Free League Announces Coriolis: The Great Dark

Coming to Kickstarter next month is a new science fiction TTRPG from Free League. A sequel to Coriolis-The Third Horizon, the new game features "exploration, mysteries, and intrigue at the far edge of space".

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We are incredibly excited and proud to announce Coriolis: The Great Dark, our brand-new science fiction roleplaying game about exploration, mysteries, and intrigue at the far edge of space. Venture out into the unknown on mighty Greatships, delve deep into ancient ruins and partake in the Byzantine schemes of powerful guilds.

Coriolis: The Great Dark will be launched on Kickstarter March 19. Inspired by 19th century polar expeditions, deep sea diving and pulp archeology, Coriolis: The Great Darkoffers a new take on sci-fi roleplaying that emphasizes mystery, a sense of wonder and breathtaking visuals.

Sign up for Coriolis: The Great Dark RPG on Kickstarter!

Visit the Kickstarter pre-launch page and sign up to be notified the moment the campaign goes live! All backers who pledge levels with physical rewards within the first 24 hours will receive a bonus item soon to be revealed. If successfully funded, all backers will get the PDF version of the game months ahead of the official release.

Coriolis: The Great Dark is fully standalone game, but is also the spiritual sequel to our critically acclaimed Coriolis – The Third Horizon, Free League’s very first science fiction RPG. Coriolis – The Third Horizon was granted the Judges Spotlight Award in the ENNIE Awards 2017 and was one of the first international releases from Free League.

 

[schneeland]

There will probably be an official post with the press release from Morrus in the near future, but if, just like me, you are always excited about new thing from Free League: they have just announced a new game called Coriolis - The Great Dark. In a way it seems to be Coriolis 2e, but they call it spiritual successor to Coriolis - The Third Horizon and describe it as a stand-alone game, so how much the games share remains to be seen.

Presse release is here: Coriolis: The Great Dark Roleplaying Game Announced – Coming to Kickstarter March 19
Direct link to Kickstarter pre-registration page: Coriolis: The Great Dark RPG – Explore A Lost Horizon

Apparently there will be both a rule book and a campaign box set (called The Flowers of Algorab):

There also seem to be plans for a 3rd party license that will allow other people to develop supplements and adventures for the game.
More details and a few more illustrations in the press release.

Probably pretty obvious, but I'm very much looking forward to get more material for Coriolis

 

[Aldarc]

I'm sure that it will be a great game, but I will probably pass. The adventure for the old version kind of reveals some major spoilers to the setting mysteries, and I'm still sore about those and a few other related setting decisions.

 

[payn]

Im a Traveller guy, but Ive had this on the radar. I'll keep an eye on it.

 

[orangefruitbat]

I'm sure that it will be a great game, but I will probably pass. The adventure for the old version kind of reveals some major spoilers to the setting mysteries, and I'm still sore about those and a few other related setting decisions.

Could you spoil those setting mysteries for me (under an appropriate SBlock of course)? Never read the adventures - I bounced off the old versions, despite its gorgeous art when I struggled to figure out what PCs would actually do.

 

[nyvinter]

I'm sure that it will be a great game, but I will probably pass. The adventure for the old version kind of reveals some major spoilers to the setting mysteries, and I'm still sore about those and a few other related setting decisions.

I really don't like setting metaplot through published campaigns and

Spoiler: setting changes mid campaign

the whole "Coriolis station is no more despite it giving the title of the game"

made me roll my eyes hard.

Still like the game and core setting so had no problem deciding not to have the campaign info be canon. And if this uses the 2d6 base and step dice from Blade Runner? I'm all for this.

 

[Aldarc]

Could you spoil those setting mysteries for me (under an appropriate SBlock of course)? Never read the adventures - I bounced off the old versions, despite its gorgeous art when I struggled to figure out what PCs would actually do.

Spoiler

From what I recall, and it has been awhile seen I explored this in depth, is that one of the mysteries is about the "gods" of the setting: i.e., the Icons. Playing/reading the main adventure reveals that they are actually something akin to ascended humans from one of the other Horizons who are trying to pull strings in the Third Horizon (where the game is set), which IMHO pulls the rug out from the theme of "faith" in the setting.

I will add that one setting detail that kind of rubbed me the wrong way was imagining a Middle East-inspired science-fiction setting that was polytheistic; however, that gets into a can of worms that really can't be discussed further here, but I thought that I would mention this point anyway since it does factor into another reason I bounced off of it.

I really don't like setting metaplot through published campaigns and

Spoiler: setting changes mid campaign

the whole "Coriolis station is no more despite it giving the title of the game"

made me roll my eyes hard.

This too.

 

[schneeland]

Still like the game and core setting so had no problem deciding not to have the campaign info be canon. And if this uses the 2d6 base and step dice from Blade Runner? I'm all for this.

I agree with your assessment about the campaign and will probably treat it the same way.
Mechanics-wise, though, I would hope that they stick with the classical d6 pool. I get a bit of an "Forbidden Lands in space" vibe from the announcement, so maybe they could take more inspiration from there (coincidentally, Forbidden Lands is my favourite YZ game ).

 

[Aldarc]

I agree with your assessment about the campaign and will probably treat it the same way.
Mechanics-wise, though, I would hope that they stick with the classical d6 pool. I get a bit of an "Forbidden Lands in space" vibe from the announcement, so maybe they could take more inspiration from there (coincidentally, Forbidden Lands is my favourite YZ game ).

Free League as a company even gets its name from one of the factions in Coriolis, so they do have some attachment to the setting.

 

[nyvinter]

My group likes to roll dice a lot more than Free League wants us to. We like the chance of things going sideways. It's just that we had far too many roll 12d6 plus reroll and still no 6s in sight — even if we had played it as written and far less rolls, it still would have sucked the fun out of it.