So, this dropped on my email list yesterday (Thursday) morning — Modiphius has hit us with another sourcebook for 2nd Edition Star Trek Adventures. This time, it’s the Species Sourcebook — the one I actually was hoping they would do. The PDF was already available with the physical book on pre-order and most likely due in about two to three months. This has been the production tempo thus over the last year for the line.
The artwork is consistent with the rest of the sourcebooks, with Paolo Puggioni — who gave us the excellent cover for the 23rd Century sourcebook — replacing Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo on cover duties. The interior of the cover on this one is the first to not have some form of useful material — a map, uniform guide, or timeline, but the art is still quite nice. Unlike prior sourcebooks, we do see a fair amount of recycled artwork: the Barzan and Betelgeusans from The Federation-Klingon War Tactical Guide, Caitains, Efrosians, and Bolians from first edition works, just to name a few. Most of the pieces are good and yes, why spend for more art when you’ve got stuff right there?
So what do we get in the book?
There’s a nice spread across the various shows and movies, and a few of these were originally included in the first edition, but didn’t make the cut for the core book in the latest iteration. A few are variations on a theme, but we do get Terrans for you Mirror Universe fans. There’s a heavy representation from the animated series — both TAS and Lower Decks, as well as Prodigy: Edosian, Aurelians, and Caitians, but I was especially amused by the Blue Orion (Or-ee-ons!) and Kzinti. There are some obvious choices: Deltans, Augments, Xindi, Klepians, Vorta and Jem’Hadar… The chameloid was an interesting addition, but the lack of Ariolo, Arcadians, and Coridanites from the same sourcebook as the Betelgeusan was curious. I did like the “human” Klingons from the original show being included.
I actually used the Medusans that very evening at Nerd Night™, and the Terrans will be useful very soon.
So, is it worth it? At 133 pages, it’s right in the ballpark for the current run of splatbooks for STA2, and while $60 is a touch much, in my opinion, for this particular book — it’s definitely worth it. I’m already seeing this one as a high use resource for the game.
The copyright for 2d20 system is Modiphius, 2019. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios inc. All Rights Reserved and no infringement is intended.
The third release for Star Trek Adventures is The 23rd Century Campaign Guide. This one (as with the new Species Sourcebook) kinda crept up on me. One thing Modiphius is doing well — and that Free League has been seriously falling down on with it’s Blade Runner and Alen lines — is dropping pre-orders once their material is ready to go…not making you wait a year for them to get it cleared by their licensors. Kudos to Jim Johnson for managing this line extremely well.
The guide provides a nice overview of the entire century — not just the events of Discovery through the old show movies. The chapters give a political and technological overview of the pre-Disco era (starting from the end of the Enterprise era), and they also focus a few pages on how each of the major polities are affected — the Federation, the Klingon and Romulan empires, the Cardassian Union, and the Orion Syndicate. The chapters are broken into the pre-Discovery period, the Disco/Strange New Worlds period, the Old Series, and the movie period. For those who have only a passing knowledge of the setting (especially the pre-Discovery and the original movies), this a fast entry into the 23rd Century. There is also a latter chapter on creating characters specific to the era, including suggested focuses, traits, and values. For those GMs with players who are unfamiliar with these period settings, this can help create characters consistent to the goings-on around them. It also ties neatly with the first chapter, which provides new lifepath options for having grown up on a species homeworld different from your own, a new civilian profession (free trader), and specific high-impact events from the various shows and movies. Was your character present for the V’Ger incident, or at the Khitomer Accords? Now you can have that as a specific event in character creation. The first chapter also has updated rules on scars, fatigue, and trauma borrowed from The Federation-Klingon War sourcebook for first edition. A final chapter gives tips for plotting adventures during the various series’ settings.
Artwork remains solidly good to very good, and Paolo Puggioni’s cover deserves a special shout-out. There’s a frontpiece on the inside over with the various uniforms of the period — much of it cribbed from other earlies books in the first and second editions, and the backpiece has a timeline for the “Prime” and “Terran” (read Mirror) Universes, as well as the execrable J.J. Abrams “Kelvan” timeline.
So, is it worth it? At 129 pages, $60 might be a bit hefty if you’re a confirmed Trekkie or just hit up the Memory Alpha site for information. I’m not certain how much use I’ll get out of this, but it is a good-looking book and well made, with plenty of useable game mechanics and ideas to launch off of. If cost is a problem and you don’t mind using the cheaper PDFs for reference — that’s definitely worth it.
The copyright for 2d20 system is Modiphius, 2019. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios inc. All Rights Reserved and no infringement is intended.
Modiphius has been on a roll with their Star Trek Adventures line since brining out the 2nd Edition rules set. Over the last year, there’s been four sourcebooks that have dropped. We already looked at the Technical Manual released in April 2025, which was followed by the Exploration Guide in October, then the 23rd Century Sourcebook around Christmas time, and the PDF for the Species Sourcebook just dropped yesterday.
The Exploration Guide feels like it was peeled off from the Technical Manual, and feels like these could have been a single book. As it is, as 144 pages it’s a nice size to peruse or do a quick reference. The production values are good, and have been consistent across the 2nd Edition line, so far. It comes with a smallish folding map with Alpha and Beta Quadrants, c. 2259 on one side, and a 2401 version on the reverse. They are the same maps as seen in the frontpiece and backpiece the inner cover of the book. The maps are nice enough, but a bit small, compared to the old setting map that 1st Edition had from the old Geoffrey Mandel Star Charts book, and isn’t as easy to reference. The 25th Century map is especially mutes and hard to reference at the table.
The layout is consistent with the new look of 2nd Edition: bright, clean, and easy to read. Like the Technical Manual, the artwork is all new — I didn’t notice a reuse of prior artwork from first Edition or even the new core book. The cover is by the same artist as the prior book, and the artists used look to be the same. It gives a consistent flavor from the core book, to these two sourcebooks.
There’s new lifepaths, the Independent Archeologist and the Outpost Researcher, and about a dozen new career events, new talents, and the addition of civilian awards you can buy with advancement. It’s a new civilian focus that cuts throughout the book. The other chapters cover sector design, star and system design, and planetary design for your setting. I banged out a couple of worlds and systems — and it works well. Prior to this, I had been using the system creation rules from the Alien RPG’s Building Better Worlds sourcebook, with tweaks. The last chapter deals with specific biomes — ocean, jungle, etc. — and how to design specific features, plant and animal life. There’s also encounter tables for those that was random encounters.
So, is it worth it? The guide is pretty useful for putting together material for your game — especially if you are planning a campaign in a particular region (hence the sector design), and is a good follow-up to the Technical Manual. At 144 pages, it feels a bit thin for the $60ish bucks for the hardcover book, but if you are like me and prefer to work out of a physical resource, then yes — it’s worth it…maybe more so than the Technical Manual. If you’re good with PDF, the price point is certainly more forgiving.
The copyright for 2d20 system is Modiphius, 2019. STAR TREK and related marks and logos are trademarks of CBS Studios inc. All Rights Reserved and no infringement is intended.
The Black Campbell 