Narrative First
A lightweight trait-and-approach system, quick to pick up and primed for dramatic moments. The GM and players tell one story together, and player agency stays in front.
Twenty-seven years ago,
the sky fell.
Catalina was a temperate paradise — a research colony of scientists, engineers, and quiet lives. Then the mechanoids came screaming out of deep space: ancient war machines carrying one corrupted instruction. Kill anything that moves.
A desperate EMP was meant to end them. Instead it killed every working machine on the planet and cut the survivors off from the stars. Your story begins here — not in bleak collapse, but in the stubborn, hopeful work of holding a world together.
The pillars every session rests on
A lightweight trait-and-approach system, quick to pick up and primed for dramatic moments. The GM and players tell one story together, and player agency stays in front.
A conversation at the campfire, an evening cleaning your weapon, a night gambling in a frontier town. TFS makes room for the quiet scenes — and rewards them without forcing them.
Fast to resolve but tactically dense. Cover, positioning, and suppressive fire keep you breathing. You never get harder to kill — so every firefight can be your last.
A cradle of tentative hope
Cracked concrete, sun-bleached paint, and clear blue skies.
Behind their walls, communities harbor a cautious optimism. Neighbors trade batteries for bullets and bullets for bandages. They share meals under wind-powered lamps and salvage what they can of a shattered world. Beyond the safe zones, the mechanoids still roam Catalina's overgrown ruins.
You are a member of the New Catalina Defense League — the NCDL. Not a state, not a military. A voluntary mutual-aid network that keeps the settlements safe and the lights on. You go where you're needed. You do what needs doing. You make your own rules.
All it takes to play is a table of friends.