Between the Skies
A downloadable game
Between the Skies is a cosmic fantasy game of travel and exploration across endless worlds.
Between the Skies is also a set of modular procedures, tables and methods that can help spark your imagination in any game of weird fantasy adventure.
The procedures and advice guide you in playing a fluid, fiction first game, where rules are at the service of your world and your shared judgment.
Everything in Between the Skies is modular and can be used with the rpg system of your choice, or no system at all.
- 200 pages of tables and procedures to spark the creation of endless, strange worlds, their inhabitants, and their goings-on
- 70+ tables for everything from encounters, NPCs, factions, adventuring sites, and spells to creatures, petty gods, and daemons
- Life path character generation. Create your character by traveling the planes & spheres, and maybe dying!
- Procedures for travel, combat, spellcasting, trade and more...
- Solo and collaborative play guidelines
- PDF is hyperlinked, cross-referenced and bookmarked throughout with links and references both in text and in table results
- Inspirations include: Jim Parkin's Any Planet Is Earth, Daniel Sell's Troika!, Ben Milton's Maze Rats, Chris McDowall's Into the Odd, Scrap Princess' Plane Scrap, Emmy Allen's The Stygian Library, and the cauldrons of creativity sometimes called the New School Revolution (NSR) and Free Kriegsspiel Revolution (FKR)
- Currently exploring options for a print version. Further updates to follow...
Download
Development log
- Between the Skies 3 out March 6, and more45 days ago
- Against the Grey / Between the Skies 3 update / hints of things to come...Feb 23, 2023
- Between the Skies Volume 2, to be release on 7/15 on Exalted FuneralJul 07, 2022
- Between the Skies Volume 1, now available in PRINT at Exalted FuneralApr 06, 2022
- Between the Skies 1 week update + BtS Itch collectionsFeb 08, 2022
Comments
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In the Spells section you cite: Betty Bactontine. " Fragmentary Powers v2.0 - A Tarot Deck Generator for Janky Super-powers," Paper Elemental, June 17, 2021.
Alot of Blogspot blogs do not readily come up in Google and I was having a hard time finding it, so I wanted to leave this link here for others in the future:
https://paperelemental.blogspot.com/2021/06/fragmentary-powers-v20-tarot-deck.ht...
Hi! Great stuff here. So on the exalted funeral website, it says volume 3 is coming mid-February. Was it from last year, or is it 2024? Thanks!
BtS 3 will be out in February 2024 !
I'll be doing post about it in the next couple days.
In that post, I'll also be giving some more info on the next, big, upcoming Between the Skies project, as well....
That's great to here!
This is really cool, but does anyone else have the "th" missing from the front of any paragraphs that start with those letters? Or is it just me?
It looks like also any instances of "fi" are missing too.
Hey, thanks for pointing this out !
Are you seeing this in every paragraph ? Or could you post some page numbers where you see it ? If I can fix it, I'll post a revised PDF!
So the issue fixed itself when I switched to the Google drive PDF viewer. But yeah, any sentence that starts with "th" is completely gone, and many instances where "fi" should be the text is missing.
sounds like a ligature issue in some PDF viewers, may need to make sure to embed the font if it's not already done. Those are two common ligatures where the font combines the two characters to make a special glyph like dash and greater than sign (->) could become an arrow.
Hi, just encountering this, I love it! Brilliant work. Questions: Can you elaborate on the 4(?) print volumes that will be available from Exalted Funeral? Is it the same content as the PDF or has it been expanded in some way? And there will be four total volumes? Also, what's the best way to toss you a couple of bucks as a way to say thanks?
Thank you so much : )
The plans for the remaining print volumes are a little in flux at the moment. Here is what’s certain: vol 1 & 2 are released in print on EF, both contain some revised and new content. Vol 3 should be out in the next couple months and will contain new content from me, as well as an adventure written by Iko (Lost Bay) and illustrated by Evlyn Moreau.
After that there are some exciting plans in the works but it’s a little too early to talk about them now.
In terms of saying thanks, beyond buying print copies from EF, the best thing you can do is rate and review the game and share it : )
Thanks so much!
This is insanely well put together! The basic procedural advice is some of the best I've ever seen. I think this could be super useful for someone running games of other genres too. I'm sure an absolute ton of work went into putting together the setting material though, so I'd imagine that reskins of this probably aren't exactly easy.
Any thoughts on this?
Thank you so much for your kind words : )
That's a great question. In fact, Between the Skies emerged from my attempt convert Any Planet Is Earth to weird-science-fantasy. In brief, I went through all the setting material in APIE, essentially a series of tables, and create science-fantasy versions of each element/table. In the process, I ended up expanding things, adding new approaches etc. But the skeleton that I built from was extracted from APIE. And I think you could absolutely do the same thing with BtS. I can't say it's not a ton of work haha - but you can, at least, use it as a guide for all that work.
Nice. Yes, this is something I may put some thought into for my own table. At any rate it looks like the print release of vol 1 contains *most* of the general advice and the basic lifepath framework for character generation so I'll probably be looking at picking that up at some point to serve as that general reference volume.
Between The Skies has officially become my son's favorite game. We're playing it all the time. The thematic blend is just enchanting him top to bottom.
Aww, that’s wonderful. Thank so much for sharing.
Exalted Funeral says there is a volume 2. Is there a Volume 2
i was just about to ask the same thing :O
Thanks for pointing that out! Just a technical glitch over at EF - fixed now.
Volume 2 is coming out very soon, but it’s not out yet. I will absolutely update you all when it’s up and ready for purchase :)
Just want to clarify that this question and my response were made before volume 2 was released. It's out now and available on Exalted Funeral here: https://www.exaltedfuneral.com/products/between-the-skies-volume-1-pdf?_pos=2&_p...
I think I gushed a little bit on my podcast about this, hehe. Great stuff and can't wait for the kickstarter hardback at the end of the year. wink, wink!
https://anchor.fm/rich-fraser/episodes/Cockatrice-Nuggets-217-Zines--Zines--Zine...
Omg, can’t tell you how much I appreciate your read through. Of course, I’m so glad that you like the book. But even more so, you really captured so many of the things I’d hoped to accomplish with the spark tables, biblio, etc etc
We we will see about a hardcover, I would certainly like to see that happen ;)
This is an amazing compendium and reference, as well as a super game in its own right.
https://dozensanddragons.neocities.org/25.html#between-the-skies
Thank you so mucb, dozens, for such a kind and thoughtful review! You really got to the heart of core elements of what I was hoping to achieve - very happy it came across
Thanks for the discord links and further reading. Cant wait to dig through the theory articles.
Excellent, hope you discover some good things for your own gaming / designing!
I have a lot of sympathy for the Troika roleplaying game even though I don't think anyone really knows what it is exactly, other than an equal parts absurd and surreal exploration of the OSR trend. Still, Between the Skies seems to me to be exactly in that vein, offering mainly a big bunch of random tables linked together with the promise of a malleable space opera setting on hallucinogens, the kind of game where you can play as a swarm of mutant bees aboard their flesh-cloud shaped ship. If this description, and the prospect of playing very narrative games (actually leaning more on the side of FKR) doesn't scare you, reading this game - free! - may interest you.
Thanks for the very insightful comment, Côme! Troika! was certainly a big reference point for me - and I would say 'you can play as a swarm of mutant bees aboard their flesh-cloud shaped ship' is a pretty good summation of one of my design goals :)
I hope that BtS will serve as a good resource for players like me who like Troika! and 1) prefer FKR/ultralight play and 2) would like some extensive procedures/tables for developing and exploring their own weird worlds. I should note, I've also included a set of procedures for using Troika! backgrounds and converting them to be used alongside other BtS PCs (p. 39–40).
I am quickly looking through it and the amount of resources is overwhelming... in a good way.
Thanks, Steve! I aim to overwhelm, in a good way ;)
I can’t believe this is free! Thoroughly filled with amazing prompts and sparks. Love it!
Thank you, Zac! 🌸🙏🏼
What an incredible resource
I run a Spelljammer campaign and I think this is so fantastic! I can’t wait to use it.
thank you so much, Amanda! I can’t wait to see what you do with it - I hope it helps inspire some wild, wondrous adventures :)