How the Lifeline got made

A little backstory.

I ran a full Beam Saber campaign - 7 sessions of Missions, 7 sessions of Downtime (we love to chew the scenery) - and told a story with some dear friends about a hard-won revolution and some deeply righteous vengeance. I’m incredibly proud of what we did together (we haven’t stopped playing other games in the setting since), but a part of me definitely ached at all the suffering in it… which is good! War is serious stuff, and all that pain made my players’ victory feel that much more real. 

But I was tired of all the blood and the smoke, the rent mechs and torn limbs. I ran a campaign in another system about emergency responders almost immediately after, making clear that I wasn’t interested in violence as a tool in the hands of these heroes. We had emotional character drama and white-knuckle action, none of it involving killing people. We had a good time. I felt pleased to know it could be done.

I wrote the Lifeline afterwards, reflecting on how different the two campaigns felt. I hoped that there were people like our “rescue rangers” amid the endless horrors of the War. In their world and in ours, it’s thankless, brutal work, the kind that people don’t last long in, but I’m so glad some do it anyway.

A year and a half later, I quit my job, and finally had the time to get it polished enough for release. It’s my first work completely on my own - the text, layout, and goofy little fire axe on the cover are all my handiwork. I hope you like it - and if you get a Lifeline at your table, /please/ tell me all about them!