Aftermath — A Sci-Fi Adventure RPG Ashcan

The war has passed by, but the fighting isn't over.

The Pale Order brought war to the many worlds of the Concillium. For five years, your home has been the front line of resistance against the Pale Order. They retreated thirty minutes ago, with the Concillium Navy in pursuit. Most people will get to take a rest, but not you. You’re the ones who have to clean up the dangers left in the Aftermath.

You Are The Rapid Response Team

Drawn from units of the military and from civilian emergency response groups, your team brings a wide array of skills, and you are sent in when the higher ups don’t know what the efficient response is. You deploy, solve the situation if possible, and call in the right cavalry when it isn’t.

With all the chaos left in the wake of the Pale Order’s retreat, you and the other rapid response teams are being deployed to deal with the most immediate dangers.

Aftermath is a solo-friendly sci-fi adventure rpg with a tone of resilient hope. Your characters feel a responsibility to make the world just a little bit better for their communities and the people harmed in the wake of a terrible war.

What You Do

As members of the Rapid Response Team, you can face a wide variety of tasks. You might:

• Located (1) a document (4) in a mine (8)
• Survive (9) a vehicle (6) in a Pale Order prison (6)
• Repair (10) an AI (1) in a manufactory (7)

Features

• 6 character classes.
• Random tables to help you build as you go.
• A future world for you to make your own.
• An introductory adventure to get you started!

This Game Has Politics

We don't believe it is possible to write a game free from political perspective or bias, but it is definitely impossible to write a game about war that excludes politics.

This future unashamedly embraces a leftist ideology. The Concillium believes in things like universal health care, universal education, diverse species, races, genders, and sexualities. While individuals might embrace religious ideals, those ideals are personal, and kept distinct from government mandate. Citizens work toward living their own best lives and making the world better for each other, and for the future.

The Pale Order are the villains. They are fascists. When they conquer planets, people are inducted into the Pale Order and are gene-wrought, surgically modified, hypno-conditioned, and cybernetically augmented to match one small ideal of how a person should be. The Pale Order wages wars of conquest simply because it can and it hates that anyone not of the Pale Order is even allowed to exist.

If you're on the side of fascists, nazis, racists, sexists, homophobes and transphobes — You are the villains, and you are not welcome here.

Ashcan

This version of Aftermath is an “ashcan,” a term used in tabletop role-playing games to mean a version that is somewhere between a proof-of-concept and a beta version. It is a complete game on its own — you can go find some dice and have fun. 

However, it isn’t really a “finished” work as we tend to think of them. It isn’t illustrated, for one thing, and there is a good bit of development that can extend these rules in the future: more classes, more adventures, vehicles and vehicle combat, interstellar travel and missions, and other such things.

Is Aftermath going to have that further development? Maybe.

But that’s a little bit on you, dear reader.

If you want to see a bigger and better version of Aftermath, here is what you can do to let us know it’s worth the time to do it:

• Leave those 5 star ratings on the game’s Itch.io page.
• Buy this ashcan version instead of downloading it for free.
• Share it with friends.
• Talk about the game in your favorite online spaces.
• Write reviews on blogs, or record one for YouTube.
• Do a stream or live-play of it.

Basically, if you do the things that let us see that you’re excited and interested, that can let us know this is a project you would like us to revisit. But there are no promises or timelines.

Regardless, we hope you enjoy this story of making the world a little bit better.

This work is based on Stoneburner, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas and Galen Pejeau.

This work is based on Tales of the Burned Stones, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies- Gélinas based on an original concept by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas and Galen Pejeau.

This product is licensed under the ORC License located at the Library of Congress at TX 9-307-067 and available online at various locations including www.azoralaw.com/orclicense. All warranties are disclaimed as set forth therein.

Open-Licensed

The following elements are owned by the Licensor and would otherwise constitute Reserved Material and are hereby designated as Licensed Material: all the details about the setting, the nonplayer characters, the rolling tables, and the adventures.

If you use our Licensed Material in your own published works, please credit as follows: 

This work is based on Aftermath © 2024 Natalie Ash (www.byemberandash.com), Stoneburner, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas and Galen Pejeau, and Tales of the Burned Stones, product of Fari RPGs (https://farirpgs.com/), developed and authored by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas based on an original concept by René-Pier Deshaies-Gélinas and Galen Pejeau.

More Details

• Format: 44 pages black and white PDF (6.14" x 9.21")
• Number of players: 1-5
• Publisher: Ember & Ash

Community Copies

For a lot of people, times are tough — the whole late-stage, snake eats it own tail, predatory capitalism thing — and what economic security exists is very unevenly distributed. If you are also experiencing those tough times, whether that is because you are in a disadvantaged group, or a disadvantaged part of the world, or, alternatively, if you were a participant in the TTRPG Collective Presents: Hope Jam!, click the link below. You'll get a free copy of Aftermath as our way of trying to make the world just a little bit better.

https://byemberandash.itch.io/aftermathcommcopies