Ranger REG
Explorer
Maybe they should clean up the untidy mess and released a revised version.
Sci Fantasy...
- Thread starter jeffers
- Start date
jeffers
First Post
Reclusive Wizards...
... Funny you should mention that. Wizards in Exodus are a fringe group, trained in a mentor/apprentice situation not unlike some medieval tales. After all, the disaster that sent the core civilization into space was a magical one, and who wants a repeat?
Overveiw:
Exodus is post-apocalypse setting that knows where it is going. Set a few centuries after the destruction of Caleon, the people who escaped its demise have a handful of worlds they defend against the predations of some alien cultures, some of whom have magic, some have superior technology.
Cultures:
The survivors of Caleon are now known as Exodites With all the new worlds available to them, the various races have begun to establish "racial homeworlds." As time goes on, this increases racial tensions as their cultures develop in relative isolation. Some Exodite worlds are diverse, while the homeworlds have only Humans, Elowan (truebreeding half-elves) or Jhuniz (ogres).
The remains of the old Caleon Space Fleet are now the Remnants a purely space-faring culture. They claim no worlds, but live in their large, slow starships. There are no better engineers, pilots or life-support techs in the universe than Remnants. They are racially diverse and have many odd behaviors.
Remnants and Exodites get along fine for now...
The Aurorans have higher tech than the Exodites, but do not have magic at all. The live rimward of the Exodite Expanse and worship the Universe Itself as God. He's not a benevolent diety in their veiw, however, so they don't have any pesky "Morality descends from Heaven" outlook about them. THe Universe is a cold, harsh place, and they reflect it accurately.
The Skathi are my truly badass race. Descended from a tiger-like predator, they live for the hunt. Their prey may be Exodites, Remnants or the secrets of the Universe, but they are a single-minded dangerous species. Lacking Mages or Wizards, they have better tech than Exodites or Remnants, but fall short of Auroran standards. They claim a Skathi Imperium, but its more like an anarchy. Various warlords claim whole worlds or small groups of them, and fight among themselves while paying tribute to an Emperor who rules the Throne-World of Skorath. In fact, anyone who rules Skorath is Emperor. This gives PC Skathi something to shoot for.
The Dust Lords don't show up on IR scanners or bio-scanners. This is because they are dead. The legends Caleon knew as the Realm of the Dead was, in fact, an actual planet. Some souls drift away into the Astral, but others are drawn to a well of dark energy found on Boregudar. Lately, the Dust Lords have been Actively Recuiting. One wonders what they're up to...
Plans?
Our plan is to cover an entire Galaxy. Races, Tech, a feat-based magic system, a sensible vehicle system that tracks damage accurately and quickly, with PC skill checks truly having meaning during combat, I"m hoping we can fit every concievable ship-board action into the system so that the entire table will enjoy ship combat, not just the pilot, engineer and gunner.
Character Creation:
So you're playing an Ogre. Fine, but was he raised by Humans of Jzorka? Did he grow up onboard the Remnant Battleship Pride of Hastria, learning vacc suit and heat sink repair when he was six? Did other Ogres on De Oon raise him? He's probably like other ogres you've met, or maybe he's a Skathi slave? Maybe having racial skills and weapon feats isn't quite right for so diverse a setting?
Race covers the Nature of your character, while Culture covers the Upbringing of your character.
Classes:
Classes will be handled in a manner similar to that found in Call of Cthulhu... more, I won't say.
Summary:
We've got lots of races, plenty of high-tech whizbang and yeah... we have wizards, but why train a guy for weeks to throw a Fireball spell when you can show him how to use a flamethrower in 2 hours?
Tech will always be better than magic, right? The Universe of the Exodus holds many secrets, not all of which I've revealed here... stay tuned!
... Funny you should mention that. Wizards in Exodus are a fringe group, trained in a mentor/apprentice situation not unlike some medieval tales. After all, the disaster that sent the core civilization into space was a magical one, and who wants a repeat?
Overveiw:
Exodus is post-apocalypse setting that knows where it is going. Set a few centuries after the destruction of Caleon, the people who escaped its demise have a handful of worlds they defend against the predations of some alien cultures, some of whom have magic, some have superior technology.
Cultures:
The survivors of Caleon are now known as Exodites With all the new worlds available to them, the various races have begun to establish "racial homeworlds." As time goes on, this increases racial tensions as their cultures develop in relative isolation. Some Exodite worlds are diverse, while the homeworlds have only Humans, Elowan (truebreeding half-elves) or Jhuniz (ogres).
The remains of the old Caleon Space Fleet are now the Remnants a purely space-faring culture. They claim no worlds, but live in their large, slow starships. There are no better engineers, pilots or life-support techs in the universe than Remnants. They are racially diverse and have many odd behaviors.
Remnants and Exodites get along fine for now...
The Aurorans have higher tech than the Exodites, but do not have magic at all. The live rimward of the Exodite Expanse and worship the Universe Itself as God. He's not a benevolent diety in their veiw, however, so they don't have any pesky "Morality descends from Heaven" outlook about them. THe Universe is a cold, harsh place, and they reflect it accurately.
The Skathi are my truly badass race. Descended from a tiger-like predator, they live for the hunt. Their prey may be Exodites, Remnants or the secrets of the Universe, but they are a single-minded dangerous species. Lacking Mages or Wizards, they have better tech than Exodites or Remnants, but fall short of Auroran standards. They claim a Skathi Imperium, but its more like an anarchy. Various warlords claim whole worlds or small groups of them, and fight among themselves while paying tribute to an Emperor who rules the Throne-World of Skorath. In fact, anyone who rules Skorath is Emperor. This gives PC Skathi something to shoot for.
The Dust Lords don't show up on IR scanners or bio-scanners. This is because they are dead. The legends Caleon knew as the Realm of the Dead was, in fact, an actual planet. Some souls drift away into the Astral, but others are drawn to a well of dark energy found on Boregudar. Lately, the Dust Lords have been Actively Recuiting. One wonders what they're up to...
Plans?
Our plan is to cover an entire Galaxy. Races, Tech, a feat-based magic system, a sensible vehicle system that tracks damage accurately and quickly, with PC skill checks truly having meaning during combat, I"m hoping we can fit every concievable ship-board action into the system so that the entire table will enjoy ship combat, not just the pilot, engineer and gunner.
Character Creation:
So you're playing an Ogre. Fine, but was he raised by Humans of Jzorka? Did he grow up onboard the Remnant Battleship Pride of Hastria, learning vacc suit and heat sink repair when he was six? Did other Ogres on De Oon raise him? He's probably like other ogres you've met, or maybe he's a Skathi slave? Maybe having racial skills and weapon feats isn't quite right for so diverse a setting?
Race covers the Nature of your character, while Culture covers the Upbringing of your character.
Classes:
Classes will be handled in a manner similar to that found in Call of Cthulhu... more, I won't say.
Summary:
We've got lots of races, plenty of high-tech whizbang and yeah... we have wizards, but why train a guy for weeks to throw a Fireball spell when you can show him how to use a flamethrower in 2 hours?
Tech will always be better than magic, right? The Universe of the Exodus holds many secrets, not all of which I've revealed here... stay tuned!
jeffers
First Post
About FFG..
The Dragonstar Essential Collection, IMO, is the last gasp of Dragonstar. I base this on nothing I've heard or read... I just think they're trying to divest themselves of all the Dragonstar stock before announcing the end of that line. I don't hold this against them, it happens all the time in my industry.
FFG hasn't made any such announcement, as far as I know.
The Dragonstar Essential Collection, IMO, is the last gasp of Dragonstar. I base this on nothing I've heard or read... I just think they're trying to divest themselves of all the Dragonstar stock before announcing the end of that line. I don't hold this against them, it happens all the time in my industry.
FFG hasn't made any such announcement, as far as I know.
Ranger REG
Explorer
That's too bad. The concept is sound, the name is cool, but perhaps the application is a bit faulty. I hate to see another one of FFG's creation go into the dumpster (the first being Blue Planet).jeffers said:
IMO, someone needs to take the foundation that was established with, Iron Lords of Jupiter, and expand it out into a complete system.
Additions could include, material on how to create your own exotic world, expanded material for the ILoJ setting, and material for the the addition of spaceflight.
Additions could include, material on how to create your own exotic world, expanded material for the ILoJ setting, and material for the the addition of spaceflight.
skippy_the_witch
First Post
I am running a similar pseudo-post Apocalyptic campaign called Cursed Earth. I use the Factory and Arsenal books, but only bought the Dragonstar PH, which had everything I needed for advancing the fantasy classes into a more modern flavor. The only reason I did not buy any of the other books (besides financial) was because like Shadowrun and many other Sci-fantasy games, it had both magic AND technology, while my game is MAGIC AS TECHNOLOGY. Thus, I have a form of specialist wizrad called a technomancer who is a sort of combination mechanist (from dragonstar) and specialist wizard. A technomancer gains many more class skills, abilities of a mechanist (such as traps, prefered tech, guerilla repair, etc), more skill points, but pays the price in being barred from 3 schools of spells (cannot be divination, transformation, and I can't remember the last one, I think it might have been adjuration). A technomancer also gains a few of the technomancer Dragonstar PrC abilities at higher levels for flavor. Technomancer also loses the scribe scroll feat (but gains a bonus feat which can only be used on item creation feats, including some new ones from the Perpetrated Press books) and does not get a familiar (although are able to get the Construct Familiar feat if they want). Construct familiars have more in common with the psi-crystal of a psion then an animal familiar, but do not allow spells to be used through them until much higher level, are not as intelligent, but are linked to the technomancer's spellpad, thus allowing them to transmit visual and/or audio data back to the technomancer. Also, a construct familiar can be upgraded by the technomancer per the upgrade ability of the mechanist.spider_minion said:
I have only started running this game for a local college group, and thus have yet to play test this class fully, but it is working so far. And it is absolutely necessary to the "civilized" Federation (run by 40k style Eldar based on Rokugan samurai and shukenja) that technomancers be common and a base class. While it may seem powerful within a civilized area, technomancers loose much of their value out in the Wild, especially when seperated from their tools and spellpad. Hell, a technomancer cannot even used a standard scroll. To him, it is like reading a precise engineering diagram and instructions in latin, he might eventually figure out what it says, but it would take a while. Thus, a technomancer can take a spell from a scroll and copy it into his spellpad, but could not use one in combat. A scroll Emulation program is an entirely different thing. Ironically, Wild wizards can use both scrolls and SEPs, as long as they have Technical proficiency feat.
skippy
