From Sine Nomine:
Unleash the power of arcanotech and the willful might of eldritch Shadows on your Stars Without Number campaign with the Codex of the Black Sun.
In this supplement for the award-winning Stars Without Number sci-fi RPG, you’ll get all the tools you need to add space magic and interstellar sorcery into your campaign. Advice on how to integrate things smoothly, tables for conjuring up social attitudes toward magic, and help with the practical concerns of adding magic to your gaming table are all provided within. Everything is presented in optional and modular fashion, allowing you to add as little or as much of it as you wish into your own personal cosmos.
Inside this book, you’ll get…
- A history of arcane science in the Stars Without Number setting, for you to embrace or alter as you see fit.
- Complete rules for spellcasting, sparing readers from needing to have the Space Magic rules from the laudable deluxe version of Stars Without Number. This book is completely self-contained and can be used with no more than the free version of the game.
- A fistfull of eldritch classes, including not only the traditional Arcanist, but also the Shadow-slaying Godhunter, the warrior-mystic Sunblades, the wandering judges known as the Yama Kings, the channels of party-boosting power who are the Free Nexuses, and the specialist Magister classes. These body-shifting Rectifiers, Shadow-summoning Pacters, and grizzled front-line War Mages all add their own talents to the mix. But that’s not all; it’s only fair to let the more conventional heroes have a taste of arcane power, so the Arcane Warrior and Arcane Expert classes are provided for campaigns redolent of sorcery.
- Full spell lists for Arcanists, War Mages, Rectifiers, and Pacters, along with guidelines on developing new spells for them. The non-spellcasting heroes aren’t left out either, with selections of new Arcane Warrior and Arcane Expert foci to make sure they have their own special graces.
- Full optional rules for arcane research and development, giving PC mages a reason to hunt down occult tomes and sorcerous dataslabs to build their library and extend their arcane power. Rules for learning and designing new spells, summoning Shadows, and creating arcanotech are all integrated with this system.
- Sanctums for mages and more mundane heroes, with quick guidelines and rules for building private retreats and offworld bases of adventure.
- Shadows, the metadimensional entities that bleed through into this world when the stars are right or the sorcerers are very wrong. A full bestiary is offered, along with tools for building your own, developing sinister Shadow Cults, and handling Shadow summoning by adventurous PCs.
- And finally, a rich selection of arcanotech for heroes to build, scavenge, or “liberate”. Full rules for item creation are provided, along with advice on how to integrate them into your game.
The Codex of the Black Sun is less system-neutral than most Sine Nomine publications, as it’s designed to give both GMs and players a 152-page box of new toys to play with and employ in their own Stars Without Number games. Even so, the mechanics and content within should fit well with any other game system that shares a similar classic OSR engine, as they are compatible with the early editions of TSR’s hit fantasy role-playing game.
So seize it now, bold reader! A host of possible heroes and dreadful foes await you within this book, with tools to delight both player and GM. Do not let it escape your relentless grasp!
