I am pleased to present to you Plerion – The Five Galaxies, the official setting for Plerion!

A few days ago I published the first of the supplements promised last summer for Plerion: Solo Starfarer is part of a ” triplet” that also includes The Five Galaxies and The Book of Cosmic Creatures.

How I came up with this work

Already the Core Rules outlined a Charted Space rich in alien species and unfathomable immensities, where humans are an insignificant minority.

The major influence on this unhuman-centric scenario is mainly due to three major influences on Plerion: David Brin’s Uplift Series, Mass Effect and Becky Chambers’ Wayfarer Series. All of them “cleaned me up” quite a bit from the humanocentric science fiction I grew up with, that of Asimov, Heinlein and other Golden Age authors. Brin, Chambers and the ME developers made me realize the potential, but also the complexity of dealing with a setting where it is not even a given that you have eyes and arms, let alone that you can think like a human.

The Setting Scale

As always, with The Five Galaxies, I tried more to suggest than to regulate and describe in-depth.

True, I describe five major races (with very unhuman characteristics, as you will see). And it is also true that I briefly describe six great space nations. But the fact is, you see, that the Five Galaxies are exterminated. Science fiction usually does not have a scale that is so mind-boggling.

To give you an idea, think of the Official Traveller Universe extending into a small portion of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way, as you can see here:

Map above courtesy of travellermap.com

The Traveller Charted Space is the red dot at the bottom, compare to the Milky Way!

I was only able to “offer” a setting a million times larger because I cheated.

Yes, that’s right! I cheated! Or rather, I learned an important lesson from what I consider one of my masters, Ursula K. Le Guin: “What I did was to give the illusion that there were all these different worlds. That’s called art, or fiction, or something like that. The rule is that you only invent what you have to.“1

I, alas, am not able to write like her; in fact, despite my youthful ambitions, I have realized that I cannot write (fiction) at all.

But like all roleplayers (and worldbuilders) I have a need to create a field of action. The rule I have given myself so as not to go crazy and lose myself in unnecessary details is simple: prepare a canvas and leave white spaces to be filled.

It is not just laziness (yes a little bit it is, I admit, but the typical programmer’s laziness), but a practical matter: I do not think it is possible to detail a setting of this extent and complexity without making it useless. None of you will ever explore the Five Galaxies in its entirety, and even if you did, if I told you everything, what would be the fun of playing?

So the support of Core Rules generation procedures and Solo Starfarer will help you fill in the blanks when you need it!

What will you find in the volume?

As mentioned, you will find:

The titular Five Galaxies described with their pecularities, resources, and major domains or empires. The five major races described with their biological, cultural peculiarities and their role in the Galaxies. Six minor races, barely mentioned, to give your imagination a little flywheel. Six major nations (empires, federations, etc.) with their goals. Six broad factions, briefly hinted at (you can really indulge in creating more here!). Chapters on technology, trade and exploration that will help give you insights to flesh out your campaigns (including new Artifacts!).

Open License

As always all my work is released under CC BY-SA-4.0 license! You can expand it and publish the result, even commercially without my expression permission. Just attribute the original work to me and redistribute the derivative under the same license!

PWYW

As anticipated, this work is released free of charge. I activate the PWYW option only for those who want to thank me with a small contribution. The POD will be available at cost price on Amazon (possibly also Lulu).