Baroque Space Opera Update #3: The Cover and Details.

This is a very exciting update, and a major milestone for Baroque Space Opera. Baroque's mechanics are for Fate Core, but the setting can be adapted to your favourite RPG mechanic.  The majority of the book is setting material.

Editing is now 90% complete. I will be receiving the final edits for the new Fate mechanics sections in the next couple of weeks. I am now beginning the book layout. After two years of effort the end is very much in sight now.

What can you expect from Baroque Space Opera?

The Baroqueverse is a different take on space opera that meanders into the weird and fantastic. It is equal part science and fantasy combined together as a cohesive setting that leaves plenty of room for your own creativity. Nothing is impossible in the Baroqueverse; whatever magic you dream up can be hand-waived away as sufficiently advanced technology.

If I had to describe the Baroqueverse in a single sentence, I'd say: if Lexx and The Metabarons went out to snort some Dune spice, their awesome trip through the Stargate led to a baby called Farscape, who discovered the Ancient Astronaut Hypothesis.

...that sounds about right. You can read a bit more about the setting it in a previous blog entry.

Other significant sources of inspiration are (not in any order):

• Simon R Green's Deathstalker novels
• Scott Westerfield's Risen Empire novels
• Gene Wolfe's Book of the New Sun
• Babylon 5
• Warhammer 40K
• Chronicles of Riddick
• H.P. Lovecraft
• Fading Suns RPG
• Alastair Reynold's Revelation Space novels 
• Pseudo-science
• Mythologies from all over our ancient world 

The book will be released as a PDF and a 6x9 format print-on-demand book through DriveThruRPG. My current estimated page count is at 500 pages (yikes!).

Baroque Space Opera includes, among other things:

• The Tyrant's regime and its structure
• The 13 Pharisto houses and their Syndicates
• Various factions and societies
• Technologies of the Baroqueverse
• 63 unique planets -- filled with story hooks
• Plenty of adversaries
• Advice for the GM on stories and themes
• A new dials for stress boxes
• A skill list customized for the setting
• 22 archetypes to base your characters on
• A psychic powers mechanic
• A nanotechnology mechanic that is indistinguishable from magic
• A Wealth mechanic
• A Beneficial Things mechanic that lets you create any gear, allies, pets, poisons, personal vehicles, and anything else you desire to have a mechanical effect in your game
• A mechanic for spaceships
• A mechanic interacting with virtual cyberspace realms

Baroque Space Opera is a setting book and not a complete game, you will need the Fate Core book to play --  that is perfectly fine, because the awesome Fate Core book is Pay What You Want at DriveThruRPG.com. Evil Hat deserves your money for the awesomeness they produced.

 

"The Tyrant repays a thousand fold."