Stargrave: The Powers

The official release of Stargrave is now just two weeks away, and the Stargrave Nickstarter pre-order program is surging onwards, with lots of cool new miniatures.

Today, Osprey Games released the Power Card Sheets from the rulebook as a free download. These cards contain the rules for all of the powers that Captains and First mates can choose from, all 52 of them.

Creating these powers was probably the most enjoyable part of the design process. It was my chance to develop fun and clever ways to bend or break my own rules, to give players the chance to manipulate the game environment, and to allow the main characters to do some really cool, cinematic stuff.

Also, it presented a nice challenge. In Frostgrave, everyone is controlling a wizard, so it was easy to justify anything cool they could do, just by saying ‘its magic’! In Stargrave though, the characters come from all kinds of different backgrounds. While a few, such as the Mystic and the Psionic can do things that look a bit like magic, most of the others; however, can not. Soldiers, Rogues, Cyborgs, etc. should have abilities based more on skills, or technology, or luck. In fact, that’s why I called these things ‘Powers’, as I couldn’t think of a better, all inclusive term, for the different abilities that captains and first mates can possess.

Now, in truth, I haven’t worried too much about the logical justification of why a particular captain has a particular power – that’s up to the player when creating the captain’s background – but I did want to create powers that could match as many different sci-fi tropes as possible. So, if you want a captain who survives by his combat training and wits alone, you can. You can also have a mystic that can suck the lifeforce out of others and blast things with weird energy. The key for me, was making both characters fun, balanced, and desirable.

So, have a look through all the powers and, hopefully, it will get your own creativity stirring, giving you ideas for cool characters to start their adventures in the Ravage Galaxy!

Stargrave Nickstarter!

The Stargrave 'Nickstarer' has begun! What's a Nickstarter, you ask? It's a pre-order program with bonuses.

Essentially, if you order one of the basic Stargrave packages (the simplest is a copy of the book and a box of plastic minis), then you will also received all of the 'freebies' that are unlocked during the campaign. As we are already on day three, and the campaign exploded out of the gate, that already includes 5 metal miniatures, 3 loot tokens, a sprue of plastic gnolls, and a d20! And, it is very close to picking up yet another metal miniature. Considering the campaign has almost three weeks left, there is a good chance that more freebies will be unlocked.

What a Nickstarter isn't is crowd funding. Everything in the campaign is being produced and paid for independent of this campaign. Most of it is already produced and the last pieces are being pulled together now. So, you won't be waiting a year or more to get your stuff, it'll hopefully be shipping as soon as the campaign ends.  

So, come join the fun!

You can order direct from North Star.

In the US you can order from Badger Games or Brigade Games.

In Germany you can order from Minituricum. 

You can also potentially order it through your local game store if they work with North Star.