Species Guidelines

The universe of Orion Sphere is vast and filled with a tremendous variety of sentient life, giving a lot of freedom to players who want to create their own Species. This page contains guidelines for creating and submitting a new Species to the Game Team. It also includes the type of information that is most helpful to us when creating a new Species, as well as a few restrictions and themes we would rather players avoid.

• All Species are linked with a single Faction. All species must be linked with one of the existing four Factions - which is the faction that the species is most associated with. This is likely the Faction that first encountered them or the one that controls the area where they evolved. Characters that are members of a species start the game as part of that Faction, although this may change during play.
• Each Species is distinctive. A new species must be highly distinguishable from the Core Species – Terrans, Tulaki and Elysians as a minimum requirement. They must also be distinguishable from other existing playable species if at all possible. Therefore all new species must include at least some Species Trappings that unambiguously distinguishes themselves from other species. So, very human-seeming aliens like the Betazoids in Star Trek (whose only distinguishing feature is their lack of an ocular iris) will be refused. Same goes for reptilians who might be confused for Tulaki (unless you incorporate significant other elements like feathers or similar), or pointy-eared humanoids who resemble Elysians. Creating a new species is a good excuse for you to use cool and elaborate costume, which we would encourage.
• Alien Species should have unique abilities that reflect their physiology, history, etc. Each new species should have distinct elements that allow it to stand out from others. Once a new species is created, it becomes part of the in-character setting of Orion Sphere LRP, and other players will be able to create characters of that species. In a universe full of variety, each species needs to have strong hooks and incentives to play them for people other than yourself. This might be an interesting set of Trappings, some cool background characterisation, or anything else, but in most cases the strongest incentives are mechanical - abilities that members of that species can do that others cannot. There is massive scope for interesting abilities that reflect and reinforce what makes it interesting to roleplay being a member of an alien species - we want playing an alien in OSLRP to feel alien, rather than a human with a bumpy forehead.
  • Some interesting examples of things that a Species can potentially do can be found on the Cradian, Ikunkuma and Raegar pages.
• New Species, or elements of them, can be vetoed or altered by the Game Team. Please contact us if you want to create a new species to play – we would like to integrate your characterisation into the game, but there may be some elements or themes that don’t fit into the game world or that we would rather not see explored. We are unlikely to say no to a concept, but may have some alterations to allow it to fit into the setting.

When you create a new species to include in the game, it must first be submitted to the Game Team and approved before it can be used in play. Usually, this involves a dialogue between you and the Game Team to work out how your concept can work within the rules and setting of the game. As such, it helps to have at least an idea of the following things when you make your submission:

• Preferred Faction
• Some history and cultural background of the species prior to being encountered by a Faction
• What makes the species distinctive and different - why would people want to play as this species?
• Species Trapping ideas.

You don't have to have all of these elements in your submission, but the more you can think about and work out beforehand the easier a time the Game Team will have to figure out what you're going for and working out something that you and others will have fun with and that fits into the rest of the game setting.

While there is a lot of freedom to create new species, there are a few themes and topics that players should avoid, as they will make it extremely difficult for their species concept to be approved. These topics include the following;

• Themes that violate the Conduct rules - We will not accept any new species that involves breaking any of the game rules regarding conduct and unacceptable topics. See the Conduct rules for more details.
• Cybernetics - In the Orion Sphere LRP setting, cybernetics and technology directly integrated with living bodies is rare. The Corporeal Perfection Syndicate is the only source of truly effective cybernetics. While other factions and groups have developed cybernetics to a greater or lesser extent, these tend to be poor quality and plagued with issues - requiring frequent maintenance, special substances to work, or having a poor neural interface with the host. Although characters may roleplay having these lesser cybernetics as part of their character concept, they are minor aspects of individual characters - the future equivalent of “old war wounds” or similar. True, useful cybernetics must be purchased and installed in-game by the Corporeal Perfection Syndicate's agents, and come with dedicated rules. As such, new species that involve heavy cybernetic themes are unlikely to be accepted.
• Ancient Species or Precursors - In the Orion Sphere LRP setting, there are numerous examples of ancient civilisations that spanned large areas of the galaxy, but none of their people survive to the present. Every current space-faring species developed their civilisation at roughly the same time, give or take a few thousand years. Absolutely no civilisation that developed faster-than-light travel is older than 10,000 years, and the ones that took to the stars prior to humans never did so to the extent of building a large star empire equivalent to any of the Factions. Discovering more about the cultures of the Precursors, and what actually happened to them all, is one of the major mysteries of the setting. As such, while species can exist among the ruins of poorly understood Precursor technology (such as the Etherna), they cannot retain any knowledge of the Precursors handed down to the current time in any kind of useful form.
• Artificial Intelligence - AI is limited in the Orion Sphere LRP setting. While powerful computational devices exist (on the level of the ship computers in Star Trek), truly intelligent AI - Artificial General Intelligence - has proven to be very hard to create. The most advanced known General AI's developed by the Factions have the equivalent intelligence of a 5 year-old human child, and that is with millions of pre-programmed cues and processes to give it a basic mental structure to build from. The Factions represent the most technologically advanced beings in known space, so no species in the recent (10,000-years) timeframe of the game developed more powerful AI. Anything prior to this point hits the “no Ancient Species” guidance. New Species cannot be AI's or purely artificial beings. However, the characteristics and tropes of AIs in media can be arrived at in other ways - servility, a preference for logic, metal bodies, uniform appearance - these are all aspects that can be applied to a species in other ways. Evidence of more powerful Artificial General Intelligence may be introduced to the game via plotlines or through player action and invention.
• Hybrids or Crossbreeds - OSLRP takes relatively little artistic license with evolution and genetics. The various species of the OS-Verse evolved separately on very different worlds, and their genetics are basically incompatible, no matter how physically closely they resemble each other. There are a few reasons for this; firstly players need to be able to tell if you're a member of a certain alien species, so that they can work out what to expect from you as a character; second, the idea of half-X characters is much more closely linked to the fantasy genre than the sci-fi genre materials that OSLRP is inspired by; and thirdly as each species comes with a set of powers and unique abilities you effectively need to be one or the other at any given time within the rules. Even with the possibility of changing species (which can happen in-game) - you always either one species for the purposes of the rules, or you are another (apart from a short transition period where your character is most likely Having a Bad Time because of their unstable genome).
  • As an off-shoot of this point, romantic cross-species relationships are perfectly viable, if uncommon. As is adoption (among dangerous starship life it's even relatively common). However, assuming that they even have similar enough equipment (which is below the abstraction layer), a cross-species couple cannot produce viable offspring. In theory you could submit a species that can, but this is very unlikely to have any impact on the game, and is likely to be rejected as an element of the submission unless there is a very specific good reason for it.