To them, the war isn't over.
It has only just begun.
Equinox is a science-fiction/fantasy hybrid Tabletop Game by Vagrant Workshop. Originally intended as the far future of the world of Earthdawn and Shadowrun, changes in ownership made it into a stand-alone game. It was released as a system-independent setting, but two official rules systems were provided: the Match System (in the general vein of WEG's d6 System, with inspirations from Fate and Burning Wheel), and the Storyguide System (a more rules-light system based on the Freeform Universal system).
Almost six hundred years ago, the mystic spheres orbiting Earth and all its major colony worlds exploded. The spheres, intended to drain off magic to prevent demons from being able to cross over as the power of the mystic field grew, instead became the demons' entry point. This was the Purge, when billions of people died as the spheres exploded, spraying corrupted magic and destruction across all of humanity's most-developed planets. The mystic connections to Earth were severed, isolating the colonies from each other, as they could only connect to each other through the Earth nexus.
The colonies regained communication with each other via 'synths', robotic bodies that people could project to across the systems. Using the synths, the strongest remaining colonies founded the Consortium in a desperate attempt to survive attacks by bizarre hybrid ships that were fully combat-capable even when outside the mystic field of a planet.
The turning point came when the first Shanrazi hybrid ship was captured. The Shanrazi were a human subspecies, mutated by the demons into a weapon. The Shanrazi created a variant of the mystic spheres that could bring a small mystic field along with a spaceship, giving it access to mystic abilities while in the void of space, normally a mystically-dead area.
This "Nethertech" was expanded upon by Consortium scientists, who built hybrid attack ships that could be used to bring the fight to the Shanrazi. The Shanrazi primary base was Earth, whose astral signature had changed from the massive destruction the demons had caused.
The Great Netherwar began when the Consortium massed their forces and attacked the Earth Nexus. The massed Consortium fleet destroyed the demonic sphere above Earth, but the explosion knocked the Moon from its orbit, causing it to crash into the Earth and shatter them both. A gigantic asteroid field was created, as the destruction sucked in pieces of other ravaged worlds; the Earth mystic field expanded to cover the entire belt.
As interests in the Consortium jockeyed for prominence in the Earth system, it was decided to form a Protectorate to run the system, managed by Consortium delegates. Gateway Station, a giant ring wrapping around the Earth belt, was constructed as its headquarters and the primary point of entry to the Earth system.
Now, the Protectorate is nominally in charge of the Earth system, but its control gets more and more tenuous the further you get from Gateway Station. Vagrants operate outside of their view, looking for lost relics and data from before the Purge. The Protectorate has pushed for independence, only to be slapped down by the Consortium, but there is still a lot of tension brewing as the Protectorate gains power.
Compare to Eclipse Phase, another game that came from the attempt to create a future setting for Earthdawn and Shadowrun.
Tropes found in Equinox include:
- After the End: Civilization as it was known ended 579 years ago, with the Purge. Earth was destroyed 134 years ago during the Great Netherwar.
- Always Chaotic Evil: Demons. Shanrazi are viewed this way by many, due to having been created by demons, but many of them have broken away and are just people.
- Artificial Human: Synths could be this or more of a Robot. or anywhere in between.
- Background Magic Field: Mystic fields come in two types: natural ones, found on planets, that ebb and flow over time, and artificial ones formed by Shanrazi technology, which are used to provide spaceships and stations with fields that will keep magical equipment (and people) functioning. Babies conceived and gestated in a natural mystic field may have metagenes express themselves, being born as a human subspecies.
- Defector from Decadence: Many who leave the Consortium, often fleeing repression to become Vagrants.
- Earth That Was: Earth was shattered in the Great Netherwar. Earth's mystic field now encompasses the asteroid belt that it has become.
- Fantastic Racism: The Shanrazi are considered to be little more than demonic puppets by many, especially the Nim.
- Gone Horribly Right: In an attempt to keep demons from breaking through during Equinox, humans created gigantic Moon-sized spheres that would drain the magic from the world, keeping it below the Equinox's threshold. Unfortunately, that meant that the magic level inside the spheres was even higher than the threshold. The demons just crossed over there, overloading the spheres and causing them to explode, devastating the planets they orbited and killing billions.
- Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: Faster-than-light travel goes through the Astral Plane, home of demons and other terrors.
- Lost Common Knowledge: Much pre-Purge data was lost because it was held in mystic/technological hybrid crystals that were destroyed by the mystic field surge of the Purge.
- The Magic Goes Away: Natural mystic fields ebb and flow over a period of millennia. Venus's is almost gone at the moment. Once a mystic field goes away, ships can no longer get to that planet from the astral plane, rendering it inaccessible if one can't get there in normal space. At a mystic field's peak - Equinox - demons can cross over from astral space.
- Mayan Doomsday: Earth (or, rather, the Earth Belt) is described as being in the Eighth World, a reference to Earthdawn and Shadowrun being set in the Fourth and Sixth Worlds, respectively. These numbers are based on the Mayan calendar.
- Mutant Draft Board: Mystics born in the Consortium are forced to join a Mystic Order for training and then put to work for the good of the Consortium. Mystics fleeing this are one of the reasons why the Sol System has a higher percentage of mystics than any other.
- No Endor Holocaust: Completely averted. The overloads of the spheres devastated the worlds beneath them, killing billions. The destruction of the Earth sphere during the Great Netherwar knocked the Moon out of its orbit, causing it to crash into the Earth and shatter them both.
- Portal Crossroad World: Most other worlds are only accessible from the Earth Belt; while Earth was held by demons, there was no way to move between the colony worlds, and even now things need to be transshipped through Earth space.
- Universal Universe Time: Played straight and subverted. A standard Consortium day is 24 hours, but a standard Consortium year is 336 days long (12 months of 28 days).
