I had a great time at the North Star SF ttrpg convention weekend in Sheffield, UK. I ran the Swallower of Souls adventure for the new Chronicles of Future Earth RPG, powered by the Cosmic Fate rules. Cosmic Fate is a fantastic iteration of Fate Core, with everything you might expect from fate, plus some innovations and flavouring to deliver a rocking game!
I’m a member of the Typhon team that publish the game, and have written with Sarah Newton, the author, in the past. I started my journey with Typhon as a backer for this game, but was so excited by the prospect of it that I took a more active role.
My crew of players included experienced Faters, one new to Fate, and another of the ‘I can’t get my head around Fate’ persuasion. Everyone had much fun with their very capable and exotic player characters. I think some people went straight off afterwards to buy the game!
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| My Chronicles players at North Star |
The Chronicles of the Future Earth is a big and deep game set in our very far future, with a stagnant civilisation in peril and in need of heroes. The player characters are highly competent, and reflect a cross section to be found in and around the Springtide Civilisations, including human, ‘jeniri’ species of the Cousins of Humankind and ‘esteri’ Not-Humans of Earth. What’s not to like about a six limbed mantis warrior?!
The Swallower of Souls Quickstart does a superb job of introducing the rich setting, the core rules of the game, six heroes and a tasty adventure. The adventure is full of setting information that you can lean into as much as you wish, alongside a neat example run through, using a five scene structure, to guide you along a likely path. The adventure could easily be played over at least two sessions, but with some judicious time management, and inventive play, it can be completed in a convention slot duration (3.5 hours for me).
Some observations, having had an absolute blast with it.
The player characters are extremely competent, and able to generate heroic high number skill roll results. Don’t be surprised if, with a good Cosmic Fate dice roll thrown in, that they can take out a key NPC in one spectacular result. Sometimes a level 2 stress box and a moderate consequence isn’t enough to soak the attack! NPCs could similarly cause problems, though my crew were too quick and clever to suffer any lasting consequences.
Everyone is useful in combat encounters even if not a classic melee combat fighter. Deathly threats and swaggering confidence can unnerve the ‘Willpower’ of adversaries, with a wiped out mental stress taking them out.
The D6-D6 Cosmic Fate dice mechanic produces a slightly swingier and impactful range of +5 to -5. There was a fair amount of invoking aspects to gamble on a better result on a re-roll.
Cosmic Fate implements a ‘Bonus Cap’ that limits the number of bonuses depending on the skill of the individual. My players thought this was a good thing, even when it limited them.
This was my first run through of the adventure and my first time with Cosmic fate in this setting. I was buzzing by the end, and what a climax we had. Our bard got a critical hit (a Cosmic Fate addition) with an arrow shot to the eye of the main adversary, The game ended with our Void sorcerer reaching out for the temptation of the dark side.
I’m looking forward to the next two books in the Chronicles of Future Earth series: Chronicler’s Guide and Guide to Future Earth. Cosmic Fate is to be a re-usable OGL and I am already underway with a project to use it for my other games. Outstanding.