The Long Rim: a Lancer Setting

Towards the proximal end of the Orion arm, far from Cradle and the Capital worlds of humanity, is a patch of space with no official designation; this “empty” corridor is known as the Long Rim. On paper, the Long Rim is a barren no-man’s land choked with space junk, littered with mined-out rocks and the remnants of old battles — a place where humanity’s debris coalesces either through the complex ballet of competing gravities, or by deliberate direction. 

In reality, the Long Rim is the primary thoroughfare for ships in transit between the most distant active blink gate from the galactic core, Rao Co Station, and the Dawnline Shore, a hotly contested frontier territory. Often passed over by the larger narratives that grip the galaxy, the Long Rim has become one of the largest and most heavily trafficked sub-blink shipping lanes in known space, moving millions of tons of food, medical supplies, construction materials, electronics, colonists, and sensitive materiel in a steady stream.

Pilgrims and wanderers, landhunters, small-time mercenaries and charter captains, Horizon collectivists and Horus adherents — the people in Union’s margins find a perilous, but potentially profitable, home in the Long Rim. It is a wild place, often violent, with no central power to claim total control. As much as there can be a consensus of the Rim’s population, a lack of a central power is not a bad thing: Free of Union’s vast bureaucracy, a person can disappear; free of Union’s vast bureaucracy, legends can be made. 

But for every legend made in the Rim, there are many more who die in obscurity. The Rim's freedom is only guaranteed as long as one can keep it, and only the people who live get to tell their stories...

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The Long Rim setting for Lancer dives into a lawless, uncanny, dangerous sector of Union space. Overlooked by the hegemon as an empty transit and shipping corridor linking the distant Dawnline Shore to the edge of Union space, the Long Rim is home to tens of thousands of souls living free of Union's influence -- this freedom, however, is not evenly applied, and where injustice rules, the oppressed have little hope for rescue. 

The Rim -- billed station-side as a romantic frontier ripe for the daring to make manna -- is a dangerous place. It is home to corrupt, self-serving Enterprises and their enforcers, who run large stations as kings lord over their realm; pirate outfits that prey on unprotected ships in transit, attacking from the void and disappearing back into it with their spoils; and myriad other groups, from the uncanny HORUS cells to the clandestine Horizon Collective. 

Alone, or with your small squad, you can't change the Rim; but you can make your mark, whether as a scoundrel or paragon. 

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This setting expansion for Lancer features a wealth of information on the Long Rim sector of space, including:

• Detailed tables for generating stations, NPC characters, and rich narrative situations.
• Detailed generators for creating ruthless pirate organizations, powerful local Enterprises, detailing their power, operations, and goals.
• Background on the Long Rim sector of space, its current importance to Lancer's overarching story, and narrative routes to explore. 
• Two new talents, Spaceborn and Black Thumb, for pilots who want to excel in null-gravity combat.
• A detailed system for accruing, rewarding, and spending Manna, an alternate advancement system for Lancer.
• Two new Narrative Actions for downtime play.
• Detail on a number of the canon factions present and operating in the Long Rim:
  • Learn what the Horizon Collective is trying to keep hidden in the Rim, 
  • Delve into the mysteries of los Voladores -- if they grant you an audience,
  • Work with the local Albatross to keep tyranny at bay, 
  • Contract with IPS-N's Trunk Security to protect company and client assets, 
  • and follow HORUS's breadcrumbs to a fated meeting!
• And access to six additional mechs to pilot, in addition to their unique gear:
  • The proud, memory-driven ATLAS, favored by Sparri espadas and Karrakin knights, 
  • The resourceful KOBOLD, the messy face of liberation for many across Baronic space, 
  • The storied ZHENG, the chassis first crafted by the bodhisattva-saint Xiong Xiaoli,
  • The brutal CALIBAN, IPS-N's new corridor-clearing chassis designed specifically for boarding actions,
  • The Harrison Armory SUNZI, a battlefield manipulator built from stolen Volador tech
  • and the deathless LICH, a timeless entity released from blinkspace to haunt our reality.

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This book is Massif Press' first supplement for Lancer with all new art, layout, mechs and rules. The .lcp files included contain all the player facing content (mechs and talents) for COMP/CON, our free character builder tool, and will remain free to download (see the 'demo' file below).