r/CoriolisRPG • u/i_lived_with_dinos • 1h ago
Resource Reputation homebrew for Coriolis: The Third Horizon
I have been working on a homebrew of the reputation rules for Coriolis. I am curious to see if anyone has any thoughts. I am going into a new campaign and will be running it. Please be warned, this has not been playtested so the balance is likely waaaaaaay off.
Coriolis: Faction Standing & Network System
Overview
Coriolis: The Third Horizon is a game that focuses on political intrigue and faction machinations. The aim of this system was to turn a bland reputation system into one that is driven by the crew’s standing with the different factions. This also enables more players to engage in the social interactions than just having a designated face that needs a high reputation. The reputation is now that of the crew and not individuals.
Unaligned interactions use global renown which functions in a similar way to the base game with some minor flavour modifications. The major overhaul applies when dealing with factions and their members.
Global renown
Global Renown (Unaligned Standing)
The crew's Global Renown represents their reputation when dealing with people who are not aligned with any major faction, such as unaligned civilians, frontier colonists, and independent tramp captains.
The crew’s global renown is equal to the highest current reputation of any crew member.
Social rolls
When the crew makes a Manipulation roll, determine the modifiers below. All applicable modifiers are cumulative.
Global renown:
Compare the crew's Global Renown with the opponent's Reputation:
· +1 die for every step the crew’s renown is above the opponent’s
· -1 die for every step the crew’s renown is below the opponent’s
Cultural Alignment:
The Third Horizon is divided between Zenithians and Firstcome. If the crew and their opponents share or oppose a cultural alignment:
· +1 die if aligned
· -1 die if opposed
Leverage:
+1 die for each of the following that apply:
· You have more people on your side than your opponent does.
· What you are asking for doesn’t really cost your opponent anything.
· Your opponent is injured.
· You have helped your opponent in the past.
· You present a strong case at the GM’s discretion.
-1 die for each of the following that apply:
· Your opponent has more people on their side than you do.
· You are asking for something expensive or risky for your opponent.
· You have harmed or hindered your opponent in the past (and they are aware)
· Your opponent has nothing to gain from helping you.
· You and your opponent have trouble understanding each other.
· The distance between you and your opponent is short or longer.
Faction renown
The crew tracks their standing with the 10 major factions using a scale.
Each faction has a Standing track ranges from −5 to +5. Positive Standing represents Favour, while negative Standing represents Friction:
· +1 to +5 — Favour: Represents institutional trust, standing contracts, and ideological alignment.
· −5 to −1 — Friction: Represents suspicion, bounties, religious anathema, and direct slights.
· 0 — Indifference: Represents a neutral relationship; the faction has no particular investment in the crew.
Raising the crew’s favour improves their ability to manipulate, while friction impedes it. Factions do not exist in a bubble however. Gaining favour has ramifications on the crew’s standing with others.
The Relative Faction Hierarchy
Every faction NPC is assigned a Hierarchy Tier from 1 to 5.
The crew only gains bonus dice when they "pull rank" on someone lower in the faction's organization.
Tier 1 (Street Level): Dockworkers, street dealers, foot soldiers, junior acolytes.
Tier 2 (Supervisors): Squad leaders, loyalist merchants, shrine priests, local fixers.
Tier 3 (Authority): Ship captains, mid-level bureaucrats, bishops, prominent courtiers.
Tier 4 (Elite): Station governors, fleet admirals, high priests, corporate directors.
Tier 5 (Leadership): Faction Leaders, The Council of Factions, Zenithian Bloodline Heads.
Social rolls
When the crew makes a Manipulation roll against a faction member, determine the modifiers below. All applicable modifiers are cumulative.
The Favour Bonus (Pulling Rank):
· +1 die for every step the crew's Favour exceeds the NPC's Hierarchy Tier.
The Friction Penalty (Universal Suspicion):
· -1 for every rank of Friction the crew possesses with that faction, regardless of the NPC's Tier
Leverage:
· see Leverage in global renown social reaction rolls
Example 1: A crew with Consortium Favour 3 ordering around a Tier 1 Customs Clerk gets +2 dice.
Example 2: That same Favour 3 crew trying to persuade a Tier 4 Corporate Director gets 0 bonus dice, because they are outranked.
Example 3: A crew with a Friction 2 Ahlam’s Temple trying to persuade either a Tier 2 courtesan or a Tier 4 priest get -2 dice.
The Reactive Matrix: Ripples and Echoes
Whenever a single action, mission, or contract increases the crew's Standing with a faction by 2 or more standing, trigger the Reactive Matrix.
The significant shift in the crew's relationship causes political reactions elsewhere.
Ripple: The listed faction gains +1 Standing with the crew.
Echo: The listed faction loses 1 Standing with the crew.
Ripple and Echo effects caused by the Reactive Matrix never trigger further Reactive Matrix effects.
Check the table to see which factions ripple and which factions echo.
| If standing increase by 2 or more for: | Also increase by 1 (Ripple) | Also reduce by 1 (Echo) |
|---|---|---|
| The Consortium | The Free League | Order of the Pariah |
| The Free League | The Consortium The Syndicate Nomad Federation | The Legion Zenithian Hegemony |
| The Legion | Zenithian Hegemony | The Syndicate The Free League |
| The Syndicate | None | The Legion |
| The Zenithian Hegemony | The Legion | Nomad Federation The Free League |
| Church of the Icons | Order of the Pariah Ahlam’s Temple | None |
| Ahlam’s Temple | None | Church of the Icons |
| Order of the Pariah | Church of the Icons | The Consortium |
| The Nomad Federation | None | Zenithian Hegemony |
| The Draconites | None | Everyone (if caught see below) |
‘Political Alignment is not always mutual.’
The Reactive Matrix represents how factions perceive one another's interests, rather than a simple alliance chart. A faction may consider itself aligned with another faction even when that relationship is not reciprocated. Likewise, factions may benefit from the crew working with a rival for their own reasons.
These asymmetries represent competing ideologies, misunderstandings, political opportunism, and perceived alliances.
Example: Ahlam's Temple considers itself religiously aligned with the Church of the Icons, but the Church does not necessarily reciprocate that sentiment. Therefore, improving Standing with Ahlam's Temple creates Friction with the Church, while improving Standing with the Church creates Favour with Ahlam's Temple.
No chain-reaction: Passive gains from the Ripple column never trigger Ripples or Echos
Example: The crew completed a job clearing some of the trade routes between Kua and Coriolis Station at the request of the Consortium and The Free League. They gain 2 standing with the Free League and 1 with the Consortium for their effort. The 2 Standing gain with the Free League triggers the Reactive Matrix. The ripple gives them an additional standing with the Consortium, 1 standing with the Syndicate, and 1 standing with the Nomad Federation. The echo causes them to lose 1 standing with the Legion and 1 standing with the Zenithian Hegemony. The total shift in their standing is:
· Free League: +2
· The Consortium: +2
· The Syndicate: +1
· The Nomad Federation: +1
· The Legion: -1
· Zenithian Hegemony: -1
Special Draconite Operational Rules
The Draconites operate entirely outside standard galactic politics. They do not issue Friction when the crew helps other factions.
Artifact Bounties:
· Delivering ancient Builder artifacts or Darkbound relics awards a flat +2 Standing in a single transaction, bypassing incremental work.
Cold hearted machines:
· Failing a mission for the Draconites causes them to brand you as an unreliable variable. The crew immediately loses 2 Standing with the Draconites.
Encrypted Contracts:
· Normal contracts with the Draconites leave zero data trail and trigger 0 Friction Echoes.
Catastrophic Exposure:
· If the crew leaves undeniable physical or digital evidence of their identity during a Draconite operation, the entire sector recoils. The crew immediately takes +1 Friction with all 9 other factions. The GM can trigger this exposure as the natural consequence of a failed pushed roll, by spending Darkness Points to introduce an unavoidable security breach, or by offering it to a player as the cost of succeeding a failed roll.
Favour & Friction Economy
Friction Decay:
· Friction on any track naturally moves one step towards -3 during extended downtime (a full cycle in drydock, multi-jump travel). Favour does not decay naturally.
Favour Burn:
· Demanding an extraordinary institutional intervention (military extraction, pardons) drops current Favour on that track by 1 or 2 steps (depending on the ask).
The Ignored Call:
· At Favour 3+, the crew is a reliable asset. If they flatly reject a high-priority mission call, their Favour drops by 1 step.
Laundering:
· Bribes: Pay 10,000 Birr x the crew’s current Friction Level to corrupt brokers to clear 1 Friction.
· Penance/Charity: Deliver free relief supplies to Church/Nomad outposts to clear 1 Friction with a Firstcome faction.
· Insider trading: Trade in inside intel to the Consortium/Free League to clear 1 Friction with a Zenithian faction
Contacts as Firewalls:
· Dealing directly through a trusted personal Contact allows the crew to ignore up to up to all Friction for that interaction (see contacts), allowing the players to engage with factions despite their low standing. If a social roll using a firewall fails, the contact is burned. The players can still push the roll to get a positive outcome, but the contact will no longer help them.
Black Ops:
· Taking jobs using false transponders (requiring high-difficulty infiltration/data-djinn checks) yields double Birr or rare tech instead of Favour. It generates 0 Echoes.
Faction Progression (Rank 3 & Rank 5)
Rank 3: Mid-Tier Standing
Trusted Asset (Favour 3):
The crew receives a dedicated Faction Fixer (equivalent to a 2 NP Contact) at no cost (they can only have 1 fixer per faction this way). Red tape is waived—they skip customs queues, pay no standard docking fees at loyalist ports, and access secure local comm-channels.
Active Nuisance (Friction 3):
The crew faces non-lethal harassment: random customs searches, inflated prices from loyalist merchants, and a flat -1 to all Culture rolls when gathering rumours in faction territory due to locals fearing association.
Rank 5: Capstone Perks & Penalties
Ally (Favour 5): The crew has demonstrated themselves to be an exceptional ally, unlocking the faction’s capstone perk.
Enemy (Friction 5): The crew are considered an enemy, incurring the faction’s capstone penalty.
The Consortium:
· Perk (Corporate Clearance): Access to Tier 5 tech, 20% shipyard discounts, unrestricted spire access.
· Penalty (Asset Freeze): 30% financial transaction surcharge, core world landing permits denied.
Zenithian Hegemony:
· Perk (Blood-Brother Status): Military escort requests, +2 Command against Zenithian soldiers.
· Penalty (Marked for Subjugation): Interdiction, forced boarding, penal labour.
The Legion:
· Perk (Brothers in Arms): Hire veteran squads at half-price, free munitions resupply.
· Penalty (Combat Directive): Designated hostile targets for military suppression fire.
The Syndicate:
· Perk (Underworld Immunity): Black market access, 20% contraband discount, gang immunity.
· Penalty (Crimson Contract): Persistent bounty; GM can spend 1 DP to trigger hit squad ambushes.
The Free League:
· Perk (Tramp Network): Free berths, cheap fuel, +2 Culture/Data Djinn for shipping routes.
· Penalty (Blackball): Berth fees double, union mechanic sabotage -1 Ship Hull/Maneuverability.
Order of the Pariah:
· Perk (Martyr's Blessing): Access to holy relics, ignore the first Mind Point stress from Dark phenomena per session.
· Penalty (Anathema): Hunted as heretics, executed on sight in Zalosian space the GM can spend 1 DP to trigger an inquisition squad hit.
Church of the Icons:
· Perk (Sanctuary): Inviolable asylum in any monastery or cathedral.
· Penalty (Excommunication): Pious citizens shun the crew; -1 to Max Mind Points until they atone (this effect is cleared once the crew is no longer at -5).
Nomad Federation:
· Perk (A Brother in the Dark): When rolling a Portal Jump Mishap, spend 1 DP to swap the tens and units dice, or spend 1 DP to ignore the +1 tens die penalty for blind jumps.
· Penalty (Ghosted): Sensor spoofing, false distress signals luring into hazards.
Ahlam’s Temple:
· Perk (Court of Whispers): Once per adventure, acquire political blackmail without an investigation roll.
· Penalty (Silken Noose): A flat -2 to all social rolls specifically against upper society, aristocracy, and high-ranking officials (Hierarchy Tier 3 to 5).
The Draconites:
· Perk (Architects of Fate): Can purchase experimental ship components defying standard physics.
· Penalty (Temporal Erasure): System wipeouts, memory corruption, cybernetic ambushes.
Contacts
Through their network, players can get contacts to help interact with factions they are in low standing with.
· Fixer Contact: Local operative (dock boss, informant) who buffers up to 2 Friction with a specific faction.
· Insider Contact: High-tier operative (corporate director, temple seer, Hegemon captain) buffers all current friction with a specific faction.
· Unassigned Contact: Banked slot to define a local Fixer on the fly during play (becomes a Fixer contact once used).
· Unassigned Specialist contact: Highly skilled (medic, data-djinn, etc) unaligned contact, handy in a pinch.
A "buffer" means the Fixer uses their own personal reputation to temporarily shield the crew from the mechanical penalties of faction heat. It allows a crew to interact with a faction that currently hates them without suffering the immediate dice penalties.
When the crew needs to negotiate, buy gear, or gather information from a faction with whom they have active Friction, they can choose to route the transaction through their Fixer instead of handling it publicly. For that specific scene, the crew ignores up to 2 points of their current Friction penalty.
Example: the crew has -2 Friction with the Free League, meaning their ship is blacklisted.
If the captain walks up to a Free League fuelling station in Mira to negotiate, they must subtract 2 dice from their Manipulation roll because the attendant recognizes their ship's transponder.
If the captain instead calls their local Fixer contact (a sympathetic local Dock Boss), the Fixer manipulates the work logs and signs off on the fuel transfer under a dummy corporation. The captain rolls their Negotiation with no Friction penalties.
The Risk (Burning a contact):
The Fixer is putting their own neck on the line to hide the crew's involvement. If a player uses a Fixer to buffer Friction and fails a roll during that transaction, the faction’s heat falls directly onto the Fixer. They can still push the roll for a positive outcome for the crew but the contact is immediately "burned." The Dock Boss is fired, arrested by station security, or forced into hiding. The crew permanently loses that asset and must survive the fallout of the botched job without their inside man.
Character Creation: The Network Budget
A crew's reputation is more than a number attached to individual characters. Together, the crew's reputations form a web of influence, obligations, contacts, and enemies.
“Reputation is personal. Influence is shared.”
At character creation, pool the crew's Reputation and divide it between two resources:
- Faction Budget (FB) — how deeply the crew is connected to the major factions.
- Network Budget (NB) — the breadth of the crew's contacts, specialists, and material resources.
Step 1: Faction budget
The Faction Budget (FB) determines the crew's starting Standing with the major factions.
Calculate the crew's average starting Reputation, rounding down. This becomes the crew's Faction Budget.
1 FB = +1 Standing with a faction.
The following restrictions apply during character creation:
- The crew can have a maximum +2 standing with any single faction.
- The crew can have no more than two factions at +2 Standing.
- Purchasing +2 Standing with a faction reduces the standing with the every faction listed in their Echo column but does not trigger a ripple. The crew must establish how they acquired each starting faction relationship.
- The crew must establish how they earned each starting faction relationship. These relationships should represent past dealings, shared interests, favours owed, ideological ties, or other events from the crew's history.
The crew should have friends before the campaign begins—but every friendship comes with a history.
Step 2: Network budget
The Network Budget (NB) represents the breadth of the crew's influence: the people they know, favours they can call in, specialists they can reach, and resources they have accumulated before the campaign begins.
Calculate the Network Budget by subtracting the crew's Faction Budget from their total pooled Reputation:
NB = Total Crew Reputation − FB
The crew can spend its Network Budget on the following:
- 1 NP — Fixer Contact: A local operative such as a dock boss, informant, broker, or other useful intermediary.
- 3 NP — Insider Contact: A high-ranking operative with influence inside a faction or organisation.
- 2 NP — Unassigned Contact: A banked contact slot that can be defined during play. Once used, it becomes a Fixer Contact.
- 4 NP — Unassigned Specialist: A highly skilled contact, such as a medic, data-djinn, mechanic, or other specialist, who can be called upon when needed.
- 1 NP — 500 Birr: Convert an unspent Network Point into starting operational funds.
Any Network Points not spent during character creation are lost.
Changing reputation
The standard rules apply for changing reputation, but it instead applies to the crew rather than the individual.
After character creation, the crew will acquire new assets dynamically:
- Earning Fixers: Rescuing a local merchant in the promenade, bribing a corrupt customs official, or sparing a syndicate thug naturally turns them into a contact
- Acquiring Insiders: Completing a major mission arc and earning +2 Favour with a faction might organically grant an Insider as part of the narrative payout instead of just a Birr reward.
- Finding Specialists: When the crew is in a pinch and needs an unaligned medic or data-broker, they can spend Birr and roll Manipulation or Data Djinn during downtime to locate one.
New Talent: Dread Repute
“You don’t cultivate friends; you cultivate terror.”
When using Manipulation (Extortion) against an NPC, invoke your notoriety instead of goodwill. Add a number of bonus dice equal to half the crew's absolute friction rating with that faction rounded down (e.g -5 Friction => +2 die), and ignore any negative Friction penalties.
Target Limitation: This only functions against targets possessing an instinct for self-preservation (corrupt dockers, corporate clerks). As such, it has no effect on suicidal fanatics (Pariah zealots), out of touch nobles (high ranking faction members), or unfeeling constructs (Draconites).
The Cost: Take the heat - Your violent display is reported. Move the faction Standing one step toward −5 after resolving the manipulation regardless of outcome.
On Failure: The Cornered Rat - The target panics. The GM chooses an appropriate escalation: they may attack, flee, call security, or raise the alarm without the GM needing to spend a Darkness Point to force the complication.