Horus Ascendant: A Lancer game about Mech Pilots & Eldritch Math

Creating your character

This game is new player friendly at my table, open to all experience levels. Whether you've never piloted a mech in your life or you're a veteran Lance with hours in the cockpit, I will support you from Session 0 to the final mission. Meant for 4-6 Lancers. Sessions run 3-4 hours: 30 minutes of table chat split between a pre-game check-in and a post-game Roses and Thorns, two 15-minute breaks, and 3 hours of actual play. Basically a 3-hour game with breathing room. Character and mech creation will be handled during Session 0, which will not count toward your booking of 5-10 sessions. This gives us time to build your pilot, choose your frame, and make sure everyone understands the tone and direction of the campaign before the first mission drops. Pilots are built per the official Lancer rules and begin at LL0 — ground floor, fresh licenses, everything to prove. Players are encouraged to pick up a copy of the core book and support the developers. Lancer is pay-what-you-want on itch.io, so there's no barrier to entry. No frames are off the table. If you want to run a Horus build and lean into the strangeness of the setting, this is the campaign for it. If you'd rather play it straight and watch the weirdness close in around you, that works too. Bring me your concept — the frame, the pilot background, the reason your Lancer is out here at the edge of everything — and we'll build it together. If you've found a homebrew frame, talent, or piece of equipment in the community that speaks to your vision, bring it to me. If it fits the tone and doesn't break the table, there's likely a place for it. Think Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Event Horizon. Add the creeping dread of a Golden Age of Technology that wasn't supposed to wake back up. That's the frequency we're broadcasting our Omni-net Signal On. The Blink Gates await Lancer, Suit up!

Preparing for the session

Players will need a Foundry VTT account and Discord as well as access to CompCon (linked- https://compcon.app/ ) It'll help with chargen. that's how we run missions. I cover all hosting and supply every material you'll need at the table. Lancer's core book is also available pay-what-you-want on itch.io, so nothing stands between you and being prepared. Please send a friend request on Discord only after you have a confirmed seat, unless you have questions that need answering beforehand. Any attempts to circumvent StartPlaying.Games will result in a table ban. You're welcome to ask questions, but not to skirt the rules. This is a new player friendly, learner friendly campaign. If you've been curious about Lancer but haven't had a crew to run missions with, this is your table. Lancer uses a d20 system that will feel familiar to anyone with D&D experience, while offering a depth of mech customization that rewards players who want to dig into the details. You don't need to know every frame and license on day one — that's what Session 0 is for. Come with a concept, or come with nothing but curiosity. Either works. The universe is getting stranger by the day. Good time to find your footing before it gets stranger still.

What Yuthika "Fey" brings to the table

I bring to the table character voices, ambient music, high-grade tactical maps, and layered ambiance designed to pull you deep into a universe that is slowly, unmistakably coming apart at the seams. Every session is built to make you feel the weight of your frame, the hum of your NHP, and the particular silence that falls when something out there notices you back. I'm also a teaching GM, which means I firmly believe in bringing new pilots into the cockpit rather than leaving them to read the manual alone. Don't be afraid to come in with nothing more than a vague idea such as a frame aesthetic you like, a character concept half-formed, a feeling you want to chase. I will walk you through the rest. In addition to the Lancer Core Book, all three official Massif Press frame expansions are open at this table — No Room for a Wallflower, The Long Rim, and The Karrakin Trade Baronies. Every frame, talent, and piece of equipment across all four books is available to you during character creation. If you've had your eye on something from the Karrakin arsenals or a frame from the frontier, this is your chance to run it. Lancer rewards pilots who engage with its systems, and I'll make sure you have every tool you need to do that from day one.

Homebrew rules

All four official Massif Press books are the default foundation of this campaign — the Core Book, No Room for a Wallflower, The Long Rim, and The Karrakin Trade Baronies. These are the only materials in use at the table as a baseline. That said, the Lancer community has produced an enormous wealth of high-quality homebrew content, from custom frames, talents, weapons, systems, and NHP profiles that rival the official material in craft and creativity. If you find something out in the wild that fits your pilot concept and the tone of the campaign, bring it to me. The bar is simple: it should fit the setting's vibe and not break the table. If it clears both, there's likely a berth for it aboard. Given that this campaign leans into Horus aesthetics, cosmic strangeness, and a universe behaving in ways it shouldn't, well-crafted Horus-adjacent homebrew in particular is likely to find a warm welcome. Just flag it in Session 0 so we can look it over together before the first mission drops.

How Yuthika "Fey" creates a safe table

Your Safety Matters Lancer is not always a comfortable game. This campaign in particular deals with cosmic horror, existential dread, the erosion of trust in technology and in the minds that interface with it, and the particular weight of a war that may not be winnable. Themes of loss, trauma, and the unknown are woven into the fabric of what we're building together, and I take player wellbeing seriously regardless of where on the intensity spectrum a given session lands. Before we begin, we'll use Lines & Veils. You'll have the opportunity to set hard limits on content that should never appear at the table, as well as topics you'd prefer kept off-screen rather than depicted directly. These are respected without question and without explanation needed. If your lines and veils create a fundamental conflict with the direction of the campaign, I'll speak with you openly about what can be adjusted, or accept your departure with grace. My table operates on an Open Door Policy. At any point, if the content becomes too much, you are always free to step away, take a break, or leave the session entirely without judgment, no questions. Real people always come before the game. During our sessions I'll check in regularly, especially after heavier scenes. If things get intense, we breathe first and play second. At the close of every session we run Roses & Thorns which is a chance for everyone to share what landed and what didn't, keeping this a collaborative and comfortable table for the long haul. After each session I'll also follow up privately. Sometimes things hit differently once you've decompressed and logged off, and I want everyone to have space to raise anything they didn't feel comfortable mentioning at the table. This campaign is not for everyone. But for the right group it will be something that stays with you. The trigger warnings below are not a list of things that will appear in every session, but they are a list of things that could appear depending on the direction the story takes and the choices your pilots make out there in the dark. When in doubt, just say the word.