Playtest Alpha— unfinished and still changing.

Wanderstar

A sci-fi tabletop RPG about the people who don't stay put — completely free to read and play.

Generations ago a sunless rogue planet swept through the solar system, and humanity rode it out across the dark toward a distant galaxy it now calls the Shore. You play Wanderers — drifters, scouts, fixers, and survivors living at the edges of the worlds that crossing left behind. Roll the dice, add your skill, and let Advantage, Momentum, and the weight of past trauma shape what happens next.

Why Wanderstar§

  • No hit points. Harm lands as trauma on two tracks — body and mind — and a bad day can mark you for good.
  • The players roll; the world doesn't. One simple 2D6 check (roll + skill, beat 8) resolves everything — including the blows aimed at you.
  • Edges, not modifiers. Characteristics grant Advantage or Disadvantage (roll 3D6, keep the best or worst two) instead of fiddly numbers, and Momentum lets you press your luck.
  • A GM, or none at all. Built from the ground up for GM-led, co-op, and solo play, with a built-in oracle that stands in for a GM.
  • Four peoples, one voyage. Play a cryo-frozen Sleeper, an underground-evolved Wanderborn, an old-money Seeder, or an engineered-animal Companion.

Where to start§

  • Play in ten minutes — the Quickplay set: pre-generated characters and the whole game on a couple of pages. Also a printable PDF and a one-page Cheatsheet.
  • Run your first session — The Cold Lantern, a complete, ready-to-run starter adventure that teaches the engine in one sitting.
  • Build a Wanderer — the interactive companion app (character generator, GM hex-map canvas, and a built-in oracle), or walk through the Creating a Wanderer chapters by hand.
  • Read the whole game — the Core Rulebook, available for free.

What you need§

A GM and up to five players — or play solo or co-op with no GM at all. Bring a few six-sided dice, something to write with, and a few hours.

Wanderstar: The Sunless Saga

The four campaigns form The Sunless Saga — the line's connected through-arc, named for the Wanderstar itself: a people with no sun, tending their own light across the dark. Each is a flame against that cold — a dying lantern, a false light, dead air, a frozen crown. Built on the Core Rulebook and running from a one-shot to a year-long sandbox, they play as one continuous saga in order (WC00 → WC01 → WC02 → WC03) or each on its own, GM-led, co-op, or solo. Full index: Campaigns.

  • The Cold Lantern (WC00) — the starter one-shot (a verbatim copy of Rulebook Ch. 36): a dying frontier station freezing to death as its core-tap fails, run in a single session to teach the engine. The on-ramp into False Light.

  • False Light (WC01) — a Coldwake Reach sector frame + three connected scenarios teaching the modes the starter adventure doesn't: Dead Reckoning (ships, jump & space combat), The Spread (the merchant loop), and Greywell (the salvage crawl). Continues The Cold Lantern in any of its endings.

  • Dead Air (WC02) — a medium, more-linear ~15-session campaign bridging False Light and The Frozen Crown: a courier carries a fragment of Wanderstar's last transmission across The Throat while the company NULL hunts them. Touches every pillar of play, weighted by its story; zero new rules.

  • The Frozen Crown (WC03) — a large open sandbox in the Driftmarch sector built to run a year or more: a moon-sized derelict Sleeper ark the crew comes into a contested claim on, seven powers circling, and the question of what to make of it — crown, council, or commons. Party-agnostic; one flagged optional base-building subsystem, otherwise zero new rules.

License§

Wanderstar © 2026 Troy Goode. Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) — you are free to share and adapt the material for any purpose, even commercially, as long as you give appropriate credit. Game mechanics and rules systems are not subject to copyright; this license covers the specific text, setting, and creative expression. Suggested attribution: "Based on Wanderstar by Troy Goode, used under CC BY 4.0." Full terms in the Credits & License chapter.