The Player's Guide is a self-contained reference for players. It covers who you can be, where you are, what you can carry, and how the rules work at the table. You do not need any other book to build a character and start playing.
What Is in This Book
| Chapter | Contents |
|---|---|
| 1: Welcome to Void Drifters | The player promise: what kind of stories this is, what crews do, and where to start |
| 2: Using This Book | This chapter |
| 3: Character Creation | Build a character in six steps: species, characteristics, background and career, starting XP, derived values, and personal details |
| 4: Known Space — Player's View | The five major powers, the Meridian Verge, slipstream travel, and public setting knowledge |
| 5: Species | Mechanical packages and cultural detail for Humans, Ilyari, Ssarathi, Felina, and Dhoran |
| 6: Backgrounds and Careers | Eight backgrounds, eight careers, and how they shape your starting skills |
| 7: Skills | The full skill list with descriptions and example uses |
| 8: Talents and Advancement | Talent trees, advancement costs, and how characters grow |
| 9: Equipment and Starting Gear | Personal weapons, armor, tools, and starting loadout guidance |
| 10: Common Technology | Everyday tech a crew encounters: communicators, medical gear, AI assistance, and more |
| 11: Ships and Crews | How ships work at the crew level, common hull types, and what crew roles do |
| 12: Factions — Public Record | Publicly known factions, organizations, and who crews typically work for or against |
| 13: Core Rules Primer | How the dice work, checks, boons and banes, and contested rolls |
| 14: How to Fight | Personal combat, ship combat overview, and the actions available in a fight |
| 15: Pregenerated Crew | Five ready-to-play characters with background, gear, and relationships |
| 16: Player Quick Reference | All the tables and roll reminders in one place |
| 17: Glossary and ORC Attribution | Key terms defined, plus the Open RPG Creative license attribution |
What You Need to Play
To run a full session, the table needs:
- This book
- The Exodus NDS Core Rules
- Dice: the Exodus NDS dice set (Boon and Bane dice, Ability and Trial dice, and Mastery and Crisis dice). Critical results use a percentile roll.
The Core Rules contain the complete mechanical framework that Void Drifters builds on. The Player's Guide adds Void Drifters-specific character options, equipment, setting knowledge, and the rules extensions that make space opera play work. Where this book provides a rules summary, the Core Rules provide the complete text.
Companion Books
The Player's Guide covers what players need. The companion books go further:
- GM Guide — Hidden politics, faction clocks, adversaries, session tools, and everything the players are not meant to know yet. GMs only.
- Sector Atlas — Complete slipstream route records, system gazetteer, and navigation tables for the Meridian Verge and beyond.
- Vehicles Manual — Full ship construction, models, builder rules, module catalogs, weapon and defense catalogs, and the complete ship combat framework.
- Equipment Guide — Extended gear catalogs, trade goods, black market prices, legality by power, and services.
- Adversary Catalog — Stat blocks, tactics, and encounter guidance for everything crews might fight.
- Starter Adventure — A complete first job designed to introduce the Meridian Verge to a new crew.