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Hello and welcome to Outlaw Space, a sci-fi/fantasy Space Western roleplay inspired by a variety of movies, games, anime, and so forth. This is my own custom homebrew setting filled with a variety of different stuff to suit different tastes, but I'll try to keep things simple to start with.

Players will take the role of the crew of an independent starship operating out of (you guessed it) Outlaw Space, the hazardous region of no-man's-space between the two warring empires of the galaxy. We can discuss what sort of missions our ship (name pending) will take on, but I am expecting characters to be (dun dun) Outlaw space criminals in the vein of mercenaries, thieves, bounty hunters, rebel partisans, and so on.

The galaxy is a dangerous place, filled with not only pirates and rival criminals, but ruthless corporations, deadly cults, and bizarre aliens. The business of Outlaws is booming in the wake of the latest Umbral War, the cyclical confrontations between the galactic superpowers of the Arc Luminous and Crux Tenebrous, which has persisted for more than 2000 years. Technically neutral in this ancient conflict are the Spacer Commerce League, a 100,000-year-old NGO whose control over the galactic Hyper-Ring network has kept its thumb firmly on the throat of galactic economics. However, intrigue abounds as each force in the galaxy desperately vies to gain an advantage over the other before they are mutually annihilated. Lost technology and ancient secrets abound in the dark reaches of Outlaw Space, promising a fortune to anyone bold or insane enough to pursue them.

Obviously there's much more going unsaid, but feel free to drop any questions, comments, etc, below, and I'll answer as much as I can.

Stay gold, Outlaws.

What's your take on Halflings and what's your take on races? General character concept stuff.

Humans
Grey Aliens
Star Wars like aliens
Halflings
Dwarves
Cybernetic implants
Straight up Androids

Are you doing like FTl travel in the setting or do trips always take a long while?

@BangoSkank I'll try to cover everything you're asking about, but my answers for some of these are going to be a bit vague.

In general the galaxy is populated by a very diverse variety of intelligent aliens; very Star Wars like, but humans (and a few others) are more common than most. A long, long history of galactic war has reduced most of these aliens to slowly-dwindling vagrant populations after the destruction of their respective homeworlds.

Humans (also called Terrans) are among these space-drifters, but are unique in that their population has increased following the destruction of Earth, rather than gradually gone extinct. Theoretically this is due to a human predisposition toward adaptability. Humans are more resistant than usual to spaceborne radiation sickness, and are also remarkably compatible with cybernetic and genetic augmentation. As a result, Terrans are very diverse even among their own species. "Halflings" or "Dwarves" would potentially fall within gene-augmented Terran populations. Terrans are generally stereotyped as being like space-roaches: ubiquitous and impossible to exterminate.

Cybernetic augmentation is common enough, if you can afford it. This includes full-body prosthesis, and potentially even full cybernetic conversion. Though at that point you are no longer considered your original species, and are instead a SINTH. Terran-converted SINTH are among the first to exist, and the most common, and are regarded as a far more civilized successor species to humanity. True AI is rare and usually created/discovered by accident, though there a few fully-cybernetic species in the galaxy, nearly all of whom are allied with the high-tech Arc Luminous.

FTL has come in a variety of forms in galactic history, though most have become obsolete due to resource exhaustion. Currently it comes in two forms: Ether Drives, and Hyper-Ring travel. Ether Drives use special Ether fuel to create a special pocket of hyperspace around a ship, allowing it to travel faster than light. It's fairly zippy, you could cross the entire galaxy in about eight years this way (assuming you had enough fuel), but the fuel is not cheap, so it wouldn't be the most economical. Hyper-Rings are massive portals directly into hyperspace, allowing near-instantaneous travel from ring to ring. These are tightly controlled by the Spacer Commerce League, who are the only ones that know how to activate, run, and repair the rings. Most Hyper-Rings are mobile, able to be towed around the galaxy via Ether drive, but a few Mega-Rings are immobile transport hubs.

In terms of playable characters, humans are generally considered the default, but I'm open to nearly anything. There are a few species of noteworthy aliens in the galaxy, such as the Lsola (plant folk) and Tora-Tora (catgirls) as well as the SINTH that I mentioned earlier. Basically float me an idea and we'll see if we can make it work.

I'm definitely down for some space western-ness, if you'll have me. The couple of ideas I have right off the top of my head are a reverse cyborg (a droid slowly trying to become more organic), a space cultist who's sect worship a AI or a particular AI (maybe an offshoot of the Arc Luminous if that fits), a classic plucky pilot (I love playing pilots) or maybe a disgraced small-world marshal. I love space westerns so I've got a lot of different ideas I'll want to sort through before I really settle.

I'd be interested too. Several stupid ideas bouncing in my head.

Mini Han Solo or Jyong Wang (Jackie Chan John Wayne in Space)

@rocketrobie2 Glad to have your interest. I'll give my thoughts on each of your ideas, and see if that helps you in the decision-making process.

Reverse Cyborg: Probably the biggest stretch, but not unworkable. Generally, cybernetic organisms tend to exhibit traits of superiority in the galaxy, so one reversing that process would be quite an unusual proposition. I could see it though, maybe someone who underwent SINTH conversion trying to reverse the process, or some space-vagabond android of another description pulling a Bicentennial Man. Worth exploring more.

Space Cultist: Outlaw Space is teeming with weird sects and cults, so this one would fit quite smoothly. Worshiping an AI isn't an unheard of prospect, though they are exceedingly rare and secretive beings. This is because 1. the Crux Tenebrous outlaws almost every form of synthetic lifeform in its borders and 2. synthetic lifeforms (including AIs) have full personhood in the Arc Luminous, making it kind of a laughable idea to worship, like, Steve. Key exception: there is a huge, godlike AI that runs a large part of the Arc, and commands considerable political power, basically equivalent to being a small country on her own. This is PANDORA, the galactic-simulator AI that helped found the Arc after she defected from the Crux. I could very easily see a fringe sect of weirdos in Outlaw Space obsessed with her.

Plucky Pilot: Easy as pie. Pilots are everywhere, and their licensing body is usually the Spacer Commerce League, who runs pretty much everything relating to interstellar economics. A level-5 license through them is all you need to pretty much have clearance to fly anywhere in the galaxy.

Disgraced Marshall: This guy would probably be an outcast from the Crux, who run on a sort of feudal system. Vassal states and tributaries are constantly jockeying for power and status, and it makes sense that a character such as this could have fallen from grace following a military defeat or some other humiliation.

All in all very workable stuff.

@BangoSkank Both these ideas have legs, just let me know any specifics when you think of them. Might be amusing to consider when and why your character or their ancestors had their genes augmented to be short and hobbitlike.

I think if we get one or two more committed players we'll have enough to start.

Well, a couple of characters come to mind.

J'nkai - alien mechanic, blue-skinned humanoid with multiple limbs, got stranded on a world with a long abandoned mine and no way to get outsys until they got rescued a decade later.

His silent partner (they're mute) calls herself Seven. She's a human and very good with guns, blades, even her hands. J'nkai believes she's a Wilder - a sect of humans who claim they were the first to leave the long lost mythical Earth. He actually found her in an active frozen berth in the wreckage of one of the orbiting ships.

I have an idea of a Terran who is in their mid-50s. They are generally quite unassuming, light-hearted, and use humor a lot in response to tense situations. I was considering having their name be Colter "Colt" Dutton.

He participated in the Umbral War for many years on the Crux Tenebrous side and held the rank of Colonel (or lore equivalent). Colt was a loyal, dedicated soldier who believed in the Crux's cause. However, on his last mission, he was ordered to commit an atrocity of genocidal proportions. Since then he was given the moniker "Nightmare of Votian" (Votian is just a word I came up with for a group of people). After that moment, he deserted his post and became a space outlaw.

Rhun the Halfman aka Mini Han Solo:

One of a nearly extinct now race, bred to be smaller, with a slower metabolism, and longer lived. They were bred this way to serve longer and take up less space on long distance transport ships prior to the proliferation of FTL travel. Physically they fit the purpose well, but they would come to develop a culture and typical personality that fared less well as long term workers. Slaves really though transport conglomerates never admitted to it.

Perhaps due to their inability to make their own choices these people, once the Halfmen, later the Halflings, and then when their usefulness ended the Ratlings, grew (no pun intended) to revere the things they had long been denied.

Freedom
A home
Good food
Standing

Rhun grew up on a Pirate ship, a stowaway at first, and found himself trying to learn as much as possible to protect his position. Small as he was at any time the captain might decide his small living quarters would be better suited to hold a few footlockers of loot or a cask or two of wine.

He failed in many endeavors but succeeded in three. He was an excellent shot, he was good at moving about unnoticed, and he was a neigh unparalleled chef. At least to the taste buds of a collection of dirtbag pirates.

Now, decades later, Rhun the Halfman has a rather outsize reputation for such a small man.

@Expendable Both pretty much valid concepts, though I would ask you to pick one or the other.

A note on Auld Aerth (as it is known among the few Terrans that give a shit in this day and age): the first Terrans to abandon their homeworld are actually the ancestors of the SINTH. Paradoxically, they were only "discovered" more than a thousand years after the planet itself was destroyed. They were rich-and-important types that left the planet to escape a meteor impact some 10k years before the rest of mankind made it to space (mostly due to said meteor impact) and Aerth was destroyed not long after in the First Umbral War.

@jimapple Another workable concept, but I would note that genocidal atrocities are pretty much the entire raison d'etre of the Crux. They're explicitly out to enslave every living thing in the galaxy, and blow up the planet of anyone who resists. The main force of resistance against them is the Arc, who were formed out of the earliest successful rebel movements. Food for thought.

@BangoSkank Sounds pretty good to me.

Might be worth thinking about what kind of crew/mission we want to run. Seeing as we have a lot of cowboy types, perhaps we could be a team of Bounty Hunters?

This looks really cool, at first I was getting a kind of Cowboy Bebop vibe, but with all the latin terms and the massive chronological scale I'm getting more of a Dune/E.Y.E. kind of far future vibe from it.

I'd enjoy either, but I'm still kind of confused on the scale you're going for.

Who maintains and operates the hyper-rings? Do they house enormous populations themselves, or just skeleton maintenance crews? Would a maintainer have to be trained from birth to limit the chance of them defecting with trade secrets? I'm imagining they are something like navigator's from Dune. A clandestine, almost pseudo-religious organisation.

I have some possibly interesting ideas for a character. Don't want to spoil you, will DM you with more details once the ball gets rolling.

Pledging interest. The details revealed so far have me excited but I would like to see what shape this takes before committing fully.



Looking forward to seeing what might come next.

Interested! I've been listening to a podcast along these lines and it's been tickling my brain just right. Y'all still open to characters? Depending on the setting and general dynamic I can build almost anything up. Will hover for a couple days while I marinate character ideas. Have you got an idea of a player or character limit? I tend to get overwhelmed when there's a huge cast and can't keep up so if there's going to be a lot of PCs I may bow out.

@PerfectThought If you can, try to marry the two vibes you're describing for the setting. The galaxy is a really big place, and we are basically the small fries trying to survive in the midst of all of this crazy shit going on in the background.

Huge teams of personnel maintain the rings, and usually trading hubs rapidly grow around the rings. The action operation, repair, etc of the portal mechanism is the purview of the SCL Sector 1 Hyperspace Engineers, and while they are to a degree cultlike, their god is business. They effectively invented the Galactic Standard Credit. They operate more like a secret society, you have be hand-selected to join the inner circle from the rank and file.

I'll check your DM in a minute.

@Nyxella Seems like a perfectly functional character, though I'm sure it can develop more. What would have driven her to try and free (?) Crux slaves?

@AmaranthWolf I think with your interest I will probably close up applications to yea many.

Given the cast at hand, while I work on a CS and an OOC, perhaps you could discuss potential crew roles or an overall mission/specification for the ship?

I see Rhun as sort of the crusty old hand. Dirty old fuck with a heart of gold.

Cook on the ship, does repairs, talks a lot of shit but also tries to share his wisdom, sometimes just shares his own dumbshit theories, ventures off into the wilderness to scout when we get out into the weeds. Probably gets into trouble whenever we stop at a trading post. Lots of stories to tell in bars. Some of them even true. General rapscallion activities.

Cool!!! I have two ideas starting to brew.

Idea 1: Friendly jock-coded hardware/electrical engineer. Perhaps a terran, perhaps with a few prosthetics from some work accidents. Very smart guy, very friendly, perhaps a touch overconfident, but charasmatic enough to make up for it. Was definitely raised on some backwater planet, no clue who his parents are, but had a strong community around him. Adventerous and just wants to explore the galaxy, to see things, try new drinks, perhaps pocket some trinkets along the way - perhaps trinkets that are advanced pieces of technology, perhaps landing him in trouble with the law reguarly. However, he is a brilliant engineer and tinkerer, making him a valuable asset on a ship as he can fix almost anything, shoot the shit with anyone, and drink almost everyone to the moon and back. He really just wants to explore, collect cool shit and make cool shit and meet cool people. No thoughts, only vibes on his days off. No major goals in life, he's just here to have fun.

Idea 2: An ex-exployee of the Spacer Commerce League. She found it more profitable to steal and sell information to the highest bidder from inside the League than to co-operate with it. If (GM willing for this) someone was willing to pay enough, she could give them access to the Hyper-Rings. This black market trade was high risk, high reward, and she was inevitably caught. She knew that things would fall through and was able to escape with nothing but the clothes on her back and a frankly obscene amount of credits (or whatever currency). Since then she has been zipping around the galaxy, unable to integrate back into society for fear of being caught, and avoids using the Hyper-Rings for fear of being recognised. Unsure what her job on the ship would be.... Perhaps some kind of communications manager/hacker/general tech support?

Lore idea: SCL employees may have some kind of implanted chip that gives them access to company files/facilities/etc which she now needs to remove because it will DEFINITELY ping if she goes through a Hyper-Ring.

What's the ratings for this in terms of language/violence/explicit scenes/romance? Obvs keeping to the site rules, but what's your limits?

@AmaranthWolf Both your ideas sound doable, though one is markedly similar to a concept I was sent by another player, so I won't pass judgement just yet on which would be better. You all can figure that out for yourselves.

As far as content rating goes, I'd compare this to an R-Rated 80s action movie. Something in the vein of Total Recall let's say.

@Dead Cruiser Okay sweet! I only skim read other OC concepts so happy to work around what other people are vibing with! Thank you

Happy late holidays y'all

Ok, lemme know if this idea works/doesn't overlap with anyone boss-man:

A gung-ho Cult-y pilot with some whacky cybernetics that border on psychic. The big inspirations I've got here are psykers and (to a much lesser extent) orks from 40k. Basically his sect believe there's something beyond just AIs, literal ghosts in the shell and each has their own affinity for different technologies which is augments by cybernetics that have been reversed engineered on multiple occasions only to determine that they shouldn't work. He'd be really Zealous and have parchments written out and stuck around the cockpit (where he'd also sleep), trying to preach his gospel anywhere the team goes. However, he'd always try to avoid any other members of his sect and get really clammy when interacting with them (I can spill the beans on why if ya want in DM or out in the open, just like adding a little dash of mystery).

Does that sound ok? If the psychic-y bits are pushing it too far I can change it to a more physical interface thing (like pluggin into the ship).

How far does the fantasy aspect of it go?