After not giving it a lot of attention when it first came out (ttrpgs have definitely taken a back seat the last couple of months) I checked out Firelights by Fari RPGs and the Creator Kit. I thought of it while tossing around some ideas for a Metroid-esque ttrpg (I've been playing the Metroid Prime Remaster lately). It's not the system I settled on for my Metroid ttrpg, but I had another idea for what I wanted to do with it.
I like it! It's a solid solo system that is easily reskinnable and allows a lot to be communicated in a small space. I hope and expect to see many more games made with Firelights (the Firelights Jam is at 29 entries as I type this!). The condensed brochure style of it makes it extremely hackable much in the same way Lasers & Feelings and a lot of one-page games are.
So, what did I do with Firelights? Let me introduce you to Eousi: Solarium.
An Eousi Immortal seeks to reclaim an ancient home
Almost exactly a year ago I put out Eousi for the Hack It! 3d6D TTRPG Jam which was a jam aimed at generating a bunch of games using Lucky Newt Games' Diversified system (which was called 3d6Diversify at the time). Diversified works really well with characters wielding superpowers so I made a Hotshots spin-off that followed the "Jedi" of the setting I've been building for that game.
Reborn of the Sun; A 3d6D Space Fantasy RPG
What resulted were the sun-drenched, punk rock cultists who drink the molten blood of their sun god in order to get all sorts of solar powers. Many die in the process (a fact reflected in the possibility of death in character creation). The most powerful Eousi are Immortals who can easily incinerate most mortals, slay dragons, survive the vacuum of space, and be resurrected by being placed inside a sun.
Eousi: Solarium is a new game in the Eousi series that puts the player in the shoes of one of these Immortals, tasked to explore and reclaim an ancient abandoned solarium (think Jedi temple) from the imperials and monsters that guard it. You will travel the halls of the solarium powering up cradles, mystic machines that each hold a piece of your sun god Eous' power.
What I found easy was rewriting the rules to fit the setting. What was most fun was reworking some of the Actions. Many of these were small changes, but provided lots of opportunities to tweak mechanics and balance. While one could certainly just swap out any setting specific words, I did take it a little further and added some of my own mechanics that specifically fit the Eousi experience including using Light to enhance rolls and a checkpoint system.
The part I had the hardest time with was the tables that are meant to inspire what the areas you discover are like. I think in the original Firelights game, these tables feel the least mechanically connected to the rest of game to me. They definitely grew on me as I played and used them, but still felt a little floaty compared to other parts of Firelights. I ended up doing something different with mine by having each card represent a different kind of room, blending tenants of Eousi represented by suits and other ideas represented by the cards' values to make a specific theme for each room. The sheer number of combinations of evocative themes is definitely reduced, but it helped me feel like I was on more solid ground with what each room was as I visited them and felt less like an extra thing to do on top of the other moving pieces of the game.
I'm really proud of how Eousi: Solarium turned out and am really pleased with the Guided by Firelights system! I have other ideas for it that I don't know if I'll complete any time soon, but hope to eventually see through. If you're interested in checking out other Guided by Firelights game or even doing some of your own designing, check out the Firelights Jam on itch.io!
A game jam from 2023-03-01 to 2023-05-01 hosted by Fari RPGs (René-Pier Deshaies). Firelights Jam Firelights is a condensed and open license
Eousi: Solarium will be free for the remainder of the Firelights Jam.
I've been working on this cover for the past like, 24 hours. But I kept getting in my head about it and overthinking, and I kept trying to make something that looked perfect, and so I kept coming up short. I finally decided to stop mucking about with fancy backgrounds and go for the same vibe as the ol' books, and I stumbled upon a design that I really heckin like.
