Imagine spending your entire life living in one place, seeing the same people, eatting the same meals, doing the same things until the day you die. Now imagine there's another option. You can live by your witts at the edge of space. Every day is a new adventure, every evening a new intrigue. All it costs you is a bit of your security and a willingness to leap into the unknown. Is it dangerous? Yes. But that's part of the apeal, is it not?
After all, what's life without a bit of risk?
— Captain Emelyn Achenson, Spring's Endeavour
Welcome to Tycho Station, newbie. You've got a hungry look in those eyes; you're either inviting trouble, or you're going to be the trouble. Either way, I respect it. Not too many squeaks these days walking in with that much swagger. Most are just farm kids looking to get away from whatever backwater dirtball they were born on. They get a little money in their pocket and they think they can just come up here, sign up on a crew and somehow that's going to wash the dirt and shit off their boots? That ain't how it works.
You, though? Kid, you walked in here looking like you wanna own the place. Keep that glint in your eye, don't die, and who knows? You just might. Weirder shit's happened.
Say, buy a girl a drink, and I'll give you some tips on how to keep from ending up a cautionary tale. First lesson: ain't no such thing as free advice. Second lesson? The hotter she is, the more expensive your bar tab's about to be.
Hope you've got deep pockets, kid.
RFI: Freelancers is an RPG about living on the frontier of space where every world has its own laws, it's own customs, and it's own criminal elements. Mobsters, Warlords, Pirate Kings and Merchant Princes via for power and territory amongst the worlds while coalitions like the Highlands Cluster or the Confederacy of Freelance States try to add a level of stability and protection to this wild space. In the background, super powers like the League of Allied Worlds or the People's Republic of Terra have their own uses for these unclaimed worlds outside of their borders.
Freelancers takes place in a future where humanity has colonized a full third of our galaxy. The two major factions, The League of Allied Worlds and The People's Republic of Terra have been at war with each other for centuries, marked only by brief ceasefires. Early on, millions of people (the majority from the People's Republic of Terra) left both factions behind to head towards the galactic center. Over the intervening centuries, many colonies formed, populating the area with hundreds to thousands of independant worlds with little to no centralized government. In this space pirates, crime lords and other undesirables thrive.
This book will given you everything you need to play as a character in the RFI universe. The flavor and setting is tailored to focus on the Freelance space and stories set in this frontier area of space. We have taken care to make sure that it is easy for you to play as either someone new to the life (a 'squeak', because their gear is still 'squeaky clean'), or as a wisen veteran with a long history (and even longer rap sheet).
Your ship (whether you own it, or are just crewing on it) is likely to be an old, heavily modified craft full of salvaged parts and even more squawks (i.e. glitches). You can think of famous ships from other science fiction series that fit this mold exactly. These great "hunks of junk" that "have it where it counts" are the perfect storytelling vehicle for the kinds of games and characters this book is suited to. It'll give you the tools to build whatever ship you can imagine, and even get one or two less-than-legal modifications along the way, all while keeping it well inside the range where there's always a bigger ship and sometimes you just have to cut and run.
The goal of this rest of this book it to give you everything you need to tell interesting stories in this universe within the framework of the RFI:Freelancers. If something isn't covered here, but can be found on this wiki, it's fair game for inclusion.