History

This book includes four eras of history - the Occupation Era, the Expansion Era, the Orion War, and the Artifact Era. Together, these eras span the years from 2040 through 2135. The Stellar History expansion sourcebook will include five more eras - Sanxon War, Affluent Earth, Fall of the Fleet, Alan Age, and War of the Chosen - extending the timeline to 2340, completing the primary mytharc of Afterverse. It also contains information on other races that are not detailed in this book, such as the Kreig and the Sanxons, as well as the worlds discovered in those eras (particularly the Scutum-Centaurus Arm). This book is strongly recommended as an integral part of Afterverse; its content was left out of the main book to simplify entry for new players and to streamline the game during playtesting. Additional expansions to the history will follow at a later time, including the distant past, an alternate far future, and various bits of time adjacent to the main history that are simply not covered (for example, Bactara during and before first contact with humans and Vorans).

For Players

The History chapters contain a full timeline and history of the eras, likely including the future beyond the time when the game's campaign will be set. If not already familiar with the future history, players may wish to avoid these spoilers. Most parts of each era have dates listed that should allow you avoid reading information from the future relative to your campaign.

History Chapter Layout

Within the history chapters, there are several smaller sections. First comes the overview of the era. This is a short summary of the era, written from a particular in-universe perspective, designed to give a general sense of the era as well as familiarize you with the events of the era in a more organic, cause-and-effect sense than the raw timeline. Following that is a brief catch-up section on the history of the setting up to this point; this allows players and GM's to set a campaign late in the history without being intimately familiar with the entire history of the universe.

Next comes a general guide to running a campaign in the era. It’s helpful in giving you an idea of where and when you want the campaign of that era to go in order to best match it to your player group. This is immediately followed by an “Adventures” section that delves further into the details of some general adventures available for that era. You are, of course, not limited to these adventures; you may play a campaign anywhere you can find (or imagine) an interesting conflict for the player character to take a part in.

The next section lists some of the available Cultures in the era, along with the requirements (motivations, qualities, and skills) of that culture and its tech levels. These cultures should be referred to when creating a character.