As I’ve referenced many times before, I’ve been slowly pulling together a science fantasy roleplaying setting for well over a decade now. Originally it was a Phantasy Star rules conversion for Pathfinder First Edition but I shifted it to a custom setting after the release of Starfinder. The implosion of the Starfinder Psionics Guide kickstarter kept me from running it on that system and, then, I fell in love with Pathfinder Second Edition during the playtest so I shifted away from Starfinder. I still appreciate Starfinder, especially the spaceship combat, but I wish that it included more of the innovations seen in Pathfinder Second Edition. Many of the miniature conversions that I shared here were intended to provide more alien and robotic options. That was also the intention of the spacecraft I painted.

Now I’m finally ready to launch the setting with a first campaign kicking off with a session zero coming up this weekend on Fantasy Grounds Unity virtual tabletop. I was waiting for Guns and Gears to release on Fantasy Grounds Unity. The setting still carries significant Phantasy Star lineage, as is immediately obvious to anyone who has played the first series, but there’s plenty of material inspired by other sources such as Star Gate SG1, Ultima, Gundam 00, Seiken Densetsu, Crystal Rain, and so on. There’s plenty of original content and twists here too.

My ultimate goal is to establish a consistent setting from which to run science fantasy campaigns, where in which player agency is reflected in changes to the setting, the narrative is able to remain tonally consistent, and where some old material gets a refresh after decades of play. I’m planning for a series of short to mid-length campaigns occurring in the same setting rather than long campaigns. This will help develop the setting by letting older player characters affect the setting, establish factions, and return for later campaigns (possibly as player controlled NPCs).