By Jim Johnson, Project Manager
Art by Rodrigo Gonzalez Toledo
The pre-order release of the new Exploration Guide brings a host of new character options for use when you’re generating your character or for when you are advancing your character over the course of a mission or campaign. Let’s take a closer look at some of the new character options contained in Chapter 1!
You’ll find two new career paths: Independent Archaeologist and Outpost Scientist. For those of you who want to emulate Vash, Petra Aberdeen, Dr. David Marcus, or Dr. Ira Graves, you now have the opportunity to create them in the game. It’s a big Galaxy, and archaeologists and outpost scientists exist and operate in nearly every spacefaring civilization. You can also use these options to add depth to your Captain’s Log Solo RPG character(s).
Next, there are 10 new career events, all of which relate to exploration of the cosmos or the self and other cultures. Use these career events to further customize your character and to help make your scientist or explorer stand out from the crowd. Each new career event should help to load your character with new subplot potential, adding depth to your ongoing game or campaign.
There are also 21 new character talents, all of which were designed to enhance gameplay, especially some that support the game’s focus on cooperation and teamwork. The new talents Shared Joy and Supportive are particularly good at this, where you can support your fellow player characters when they’re resting or encountering hardships.
For those players looking for more ways to spend their characters’ hard-earned Acclaim, there are five new honors and awards, including the Daystrom Award, the Nobel Prize, and the Zee-Magnees Prize. All these honors are based on those mentioned throughout the Star Trek franchise. You can easily retitle them to be relevant to a specific culture. Who is to say the Klingons and the Romulans don’t have equivalents of the Carrington Award? Simply change the title, keep the benefit, and you have a brand new honor or award for your Orion, Ferengi, Romulan, or whatever other species character you might be playing.
An exciting set of new options for your character are those of keeping secrets. Many characters in the Star Trek universe have a secret of some sort that is only revealed over the course of a season or in a movie. Given the nature of broadcast production, the secrets often are not revealed, or even thought of, at the beginning of a series, but develop over the course of the series. For example, Doctor Julian Bashir was captured and placed in prison during the run of Deep Space Nine and replaced by a Changeling (he also had the additional secret of being a Human Augment). Neither secret existed in the series bible, but came along organically as the series progressed.
Now you too have the opportunity to build a secret into your character from the very beginning of character generation, or add it later over the course of a campaign. This would be especially useful if you’re using the Creation in Play option for character generation (pages 142–143 of the core rulebook).
The new secret options allow you to have secret values, secret traits, and hidden talents. Naturally, you are strongly encouraged to talk with your gamemaster and group as to whether you want secrets in your game or what type of secrets you want in your game so that everybody is aware of what’s happening and that there aren’t any unpleasant or unexpected surprises during the course of your game.
I hope you’ve enjoyed this deeper look at the new character options available to you in the new Exploration Guide. Check out these new options and fold them into your characters, whether they are brand new or are characters you’ve played for a while and are improving them over the course of a campaign.
How are you planning to use the new character options contained in the Exploration Guide? Head over to the official Modiphius Discord and share your ideas with your fellow fans!
Preorder the print edition of the Exploration Guide now and receive the final digital edition right away. Print copies are expected to ship in October 2025 worldwide.
Thanks for reading this article, and thank you for your interest and support of Star Trek Adventures! Keep frequencies open for news about other upcoming Star Trek Adventures product releases. Live long and prosper!
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