# Final Frontier *Created:* 2026-11-05, *Modified:* 2026-11-05 ![[Final Frontier (cover).jpg|600]] ## Setting The rim, where first contact is a business. **Final Frontier** adapts the **Wretched Space** setting into a standalone game about the people who go looking: survey crews, contact teams, salvagers and corporate operatives working the edge of settled space, where a lost colony or an unknown sophont is worth more than the ship that found it. Governments gave up on exploration because it is expensive and the teams get bribed or killed; the work went private, and the megacorps bought the results. It is the 39th century, and the map is drawn in rings. The **Galactic Federation** holds the Core Worlds from Aurora Prime out through the Inner Rim, its grip thinning to nothing in the Outer Rim, where rebels and the Blight syndicates do as they like. Off to one side sits the **Adityan Empire**, a closed network that claims to have seeded humanity by DNA experiment millennia ago and controls the **Fold-Gates** — near-instantaneous jumps that everyone else needs permission (or a Star Pilots Guild card, or ragnite) to use. Beyond the Outer Rim is Uncharted Space, where no gate reaches and FTL is the only way in. Between the great powers sit the independents: the Shogunate Alliance at Kamakura, the Hapsburg Alliance at Bohemia, the Consortium at Ceti Sunaris. Trade runs on the Federation Credit, the FSAA enforces what order there is, and the Federation Space Administration's authority stops roughly where the map does. The book opens with a first-contact account in the first person and keeps that voice — this is a game about exploitation dressed as discovery. Ten species are playable or present: the Adityan, androids and Dolphar, Gustora and humans, the Jegarni, Klarish, Pherat, Seraphani and Tzangi, each with its own section and rules for creating more. The Cosmic Exploration Society provides the institutional excuse, faction standing tracks what the powers think of you, and the gear chapter runs from sidearms to starships. ## Mechanics ### The MicroRed engine in space Attributes are the line's six on 3d6, skills are rated 1 to 5, and every attempt is 1d20 + skill level + attribute modifier against a Target Number, with untrained attempts limited to 1d20 + the modifier and complex work off the table without training. Archetypes carry the character's former life, perks and drawbacks trade off against each other one for one, and the Spectrum of Humanity measures how much augmentation and alien contact have moved a character away from baseline — with enhancements and milestones at each step. ### Species Species is a package, not a label. Each entry carries a requirement (Wits 9+ for Adityans, Intelligence 9+ for androids and Dolphars), a special ability, advantages and disadvantages, and a standing modifier with the factions that care. The Adityan gets psychic **Folding** for free plus a psionics specialisation, +2 to Knowledge: Paranormal Phenomena and +6 standing with the Adityan Star Empire — or −6 for a rebel — and pays for it with −2 on Influence against non-Adityans and a Social Stain. Androids and Bioroids do not age, eat or breathe, are repaired rather than healed, and Androids must obey hard-coded directives unless someone beats a Technical TN 20. Dolphars live in bodyshells rolled on a 1d10 table, from micro-gravity thrusters to a sealed exoskeleton. ### Standing, gear and ships Faction Standing is a separate scale that shifts with what the characters do and decides how the powers receive them; it runs from −30 (archnemesis) to +30 (exalted champion), with named bands in between — Favored at +15, Friendly at +6, Unfriendly at −6, Disliked at −15, Despised at −24 — and the book prices the movements: a completed mission is worth +3 to +9, a major betrayal −6 to −15. Acquisition rolls (1d20 + Acquisition Bonus + skill) decide what they can actually buy. Ships and vehicles get their own chapters, priced and statted, because a frontier campaign lives or dies on whether the crew can keep the drive running. ### Fighting disciplines Combat is d20 + skill + attribute against Defense, with damage by weapon, but the book's own flourish is its martial disciplines: Maelstrom Mastery and the Vortex Blade, each a ladder of manoeuvres bought with skill levels and rolled as 1d20 + skill level + Strength or Agility modifier against a TN — Whirling Strike at first level, and worse further up. ### Travel, jobs and the frontier Starship operations are a chapter of their own: the regions and their light-year spans, FTL versus Fold-Gate travel, stasis for the long hauls, in-system movement, and two versions of the expedition rules — a simplified one for getting a survey crew to an uncharted system, and an expanded planning layer for groups that want to play the preparation. Earning credits is another chapter, built around three jobs that structure a campaign: bounty hunting, cargo transport, and trade, the last with a simplified deal-making system and an expanded one behind it. Carousing is the downtime counterweight. ## Editions - **Final Frontier** (2025) — the original release, 460 pages. - **Final Frontier 1.2** (August 2025) and **1.3** (August 2025) — revision builds within the first release. - **Final Frontier (Digital 1.4)** (469 pp, 2026) — the current build, with the layout reset and the text revised throughout. *In the library.* ## References - [Final Frontier at The Red Room](https://moordereht.com/product/final-frontier/) - [The Red Room's store and blog](https://moordereht.com/) - [The Red Room on itch.io](https://moordereht.itch.io/)