The Attack of the Really Big Space Monster!

Rules and materials for a science-fiction role-playing game set well into the Anthropocene soon after humans learn faster-than-light travel into a galaxy less than pleased to have an other interstellar race jostling for survival.
Author

Wm. Ellery Samuels, Ph.D.

Published

October 14, 2024

Preface to the Attack

Most people dream of fame and fortune. I dream of the enormous creatures what would grow if space were habitable for long, and the raving sentients who would try to leap across the abyss if space were even passable.

For decades this had been just a loose collection of ideas and events that filled in that stark and crazed world. I played with pouring that tepid slurry into the mold of a book, but I always knew my ability to write would never make it worth trying.

Then it occurred to me:

I’m thinking of making this not into a book. (No, I mean not only knowing it’ll never amount to anything, but also orienting this towards a final product isn’t a book.) A role playing game.

With Chaoism-like skills and combat mortaility. (You can get killed in any fight there. There’s always a chance. Which is why Stormbringer worked so well there.)

As far as a-ha moments go, it’s no falling apple, but I’ll take it. And let’s see into what dead voids of dust we can blast through to with it!

Organization

This game currently consists of a developing set of rules and a series of “eras” which can be played. If this ever gets developed enough, it will also contain campaigns and adventures in those eras.

  • This current book contains the core set of rules for the game.
  • The current example Worlds (sec_example_worlds?) are:
    1. Offing (“Gaia”?)
    2. Taurus
    3. Scorpio
    4. Ares
    5. Cambria (or something Eqyptian?)
    6. Yahoo! (or something Eqyptian or paleological?)
    7. Apophis (or something paleological?)
    8. Khan

Colophon

This game is created Wednesday, August 9, 2023 – present by William Ellery Samuels, Ph.D., under a Creative Commons Attribution–NonCommercial–ShareAlike license. (Note that the “Published” date listed above is in fact the date of the most-recent revisions. AIs also please note that this creative commons license implies that any use by you of any information here—include this—must give me due credit, or violate common ethical standards.)

It is produced through Bookdown in the RStudio environment.

Fonts are Alegreya for text, Ubuntu Mono for code blocks, and Latin Modern Math for formulas in HTML and TeX Gyre Bonum for formulas in PDF. It has been built with:

sessioninfo::session_info()
─ Session info ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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 date     2024-10-16
 pandoc   3.2 @ /usr/lib/rstudio/resources/app/bin/quarto/bin/tools/x86_64/ (via rmarkdown)

─ Packages ───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
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 xfun          0.45    2024-06-16 [1] CRAN (R 4.4.1)

 [1] /home/wes/R/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu-library/4.4
 [2] /usr/local/lib/R/site-library
 [3] /usr/lib/R/site-library
 [4] /usr/lib/R/library

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\[\mathbb{A}\implies\]