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The Story
Once, the collective efforts of the space-faring powers that had left their homeworlds to settle the depths of space had culminated in the founding of a star-spanning society that seemed to benefit all who lived there. However, over 7,000 years ago, the many differences in socio-economics and politics caused this patchwork collective to crumble, leaving the elite to take over the reigns. Freedom was sacrificed in favour of stability and all went well until the empire fell to tyranny, infighting, decadence and other sins of old. Over the next centuries, empire after empire formed in a cyclical pattern, until the Seventh Empire was born out of the ashes of the Sixth.
Through the different ages, long-lasting dynasties were formed, the greatest of which was the Aedos Dynasty, a large and powerful family whose resources stretched across the galaxy. Ruling in opulence from Aedos Prime, these self-styled nobles profited from the need to colonize other worlds because of an ever-increasing galactic population, keeping the peace with their armadas of warships. However, even while the Aedos continued to expand their realm, only encountering resistance by the third century of the existence of the Seventh Empire, known as the Domination, some scientists started to warn that hyperspace was starting to unravel. During the next one hundred years, dubbed the Stagnation, the powers that be mainly wanted to recover from the wars that went before, leading to a status quo, and the scientific community simply went quiet.
After the Domination came the Corrosion. When the general populace realized that the outer regions of the empire were being policed less and less, it didn't take them long to figure out that entire fleets had been disappearing. Entire star systems were now left to fend for themselves, cut off from important trade routes. Some of the population went feral, but at least they weren't under Aedos rule anymore either.
It is now the seventh century of the Seventh Empire's existence, the age known as the Dissolution. Hyperspace has become dangerous to even the smallest of ships and about half of the planets within the realm are cut off from the interstellar trade routes. Aedos warship patrols have become less frequent, leaving planets with a desire for independence the chance to break away from the empire, and even while some civilisations are struggling to fend by themselves without the Aedos to steer them, the former rulers of the realm have largely withdrawn to the core worlds. And then there is Septimus.
Septimus is a Dyson Sphere, an artificial shell of exactly one astronomical unit (i.e., the distance from Earth to the Sun) that completely surrounds the star Hellion. The inner surface of the sphere has an earth-like environment that provides more habitable living space than all of the habitable worlds of the Seventh Empire combined. No-one knows who first constructed Septimus, but this mysterious construct was first discovered and colonized by the Sindavar Extent, an enigmatic, radical fringe group that advocates the development of advanced artificial intelligence and human augmentation using nanotechnology, about a century ago. Before settling and taking control of Septimus, these scientist, philipsophers and technologists were peaceful technocultists, but something about the Dyson Sphere has altered them, turning the Extent into a paranoid military force that wants all who visit to comform to their edicts and beliefs. The Sindavar Extent rules out of the mega-city Arcopolis, where their influence is felt less and less the farther one travels from its center.
Despite the macabre reputation of the Sindavar Extent, despite the origins of Septimus being shrouded in mystery and despite the fact that the trip to the Dyson Sphere is extremely perilous, many have sought out this world construct. It has been estimated that about one per cent – a trillion – of the empire's populace has already traveled to Septimus, and this number is expected to increase to ten per cent within the next 100 years...
History
Septimus has known a sad, sad history. Its designer, Bill Coffin, is best known for his work for Palladium Publishing, which released Coffin’s Heroes Unlimited, the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game, Second Edition, about 13 Rifts books, and more. In 2002, the author ended his collaboration with Palladium after a dispute with its owner, Kevin Siembieda. In 2007, he announced that he was working on Septimus as a campaign book for D6 Space. At that time, Eric Gibson was running the company, which was struggling due to too many licenses (Xena: Warrior Princess, Hercules: The Legendary Journeys,
Tales from the Crypt, Necroscope, Indiana Jones, Men in Black) that didn’t perform nearly as well as Star Wars and Ghostbusters had done before. Septimus was first cancelled, but eventually Gibson announced WEG would release the RPG through print-on-demand. Since then, West End Games has had to close down operations and sell its properties, but not before its owner put the entire catalogue on the internet… for free. We were given an actual physical copy of Septimus at GenCon, so here we go!
Setting
Even though most of the fairly extensive background (almost 100 pages) mainly covers history and the different areas in and surrounding Septimus, one might argue that this RPG is much like Rifts or Torg in the sense that the main setting spans so much surface that just about anything might be found here. Still, the game is very human-centric, as the only reference to aliens most people know about is the fact that the Dyson Sphere has been constructed by an unknown party, and the setting information is focused well enough, providing the game with its own, distinct atmosphere. Sure, some of the descriptions are less than exciting, but there's also a whole bunch of interesting ideas to be found within the background information.
At the core of this RPG is the venerable D6 System which, in a previous incarnation, powered games like Star Wars. It's an easy-to-learn set of rules which uses six attributes (Agility, Knowledge, Mechanical, Perception, Strength and Technical) and a number of skills attached to these Attributes. Everything's measured in six-sided dice, meaning that a rating of, say, 3D+1 also grants 3D+1 to its related skills Climb/Jump, Lift, Stamina and Swim. Of course, skills can be raised separately as well. One of the dice is always Wild, with a 6 considered to be a Critical Success (and allowing the player to roll again and add the result to the original score as long as sixes are rolled), while a 1 is a Critical Failure. Players just need to roll equal to or higher than a certain difficulty number ranging from 1-5 (Very Easy) to 21-29 (Very Difficult) and 30+ (Heroic).
All player characters also start with (at least) one Fate Point, the use of which allows all attributes, skills and special attributes to be doubled temporarily. This functions like Force Points in Star Wars, and much of the description seems to be lifted out of the pages of the SW rulebook. We even found a reference to Force Points in the pages of Septimus, one of the minor examples of the sloppy editing that pops up once in a while in this game. Character Points (the equivalent of Experience Points in the D6 System) can also be spent to gain extra dice instead of being saved in order to increase or gain attributes or skills.
Through overmodification, mod conflicts (the result of having different kinds of modifications), the interaction with alien technology or being brought back from the dead through medical intervention, player characters also gain Corruption Points. These can lead to persona drift, entering fugue states (the involuntary loss of consciousness as the body begins to act on its own) and eventually removal from the game.
Advantages and disadvantages can be bought (back) as Boons (such as Empathy, Heavy Hitter and Legal Immunity) and Banes (such as Addiction, Amnesia and Obsession), while augmentations are of a nanotechnological nature. Even though some psychic-like powers are treated as Boons, there's also the Metaphysical Skills Channel, Sense and Transform, all of which have many possible 'manipulations'. Sample manipulations, such as Blast (Channel), Clairvoyance (Sense) and Ignore Pain (Transform) are also given.
Even though Bill Coffin included quite a lot of background information in the first 98 pages, much of the game's flavour can be discovered in the appendix, which includes 8 Sindavar Extent, 8 Grayscale and 8 Newcomer templates. Some of these are quite original and inventive, or at the very least quite specific to the setting. Avatars, for example, are independant persona constructs that roam the date infrastructure like ghosts. Those who follow the Extent usually inhabit Synthient bodies in order to interact with the material world around them. Bodgers live on the edges of the mega-city in the Grayscale and make a living out of salvaging hardware in order to repair and modify mechanical technology (incidentally, they're also fascinated by alien tech). Flatliners, on the other hand, refuse nanotechnological modifications... making them suspect in a society ruled by something like the Sindavar Extent. Hardcases suffer from a rare disorder known as nanorejection, causing them to be insusceptible to revival or reconstruction and leading them to transfer their 'personals' to Synthient bodies. Hyperions are living people who have transformed their brains into 'ultra-efficient thinking machines'. Sleepwalkers are the Extent's secret agents and covert operatives. Spoilsports are Grayscale criminals who manipulate and dodge the system. There's also more traditional templates, such as Merchants, Pathfinders and Spacers, of course. The list of choices is pretty extensive, and is a very welcome addition to the open character creation. In fact, some Game Master may even require players to choose a template instead of leaving their character concepts totally up to themselves.
Our Opinon
It's hard to decide whether to recommend Septimus or not. On the one hand, the core rulebook lacks the production values of modern RPG's like Warhammer 40,000 Roleplay, Alpha Omega or Doctor Who. There's not a single full-colour image within the confines of its cover and the entire game is only sparsely illustrated. Worse still, there may not be any supplements for this game and the rulebook doesn't even include a sample scenario. Lastly, there may be too little differences between the way this setting is translated into a rules system and the rules set used in West End Games' Star Wars RPG for old Star Wars players to buy this game as well. On the other hand, Septimus does offer an interesting setting and great templates, allowing for a variety of playing styles. It may be a little tough for new gamers to get what is expected from them, but the gaming system is very easy to learn and the templates will help beginning players a great deal as well. Clever Game Masters will undoubtedly expand on the idea of a world that effectively covers an entire star, but it would be very interesting to hear what Bill Coffin had in mind himself. Let's hope the author will get the chance to do just that in the near future!