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Dark Matter Starter Set: Science Fiction for DnD 5E

Created by Mage Hand Press

Dark Matter is a rip-roaring futuristic campaign setting, which lets you play DnD in Space without learning a new system.

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Funded in 4 Hours!
over 3 years ago – Thu, Jul 30, 2020 at 12:02:18 AM

Funded in 4 Hours!

Release the confetti! Blow the horns! We were fully funded in a matter of four hours!

But we’re not anywhere near done yet. We haven’t been quiet about our ambitious stretch goals, and now we get to announce a few more!

Catching Up On Changes

Before we go too far into talking about stretch goals, we want to highlight a big recent change to Dark Matter, which is going to be present in all versions of the book going forward. Spurred by the ongoing dialogue about orcs in tabletop gaming, we’ve gone back and re-examined our earlier, genuinely flawed approach. We’re releasing this errata publicly, and will be updating digital copies of Dark Matter on all major platforms. Furthermore, we wrote a playable orc race, so you can engage with them as actual characters. We hope you enjoy both of these, especially as it sets our roots more firmly going forward.

Stretch Goals

We’ll be delving into more details about our campaign’s stretch goals as we unlock them, but two of the most exciting are Grax’s Guys and One Hundred to Oni, two massive adventures we’re ready to get out into the world. We’re going to start these cheap and achievable -- inexpensive art, print-and-play production, delivered in chunks over the course of a year -- and we’ll improve them as we reach higher stretch goals. These are some of the best, most thrilling ideas we’ve had in this setting, and we’re stoked to get them launched.

We’re also going to be getting our new adventure “Conspiracy in the Stars!” on Roll20 (or a similar VTT, if something goes catastrophically wrong in the process of converting it to Roll20). This is really important for us, and once we reach this goal, it’ll be a lot easier for us to convert the rest of Dark Matter, as well as our other adventures, into Roll20.

Stay tuned for when we hit new stretch goals, because that’s when we’ll start revealing our other stretch goals, new add-ons, and pledge levels.

Space Battle Bundle

Our first stretch goal, at $30K, is called the Space Battle Bundle. We’re making a bunch of new ship battlemaps, made by the best sci-fi battle-mapper on the internet, Scribbles in Space (@scribbes.in.space). They’re incredible, their work is incredible, and they have phenomenal things in store for this fold-out map.

On the back side, we’ve got a stellar (no pun intended) space map. Did we just throw a repeating star texture at a sheet of paper? No! We put one of our most talented artists on the project, creating an asteroid field peppered with hazards, with beautiful planets looming in the background.

And just for fun, we’re tossing in a ton of ship tokens, so you don’t have to search around forever to find cool ship miniatures. The plan is to make at least 30, but you should know that the number could be a bit higher or a bit lower. We haven’t settled on how many big, multiple-inch diameter ships we’ll be including, and those shift the number of tokens dramatically.

If you even think about running space combat, this bundle is a must-have. It’s got killer value, and tons of beautiful art, and it should fit in your Starter Kit box to boot. Add it to your pledge as an add-on for $25 today!