Fria Ligans forum

So I have the core book and the Atlas Compendium so I have some basic details. 

But what else is there on Zalos? I'm planning a campaign where my PC (Playing a 1 PC and Narrator campaign) is going to head to Zalos to find out more about the missing Bulletin reporter and also the underground ring smuggling suspected mystics out of the system. 

I'm aware that the City of Foreigners on the moon is the only place outsiders are allowed, but I want to flesh this out a little and also give them some more info on the Order and Zalos itself. Is there anything else canon that I can read or is it all just 'make it up on the fly'?

Thanks,

I think it’s there to make up on the fly.  I see it as a place for players interested in W40k style Only War. In my head cannon, the Zalosians on A are actually the most moderate, the insurgents in B are even more extreme. We also have in our group somebody born on Daberan who was a slave in the shipyards... so there is that. 

Is praying to ANY icon other than the pariah (judge) heresy? You decide.

I think it’s there to make up on the fly.  I see it as a place for players interested in W40k style Only War. In my head cannon, the Zalosians on A are actually the most moderate, the insurgents in B are even more extreme. We also have in our group somebody born on Daberan who was a slave in the shipyards... so there is that. 

Is praying to ANY icon other than the pariah (judge) heresy? You decide.

Thanks for the reply.. I was thinking that might be the case, and I did get a very strong 40K vibe (I am picturing the Adeptus Custodes armour suits and Battlefleet Gothic style ships when I read about Zalosian tech.

I'm guessing the City of Foreigners is slightly more liberal - in the sense that it allows non-believers to walk relatively unhindered in the markets there - but if anyone tries going off site or starts asking questions, there could be secret police (Inquisition ??) lurking on every market stall and in every food hall...

I will be basing this off of the historical anarchy and blood soaked wars of the Sunni/Shia conflicts as far as adventures are concerned. 

I don't see 40k - that's just not what comes to mind. A mini civil war based on a religious schism does. 

I will be basing this off of the historical anarchy and blood soaked wars of the Sunni/Shia conflicts as far as adventures are concerned. 

I don't see 40k - that's just not what comes to mind. A mini civil war based on a religious schism does. 

Fair enough, I'd rather put a bit of a dark fantasy spin on it myself and some of the descriptions of Zalosian cruisers etc strike me as being a little Grimdark. Personally, I want to stay clear of real life religious conflicts. I see enough of that on the news.

I will be basing this off of the historical anarchy and blood soaked wars of the Sunni/Shia conflicts as far as adventures are concerned. 

I don't see 40k - that's just not what comes to mind. A mini civil war based on a religious schism does. 

Fair enough, I'd rather put a bit of a dark fantasy spin on it myself and some of the descriptions of Zalosian cruisers etc strike me as being a little Grimdark. Personally, I want to stay clear of real life religious conflicts. I see enough of that on the news.

I am a historian by training. So real world is where I tend to skew. 

I am working on a multi-act adventure based off the Jason and the Argonauts myth. The Golden Fleece will by a portal builder artifact of some sort. Currently working on sirens as a darkmorph type creature.

I have two thoughts here, the first one is that I reckon that Free League wants the game masters to focus their own campaigns in parts of the world where it doesn't interfere with future canon. This is just a hunch, but it's partly based on the fact that Kua was kind of barebones before the Emissary Lost book. I think what they're doing here (intentionally or not) is giving you a few glimpses to play in Zalos and then wait for the rest. As such I think Zalos is deliberately barren at the moment, I'm fairly certain they will play a big part in one of the later campaign books. That doesn't stop you to flesh out your own world though, but there's not much official stuff out there.



The other thought is that I think it's fairly intentional that Coriolis is a game about commenting on a lot of real world conflicts and is not just escapism. It reminds me of the tv series Farscape and The Expanse with a new high tech cold war (similar to our own). To me it seems that the goal or message is to prevent wars, not having them and to show how conflicts fester and escalate. The most fascinating part is to look closer at the mechanisms of prejudice and power relations. I think that's a fairly straightforward reading of the canon metaplot (Emissary Lost and Atlas Compendium). And then there's more "on the nose stuff" (literal reading) like same sex marriage, transpeople, racist allegory with humanites and the conflict between faith and science. You are probably aware of all this, but I just want to point it out that religious conflicts are kind of part of that package.

Whether or not you want to connect with this stuff is of course up to you, I certainly don't judge, we can avoid schisms in a hobby. I would agree that Coriolis is more "kitchen sink realism" than 40K, both serves a purpose. The perk with being a game master is that we can dial it to whatever realism level we want, personally, my group is sailing around in the sink. But I will say this; in the end I would not be surprised that when Free League comes around to flesh out the Zalosians and Zalos we will see many parallels between Sunni and Shia, Iconodules and Iconoclasts, Protestants and Catholics etc. etc. Only time will tell, good luck with your campaign regardless of how it turns out!