Game design Carlos Rivera

Model design Carlos Prada

Broken Star Kandar is an intellectual property of Carlos Rivera. No part of this work may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including
photocopying or electronic storage, without the express permission of the author and/or
publisher, except where expressly permitted by law.

Lorecaster Studios 2023, all rights reserved.

THE JOURNEY
Hegemony of the Earth controls everything. In the year 2227 mankind
has spread across the stars reaching nearby star systems thanks
to the discovery of stargates of unknown origin, new quantum
space travel engines and the immense power of the most powerful
corporations whose capital has financed the most risky expeditions.

Ran Ae, an immense rock orbiting the star Ran in the Epsylon Eridani
star system was discovered and colonized by the Kandar corporation
which, due to a series of catastrophic decisions, went bankrupt,
abandoning all its workers and colonists to their fate.

Almost 100 years later, the now known as planet Kandar is a sort
of federation of free territories that fight for their survival among
themselves while trying to stop the interests
of the corporations that have returned to the planet to try to exploit
its resources.

The only real form of justice in the valley lands is the Aegis Company,
a private military corporation that operates from its base on the
central plateau. Freelancers are Aegis operatives, free to act on their
own behalf and decide the fate of the valley’s citizens.

You are one of those freelancers.

Bring the law to the valley or die trying!

THE GAME
Broken Star Kandar is a cooperative skirmish game in which you
play as a freelancer, a professional mercenary in the service of the
Aegis company. You will travel throughout the Kandar Valley, the only
habitable area of the planet, performing operations and improving
your skills and equipment alone or in groups of up to 5 players.

In this document we will try to show you the general rules and some
of the surprises you will find in the complete rulebook so that you can
get an idea of the kind of mechanical rules the game uses, how the
different phases work and how non-player characters act.

Dices
In Broken Star Kandar dice rolls are made with six-sided dice,
commonly called D6. When a character must make a dice roll in order
to perform some actions such as attacking or interacting with a target
the player rolls as many dice as the action indicates plus an additional
die of a different color than the rest. This die is known as the base die
and its usefulness varies according to the action to be performed.
The maximum limit of action dice in a roll is always 3 and when a roll
is made with advantage or disadvantage two base dice are rolled and
the higher or lower result is removed. The maximum number of dice
that can be rolled in a die roll regardless of type is 5.
Characters
All characters have a series of attributes that indicate their
capabilities:

Body: Your physical endurance. How much damage you can take
until you are downed. Being downed means losing your next turn and
receiving a wound until the end of the scenario.

Mind: Your mental acuity. How much fatigue you can accumulate
when executing maneuvers. Maneuvers are special modifications to
common actions that give you flexibility in combat.

Spirit: Your courage and bravery. How much stress you can withstand
until you are frightened. When you are frightened you suffer a general
penalty on your rolls and may even flee from the scenario.

Speed: How many steps your character can move when performing a
movement action.
The step is the standard Kandar unit of measurement. Equivalent to
1 inch (about 25mm).

Perception: The range in steps to which your character can detect

hidden targets.

Reaction: At what point in the round you can take your turn. There
are three types of reaction; fast, standard and slow and some special
abilities or equipment items can modify them.

Knowledges: These are the character’s abilities to be able to perform

different interactions. When a character receives his first rank in
a skill he becomes a novice in that skill and with successive ranks
he increases to expert, veteran and master in that order. The rank
determines the amount of action dice the character throws in his
related rolls and can suppose a minimum limit to be able to use
certain equipment items.

Talents: These are the special abilities of the characters. A talent

improves or modifies the way certain objects are used or certain
actions are performed.

Maneuvers: These are modifications to a character’s actions. Generally

each of them can only be used once per turn and their use implies
that the character receives fatigue counters.
Fatigue is slowly eliminated at the end of each turn so it is necessary
to control its use.
Game cycle
Broken Star Kandar is played in cycles. At the beginning of each cycle,
the different phases of the game are played in a specific order until
the end. The cycles do not have a specific narrative time. Below you
can see the order in which they are played:

Travel: In this first phase the players travel to reach new areas and find
settlements, having to face the expenses of the journey. Alternatively
they can decide to stay in the settlement they are in although this
also has a cost.

Negotiations: In this second phase players search for the different

jobs that are available and if necessary negotiate the reward for them.

Acquisitions: In this third phase players access the central market to

stock up on consumables although with certain limitations due to the
need to act quickly.

Operation: In this fourth phase players deploy the scenario and play
the tactical combat part of the game, fighting against the antagonists
of the operation.

Rest: In this fifth phase the players are rewarded for their actions and
recover from their wounds or make use of the specialists they find in
the settlement.
Player’s turn
When players are deployed in a scenario, each player can take his
turn in the order indicated by his reaction. Some special abilities or
equipment elements can modify a character’s reaction.

When a player starts his turn, his character has 3 actions which can be
of any type described below and in the order they wish:

Movement: The character moves the steps indicated in his speed

through the scenario. Some elements of the scenario itself may
impede the character’s movement, such as dangerous terrain or
elements that are too high to pass over.

Attack: The character performs a full attack against an opponent in

his weapon range. Many firearms and some special abilities can cause
the character to make more than one attack in the same action.
The player rolls the base die and as many action dice as attacks
made. The sum of each separate attack die together with the base
die indicates if the attack hits and the attack die itself also allows to
penetrate the target’s protection. The double results allow to cause
additional damage although in firearms they can also run out of
ammunition.

For example if when executing a roll you get a 4 on the base die and 3
and 4 on two action dice, the results would be 7 (4 on the base die and
3 on the first hit die) and 8 (4 on the base die and 4 on the second hit
die) with the latter being a critical (whether it is a success or failure will
depend on whether the roll manages to overcome the difficulty to hit
the target).

Interacion: The character makes use of a target in the scenario or a

consumable. You can reload a weapon with a magazine, use a health
item or try to access a terminal in the scenario. The player rolls the
base die and up to 3 action dice depending on the difficulty of the roll,
with each individual result generating a success or failure and must
reach a specific number of successes. If the base die equals one or
more of the action dice, special additional results are obtained.

Recovery: This is a special action that can only be performed at the

beginning of the turn. It allows to recover slightly from the damage
received.

Detection: This special action allows you to discover hidden targets

within your zone of control.

All these actions can be modified as maneuvers to improve your

chances of success, such as aiming a weapon, reloading quickly or
executing additional attacks.
Damage and death
Life in the valley is merciless. Upon taking enough damage a
character is downed. This condition causes the character to lose
one turn to get back on his feet but causes wounds, more serious
damages that remain after finishing a scenario and cause penalties
for having a wounded leg or a hit on the head for example. These
wounds are permanent and require medical care and rest, so
recovering from them may mean that the character cannot perform
other important tasks. A high enough accumulation of these wounds
can result in the death of the character.

Operations
Character missions can vary in many ways. There are single scenario
quests that are repeatable with variables, allowing each game to be
different. Other quests have a strong narrative component (in fact it
is the rulebook’s way of narrating its story by focusing on you playing
instead of just reading) and these are also unique and unrepeatable,
and have variation so that each outcome is different. There is even
a special type of mission that you can only accept when you have
reached the maximum character rank.

Oponents
The player’s enemies (and their own allies and companions) are
activated and played thanks to their own artificial personalities that
dictate when and how to act, in addition to being able to generate
special actions. Even among the same type of enemies there are
more aggressive or cowardly, which ensures that you do not know
what you face every time you enter into combat.
These are the main features of Broken Star Kandar. We have left
many more surprises for when you have the rulebook in your
hands.

We hope that this small document will allow you to slightly

understand certain aspects of the game. We consider it is as
important to know the game you are going to play as to know
about the quality and detail of its miniatures. If you have any
doubt, don’t hesitate to contact us on Kickstarter, follow us on
our social networks and, if you consider it, support our project
(even from January 2024 you can join our future Patreon where
the world of Kandar will expand month by month with new
adventures and more incredible miniatures).

Without more to say for now, we thank you in advance for your
attention.