Want to know more before you commit, or can't wait to be a freshly-Perforated Cutter yourself? Sophont: First Cut is for you. It's an always-free PDF that includes most of the work-in-progress rules, 8 illustrated premade Cutters, and plenty of guidance to run and play your first operation. It will continue to be updated for the length of the campaign and beyond as the game is expanded and refined.
Sophont is a tabletop roleplaying game about symbiotic mercenaries, shadowy geopolitical interests, and the high-stakes, street-level urban espionage action where they collide.
You play as CUTTERS, one-in-a-million hosts to reality-bending symbiotes from a horrifically diverged future Earth that has violently collided with ours. The world is changing faster than humanity can adapt, and you've been forced onto the bleeding edge: Cutters are the most capable and dangerous organisms on the planet, and they're in high demand. To survive and thrive, you'll need to stay a few ragged steps ahead of an array of global powers—all of whom want a piece of you and what you represent—in an alt-00s cold power struggle about to go hot.
The game itself is built on a heavily-customized version of Mothership's Panic Engine, with plenty of its own tricks to keep things fresh and dangerous. Play focuses on creative entry to hostile spaces, operational problem-solving, and the push/pull of connection, collaboration, and control with your implanted symbiote. 2-6 players plus a GM (the Operator). Sound good? Good.
Run their contracts. Find your answers. Stay alive. GET SHARP.
Sophont is BRITTLE STAR'S razor-edged take on new-school roleplaying. Here's a more detailed look at what to expect:
SOLID BONES / SHARP NEW FLESH. The heart of the game is tried and tested, with massively successful applications in Mothership and other Panic Engine RPGs. We've taken the parts that work for us—like the basic roll procedure, escalating stress, and interconnected skill system—honed them to a beautiful point, and ripped out any vestigial organs with prejudice. Transplants provided as necessary. The result is something that keeps the tense, hard-edged feel the Panic Engine is known for, but with enough meat to satisfy more character-oriented play.
NOVEL ORGANISMS / NOVEL RISKS. Symbiotes have their own needs, drives, and adaptive instincts, outlined during character creation and shaped through play. Manage your symbiotic Pressure, bond with your Sophont, avoid or embrace visceral mutations, and above all, stay sharp—Seethe organisms come in many other forms beyond the Sophonts, and most of them consider you a threat.
HUMAN SCALE / INHUMAN POWER. Moment-to-moment play emphasizes creative problem-solving, lateral thinking, and, when necessary, ruthless deployment of incredible violence. Watch yourself, though: as a rule, Cutters are much more powerful than they are resilient. Your symbiote can heal off surface-level damage inhumanly fast, but rounding a corner into a shotgun barrel is as scary for you as anyone else.
STREET LEVEL / GLOBAL AGENDA. Larger-scale play is segmented into operations: single-location missions orchestrated by disaster response coalitions, cutting-edge bioresearch orgs, ruthless paramilitary peacekeepers, and revolutionary splinter cells, to name a few. Each faction works well as the base for a self-contained campaign, but they really shine in relation to each other, where your operational successes and failures shift the balance of power and their interlocking ambitions.
work-in-progress emblems for some of Sophont's factions
Here are the primary physical rewards on offer for this campaign:
Sophont will be available in print as an A5 softcover with sewn binding, heavy stock, full color, and sharp offset printing. Pagecount is subject to change as the book is finalized but will likely be between 100 and 150. The goal is to make a object as durable as it is enjoyable to read.
digital mockup - subject to change
In addition to the core book, BRITTLE STAR has retained the incomparable talents of B. Everett Dutton (at CLAYMORE, creators of FIST) to create a standalone narrative comic in the Sophont universe. Sophont: TISSUE ABLATION follows a group of unlikely persons of interest as they are hunted by the Cutter assassin HOSTAGE KILLER, a mercenary-turned-monster horrifically subverted by science and the state. The physical version will be standard US comic size, full color, saddle stitched, and will also include a PDF.
During moments of extreme adaptive stress, a bonded Sophont will attempt to override the spinal nerves and begin rapid reflexive biomorphosis to protect itself and its host Cutter. This process is colloquially known as PUNCTURE, and it uses the PUNCTURE DIE: a high-stakes d20 that determines whether your body changes temporarily, permanently, or undergoes cascading symbiotic collapse. If you're familiar with Mothership and other Panic Engine games, you know the drill. If not, have fun.
an example of some of potential Puncture effects, with a vector mockup of our die mold.
For this campaign only, BRITTLE STAR will be producing our own PUNCTURE DIE, a solid metal d20 with hand-painted numbers, sharp edges, and a unique high-threat spiked profile that echoes the silhouette of the Sophonts themselves. Use it for your own Puncture tests, visceral hits in other RPGs, or any situation where your standard icosahedron won't cut it.
The PUNCTURE DIE is available as a reward in the FIELD KIT tier and up, as well as a standalone add-on.
The items above are just the highlights—higher pledge tiers will also get some exclusive physical merch, like an 11x17 poster and the SRC TACTICAL ADMIN POUCH.
Fulfillment is estimated to begin mid-2027. Pledge prices do not include shipping due to fluctuations in freight costs, tariffs, and other external factors—shipping will be collected once all physical goods are manufactured and ready to send out.
Below are some working estimates for shipping costs. These ranges are intentionally broad to allow backers to plan appropriately—with luck, actual shipping prices will not exceed the high end of each range, and may be lower than the low end. All amounts given in USD.
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