Per Ardua Ad Astra
Basic information about the game.
Who is who in the Known Worlds.
A little about the game universe.
Handouts, rules and amendments unique to the campaign
Non-Player and Player characters of note.
Out of Character resources
The Game Setting
'Fading Suns' is actually quite a hard game to cram into a conventional pigeon-hole. Whilst it has 'Science Fiction Roleplaying' printed on the spine of the rulebook, there's also a strong medieval and even magical theme to it.I've broken this section up into a number of sub-divisions to try to help :
- Culture Life in the 'Fading Suns' universe - Society and Culture.
- Technology Spaceships to Battle-axes.
- "Magic" Psionics & Theurgy - Strange powers of the mind and soul.
- A Gazeteer Of The Known Worlds A brief sketch of each planet.
- Timeline of history The course of events from pre-history to the start of the campaign.
Summary of the Game Universe
To summarise 'Fading Suns' is also no easy task :It is a universe in which a great starfaring civilisation has collapsed. Out of the anarchy and chaos has risen a new feudal system in which power resides in the hands of Noble Houses, a powerful Church and a coalition of trading Guilds. Most of the population live in medieval conditions, whilst elements of the old high technology are jealously guarded by the elite.
High technology exists alongside strange, almost magical powers - Psionics, deemed Heresy by the Church and Theurgy, seemingly miraculous powers granted to those with Faith.
Mankind is not alone in the universe. Interstellar travel depends on the relics of an ancient and vanished race, more than one planet is also home to indigenous races and not all of them have taken their subjugation by Mankind lightly. At the borders of Human space are the Vau, enigmatic and aloof, masters of force-field technology.
Strange alien shape-shifters known as 'The Symbiotes' are a menace seemingly hell-bent on universal conquest, able to infect almost any living being and convert it into one of their own.
The Empire is not the only human state, Vuldrok barbarians and Heretic Kurgans also threaten the borders of the Known Worlds.
With the Civil War only recently over and a new Emperor upon the Phoenix Throne these are interesting times indeed ...
Especially as for some unknown reason, the suns themselves are beginning to fade...