# Ashen Stars tags: #game/rpg/ashen-stars ![[Ashen Stars (cover).jpg|600]] **Ashen Stars** is the **[[Gumshoe|GUMSHOE]]** system's space-opera outing, written by Robin D. Laws and published by Pelgrane in 2011 — a gritty take on the genre where the player characters are freelance troubleshooters, the *Lasers*, working the far edge of a galaxy still scarred by war. It's *Firefly* in tone and *Law & Order* in structure: the crew takes an assignment, shows up somewhere broken, solves the mystery, and moves on, the investigation engine repurposed into an investigative sci-fi procedural. Along the way it proves that GUMSHOE, the "you literally cannot miss the clue" system, travels perfectly into space — which is exactly why it was nominated for the 2011 Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game. ## Setting The action plays out across the **Bleed**: a region of space that took the brunt of a devastating interstellar conflict and is now full of wounded worlds, damaged societies, and leftover secrets. The Lasers are freelance troubleshooters — hired guns / freelance sheriffs who get an assignment, unravel whatever mystery the case-of-the-week throws at them, and drift on. It's the "Have starship, will travel" model, and the Bleed's scarred, frontier character keeps the tone grounded and morally gray rather than shiny heroics. The game supports both the episodic planet-of-the-week structure and longer *Station Duty* campaigns where the crew is permanently assigned to one troubled system. ## Mechanics Ashen Stars runs the core **GUMSHOE** engine (see the meta note): **investigative abilities** locate clues without a roll so the case can never dead-end, **general abilities** resolve uncertain physical/action outcomes with 1d6 against a difficulty, and **spends** from ability pools buy bonus detail or bump results. Onto that investigative trunk it grafts space-faring extras — **spacecraft** rules, forensic and technical investigative abilities, and the genre furniture of a sci-fi mystery. The investigative heart means the drama is in interpreting what you *do* find and deciding what to do with it, not in rolling to find a clue; in space, nobody can hear you miss a roll. ## Editions - **2011** — the original *Ashen Stars* core book, by Robin D. Laws. *In the library.* - A long tail of **scenarios, "Station Duty" setting supplements**, and scenario hooks (with the *State of Preservation* and other releases through the 2020s) fills out the line. ## References - [Ashen Stars — Pelgrane Press](https://pelgranepress.com/category/products/ashen-stars-products/) - [Ashen Stars — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashen_Stars) - [GUMSHOE System — Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gumshoe_System)