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Union’s revolutionary project faces countless threats from within and without. War rages in the outlying territories of the Orion Arm, and humanity continues to wrestle with the legacy of imperialism, cultural hegemony, and anthropocentric ideologies.

Human wealth, military power, and the post-capital utopia of the Core worlds have been built - at least in part - upon the back of advanced machine intelligences known as non-human persons, or NHPs. These strange entities are used as administrators, companions, and legionnaires throughout Union space, and their personhood and rights are the source of fierce political and philosophical debate.

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Legionnaire is a third party supplement for the Lancer tabletop roleplaying game by Massif Press. Legionnaire contains a deep dive into the lore behind NHPs, the setting's equivalent of AI, extensive GM tools, and player options for use in campaigns.

Features

  • An exploration of the origins and metaphysics of NHPs, their binding and shackling, and the strange science behind their creation
  • A look at the social, philosophical, political, and religious movements that surround them, Union's doctrine for and restrictions on their use, and the cultural position they occupy in Union society
  • Notable events in the development and history of NHPs in the two millennia since the Deimos Event
  • Expanded lore and details on related entities - gestalts and fleet legions, advanced artificial intelligences, Aunic Souls, eidolons, and more
  • A guide to creating NHPs as characters, including roleplaying advice, naming conventions, and a generator for creating NPCs
  • Five detailed NPCs you can add to your campaigns, each with their own conflicts and dramas and sets of mission hooks to bring them in contact with your PCs
  • A set of twenty burdens detailing psychological or metaphysical effects you can apply to your PCs or use as inspiration for roleplaying cascading NHPs
  • Advice on creating missions involving NHPs, from using NHPs as antagonists or villains, to GMing in some of Lancer's stranger environments and effects - including legionspace, null blink areas, metavaults, and more
  • Extensive advice on roleplaying a cascading NHP and handling it in mech combat, including more specific detail for each of the eleven first-party NHPs so far released
  • Three highly detailed Flashpoint scenarios for use in creating campaigns, with a strong core of setting detail and options for escalation as the campaign continues.
    • Flashpoint: Liberté follows the consequences of Horizon Collective radicals abducting a key administrative NHP on a war-torn world.
    • Flashpoint: Elektrodaimonium focuses on the aftermath of a Deimos incursion over a highly religious, isolated world and its subsequent introduction to the wider galaxy.
    • Flashpoint: AH MUZEN CAB details the discovery of a metavault as Union forces clash with the Aun Ascendancy during the Second Distal War.
  • Rules for allowing player characters to play NHPs, integrating with existing systems in Lancer Core and Field Guide to the Karrakin Trade Baronies.
  • Six new backgrounds specifically designed for NHP pilots
  • Seven pieces of new pilot gear relating to NHPs, including gear that specifically supports playing an NHP pilot
  • Two new talent trees: Legionnaire is a talent that focuses on hacking and systemic combat, while Shadowcloaked provides esoteric defensive options related to legionspace
  • Four new NHP systems for use as exotic gear - the egotistical dragonslayer MARDUK, the manifestation specialist INANNA, the thanatologically-troubling ERESHKIGAL, and the necromantic puppetmaster NERGAL.
  • A new NPC template, the insidious Puppeteer - designed to represent a cascading NHP or other strange entity that controls minions to do its bidding

Development and Release

Legionnaire was successfully funded on Kickstarter at the beginning of 2023, and has now been released to the public!

COMP/CON data for Legionnaire is freely available to everyone; to download see the LCP file under the demo section and install via COMP/CON's Content Manager tool.

StatusReleased
CategoryBook
Release date Mar 28, 2023
Rating
Rated 5.0 out of 5 stars
(41 total ratings)
AuthorKatherine Stark
Tagsartificial-intelligence, lancerrpg, Mechs, Sci-fi, Supplement, Tabletop role-playing game
LinksLegionnaire on Pilot NET (Discord)

Purchase

Buy Now$20.00 USD or more

In order to download this book you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $20 USD. You will get access to the following files:

Legionnaire.pdf 43 MB

Community Copies

Support this book at or above a special price point to receive something exclusive.

Art Pack Community Copies

Thanks once more to the continued generosity of community members who donated for the Legionnaire Art Pack, we have extra community copies! If you're on a low income, struggling financially, or otherwise cannot afford to buy the book please feel free to grab one of these copies.

Kickstarter Funded Community Copies

Thanks to the generosity of our Kickstarter backers, we have a number of community copies of the book available for those on lower incomes, struggling financially, or who otherwise cannot afford to buy the book themselves. If you are in this position, please feel free to grab one of these copies.

Download demo

Download
COMP/CON Data for Legionnaire (v.1.0.0) 10 kB

Development log

Comments

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(+1)

Amazing work, as others have said this feels like the sort of book which is already unofficially official. Obviously you should ask your GM if they're okay with you drawing from it, but it seems like the answer's usually gonna be "sure, no problem" or "I already was."

(+1)

Legionnaire is far and away my favorite piece of Lancer 3rd party content. It's great from top to bottom in the gorgeous artwork, clever expansions and implementation of NHPs, and three fantastic flashpoints. AH MUZEN CAB, in particular, feels like it could or should be expanded into its own module like Dustgrave or Solstice Rain.

So imagine how pleasantly surprised that Katherine Stark is working on Shadow of the Wolf, a full-blown first party expansion set in the Karrarkin Trade Baronies. It's not Legionnaire, but it has the ingredients for something great.

I cannot wait.

(+3)

Just a quick note to say that I'm delighted and that Legionnaire is up there with Liminal Space in the "Yeah, this is part of my canon, assume that it is present in every game I run unless specified otherwise" list. Y'all do excellent work.

(+2)

Excellent addition to the overall Lancer universe. Despite it being an unofficial/third-party project, I think it'll rapidly become sort of a "It's not technically canon, but... you know, if you haven't read it you're not really playing the same game as everyone else." kind of thing.

The writing is excellent, and it's beautifully packaged. If I didn't know it wasn't an official product I never would have guessed it wasn't. Wonderful use of art and illustration.

The mechanical additions seem fine, but it's hard to tell without rigorous play testing. At a glance, nothing seems absurd, so I would guess that this could be integrated into any ongoing game with little worry about unbalanced abilities causing havoc.

With regards to the comp/con .lcp file, may I request that you add the recommended triggers to the backgrounds? For example under mil-spec pilot, it doesn't recommend anything.

(2 edits) (+1)

That was something I checked when creating the LCP but it's not a supported feature in COMP/CON as far as I can tell. From what I've seen suggested triggers aren't on any of the core backgrounds and it's not a field that's documented on the github or included in the LCP editor.

That said, I'll check in with the COMP/CON devs and see if I'm missing a way to add that, or if there are plans to add support for it in the future.

EDIT: Looks like this is not a feature that's planned to be added any time soon, but if anyone desperately wants this to be a thing, COMP/CON does accept pull requests!

An update to this: I'm now working on Shadow of the Wolf for Massif, which (assuming no issues arise during playtesting) will also contain new backgrounds. I remembered your comment and I have put in a feature request for COMP/CON to handle this specific issue, as I agree it would be a great addition. If it gets implemented for first party content, I should then be able to come back and add it for Legionnaire as well!

(+2)

The art, the lore, the gameplay mechanics! All top notch. Others have said it but I will echo it, this is of the same quality of Massif Press' own work. Outstanding on all fronts.

I can't wait for my players to hear the good news that now they can play as the NHPs.

(1 edit) (+1)

I was literally in the middle of writing a full-length campaign that has HEAVY exploration of NHPs, and this just showed up right as I was hitting some hurdles!
This book is amazing, easily my favorite 3rd party book, it's quality enough that it feels first party in production, writing, art and mechanical consideration, great job!

(+2)

This has already become my favorite 3rd party Lancer book! A truly invaluable resource for GMs looking to flesh out the NHPs in their games beyond the somewhat one-dimensional portrayal in the core rulebook.

(+1)

It's LIVE!!!! Can't believe how amazing this is. Can't wait to see more in the future!

(+2)

art is just incredible

Is this an official expansion or is it a homebrew?

(+3)

This is a third party release, so not an official Massif Press product.

(+1)(-1)

That said, it's written and produced to such a high standard, it would not look out of place in Massif Press' own offerings.

Soon...

(+2)

Soon!

But... Like... How soon?

(+2)

Ideally, it would have been yesterday, but itch is currently sitting on my key distribution email (apparently it requires manual review). It's very frustrating, but there's not a lot I can do about it.

The full public release will come once I can verify that the backers have their keys and are able to successfully redeem them.

(+1)

So from the sounds of it, soooo soon!

Is there any way to get in on the Kickstarter or preorder for those who missed it?

I've not yet set up the project for preorder (I might look into that at some point when I have some spare time), but followers should get notified when it updates, including at release!

\o/ ty! \o/

(1 edit) (+1)

It's been over two weeks- any news? I too would like to buy a copy of this.

EDIT: I saw your media post- I hope your back feels better.

(+1)

We're still on schedule! We've just completed the development edit and are coming up to the end of the second art round. The major steps left are copyediting (which we've just begun) and layout (which has been ongoing for a while). Obviously I can't give a firm date for release, but we're getting closer!

!remindme haha

It's available now!

(+1)

THank you!!