#heliosail

By Quinn Martin (AKA SaltWizard on most platforms)

Heliosail is a solarpunk space pirate RPG, set up for long campaigns of swashbuckling fun overlaid on themes of environmentalism, anti-capitalism, community, found family, and hope for the future even after humanity's past mistakes. The game is post-Earth (humans didn't act in time to save it) but full of hope that life carries on and we will get a second chance to save and restore the homeworld.

The Astromancer is a being of two worlds, not quite at home in either place. They can bend reality to their will, but often live in solitude, misunderstood by their peers.

Another fantastic illustration by @finxhes! Astromancers are revenants, who died or had a near death experience with the Nether. They can manipulate dark energy in order to bend physics to their will.

Features

Critical Attributes Body. Your Body modifier is your Proficiency bonus.

Mind. Your Mind modifier is used for your Perception checks. Your Attribute Save DC is [13 + Mind modifier]. When targets make saving throws against your Astromancy abilities, they must beat this DC.

Skills

Astromancers get special Tricks for the Endurance, Erudition, Intimidation, and Superstition skills. Choose at least 2 of these as your first skills. You may take all 4 if you like. After you have chosen, you can fill out the rest of your Core skills with any skills you wish.

Combat Proficiencies

Signature Weapon. Choose 1 from: Axe, Spear, Dirk, Hammer, Martial Arts, Musket, or Blunderbuss. Add your Proficiency Bonus to attacks made with this weapon.

Actions. You can take [1 + Mind Modifier] Actions per round in combat.

Reactions. Choose from Parry or Dodge as the Reaction you are proficient in. When you take this Reaction in combat, add your Proficiency Bonus.

Archetypal Abilities

Astromancy is using Dark Energy (DE) to manipulate the laws of reality. This energy comes from the rifts between our universe and the Nether. By using it, you can create Disturbances in the laws of physics. Many Disturbances can be resisted by a living target with an Attribute Save versus your Attribute Save DC. This is usually a Body save, but some Disturbances may call for others.

Disturbances are scalable abilities. This means that you can choose to invest more DE than is normally required to make a more powerful version of it. Every description for a Disturbance details how it can be scaled up, and what that costs.

Causing Disturbances

To create a Disturbance, you must first gather Dark Energy. You have 4 dice in your Energy Pool (4d8) to use each day. You can roll as many of these as you like at one time, but once you have “spent” (rolled) a die, you cannot use it again until the following day.

The total rolled on your Energy Dice is the amount of Dark Energy you can spend that turn. Gathering Dark Energy requires an Action in combat, but creating the Disturbance(s) does not. You can choose to end a Disturbance early at any time, without spending an Action, but any left over Dark Energy is lose. All Dark Energy must be used the same turn it is gathered, and the extra evaporates.

Some Disturbances can be created in their most basic form without spending any Energy Dice. These still cost an Action to create in combat, however. You can create them even if you are entirely out of Energy Dice for the day, but if your Astromancy is inhibited by any outside force, this also suppresses these basic Disturbances.

Specialization

There are 4 types of Disturbances that Astromancers can cause. You must choose 1 of the 4 types to specialize in. Disturbances of your chosen type cost you less Dark Energy to create, and you gain access to a powerful, exclusive Disturbance from the type you choose.

Gateway

Gatewrights feel a special connection to the Nether beyond other Astromancers. If you choose this as your specialization, you focus on opening Rifts to the other universe, wanting to access it whenever you can. Those who study Rifts in detail like this gain the ability to summon a Rift Horror- a gigantic Netheri which will reach its tentacles into our world in order to explore, injuring anything in its path.

Matter

Matterwrights can use their connection to the Nether to “borrow” matter from the other universe, giving the appearance of creating it from nothing, or destroying it by banishing it away. You can use Matter Disturbances to change the mass or density of something, or rearrange the shape Matter is existing in. Matterwrights can create an Anti-Matter Bomb, a devastating explosion which creates a huge Hazardous area around it (pg ##).

Unreality

As a Realiwright, you bend the “fabric” of the space-time continuum directly, changing the experiences and perceptions of those around you. You can alter the flow of time, and manipulate the travel of light. Realiwrights gain the ability to Distort Time for their enemies and allies.

Vibration

The Vibwright is tapped into the invisible movement of all the subatomic particles that make up the universe. You manipulate the world around you by adjusting the frequency at which these particles vibrate. By doing this, you can create heat, light, and sound. Vibwrights are the only Astromancers who can use Quantum Thought to entangle their minds psychically with another person.

Focus

Focus is a way for Astromancers to keep a Disturbance's effect going for as long as needed, or adjust its power and scale on the fly, without having to re-create it. While Focusing, you can only move, talk, gather more Dark Energy, or make a change to the Disturbance you are concentrating on. Performing any other Action, creating any new Disturbances, or Parrying ends the effect you were Focused on. If you take damage while Focusing on a Disturbance, you must make a Body save to maintain your concentration. On fail, the Disturbance ends.

Collective Work

Multiple Astromancers working together can pool their Dark Energy to create more powerful Disturbances. You can aid another Astromancer by choosing to donate dice from your Energy Pool to them. If you are in combat, this is an Interrupt that requires spending an Action, and they immediately gain the Spotlight. They can then roll your dice in addition to their own to create a Disturbance. This exhausts your Energy Dice exactly as if you had used them yourself, and you must Rest before they are replenished.

Ship Action: Conditioning

An Astromancer can spend time with a crew member each week, in order to build up their tolerance for the forces of the Nether. After they disembark the ship, the crew member takes ½ damage from all Dark Energy sources. This effect lasts a number of days equal to the number of times the crew member participated. This can be done with only 1 crew member each week. This provides +1 morale to the Astromancer and -1 morale for the crew member they work with.

Mars landscape for Heliosail

I plan to render this a bit more eventually and do a series of landscapes for Heliosail.

This week we're looking at how to convert a 5e stat block to Heliosail's format. Since Netheri are canonically very diverse, you can shoehorn in a lot of creatures from fantasy, which will be especially useful if you are wanting to convert entire adventures. This stat block is from the 2014 SRD, but the 2025 one should be similar. I will break down the process step by step.

Read the rest on Patreon for free:

Monster Monday: Landsman

The Navy has a strict and complex hierarchy of servicemen. Landsmen are at the bottom of that hierarchy. A Navy Landsman is someone who has been conscripted or contracted for a temporary tour, usually 2-4 years. They are not eligible for promotion, and many of them are unhappy to be there.

Landsmen have a reputation of being opportunistic and unscrupulous. They make good henchmen, foot soldiers, and nameless enemies to have your grew fight. While this stat block is built for a human, it could be easily edited to reflect an anthroparian or psiren Landsman by altering the ancestral traits.

Welcome to Monster Monday!

Heliosail will be out for everyone to play on June 20th, 2025!

Originally, I wanted to have the Atlas of the Sol System, Heliosail's lore document/resource compendium/creature catalog, release alongside the main rulebook. However, I am a one-man team, and making the game has taken me 6 years. I am simply not able to release the Atlas at the same time.

However, people still need creatures for their crew to face, so I have started Monster Monday. Every Monday I will release a new creature or NPC stat block for free on my patreon. You can join my patreon as a free member to keep up with Monster Monday.

The absolute BEST way to support Heliosail is to follow my patreon for free and share the posts! It costs nothing, and helps me even more than money would at this point.

And now, on to the Monster:

Today we have the Star Terror. This little guy was actually the first creature I ever made for Heliosail. Star Terrors are hermaphroditic netheri that live and nest in the vacuum of space. They take up residence on asteroids, in abandoned ships and space stations, and any other place where they can find small areas to hide.

These creatures live in small family groups of about 3-5, and if they don't have an active nest, they are relatively peaceful. When there is a nest with eggs, they are extremely territorial, and aggressively defend their nesting area.

They typically build their nests in the smallest crevice they can find, and lay dozens of tiny, soft-shelled eggs about the size of frog eggs. Of these, only about half will hatch. Newly hatched Star Terrors are entirely independent. Only two or three will typically stay with their family, while the rest go off to find mates. It is not known how they decide who stays and who goes.