otherworldly yaom, and the stoic coqui.
• More than 100 adventure seeds, mapped locations, and fully statted NPCs, including the Ice Mines of Poseidon, the treacherous underground world of the Hollow Dark, and the Lord Oraton, leader of the Vaasi Assault Clan Ur-Kazzi.
• More than 100 feats, occupations, talent trees, and character classes, including the Wolf Nomads, Mechite Infomongers, and the Blood Guard Warriors of the Saurian Emperor.
• 300+ new weapons, cybernetic implants, nanites, starships, alien relics, mecha, and more gear, including saurian kinai blades, the organic hardware of the haimedians, and singularity rifles.
• A detailed description of Red Truth--a whole new take on psionics, specially developed for a realistic futuristic setting, along with 18 new powers.
• Tons of terrifying new information about the dreaded vaasi, their servitors, their weapons, their culture, and their dark plans for the Helios system.

Written by Lee Hammock. Supplemental writing by Chad Barr. Editing by Brandes Stoddard and Justin D. Jacobson. Art direction by Danilo Moretti. Technical Advice by Robert J. Grady.

Fully bookmarked. Demos, including the full introduction, a complete chapter, and the book's index, are available on our website: www.dawningstar.com

NOTE: You do NOT need to own a copy of Operation Quick Launch to get full use from Helios Rising.

And, for all you stat freaks, check out these numbers:

37 fully detailed locations (most of them mapped)
59 adventure hooks (paragraph-long--not just a sentence or two)
27 new feats
275 new pieces of equipment (weapons, armor, gear--all illustrated)
30 fully statted and illustrated starships
34 fully statted and illustrated xenomorphs
42 fully statted NPCs
12 playable PC species (all illustrated)
7 fully statted robots
17 new occupations
27 new talents
31 new character classes (including species classes)
18 new psionic powers (specially designed for "Red Truth")

With all that, you'd think this was just some massive complition of empty game mechanics. Not so! The book is pretty well 50/50 between fluff and crunch. It's just that fluff is a lot harder to quantify.

If you're still not sold, we've got a ton of demos available from the website, including:

• Danilo's Amazing Art Preview
• Entire Introductory Chapter
• Entire Chapter on Hephaestus, the Prison Planet
• The Seven-Page Index.
• Or you can ask about the book on our active message boards

The print version will debut at Gen Con for $44.95 and will be available through Indie Press Revolution and Key20 shortly thereafter. It should also be available in finer retail stores by virtue of Key20's distribution network.

 

[kingpaul]

Curse you! Curse you! Curse you!

You are reaching into my pocketbook and proactively taking $ from me!

Now, how do I pre-order through Indie Press? (never done it before)

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Curse you! Curse you! Curse you!

You are reaching into my pocketbook and proactively taking $ from me!

Now, how do I pre-order through Indie Press? (never done it before)

It should be smack-dab on the front page hopefully within the next day or two.

 

[Pinotage]

Do you need Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch before you can use this? Or is this the complete campaign setting? I'm a little vague as to the relationship between the two.

Pinotage

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Do you need Dawning Star: Operation Quick Launch before you can use this? Or is this the complete campaign setting? I'm a little vague as to the relationship between the two.

Pinotage

Excellent question! (To the point where I'll go clarify that in my product pages.) The answer is that you do NOT need OQL to get full use out of HR. There are a few references to OQL in the book, but they're simply additional information.

 

[DMH]

The answer is that you do NOT need OQL to get full use out of HR. There are a few references to OQL in the book, but they're simply additional information.

Then the core information on the vaasi and history of Earth's evacuation is repeated from OQL?

 

[Pinotage]

Excellent question! (To the point where I'll go clarify that in my product pages.) The answer is that you do NOT need OQL to get full use out of HR. There are a few references to OQL in the book, but they're simply additional information.

But if you needed the full campaign setting, you'd need both? I take it OQL is the core setting, whereas this is like a supplement to the core setting?

Pinotage

 

[HalWhitewyrm]

I got my copy of Helios Rising last night and I am so in love. This book is awesome, and I have barely read beyond chapter 1, which in itself has been hard because I keep going to the index, seeing something that calls my attention, then proceed to spend 15-20 minutes reading a completely different section. The work that was put into this baby is evident in every page, and the material is so freakin cool that I have trouble thinking how to use it all in a sci-fi game. I'm gonna have to buy extra pizza this weekend to convince my group to leave the shores of Faerun and head into space once we finish our current adventure.

Excellent work, Justin and everyone else involved. And like I said when you first previewed the art, don't let Danilo go for nothing, even if you have to throw a chain from South Florida to Torino.

 

[Justin D. Jacobson]

Then the core information on the vaasi and history of Earth's evacuation is repeated from OQL?

Not repeated so much as summarized in the first chapter. And the vaasi are covered in extensive detail in the Cronus Belt chapter.

 

[lkj]

Not repeated so much as summarized in the first chapter. And the vaasi are covered in extensive detail in the Cronus Belt chapter.

Ok-- to rephrase the question for myself-- Accepting that Helios Rising is self-contained, what will we be missing if we buy only Helios Rising and not Quick Launch?

Thanks for the info.

AD