Cepheus Setting 1: Tropes

Image by Juan Pablo Rodan: visit here to see more.

I commented over in a different location that I imagined this setting (I don't know what I'm calling it yet) being inspired a bit by Sword and Sorcery. And then I thought, hey self, what do you mean by that? 

Here's what I mean.

The characters are outsiders. Gameplay should downplay any sense of home, unless home is their ship. Like Conan (or Dumarest!), they wander about.

The bar for morality is low af. There are some seriously horrible people in positions of power, either deliberately cruel Caligula style, or sacrificing people for the "greater good". The characters can be wholesome if they want, but really they just have to be not psychopaths.

Life is hard. This ain't no happy federation. The standard of living will probably vary from world to world, but there tend to be a lot of trudging and toiling peasants ruled by callous nobles. Maybe literal peasants and nobles, maybe factory laborers and executives. If there's a utopia planet, it's somewhere off the map.

Places are creepy and weird. Think of images like the one above, featuring the tiny human and the towering environment. It's a bit like fascist architecture, awe inspiring and intimidating. In this setting there should often be something looming, like a cliff, or a ruin, or some asshole prince's pleasure tower, or a giant ship hovering. There's mist covering the ground, maybe, or the colors are just a bit off. It's not horror, but it's often a little unsettling.

Scientists are the new sorcerers. Instead of some dark ritual where a naked human is sacrificed on an altar to a forgotten god, it's a laboratory and some human-centipede type experiments. Someone's probably trying right now to open a gate into another universe. Probably some secret cabal are trying to "improve" humans, without asking those humans if they'd like to be improved.

Action! If one of your adventures doesn't involve a PC knife-fighting a pirate warlord in a sweaty arena, something has gone terribly wrong. Cepheus lends itself to quick-witted, clever characters who probably should avoid fights if they want to survive, but every once in a while things are gonna get rough and stabby.