Coriolis: The Great Dark (Core Rules)

Description

You are Explorers in a dangerous world. You do the work few others will. The enigmatic ruins of the Great Dark are shunned by most, but not by you. You seek them out, to delve into their shadowy depths and uncover their secrets. The Blight – the cataclysmic scourge that spreads from the ruins – is your beacon. Where there is Blight, there are artifacts to find and mysteries to solve. Ship City is fading, but you and your fellow Explorers can find a way to a better future.

So don your delver suit, step aboard a mighty Greatship and venture down the Slipstream towards the unknown. Your creed: explore or perish!

THE SETTING

After a long voyage through space, a diaspora of refugees entered a lone system, naming it Jumuah and settling on an asteroid – converting their armada of ships into a city on its surface and burrowed into the rock – a Ship City.

The three groups needed for survival took charge of this colony; the Machinists to build ships and keep the vast bowels of the asteroid in shape, the Gardeners to grow food and rejuvenate the atmosphere and the Navigators to plan expeditions into the cold space to look for resources.

The first explorers soon found abandoned ruins on far-flung moons. Long lost artifacts were discovered as well as knowledge of a dead previous civilization. Unfortunately not only treasures were found – the ruins were covered in ice-like protrusions and vines. The first explorers were soon afflicted by a strange plague, the Blight, turning their minds and bodies in bizarre ways.

The Jumuah system was a dead end, but soon the algebraist of the Navigators Guild found hidden routes through space, making it possible to travel to close-by star systems. New ruins were found, although as perilous as before – but at least more resources were harvested.

To travel the star-lanes, long massive ships were needed, and the Greatships were constructed from the detritus of the old armada and the factories of the Machinists.

There is new hope in Jumuah and Ship City. Expeditions are planned to new stars and the Greatships are filled with explorers, prospectors and the like – hopeful of new riches to bring home.

A new age of exploration and hope.