SOLAR DIVIDE
A downloadable supplement
A campaign setting for the BEAM SABER game. Requires the Beam Saber ruleset to play.
https://austin-ramsay.itch.io/beamsaber
Created using the Beam Saber SUPPLY DROP license.
SOLAR DIVIDE presents a world of adventure and drama for your Beam Saber pilots to experience. Battle across the planets of our solar system as factions fight to inherit humanity's legacy!
SOLAR DIVIDE includes:
- 5 major factions, each settled on one of the major planets of the system, and eager to seize the power of the others.
- 7 pilot heritages to add establishing flavor, including sentient machines, animal-folk, and living shadows.
- Dozens of squads, each devoted to advancing their faction's aims... while getting something for themselves on the side.
- Regions from Mercury to Pluto, and every potential battleground in-between.
- Guidelines on how technology works in the far future of our world.
- Mission creation guidelines to help the GM craft missions.
- Over twenty mech designs to help inspire your pilots and their rivals as they battle in space.
* * *
With high hopes, humanity settled the inner and outer planets, forming new cultures and new nations. Incredible feats of technological engineering allowed humanity to colonize the whole of the system. Enormous space colonies provided homes for legions of industrial workers. Mighty terraforming engines created breathable life and lush landscapes out of desolate rock. Hyperspace gates allowed people to travel between the planets in hours instead of years.
No advance was as significant as the creation of the ARC: the Active Response Control vehicle, the enormous piloted machines that allowed mankind to build societies at a titanic scale, creating whole nations and across the system.
But as humanity settled the solar system, it brought with it its capacity for greed, for war, and for violence. Where humanity formed nations, they drew borders. Where they drew borders, they provoked conflict. Where they provoked conflict, battle flared. Millions have suffered as the interplanetary states of Mars, Venus, Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune — the five “Orbits” — vie for supremacy.
You are a team of daring pilots in the midst of an interplanetary war. You pilot ARCs as you undertake missions to elevate your Orbit at the expense of the rest. You will defend your Orbit’s rightful claim to the legacy of mankind.
This is a battle of soldiers and spies. This is a game of bad bets and limited ammo. This is a world of life and death in the blink of an eye.
This is SOLAR DIVIDE.
Status | Released |
Category | Physical game |
Rating | Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars (4 total ratings) |
Author | sulcata | Brendan McLeod |
Genre | Role Playing |
Tags | beam-saber, campaign-setting, Forged in the Dark, Tabletop, Tabletop role-playing game |
Purchase
In order to download this supplement you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $15 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Development log
- Small update - PDF Bookmarks!Jul 01, 2022
- v 1.01 - improved file sizeMay 01, 2021
- Tell me what you think!Feb 02, 2021
Comments
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A great resource for GameMasters looking to play a techno-thriller spy drama campaign with mechs.
The layout functional, easy to skim through in the middle of a session, while the text is evocative and familiar to its genre touchstones. The art, both of the locations and vehicles, might look plain and simple but immediately sells the vibe of our solar system in a future cold war. Descriptions of factions and locations are long enough to spark the imagination and short enough to encourage your own stories.
I used this setting to GM for a complete Beam Saber campaign (22 sessions). An R&D squad under the Radiant Kingdom of Jupiter, styled as the British Empire In Space! We had: Last heir of a noble family embezzling funds. AI-obsessed working-class scientist. Double-agent spy for King Arthur’s Knights fighting the aliens. Naïve low-rank soldier who believes in a better kingdom. Escaped robot social worker for the Buddha. And finished the campaign with an epic Battle of Nova Roma (as the WWII air-Battle of London) between the entire Mars navy, heirloom vehicles, and worker uprising.
No real negatives. A few misused words and names, some repeated text, but nothing that detracts from the overall product.
A strong recommendation both to read and play.
I was fortunate enough to play in the tabletop game that seeded Solar Divide. Brendan is an outstanding game master and just as talented at creating and presenting his ideas. If you're looking for a Beam Saber setting to dive into, you won't be disappointed.