Image by Worlds by Watt
CLOUD EMPRESS, a MOTHERSHIP RPG Setting | Hexcrawl Sandbox
Cloud Empress is an ecological science fantasy game about being one small part of a vast and mysterious ecosystem. Explore, survive, love, protect.
$20.00
/ Session
Details
2 players following this game
Weekly / Sunday - 1:00 AM UTC
Session Duration / 3–4 hours
Campaign Length / 4–10 Sessions
1 / 5 Seats Filled
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Meet your party members
1/5
About the adventure
“Cloud Empress is an ecological science fantasy campaign setting for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG that places you in a world ruled by the patterns of giant psychic cicadas. Cloud Empress creates a new Earth, thousands of years in the future inspired by Hayao Miyazaki’s Nausicaa in the Valley of the Wind, Frank Herbert’s Dune, and Hiromu Arakawa’s Full Metal Alchemist. Cloud Empress imagines the far future. Find a way to thrive, live, and love in the psychic wreckage of Earth among the junk of the ancient people who abandoned it.” -Watt, Creator of Cloud Empress This is a rules light, story-driven experience in a sandbox as deep as it is vast. The adventure takes place in a period of upheaval amidst habitual war and centennial cicada catastrophe. There has been a tenuous balance between the Cloudlings above, their floating cities' umbilical cords to the stars long severed, and the Farmerlings below, tilling the poisoned earth that feeds the world. But now the Cloudlings wage war in search of their kidnapped Cloud Empress, and the world-reshaping cicada century swarm has come a full decade early. Will you seek out your missing Empress? Make sure she is never found, dead or alive? Fight or placate the cicadas and their mysterious god-like prince? Or will you avoid all that messy business as best you can and keep living as you always have, season to season, day by day, in a land as dangerous as it is beautiful? Together we’ll build our own story for a campaign focused on regular folks in a magical land fighting to survive the most tumultuous summer in a century. Beginners and veterans alike welcome!
Game style
Hexcrawl / Exploration
Roleplay Heavy
Rule of Cool (RoC)
Theater of the Mind
Game themes
Meet the Game Master
4 years on StartPlaying
Highly rated for: Creativity, Inclusive, Teacher
About me
5 years ago I fell in love with RPGs and have been a forever DM ever since. I love teaching new players and guiding their characters on exciting, terrifying, and emotional adventures. I run a LGBTQ+ friendly table and believe deeply in the power fantasy of getting to help people and make a better world, plus slaying dragons. I take great inspiration from Dimension 20, Dungeons & Daddies (not a bdsm podcast), and D&D is for Nerds. Which is to say my natural state is improvising a narrative and compelling relationships while our train rockets off the rails into the limitless expanse of the unknown. I love to run DnD 5e for a variety of tastes not limited to grand globetrotting adventures, harrowing bounty hunting jobs, diving into dark dungeons, exploration of unseen lands, and on one occasion, demonic romance. I also Warden for Mothership 1E (plus Cloud Empress) for those who wish they were aboard the Nostromo in Alien, day dream of hunting Replicants with the Bladerunner Deckard, wanna ventilate some chooms with Edgerunners David and Rebecca, or protect the Valley of the Wind with Princess Nausicaä. Let’s go on an adventure!
View Profile →Character creation
Creating your character
Session Zero is for character building and determining the kind of adventure everyone wants to play. The rulebook and fillable character sheets are free to download here (https://cloudempress.com/books/) Cloud Empress can be a deadly game, so be prepared to possibly roll a new character every so often. I am happy to discuss a more intentionally built character if you have a specific idea in mind.
What to expect
Preparing for the session
You will need a free Discord account. I will send a link to my server. Mics are essential, webcams are optional, though extremely helpful. I will have mine on. If you have time to read the free rulebook before the first session, wonderful. If not, I've run several "learn as you play" adventures and love guiding people into new settings and systems.
What Sean (GM Garlic Bread) brings to the table
I will provide maps for understanding area layout. I embrace the Rule of Cool very often, but stick to the Rules as Written unless the player’s creativity is more compelling than facing a reasonable limitation. Also, being stunned forever or making a bad choice because you felt flustered or distracted in the moment is something I’m willing to roll back the clock on or throw you a bone over sometimes so everyone can have fun.
Homebrew rules
There is a Panic table result that forces you to retire your character, I tend to change this ruling to give characters more staying power.
Equipment needed to play
Computer
Internet
Microphone
Webcam
Pen & Paper
Platforms used
Safety
How Sean (GM Garlic Bread) creates a safe table
We're all here to have a good time and you can expect to not encounter anything darker than the heaviest moments in Nausica or Princess Mononoke Player agency is hugely important to me and so I want you to always feel in control of your adventure. After each session I will always hang in the chat afterwards to debrief, check-in, and ask how the campaign is going/what they are looking forward to. If there any accommodations or changes needed, I'm happy to help.
Content warnings
Safety tools used