Often you will find D&D 5th Edition settings dealing with typical mythical or fantasy aesthetics, maybe the occasional steampunk setting even. Any sort of modern or sci-fi genre is seldom touched, except for our friends at Limitless-Adventures with their 5thEvolution product or other things like the Fallout adaptation by Spilled Ale Studios. Enter Dark Matter by Mage Hand Press, created by the folks who ran the Middle Finger of Vecna blog (a site I’ve been a fan since my early homebrew days of 5e). It’s a classic science fiction conversion that includes spaceships, space combat, new alien races, class archetypes, feats, and spells.

You can support Dark Matter on their Kickstarter page: http://kck.st/2NRDdoa

What is Dark Matter? 

Dark Matter is a D&D 5e conversion with sci-fi elements and adaptations. The supplement is a great way to include some of these elements in your D&D games without feeling unfamiliar but flexible for your table needs. Whether it’s for an extended campaign or even just a one-time event, Dark Matter is the supplement for you if you wish to employ blasters, laser swords, and spaceships into your game.

What you will find

There is a free starter PDF you can download from their Kickstarter page, and based on preview material, I can attest that the production quality of the content and the layout are top-notch. Inside the Kickstarter guide, you will find more about the universe using our Milky Way galaxy as an analog but that’s where the familiarity ends, as the remnants of supersized ancient bones of space monsters are used as part of a portal network that connects the universe together via travel through an extradimensional realm called the Void.

The new character archetypes include such favorites as the Space Marine Fighter to even a Space Cowboy Gunslinger for all of your science fiction nostalgia. For equipment, the brief descriptions of the singularity emitter and battlefist got the twelve-year-old me to start jumping out of my seat. For spaceships and space combat, there are plenty of styles of starships for players to choose from and with different engine cores that utilize magic and spell slots to power them. Almost half a dozen different ship models for most of the significant spacefaring races, which only leads me to conclude that I’ll be stealing ships often or at the very least, I’ll want horde the credits to pay for a new one every so often.

Space combat is fascinating that players assume roles such as Captain, Pilot, Gunner, Fighter, and Engineer to handle the ship while offering a suite of new action. I know that there’s also a random table for FTL (faster than light) “jumps” as it’s something I come to expect in most sci-fi movies and television series.

Final Impressions

So far, I’m happy with the overall aesthetic, there’s enough material to add that science fiction flair to your games while keeping the identity of D&D 5e alive and familiar. Space combat looks to be very intriguing and fun, the variety of new races and character options will leave players wanting more for plenty of adventures. Magic and technomancy exist which now wants me to see how far along until we get a true technomancer concept either from Mage Hand or someone else’s homebrew. If you’re a fan of Paizo’s Starfinder but love the 5th Edition ruleset, this is a great Kickstarter to fill in that niche and itch as well. The races are vibrant and unique, there are plenty of starships and I hope to see more content about planet creation or even civilization tips because a spacefaring universe is uniquely defined by its inhabitants. Definitely worth taking a look, again there is a Kickstarter quickstart guide if you are curious about it and have a read. At the time of this article, the Kickstarter is in its final week so don’t dally too long or miss this awesome chance. Additionally, the Kickstarter is fully funded and working towards stretch goals, which includes the unlocked Gadgeteer base class (it’s the ultimate tinker’s dream).

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