Twilight Imperium Embers of the Imperium
A Genesys RPG Space Opera Campaign Setting
This sourcebook delivers a galaxy spanning space opera for Genesys, taken from the strategic board game. In 290 attractively laid out pages, a GM is given all the building blocks to create heroic action across the stars, pitching the player characters as members of the Galatic Council’s ‘Keleres’, a mix of troubleshooters, negotiators, and enforcers for balance and survival in a setting that is rife with old factions vying for power and even the vacant Imperial throne.
This book is extremely good, perhaps one of the best that I have read in a long time. I have no knowledge of the board game it is based on, or the expanded lore that is already out in the aether. It’s all new to me. What I think I like most, is that despite the scale, everything is BIG, it is sectioned in a very bite sized and consumable way. The 30,000+ years of galactic history is outlined in one sidebar, and then expanded in appropriate sections as needed.
After a pithy ten page introduction we are straight into the heart of the book with a Character Creation Chapter 1 that comes in at just under 100 pages. Selecting an impactful ‘Background’ that immediately gives you some roleplay juice, the book provides fifteen play species, each summarised in a page with everything you need. This is space opera, so despite the wonderful variety of form and function, every species recognisably behaves in a way that we can relate and play.
And there is significant variety! How about the serpentine mind reading Druaa? The incorporeal Creuss, a formless wispy glow of fluctuating blue energy? Perhaps one from the trading clans of the lionesque Hacan? The approachable to play, but militaristic and arrogant, Letnev, very much human-like but with a thread of alienness riven through them? I could go on, but safe to say you’ll start with fascinating species that default links to one of the factions, but has room to be their own sentient with their own allegiences and drives.
The book comes with nine careers providing a breadth of starting options, with advice on creating your own. Note that a third party publisher has already published a really nice supplement that gives you some more, along with others that provide new worlds to explore and starships to take you there. You have enough here to get you building a multi-talented Keleres team.
Beyond careers, you have Motivation, Allegiance and Agenda, to connect your characterto the setting and drive personal goals that can conflict, in a good way, with the objectives of your adventures. Nineteen factions, each a couple of pages, are outlined to round out this character chapter. There is plenty here to give you great thematic characters, with scope for a lot of variety and expansion at your table.
Chapter 2 & 3 are for Equipment & Gear and Vehicles respectively. They’ve packed a lot into this 55 pages, with space even for some setting rich artifacts. If I’m want to peruse astrocartography charts then I’d love to have a ‘Circlet of the Void’, a gift of technology from the lost great empire of Lazax. A strength of the setting is to roll with ‘Looks Different, Handles the Same. A narrative skin over the descriptive text can make a Sol based mass drive an Arborec photosynthesis engine. Ini the end the numbers are the same, how you get there is a glstening chrome of inventive description.
The setting is our galaxy. Traversing this in starships is covered neatly in one page, interpretting the FTL speeds and ranges in a way that gives you enough without being exacting. The wormhole network opens up sections of the galaxy, and provides huge tactical advantages to those factions that can control them.
Chapter 4 digs into the setting in more detail with a scattering of the key systems. ONce again this is all very approachable, condensed into one page, with an image of the main system, key descriptive text and a ‘Keleres Alert!’ breakout with adventure seeds. There’s a lot of adventure on this book.
The final third of the book is a lot of scenario enriching fun. Packed with mysteries and encroaching dangers, populated by a dangerous roster of adversaries. When I got to The Game Master chapter, I was intrigued to see how they would use the page count. I think it is top drawer, and immensely useful. Space operatice tropes are highlighted, along with some practicalities on pay and equipment, then leading into benchmarking personal agendas depending on the length of the game you are running. From there it is hyper practical adventure building with example hooks, escalations, and climaxes. Some synthi-fleshed out encounters round out this remarkable setting book. I’m not wanting to face a Jol-Nar I-24e Automated Anti-Infantry Turret (Nemesis) any time soon!
This book manages to draw the Twilight Imperium Galaxy to you in an approachable and playable form, despite the scale and scope of the setting. I wonder if I will do justice to the wonder of this, but perhaps only long enough for me to throw in a Nekro Virus Attack during a safe starship voyage, leading to the discovery of a stranded Hacan Caravan Fleet that needs assistance down on the nearby barren world of Shale, where the Keleres chort uncover…
We’re off and away!
