The Novarion Sector - A Primer

30 Oct, 2025

Since I am now running a game in the setting, I figured it's finally time to put down a primer for it. The Novarion Sector is my soft sci-fi, space opera-ish, cassette futurism setting. It's got bits of all of my sci-fi and history influences, including the Age of Sail vibes, some classic space opera, various parts of history I enjoy reading about, and lots of other things.

When building the Novarion Sector, I wanted it to be my "final" sci-fi setting. Sci-fi and space opera can cover a lot of genres, and my goal was to build a setting that could facilitate anything I needed it to. If I wanted to run a cyberpunk game set in a megacity, there's a cyberpunk planet. If I want to run frontier adventures, there are not just planets that can serve as frontiers, but social conditions and factions that create frontiers. If I want to run something with a little more horror, I have my designated space horror zone. If I want to run planet-of-the-week space exploration, there is an entire half of the sector that is unmapped and unexplored.

At the same time, I do want it to be a cohesive setting. The following posts are a primer on the setting as it exists so far. More is getting built every day, and I'm striving to make sure it all ties together as possible. The material I discuss in these posts are my touchstones, what I use to try to keep everything straight and to account for the setting assumptions I'm working under.¹ Most of the actual setting-building is done on a much lower level - individual settlements, local factions, and small polities. Still, having all this information helps me to give all of those things a bigger context and more meaning.

I've split this post into four parts for ease of reading. Some of the information is immediately gameable, some is just to help players understand the scope of the universe and the areas of play. I hope all of it is enjoyable to read.

#lore #novarion-sector #repg #swn #worldbuilding