Pathfinder, the popular D&D alternative, has a sci-fi sister in the shape of Starfinder. What does D&D have if you want to take the core rules and bring the campaign to the far future? A new option is Starships and Starwyrms from Audrey Stolze and Benjamin Quiggins. The Kickstarter is going well, asking for US$7,000 and, at the time of writing, raising over $11,000. There are still 31 days to go.
The Kickstarter invites you to download the free Spaceships and Starwyrms: Beginners’ Kit. However, this blogger notices that the Beginners’ Kit is actually a ‘Pay What You Want’ with a suggested price of $5. It’s great that the publishers are suggesting you can grab the beginners’ kit for free. Gamers who can afford the $5 might want to consider it, though.
As it happens, a pledge of $20 will get you the PDF of the sourcebook and select digital goals. If you step up to $35 then you’ll get the sourcebook, Galactic Adventure Module, Galatic Primer on Natural Environments all as a PDF and all digital stretch goals.
The print versions become available at $60 and $80. There’s even international shipping available.
It’s going to be a pretty big book; around 400 pages. That’ll include 13 playable species, 5 new classes, 2 augmented classes, archetypes for bards, fighters, rogues, paladins and sorcerers and 16 new backgrounds. There are also rules for hacking, zero gravity and radiation.
There are more than 100 new monsters in The Galactic PRimer on Natural Environments sourcebook.
Hope Punk Press aims to start delivery of a successful project by December. That’s pretty quick. Of course, they’re not starting from scratch. The PDF delivery of the core sourcebook will be as early as July. It’s do-able, but they’re going to be busy.
I thought the company’s definition of ‘Hope Punk’ was interesting and worth noting if you’re curious about the tone of Spaceships and Starwyrms. They say;
Hopepunk is a genre that focuses on optimism and perseverance in the face of a bleak outlook. The stories we enjoy, and those we enjoy telling, are not free of darkness, struggle, and tragedy, but they promise the possibility of a happy ending. They reward radical kindness, they weaponize optimism, they create a chance for you to make a difference, even in the smallest of ways. It is this sense of positive, sometimes painful, often seemingly impossible, perseverance that we hope to bring to our products and writing.
