Coriolis: The Third Horizon, Emissary Lost 1 of 3
On Monday, the 30th June 2025, our group finished Emissary Lost. We’ve been playing for 336 days, comprising 18 sessions, each lasting two hours, 36 hours in total. We ran alternate Mondays and ran for at least a minimum of 4 players.
This is part one of the Mercy of the Icons campaign for Coriolis: The Third Horizon. Something that had been on my bucket list of RPG experiences for many years.
Session Zero & the Character Cap
The group consisted of 6 players: The Missionary (Challenger), The Spy (Negotiator), The Data Djinn (Shadow), The Prospector (Flashy Pilot), The Mystic (Healer) and The Legionnaire (Protector).
We’d previously played through Last Voyage of the Ghazali, before a player, The Courtesan (Cultural attache), left, replaced by The Legionnaire.
Our session zero utilised the Alexandrian Character Creation Cap System, we had about half of the players who were well-versed in story games, and we felt this would give some interesting roleplaying hooks for each player and for the relationships between players. Ultimately, we saw this replacing the Buddy and Problem hooks that were used for handing out XP.
Safety Tools
We also used The Gauntlet Lines and Veils to act as a guide to what players felt was acceptable at the table. There were some discussions around torture, given we had a couple of characters with a dark, ruthless background. This came up in a scene a few months in, and helped the group quickly stop, assess and move in a different direction.
X-Card was built into the VTT, but was never used.
We operated an open table and had a minimum of 4 players available at any time for the game to go ahead.
VTT
We used FoundryVTT and the official Coriolis and Emissary Lost modules, which were fit for purpose, though they had some gaps in terms of graphics and art that a GM would want to present to players - so some DIY work required, and though based directly on the book, the book itself has some layout and structure issues which are then replicated in the VTT. I also utilised Alchemy, which is harder to set up and run, but had better organisation of the scenes and events compared to both the book and FoundryVTT.
Discord
We organised most of the game on The Raspy Raven Discord, and also voice and, importantly, video were used on Discord. The Discord area uses a bot, Sesh, to schedule alarms and a calendar for when we would meet or if a player was not available. We also had forum-like channels that incorporated links, session notes, handouts and general discussion on what the group wanted to do, clarifications on rules and other points.
Darkness Points (DP)
After listening to the Effekt Podcast on Darkness Points, I decided to use a softer approach to Darkness Points (DP), not using them to impact combat or other challenges, instead, deciding which Events to incorporate, based on the state of the party. In addition, I started tracking DP in terms of Over Usage and who invokes them, through push rolls or Mystic Powers and which Icons are prayed to. This would then lead to campaign complications once certain thresholds were reached, a. Overall DP b. DP per Icon c. DP per Player.
The upshot was that players pushed their rolls in most circumstances, and in return, if they were doing well, they’d face additional Events, which are powered by DP. FoundryVTT automatically tracks DP. We stand at around 41 DP. At times, myself and the players felt that DP is broken. In retrospect, I wouldn’t say that. There are multiple ways to manage this, and the scenario does well in showing where the optional scenes are and how impactful they are on a party; many of these optional events are powered by DP. As an experienced GM, I was comfortable knowing when and how to balance encounters.
During the campaign, I never once felt that the players were getting out of jail for free or finding, especially combat encounters or challenges, easy; we had three major combats, and in two of the three, we had at least one or more broken PCs. In a fraught moment, one player was close to death, needing a Medicurgy roll to survive, which they did, so both players and the GM felt that there was enough jeopardy and thrill in the game, even with lots of pushes/re-rolls.
So, where do we stand with the DP Over Usage? At the present time, we have two players who have reached the first threshold for DP over usage; they will now experience Messenger and Judge complications specific to their background and past actions. Also, the group as a whole hit a threshold and took a campaign hit; their ship has been stolen. Which in itself has now presented an optional fun side quest before starting The Last Cyclade.
Experience Points (XP)
We struggled to find a balance on when to hand out Experience Points (XP), it would have been nice to understand during the campaign, the rate at which players should progress. There is also a lack of guidance in the campaign as to how to balance challenges for different levels of experience or the number of players, but more of that in Part Two.
Two issues came up: the first was when to run the XP assignment; we ran relatively short two hour sessions, so we started to assign XP every two sessions, but this was problematic, we ran fortnightly, so a month had gone by when we had to rack our brains on what had happened in a session. Eventually, we ended up assigning XP every session, but only 2-3 XP as a maximum.
The second issue is what to assign XP for, having removed the Buddy and Problem questions, we used an admittedly fuzzy approach for these aspects, “lean on the Character Cap”. This worked for some Players, others, I think, found it a struggle, a frustration, but they tended to get their XP through other means, e.g. blowing things up or hitting stuff.
Birr
Birr handout was another issue, again, knowing how much to assign at critical points, I mainly took guidance from the Atlas Compendium, in terms of Mission rewards, Birr amounts were rolled at the end of each scenario unless stated in the adventure. I provided a spreadsheet to track high level ship payments, living expenses and the various rewards or gear found, so we had a rough idea per player how much Birr they had available at any one time.
In terms of equipment, one player, The Data Djinn, was desperate for a high-tech computer to boost his rolls, he had a fun time searching for this in the jungles of Kua, not the right location for that level of tech, so something we’ve deferred as a mini quest on his return to Coriolis now Emissary Lost is over. The main lesson from this is that it feels unrealistic to give out tech that doesn’t align with the tech levels of the location the players are in.
I’ve also dangled a mystical, mega computer legend in front of him, something akin to Orac from Blake’s Seven (one for the kids there!).
The Third Horizon
Something that I did a little bit of, but also worked to introduce in chunks, was the setting information. For myself and the players, this turned out to be the most satisfying aspect of Coriolis.
Factions dominate the Third Horizon, but just as important is some of the history of how Firstcome and Zenithians came into being. One or two Factions would become a focus in each of the main adventures, e.g. Last Voyage of the Ghazali, The Wake of the Martyr & The Kuan Connection (The last two forming Emissary Lost).
At times, this was simplified, e.g. Order of the Pariah are the baddies. But gradually introducing grey areas, e.g. conflicting aspects, Order of the Pariah run hospitals, poor houses, and soup kitchens.
Gradually exposing political and historical elements was and is an ongoing challenge.
Impart Third Horizon information continued throughout the sessions, with usually a quick culture roll, at which one character excelled, to have a few minutes explaining an aspect of The Third Horizon, and also stimulated a flurry of questions from players.
This then naturally deepened the players’ knowledge and understanding of this marvellous setting, without being swamped with information.
Next Time
In Part Two, I’ll cover the campaign itself. There are spoilers!
In Part Three, I’ll summarise mine and the group’s overall experience of Emissary Lost, what I’d do differently and what's next for our group and The Mercy of the Icons.