Era: Hydrogen - A Lite RPG of Space Cowboys!

Five hundred years after Humanity settled in the Taurus region, something has gone terribly wrong.

The stars are dying.

Nobody knows exactly why, although the ruins and technology left behind by the civilisation that occupied Taurus before us suggest that we might not be the first people to face this problem.

Fortunately, Humanity has a solution. Ancient Stellar Injectors can feed fresh hydrogen directly into the heart of a star, giving it the fuel it needs to keep burning. There's only one problem: we can operate these machines, but we can't build replacements, and keeping five dying stars alive requires a constant supply of hydrogen.

Someone has to find it, mine it and bring it home, and polite society isn't particularly interested in doing the job. Instead, they turn to the outlaws, opportunists, troublemakers and desperate people willing to head into the most dangerous parts of the Six Systems in search of a payday.

They call them Space Cowboys.

Some Cowboys work for a particular world, while others sell their hydrogen to the highest bidder at Market Station. It might have been mined honestly from an asteroid or dragged back from the Oort Cloud. It might have been salvaged from a wreck, or it might have belonged to someone else until fairly recently. Nobody asks too many questions about where it came from, because when the alternative is watching your sun go out, you probably don't want to know.

Welcome to Era: Hydrogen!

Era: Hydrogen is a Lite RPG of Space Cowboys, where you and your friends become the wildest, craziest people in the Six Systems and set out to make your fortunes while keeping Humanity's stars burning.

Take a contract, get yourself a ship and head for the outer reaches. Mine hydrogen, haul cargo, investigate wrecks, dodge patrols and deal with pirates... or become pirates yourselves if the money is good enough!

What Do You Do?

Your crew has a ship - although whether you actually own it is another question.

You'll travel the Six Systems through ancient Jump Gates, looking for work and trying to make your fortune while entire worlds compete for the resource keeping their stars alive.

You might find yourself mining when pirates cut the line connecting your Extraction Pod to the ship. You might limp home with failing systems and accept help from a crew you really shouldn't trust. You might discover that your perfectly legitimate mining permit wasn't quite as legitimate as you were told.

Or you might emerge from a Jump Gate directly into a confrontation between two powers that would both prefer you hadn't seen anything.

You're Space Cowboys. You'll figure something out.

Everything You Need in One Pocket Rulebook

Era: Hydrogen is a complete game, not a quickstart.

Inside you'll find:

• The Six Systems and the dying stars of Taurus
• Cowboy character creation and advancement
• Hats, guns, boots and equipment
• Starships, from Hydrogen Freighters and Salvage Tugs to Patrol Ships and Pirate Ships
• The complete Era d10 Lite rules
• Combat, damage, healing and status effects
• GM advice and ready-to-use Adventure Seeds
• Detailed rules and guidance for Hydrogen Mining Ship operations
• A Character Sheet

Era d10 Lite

Era: Hydrogen uses the Era d10 Lite Rule Set, designed to keep time spent looking things up to a minimum and maximise the time actually playing.

When you attempt something, you roll a pool of d10s based on the two Attributes most appropriate to what you're trying to do. The GM sets the difficulty, and every die that meets the Threshold is a Success.

And 10s explode (add an extra dice)... because Cowboys deserve a chance to pull off something ridiculous.