The Dark Between the Stars

As I alluded to yesterday, this week marks the start of a new campaign for the (formerly) House of Worms group – today, in fact! After a decade and a half of exploring Tékumel together, we're finally ready for something new and the game chosen by my players was Fading Suns, originally published by Holistic Design in 1996. That might seem like an odd choice, given my own inclinations, but it's not really. Indeed, I think it makes a great deal of sense, though it's probably worth delving into this a little bit.

Firstly, I should reiterate that Fading Suns was suggested by my players, not myself. I actually put forward Secrets of sha-Arthan, which I first started working on four years ago and whose recent development I've been chronicling each Friday at Grognardia Games Direct. I thought starting up a SosA campaign would be a great way to put its rules through their paces and expand on its evolving setting. However, several of the players rightly pointed out that Secrets of sha-Arthan is, by my own admission, a riff on many aspects of Tékumel. Since we'd already spent more than a decade in that kind of setting, there's a danger that we'd just be doing more of the same.

I couldn't disagree with that logic, which is why I also offered to run Dream-Quest, the Lovecraftian fantasy game I'm creating. Like Secrets of sha-Arthan, it really needs to be playtested and an ongoing campaign would be a great way to do that. This, too, was rejected on the grounds that my players didn't want to do another fantasy game, preferring instead something science fictional – or at least adjacent to that genre. You might wonder why we didn't opt for my own Thousand Suns, which I'd have gladly refereed, but the simple truth is that, by the time the conversation turned to SF, a couple of the players independently indicated that they'd always wanted to try Fading Suns, a suggestion that was soon embraced by everyone else (except one player, who decided to take the opportunity to bow out).

I had no problems with this. Fading Suns is a game for which I have a lot of affection. In the early 2000s, during the heaviest period of my freelance writing days, I contributed to three different supplements for the game, so I'm quite familiar with its setting. I also worked on the current edition of the game, writing the parts of the initial releases pertaining to the Universal Church of the Celestial Sun, along with the supplement devoted specifically to the Urth Orthodox sect. Since I haven't actually played the game since the late '90s/early 2000s, I had no problem returning to it for our new campaign. In fact, I was pleased the players were interested in it.

The campaign frame is that one of the characters is a young nobleman of House Li Halan who's something of an embarrassment to his family. Inexperienced and more than a little disrespectful of the traditions of his exalted lineage, he's been politely exiled under the guise of being sent on a Grand Tour of the Empire to "gain some seasoning" when, in reality, it's to ensure he's someone else's problem. Of course, even as troublesome as he is, the Li Halan don't want to see one of their own come to a bad end, which is why he's been sent out on his Grand Tour with a small entourage – the other player characters – including an Urth Orthodox priest-confessor who is genuinely concerned for the nobleman's soul.

Though there is a new edition of Fading Suns available, I'm honestly not all that keen on its rules. Consequently, we've opted to use the 1999 second edition of the game. It's not quite to my liking either, being an uncomfortable marriage between a White Wolf-style dice pool system and Pendragon's roll-under-but-still-roll-high mechanic. It's clunky and inelegant but still works after a fashion. Plus, I have an entire library of books written to support this edition, so it makes sense to use it. I'm sure that, in play, we'll eventually house rule anything that doesn't work to our satisfaction. That's the way every campaign I've ever played in works and I see no reason why this one should be any different.

Naturally, I have no idea where this campaign will go or indeed if it will go. It's been my experience that the early stages of any campaign are particularly fraught and it's quite easy for it to die before it has a chance to establish itself properly. While I don't think that will happen in this case, there is never any guarantees. It's quite possible I'll be writing again in a few months about yet another campaign that I'm starting, because Fading Suns didn't take root. For now, I have high hopes that my fears will be unfounded. I'll keep you posted as things unfold, giving you periodic updates on our progress, as I've done with my own current campaigns.