[Cosmos] v6041.2 - Preview (Patreon)

We hit this 20-patron goal back in May. Between months of squeezing time and staying up nights, I had hoped to get this packaged by the end of August. It turns out proofreading and testing a starship system made from scratch takes a little more time than expected. Now I have to start work on next month's compendium!

BUT! All the content is complete. I did not want to wait another month, so I'm releasing it now in playtest form! Download the pdf to learn more about the Cosmos.

(This is meant to merge with the old Cosmos compendium. Missing content can be found here).

> Content Design

Add new minimal or modular rules. Minimize changes to existing 5e rules to make learning new rules easy.

Don't overdesign and complicate the rules.

Implement setting-agnostic rules for player flexibility.

Create a galaxy with ample room for custom expansion, by players or future additions.

> What's New?

Here's a quick summary of what you'll find in these 38 pages:

Revised Title. I probably shouldn't use Hitchhiker's Guide anymore.

Lore and Background. The lore broadly describes the Galaxy and then focuses on one small part of it to get you started. Visit a stellar station, a planet, and a mysteriously abandoned mining asteroid, each with adventure hooks.

Technomancy. Not fully defined, but serves as a magical analogue to modern-day computing. Important for computers or artificial intelligences.

Starships. Rules for describing, running, and creating a custom starship. A good number of different starship weapons to 

Starship Combat. In combat, crew members man one or more stations to make attacks, assist each other, or pilot the ship.

Faster Than Light Travel. Two primary methods as well as two experimental ideas (that an adventure can be based around).

Spells. A bunch of new spells, including some that make use of technomancy.

Futuristic Weapon Rules. Optional rules for converting core weapons into standard weapons without unbalancing the combat design.

> Do I have to playtest?

Not at all! I mainly wanted this to be released as soon as possible. If you do leave valuable or actionable feedback, you will be included in the playtest credits. In particular, I did not have time or resources to test starship combat - how long does each battle last? Is it fun? Were the rules intuitive? Were any of them confusing to find or understand?

> Thank you

Thank you all for supporting me all these months and getting us to this goal! I hope this was worth the wait.