Ashen Stars ^[1] is the newest full-length, stand-alone GUMSHOE product from RPG legend, Robin D. Laws.

^[1]They call you lasers. Sometimes you’re called scrubbers, regulators, or shinestars. To the lawless denizens of the Bleed, whether they be pirates, gangsters or tyrants, you’re known in less flattering terms. According to official Combine terminology, the members of your hard-bitten starship crew are known as Licensed Autonomous Zone Effectuators. You’re the seasoned freelancers local leaders call when a situation proves too tough, too baffling, or simply too weird to handle on their own. In the abandoned fringe of inhabited planets known as the Bleed, you’re as close to a higher authority as they come.

In this gritty space opera game, the PCs are Lasers, freelance troubleshooters and law enforcers operating in a remote sector called the Bleed. They’re needed in the wake of a massive retreat by the Combine, the utopian empire that colonized it. Amid the ashes of a devastating war, the lasers solve mysteries, fix thorny problems, and explore strange corners of space—all on a contract basis. They balance the immediate rewards of a quick buck against their need to maintain their reputation, so that they can continue to quickly secure lucrative contracts and pay the upkeep on their ship and their cyber- and viroware enhancements. Featuring seven new and highly detailed playable species:

– The eerily beautiful, nature-loving, emotion-fearing balla
– The cybes, former humans radically altered by cybernetic and genetic science
– The durugh, hunched, furtive ex-enemies of the Combine who can momentarily phase through solid matter.
– The humans, adaptable, resourceful, and numerous. They comprise the majority of a typical laser crew.
– The kch-thk, warrior locust people who migrate to new bodies when their old ones are destroyed.
– The armadillo-like tavak, followers of a serene warrior ethic.
– The vas mal, former near-omnisicent energy beings devolved by disaster into misshapen humanoid form.

Ashen Stars ^[1] also contains extensive, streamlined rules for space combat, 14 different types of ship, a rogues gallery of NPC threats and hostile species’ and a short adventure to get you started in the Bleed.

Ashen Stars is available at the Flames Rising RPGNow Shop ^[1].