System

Cepheus Universal is a comprehensive “sandbox” toolkit for science fiction roleplaying that takes the classic 2d6 mechanics of Traveller and strips away the specific “Third Imperium” setting to give you a truly genre-agnostic engine. Whether you want to run a gritty The Expanse-style industrial sci-fi, a retro-future 1980s Alien horror, or a high-tech transhumanist opera, this system handles it all in a single volume. It is built on the Open Game License (OGL) roots of the Mongoose Traveller 1st Edition SRD, meaning it retains the robust vehicle design, world-building, and trade mechanics you expect, but streamlines them into a unified system designed to let the group build their own universe rather than playing in someone else’s.

Mechanically, it uses the familiar 2d6 target-number system (roll 8+ to succeed), but it distinguishes itself from its “older brother” Traveller by removing the random “lifepath” character generation in favor of a design-based, point-buy approach. This gives you total agency to build exactly the character you want—a veteran marine, a psychic spy, or a corporate fix—without risking your character dying in backstory generation or ending up with skills you didn’t ask for. Combat remains tactical and lethal, utilizing a “stamina/lifeblood” split that makes firefights dangerous and encourages smart planning over run-and-gun heroics. It is a system that rewards player skill and preparation, serving as a neutral, reliable physics engine for whatever sci-fi story you want to tell.

Cepheus Universalis

Intent

Again, the bias would be to running short, stand alone scenarios, starting with Vanishing Point from the Pioneer Station source book (set in the HOSTILE universe).

The Company has lost contact with a helium-3 mining station and the supply ship sent to investigate has vanished. Your players are the crew of the commercial towing vessel Grendel, assigned to investigate.

Can they avoid stumbling from one survival crisis to the next? Can they find any survivors? There are difficult places to explore, space-walks to conduct and difficult choices to be made. And … they are not alone …