Lancer is a mud-and-lasers RPG about mechs and the pilots who crew them, featuring deep narrative play, gritty tactical combat and broad mech and pilot customization.
Into this roiling galaxy you take your role as a mech pilot — from cold-blooded mercenaries to honor-bound Baronic cuirassiers, hardscrabble Union regulars to professional Constellar Midnights, Far Field teams at the uncanny edge of known space to the ever-wandering Albatross. Operating with a wealth of licenses from one of the galaxy’s great powers, you and your friends play a tight-knit squad of pilots on campaign — comrades together in a galaxy of danger and hope. Will you fight for Union, working to rectify the crimes of previous administrations? Will you run contracts for a corpro-state, working to advance private interests while lining your pockets? Will you fight to liberate your people from all masters, human or otherwise? Or will you fight only for yourself?
Lancer features a mix of military science fiction and mythic science fantasy. In the setting, conscript pilots mix ranks with flying aces, mercenary guns-for-hire brawl with secretive corpro-state agents, and relativistic paladins cross thermal lances with causality-breaking entities.
In Lancer, there is promise in the potential, but the hard-won gains of humanity are under serious threat. From the internal: ruthless corpro-states, bitter anthrochauvinist reactionaries, and ponderous oligarchs, to the external: MONIST 1, or RA, an anoriginary being with unfathomable power and unknowable goals; the Aunic Ascendancy, the unbroken heirs of Old Humanity; and more.
Having only begun the project of recovering from its own internal political revolutions, Union now scrambles to reassert its control over a galaxy that would fall to chaos otherwise.
Who will you fight for, pilot?
Latest Updates from Our Project:
The Long Rim official release
over 4 years ago
– Wed, Jul 01, 2020 at 11:46:26 PM
Hey all!
Just a quick heads up that thanks to your support we've officially released The Long Rim over on our itch.io page. This is an incredible looking book and Massif's first supplement for Lancer, created as part of this campaign and free to all backers at any tier. If you backed at any level, you should receive an e-mail from itch.io with a free download of the book from to your e-mail linked your backerkit account. You can keep up to date with all our current and future releases on our itch.io page (including updates to files) and our twitter account.
Books on The Ship; Modules on Campaign
over 4 years ago
– Sat, Jun 13, 2020 at 06:13:24 AM
Hi all, short update today!
We're happy to report that the first production run of Core Books has been printed, packed, and are currently on a container ship bound for the States! We're tracking the ship on our end, and it's looking like it'll get to our fulfillment warehouse around the end of the month. From there, it's on to all of you. We're excited to get our copies in hand, as we're sure you all are as well! To that end, continue to expect us to follow up with folks regarding final addresses, packing counts, etc (Canadian backers, we gotta snag some more numbers from you, so keep an eye out!).
Also! Many of you may have seen on Twitter, but just in case -- we've partnered with Role, a new platform and marketplace for indie RPGs, to co-publish a brand new module, Lancer: Battlegroup, as part of their Kickstarter campaign! We're excited about the platform and the opportunity to work on new Lancer content, and hope y'all are as well. Battlegroup will be a standalone ruleset depicting space combat in the Lancer universe, from the clash of fleets to the wild dogfight; it will, like any Lancer offering, feature outstanding art and lore, of course -- but only if Role's campaign is a success. Head on over to Role's Kickstarter campaign to secure yourself a copy of Battlegroup before the campaign ends!
In the meantime, stay safe and strong out there folks. Only way to go is up.
Best,
Miguel and Tom
Spring and Summer update!
over 4 years ago
– Mon, May 18, 2020 at 08:13:08 PM
Hi all!
Some news for the summer: our Core Book is nearly finished printing, and we’re in the process of coordinating with our printer and fulfillment provider the final steps of getting the books from point A to points B-Z. Per word from our printer, we expect to have the first, complete print run of the Lancer Core Book on a boat and headed our way by the end of May — from there, it’ll get on to you all!
To that end, consider this a two-week notice for locking addresses! We’ll send out a round of emails (they’ll come from BackerKit, addressed to the email associated with your pledge) to notify you and give you a chance to confirm the address to which you’d like your pledged copy of the book sent to. Do be sure to include as much contact info as you can — apartment numbers, suite numbers, phone numbers, house numbers, etc, etc — so no book goes missing! If you don't have any changes to make to your shipping address, then no worries, you're all good to go (tho double checking never hurts!).
We’ll be following up with all the support requests y’all have sent us — a combination of… global pandemic and Big Life Stuff (non-Lancer related, positive, but time consuming) has reduced our capacity, but rest assured we’ll do our weather best to get all of your requests, questions, etc, ironed out before the ship date.
One more note: as we’ve been working on getting the Core Book to you, producing Wallflower Part I, the first Field Guide (Karrakin Trade Barons)*, and dropping the Long Rim supplement, we’ve been in talks with the good folks over at Role about parallel steps for Lancer and Massif to take. You may have seen some chatter on Twitter about their upcoming Kickstarter campaign — we’re excited about it, and hope you will be too, because we’re going to be a part of it!
As part of Role’s Kickstarter campaign, launching June 2nd, we’ll be producing a Role-exclusive module focusing on massed fleet battles, called Lancer: Battlegroup.
In Battlegroup, you’ll take command of small units of capital ships and their escorts on the line of battle, or individual fighters and bombers caught in the mix of fleet combat. You’ll be able to import your existing Lancer pilot, or create a new character specific to Battlegroup. We imagine this to be a standalone module, though one that can complement your existing campaigns and settings via a broad expansion in scale and mechanical flexibility.
*If you’re a backer in the iconic tier for Wallflower and/or the KTB Field Guide, stay tuned for more comms from us, and start thinkin’ about your character, location, organization that you want to include in the text!
Printing Update: Production sample!
over 4 years ago
– Thu, Apr 02, 2020 at 01:31:41 AM
Hey all!
Yesterday we're happy to report a brand new production sample from our plant arrived, meaning the printing process for the physical book is moving right along.
The colors for this book look fantastic
This is a beautiful book and our printer did an excellent job with it. It's done with offset printing so the colors came out really, really nice and crisp. The paper is good quality and the binding is sewn so even though it's a relatively big book, it holds together very well. There's even a red ribbon bookmark for you to hold your place.
The book looks great on a shelf and it's a solid size. We'll have more updates for you once we hear back from our printer but in the meantime enjoy the pictures!
Printing Updates and the Long Rim now available!
almost 5 years ago
– Mon, Feb 17, 2020 at 02:06:06 AM
Hey all!
We're very happy to report that as of several weeks ago we have turned in the files to our printers and the LANCER core book is now in production. Unfortunately this also comes with the accompanying update that we've just been informed by our printer that there will be production delays due to restrictions imposed by the Coronavirus epidemic currently occuring in mainland China. We have no specific details we can share at this time but we're still aiming to get the book produced and shipped to our distributor as close to our original timeline as possible.
In better news, the Long Rim expansion is now available as a working file on our itch.io page, where you can download it for free! The final version will be free to all tiers of kickstarter backers (including those that didn't back at the pdf or above) and will include full layout and more art. We'll be sending you an e-mail with a link to pick that up when it's finished, but in the meantime, check out the juicy content!
