
SYNTHETIC STARLIGHT


Synthetic Starlight
the setting
The Crux System
learn the rules
Thursday, July 31st, 2025 Gen Con Games
We have a number of quick game sessions scheduled for Gen Con 2025 this year. Each is aimed at facilitating different play preferences and/or highlighting different aspects of the setting and system. Although, each will focus on player choice and alter accordingly.
You and your crew make runs in your Terran-engineered B-301 delivery hopper. While scramming between Mars and Lunarus along the Argent Vennel, you receive a distress call…
A refinery vessel receives a distress call, but when your recovery team arrives, they realize there is no one aboard the ship. Or is there?
Aboard the Ras Almal, the largest ship in the Erethier flotilla, you've been tasked with finding a part for their ProtoSyn generator. Perhaps you could cobble one together, buy one, or journey to the Mortakoth-infested undership?
You and your team of technically legal technoarchaeologists discover an ancient relic containing valuable information. A relic which is maybe too ancient, and which contains information which is maybe too valuable.
Your team of soldiers has been given the honor of training with the Lunax Special Forces. After landing in on the uninhabited refuse-dumping planet, L-4514, the mission takes a turn for the worse. Can you find supplies, rescue any survivors, and stay alive long enough for evacuation?
You're paid to smuggle an Empyrean artifact from Amaran to unspecified coordinates in a seemingly vacant area of wild space. In order to get there, you'll have to outrun, outmaneuver, outsmart… or outblast your pursuers.
2 PM to 4 PM in the Hilton Victory Ballroom
Tables 19, 20, & 21
4 PM to 6 PM in the Hilton Victory Ballroom
Tables 19, 20, & 21
An adventure session focusing on player choice, consequences, and likely featuring at least one combat scene.
A quest involving skill checks as well as both social and physical combat.
A quest involving skill checks as well as both social and physical combat.
Adventure session with possible puzzles and mystery elements. Likely some combat.
Combat galore. Possibly featuring the Crux System's "tactical combat" if players are feeling up for the challenge.
A series of starship combat challenges. Form a starship using your group's relevant starship expertise.












Friday, August 1st, 2025 Gen Con Games
Attend a high-security trade negotiation between the members of the Grand Quorum and the Guild Network. Assume the role of a veteran security agent, a seasoned diplomat, a thief-in-attendance, or the scholarly Discari emissary from Mars.
You're stranded on Edgeware and haven't had any luck finding work to pay for ship repairs out of this dystopian cyber pit. But you can feel your luck begin to change when a mysterious employer offers you a job that may be too good...
While traveling aboard the Torillian Express - a massive staryacht - an indestructible menace befalls the voyage. Do you save yourself, or others?
Accompany two of the most powerful Quantarchs - Chu Squidge (an Ailurian) and Rosalind Meitner (a Human Discari) - as they attempt to apprehend one of the Corruptyx... the most dangerous people in the galaxy.
You and your team of investigative officers are called in late one night to solve a murder on another world. The body is still warm and the planet has been locked down. Can you solve the mystery before trade negotiations fall apart?
Travel aboard the Icarus to Varaj, the home of the glowing Neoians. Ras Almal, the Franken-ship and surrogate planet of the remaining Erethier. Optis II, home of the synthetic Onavari, and more. There may even be rare items... or opportunities, available on your trip.
2 PM to 4 PM at ICC Room 126
Tables 8, 9, & 10
4 PM to 6 PM at ICC Room 126
Tables 8, 9, & 10
A session of political intrigue and hiesty fun, though combat is still possible.
Navigate the criminal underground... and overground to see if you can come out on top.
A horror session featuring disaster and personal monstrosity.
Conduct a fugitive search and capture with two of the galaxy's most prominent quantarchs. Rampant quantum dynamic, or "quantyx" combat may result.
Join Zashin, a leader of the Lunax Hexocrats, as he conducts interviews to discover the culprit behind a mysterious murder.
This session is entirely up to player input. Let the starship Icarus take you to multiple planets across our crowded galaxy to behold their people and cultures.












Saturday, August 2nd, 2025 Gen Con Games
Missed any of our games? We'll be running several of them again on Saturday. Join us for one you missed, or replay one of the ones you already have and try your luck at making different decisions.
You and your crew make runs in your Terran-engineered B-301 delivery hopper. While scramming between Mars and Lunarus along the Argent Vennel, you receive a distress call…
A refinery vessel receives a distress call, but when your recovery team arrives, they realize there is no one aboard the ship. Or is there?
Aboard the Ras Almal, the largest ship in the Erethier flotilla, you've been tasked with finding a part for their ProtoSyn generator. Perhaps you could cobble one together, buy one, or journey to the Mortakoth-infested undership?
You and your team of technically legal technoarchaeologists discover an ancient relic containing valuable information. A relic which is maybe too ancient, and which contains information which is maybe too valuable.
Your team of soldiers has been given the honor of training with the Lunax Special Forces. After landing in on the uninhabited refuse-dumping planet, L-4514, the mission takes a turn for the worse. Can you find supplies, rescue any survivors, and stay alive long enough for evacuation?
2 PM to 4 PM at ICC Room 126
Tables 8, 9, & 10
4 PM to 6 PM at ICC Room 126
Tables 8, 9, & 10
An adventure session focusing on player choice, consequences, and likely featuring at least one combat scene.
A "'Die Hard'-style" session set in an adversarial environment. Skill checks and combat likely required.
A "'Die Hard'-style" session set in an adversarial environment. Skill checks and combat likely required.
Adventure session with possible puzzles and mystery elements. Likely some combat.
Combat galore. Possibly featuring the Crux System's "tactical combat" if players are feeling up for the challenge.
While traveling aboard the Torillian Express - a massive staryacht - an indestructible menace befalls the voyage. Do you save yourself, or others?
A horror session featuring disaster and personal monstrosity.












Meet the Crew
There will be several of us running around during Gen Con 2025, so please feel free to hit us up!
David R. Schmidt
David is a former video game developer, teacher, accessibility engineer, and a life-long lover of games. He's been working on Synthetic Starlight and the Crux System for 35 years because... I guess he just really likes tabletop roleplaying? And I'm sure that's nothing to be medicaly concerned about. He's fascinated by literally everything, and his favorite thing in life is learning. He'd also really like to make a sustainable company that doesn't suck.
David has been roleplaying since 1985 and GMing since 1988.
Jorge Gonzalez
Matt Ward
Jorge is the heart of the group. He spreads cheer and dudeliness wherever he goes. He's also an insanely hard worker, and has recently stepped down to working only two jobs. He does still maintain a minimum of three separate roleplaying groups at any one time, though.
If "rogue" was an actual personality, Matt would be its star sign. But like... a "fun rogue." Not one of those "steals all your money" or "problematic" kind of rogues. He only recently passed the arcane trials necessary to become a tabletop roleplaying GM, but he instantly jumped into creating his own "neon-infused 80s sci-fi" setting from the get go.
Az Sperry
You may spot Az running around for her day job as a Catanista where she merges her love for comic art with modern gaming design. You may also spot Az doodling or practicing whatever new martial art she's gotten into. If you play any mystery games with her though, you'll have to be fast to beat her to unraveling the mystery.
Scott Mills
Jacob Ward is what happens when stuffed animals come to life. His loyalty and good-naturedness are surpassed only by his expertise. Jacob loves mastering even the most esoteric factors of subjects and practices with which he engages.
Jacob Ward
Scott is the Indianapolis local on the team. Originally a San Diego native like the rest of the crew, he's called Indiana his home for the last decade and grew up spending summers there. Scott was similarly afflicted with the TTRPG gaming disease at a young age, and has far too many traumatic memories of playing vampire games with David in the 90s.
Assistant
- Captain Competence -
Arbiter ("Game Master")
- Creator -
Arbiter
- Plucky Comic Relief -
- Red Right Arm -
Arbiter
Assistant
- Lethal Enforcer -
- Professional Beast -
Assistant












Sanguine Circuit Tree
The Company
Sanguine Circuit Tree (SCT) is a company dedicated to creating fantastic tools and settings for our audience, including the abillty to monetize their own contributions. We similarly strive to facilitate our staff with profit sharing. And, we will actually revise any of our dumb content that needs to get fixed.
Our pledge to our patrons, customers, and fans entails:
Community support so that you can find others who share your specific gaming interests and open game licensing to maximize player participation and confidence.
Supporting the ability to actually purchase and own real physical materials, if you want.
Leveraging modern technology to remove as many pinch points in the gaming space as possible, for those who'd like that.
Attempting to offer as much customizability as possible so that you can do what you want, how you want, when you want, as quickly and as easily as possible.
An à la carte approach to products and services so that you never need to buy anything you don't want.
A deep philosophical rejection of enshitification.
We hope to launch our first product, "Synthetic Starlight," and its accompanying rules, "The Crux System," sometime in 2026. Crowdfunding for the project is solely for the purposes of paying human artists for their art and for expanding what the company can offer its customers. If you'd like to be a part of our initial voyage, please consider adding your email list to the "Join our gaming community now" box below.
Thank you. We hope to see you amongst the stars.
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Contact
Engage
syntheticstarlight@gmail.com
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