Player's Handbook
So, you signed the contract
Maybe you’re running from a debt on Earth. Maybe you pissed off a Nephilim in Neo-Kyoto and need to lay low for a few decades. Or maybe you just believed the brochures about "A New Life in the Colonies."
Whatever the reason, you’re here now. You’re on the Verge.
Forget what you saw on the vids. The Verge isn't a frontier of brave pioneers and golden wheat fields. It’s a scrapyard. It’s the rust-bucket edge of civilization where the Corporate Hegemony dumps its trash, its secrets, and people like us.
Here, the air costs credits, the water tastes like recycled sweat, and nobody is coming to save you.
THE DEAL
You know the score. The Core Worlds: Earth, Vesper, Alpha Centauri and Epsilon Eridani, are paradise, assuming you can afford the subscription. The rich live forever in custom-grown designer sheaths, sipping wine while their Shards are backed up daily.
You? You’re meat. If you die out here, you stay dead. Your "Core Shard," if you have one, is likely mortgaged to Monolith or Thalamus, and if you default, they’ll slot your soul into a sanitation drone to work off the interest.
You want freedom? You want to buy your own life back? Then you fly. You take the jobs the Corps won't touch. You haul illicit cargo to TRAPPIST-1. You salvage derelict husks in the 55 Cancri belt. You run the blockade at Gliese.
THE DARK
But here’s the thing the brochures didn't tell you. Space isn’t empty.
In the Core, they use Jumpgates. Clean. Instant. Sterile. They pretend the universe is safe. But out here, we use the Shift Drive. We don't fold space; we dive into it. We drag our ships through the Gloom, the psychic ocean that lies underneath reality. Yeah, they call it the Subshit-Quantum Manifold but everyone out here knows what it really is.
When the Drive spins up, you’re going to feel it. A pressure behind your eyes. A taste of copper. A voice you almost recognize whispering your worst memories.
Rule #1: Respect the Gloom. It is not weather. It is not radiation. It is listening.
Rule #2: Protect the Gilder. See that weird, pale guy in the suspension chair? The one with the black eyes and no cybernetics? He is the only reason you don't turn inside out during a Jump. He steers the ship through the nightmares. You keep him alive, you keep him calm, and you never, ever interrupt him when he’s in the Trance.
THE THREATS
You think pirates are your biggest problem? Cute.
Out here, things are... wrong. You’ll find ships floating dead with the airlocks sealed from the inside. You’ll find colonies that went dark overnight, leaving half-eaten meals on the table.
If the comms start buzzing and the text on your screens starts shifting into shapes that hurt your eyes... run. If you see a crewmate acting strange; staring at mirrors, scratching at their skin, talking in a voice that sounds like two stones grinding together, that ain't your crewmate anymore.
And if that wasn’t enough, the Big Dick Company is digging up things on the outer planets. Ancient things. Something non-human… If you see something with too many limbs and no eyes, don't fight it. Vent the atmosphere. Burn the room. Nuke the site.
YOUR CREW
Look to your left and right.
The Soldier is twitching because his cyber-arm is reacting to the local static. The Netrunner looks exhausted because she spent all night fighting ICE just to get you a landing permit. The Engineer is currently holding the life-support system together with duct tape and prayer. The Medic is high on their own supply because it’s the only way to stop their hands from shaking.
They are broken. They are dangerous. They are expensive. But they are the only family you have.
Check your O2. Check your bunny suit. Load your weapon.
It's time to explore!
