Pathfinder In Space! Aethera Combines Wizards & Starships

"Pathfinder in Space" is not a new trope these days - and especially not since Paizo's Technology Guide and Iron Gods adventure path - but there are always different takes on it. Heck, even I attempted to publish a Pathfinder AP based on Mike Resnick's Santiago novels a couple of years back. Aethera is a campaign setting which calls itself "diesel-punk, sword and starships" which has a couple of weeks left on its Kickstarter and is about halfway there in terms of funding (in other words, pretty much on track). They've kindly sent me along a preview of the book because they know how much I love showing awesome previews. This preview includes part of the table of contents, and part of the races section.

The setting is a 400-page hardcover, with a 1920s-30s sic-fi art vibe to it. "In the Aethera Campaign Setting, you'll soar to asteroid outposts and ancient high-tech ruins on a ship powered by crystallized magic, journey to worlds populated by intelligent plant bio-engineers, musically prophetic technocrats, human-souled robotic war veterans, and alien shamans, all suddenly threatened by interstellar raiders." It's being written by Robert Brookes, who was a finalist in Paizo's annual RPG Superstar competition, and has contributed to a number of Paizo's Pathfinder hardcovers. You'll find the Kickstarter here (or click on one of the images below).

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[Stacie GmrGrl]

Looks beautiful, but them having such high price tiers makes this one questionable to me.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

It looks neat. I would totally buy into it, and probably play it, if it didn't require a separate 500-page book in order to play. I don't do supplements, though.

 

[turkeygiant]

Sadly only being 50% funded half way through a campaign usually means a project is never going to make it to 100%. Unfortunately their launch seems to have been really weak and the bump in interest they got from a io9 feature quickly fell off. I can absolutely see this setting be a success but I think they need to work on drumming up a more active fanbase and reconsider the large scope and cost they are shooting for in this unproven line.

 

[Shane H not Hensley]

Santiago looks pretty nifty. Nice map and other resources. Spiffy website. Looks like some good work was put into it. I added it to my list of List of TTRPG settings which originated in other media.

 

[Raddu]

Personally, I've pledged my support because I think this is a fantastic project idea. It's in the vein of Dragonstar and Spelljammer, but without the overarching empire feel of Dragonstar and without the cheese of Spelljammer. One thing I love about Spelljammer was the ships, I hope this has some really interesting ship design.

We did have a slow start to the funding and getting the word out, but we've been working hard to get interviews on blogs and podcasts, as well as information sent to blogs and websites, like ENWorld. If you're interested in the setting at all, I encourage you to pledge. If we are successful, you get an awesome new Pathfinder setting, if we're not, you lose nothing.

 

[John Benbo]

John Bennett here and one of the designers contributing to Aethera. I've always been a fan of mixing scifi and fantasy (my round 4 location in the 2011 RPG Superstar was a robot head!) and what Robert Brookes and his core team have come up with is one of the better concoctions I've seen. I've worked on other Pathfinder scifi projects (It Came from the Stars by Zombie Sky Press) but what attracted me to work on this project is Aethera isn't just a tool kit but a whole galaxy spanning campaign setting. It takes the classic Pathfinder classes, including the new Occult classes, and re-envisions them in post-post apocalyptic setting where humanity has just come out of a recent dark age and the galaxy is much changed. There's a lot of mystery to explore in the setting- from lost artifacts, ancient ruins, derelict space ships, to giant cities which supports many types and styles of play (whether intrigue or dungeon crawling). It certainly is ambitious and has a high funding goal but that's because it's going to be a really big, beautiful book unlike anything on the market today.

 

[thedaringdragoon]

Personally, I've pledged my support because I think this is a fantastic project idea. It's in the vein of Dragonstar and Spelljammer, but without the overarching empire feel of Dragonstar and without the cheese of Spelljammer.

We did have a slow start to the funding and getting the word out, but we've been working hard to get interviews on blogs and podcasts, as well as information sent to blogs and websites, like ENWorld. If you're interested in the setting at all, I encourage you to pledge. If we are successful, you get an awesome new Pathfinder setting, if we're not, you lose nothing.

I agree the Dragonstar/Spelljammer feel of the project is one of the major reasons I kicked in for the book. Also everything I've read so about it, so far, has got me super excited for this setting. I've long been trying to cobble together my own Sci-Fi or Sci-Fy campaign setting for Pathfinder. However with 3 year, personal health issues, working on my business athletic pursuits and my other hobbies/pastimes I barley have time to GM/and write adventures for my group's games as it is let alone have the time to create a campaign setting, from the ground up, that incorporate various 3 party supplements, my own rules and conceptual elements and existing Pathfinder rules (and any modification those rules require) in any sort of usable format.

Aethera promises to do all that for me and everything I've read so far indicates that they keep that promise....so I was happy to kick in for the book.

 

[turkeygiant]

John Bennett here and one of the designers contributing to Aethera. I've always been a fan of mixing scifi and fantasy (my round 4 location in the 2011 RPG Superstar was a robot head!) and what Robert Brookes and his core team have come up with is one of the better concoctions I've seen. I've worked on other Pathfinder scifi projects (It Came from the Stars by Zombie Sky Press) but what attracted me to work on this project is Aethera isn't just a tool kit but a whole galaxy spanning campaign setting. It takes the classic Pathfinder classes, including the new Occult classes, and re-envisions them in post-post apocalyptic setting where humanity has just come out of a recent dark age and the galaxy is much changed. There's a lot of mystery to explore in the setting- from lost artifacts, ancient ruins, derelict space ships, to giant cities which supports many types and styles of play (whether intrigue or dungeon crawling). It certainly is ambitious and has a high funding goal but that's because it's going to be a really big, beautiful book unlike anything on the market today.

I hope I didn't give the impression that I don't think Aethera looks great, it really does and that's why I backed it. I just think it might be too ambitious a kickstarter, if you aren't able to get funding I would hope you would try again with a scaled back version of the book as a proof of concept to be expanded on.

 

[John Benbo]

I hope I didn't give the impression that I don't think Aethera looks great, it really does and that's why I backed it. I just think it might be too ambitious a kickstarter, if you aren't able to get funding I would hope you would try again with a scaled back version of the book as a proof of concept to be expanded on.

No worries, I didn't think that. I was just making a general comment because it is a high funding goal and I've backed enough Kickstarters to realize that 50 grand ain't easy . I'm not sure what Robert's plan is if it doesn't fund. However, Robert is never one to shy from a challenge and he does have the ability to get people excited with his projects. It's gotten past the 33% mark so I'm very hopeful it'll fund.

And thank you for backing!