INTRODUCTION

[Dave Johnson]

Feudal Space

What is Feudal Space?

Feudal Space is a grand strategy game in a science-fiction setting not unlike Frank Herbet's Dune or the Fading Suns universe by Holistic Design, but was also strongly influenced by the real-life Holy Roman Empire during the Early Middle Ages.

In Feudal Space players will each run a faction, which represents a composite sketch of the mercantile, religious, aristocratic traits of the player's group. The player's faction, whether the player calls it a “Church Sect”, “Noble House”, “Merchant Guild”, or “Republic”, will belong to a much larger organization, the Imperium Sanctus, ruled by an elected Emperor.

Intertwining all the small planetary states together within the Imperium Sanctus is the extensive influence of the overwhelmingly dominant religion of the times, the Ecclesia Universalis, which shares it's influence with the Collegium, which monopolizes the primitive commercial system of the Imperium Sanctus, and the Principate, the council of the planetary nobility that elect emperors and create/enforce the Regia Rex (laws) of the Imperium Sanctus.

Lesser organizations, whatever their ideology and goals, also exist in plethora, though none exist as yet that can compete with the ones listed above that collectively form the governmental machinery of the Imperium Sanctus and are, for the most part, individually unknown beyond the boundaries of a single world.

Unlike the more straight-forward wargame, Feudal Space tries to also represent the social, cultural, religious, commercial, and ideological issues of running a space-based empire under a decrepit governmental system which, due to the very nature of the machinery, makes change very difficult – even when faced with absolute dissolution.

The player's faction is given a great deal of leeway in their design and management; democracies and theocracies will exist alongside monarchies, despots, and socialist states within the Principate. The player's cultural and social tastes are each to their own, and rarely is outside interference openly permitted within a player's demesne.

Once off-world, however, the Regia Rex, or imperial law, becomes the new rule. Would-Be Conquerors, aggressive merchant princes, and overly zealous religious factions must tread carefully or else they may provoke the triumvirate of governing bodies, or even the Emperor-Elect, as powerful foes.

External threats, in the form of hostile “barbarian” planetary states, strange and terrible spacial anomalies, hideous exotic diseases, the very vast emptiness of space itself, and the ever present and growing threat of the Expanse, a vast nebula that has already consumed 90% of the galaxy and threatens to devour it all. These dangers all conspire to constrain and afflict the player's faction, and the Imperium Sanctus as a whole; but will also form the basis for new opportunities to grow and change.

Eventually, should a player's faction wish to risk it, independence from the archaic and inefficient Imperium Sanctus is possible; yet so to is the possibility of eventually growing to dominate it from within.