Join hosts Terry and Evelyn, with special guest Erik, in an electrifying deep dive into the enigmatic world of Coriolis. Discover its unique setting, atmospheric themes, and the genius behind Free League Publishing. Uncover the secrets of the Third Horizon, its rich history, and iconic locations like the Coriolis Space Station. Learn about influential factions and daily life in this fascinating universe.

Erik guides you through the core mechanics, from the D6 system to character creation, and unique features like the Darkness Points system. Get expert tips on crafting compelling stories, creating dynamic characters, and engaging with the game's rich cultural and religious aspects. For newcomers, find essential advice and strategies to kickstart your Coriolis journey. Connect with the vibrant community and discover online resources.

Tune in for an episode brimming with insights and excitement. This episode of The Loremaker Chronicles is a must-listen!

Terry Jachimiak II: You're listening to Roll for Percepticast.

This is episode five, Journey Through the Dark Between the

Stars, an introduction to Coriolis.

It is time once again to Roll for Percepticast.

I am Terry, your forever GM and lover of all things role play.

And I'm Evelyn,

role player, GM, and

Terry Jachimiak II: unrepentant dice goblin.

Join us as we roll our dice

and talk in strange voices and bring

Terry Jachimiak II: to you our excitement and joy for all

things tabletop role playing.

Roll for Percepticast.

For more on Roll for Percepticast, head over to www.

rollforperception.

com.

Terry Jachimiak II: And welcome to another episode of Roll for Percepticast.

This is yet another episode where I have not written

anything for today's highlights.

Really, honestly, at this point, I should probably just get rid of that section.

Yeah, probably.

I mean, you know, if we're not highlighting anything, why do we need it?

Terry Jachimiak II: That's well, that's exactly it So, yeah, so welcome

to Episode 5 as you heard earlier, we're gonna be talking a little bit

about Coriolis But before we do that, I want to introduce our guest for

today Eric who has been with us now.

How long have you been playing with us now?

Oh, goodness, this has to have been a year, a little over now.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, that sounds about right.

Came in with Outlaws of Alkenstar when we lost, um, we lost Vivi.

I mean, we didn't lose her, she just had to step away from streaming with us.

I

mean, super technically we had Eric with four Outlaws

of Alkenstar, let's be real.

Cause he was playing in a couple of your games.

I was a start playing member.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, it was Sunday.

Sunday night's game was your first game with me.

Yes.

Uh, uh, abomination vaults, if I'm not greatly mistaken.

I played an orc that you killed immediately.

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh yeah.

I mean, that happens sometimes and.

Not for the worst.

I mean, look, it, it made you join us in other ways.

Exactly.

Just repeatedly killing his characters, you know, developed a

fondness and a bond that we, that will last for through the ages, really.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

You did ditch out on that game, which then later on fell apart all

because of you, but no, that's fine.

Not an issue, really.

Blame Eric for it all.

Terry Jachimiak II: Blame Eric for everything.

All right, Eric, uh, what I'm going to have you do real quick is just

kind of introduce yourself, give us a little information about who you

are, and then we will jump right into our talking about Coriolis.

So my name is Eric Andrews.

I run a little game store in Coleman, Alabama called Gamer Geeks.

Uh, you can find us online at GamerGeeksColeman at basically everywhere.

You can find me personally at Barty Hard or 29 Space Otters,

uh, whatever I've decided to be on that particular, uh, format.

You can also find me on Roll for Perception, basically everywhere now.

I have been in so many podcasts and streams and everything that

I'm almost as regular as Evelyn.

Almost.

Not, not, not close though.

Almost.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

Evelyn's in everything.

Except for Sunday, Sunday mornings reluctant defenders.

Yeah.

But I moderate that one.

So.

Everywhere.

It's just everywhere.

Uh,

Terry Jachimiak II: all right.

So the reason we've got Eric on is because Eric ran us, both Evelyn and I,

and, um, uh, one other player through a short little campaign of Coriolis.

And we wanted to talk about Coriolis now.

Coriolis is a.

free league publishing game.

Uh, we love free league publishing.

We're currently running our vase and podcast on, uh, those are released on

Fridays and, uh, the system for Corio Corio is, is very similar to vase.

And there are differences of course, as.

Coriolis does take place in space.

Uh, the game has a very unique setting.

And one of the little lone tidbits of information that I found out

is, uh, the Free League Publishing actually derives its name from one

of the organizations within Coriolis.

When the company was founded originally, the, the original

founders were players of the original.

And they, uh, took Free League Pub, Free League, which is one of

those organizations within the game and that's how they, uh, created

Free League Publishing and I

actually didn't know that.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, it's, it's really kind of cool.

And additionally, there is a new Edition of Coriolis that

was just kick started recently.

It's going to be coming out, hopefully, within the next year.

And so, super excited about that as well.

But, let's talk a little bit about the setting.

Coriolis is set in The third horizon.

Space.

Yes, space.

Broadly space.

The whole thing.

Terry Jachimiak II: Just space.

For those of you at home, it's set in space and now you know.

Very good.

Um.

Yes.

It's set in the third horizon, which is a place far distance

from, from where we are.

Right.

It is a, um, an area that, uh, actually has, I'm not going to

say two founding bodies, but a spaceship went out searching for it.

And that's a very long trip.

And while that spaceship was searching for it a little further in the future,

uh, the, Civilization found these warp gates that allowed them to get there

quicker And so by the time the ship arrived there had already been a new

civilization Civilization that had developed in this new part of space.

One thing that I find particularly cool about that particular story By

the time, uh, the Zenithians, which are the ones that actually founded,

uh, re founded, I should say, the Third Horizon, uh, the First and Second

Horizon had already been founded, and then they found the Third Horizon all

before the Zenithians ever showed up!

Uh, and there was a whole war between the Third Horizon and the First Horizon,

and they were like, Uh, the third run is like, we hate other humans.

We don't want anyone here.

Hey, what's that big ship over there trying to tell us what to do?

Jeff, I find this just a funny

Terry Jachimiak II: story.

I know it is.

That's exactly it.

I mean, and that's, I mean, I don't remember.

I'd have to go back and look in the text itself, but the, um, the

length of time the ship traveled.

From the home world to this new area was hundreds of years.

Oh yeah.

And all of it through stasis pods, um, which you are all too familiar with.

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh yes.

We're very familiar with those stasis pods.

Uh, all right.

Some of us were

more successful getting out of ours than others.

I'm just saying.

Terry Jachimiak II: The, uh, kind of continuing on, um, it is space themed,

but, um, where a lot of Spaced themed games tend to go a Western feel.

I'm thinking, uh, or games or, or movies, et cetera.

I'm thinking things like, uh, Firefly.

I'm thinking things like Battlestar Galactica.

Uh, I'm thinking of those types of shows that move into this.

The funny thing is actually the Coriolis rulebook uses, uh,

Firefly as an example of an inspiration to use for this, just replace the

Western influence for Arabian Nights.

Terry Jachimiak II: And that's exactly it.

It has an Arabian Nights influence, which is, again, very different than a

lot of the other space themed novels.

games, movies, television shows out there, uh, which I thought was really cool.

And the feeling that I got when we played as Eric, uh, DM for us is

that this, the sense that things were very isolated out there.

I would say so.

Um, but the central conflict, the central theme of Coriolis is Conflict, uh, be

it the first come or the Zenithians, be it science versus religion, be

it survival versus the dark between the stars and everything like that.

Everything is separated, and when it comes together, they hate each other.

Terry Jachimiak II: Ah, good old hate.

Works really well.

It's all the way through.

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh my gosh.

If you want tension, it's got tension.

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh my gosh, yeah.

Oh, go ahead.

One thing that I wish I had focused on more in my own playthrough,

having been able to run it once, is that conflict and that strife

between these various organizations.

Like, there was a whole thing that could have happened between the father and the

fortune teller that we just skipped over.

And I'm very sad we did that, because that filled so much of the world

together, and I'm sad we missed it.

Terry Jachimiak II: Well, and we were doing a short run of it.

So I think it's one of those things that I, and this is just me kind of

thinking out loud, but had we had more time and, and didn't feel like we needed

to finish it by a certain time, we may have taken more time or it could have

come back around that sort of thing.

A

hundred percent.

Terry Jachimiak II: Which I completely agree with.

All right.

So let's, um, let's talk a little bit about the setting of.

Coriolis, specifically, uh, we've kind of started to mention the third

horizon and kind of its significance.

Uh, let's, let's talk a little bit about the, the core rule book.

Does it have a lot of information on the first and second horizons?

I'm trying to.

So one thing I both love and hate about Coriolis is it

reminds me a lot of Warhammer in the way that it gives out its lore.

It's like, here's details, here's this, here's that of

the broad strokes of things,

but

the exacts aren't really specified.

Giving the, the, the game master, the creative liberty to go.

All right.

This is how this is going to be.

All right.

This is how this is going to be.

Uh, which I love, uh, as a, as a.

Guy running the game.

But as someone trying to research, I'm like, where is it?

Where can I find it?

If I say something wrong, is someone going to hang me?

Uh, a big fear.

Um, but absolutely.

It has that, uh, that disconnect between the what's written giving you the, uh,

broad strokes of the information and then the GM being able to come in and go,

all right, but this is how it happened.

Terry Jachimiak II: Right.

And you know, there, there, I feel like there are both positives

and negatives to that, right?

Uh, it does allow somebody who really wants to throw in.

Lots of their own information, uh, a chance to do that where I can

at the same point very much see it as for me, like, for example,

I love to have stuff given to me.

Uh, it's, you know, part of the reason why I've done Pathfinder

2E for so long is because a lot of that lore is already there.

Easy for me to find, easy for me to digest, easy for me to build upon.

Um, I'm finding it.

Uh, the same way The Vasin's got enough for me to kind of,

for what we're doing with it.

But there are other games out there where it is kind of limited in the

information, uh, that's kind of given.

Now the text does have the history of the Horizon, the new era, and Horizon Today,

which does kind of give you a quick recap, which is, which is nice, I would say.

They're very much like their bullet points in this book.

Terry Jachimiak II: Mm hmm.

Mm hmm.

That's exactly it.

I like that.

Bullet points.

Uh, all right.

Uh, let's talk a little bit.

Uh, what type of information do we have on the The portal

builders, the gate builders.

So that's another one of those things that they

really don't talk about much.

Um, the, the big thing that they like to focus on is how they were

used, not how they were made.

And now maybe that information is in one of the, uh, many expansions they put out

for emissary lost or something like that.

I don't have access to that book right now.

Um, but the, the big thing they do mention about the portal

builders is that, uh, we don't.

No, exactly what they are.

Are they aliens?

Are they humans?

Are they advanced, um, humanites even, which are biosculpted humans?

Um, we don't know exactly who built them.

We just know how they're used today.

Um, which in the Third Horizon is mostly as paperweights because they blew them up.

Terry Jachimiak II: Well, and that's one of the things that we have to understand.

We're talking about First Horizon, Second Horizon, Third Horizon, right?

These are locations.

The First Horizon and the Second Horizon actually started a war with the Third

Horizon, uh, called the Portal Wars.

And so that's something to understand, you know, kind of sounds as if

they're, and, and to a certain extent, they are time periods, right?

But it is also locations, right?

You know, first horizon was the first settling.

Second horizon was an expansion of that settling.

Third horizon was a further expansion of that settling.

Uh, all right.

So as we, uh, continue kind of looking at that, then Coriolis

itself then is a space station.

Uh, it wasn't always that way.

Uh, I don't know if I told y'all in the, uh, in the story we went through, but

the ship we were talking about earlier, the Zenith, that was actually transformed

into Coriolis by the Zenithians themselves, uh, who one hated the planet

Kua, which it was rotating around.

Uh, and two as a like seat of power for the Zenithians.

And then later on the, the first come, which are the original, uh,

three third, uh, third horizoners, and then even as a seat for the

emissaries and stuff like that.

Um, but yeah, Coriolis itself is a vast space station, um, that,

uh, were actually, uh, later on reproduced throughout the galaxy

to varying degrees of success.

I

Terry Jachimiak II: like that, varying degrees of success.

It themselves, they were built by the Kwasar family,

which I know I mentioned because I thought the name was sick.

Um, and they actually descended onto Kua, um, while the other people in their

chain of command, uh, the Ytia, uh, Ytia.

Oh, I don't know how to say this name properly.

I believe I landed on Yidris Clan, um, where, uh, the people who formed

the consortium, uh, basically run the entire Coriolis, uh, system,

uh, which we'll get to later.

Terry Jachimiak II: Right, right.

And Kua is a star system.

Right?

And a planet.

Yeah.

Because it's kind of the central planet in the, in the system.

That is something that, uh, the people at, um, Freedly

do often, uh, is like, uh, especially with their space stuff.

They go star.

That's what its name is.

Biggest planet.

That's what its name is.

Uh, and especially in Coriolis, it's also like, where was the portal nearest to?

Terry Jachimiak II: That's the whole planet

as well.

Terry Jachimiak II: That makes sense.

It'd be like, uh, you know, we're on earth and our star is earth instead of sun.

That would be weird.

Yeah.

Well,

our sun is actually called soul anyway.

It's not the sun.

Terry Jachimiak II: All you science y people.

I guess we are talking about a space adventure, so talking

science y makes sense.

I mean,

it is science fiction.

Terry Jachimiak II: It, it, yes.

Yeah, yes.

Um, so the Kua system is, and Kua system is kind of the, the central

hub to Third Horizon, right?

Mm hmm.

Terry Jachimiak II: Um, with a, and there are other planets in there, uh,

I haven't looked to see if any of them are survivable because we just did

kind of a cursory, uh, They're not.

Don't

let, don't let the Daburan planet here just say that, those guys.

Yeah, they believe they're the center of the galaxy.

Terry Jachimiak II: Nice.

The list

is like, burning hot, acidified, ice planet, like, all

the descriptions are like the most inhabitable places, and then there's Kua.

Terry Jachimiak II: Which is pretty Kua.

Yeah.

Terry Jachimiak II: Get it?

That's it.

Yeah,

good joke.

Good

Terry Jachimiak II: joke.

Solid.

Uh, within this, uh, game itself, there are a variety of factions.

You've got the Zenithian, Hegemony, uh The Consortium, Order of the Pariah,

Nomad Federation, Free League, and these are all different factions, right?

When we played Eric, were we a part of any of those factions?

We weren't, right?

Uh, you were actually a part of the Legion, uh, which is, uh, like the big

military force, uh, around the Kua system.

Terry Jachimiak II: Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.

Okay.

Uh, yeah.

This is one cool fact I love about the relationship between

the consortium and the hegemony.

Uh, going back to that theme of conflict, uh, which you will find

all throughout, uh, Coriolis, the consortium is like the first, uh,

group that was meant to, to govern, uh, the zenithians, where the hegemony

is like, No, we're the real leaders.

You should trust us.

Come the icons are pretty cool and they like us.

And then the consortium it's like, Hey, but we've been running

this whole thing the whole time.

So if

Terry Jachimiak II: you

want to keep living, like, come on.

Terry Jachimiak II: Well, there's also the church of the icons,

which is just a whole nother group.

Yes.

Uh, which can be split up.

Uh, there's, I believe the order of the pariah is actually a

part of the church of the icons.

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh, okay.

Okay.

I

believe, uh, unless I'm incredibly wrong, which I could be.

Terry Jachimiak II: I mean, you could be somebody I'll tell us when

they listen and send us a message.

Um, it's funny cause in the book under the factions settings, um, each

of the factions have like a quote.

For them, and so the Consortium's expansion is life.

Free League is unity is strength.

The Legion, the best must die so the rest can live.

Order of the Pariah, the end is near.

We're all gonna die.

I

Terry Jachimiak II: mean, that's, oh, okay.

Sounds about

right.

Terry Jachimiak II: Uh, and Church of the Icons is there's only one

salvation, and only, you know.

Nine ways that will lead you there.

At least that gives you a choice, right?

Yeah, you know, you can you got options

Terry Jachimiak II: If one doesn't work out you can pick the

one of the other options.

That just sounds like your character.

I'll pray to everybody.

It'll work out

And that is something to take a big look at in Coriolis is

religion is such a massive thing that it is a mechanic of the game

I

And that, that prayer towards the icons and getting, uh, an

edge against the dark between the stars is such a big thing.

Uh, and of course it is based on folklore and mysticisms of our real

world taken into a fantastical view.

Um, there is so much to get into in the religion of the world and how

people view it, that is impossible.

We could do eight of these podcasts.

And still not cover everything about the icons.

I love them so much.

Terry Jachimiak II: So though, could this could be a turnoff though, for somebody

who doesn't necessarily want to play a game that has that much religion involved.

Would you say?

A hundred percent.

Um, I believe that's one of the great weaknesses of Coriolis is that it is so

centralized, but I believe that comes from it's, it's pulling from Middle

Eastern culture because as we all know that is a very religious place.

And if you're going to pull from there, you need to pull from the biggest

theme, which is of course, religion.

Terry Jachimiak II: And, and that is, You know, every, every game has

their gods, their deities, right?

Uh, D and D does Pathfinder does, uh, each of these has some sort of

higher being, but Coriolis takes it that step further where praying

to the icons can help you, right?

That gives you extra roles.

It gives you, which as, as a role player, I love because I

love role play stuff, but I know.

that there are definitely going to be people out there that go,

wow, the religion is so important.

This may not be the game that I necessarily want to be a part

of, which is understandable.

And one, one of the great weaknesses as well is there is no

way to build your character without influence of the icons, right?

It gives you your themes.

It gives you your, uh, re rolls and stuff like that.

There is no way to play this game without your icon.

Um, um, Which I find to be cool as heck, but not everybody's me.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, because you have to choose an icon, right?

That is part of the, which we'll, we'll talk about here in a few minutes, but

because you have to choose an icon, there isn't a choice 10, no icon.

You have to have an icon associated with your character.

So.

Which, when we look at it, right, you're in space, and having something

to believe in, a higher being, kind of makes sense when everything is a void.

And also trying to kill you at all times.

Like I said, conflict.

The people are trying to kill you.

The space around you is trying to kill you.

The sun is trying to kill you.

The moons are trying to kill you.

Everything in this world, including the icons in many

cases, are trying to kill you.

Terry Jachimiak II: God, I love a good upbeat game.

It's, it's, it's definitely cheery and, and, and filled,

filled with hope filled with

Terry Jachimiak II: hope,

I think because it is so, so dark and dreary that those, those moments of

heroism and brightness do shine so bright.

Oh, like you guys saved a lot of people on this ship, even though I would know

I was, I was giving you some, some slack because we didn't save everybody.

You still saved way more than was going to be saved if you had done nothing.

Yeah.

Terry Jachimiak II: And, and, you know, my character, the character that I had

built, uh, the goal of it was actually to be more of a, uh, science focused, less

religious, though he still had an icon that he prayed to, but it was interesting.

And the icon he prayed to,

Terry Jachimiak II: he prayed a lot too.

I mean, he didn't, he didn't just pray a lot.

He

was, he was a, he's an opportunist when it came to icons.

Yeah.

Terry Jachimiak II: We'll get to that in a minute.

Uh, but it was, it was interesting because it did, you know, it had an

effect on the character and character growth, which I thought was, was really

kind of a lot of fun, really cool.

Uh, I thought it allowed, excuse me, it allowed me to kind of, uh,

to kind of let my character grow.

Right.

And so for those that are curious, we're, what we're talking about

is the last voyage of the Ghazali.

This is the.

The opening game, the, I guess the starter box for Coriolis.

So as we talk about, you know, me and Evelyn talk about our characters

or Eric's talking about his DMing for it, we're, we're, we're tending

to lean towards talking about that.

Speaking of, I do want to rotate us into talking a little bit about the core

mechanics and the gameplay, because.

That's one of those things that, you know, some people will find interesting

and may lead them to picking up the game.

And I want to start by saying this is a D6 system.

All you need are D6.

And

that's it.

Terry Jachimiak II: You know, the more D6, the better, right?

I mean, you're gonna have to use some dice when you pray to the icons.

So you need always more dice, always more D6.

Terry Jachimiak II: And this is a, um, uh, a, uh, what's the term I'm still trying

to Wrap my head around some of these turns, but it's um, it's a dice pool.

Okay, so you're rolling you're rolling a certain number of d6 based on your

attributes or your skills, etc and Sixes are successes and the more six

the more sixes you have in your roll the more things you can do Would

that be a good way of putting it

the more you succeed more sixes more success

Terry Jachimiak II: Okay, uh, yeah, you've got four key attributes of

strength, agility, wits, and empathy.

And then you have, there's like, what is it like, uh, 16 to 20 skills?

I'll hang on.

I actually have it right here.

Cause there's the skills and then there's the, yeah, yeah.

Terry Jachimiak II: Cause there's kind of two sets of skills.

Yeah, 16.

16.

Terry Jachimiak II: 17.

Yeah.

Love you.

Love

you.

You have your general skills, which is stuff like dexterity, force,

observation, then advanced skills like datagen and metacurrgy and

pylot and things of that nature.

And

the advanced skills you can only get if it's like

part of your job, basically.

Terry Jachimiak II: Right, right.

And with those With those, the way the roles work is say you

have a four in strength and a three in force, you'll be rolling.

If you're rolling for force, you're rolling seven D six.

Yep.

Terry Jachimiak II: So you're adding your attributes to your

skills and that's your dice pool.

Uh, I.

I'll be honest, I had never done this system prior to doing that one shot, and I

like it, and now we're doing it in VASIN.

VASIN,

yeah.

Terry Jachimiak II: And I think it's a cool little system.

When you get multiple sixes, your first six is a success, you roll

it, so let's say you roll six dice, one is a six, you get a success, so

whatever you're doing is a success.

But then let's say you roll two sixes, that second six can have multiple sixes.

Um, for I liked to roll on the crit table when I would get it, I, I could

also just add additional damage.

Um, for me, the crit table was just a lot of, I thought was a lot of fun.

I, I enjoy the crit table from a player side as a, uh,

Game master running the game.

I hated it.

Not because it would kill my creatures, because it's a choice that I have to make

when I roll my sixes, I just murder you or like, uh, like, cause it, the crit table

is terrifying because I just show your brain out, uh, and that as a choice of

the DM, like, okay, I rolled five sixes.

All right.

New PC time.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, but only a couple of them are instant death.

Most of them give you a chance to.

At least recover enough to be able to, yeah, yeah, I think there were

like three or four, like you're dead and you're not coming back.

And I would say that one of my favorite things about the.

That in particular, is even if you're incapacitated, 95 percent of the

opponents you're fighting in Coriolis are smart enough to go, Alright,

well maybe I don't want to kill them.

Maybe I want to pick them as hostages or something like that.

Um, the ones you were fighting that almost killed you guys would have 100

percent just ripped you to shreds.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, oh yeah.

So, so two, only two crits kill you instantly, and it's 65 and 66.

65 is pierced heart.

Your heart beats one final time.

Create a new PC.

Crushed Skull is 66.

You're instantly killed.

Your adventure ends here.

Create a new PC.

Everything else has at minimum D6 minutes to keep it from being fatal.

Doesn't mean you're fixed or anything.

It just means you're not dead.

Correct.

Hopefully.

Terry Jachimiak II: Um, and then for D6 minutes, it's 1,

2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 of them.

And then for D6 hours, 1, 2, 5, and then D6 days is 4, and then 11

through 35, which this is a thing.

So when you roll crit table, you're rolling 2D6.

Yeah, it's not like percentile, dice or anything.

Yeah.

It's not percentile.

Terry Jachimiak II: And so it's 11 through 66, um, not straight

through, so 11 through 16, 21 through 26, et cetera, et cetera.

So that's how that Yeah.

' Evelyn: cause you can't have any tens places, there's no, yeah.

None of that on you dice.

Terry Jachimiak II: And so I, I liked that, but there were other,

but even with that, there were other things you could do if a, if a, if

multiple D sixes were rolled a hundred

percent.

Terry Jachimiak II: So, and it depends, it obviously depends

on what you were trying to do.

But, uh, I, I thought that's really intriguing.

I think, uh, as a player, again, I haven't DM'd this, but as a player, I

thought it allowed me to choose kind of the route that my character was going.

It wasn't just automatic.

And this is, oh, go ahead.

I think that combat in Coriolis really benefits from the crit table.

And like I said, the critical effect is, A little scary just because I'm

choosing to do that to my player.

Um, which I'm like, oh man, I don't want to take you out for d6 days.

We got a fucking chip to save.

Um, but like if we're going to do an adventure, not in such a time

crunch, I think it'd be amazing.

I've already, uh, put a thing together in my mind that's like the Pilgrimia and

we're gonna do this and doing that and I have no idea if I'm ever gonna run it

but I'm super excited to, maybe one day.

Terry Jachimiak II: Uh, the, uh, what was I, uh, gonna say, the other thing with

this is, um, you don't roll for damage.

No.

So.

Yeah.

Terry Jachimiak II: I, I am starting to really enjoy that.

Um, it doesn't feel like, you know, for example, in Pathfinder D& D, you could

crit something and then roll a one on damage, and you're actually doing less

damage than if you had not crit it.

Mm hmm.

Terry Jachimiak II: And that feels weird, right?

I had that come up, uh, was it yesterday or was it my first day?

My, uh, Wednesday game, but somebody crit and then rolled to two ones.

So the total damage was four.

Honest.

It just hurts.

I'm like, yeah, you really got him with the four points of damage.

Critical Toe Bleed.

Critical hang now.

Terry Jachimiak II: Um, they're just like a lot of these games.

There's talents and backgrounds that are built into it.

But I do want to talk a little bit about pushing and the darkness points.

Not to, uh, to, to go back just a hair.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

But this is something I really enjoyed about Coriolis.

Going back to talents just real fast.

Um.

You get three towns when you make your character one from your group.

So you make a group, uh, decision on what your theme is going to be.

And you get one from that, you get one for yourself personally,

you get one from your icon.

And I think that is so flavorful and very cool.

Uh, I'm very glad that they did it like that because like,

Oh man, I worship this guy.

So I'm going to get, uh, some bonuses to my, to my murdering.

And then I'm this kind of person.

So get some bonuses to my fix and stuff.

And then my groups there.

Religious for some reason and I got really smart religion And I

think that is a really cool thing that they did and just wanted to

touch on that really fast well, I

think like that helps shape the character a lot too, like it is a way

to like because Like having the group talent helps you define like what your

group's all about, you know and how you fit like how each person kind of

fits into that and then like So it it sort of helps um mechanically Define

the roleplay a little bit in a way that like other games wouldn't necessarily

do I think and so that's I like that.

I like that.

That's the way the talent system works in this particular um game, yeah

Back to pushing, uh, sorry, I just wanted to touch on that real fast.

Uh, the darkness between the stars, uh, the darkness point system is one of my

favorite mechanics I've ever used, ever.

Um, and that's for coming from a guy that's GM'd for eight years.

So the way you get darkness points is you get them when you start a scene as a GM.

So let's say we're going to a dangerous scene.

So like I, I calculate like how many challenges there is.

And then I get like four, uh, darkness points.

Um, and then from there, my players get to decide how many I get.

Uh, let.

Uh, because if you fail to open a door, maybe you're stuck with a

wrench or something like that, and you roll a, roll a, uh, uh, Darkness

Between the Stars check, uh, which is you, you pushing the, um, the roll.

I get a darkness point for that.

Right.

Which I've gone from four to five, and I get to use that to depressurize

the entire ship, or make a big fire, and I think that that is, Some of

the coolest, because it balances like with how my players are succeeding,

how the universe is reacting to it.

Terry Jachimiak II: Right.

That's exactly it.

And from from the player's perspective, the the pushing.

So so push is, you know, depending on what I roll, I can decide to push my role,

which allows me to essentially a reroll minus the sixes that were already rolled.

And I can then increase the chance of crits or, you know, a variety of things.

But it is cool because you, as a player, you have to make that decision.

Is it worth it to do push during this instance?

Of course, my player thought it was always worth it.

I pushed many, many times, which gave you many, many darkness points.

It was great.

I had a wealth of darkness points.

And I was looking at the chart.

I was like, depressurize the ship, five darkness points.

Ooh.

Uh, sick these cool enemies on them early.

Ooh.

I have eight darkness points.

How shall I spend them to torture my players?

Uh, and I also think that the darkness points being visible adds stress

and engagement with the players.

They go, Oh, he has eight darkness points.

Uh, what could he do with that?

Terry Jachimiak II: Right.

I, I think Evelyn, you didn't, you maybe once you pushed.

Did you?

Yeah, I prayed.

Well, so the way that I, and Eric knows this because he actually had my

character's backstory, she was very much sort of cynical, detached from the whole

religious experience based on a lot of what she had going on in her past.

But, um, like she had the icon that was her icon and she didn't want to

pray to anyone outside of her icon.

So the fact that she prayed to an icon that wasn't, you know, that one time

that she did was out of desperation to keep the, you know, the, the

People alive basically like that that was kind of going against her very

character And it literally was just as a last ditch effort to save everyone

Terry Jachimiak II: Which again real cool different different characters

using that in different ways I think makes for a really interesting way now.

I will say on my rerolls I did good.

Got some, Cris was able to do some cool things.

I think all but one of my pushes was added a success, at

least one success to my roles.

I know one did not, 'cause I remember it.

I remember rolling it and going, that sucks.

Gave 'em darkness points, got no successes, we're

screwed, we're all gonna die

We did not in fact die.

And I feel like Alexis's characters kind of

fell somewhere in the middle.

Like yes, she prayed a couple of times, but it wasn't like.

Every single time she could've.

I will

always admire, uh, Terry in that moment in that game.

Because he also went in very cynical, like, I'm not gonna use any of these.

And then he went, Nevermind, no one's using these.

I'm going to use all of them forever.

Well, I think it helped kind of define his character too, very

quickly and like added, added a whole nother like level to the like role play

between the members of this crew that were just like poor Alexis's character

being the one who's friends with everybody and then stuck between this

like couple who basically hates each other's guts, except for the moments

where like, Oh, there was something sweet there for a moment and it's gone.

Terry Jachimiak II: Now we, um, one of the things we didn't get into deep

on this is the space travel and ship combat mechanics there that does exist.

It's not an area that, uh, the starter pack necessarily goes deep into.

We did have our roles on our ship.

Uh, but it, you know, I feel like for a longer campaign, I think

that can be really interesting.

I never got to tell you this, but that was actually one of the things we had

to skip over in the end, is when you were leaving the Ghazali, you were supposed

to be attacked by, uh, but by, for y'all, it would have been Komorovai, uh, because

there's whole different ways you can go and who you side against, but you guys

really hated Komorovai for good reason.

Um.

So Komorovai was supposed to attack you and it's be a whole combat.

I was like, I'm the real winner.

I saved everyone.

Oh yes.

The, the, the Zapp Brannigan of this whole like, yeah.

Um, but that was something we had to skip over, but I was really excited

about it because ship combat is so unique.

Uh, and Coriolis compared to other star, uh, space games I've played.

Uh, the one and only being Starfinder, which has a grid system.

Uh, this one was definitely more, all right, your, your ships are in

a plane and you can kind of go in these three dimensions, but your

flanks are what really matter and you have shields and whatnot, and

you have to put power into those.

And I think that is something I really enjoyed that I didn't get to do any of.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, one of the ones I want to look at at

some point, because Horace keeps talking about it, is Star Trek.

Yeah.

And see what their ship combat is like, because I know they

have ship combat as well.

Um, but you're right, it's one of those things that ship combat, if

done well, can be really engaging.

Ship combat that is not done well can feel like a slog.

A hundred percent.

Um, I think the Coriolis, even though I didn't get to experience a lot of it,

I just read through the mechanics that they, they, it seemed like they ran well.

Uh, no, I don't have any firsthand experience, but try it for yourself

guys, and just tell me what you think.

Terry Jachimiak II: Just means we need some firsthand experience.

Eric, want to run another game?

Unbelievably.

Terry Jachimiak II: Um, all right, let's jump over to narrative and storytelling.

Um, because that's one of the things that I found about free league

publishing games so far is that it.

A lot of these tend to be driven by the narrative.

Now there are going to be people out there who tell me you can

have narrative and pathfinder and DND, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.

No, I agree.

That's possible.

But these games allow for it to occur more easily as the, uh, quote

unquote crunch isn't quite so strong.

I also believe one thing Free League does really well is add that

narrative Into what little crunch there is like pushing the rolls, right?

That adds narrative, uh, doing your talents that adds

narrative and especially in vase.

And there are things that like, Oh no, I don't even know what's going

to happen yet because, uh, the way that like your characters are built,

they're so narrative that you're like, I have a Bible that helps me.

Uh, my character is a preacher.

Um, and my character starts with the Bible that helps me ignore fear effects.

Right.

And,

yeah.

If I ever roll a one on it, it just bursts into flames, which I think is awesome.

Terry Jachimiak II: And the other thing, well, kind of continuing on

that vein is some of the stuff that can help you build your campaign, like

the factions and the politics within really kind of enhance the storytelling.

I love the fact that there's so many factions in the core rule book.

I mean, the fact that you can look through, uh, just a real quick

look, you've got consortium, free league, allegiance syndicate.

You've got Zenithian hegemony, Draconites, church of the icons, Alam's temple.

Uh, and then you have the order of the pariah, the nomad federation.

That's that's 10.

10 factions already built in, which can allow you as a GM to really kind of build.

a story around them.

If you're coming in new, right?

Obviously somebody who's been playing Coriolis for, let's say a two year

campaign, they may be developing some of their own things at that point.

But coming in new, I think Free League really does give a nice building block

regarding the factions in politics where that makes it more to me feels

more role play conducive than a game that is very much a mechanical game.

One thing we didn't get to talk about in the character creation part of

this is the patrons and nemesis, which actually puts your character into one

of these factions and gives you like someone that is a friend ish most of

the time and then a straight up enemy.

Um, so that's another one of the ways that freely goes.

All right.

Hey, you're in this story.

This is your narrative.

This is the mechanic.

You get benefit from it.

And this is why here's the narrative reason why

Terry Jachimiak II: and as a GM, you can go different directions.

You can go exploration missions.

You can go political intrigue, espionage, mystical encounters with the icons.

And the, the, the text itself has ideas for your group, because one of the

things we didn't talk about too deeply is that as a group, you actually create

the group, meaning a group concept.

And that's and we were

Terry Jachimiak II: smugglers.

We were smugglers

And that's also in the picking of the patron and nemesis

and the background Your group concept gives me as a GM like okay.

This is the story that they want to play you guys were legionnaires

That's what you wanted to play.

Awesome.

Well make this more militaristic.

I'll add more encounters I'll add this I'll add that that helps you lean into

those strengths We're like say if you were a bunch of pilgrims, I would go.

All right, we're leaning into this icon stuff hard You

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

Yeah.

And so the different group systems that are kind of built into the

game is you have your free traders, your mercenaries, your explorers,

your agents, and your pilgrims.

And each of those have some sub ideas.

Like for example, under explorers, you have prospectors,

colonists, or correspondents.

Right.

Uh, you know, now those are just two.

Examples.

You can come up with your own, but I like this idea that you can build

your group and then build a campaign around whatever theme you want.

It's, it's not strictly one dimensional.

You're going to go in this direction.

You really do have a voice as a player in choosing on how it's going to go.

Well, and I love even with like the, the quote unquote beginner box

of this, like with the Ghazali, you could literally have a different group

concept and it's a completely different.

Starting game every single time.

So like you don't, it has a replay ability that you can re approach

taking different group concepts.

Terry Jachimiak II: Um, so some things, uh, to talk about, um, which we've

actually started doing, uh, regard or regarding player engagement to, you

know, choosing your backgrounds and your motivations along with your group

concepts really is kind of important.

It's not something that you just want to.

Pick haphazardly.

You actually want to put a little bit of thought into it, and then that'll

allow for stronger role play with other characters and with other factions,

because who you back, who your icon is, who all of this helps to create a

character that's very much, um, complex.

And I've, you know, I've said it on previous podcasts.

I'll say it on future podcasts.

Complex characters are.

The spice of life, you know, from, for me as a player, uh, characters that have both

strengths and weaknesses are so engaging.

A hundred percent.

Uh, and moving forward as I'm going to be playing more RPGs.

I'm taking inspiration from Coriolis in the way I give my

characters their, uh, their options.

Like, all right, let's do a patron and a nemesis.

Here's some options because I think that's cool.

Uh, do you need them in D& D 5e?

Absolutely not.

Does it add to the character?

Absolutely.

Terry Jachimiak II: The other nice thing is this pushes a collaboration with

the other players, uh, and, and with the GM, you know, uh, I'm, I've said

it once, I'll say it a million times.

I am one of those GMs who is not against my players.

I'm cheering for the players.

It was it was a great situation this past Sunday in one of my games where

we were playing and the player rolled poorly, but they used a hero point and

they got a nat 20 on the hero point.

And I was like, this is this is brilliant.

This works great.

I wasn't.

Oh, man.

Now you're going to kill my guy, which is what happened.

I was like this.

Like storytelling wise, this is brilliant.

And this is, this is how I like it as, as a GM.

And I think Coriolis really allows for that collaboration between the

players and the GM to work together, to create a story that's super

interesting, uh, and, and fulfilling for both the players and the GMs.

And I think one of the ways they do that is making those

choices mechanically happen.

Terry Jachimiak II: And I

love that.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

You get to see the boon of your choice right there immediately.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

Or the failure when you push and nothing happens.

And then you cry on the inside.

And the whole ship depressurizes as I now have eight darkness points.

I can do whatever damn well, please

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah, yeah, that's pretty much.

So if you're a player, what are some things you can do to

start to kind of look into?

choreolists and and Kind of get a chance to play it.

Well, the first thing you they've got their core rulebook, which is Not thin.

No, it is not.

Terry Jachimiak II: Um, it is fantastic, but it is over It's

385 pages, I think is what the

Terry Jachimiak II: PDF is.

485 pages, just short of 400.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

And

Terry Jachimiak II: so it gives you, it gives you a lot.

to be able to kind of digest and use.

Um, but then even on top of that, you've got campaign books that

are available, the starter set.

We currently own the core rule book and three campaign books,

which someday I hope to play.

Uh, it's, I haven't had a chance to read through all of them yet, but,

um, those two are not thin books.

Uh, you've got, um, the.

There's VTT support, I believe.

Yeah.

Cause we used it.

Uh, they have amazing VTT support with foundry.

Like I just bought the game, downloaded it and it was ready to go off the rip.

Terry Jachimiak II: Yeah.

And it worked pretty good.

It did take a, there was a little bit of a learning curve.

I know.

Cause we were trying to figure out some things.

Like adding our equipment and stuff.

Yeah.

It was just figuring out how to.

Equipment works differently than basically any other game we've played.

Yeah

Yeah, cuz we had to drag it out of the compendium.

It wasn't like part of the character sheet thing

and then for for first time characters is It's a big book focus on

your character first First and what the idea that you want to do, because it

exists in Coriolis, you can do whatever you want as long as your group is okay

with it and your GMI is okay with it.

So focus on your idea and then research how to make that happen in world.

Terry Jachimiak II: And start simple.

Start simple with this game.

This is a game that you don't want to introduce too many

complex things too quickly.

You want your players to get comfortable with the rolling their dice pools and

understanding how praying to the icons work and how storytelling is important

along with any free league publishing.

What as a player, what you should be doing is you should be telling

Your GM what you're doing and not telling them what you want to roll.

Mm hmm

Terry Jachimiak II: I'm a big advocate of that, you know, you know, don't

don't tell me that you want to roll force Tell me what you're doing and

then we'll figure out if force is the best thing that took to roll

All

Terry Jachimiak II: right.

What about?

And this is not in the notes, so you guys are going to have to

flow with me as we go sideways.

What about, um, negatives to it?

What do you see as, as, as possible negatives for people out there?

And I'm, I'm going to start and it's going to be the, the religiosity.

If it's, if, if, if religion is not something that entices you,

this is not necessarily going to be something that entices you.

That you're going to want to play.

Yeah.

There's no way to get away from it.

It's in your character.

It's in the mechanics of the game.

There's no way to get, get away from the icons in that.

Um, for me, I believe one of the biggest weaknesses on the GM side is, Oh my

God, am I about to kill my players with a random crit that I have to choose?

And then I roll it and they go, Oh, um, cause there's no taking it back.

Once you do it.

Right.

Which I believe is what like you said very flavorful, but from

the GM side is very Scary as you go.

Did I just end a three week campaign with a random crit?

Oh, no

Terry Jachimiak II: What about you Evelyn do you do anything, you know from

we only played three sessions so yeah nine hours essentially a little over

nine hours anything that you see maybe

Less enticing.

I can't really give an opinion on that since I You know, I don't have

as much like I did not read the book in depth, you know, I like Character

yeah, but I mean that you know, I didn't it it felt like creating a character

for pretty much any other game really other other than the Positive things,

you know that I like how the roleplay is kind of built into the character

creation part Yeah, I didn't notice anything that particularly stood out to

me as like more negative necessarily.

It's just a different system

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh, yeah, definitely a different system than a

lot of the ones we've played before

Well, and that's what I kind of like about it though,

because it's like it's more Roleplay focus and dice focused necessarily

Terry Jachimiak II: and that's the thing if you want a lot of crunch

That's the other thing that maybe this is not the game for you.

Oh, yeah I mean, it's a little crunch right little tiny bits of

crunch, but it's definitely not super

If you like crunch definitely look into star finder first edition.

Oh my god Spell jammer is also in the similar vein, but that's the D&

D product Choreography Of course, it is fantastic for more of a RPG

based, like, uh, role playing game.

Um, I'm not sure what the words mean, you know what I mean.

Um, and there are a ton of other space games that might fit your wants.

Like, Starfinder really focuses into that, uh, science fiction side and the, Oh my

god, that's an alien that's a planet?

That's weird.

Uh, um, uh, shines there.

Uh, so there are tons of ways to play in space that I think is really, really cool,

and I hope more people play sci fi games.

Terry Jachimiak II: Oh yeah, no, I completely agree.

All right.

So we go with our final rating.

Um, as we have played the game, uh, minimal of it, our final

ratings are always in cupcakes.

Um, no, that was just for a break.

No, we're doing that's across the board.

Now, every rating we do is in cupcakes.

Uh, does it make sense?

I watched the podcast.

Terry said it's always cupcakes.

It's

Terry Jachimiak II: always cupcakes now, because I think that's brilliant.

Um, And so we're going to have to, at some point create an emoji, uh, of each

of the cupcake ratings, uh, with different facial, like, like the, uh, five cupcake

rating is going to be this super smile.

And then a one's going to be kind of a

pouty

Terry Jachimiak II: face look.

So we'll start with you, Evelyn.

You've played the game.

A cupcake rating is.

It's such a hard thing to do because we, well, it's such a hard thing

to do because we, we didn't, didn't play that much of it, you know, like, yeah,

Terry Jachimiak II: I know when we rated break,

I felt like I had more experience behind it,

Terry Jachimiak II: but that's the whole thing is with this is

your first experience with it.

You've put, you've played other TTRBGs.

How do you feel?

Like a half.

All right.

Three and a half cupcakes.

Looking good.

Uh, Eric, what, what's your rating?

I would put mine at four cupcakes for four solid because like you said,

the religiosity of it is its strength and also one of its big weaknesses.

Terry Jachimiak II: This is a tough one for me only because we're also

doing a VASIN campaign right now, um, which, uh, is similar in a lot

of aspects, uh, I'm gonna go, uh, especially because I hope that the newest

edition, the one that we kickstarted, makes improvements, I'm gonna go 3.

75.

Cupcakes, uh, it is, it is, it is a good game.

I would play it again, but it wouldn't necessarily be my first choice game.

If I had a choice of games, does that make sense?

So, uh, that's where our ratings are going to fall.

Uh, let me thank you, Eric, for coming on with us today and talking

about Coriolis and talking about all of the things that we've done.

This is been a lot of fun.

And, um, anything you want to end with?

Uh, well, I just want to thank you everybody for, uh, sticking around

and watching, um, my mic will be better very soon, I promise, uh, in

case it was a little weird, um, but, uh, I, I want to end just the talk

of Coriolis with experiment with it.

Try it out, give it a shot.

Uh, I think it's amazing.

I think it has its strength and its weaknesses.

And if you play into those strengths, you won't even notice the weaknesses.

Terry Jachimiak II: No, you're right.

You're right.

All right, folks.

Well, as always, I want to thank you for joining us for this week's podcast.

We hope we inspired you to continue.

Your TTRPG journey, however that may look.

Make sure to stop by www.

rollforperception.

com and leave a comment on our podcast page.

We're always looking to answer questions and discuss new TTRPGs.

Terry Jachimiak II: So make sure to have your D20 ready.

And your goblin voice arrested.

Terry Jachimiak II: As you head out into the world of TTRPGs

with Roll for Percepticaz.

We'll fix that keeping that one.

We're keeping it.

Terry Jachimiak II: Alright.

I

love the question mark on the end there.

That was, that was perfect.