''Burning Empires'' is a tabletop
science fiction
Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...
role-playing game, designed by
Luke Crane and published by
The Burning Wheel
''The Burning Wheel'' is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game independently written and published by Luke Crane. The game uses a dice pool mechanic (using only standard six-sided dice) for task resolution and a character generation system that ...
in 2006. It is based on
Christopher Moeller
Christopher Moeller (born May 1, 1963) is an American writer and painter, specializing in fully painted graphic novels. Moeller's signature creation is the Iron Empires science-fiction universe, comprising three fully painted graphic novels Faith ...
's two critically acclaimed ''
Iron Empires''
graphic novel
A graphic novel is a long-form, fictional work of sequential art. The term ''graphic novel'' is often applied broadly, including fiction, non-fiction, and anthologized work, though this practice is highly contested by comic scholars and industry ...
s,
Faith Conquers and
Sheva's War.
Reception
It was awarded Best Licensed RPG of 2006 by
Ken Hite, and the
Origins Award
The Origins Awards are American awards for outstanding work in the game industry. They are presented by the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts and Design at the Origins Game Fair on an annual basis for the previous year, so (for example) the 1979 a ...
for Best RPG of 2006.
Contents
The core book is a
digest size
Digest size is a magazine size, smaller than a conventional or "journal size" magazine but larger than a standard paperback book, approximately , but can also be and , similar to the size of a DVD case. These sizes have evolved from the printing ...
d, 656 pages, hardcover book in full colour, including almost 400 pieces of artwork.
''Burning Empires'' builds on the ''
Burning Wheel'' game mechanics, while adding in new rules such as:
* World Burner
* Technology Burner
* Infection mechanics
* Firefight
* Psychology
* Alien Life-Form Burner
The game builds on some of the sci-fi elements and scene structure from an earlier
Burning Wheel supplement, ''Burning Sands: Jihad''. The game fiction assumes a race of sentient wormlike creatures called Vaylen which infect humans and take over their brains. This infection happens on a massive scale, eventually taking over whole planets in the process.
The phases of a ''Burning Empires'' campaign are: infiltration, usurpation, and invasion. And these correspond to the stage of the Vaylen infection on the planet.
Typically, the GM or Game Master will take on the role of the Vaylen invaders, while the players will take the role of mostly humans, who are trying to actively stop this invasion.
Reviews
*''
Pyramid
A pyramid (from el, πυραμίς ') is a structure whose outer surfaces are triangular and converge to a single step at the top, making the shape roughly a pyramid in the geometric sense. The base of a pyramid can be trilateral, quadrilat ...
''
References
External links
* {{official, url=http://www.burningempires.com/
Origins Award winners
Role-playing games based on comics
Role-playing games introduced in 2006
Science fiction role-playing games