We are returning to the stars to bring you a premium, library-quality Offset Print edition of the Space 1889: After Core Rulebook and a brand-new Adventure Anthology for 5e.
Experience the Victorian Future as it was meant to be seen with a new Space 1889: After Adventure Anthology and Map Book along with a premium, high-quality offset print run of the Space 1889: After Core Rulebook for 5e.
Space 1889 appeared at the dawn of the steampunk movement. The boilerplate hulls of aerial gunboats and the hardy ethernauts who braved the dark reaches of space developed in parallel with the aesthetic so many know and love. In many ways, Space 1889's iconic art helped define the genre’s aesthetic!
Space 1889: After is the next iteration of Space 1889, the popular steampunk tabletop roleplaying game converted to 5e. Explore the Victoria Age with new rules, new possibilities, and new stories to tell.
You'll find no magic here, rather science behaves as the eccentric geniuses of the period imagined it did. Combined with the influence of ancient alien technologies, almost anything is possible. As original designer Frank Chadwick puts it:
Space 1889: After is available for the fifth edition of the most popular game system in the world. To perfectly capture the hard-boiled, retro-futuristic Victorian setting, the core rules have been expertly re-engineered to the 5e system. When you open the book, you will find:
A World Without Magic: A grounded, science-driven setting with no items, spells, classes, or class features that rely on the supernatural.
Re-Imagined Skills: Arcana is transformed to govern the strange sciences and mechanics of the ether, while Medicine is updated to reflect Victorian medical breakthroughs and field surgery.
Period-Accurate Firepower: Comprehensive rules, unique weapon properties, and specialized feats designed for the use of firearms and historical ordnance.
Vast Character Options: Choose from approved Species (the specialized races of the setting) and explore 53 tailored Classes and Archetypes meticulously vetted to fit the theme.
Authentic Backgrounds: Build your character using brand-new Backgrounds modeled after authentic Space 1889: After Careers.
Massive Battles Made Easy: Features a practical Unit System, allowing individual NPCs to fight together as cohesive military groups with shared hit point pools. A perfect system for grand-scale planetary skirmishes.
The Ethernaut's Armory: A massive catalog of Space 1889: After equipment, tools, and gear, all fully adapted with native 5e stats.
Characters don't just fight their way through opposition, they must also navigate social mores, tinker with fantastic devices, pilot ships through gravity storms, and endure rugged journeys across alien landscapes. Each of these activities is given equal weight in the rules.
The player characters form a Crew, and they start play with their own ether-flier by default, so the entire setting is theirs to explore.
In the default campaign setup, each character is a member of The Empyrean Society, a club dedicated to bringing together extraordinary individuals from all the different nations and planets with the goal of exploring the outer worlds.
Play as an "ogre" (a Mr. Hyde-like character enhanced and twisted by science), a human, a Martian, a Venusian, an ancient clockwork automaton from Mars, or a mysterious inhabitant of the moon. Characters from different planets, cultures, and backgrounds work toward a common goal, but still have room to pursue their individual agendas for their personal stories.
Dangers await in the ether! Face returning foes, such as the ancients from the destroyed planet Phaeton, and new threats, like the fanatical Masters of Energy.
The Great Dark is no longer a mystery to be feared; it is a frontier to be conquered by the bold. This adventure anthology collects four harrowing tales of discovery and danger that define the new era of Space 1889: After with the possibility of unlocking more through stretch goals. From the sun-scorched, signal-jammed wastes of Mercury to the ancient, machine-haunted husks of the Asteroid Belt, these missions will test the limits of your Crew’s ingenuity and the hull-plating of your ether-flier.
Blackshell Hell
One of the Blueshell Cenoates on Aethra shows signs of a dangerous mutation, or perhaps even real-time evolution, into a ravenous, rock-consuming beast of prodigious appetite and staggering reproduction. In a short time it will consume that asteroid, and perhaps any people or objects that get in its way, and then threatens other nearby asteroids or even the interior planets themselves, if the new Blackshells are not confronted and neutralized.
Hotter than Hell
There’s a strange signal coming from somewhere on the Hot Side of Mercury, and it’s disrupting the navigation of incoming etherfliers. A recent newspaper ad has offered a generous reward to anyone who can silence the signal, and your crew has answered the call.
The Dire Engines of Aethra
This adventure takes the Crew out to the far reaches of the asteroid field, and brings them into contact with ancient machines from the times of the Phaetons. On the asteroid Aethra they find technology, treasure, information about a schism between the Phaetons, and signs that the ancients still pose a threat to the solar system.
This is potentially a very dangerous mission. It takes the Crew far out towards the Asteroid Belt where Supply limits can be a significant factor, and there's little hope of outside help. Ship combat is a necessity, and the machines inhabiting Aethra are murderers. The rewards of surviving a trip to Aethra are numerous. The fragment contains vital information about the Phaetons, several rare device parts, and all the plunder the mechine-men have amassed in the last decade.
The Crimson Idol of Aeru-Besh
The Crew is tasked with locating a missing Society explorer, Lady Imogene Hartnell, who vanished while investigating reports of a “Crimson Idol” near Aaru-Besh. However, they soon uncover a growing cult known as the Whispering Flame, and must confront both its alluring ideology and the true nature of the artifact at its center.
As the tension mounts, the Crew receives new orders from the Society: seize the idol, eliminate the cult, and silence any resistance. But Lady Hartnell is no victim, and the idol is no mere relic. Ancient Phaetonian Intelligence stirs in the dust, offering a seductive vision of peace at a terrible price.
Immerse yourself in your adventures with the Space 1889: After Map Book featuring key locations, ship decks, and alien outposts. This Map Book has 8.5" x 11" pages with 1-inch square maps and a spiral binding so it stays perfectly flat at the table.
The original GDW Space 1889 was released in 1988, along with Sky Galleons of Mars, a compatible board game that detailed battles between the stately airships of that planet. Supplements and a 1990 computer game added even more depth and lore.
After GDW closed their doors, Heliograph Games kept Space 1889 alive, and in 2010, Pinnacle Entertainment produced the Red Sands Plot Point Campaign ™ for Space 1889 in the Savage Worlds system. German publisher Uhwerk Verlag acquired the license in 2012 and began to print an updated version of the game that used the Ubiquity system, first in German and then later in English. Throughout this time, a series of audio books and novels under the Space 1889 & Beyond banner continued to tell stories in and after the main setting.
With four publishers, three game systems, and multiple media continuities, remaining true to what came before while creating the next chapter was no simple task. After all, thirty years of deep (and sometimes conflicting) lore is part of what's so enticing about the setting.
Space 1889: After meets this challenge by moving forward and putting players in the vanguard of rediscovering the planets of the inner worlds and beyond. The alternate histories of previous Space 1889 games inform what these new explorers might expect to find... The crux of the game is about what they actually find instead!
We’ve completed the writing, the rules are polished, and the art is finished. Now, we are returning for one primary mission: Quality. By backing this campaign, you are helping us create a library-quality book featuring:
Vibrant Color Depth: Offset lithography provides superior color reproduction, ensuring the boilerplate and brass aesthetic shines with rich, crisp detail.
Built to Last: Smyth-sewn binding and premium paper stock mean your rulebook will lay flat at the table and survive years of heavy campaign play without losing pages.
A Collector’s Essential: This isn’t just a manual; it’s a physical artifact of the Empyrean Society
