Empyrean Dynasty is a game about the machinations of powerful organisations and families as humanity leaves behind its once home of earth. The game begins with the invention of instant interstellar travel and then records the (hopefully) strange, weird and wondrous history of space faring human civilization from that point onwards.
Empyrean Dynasty is a game designed to played by post, with one player as the adjudicating referee and the other players in control of a single powerful organization. There are also tables and suggestions for a single player to play out the game alone. All rules/guidelines are simple suggestions and the game can be changed/played in any way the players/referee see fit. Regardless of how the game is played, the role of the referee is an important one - they are responsible for taking the attempted actions of all of the organisatons, weaving them all together over the time length of the turn, computing their success or failure and and then relaying what has occurred to the players (or to themselves if playing solo!).
(All the art in this post is by Bruce Pennington)
Buy a lovely PDF version of Empyrean Dynasty here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/381363/Empyrean-Dynasty
Or a POD copy here: https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/michael-raston/empyrean-dynasty/paperback/product-88m7ej.html?page=1&pageSize=4
Check out this post: https://lizardmandiaries.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-automated-empyrean-dynasty.html For automated versions of all the tables in the game!
Rules:
- The objective of each organisation is to become the supreme ruler of the universe.
- The game is played out in turns representing ever shortening periods of time, beginning at 10'000 years and ending at 1 day (or 1 minute if needed).
- Each turn an organisation will attempt one major action appropriate for the time scale. The referee will determine if that action is successful or not, and the outcome of this. An organisation may attempt more than one major action if they have a grand leader alive for the start of that time period.
Action Arguments: The players of organisations should present their attempted action to the referee in the following format:
- Clearly state what the organisation is trying to achieve.
- Clearly state how the organisation will achieve that goal.
- Clearly state what resources are available to the organisation to help them achieve their goal.
Conflict Tests: If the attempted action of the organisation is not deemed a guaranteed success by the referee, a Conflict Test can be rolled. If two organisations actions are in opposition of one another (such as waging war) a conflict test is highly recommend!
- Roll 2d6 and plus bonuses for any reasonable resources or strategies the organisation has presented in their action argument. If it is a competing conflict test between two players, highest wins. The conflict is a stalemate if it is a draw.
- If the Conflict Test is not between two organisations, the referee can either roll a random number for the organisation to beat with their roll, or pick an appropriate number for the difficulty of their action.
- Winning a Conflict Test by a lot is a glorious victory, and conversely losing it by a lot is a shameful defeat. It is up to the referee to weave the degrees of success or failure from a Conflict Test into the game fiction.
Turns: A suggested set of turns and their time lengths to document the sweeping history of post earth humanity is listed below. It is the referee's role to communicate to each of the players the pertinent and important outcomes of the attempted actions and conflict test of the previous turn (and the fate of any grand leaders). Additionally, the first few turns (those of the greatest time depth) may bring with them great changes to the organisations and planets of the game. Again, it is the role of the referee to check for and communicate these.
- 3 x 10'000 year turns (Attempted actions, successful or failed, have enormous impacts on the organisations of the game. The referee rolls 2d6 for each planet inhabited by an organisation. A very high or very low roll may result in vast positive or negative ecological changes - at the discretion of the referee)
- 3 x 1000 year turns (Attempted actions, successful or failed, have large impacts on the organisations of the game. The referee rolls 2d6 for each planet inhabited by an organisation. A very high or very low roll may result in minor positive or negative ecological changes - at the discretion of the referee)
- 3 x 100 year turns (Attempted actions, successful or failed, have impacts on the organisations of the game)
- 3 x 10 year turns
- 3 x 1 year turns
- 3 x 1 month turns
- 3 x 1 week turns
- 3 x 1 day turns
If needed:
- 3 x 1 hour turns
- 3 x 1 minute turns
Organisation Types and Grand Leaders: A grand leader allows an organisation to attempt a second major action in a turn. A grand leader may have a random foci, personality and name (roll on the appropriate tables below) - or the player in control of them may decide on these details. It is up to the referee/players to determine how they will handle Grand Leaders. An orgnisation's type determines how likely it is that they will have access to Grand Leaders. A grand leader should live for about 100 years (unless slain earlier through disease or misadventure).
- Corporation: A corporation has a 25% chance of having a grand leader at the start of every turn up to and including the 10 year long turns.
- Clan: A clan has a 50% chance of having a grand leader at the start of every turn up to and including the 10 year long turns. A clan grand leader has a 50% chance of being a "Reviled Grand Leader", any action (successful or failed) taken by a reviled grand leader will bring the clan shame and dishonor for all history. It is the discretion of the referee whether it is revealed to the player of a clan whether their grand leaders are reviled or not.
General Information:
- Space travel is instantaneous, but loading a spacecraft is not. It takes about a week to load an army and about a month to load a whole planetary population onto a spacecraft fleet.
- Space travel is within the capabilities of all important organisations, but it is relatively expensive. Space trips taken without a return on investment can be financially ruinous.
- All organisations will have access to the appropriate resources and infrastructure implied by their strengths, and any additional resources implied by their home world.
- Settling a new planet takes about a 100 years for the colony to be self sufficient. This gives the organisation nothing beyond access to more human bodies and the resources of the planet settled.
- Secret back channel communications, or public diplomatic delegations, are assumed and encouraged to occur (unless the referee forbids it!). Sending communications to other organisations is not an action.
- Nothing is set in stone. Everything has a probability of being possible.
The following lists and tables can be used to randomly generate details for the game, selected from as a menu, or used as simple examples. It is up the the players and referees to decide the specific details of their game.
Creating An Organisation:
- Decide whether the organisation will be a Corporation or a Clan.
- Pick (or roll) two strengths and a weakness of the organisation.
Organisation Foci:
- Industrial production
- Priescence
- Political charisma
- Biological Science
- Technological science
- Espionage
- Weaponry production
- Culture production
- People production
- Religion and spirituality
- Battle tactics
- Interstellar ships
- Planet bound vehicles
- Space navigation
- Terraforming
- Battle arts
- Food production
- Pharmaceutical production
- Data computing
- Communications
- Create a homeworld. The two key parts of a homeworld are its geography and an important resource. Pick (or roll) these on the tables below.
Planetary Geography Generator, roll twice and combine results (use colour table below for further detail if needed):
- Rolling hills
- Grass Plains
- River Plains
- Misty moors
- Windswept tundra
- Frozen snowfields
- Boiling desert
- Lush jungle
- Enormous caverns
- Endless seas
- Volcano ranges
- Towering mountains
- Nebulous gas
- Mild islands
- Black forests
- Muddy swamps
- Shining crystal
- Flat glass
- Lifeless sands
- Meteor shattered
Planetary important resource:
- Health inducing food crop
- Abundant and delicious fauna
- Exotic life extending spice
- Super conductive mineral
- Intelligence inducing gamma vibration
- Superior athlete inducing gravity levels
- Super efficient fuel
- Glorious gems
- Meditation inducing natural environs
- Vision inducing gas vents
- Super hard mineral ore
- Energy rich thermal vents
- Invigorating and strengthening exotic spice
- Super resonating crystals
- Hardiness inducing climate
- Trainable beasts of burden
- Trainable beasts of battle
- Endless staple fungi crop
- Decadent decorative cloth crop
- Healing sun/moon light
Additional Organisation Details: Use these as needed.
Name Generator: Pick some key words that represent the organisation (its foci, or details of its homeworld, its weakness, etc), then roll on the language table below. Look up the key organisation words in the language rolled - use these as inspiration for the organisation/great leader/homeworld name. Rolling twice and combining the key words from two different languages into new worlds will result in the weirdest/most interesting names. Sticking with the same naming convention throughout the game will give the organisation a more persistent identity. For grand leader names, get a random name from the rolled language and add use a word inspired from that language associate with the leader's foci.
- Greek
- Mandarin
- German
- Latin
- Arabic
- French
Organisation/Planetary Colour Generator: Roll twice and combine.
- Green
- Blue
- Indigo
- Purple
- Pink
- Red
- Orange
- Yellow
- White
- Black
Organisation Heraldic Crest Generator: Roll once, or twice and combine, as required.
- Homeworld animal
- Foci item / tool
- Foci appropriate symbol of an emotion
- Organisation's initials
- Foci or Homeworld related element
- Homeworld plant
Organisation Aesthetics Generator: For the description of architecture, dress, equipment, vehicles, etc. Roll twice and combine.
- Soft undulation
- Glowing rays
- Floating orbs
- Riven spikes
- Ethereal gas
- Flowing fabric
- Wasting skeletal
- Clear panels
- Young freshness
- Bejewelled opulence
- Running liquid
- Shining reflection
- Acidic melting
- Rigid metallic
- Fanged fur
- Many appendaged
- Huge oversized
- Rotting decay
- Solid stone
- Burning flame
Solo Play: If a referee would like to play out the history of various post earth human organisation alone, they may use the following tables to simulate the choices of players. All rules and guidelines above apply as normal. Create an appropriate amount of organisations, using the method described above, and then play assisted with the tables below! The solo referee is required to do some heavy lifting in terms of fleshing out the details, plans and actions of the organisations in their games - let the dice and your intuition guide you! If any of the rolled results seem completely illogical or insane to the solo referee, they are welcome to discard them (but be reminded humans do not always act rationally).
Organisation Personality: This should give the solo referee a prompt and direction for how to roleplay out each organisation. Roll twice and combine.
- Peaceful
- Holy
- Aloof
- Vacuous
- Swift
- Gentle
- Lavish
- Just
- Cerebral
- Stoic
- Patient
- Measured
- Chaotic
- Devious
- Indulgent
- Brutal
- Amoral
- Dangerous
- Cruel
- Stealthy
Solo Play Organisation/Great Leader Action Tables: Use these tables to determine what each organisation/great leader will do on any given turn. A suggested order for computing each organisation in a solo game is as follows:
- Check for a new great leader in the organisation (if at appropriate time length turn)
- Check for responses to known of negative direct actions
- Check for possible diplomacy
- If not responding to negative direct actions, check for turn action or organisation and great leader.
Response: If another organisation took a known of and negative action of consequence against them, roll on the following table to see if/how the organisation in question responds. If the organisations have a particularly positive relationship, roll twice and use the lowest result. If they have a particularly negative relationship, roll twice and use the highest result.
- Capitulate and public ally welcome the negative action
- Ignore the action
- Provide a warning (but not a threat) to the responsible organisation
- Attempt to create a defense directly against future instance of the action
- Retaliate with secretive actions
- Retaliate with direct force
Diplomacy: Check to see if each organisation pursues any communications with another organisation. The target of their diplomacy may be random, or an appropriate target decided by the referee. The referee can either decide the appropriate response by the target organisation, or roll on the diplomacy table again to get a random response. If an organisation is particularly friendly, roll two dice and use the lowest result. If an organisation is particularly aggressive, roll two dice and use the highest result.
- Pursue public alliance
- Pursue private alliance
- Pursue public entente
- Pursue private entente
- No diplomacy
- No diplomacy
- Publicly bully or provoke
- Privately bully or provoke
- Publicly declare war
- Secretly begin war
Action: Roll to determine what action the organisation/great leader pursues in a turn. The solo referee will have to flesh out specific using what they know about the organisation. If an organisation is not particularly aggressive, roll two dice and use the lowest result. If an organisation is particularly aggressive, roll two dice and use the highest result. It is up to the solo referee to contextually interpret each of these results into an action appropriate for the time length of the turn.
- Purse advancement/initiate program in foci one
- Pursue advancement/initiate program in foci two
- Pursue advancement in weakness
- Pursue advancement in a brand new foci (can be random or picked by the referee)
- Explore in search of foci useful resources/settle a discovered useful planet
- Support friend or ally (publicly or privately as appropriate)
- Limit other organisations access to any important resources controlled
- Steal resources from another organisation (publicly or privately as appropriate)
- Sabotage (publicly or privately as appropriate) - target can be determined randomly or chosen by referee.
- Wage war or prepare to wage war if not capable- (publicly or privately as appropriate) - target can be determined randomly or chosen by referee.
