#About the Game
#The Format
Games meet once a week. Each session is a single, self-contained ‘episode’ that we create together. Sessions last three hours with the first half hour set aside for catching up on progress from the last time as well as determining goals and desires for this session. Gameplay takes place over the next two hours where our crew of 3-5 players work together towards their goals. The last half hour is then reserved to check in using the well-established “stars and wishes” tool for tabletop gameplay.
#The System
The game is built using the Cortex Prime, writen by Cam Banks, and currently owned by Dire Wolf Digital.
Cortex Prime is a gaming toolbox codifying all the mechanics used by previous “Cortex” incarnations created by Cam Banks that fuel the official role-playing games for TV shows including:
- Firefly
- Leverage
- Supernatural
- Battlestar Galactica
- Smallville
As such, games are framed like episodes of a TV show for which the GM is the director and head writer; and the players are the actors and writers of their characters.
#The World(s)
Set in the near future of an alternative history:
100 years ago the first humans touched the stars and, in so doing, changed the world.
Every resource on Earth became focused on spreading out across the solar system. Advances in genetics doubled the human lifespan; and also uplifted several species - dolphin, octopus, chimpanzee, raven, and more - to sentience and sapience. Advances in cybernetics created synthetic bodies and cyberbrains more suited to life in space. And in the process created DSSIs - Digital Sentient Sapient Intelligence - more than just another level of machine learning or “artificial intelligence” but actual life.
The first generation of space travelers were explorers and pioneers. Their children were settlers. Their grandchildren were natives.
But “Earthclan” had looked at the stars too hard for too long. By staring at the sky, they failed to notice the shifts beneath their feet.
10 years ago the Greenland ice sheet - the largest dam on Earth - gave way. Over one billion people were reported dead in the first week with the flooding of the coastlines and subsequent tidal waves and storms. Another billion lost over the next 18 months to fire, famine, and disease. Those that had the resources to leave the planet began to do so in a mass exodus of biblical proportions.
That first year is known as “Earthfall.”
But Earthclan came together. On Earth, the nation states of the planet (temporarily) set aside their animosities and formed the UEO - United Earth Organization. Throughout the system, efforts to make space self-reliant were redoubled as Earth was no longer the hub of production, but now another link in the chain.
1 year ago another shift occurred; this time across every single form of life.
A biological human living on Earth in the body into which they were born may still be the largest single demographic in the system, but it is no longer the default.
There are now more people living off-world than on Earth. More “interterrestrial aliens” - uplifts and DSSIs - than humans. And more people are living in synthetic or digital forms than biological ones.
And right this moment you are serving in Astra Corps.
Formed in the aftermath of Earthfall, Astra Corp recruits are highly trained individuals operating in small crews to provide relief in times of crisis. They provide resources, skills, and most importantly:
Hope.