The Emperor Ren Valorian rules the Galaxy. He seized it from the Galactic Federation, a diplomatic body of aristocratic houses when they failed to protect the galaxy from the dread invasion of the Scourge. His rule began with rage and revolution, casting down the aristocracy and promising equality for all "true citizens" of the Galaxy. He claims his rule a benign and a rational one, that he embraces logic and compassion. In truth, his reign oppresses the galaxy. He sends his mighty dreadnoughts and his force-sword wielding agents to crush dissent; he casts aliens into labor camps and disappears political activists to remote, planetary prisons; he quietly allows corrupt officials to run roughshod over the citizenry; he reshapes the philosophies and religions of the galaxy with his psychic might, forging an imperial cult that grant him transcendent power. Even those who benefit from the largesse of the Empire begin to grow disquieted by the looming power of the Emperor.
Not all of the Galaxy has fallen into the Valorian Emperor's grasp. The last remnants of the Galactic Federation, an Alliance of psychic aristocrats, free worlds and alien peoples, fled to the Glorian Rim, the ancestral home of humanity. There, they hid behind the ancient and mighty space fortress, the Hammer of Caliban. This last bastion of democracy seeks to gain new allies in one last bid to liberate the Galaxy of the Emperor and restore peace and freedom to all. In the Dark Arm of the Galaxy, fractious alien races enslave one another and worship in their own ecstasy cults. Where the Scourge slaughtered humanity, once placid robots have risen in revolt, and their Cybernetic Union sends their genocidal machines crashing against the fortresses of the Empire. Scattered throughout the whole galaxy lie the ruins and remains of lost civilizations, or hints of undiscovered tribes of aliens and new psychic philosophies.
Lurking beneath the overt political conflict lies an ancient conspiratorial conflict: the war for Communion and the minds of all sapient beings in the Galaxy. The collective hope, passion and fear of all living beings pool into a vast, galaxy-spanning phenomenon called "Communion," which certain, powerful psychic can tap into to invoke nigh-divine power. The Emperor secretly serves the Cult of the Mystical Tyrant, and seeks to control all of Communion, while the once-hunted Templars of True Communion gather in secret to plan the restoration of their galaxy-spanning faith and to purge Communion of the taint that the Emperor has inflicted upon it.
The Psi-Wars Galaxy teems with conflict, aliens, criminal scum and wonder. In this time of chaos, and with prophecies of a coming doom and the return of the Scourge, it needs heroes to tip the balance away from certain destruction and to bring with them a sliver of hope.
Psi-Wars is a GURPS Space Opera Setting. It comes ready to play, with all the templates, rules, technologies and powers you need to play the game, provided you have the requisite GURPS books to play.
Psi-Wars draws heavily on the GURPS Action Series for its basis rules, which means it features repuslor-car chases, intense space-dogfights, chaotic gun battles and, of course, heists. Psi-Wars further adds psychic powers, martial arts and a unique twist on Divine Favor to allow for mystical space knights, holy templars and sinister cultists. Finally, it features slightly modified TL 11^ Ultra-Tech and spaceships to cover appropriate, space opera technology.
Psi-Wars isn't Star Wars. The astute among you will have certainly noticed some parallels, to be sure, and I am not going to criticize you if you choose to have a campaign that features a psychic farm boy, a rebellious princess and a smuggler with a heart of gold fighting off the evil Empire, but I built Psi-Wars to showcase what's possible when you draw inspiration from your favorite settings, rather than converting them outright.
Psi-Wars does not limit itself to the trope of Star Wars, but draws from the same wells that Star Wars did, such as the pulp sci-fi of Flash Gorden, the baroque space opera of Dune and the planetary romance of Barsoom, and draws new inspiration from an eclectic array of fiction (Warhammer 40k, the Metabarons, Killjoys, Minority Report, Endless Space 2, Endless Legend, Hyperlight Drifter...) and non-fiction (Men who Stare At Goats, In the Shadow of the Sword, the History of Rome, WW2, Religion of the Ancient Mediterranean..) alike.
I did this to get around what I consider to be one of the chief flaws of Star Wars: how "small" the galaxy feels. I often find that many (but not all!) Star Wars stories feel constrained, as though they must copy the template of the original trilogy. With Psi-Wars, I have attempted to liberate you from those tight constraints, both by shedding the need to be "true" to Star Wars by creating a new setting, and by expanding that setting and trying to offer inspirations for many sorts of space opera stories.
Star Wars can serve as your introduction to Psi-Wars, as Psi-Wars can handle the same sorts of stories that Star Wars can, but if you want to stray off the beaten path making unique characters, going to unusual worlds, or trying out a different sort of Story, Psi-Wars will do its best to support you by showing you the best GURPS has to offer.
Psi-Wars is a GURPS setting, and thus requires fourth edition GURPS works. The following books are requisite for Psi-Wars
My material may reference other works, especially pyramid articles, and there are numerous books that might assist you in your campaign, but the above should be enough to get you through all of the material.
This work is owned by Daniel A. Dover.
This work is covered by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 license. You may share it and change it, so long as you note the changes and attribute the original work to me.
Contributing work, such as by artists, fall outside of this license; these will be noted.
The Psi-Wars Logo is by Zack Prime and falls outside of the CC license.