High-tech and traditional BDSM are part of the Torean way of life

Torei has various forms of formal institutionalised slavery, and human relationships are often viewed through the lens of dominance and submission. It can be loving, twisted, adventurous, or abusive.

The three AIs are inscrutable mad gods, keeping Torei a backwater while trying to finish its biosphere

Torei is relatively unchanged by the mainstream human culture partly due to the power of these thinking machines. Every unfathomable action they take appears to serve the struggle to finish the terraforming project that created the planet in the first place.

Torean biotech can do some amazing things

The technology of the greater human society can do many things Toreans can’t, but the biological sciences on Torei surpass anything else in the universe. Much of this comes from the AIs’ research while developing the Torean ecosystem.

Torei is hard to get to from the rest of the cosmos

Torei orbits a lonely star outside any colonised galaxy. In a universe where travel between the stars is as routine as a train journey, going to Torei still feels like an adventure and takes a long time.

The Star

Torei orbits a lone hypervelocity star near Andromeda, which is why the greater spacefaring human civilisation didn’t discover it for so long. While it’s reachable from Andromedan stars, the journey is expensive and time-consuming. It should take at least a few months of subjective time for a character to cross the distance between Torei and anywhere else in the universe.

The Space Elevator

Once in orbit around Torei, the first port of call is the space station at the top of Torei’s single space elevator. This station is run by an off-world business cartel, subject to a complex set of treaties.

At the base of the elevator, the Toreans have (with help from off-worlders) built a number of arcology spires. This cluster of towers is the most urbanised spot on the planet.

The Ringdoms

The habitable part of Torei covers a fairly narrow band around the planet’s equator. Because of this “ring” shape, the nations on Torei are called “ringdoms”. Each is different, and the laws can change dramatically from ringdom to ringdom.

The Antipodes

The farther you get from the space elevator on Torei, the more rural and relaxed the pace of life becomes.

That isn’t to say that life is easy out in the farming ringdoms, but there is a dramatic contrast with the dense urban core.

The Badlands

Most of the surface of the planet between the equatorial band and the poles is a harsh wasteland. The terraforming project struggles to claim this area, bit by bit, for human settlement. For anyone looking to hide, the badlands are an obvious (if dangerous) choice.

The Ziggurats

At Torei’s two poles stand vast black artificial mountains built by the AIs that fashioned Torei. The polar Ziggurats, Dahom to the North and Mazos to the South, house the biomechanical engines that isolate elements from the planet’s mantle to generate a breathable atmosphere.

Humans live within these enormous hives, and the unluckiest of them are placed inside sensory control suits called isolation laminates to become the Emissaries of the AIs. Equatorial Toreans often refer to these Emissaries as “dæmons”.

The Ministries

Despite the differences in ringdoms, they all have common international institutions known as ministries. Local management may differ radically, but the various ministries do try to coordinate worldwide.

Here’s a few of the most common ones:

The Game

This is a game for collaborative storytelling. You will create a character that will become involved in a story that you create together with the GM and your fellow players. When your characters can’t agree on something, you’ll roll dice according to the rules for a Conflict.

Many similar systems you may already be familiar with started their lives as combat simulators, and added other things only for completeness. Your characters in those games are armed to the teeth, and the GM might say “well I guess you could put something about cooking or singing on there, if you want to waste the slot.” And so everything that does not contribute to effectiveness in battle gets pushed off into “character notes” and used as colour during the telling.

This game is not one of those. Games set on Torei will be

Male or Female?

On Torei, your sex is extremely important. Female Toreans outnumber males 9:1, and the whole economy runs on contracted and enslaved female labour. Males often live lives of aristocratic privilege, but their status as breeding studs often complicates their Relationships.

As an outsider, your life will have been different from that of a native Torean. Think of how your experience of being a man or a woman (or however you identify) was different from that on Torei.

Where Are You From?

Invent a new planet around some new star in a nearby galaxy, and make that your homeworld. Or perhaps it’s a union of worlds that you think of as your nationality. Be creative!

Remember that Earth is gone and forgotten!

Why Did You Leave?

1. Why did you come to Torei?
2. What reason do you tell people?

These are often two different things!

Hierarchy

Background

To make a character, one of the first things you must choose is which of the five background types your character has. Try to pick the one that best describes your character.

Stats

Everyone has four Stats, represented as sets of six-sided dice to be rolled during play.

Acuity

It comes into play when doing something that requires attention to detail or delicate accuracy (talking, shooting, difficult piloting, picking pockets).

Body

It comes into play when performing a physically demanding task (running, lifting, dancing, wrestling, swordfighting).

Heart

It comes into play when competing in a more indirect or non-violent way (talking, racing, working, dancing).

Will

It comes into play when competing directly against someone else in an attempt to best them (wrestling, swordfighting, shooting, dogfighting, breaking a slave).

Traits

Your Traits are aspects of your character that help you get what you want. You can express Traits as narrative descriptions, skills, quotes, or even flaws. There are no set Traits to choose from. You make them up!

The most useful Traits are the ones that make the best narrative hooks. The more ways you can justify a trait’s relevance in a given situation, the more often you will be able to bring your trait into play. A good trait will be evocative, without being too specific to be useful or too generic to describe your character.

You might want to check out the Stellanova’s Traits and Relationships to get some ideas.

Relationships

A relationship is a strong connection between your character and a person, place, organisation or fetish. Relationships are very similar to Traits in that they grant you dice for use in a Conflict, but only if the relationship is involved in the stakes.

The GM will tell you when you should roll a Relationship’s dice at the beginning of a Conflict, typically because the target of your Relationship is already directly involved.

Each character should take at least one Relationship with one of the other players’ characters.

Belongings

Does your character carry anything? Tools of the trade? Restraints? Whips? Vibrators?

Try to work out where the belonging was made, and whether it’s terrible or excellent.

A belonging is only excellent if people meeting your character would notice and comment on it: “Now that is a masterpiece of a whip!” or “Aren’t you worried someone will steal that?”

Initiation to Torei

You may not necessarily be an insider on Torei yet, but you’ve been there long enough for it to make its mark on you. Consider the period between your arrival on Torei and the start of play, and write down something you hope to have accomplished.

Perhaps you hope that you got out of debt, or broke a slave’s will, or resisted falling in love with an abuser. Whatever you choose, make sure it isn’t something that would ruin your character if you lose. “I hope that I didn’t die” is not a practical goal!

The GM will run a Conflict between your character and 4 4 in opposition. The result will be a new 1 Experience trait, such as “I stayed debt-free ever since the belt came off” or “I never did earn my slave’s respect.”

Do you want something, but someone is stopping you?

Say “conflict”!

What are you fighting over?

That’s the stakes.

Who was in the scene when you said “conflict”?

They can join in. Characters who join later can Help.

Roll Stats and Relationships

The first step is to roll the dice from two of your Stats. All your rolls go into a pool of dice in front of you, where everyone can see.

Which two Stats you roll depends on how you’re trying to get what you want:

Talking

Moving

Fighting

Manoeuvring

Challenge

1st Die

2nd Die

Response

The target of the Challenge pushes forward enough dice to match the total from the Challenge.

1 Die

2 Dice

3 Dice

..or more!

Fallout Dice

Each time you Take the Blow, you need to set aside a number of dice equal to the number you used in your Response. The type of these dice depends on the riskiness of blow you just took.

Safe

Physical

Violent

Perilous

Need more Dice?

• Get Help
• Use Traits and Belongings
• Change the Game

Don’t forget that Submission is Power!

If you can’t match the Challenge’s total, you lose the stakes.

After responding, discard these dice (unless you Reversed the Blow).

Short-Term Harm

Short-Term Harm reduces the die size of one of your Stats for at least the next Conflict, or until you’ve succeeded at some attempt to clear it. Choose the one that is most likely to have resulted from the blows you took:

Dazed

Bound

Broken

Shamed

Permanent Harm

Scar

• Take a new 1 Trait or Relationship.
• Or add 1 to an existing Trait or Relationship.

Trauma

• Remove 1, 1, or 1 from anywhere on your sheet.
• Or reduce the die size of a Trait or Relationship by 2.

Experience

Per the circumstances of the story, choose one:

• Gain a 1 trait, relationship, or belonging.
• Add one die to an existing trait, relationship, or belonging.
• Add 2 to the die size (max: 10) of an existing trait, relationship, or belonging.

How to Think about Dice

Lots of small dice can win you the stakes, but they’re more likely to harm you. It’s true that 3 can total up to 12 just as 2 can, but needing three dice to respond instead of two increases your Fallout. So having that fistful of # can win you the stakes, but you will pay for it later!

How to Think about Fallout

Fallout also has a die-size element to it, keyed to the type of conflict you’re engaged in. The smaller dice used for the non-violent conflict types make it more likely that some of them will come up 1, earning you an Experience. We learn more consistently by talking or doing than we do by fighting, after all!

How to Think about Changing The Game

The original games that inspired this system all used the word escalation, and that confused a lot of new players. It encouraged them to think of a progression from Safe to Perilous, going in one direction only. This is a mistake!

It’s true that you can escalate from peaceful approaches to more violent ones, but what’s most important is that the current approach won’t work for you and you’re not willing to give up the stakes.

A pirate who breaks from a swordfight to swing from the chandelier is Changing the Game every bit as much as a cowgirl who draws her pistol on an argument!

Submission is Power

If you’re willing to surrender the stakes, Submitting is one of the most powerful moves you can make! You get to keep your two best rolls in your pool, and use them in your next Conflict. You also avoid any further risk of Fallout, and this can help you aim for Experience.

A submissive character may well play a long game of rope-a-dope, Submitting to a dominant character regularly just to gain the upper hand on the next Conflict.

Say Yes or Roll the Dice

This is critical for driving gameplay toward Conflict. If you take nothing else from this section, it should be this mantra. Say yes, or roll the dice! Write it at the top of your notes.

The role of GM in a story-building and world-building game like this one is a lot more participatory than in some popular systems. Keeping players involved and having fun is more important than simulating a strict system of carefully-balanced statistics or plot elements.

So when one or more of your players want to do something that you don’t think is a good idea, that should mean that one or more NPCs object. Have them declare a Conflict and start rolling dice. You will be pleasantly surprised where the story takes you!

And if you’re not willing to get out the dice and turn it into a Conflict, then just say yes! It obviously wasn’t that important, or you’d have made the players work for it.

This idea is so central that I’ll repeat it once more:

Say yes, or roll the dice!

Creating Situations

Creating NPCs

NPCs have the same four Stats that player characters do; but instead of hand-crafting characteristic Traits, every NPC has these four:

I am taking this very seriously

Write down any quick interests or desires you think of immediately when you imagine this NPC.

This falls within my expertise

Write down the primary areas of expertise the NPC would have.

My life depends on this

Either the Conflict is a direct threat against the NPC’s health or freedom, or some external threat makes this Conflict and obstacle to same. Jot down any debts, masters, diseases, or other forces that could drive the NPC to desperation.

I am fighting for someone I love

Feel free to link this to one of the NPC’s Relationships, or to leave it until the Conflict occurs.