Sentai Fhtagn Intro

[Username17]

Welcome to Sentai Fhtagn
“Sentai is a Japanese word meaning Task Force. Fhtagn is a word in the language of the Great Old Ones referring to the deathless dreaming that the eldritch horrors do when they are outside of time.”

Sentai Fhtagn is a cooperative storytelling game for two or more players about fighting impossible odds in a science fiction cosmic horror setting. Each player roleplays various characters who are members of one of the numerous agencies tasked with protecting The Union of the united peoples of Earth and its surroundings from existential threats. The universe around them is the Mythos first described by H. P. Lovecraft, and it is vast and implacable and full of threats. These threats are very very large, and very very old, and fending them off is at best extremely difficult. In fact, it is likely that the eventual demise of Earthly civilization is inevitable and that our enemies will outlive us even when our sun has grown cold and dim and nothing remains of our monuments but dust. The characters are to some extent aware of the vast powers arrayed against them, and must come to grips in their own way with the reality that their fight may well be futile.
The Union began as an alliance of human nations, but today has several off-world colonies in the solar system and has minority populations of several non-human species both terrestrial and alien. Over the last few centuries it has incorporated people and knowledge from other worlds and the most remote corners of the Earth. It has advanced technology and sorcery is an everyday fact of life. The Union has fought several wars against enemies from other worlds and monsters from within the earth and beneath the sea. So far, the pace of discovery has been enough to keep the Union from being conquered or destroyed, but it has been very close at times. Space faring technology adapted from alien technology and giant robots built by the sweat and mad genius of humans have carried the day, but there is every reason to believe that the worst has yet to come. Life exists in countless forms in many times and places, and much of it is hostile.
The stories told in Sentai Fhtagn do not have a known ending, even to the people telling that create twists that can surprise everyone at the table. There is no guaranty that good will triumph over evil. Major and beloved characters may die, and these deaths may not be heroic or meaningful.


Roleplaying Characters

The Union is defended by many people who have many roles. There are scientists and soldiers, sorcerers and detectives, and all of them have important things to do to protect the Union from threats without and within. Some of the people aren't even humans, such as the benthic Deep Ones, the serpentine Ophidians, the bestial Ghouls, the thunderous Oni, or the dionysian Goat Spawn. Many of these characters will have magical powers or technological enhancements that make them experience the world very differently from how the presumably mortal human players do. During the stories that are being told, the things many of these characters do and say will be important, and the players of the game determine these characters' actions and words.
There are more characters in the stories generated by Sentai Fhtagn than there are players at the table, and to facilitate this every player is asked to roleplay as more than one character. It is entirely likely that a player's relationship with different characters will be different, with a player identifying closely with one character and using another character more like a game piece. Some players will find it useful to speak of a character's actions in the first person (“I open the door”) while other players will find it easier to speak of a character's actions in the third person (“Dr. Vanheim opens the door”). Some players will switch back and forth between first and third person, and that's OK.
Players will react differently to their characters, some treated as alter-egos and others treated as chess pieces. Quite often, a character will begin as little more than a collection of skills, and become established as recognizable people in their own right as they speak and act in situations. This is called character development, and it is a common element of fiction. Think of it like how Klinger in MASH was originally just a throwaway corporal trying to get out on a section 8 and over time and multiple appearances grew into a major character with personality and talents. It is entirely appropriate for a character to be treated as an expendable pawn at first and gradually become a beloved character with quirks and personality that all the players can appreciate for as long as they live.
Sentai Fhtagn is different from most other roleplaying games in that all of the players are expected to play several different roles, and that can be confusing. Players should take special care to make clear which character is being roleplayed at any given moment. We are not saying that you have to change costumes or use funny voices, but differentiating characters somehow is something that has to be done. When playing on-line, you can use different text colors or signatures for different characters. When playing in person, you can make up a stack of name tags and swap them around – or just use your words and introduce who you're talking about before you begin speaking in-character.

Needful Things

This book is not the entire game, it is merely the instructions of how to play it and enough backstory and setting information for stories in the world of Sentai Fhtagn to be played. You will also need at least one other person, two ten sided dice, and some way of recording information (such as a laptop or a pencil and a piece of paper). If your story is to include large scale battles with giant monsters across the length and breadth of major cities you'll probably also want a map and little models of robots and monsters to move around on it.
The dice used by Sentai Fhtagn are always two ten sided dice, but they are read in two ways. The first is to add the numbers on both dice together and then add and subtract modifiers from the result. This generates numbers between 2 and 20 with 11 the most likely result, and in this book this is always called 2D10. The other way is to have one of the dice generate a tens place and the other generate a ones place, generating numbers between 1 and 100 all of equal probability. This latter kind of roll is always called D100. 2D10 is frequently used to resolve actions, while D100 is frequently used to generate events.

The Essential Hopelessness of Everything
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Is the battle to save the Union doomed? Are the enemies of Earth destined to triumph and leave our civilization as a forgotten footnote in unread annals of history? Lovecraft certainly thought so. When the stories that inspired Sentai Fhtagn were first being written, the prospect of enemies from across the vast distances of space and time between stars seemed completely impervious to the weapons of man. Humans could gaze out into the night, but they might effect no greater force against the coming invasion than an Aztec could shout down the training of conquistadors in Spain. However, science advances and things once thought unthinkable become possible and even commonplace. The Aztec empire was crushed beneath the feet of Cortez, but the descendants made guns and ships of their own and no longer bow to the Spanish crown.
People of The Union have set foot on other worlds and bested enemies who could send city destroying weapons through the black gulf between spheres. The Union has overcome challenges which people in the early part of the 20th century could not imagine a solution to. But the fact that past impossible challenges have been bested does not mean that unimaginable problems have solutions. The Union is aware of forces in the galaxy that have destroyed entire planets, and it is not entirely clear that there is anything that could be done about that should those forces be unleashed upon Earth. Further, The Union is engaged in hostilities with enemies who can manipulate time itself, and it's entirely possible that humanity's ultimate destruction has been fated and foreseen before the first ape sharpened a stick.
The defenders of The Union know with certainty that it is possible for them to lose, possible for the combined peoples of this world to be enslaved or wiped away without a trace. But there is no way to be certain that any positive outcome is even possible. The Union's protectors have chosen to fight against odds that may well be literally impossible, because what other choice is there? They use advanced weapons and powerful magics to save as much of the world as they can for as long as they can from monsters that can scarcely be imagined or described. They are Sentai Fhtagn.

---

Thoughts? Is there anything else that needs to go in the first two pages?

-Username17

[MisterDee]

MASH references might go over the head of a lot of younger / non-American players. You probably should add something from the late 90s or later to make your point there.

I'm having difficulty parsing the tone of the game from the text - is it supposed to be a dead serious mythos game, or more Power Rangers vs. Cthulhu? I'm inclined to think the latter from the name, but the prose is very dramatic.

[Josh_Kablack]

Compulsive editing attempt:

Welcome to Sentai Fhtagn
“Sentai is a Japanese word meaning Task Force. Fhtagn is a word in the language of the Great Old Ones referring to the deathless dreaming that the eldritch horrors do when they are outside of time.”

Sentai Fhtagn is a cooperative storytelling game for two or more players about fighting impossible odds in a science fiction cosmic horror setting. Each player roleplays various characters who are members of one of the numerous agencies tasked with protecting The Union of the united peoples of Earth and its surroundings from existential threats. The universe around them is the Mythos first described by H. P. Lovecraft, and it is vast and implacable and full of threats. These threats are very very large, and very very old, and fending them off is at best extremely difficult. In fact It is likely that the eventual demise of Earthly civilization is inevitable and that our enemies will outlive us even when our sun has grown cold and dim and nothing remains of our monuments but dust. The characters are to some extent aware of the vast powers arrayed against them, and must come to grips in their own way with the reality that their fight may well be futile.
The Union began as an alliance of human nations, but today has several off-world colonies in the solar system and has minority populations of several non-human species both terrestrial and alien. Over the last few centuries it has incorporated people and knowledge from other worlds and the most remote corners of the Earth. It has advanced technology and sorcery is an everyday fact of life.

Seems a bit jarring way to introduce Sorcery. Maybe "It has advanced technology and the best sorcerers humanity can muster", possibly moving the "everyday fact of life" to somewhere earlier. Not sure

The Union has fought several wars against enemies from other worlds, and monsters from within the earth, and horrors beneath the seas.

So far, the pace of discovery has been enough to keep the Union from being conquered or destroyed, but it has been very close at times. Space faring technology adapted from alien technology and giant robots built by the mad genius and everyday sweat of humans have eked out victories so far -- but there is every reason to believe that the worst has yet to come. Life exists in countless forms in many times and places, and much of it is hostile.
The stories told in Sentai Fhtagn do not have known endings, not even to the people telling them. The game can create twists that can surprise everyone at the table. There is no guaranty that good will triumph over evil. Major and beloved characters may die, and these deaths may not be heroic or meaningful.


Roleplaying Characters

The Union is defended by many people who have many roles. There are scientists and soldiers, sorcerers and detectives, and all of them have important things to do to protect the Union from threats without and within. Some of the people aren't even humans, such as the benthic Deep Ones, the serpentine Ophidians, the bestial Ghouls, the thunderous Oni, or the dionysian Goat Spawn. Many of these characters will have magical powers or technological enhancements that make them experience the world very differently from how the presumably mortal human players do. During the stories that are being told, the things many of these characters do and say will be important, and the players of the game determine these characters' actions and words.
There are more characters in the stories generated by Sentai Fhtagn than there are players at the table, and to facilitate this every player is asked to roleplay as more than one character. It is entirely likely that a player's relationship with different characters will be different, with a player identifying closely with one character and using another character more like a game piece. Some players will find it useful to speak of a character's actions in the first person (“I open the door”) while other players will find it easier to speak of a character's actions in the third person (“Dr. Vanheim opens the door”). Some players will switch back and forth between first and third person, and that's OK.
Players will react differently to their characters, some treated as alter-egos and others treated as chess pieces. Quite often, a character will begin as little more than a collection of skills, and become established as recognizable people in their own right as they speak and act in situations. This is called character development, and it is a common element of fiction. Think of it like how Klinger in MASH was originally just a throwaway corporal trying to get out on a section 8 and over time and multiple appearances grew into a major character with personality and talents. It is entirely appropriate for a character to be treated as an expendable pawn at first and gradually become a beloved character with quirks and personality that all the players can appreciate for as long as they live.
Sentai Fhtagn is different from most other roleplaying games in that all of the players are expected to play several different roles, which can be confusing. Players should take special care to make clear which character is being roleplayed at any given moment. We are not saying that you have to change costumes or use funny voices, but differentiating characters somehow is something that has to be done. When playing on-line, you can use different text colors or signatures for different characters. When playing in person, you can make up a stack of name tags and swap them around – or just use your words and introduce who you're talking about before you begin speaking in-character.

Needful Things

This book is not the entire game, it is merely the instructions of how to play it and enough backstory and setting information to set stories in the world of Sentai Fhtagn. You will also need at least one other person, two ten sided dice, and some way of recording information (such as a laptop or a pencil and a piece of paper). If your story is to include large scale battles with giant monsters across the length and breadth of major cities you'll probably also want a map and little models of robots and monsters to move around on it.
The dice used by Sentai Fhtagn are always two ten sided dice, but they are read in two ways. The first is to add the numbers on both dice together and then add and subtract modifiers from the result. This generates numbers between 2 and 20 with 11 the most likely result, and in this book this is always called 2D10. The other way is to have one of the dice generate a tens place and the other generate a ones place, generating numbers between 1 and 100 all of equal probability. This latter kind of roll is always called D100. 2D10 is frequently used to resolve actions, while D100 is frequently used to generate events.

The Essential Hopelessness of Everything
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Is the battle to save the Union doomed? Are the enemies of Earth destined to triumph and leave our civilization as a forgotten footnote in unread annals of history? Lovecraft certainly thought so. When the stories that inspired Sentai Fhtagn were first being written, the prospect of enemies from across the vast distances of space and time between stars seemed completely impervious to the weapons of man. Humans could gaze out into the night, but they might effect no greater force against the coming invasion than an Aztec could shout down the training of conquistadors in Spain. However, science advances and things once thought unthinkable become first possible then commonplace. The Aztec empire was crushed beneath the feet of Cortez, but their descendants made guns and ships of their own and no longer bow to the Spanish crown.
People of The Union have set foot on other worlds and bested enemies who could send city destroying weapons through the black gulf between spheres. The Union has overcome challenges which people in the early part of the 20th century could not imagine a solution to. But the fact that past impossible challenges have been bested does not mean that unimaginable problems have solutions. The Union is aware of forces in the galaxy that have destroyed entire planets, and it is not entirely clear that there is anything that could be done about that should those forces be unleashed upon Earth. Further, The Union is engaged in hostilities with enemies who can manipulate time itself, and it's entirely possible that humanity's ultimate destruction has been fated and foreseen before the first ape sharpened a stick.
The defenders of The Union know with certainty that it is possible for them to lose, possible for the combined peoples of this world to be enslaved or wiped away without a trace. There is no way to be certain that any positive outcome is even possible. The Union's protectors have chosen to fight against odds that may well be literally impossible, because what other choice is there? They use advanced weapons and powerful magics to save as much of the world as they can for as long as they can from monsters that can scarcely be imagined or described. They are Sentai Fhtagn. They are you!

As for additional things, I want to ask if we need a nod to the Power Rangers / Sailor Moon influence on this? or is Sentai" in the name enough? You have an explanation of how this is insipred by Lovecraft and yet builds on the mythos and holds out more hope (even if it may be false) than typical Mythos works -- but nothing similar for the other half of the inspirational work.

[czernebog]

I am largely in agreement with MisterDee. At present, the tone, theme, and setting elements mentioned are light on the Sentai, heavy on the Fhtagn. Given that the game is set in the Mythos, this is warranted. But players coming to the table may be more familiar with the tropes and setting elements that come from anime or fiction that present Mythos content without buying as heavily into the central theme of creeping, unstoppable horror. A more detailed nod to the player character archetypes might help give new players something more to latch onto. That way, if someone wants to pitch the game as a dark vision of Gurren Lagann, there's more support in the intro. This might not be feasible because of the large variety of character archetypes that are supported.

It sounds like the notion of variations in the scale of play (e.g., mecha vs. kaiju being distinct from more traditional person-scale Mythos investigations) is still present, as it is mentioned under Needful Things. It might be better to describe what this means for gameplay. This could help round out the sense of the game's scope --- you can defend The Union by assaulting cosmic horrors from a seat in a lobotomized bio-mechanoid's skull, but it's also vitally important that subversive agents of the Moon Beasts are ferreted out and hunted down in the twisting corridors of the Third Pentagon.

[Maxus]

Yeah, I gotta concur.

On one level, you're fighting monsters and blowing stuff up. This is something you can conceivably do and remain somewhat normal in the head. Bot pilots, and some sorcerors and magical girls live in the Sentai side.

And then you have the deep level of Fhtagn, where you look upon Yog-Sothoth and he spares a moment of attention to look back at you, and in that moment sees your hopes, memories, future. How you feel, what you know. He sees you, and knows you, and this means you can never go back to being the same because you saw Yog-Sothoth's identity, too.

The opening's a bit too clear that the war might be hopeless, for all that it does have some nice lines about it--like the sharpened stick reference. I think it could do with a bit of toning down of "Our enemies are vast cosmic forces which could destroy us if they fully came down on us". I'm not saying eliminate it, just make it more subtle.

[Longes]

dionysian Goat Spawn

I'm not quite sure what's that supposed to mean. They are crazy? Or Dionys is one of the great old ones in the setting?

[Red_Rob]

I got that Dionysian was referring to the Satyr-like appearance and nature of the Goat Spawn.

I like the intro format, informative whilst enticing you into the world. It might be helpful to expound a little on why you play multiple characters in this game - maybe this could also bring a little more of the Sentai into the currently Ftaghn-focussed intro. Jut a few sentences about how the game represents the entirety of the Unions struggles against the invaders, and therefore the players will take the role of shadowy investigators, magical agents and even the pilots of the great war machines wrested from the enemy.

[OgreBattle]

The intro doesn't tell me why I need to create and run multiple characters, like say mentioning detective work + evangelion piloting as things the gave covers with different characters

[maglag]

How important will be the powers of friendship/love/hope/hotbloodness? Do characters mechas/familars get stronger by believing in each other who believes in them?

Also in the opposite, do characters who fall into despair actually turn into monsters that must be taken down by their own former allies?

Are frilly dresses and colourful jumpsuits acceptable battle uniforms?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

How important will be the powers of friendship/love/hope/hotbloodness? Do characters mechas/familars get stronger by believing in each other who believes in them?

This struck me too. As it is, its hard to sympathize with the Union, sorta like how it's hard t sympathize with the Imperium of Mankind, they do what they can because they must in a completely reactionary manner, not because they're a bunch of die-hard sunnavabitches who spit in the face of existential dread.

Now, if they're doing all this science and magic because they want to go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb, because that's how Team Earth rolls, and the power of a parent's love really is force potent enough to destroy Lord Voldemort, I can get down with that. While I understand that a Phyrric outcome of an adventure is the expected result, it would be nice to know how the expected result can be subverted.

[Mask_De_H]

It's hard to sympathize with the Imperium because they're maybe a half step removed from Britain's tradition of satirical totalitarian fascists, PAD-chou.

But the point on whether Sentai Fthagn is supposed to be more Gurren Lagann/PreCure or Evangelion/MadoMagi stands. It's something the SF brainstorming thread never hashed out, I don't think. It might be up to the group, so saying as such would be a good idea somewhere.

[maglag]

How important will be the powers of friendship/love/hope/hotbloodness? Do characters mechas/familars get stronger by believing in each other who believes in them?

This struck me too. As it is, its hard to sympathize with the Union, sorta like how it's hard t sympathize with the Imperium of Mankind, they do what they can because they must in a completely reactionary manner, not because they're a bunch of die-hard sunnavabitches who spit in the face of existential dread.

The IoM have their e-mail powered by human sacrifice for the evulz, and that's one of the happiest fates you can expect as a citizen of them. Also their best stuff is all over 9000 years old. They're not reacting, they're stagnating while making sure they keep their baby-nuking quotas in order.

The Union described by Frank at least seems innovate and accept new stuff. The IoM is all "Hey, we're suffering horrendous casualities, maybe we should try new stuff? Nah, that would be HERESY!"

It's hard to sympathize with the Imperium because they're maybe a half step removed from Britain's tradition of satirical totalitarian fascists, PAD-chou.

But the point on whether Sentai Fthagn is supposed to be more Gurren Lagann/PreCure or Evangelion/MadoMagi stands. It's something the SF brainstorming thread never hashed out, I don't think. It might be up to the group, so saying as such would be a good idea somewhere.

Yeah, more of this.

[Sakuya Izayoi]

Yeah, bad IoM analogy was bad, I apologize for that part.

[Username17]

Welcome to Sentai Fhtagn

“Sentai is a Japanese word meaning Task Force. Fhtagn is a word in the language of the Great Old Ones referring to the deathless dreaming that the eldritch horrors do when they are outside of time.”

Sentai Fhtagn is a cooperative storytelling game for two or more players about fighting impossible odds in a fantasy/science fiction cosmic horror setting. Each player roleplays various characters who are members of one of the numerous agencies tasked with protecting The Union of the united peoples of Earth and its surroundings from existential threats. The universe around them is the Mythos first described by H. P. Lovecraft, and it is vast and implacable and full of threats. These threats are very very large, and very very old, and fending them off is at best extremely difficult. It is likely that the demise of Earthly civilization is inevitable and that our enemies will outlive us even when our sun has grown cold and dim and nothing remains of our monuments but dust. The characters are to some extent aware of the vast powers arrayed against them, and must come to grips in their own way with the reality that their fight may well be futile.

The Union began as an alliance of human nations, but today has several off-world colonies in the solar system and has minority populations of several non-human species both terrestrial and alien. Over the last few centuries it has incorporated people and knowledge from other worlds and the most remote corners of the Earth. It has advanced technology and sorcery is an everyday fact of life. The Union has fought several wars against enemies from other worlds and monsters from within the earth and beneath the sea. So far, the pace of discovery has been enough to keep the Union from being conquered or destroyed, but it has been very close. Space faring technology adapted from alien technology, ancient sorcerous secrets, and giant robots built by the sweat and mad genius of humans have carried the day, but there is every reason to believe that the worst has yet to come. Life exists in countless forms in many times and places, and much of it is hostile.

The stories told in Sentai Fhtagn do not have a known ending, even to the people telling that create twists that can surprise everyone at the table. There is no guaranty that good will triumph over evil. Major and beloved characters may die, and these deaths may not be heroic or meaningful. The tone of the story need not be relentlessly downbeat, in addition to Lovecraftian cosmicism, Sentai Fhtagn borrows extensively from Cyberpunk nihilism as well as the Japanese Mecha and Magical Girl genres.

Roleplaying Characters
“The most common form of despair is not being who you are.”

The Union is defended by many people who have many roles, working together to solve problems from many angles at the same time. There are scientists and soldiers, sorcerers and detectives, and all of them have important things to do to protect the Union from threats without and within. Some of the people aren't even humans, such as the benthic Deep Ones, the serpentine Ophidians, the bestial Ghouls, the thunderous Oni, or the dionysian Goat Spawn. Many of these characters will have magical powers or technological enhancements that make them experience the world very differently from how the presumably mortal human players do. During the stories that are being told, the things many of these characters do and say will be important, and the players of the game determine these characters' actions and words.

There are more characters in the stories generated by Sentai Fhtagn than there are players at the table, and to facilitate this every player is asked to roleplay as more than one character. It is entirely likely that a player's relationship with different characters will be different, with a player identifying closely with one character and using another character more like a game piece. Some players will find it useful to speak of a character's actions in the first person (“I open the door”) while other players will find it easier to speak of a character's actions in the third person (“Dr. Vanheim opens the door”). Some players will switch back and forth between first and third person, and that's OK.

Players will react differently to their characters, some treated as alter-egos and others treated as chess pieces. Quite often, a character will begin as little more than a collection of skills, and become established as recognizable people in their own right as they speak and act in situations. This is called character development, and it is a common element of fiction. Think of it like how O'Brien in Star Trek was originally just a transporter officer in the background and over time and multiple appearances grew into a major character with personality and talents. It is entirely appropriate for a character to be treated as an expendable pawn at first and gradually become a beloved character with quirks and personality that all the players can appreciate for as long as they live.

Sentai Fhtagn is different from most other roleplaying games in that all of the players are expected to play several different roles, and that can be confusing. Players should take special care to make clear which character is being roleplayed at any given moment. We are not saying that you have to change costumes or use funny voices, but differentiating characters somehow is something that has to be done. When playing on-line, you can use different text colors or signatures for different characters. When playing in person, you can make up a stack of name tags and swap them around – or just use your words and introduce who you're talking about before you begin speaking in-character.

Needful Things
“There may be more beautiful times, but this one is ours.”

This book is not the entire game, it is merely the instructions of how to play it and enough backstory and setting information for stories in the world of Sentai Fhtagn to be played. You will also need at least one other person, two ten sided dice, and some way of recording information (such as a laptop or a pencil and a piece of paper). If your story is to include large scale battles with giant monsters across the length and breadth of major cities you'll probably also want a map and little models of robots and monsters to move around on it.

The dice used by Sentai Fhtagn are always two ten sided dice, but they are read in two ways. The first is to add the numbers on both dice together and then add and subtract modifiers from the result. This generates numbers between 2 and 20 with 11 the most likely result, and in this book this is always called 2D10. The other way is to have one of the dice generate a tens place and the other generate a ones place, generating numbers between 1 and 100 all of equal probability. This latter kind of roll is always called D100. 2D10 is frequently used to resolve actions, while D100 is frequently used to generate events.

The Essential Hopelessness of Everything
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”

Is the battle to save the Union doomed? Are the enemies of Earth destined to triumph and leave our civilization as a forgotten footnote in unread annals of history? Lovecraft certainly thought so. When the stories that inspired Sentai Fhtagn were first being written, the prospect of enemies from across the vast distances of space and time between stars seemed completely impervious to the weapons of man. Humans could gaze out into the night, but they might effect no greater force against the coming invasion than an Aztec could shout down the training of conquistadors in Spain. However, science advances and things once thought unthinkable become possible and even commonplace. The Aztec empire was crushed beneath the feet of Cortez, but the descendants made guns and ships of their own and no longer bow to the Spanish crown.

People of The Union have set foot on other worlds and bested enemies who could send city destroying weapons through the black gulf between spheres. The Union has overcome challenges which people in the early part of the 20th century could not imagine a solution to. But the fact that past impossible challenges have been bested does not mean that unimaginable problems have solutions. The Union is aware of forces in the galaxy that have destroyed entire planets, and it is not entirely clear that there is anything that could be done about that should those forces be unleashed upon Earth. Further, The Union is engaged in hostilities with enemies who can manipulate time itself, and it's entirely possible that humanity's ultimate destruction has been fated and foreseen before the first ape sharpened a stick.

The defenders of The Union know with certainty that it is possible for them to lose, possible for the combined peoples of this world to be enslaved or wiped away without a trace. But there is no way to be certain that any positive outcome is even possible. The Union's protectors have chosen to fight against odds that may well be literally impossible, because what other choice is there? They use advanced weapons and powerful magics to save as much of the world as they can for as long as they can from monsters that can scarcely be imagined or described. They are Sentai Fhtagn.

---

How's that?

[Red_Rob]

The revision definitely feels more balanced. I think it straddles the line between explaining RPG's to a newbie and selling the setting very nicely, with some suitably epic prose and good buildup to the tagline at the end. A few proofreading things I noticed:

These threats are very very large, and very very old, and fending them off is at best extremely difficult.

A personal thing but I don't like the oxford comma in general and here the first one seems unnecessary.

There is no guaranty that good will triumph over evil

I don't recognise this spelling of guarantee? Not a big thing but can be jarring if you aren't trying to draw attention to it.

The tone of the story need not be relentlessly downbeat, in addition to Lovecraftian cosmicism, Sentai Fhtagn borrows extensively from Cyberpunk nihilism as well as the Japanese Mecha and Magical Girl genres.

The commas break up the flow, perhaps a semicolon here? "The tone of the story need not be relentlessly downbeat; in addition to Lovecraftian cosmicism Sentai Fhtagn borrows extensively from Cyberpunk nihilism as well as the Japanese Mecha and Magical Girl genres"

The defenders of The Union know with certainty that it is possible for them to lose, possible for the combined peoples of this world to be enslaved or wiped away without a trace. But there is no way to be certain that any positive outcome is even possible. The Union's protectors have chosen to fight against odds that may well be literally impossible, because what other choice is there?

The repetition of the word "possible", whilst it may be a stylistic thing, just reads kind of wrong to me. Like when a song rhymes a word with itself. If this is going for the repeated phrase thing it needs more of a structure I think, otherwise a synonym or two might be in order.

[Lokathor]

The stories told in Sentai Fhtagn do not have a known ending, even to the people telling that create twists that can surprise everyone at the table.

even to the people telling they create?

[...You Lost Me]

I am not a good editor, but the current iteration gives a good feeling of excitement. I would prefer more hype towards the end of the last passage, but I think I'm more aligned to the Sentai side and less to the Fhtagn.

[Pedantic]

The defenders of The Union know with certainty that it is possible for them to lose, possible for the combined peoples of this world to be enslaved or wiped away without a trace. But there is no way to be certain that any positive outcome is even possible. The Union's protectors have chosen to fight against odds that may well be literally impossible, because what other choice is there?

This section is a little weak. "Possible" comes up too many times, and I think a note of hopeful fighting spirit is in order. Perhaps:

The defenders of The Union know with certainty that it is possible for them to lose, possible for the combined peoples of this world to be enslaved or wiped away without a trace. Even if survival is possible, no one can know what changes the peoples of Earth will face and what sacrifices they will have to make to carve out a place in this hostile universe. The Union's protectors have chosen to fight against all odds, knowing there is no other real choice, and that the fate of billions rests, fragile, in their hands.

[Grek]

I think the current tone for the intro is fine. Just alternate between pessimistic and optimistic for each chapter. Assuming we keep the same basic organization from After Sundown, we have:

Introduction (somber)
The Union and the World (gung ho)
Running the Game (detached)
Agencies & Recruitment (patriotic)
Public Relations (despairing)
Combat (confident)
Monsters (terrified)
Magic (cheerful)
Psychology (clinical)
Union Territories (hopeful)
Beastiary (gallows humour)

[...You Lost Me]

I think keeping a consistent tone between chapters is very important. If the monster descriptions feels like horror and the union section feels like a golden age comic book, that would put people off.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I am disappointed that the phrase "dream team" has not appeared more explicitly.

[tussock]

These threats are very very large, and very very old, and fending them off is at best extremely difficult.

A personal thing but I don't like the oxford comma in general and here the first one seems unnecessary.

These threats are very, very large, and very, very old, and fending them off is, at best, extremely difficult.

That's how many commas it should have. Unless you're trying to get it to voice like

These threats are veryvery largeand veryvery old, and fending them off is at best: extremely difficult.

But it's mainly wrong because "and" goes back to things that these threats are.

These threats are ... fending them off is extremely difficult. <- that doesn't work, so it's not an "and" conjunction in the first place. Unless you want

These threats are ... extremely difficult to fend off, at best. or
These threats are ... and at best are extremely difficult to fend off. are-and-are works without commas.

These threats are very, very large, and very, very old. Fending them off is, at best, extremely difficult.

The last keeps the pacing of the original. Deliberate. Careful. People take these threats very, very seriously. You tend to emphasise the word after the comma. Very. Very. Extremely.

[Lokathor]

Always add the oxford comma.

Always.

[OgreBattle]

I know what 'Sentai' is but 'Fhtagn' is hard for me to remember off the top of my head. When you do google each individual part of the name the appropriate content comes up but I wonder if the name could be better.

[fbmf]

Both words are defined in the first paragraph of the intro.

Game On,
fbmf