The Setting

Fifty years ago, the Sixth Interstellar War between the League of Allied Worlds and the People's Republic of Terra ended the way nobody planned. A subspace weapon detonated during a Terran offensive in the Carolingian System. A billion people died. The explosion is still happening — the system warps spacetime so violently that ships that wander in don't come back.

The NorAellians, neutral until that day, dragged every power in the galaxy to a single table. What came out of that room were the Charlemagne Accords: a cease-fire between the human governments, a unanimous ban on subspace weapons, and a declaration that the Carolingian System is forbidden ground. Fifty years later, the cease-fire holds. Nobody believes it holds another decade.

This is RFI: Cold Stars. Three human powers carve up known space — the League, the Republic, and the loose Confederacy of Freelance States, which speaks for maybe half the people actually living in freelance territory. The rest are Clusters with their own councils, independents with their own grudges, privateers carrying state paperwork, and pirate queens without. Beyond humanity live the empathic Lyndri, the ancient NorAellians, and the endangered, endlessly inventive GikDaa. Five governments. A peace that's holding by habit.

Who You Are

You play professionals. Officers, engineers, smugglers, bodyguards, fixers — people with real skills and real reasons to use them. You are expected to succeed. The question the game asks, is how. Do you do it cleanly, or does success cost you?

Species is what you are. Occupation is what you do. Background is where you came from — which world, which faction, which side of which line. Flaws are what make you interesting.

Pick an archetype and play in five minutes. Or build from scratch and make exactly the character you want.

The Engine

Every action rolls a pool of d10s built from three numbers: an Ability (raw aptitude), a Skill (what you've trained), and a Risk the GM sets (how dangerous the situation is). Training cancels danger before you roll. What's left is what you throw. The next chapter teaches the whole procedure end to end.

How This Book Works

Rules examples throughout this book follow four recurring characters — pre-generated archetypes you can play as-is, adapt, or use as templates. They're introduced once below and show up wherever their niche fits the mechanic being taught.