So the book is out... and they really did not come out and say what the races are that they flesh out (see below). My group is going to full head of team jump in and play a Mentak "Edge of the Empire-esque" game so we can play whatever races. I (the GM) am banning some races because they are obvious baddies: L1Z1X and Nekro... and some of the races that are causing mystery in the era: Creuss and Arborec... and perhaps the Muaat as well (that causes some weirdness with their suits.... Though I am not against fleshing these out as well.

I propose a thread to get some ideas down on what these races might look like!

Lets start with the book:

HACAN: This is obviously meant to be the "Animistic Race" presented in the book.

NAALU: This seems to be the "Psionic" race presented.

As for the other 2 presented, I am not sure if the Robots feel more like L1Z1X or Nekro... and I have no real idea about the Vanguard.

Lets start the discussion on the other races!

UPDATE:

• Completed Rules PDF: HERE
• Large Galaxy Map: HERE

For the record, I am leaning toward the L1Z1X as the "Robots" presented... or perhaps just ROBOTS in general (like in SWRPG)... the Nano-Swarm adversary seems more Nekro. Both L1ZiX are almost unplayable as an PC without some kind of "7 of 9" kind of story anyway.

Oh... Also... Feel free to add any adversaries and other bits. Canon or not... I am making a Gorilla cyborg from the old RPG lol.

Lastly, I have started working on a galaxy map using some concepts from the old RPG (placement, etc)... I will be posting all this as well. Feel free to post any ideas about a TI-style supplement.

Here is an initial placement concept based on old RPG and the base races, mecatol, and quan. My concept is the actual "core: is kind in impassible, too many stars... per the old jump concepts... to many stars and it would need micro jumps. This is why Mecatol is not Actually in the core. Also one of the reasons why the Letnev took Quan in the beginning to the Twilight Wars. The wormholes will be imperative to get around the core in a reasonable time.

I have places the original 6 races in a very traditional 6-player game spacing, obviously on purpose. The remaining races will be spaced in... except for some like the L1Z1X, Nekro, Ghosts and Arborec, who will come from the far outer rings. This is already zoomed in a bit.

[REMOVED: See the first post for a link to the completed map]

One more thing. I wanted to put a earth-based year on this... and I came up with the year 4272, and here is my reasoning...

I go with Star Trek as a basis and imagine Sol gets into space and meets these races in the 2300 or 2400s. Like a lot of Sci-Fi, humans became a major player very quickly (a la Star Trek or Mass Effect).

Things turn to garbage quickly with the Letnev (as humans do) and make the fall of the Laxax happen within 200 years... making humans the ACTUAL catalyst, just the Letnev executed. The Twilight Wars lasted for "Hundreds of years", and 500-600 puts us at 3200. Then the Millennia of dark age.

So why 4272?

For obvious reasons, I chose 42. Then I tried to guess the birth year of Christian Petersen. All I can guesstimate is he started college in 1991, which makes me guess he was born in 1972-1973. I chose 72 because it is the year of the best Rolling Stones tour. lol.

If someone from FFG posts different on his birth-date, I will change accordingly.

Okay, I decided I was not going to put a whole lot of thought into the races because FFG will most likely be putting something out anyway. What I did was grab a number of SWRPG races and slightly tweak them.

Here is what I came up with:

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Don't really have time to analyze and comment on stuff till after the holidays, but am paying attention.

The more I look at the "Animistic Race" in the Genesys book, I start to feel it is more of a generic "Could be Norr, Hacan or Xxcha" idea.

They give it only 70 XP because of the 2 Huge 3s... but that doesn't Feel very Hacan to me. For now I have just nabbed the old Species Menagerie Cathar with a tweak to Coordination instead of Stealth.

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*Edited at LadySkywalker's suggestion. Additional rank is now in Coordination or Negotiation.

I would perhaps argue Cunning or Presence over Agility for the 3, since they are master traders, seemingly with little exception. Maybe even change their free rank to Negotiation.

Yeah, perhaps. However, you could say the same about the Xxcha for presence .

I am also thinking in terms of RPG game terms:

• There are 2 Brawn Races
• There are 3 Cunning Races
• There are 3 Intellect Races
• There is no Agility Race

I am kind of taking into account what players want... in a space game, they are going to want agility to shoot stuff.

As for Presence, I would say, almost every race has a 2 except Letnev and Saar. If I was going to make a race a Presence race... it would be Xxcha. I kind of went with the idea of... Well any score of a 2 is at least as good as humans can be... plus they can buy up Abilities. Not EVERYONE in those 2 races is good at smooth talking. However, for cat people... they almost certainly would almost all be faster than humans. Turtle people, stronger.

Your Negotiation concept though. I did consider when I swapped out Stealth. Yeah I may make it Negotiations or Coordination

Another thing about Cunning... really Letnev should perhaps have a cunning of 3 instead of Int, but I have too many cunning ones already.

EDIT: Yeah I changed it. I am not sure why I even left Athletics in there. The Cathar was Athletics and Stealth. I knew I wanted Stealth out, I just should have yanked Athletics as well. Thanks!

Hmm... now my conversation with Lady Skywalker is making me thinking I should actually make the Yssaril Dexterity 3 Cunning 2 for the same reasons I make the Hacan what they are... plus it would give us our second Dex race.

Okay, I am in the middle of swapping all the race Ability Numbers around. I got so caught up in finding races from the SWRPG that fit with Special Abilities, that I kind of just forgot I could easily juggle the numbers around a bit.

The main factor is I want a couple of races to each feature one of the main stats. For example: Brawn (Xxcha, Norr), Agility (Hacan, Yssaril), Intellect (2 Hylar races), Willpower (Letnev, 1 Hylar Race), Cunning (Saar, Winnu), Presence (Winnarians, Winnu).

Note, the Winnu are the only race with a double 3. When I made the Winnu and Winnarians earlier I swapped their stats from the original SWRPG races and missed there was a double 3 in one, thus why there is only 90 xp. Obviously this made my original ones unbalanced. I swapped them back.

Reposting soon.

HACAN

• Wound Threshold: 10+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 100

Special Abilities: The Hacan start with 1 rank in Coordination or Negotiation during character creation. You still can’t train their skills above rank 2 during character creation.

Claws: Hacan characters add +1 damage to any Brawl combat checks they make and have a Crit Rating of 3.

HUMAN

HYLAR, Coastal

• Wound Threshold: 12+Brawl
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 100

Special Abilities: Coastal Hylar begin with 1 rank in Discipline. They still may not train Discipline above 2 during character creation.

Amphibious: Coastal Hylar can breathe underwater without penalty and never suffer movement penalties for traveling through water.

Water Dependence: If a Coastal Hylar has not been doused in salt water in the last 24 hours, the character's wound threshold is reduced by 2. This remains in effect until the Hylar is doused in salt water.

HYLAR, Deep

• Wound Threshold: 10+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 110

Special abilities: Deep Hylar treat all Knowledge Skills as Career Skills

Deep Dweller: Deep Hylar live in the high pressure of deep water and have to use a mechanized exoskeleton when in normal atmosphere. When out of their exoskeleton, Deep Hylar begin suffocating, suffer 2 setbacks on all Brawn skill checks and treat all out of water terrain as difficult.

HYLAR, Surface

• Wound Threshold: 10+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 100

Special Abilities: Surface Hylar begin with 1 rank any Knowledge Skill. They still may not train that Knowledge skill above 2 during character creation.

Amphibious: Surface Hylar can breathe underwater without penalty and never suffer movement penalties for traveling through water.

LETNEV

• Wound Threshold : 10+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 100

Special Abilities: Letnev begin the game with 1 rank in Vigilance. They still may not train Vigilance above 2 during character creation.

Infravision: Letnev have adapted to see in both the infrared and normal visual spectra. This enables Letnev to remove up to 1 Setback die added to checks by lighting conditions.

N ORR

• Wound Threshold: 12+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 80

Special Abilities: N'orr begin the game with 1 rank in Survival. They still may not train Survival above 2 during character creation.

Desert Dweller: N'orr may remove up to 2 Setback dice from checks to resist arid or hot environmental conditions.

Mandibles: When a N'orr makes a Brawl check to deal damage to an opponent, he deals +2 damage, has a Critical Rating of 4 and the Vicious quality.

SAAR

• Wound Threshold: 10+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 100

Special Abilities: Saar characters begin with 1 rank in Astrocartography. They still may not train Astrocartography above 2 during character creation.

Spacer's Knack: Saar start with 1 rank in the Daring Aviator Talent.

WINNU

• Wound Threshold: 11+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 9+Willpower
• Starting XP: 90

Special Abilities: Winnu begin with 1 rank in either Deception or Negotiation. They still may not train Deception or Negotiation above 2 during character creation.

WINNARAN

• Wound Threshold: 10+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 10+Willpower
• Starting XP: 100

Special Abilities: Winnarans begin with 1 rank in Negotiation. They still may not train Negotiation above 2 during character creation.

Caretaker Disposition: When performing the assist maneuver, Winnarans grant 2 Boost dice instead of 1.

XXCHA

• Wound Threshold: 11+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 11+Willpower
• Starting XP: 80

Special Abilities: Xxcha begin with 1 rank in Negotiation. They still may not train Negotiation above 2 during character creation.

Conversationalist: Xxcha gain the Clever Retort Talent

Thick Hide: Xxcha have thick hide and gain the Durable Talent.

YSSARIL

• Wound Threshold: 9+Brawn
• Strain Threshold: 9+Willpower
• Starting XP: 95

Special Abilities: Yssaril begin with 1 rank in Deception. They still may not train Deception above 2 during character creation.

Fade: As an action, a Yssaril may suffer 3 strain and make an Average Resilience check. If the Yssaril succeeds they may fade themselves slightly from view, blending into their surroundings. While the Yssaril remains still, an observing character must make a Perception vs Deception check to notice. Moving will add Setback, perhaps upgrade the check or even negate the effect completely at the GM's discretion.

While we're at it, here is the Skill list I am using.

Some quick Notes:

I mostly mimicked the SWRPG list. Three Skills: Outer Rim, Core and Xenology, are crashed into "Great Races" and "Minor Races". This will handle all manner of info on places, history and biology.

Lore however, is expanded into 2 Skills: "Laxax Imperium" is knowledge of Ancient Laxax History and Culture, while "Laxax Technology" which is exactly what it seems like: ancient forgotten tech and the study of it. Seeing how basically the ENTIRE game TI is all about the Laxax and the mess they left, I felt all that was worth 2 skills... plus it's like a dozen millennia of history or something.

The remaining Knowledge Skills are direct SWRPG Pulls.

• Astrocartography Intellect General
• Athletics Brawn General
• Brawl Brawn Combat
• Charm Presence Social
• Coercion Willpower Social
• Computers Intellect General
• Cool Presence General
• Coordination Agility General
• Deception Cunning Social
• Discipline Willpower General
• Driving Agility General
• Education Intellect Knowledge
• Great Races Intellect Knowledge
• Gunnery Agility Combat
• Laxax Imperium Intellect Knowledge
• Laxax Technology Intellect Knowledge
• Leadership Presence Social
• Mechanics Intellect General
• Medicine Medicine General
• Melee Brawn Combat
• Minor Races Intellect Knowledge
• Negotiation Presence Social
• Operating Intellect General
• Perception Cunning General
• Piloting Agility General
• Ranged (Heavy) Agility Combat
• Ranged (Light) Agility Combat
• Resilience Brawn General
• Skulduggery Cunning General
• Stealth Agility General
• Streetwise Cunning General
• Survival Cunning General
• Underworld Intellect Knowledge
• Vigilance Willpower General

Looks good! Did you revert the skill ranks to Hacan on purpose, or was that an error?

4 hours ago, LadySkywalker said:

Looks good! Did you revert the skill ranks to Hacan on purpose, or was that an error?

Whoops Thanks! I never changed it in my Word Doc here at home, so it propagated back here.

Another Note on Careers:

So I find it odd that there is all this customization in this book, but no real guidelines for Careers... especially since this one is the easiest to customize. Perhaps I have just not found it yet though. I am kind of reading the book all over the place instead of cover to cover.

In any case, I am going to back to a similar method I started to use in my SWRPG/Savage Worlds mashup. However for this one I analysed all of the "all Settings" list of careers and came up with this:

• First they choose 4 General Skills
• Then they choose 4 more Skills of any type within these limits:

1. …must contain 1 Social or Combat Skill.
2. …cannot contain more than 3 Combat Skills.
3. …cannot contain more than 3 Social Skills.
4. …cannot contain more than 2 additional General Skills.

• Lastly the player must the Career a fitting 2-word name like Reckless Archaeologist or something.
• Career Skills are subject to GM approval and should make sense with the chosen career title.

In my campaign, I am adding a "not contain more than 3 Knowledge Skills" because I have several like SWRPG does.

EDIT: I forgot to mention, they obviously then pick 4 of the 8 to get a free rank in.

Okay so the skills with "Laxax" in them has just been bugging me to death.

The Imperium one is simple, I am just going to drop Laxax, but I really wanted a science name for studying ancient technology, but there seems to not really be one except Hoplology which is just study of warefare tech.

So I looked over several Archaeological Sciences and made one up: Archaeotechnology

That sounds good to me, especially since the Lazax probably aren't the only ancient race.

Okay, I am pretty much done for my campaign for now. The races I listed are the only ones I am allowing my players to choose from.

I have edited the original post with a link to a fancy PDF I am using for my players.

Feel free to flesh out other races here if you want, or any thing else. I will from time to time probably drop in stuff I created for the campaign.

Enjoy.