Comets & Cockpits - Geographica Adelphos (POD, Premium Color)

This is a print on demand copy and is not an original copy.

What is Junker Space Fantasy?

So let’s break down these two separate genres as they are quite different -- beginning with space fantasy. The genre of space fantasy is usually categorized by several items: the inclusion of some sort of “mythic quest,” a young pupil and aged master, a kind of knightly order or analog, and a dark force or power which the pupil and master must fight against. The most clear example of this is George Lucas’ Star Wars or something like the Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s. Whether it is in the far future or far past, there is this fantastical quality to the science fiction story that grants it that moniker of space fantasy. To coin a phrase, “magic space wizards” is a perfect description of what space fantasy is at its core.

Now the junker element. Films like Mad Max or Waterworld would count as junker films as they are post-apocalyptic or occurring during the apocalypse and place an emphasis on a junky, rusty, rough and tumble kind of aesthetic. Fury Road does perhaps the best job of exemplifying this genre, followed by video games like Borderlands or Destiny, both of which have those rough-around-the-edges kind of quality to them that lend well to the junker aesthetic.

So junker space fantasy… how does that work?

Junker space fantasy plays on the visual inspiration of the junker theme but has the mythic and fantastical elements of the space fantasy. The plethora of worlds and the biotechnological nature of the planet of Adelphos are designed to feel like a hybrid of scientific engineering and magic or perhaps a kind of union of one overtaking the other. A young speeder pilot who built his suit from scrap metal under the tutelage of an old battlesmith who is fighting against the expansion of a shadowy empire is an example of a union between those two genres.

Whether it is forming a guild to clown around the stars while exploring alien ruins; blasting huge monsters aside with a rune-powered gun; working in the hold of an old treasure galleon on your scrappy speeder; or performing powerful cosmagic in the depths of a black hole being opened in the middle of the county capital surrounded by xeno-necromancers -- Comets & Cockpits invites you to strap on your armor, grab your saddle and coneslinger, gather some other junkers and make the deep dive into wild and zany space fantasy that we present for your 5e table.