Imperial Bureaucracy Hero
IBH is a rich role playing game at the end of time. You're a mid-level official in a dying sci-fi regime, given the impossible task of fixing a faltering machine; explore a vast world, define your mind, flex your authority, and become a sinner or a savior in countless other stories.
Turned to the last page of history, in the far and dark of a nightmare nearly over...
The Imperium d'Espoir et de Deuil rules the stars. Heretics and horrors press in from every side. Humanity sits on a cliff-edge at the end of time, and struggles mightily in its countless millions to buy another breath.
There are no cults or apocalyptic end-times - only the gears of the world turning and crushing men in their wake. The impossible task of fixing this faltering machine is yours.
AS AN AUDITOR OF THE ADMINISTRATION
You're not a superhuman warrior; you're an upgraded bureaucrat, a servant of the paperwork and red tape it takes to (badly) run a galaxy-spanning empire. A moderately important person. Someone who would be missed. That's more than most can say in this rotten age.
You are the farthest thing from a hero.
FIX A DYSTOPIA OR DIE TRYING
Yet you can be a hero to the people you meet, or the worst villain in their story, or a faceless drone. These problems are "small" but they are life and death - a child's future, a family's ruin, a pension paid versus the Crown's money saved.
Choose to help people, hurt people, or do the worst thing - the minimum, and then walk away. Is duty all there is, or will you linger in their lives?
Enjoy enormous freedom of choice and explore branching narratives. Maneuver through many and varied situations and find a way to climb the ladder - or just to be able to look at yourself in the mirror. A different mirror each morning-
EXPLORE A RICH, BITTERSWEET SETTING
March across the planet of Marqui IV - from the claustrophobic streets of the man-made mountain of High Crescyt, to dark forests and quiet taverns, all the way to the sea and a sedate port city.
Delve into the innards of immense machines and meet their dwellers; tell stories about the star to underworld gangsters who've never seen the surface - listen to a lady strum her guitar and sing along a spray-soaked wharf. Go to soup lines to meet saints and search sad ruins in the shadow of a revolution.
A vast world awaits for your bureaucrat to explore, as a trespasser, an honored guest, an unwelcome variable, and many more. Ride the rails of the Supracité Network to heartbreak and hope and everyday life, and watch people dance between their prison-bars.
A MIND THAT YOU DEFINE
Craft your perfect bureaucrat by choosing your MIND FACETS. Become a paperwork god, a bleeding heart, a self-serving striver, a paranoid wreck, or a dangerously insane man - or some combination of the above.
Listen to your mind discern and opine, then follow its advice - or not.
THE MANY AS VARIED AS THE STARS
A dizzying collection of characters await - to meet, befriend, ignore, or become sworn enemies with. Rival bureaucrats, bizarre researchers, downtrodden workers, lively revolutionaries and scheming nobles; soldiers, thieves, human sensors and censer bearers. Reformed gangsters and dehumanized veterans, lonely guards and tired soul searchers - they are the tapestry of the Age.
Other Features
An immense, melancholy soundtrack sourced from the most obscure corners of the Internet
Novels' worth of writing in branching paths and alternative dialogue; great replayability
No grind, no resources, no wasted time; dozens of stories to take at your own pace, wherever you go
