A downloadable game

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Through The Stars is a storytelling science fiction tabletop RPG set in the Prime-Originate Galaxy. Gather your friends and assemble a crew to choose your place within a galaxy beset with interstellar conflict and powerful ancient forces. Build a crew of pirates, form a group of explorers, or fight in the galaxy’s shared efforts against its common enemies—tell the story you and your friends have always wanted to tell.


What's Inside

Our 145-page original core rule book .pdf, as well as the printer-friendly version for easy personal printing

  • All of the core rules of the game, as well as a comprehensive guide for Game Masters who are interested in running the game
  • Expanded rules for starships and starship combat, including a collection of random generators and stat blocks
  • An in-depth guide to the setting, including:
    • 5 playable races
    • 13 factions
    • 27 charted systems
    • And more…

All of this and more, fully designed and illustrated by Tristan "LatentArchitect"


- A UNIQUE SETTING -

THE ALEPH 

The Prime-Originate Galaxy has existed for billions of years, and an ancient civilization, the Aleph, left behind thousands of psionically powered ruins. Though their disappearance is still a mystery, the relics they left behind have propelled science and engineering far beyond that of our own world. Common technologies found in the Prime-Originate, like the FTL gates, advanced starships, and psionic implants, were all derived from these devices and structures.


FIVE PLAYABLE RACES, SOME MORE FAMILIAR THAN OTHERS

The Prime-Originate Galaxy awaits. Five sentient species dominate the charted systems. Play as the plantoid Zyran and use pollen communication, and connect to your genetic ancestors. Join into battle as the aquatic Cartilan, donning an armored water suit, the Malh Hassar, and tap into your evolved psionic brain to sense others around you. Become a Thek Drone, one of trillions of insectoid followers of the Hive Queen, Thek’Katta, and carry out your pilgrimage. Play as a Human, aliens to the galaxy, who arrived thousands of years ago from the great ship, the Exodus. Become a Leshan, whose people became the conquerors of the interstellar industrial economy, and carry extra equipment with your three, flexible arms.



- A GAME UNLIKE ANY KNOWN TO OUR WORLD -

PLAY THE GAME, DITCH THE CRUNCH

Through The Stars is built on the Tests, Trials, and Sacrifices (TTS) system, which is designed for fast and collaborative gameplay. Players can assist each other at any time, and the Game Master (GM) can help them accomplish their goals quickly. With just a set of D6’s, the GM and a group of players can enjoy blasting apart spaceships, delving into ancient alien ruins, and surviving the interstellar conflicts of the Prime-Originate Galaxy.

MAKE CHOICES AND FACE CONSEQUENCES

Players level up their characters by engaging in the galaxy. As they play, their character passively gains skill points, and at each major skill level, players pick traits that fit their playstyle. Character creation in Through The Stars is fast and easy, and like the rest of the game, it’s meant to enhance the narrative component of play. Player character death can be tragic, but the Crew Manifest allows that player to easily take over an already beloved NPC crew member.

TELL STORIES

Through The Stars utilizes lightweight rules to enhance a table’s focus on telling stories. The Prime-Originate Galaxy offers countless settings for players to set their exploration and adventure in. A table’s Game Master prepares and simulates the game along with the players, but everything is a shared experience from Skill Tests and combat order, to starship action and character choice, players and the Game Master work together to create the adventure.



COMMAND YOUR CREW

Players and GMs can paint elaborate scenes and tell engaging stories of conflict and intrigue aboard a range of starships. Rules for starship combat and travel are robust but easy to use, and allow for scalable interaction. Play with a small crew of players aboard a single ship, or command hundreds of NPCs and build a fleet for yourselves. No matter what size ship you choose, your crew can tell its story.

BUILD YOUR STARSHIP

Players can choose from a list of starships, ranging from the fast and agile Frigates, to the immense and imposing Dreadnoughts. Pick from dozens of modules which modify and add mechanics to your ship’s weapons, engines, communications station, medical bay, bridge, and more.

WORK TOGETHER

Through The Stars offers the players endless possibilities for assisting each other, and the starship rules offer unique roles for the crew, including the Captain, Communications Officer, Weapons Officer, Medic, and Engineer. Players can fit into the role they need as long as they want, and they can even elect for non-player characters to fill the roles they need.

- A GALAXY BESET WITH LOOMING THREATS -

THE CEREBRAN

Over a thousand years ago, a powerful psionic force known as the Cerebran made first contact with Human colonies in the Shura system. The presence of this force fused metal and energy with flesh, creating psionically powered husks which turned machine against Humanity. Now referred to as the Cerebellum, the Shura system quickly became home to a great structure known as the God Brain, which absorbed all into itself. Undead flesh-machine hybrids work endlessly in the dark presence of the sun-smothering God Brain, their intent still mysterious to the rest of the galaxy. Though its origin remains unknown, the governments of the galaxy managed to destroy the FTL gates which lead to the rest of the charted systems before the Cerebran could spread any further, those centuries ago. But today, they have made contact deeper into the charted systems, where the galaxy’s forces fight to beat back the presence once more.

THE FIRMAMENT

In the far reaches of the galaxy, a parasitic organism known as the Firmament spreads itself rapidly by offering painless death, peaceful religious doctrine, and “Ascension,” a process of being dissolved back into the inherent psionic energies of the galaxy. While they have remained peaceful for the many years it has engaged in interstellar travel, rumors spread now of the Firmament moving deeper into the charted systems, where it’s never been documented. Groups of religious followers gather in the population centers of these planets, where they preach the dogma of Ascension. Tensions rise in the Thek Hive Worlds as they prepare for a border restriction in order to keep the Firmament’s parasitic spread from infecting their many trillions of citizens.


Check us out at https://latentarcana.com/ or join us on Discord at https://discord.gg/Bc2TzYUwT

Purchase

Buy Now$10.00 USD or more

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $10 USD. You will get access to the following files:

Through The Stars.pdf 294 MB
Through The Stars Print.pdf 135 MB
Character Sheet.pdf 2.2 MB
Starship Sheet.pdf 364 kB

Development log

Comments

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I saw the regular book is 731 MB and the print friendly book is 135 MB. Each is only 145 pages. Are there any settings you could tweak to reduce file size? Running it through my usual compression program for PDFs was able to cut the big file in half, but that's still 350 MB.

I also realized every page is an image. None of the text is selectable. I'm not a PDF creation expert but when I create PDFs for other projects the text can be selected by default.

Hi there!

Thank you for reaching out. We just reuploaded the regular book at a smaller size and it’s now 294 MB, with the selectable text preserved.

One thing you were probably running into is that when you use .pdf compression software that isn’t Adobe, it usually converts everything into images, which removes the ability to select the text. That has been our experience, at least.

We will also convert the print copy into a version with the selectable text preserved, later today, so stay tuned! It currently does not support selectable text because we optimized it to be ideal for printing, rather than use as a .pdf.

Thanks again!

Thanks for responding. I will check out the smaller files. Incidentally the original 731 MB file didn't have selectable text either. The compression software I use has never converted pages into images, which is why I love using it. Thanks again and have a good week.

(+1)

Love the work that went into this, never have my synapse in my brian fired off all at once like this for a game and it's possibilities. I can not contain my excitement to play as zyran, my enemies will be crushed under my green movement. 

(+1)

Very hyped to play! Loving all the effort you guys put into the game.