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The Stars Are Fire
A starship of unknown provenance, adrift and perilous, falls into a nearby orbit. An alien disease causes people to slowly lose interest in life - Then take root like a plant. An envoy from another dimension brings warning of a pending catastrophe - but what if it's solutions are the real threat?
It's your campaign. Where will it lead you? What will happen?
The Cypher System is the fast, flexible, elegant game engine that powers any campaign you can imagine. The Stars Are Fire adds creatures, rules, character options, loads and loads of gear, and other tools optimized for your science fiction campaign. Plus a complete, ready to use hard science fiction setting!
- Aliens, robots, starships, creatures, and additional resources for campaigns reaching from gritty and realistic to swashbuckling and star-hopping.
- A huge catalog of sci-fi equipment, all graded according to the Tech level and style of your game - from contemporary to fantastic.
A space combat system for gripping ship to ship seen that and gauge every player throughout the session.
A complete syufy setting Colin arrival. Humanity has colonized the Solar System, but is still - mysterious event has caused the Earth to fall dark and quiet.
A full length adventure, salvage over Saturn, plus 2 scifi cipher shorts
I setting and supplement for the cipher system period of requires the cipher system rulebook for play.
It's your campaign. Where will it lead you? What will happen?
The Cypher System is the fast, flexible, elegant game engine that powers any campaign you can imagine. The Stars Are Fire adds creatures, rules, character options, loads and loads of gear, and other tools optimized for your science fiction campaign. Plus a complete, ready to use hard science fiction setting!
- Aliens, robots, starships, creatures, and additional resources for campaigns reaching from gritty and realistic to swashbuckling and star-hopping.
- A huge catalog of sci-fi equipment, all graded according to the Tech level and style of your game - from contemporary to fantastic.
A space combat system for gripping ship to ship seen that and gauge every player throughout the session.
A complete syufy setting Colin arrival. Humanity has colonized the Solar System, but is still - mysterious event has caused the Earth to fall dark and quiet.
A full length adventure, salvage over Saturn, plus 2 scifi cipher shorts
I setting and supplement for the cipher system period of requires the cipher system rulebook for play.
223 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2019
2 people are currently reading
14 people want to read
About the author
Bruce R. Cordell
165 books123 followersBruce R. Cordell authored books for Dungeons & Dragons over the course of 4 editions (2nd Edition through 5th Edition D&D). These days, he’s a senior designer for Monte Cook Games, LLC designing Numenera , Gods of the Fall, and The Strange. Also a novel author, his credits include several titles set in the Forgotten Realms. Bruce’s tenth novel, Myth of the Maker, is just out from Angry Robot Books:
http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/2017...
http://brucecordell.blogspot.com/2017...
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
June 27, 2020
Very good! I was not sure I would like the setting, but once I did a full read through I adore it!
Yes, I will probably tweak it quite a bit - more Transhuman Space - but the Quiet Earth, the Dark Drives - I really like it!
Yes, I will probably tweak it quite a bit - more Transhuman Space - but the Quiet Earth, the Dark Drives - I really like it!
February 5, 2023
Really good sci-fi setting book for Cypher system, though elements can be pulled for any. I particularly like the space combat system that gets everyone involved in the action.
January 11, 2026
The Stars Are Fire offers an expanded vision of using Cypher as a basis for science fiction, with a 75-page campaign outline and adventure for The Revel—a hard sci-fi setting.
The core rules and character creation outline are in the Cypher core book. TSAF expands on equipment, starcraft and starships, the variations of sci-fi, the hazards, set pieces and optional rules, plus additional creatures, entities and non-player characters, like advanced AI and genetically–modified humans.
I come away wanting to run a hard sci-fi campaign, which, to my mind, bodes well for what TSAF presents as a book. Cypher does a lot of ground work, and TSAF expands on it, but there's still more to do. The Revel campaign frame is hard sci-fi for folk who don't want to just play The Expanse, and Bruce Cordell does fine work offering a starting point. That's sort of what Cypher is about.
TSAF is a core concept for you to build on, not spoon-feeding you a final product. This is a mix of ideas and basics, so you can run an adventure and then see where the narrative path takes you. I think you could probably pull in ideas from other Cypher books—like The Weird, First Responders, and The Strange—and see where the fiction takes you.
You cannot use this book without the Cypher core book, or at least a book that includes the core rules and some form of character creation, as there is no chargen herein. This is a toolbox to expand your options, not a game in its own right.
The core rules and character creation outline are in the Cypher core book. TSAF expands on equipment, starcraft and starships, the variations of sci-fi, the hazards, set pieces and optional rules, plus additional creatures, entities and non-player characters, like advanced AI and genetically–modified humans.
I come away wanting to run a hard sci-fi campaign, which, to my mind, bodes well for what TSAF presents as a book. Cypher does a lot of ground work, and TSAF expands on it, but there's still more to do. The Revel campaign frame is hard sci-fi for folk who don't want to just play The Expanse, and Bruce Cordell does fine work offering a starting point. That's sort of what Cypher is about.
TSAF is a core concept for you to build on, not spoon-feeding you a final product. This is a mix of ideas and basics, so you can run an adventure and then see where the narrative path takes you. I think you could probably pull in ideas from other Cypher books—like The Weird, First Responders, and The Strange—and see where the fiction takes you.
You cannot use this book without the Cypher core book, or at least a book that includes the core rules and some form of character creation, as there is no chargen herein. This is a toolbox to expand your options, not a game in its own right.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews