[Review] Solar Smith And The Sky-Pirates Of Arcturus

ghost-angel · September 18, 2007

The Upside:

Solar Smith And The Sky-Pirates Of Arcturus is a mini-setting for Pulp Hero and Star Hero, a Pulp Science Fiction setting. It imagines a world where space travel was made possible through discoveries of Hugo Gernsback and Robert Goddard. With this new rocket technology using the Aether mankind took to the stars.

Mankind Among The Stars. The setting starts, appropriately enough, with a short history of how mankind got into space travel to begin with. With that we have the space forces of each of the major nations to go into space, the United States, France, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, and The Soviet Union. Along with the space forces there is a short bit on related agencies, Rocket-Men (what's Pulp SF without rocket packs after all), Planetary forces, and Spies.

The Human Stellar Empire. Mankind has populated the Solar System, and beyond. Encountering native aliens as they go. Starting with the Solar System get an overview of the colonies on each planet and moon, and information on the native aliens. Hero System Package Deals for the various aliens are presented in the side-bars. Extra-solar planets and colonies are next, describing six systems mankind has taken possession of and which nation owns them.

And then there is Earth's only rival in space, the Dracon Empire. Who, unlike Earth, a single united people under one rule. They are, in classic Pulp style, almost indistinguishable from humans. The few differences are aesthetic, odd colored hair for instance, and two stomachs. The only thing keeping the Dracon Empire from over running Earth is that Earthlings have slightly better technologies.

Lastly, there is the Frontier. This is where Arcturus and the Pirates are described.

Technology. In proper Pulp fashion we start out with the most important thing - Rocketships. Going over propulsion (rockets for normal travel and Aetherial Sails for Faster-Than-Light travel) first, and the dynotronic brain (computer) second. The Dynotronic Brain is essentially a plot device and is not detailed mechanically. Then we have weapons, rockets employ two basic weapons. The Klystron Beam, which is essentially a big energy gun. In classic Pulp fashion every major political power has a slight variation on their beam and a different colored beam. It's a cool touch that let's you know you're firmly in a Pulp setting. The other weapon is a Space Torpedo, which is a little rocket and nothing too fancy. Of course, defenses from these weapons are covered next. To help visualize Steve has provided a page with illustrations of various Rocketships (Dracon, German and American Rocketships side by side).

Rocketship Combat goes over just how to handle combat in the setting - mostly covering what you shouldn't pay attention to (pretty much anything that smacks of "realistic space combat" - it's Pulp!). Shipboard Life covers a basic crew of a mid-sized rocket, and what goes on on a rocketship in space. Five sample ships write-ups are provided (American, German, Dracon, Merchant and Pirate Rocketships) to get you started.

Personal Technology is next. The Electric Pistol is the classic ray-gun (with pictures provided), and like the Klystron Beam every nation has it's own variation and colored beam. There's also an Electron Sword, so you can have daring sword fights to go along with running ray-gun fights. There' also a cool Shield Belt to help defend yourself from enemy Electric Pistol fire. The Dynotronic Translator is an invaluable tool in helping Rocketship crews conduct diplomacy. What pulp game would be complete without rocket packs? None! so one is detailed here, which are pretty cool devices for the setting. A space suit and transplanetary radio round out the collection of equipment.

Characters. This is a collection of NPCs for the setting. Captain Solar Smith and his crew are the good guys details (six characters in all). And five adversaries for the PCs are detailed as well. These characters serve as good benchmarks for players in setting up characters in a pulp setting, and also serve to illustrate how a full group of six people can each have a role on a Rocketship crew.

Campaigning. This chapter covers setting up a Solar Smith game, with guidelines for Character Creation. Ten plot seeds are given to help kick start a game and provide some ideas to tie in. The last part is the GMs Vault which contains secrets and answers to mysteries from the rest of the setting.

The Downside:

With "Sky Pirates" in the title I expected more on Space Piracy than was presented. How it worked, the dangers of it, a few NPCs and pirate's space rockets. That kind of thing.

The Otherside:

A good chunk of this PDF is presented without any system information. Anyone looking for an classic Pulp Science Fiction setting need only to pick this up.

Aside from the lack of piracy information this is a cool setting that captures the Pulp Sci-Fi of early science fiction quite well. For such a short product there's a lot of information here to boot.

Steve Long · September 19, 2007