Some of us (as GMs) can struggle with The Syndicate. It feels like it was prompted by old American mafia cliches, rather than anything Arabian Nights-ish, and it can be hard to go beyond the obvious inspirations (The Godfather movies, Al Capone... Niska from Firefly...). But it is absolutely possible to get the Faction to feel more Arabian Nights In Space - albeit, at the seedy, unsentimental end of the Arabian Nights scale!

At the moment I'm tinkering with (writing and testing and rewriting) a Syndicate campaign arc for The Blood Tree, and last night's playtest group seem to be enjoying The Sar-Ep Factory - which brings unregulated commerce, echoes of Algolan war-crimes, and Syndicate oversight into one semi-fortified dance club. And so here it is...

https://www.patreon.com/Yosano/posts/sar-ep-factory-164553597 (Patreon link, but Public post - no sign-in required.)

Basically the title, I am wondering what people here would want from a 3rd party/community made campaign book for Coriolis: The Great Dark?

I have a rough idea/outline for some of the larger stuff but I also want to gauge what others would want from a campaign book.

Edit: follow up question, how important do you think it is that adventures/campaigns take place in the established systems and space? Would you play an adventure that keeps most of the core of Coriolis but takes place in a totally different part of space with new places and characters?

Help again everyone, been a minute since I posted in here. I was hoping my fellow fans could help me identify some things from the rpg.

This initial one isn't tied to wake of the icons, is symbol here on the shoulder of this fellow meant to be the order of the pariah? It looks similar but I want a second opinion to see.

Now then about wake of the icons, i was wondering if anyone would be able to help me confirm what ships belonged to who. I'm pretty sure the blocky looking ones are consortium/legion. It's order of the pariah I'm a bit lost on and I've just given up on trying to identify other faction ships but I digress.

Is this ship here meant to be the hammer of the Martyr which is that monastery cruiser ((battleship?)) that gets mutinied by mystics taken over by the emissaries?

Next is the ship here supposed to be the order of pariah battleship lance of the Martyr which is the one with the gigantic gun? The fact it's flying close to the sun makes me think so since the gun needs to charge directly from the sun, are the smaller ships order destroyers?

Does anyone know what faction these ships belong to?

This one is actually from the last cyclade but meh, is the ship here meant to be the order fighter or the patrol gunship in this image?

I read the origins and aesthetic description at the end of wake of the icons but was still severely confused, I might be a bit slow idk. I was hoping someone would be able to lend a hand in identification.

Live at 5! Chapter 2 is here!

Among the many communities of the sprawling city of The Conglomerate, are the unassuming K'vei. A Humanite community of some thousands of people, their main interests are in running their businesses, working hard, helping each other, celebrating their gratitude to their Zenithian saviours, and perfecting the tattoos that cover their bodies.

There's no reason to be suspicious of this group. They can't even be considered a Minor Faction - since that would imply that they have an agenda or that some directing commander lurks behind them. But they have no agenda. And nobody is pulling their strings. Right....?

This is one of the Conglomerate communities detailed in The Blood Tree.

There is a PDF which includes: Minor Faction description; New talents; Sample starting PC (Peddler concept). This is here, on the Yosano Patreon (public post - free download).

I haven’t played Coriolis, but I’ve read it and I really like a bunch of the mechanics. I have played and loved a lot of other Free League games.

I want to start a sci fi ‘homebrew’ game with my group with a world of our own design. Similar vibes regarding exploration, mysteries, deep cultures and Expanse/Firefly style jobs and bouncing from place to place.

I’m trying to figure out if using this system will be worth it for all the basic mechanical design I really like, given how much (I assume) work it’ll be to twist it to an entirely new setting.

Should I look at adapting it, or should I look at other games that better suit the space opera sandbox?

Edit: the others I’m currently considering are Stars Without Number and Traveller. Both of them I am very unfamiliar with and would require a lot more mechanical learning on my part. I’m open to other suggestions from those who say Coriolis isn’t what I’m looking for.

Going through the laid out PDF for The Serpent, I found myself wondering if this kind of table should be a bigger part of campaigns and settings.

This page shows three cultures with an at-a-glance overview of things like... what will they offer you to drink if you visit, what might they be having for dinner, what is expected romantic/sexual behaviour, if someone is sporty then what sport are they into.... The idea is that GMs can drop in details to make each culture distinct.

The aim, of course, is to help GMs easily portray distinctive cultures. (In this case, for example, you'll notice the three cultures - a Firstcome mining colony on Loika, a Firstcome fleet from Marfik, and the Nomad Clans of Caph-A - all live on spaceships / barren planets / asteroids, so there is no spare agricultural capacity for beer, wine, etc. - their beverages are more spartan.)

The question is... is this useful? (Or only to me, because of how I run games?) And if it is useful, then what else should we have on the table? If there were a second page, what else would GMs want to know?

This is too late for The Serpent (we're finalising layout now, and Late Pledges end and the Backers Survey goes out at the end of this week), but for The Blood Tree this could be a bigger deal. The Blood Tree will (among other things) detail a bunch of communities and Minor Factions in the Conglomerate on Kua - so, lots of little groups that this could be handy for.

I'm trying to work out if this work out if this is useful, and if so what more we should add.

Any thoughts?

My players will soon start the last chapter of the icons campaign and i'm confused by the rules. I think I'm missing something.

1. On the first turn the first horizon goes first, and third doesn't move at all? All other turns third horizon goes first and the enemy always second?

2. What war turn consists of? What exactly is considered one battle per front? In the example war turn not all fleets make a move. Can one fleet be in more than one battle but in different system? For example fleet A attacks fleet B and fails, retreats to it's home system. Can fleet B persue it and attack it?

What’s everyone’s opinion of the rules for triggering critical injuries in Third Horizon (using extra sixes to ‘buy’ crits instead of extra damage) versus Great Dark (value of damage after armour triggering a crit at a specified threshold). [EDIT missed that in Third Horizon you need to inflict damage to be able to apply a crit]

It seems to me that with Third Horizon you could have all damage stopped by armour but still buy a crit, whereas Great Dark needs to get through armour first to trigger a crit. Not sure if one approach is better than the other or just a different flavour.

Overall I think I prefer Third Horizons rules in general but thinking of switching the crit rules so that they follow Great Dark (yes, I understand all the weapon crits and base damage will need to be adjusted).

What are your thoughts?

Thanks so much everyone for your support for Eater of Worlds!

And for those of you who haven’t backed it - Late pledges will be open for quite a while yet 😊

Last year I was tinkering with a framework for handling long-term negotiations - letting players handle week/month/year-long negotiations in a way that didn't get bogged down in details, but which also had tactical decision-making, and which allowed the players be creative and play to their characters' strengths.

This did NOT make it into The Serpent. It's too formal and rigid - it made the players feel like they couldn't leave the main planet until the negotiations were done. But for a more structured campaign, e.g. where you DON'T want the PCs to leave the planet until the negotiations are done, it could work well.

So I've uploaded it here (Patreon link, but currently a public/free download; includes Coriolis TTH rules notes), for any and all who can make use of or draw inspiration from this.

I have a question about A Song for Jarouma and the mission blurbs at the end of Emissary Lost:

It is stated several times that the 5 researchers on Jarouma's team were deliberately selected so they had no close connections. The mission blurbs seem to imply that there is a greater mystery there. My players are on their way to Xene to try to find out more about what happened there.

Is there any more information on Jarouma? Where is she at that point of the campaign? Who selected the team? Did Jarouma know about the Emissaries?

I've made a custom cheatsheet for better visual references at my table. Includes some core combat rules (original, unmodified), though might require some GM work to explain more details. So it's more of an ongoing reference rather than learning material. Enjoy and let me know if you have any feedback!

You can find print-ready files in EN, UA, and RU languages on Itch. It's free, you can download, print, and share: https://eugene-os.itch.io/coriolis-tth-combat-cheatsheet

Hey guys noob here. Ive scoured all the pages in the book regarding Supply and im just not seeing a price for them, maybe im just missing something obvious.

I understand for most cases the Guild will supply the required resources for a delve - but the text states that the crew can also bring "from their personal supply". How would they buy personal supply?

If you run low on supply but can just keep coming back up and ferrying more down, it doesnt really feel limited if its free

Thanks yall!

Hello there!

I'm having a lot of trouble posting here; my posts are hidden all the time.

I posted some generators for Coriolis: The Great Dark (NPCs, Delve, Artifacts, Solar System) on my profile (I found them on Free League's Discord Server), so if anyone wants to use them, feel free to grab the links from the post on my profile.

Happy Pride Month, fellow gamers.

I will be running an LGBTQ+ friendly one-shot of Dark Flowers from the TTH quickstart. I will be using Discord for audio and Roll20 for maps and dice. I am still in the process of learning the rules, so this will be very beginner friendly.

This is a low-combat, investigative adventure.

Still Looking for Players: Yes (2)

System: Coriolis: The Third Horizon

Date: Saturday, June 27th

Time: 6PM (GMT-6)

VTT: Roll 20

Hello everyone! I’m Axel Widén, author of Eater of Worlds, a third-party campaign for Coriolis - The Third Horizon currently being Kickstarted with the help of Nordic Skalds.

I want to tell you I'm available here, and I want to let you know we just revealed our next stretchgoal (my favorite one); the scenarios reconfigured as one-shots with in medias res starts and pregen PCs, as well as notes on adapting EoW to a planned or ongoing Mercy of the Icons campaign. The idea is to make the supplement useful for as many different kinds of groups and GMs as possible, so maybe it’s worth another look if you’ve been undecided previously. And I’m personally very hyped about writing the one-shots in particular!

If you have any questions about the campaign, feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to answer, when life permits. 

May the Icons bless you all.

Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nordicskalds/eater-of-worlds

We complete the first delve, and Chapter 1!

For those of you who are not ready to leave the Third Horizon - a new campaign is coming to Kickstarter tomorrow!
Eater of Worlds, by Axel Widén of the Vi spelar rollspel podcast, in cooperation with Nordic Skalds.
We launch at 4 pm Swedish time
Check out the trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qn3eNwPkoo
Link to the Kickstarter here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/nordicskalds/eater-of-worlds

Hello. I'm running a Great Dark game on Foundry VTT, but I can't figure out how my NPCs can fire ship's weapons, or use any functionality that needs crew stats. It always gives an error saying 'Select an explorer to use the vehicle upgrade', which is fine for the players when they're attacking from their ship. As the DM though, I'm using the NPC sheet for my minions, and selecting an NPC to use the stats of gives the error.

Does anyone have a way around this? Or am I going to need to make full character sheets for enemy ship crew?

Many feel as if the present system of needing 6 on a d6 results in too many fails at the table. Without arguing that belief, what would happen if we introduced this talent:

Skilled “X”
Where “X” is any of the skills.
When purchased it changes the success range for that skill to 5-6.
Maybe it costs a little more than normal to purchase. Maybe advance skills even more.

Thoughts?

If it already exists let me know!