Space: 1889 After

Space: 1889 After is the current edition of Space: 1889, the steampunk TTRPG of Victorian space travel: ether-fliers, Martian liftwood sky galleons, Venusian swamps and lost alien super-science. Strange Owl Games' Empyrean Edition moves the setting to 1899 and casts the players as a Crew of the Empyrean Society, explorers sworn to discovery rather than exploitation. It suits groups who want a full steampunk sci-fi campaign of exploration, inventions, ship travel and pulpy action, with rules that give social scenes, tinkering and journeys equal weight to fights.

It is not the best pick for rules-light or one-evening play, for tables that want a long, proven track record of reviews, or for buyers who avoid books with AI-generated art: DriveThruRPG lists Midjourney among the core book's artists. If you want the classic 1989 game, that is out of print; this profile covers the edition you can buy today.

What the game is

The Space: 1889 premise is "Science as Victorians saw it." In this alternate history, Thomas Edison flew an ether propeller to Mars in 1874 and found an ancient civilization. Mars, Venus, Mercury and the Moon are all inhabited, and Earth's empires scrambled for colonies until 1889. After adds a new twist: in the 1890s the ether "shifted," ships vanished, colonies were cut off and wars of opportunity broke out. By 1899 travel is possible again, and every world has changed.

The players form a Crew of the Empyrean Society, an interplanetary club that accepts any nationality, gender or species and requires members to travel "in the name of discovery rather than exploitation." The book frames its stories around three conflicts: technological progress against individual freedom (the ruthless Masters of Energy against bomb-throwing anarchists), civilized manners against war, and Victorian attitudes against more modern ones, which the Martians represent.

Publication history and editions

Frank Chadwick created Space: 1889 for Game Designers' Workshop, which published it at the end of the 1980s and cancelled the line in 1990 (Wikipedia). Heliograph reprinted it around 2000; Pinnacle published the Savage Worlds campaign Space 1889: Red Sands in 2010; and Germany's Uhrwerk Verlag (Clockwork Publishing) produced a Ubiquity-based edition, translated into English from 2014. Ulisses North America acquired the rights in 2019.

Strange Owl Games crowdfunded Space: 1889 After on Kickstarter in late 2022, with two rules sets: the original Empyrean system and a D&D 5e version. The 354-page Empyrean Edition went on sale on DriveThruRPG on October 3, 2023, alongside the 276-page Space: 1889 After 5e. Darrell Hayhurst and Rachel Savicki wrote and designed it.

What you need to play

You need the core book, four to six six-sided dice per player (more is better), at least one twenty-sided die, and either the custom Order Deck or a standard deck of playing cards. The Empyrean Edition listed at $29.99 for the PDF and $59.99 in print on DriveThruRPG on October 31, 2026, and a free preview includes the introduction. The book recommends four players and a Referee; more than six players becomes unwieldy. Maps, miniatures and condition tokens are optional.

Supplements and support

Strange Owl has followed the core book with adventures, including Blackshell Hell, Hotter Than Hell and The Dire Engines of Aethra, plus the Order Deck. The core book itself ends with two starter adventures that introduce the rules to a new Referee one layer at a time. In June 2026 Strange Owl ran a BackerKit for an adventure anthology and a premium print of the core book. If your group prefers 5e, the separate 5e book covers the same setting with D&D-style classes and levels.

Core rules and play structure

The Empyrean system rolls pools of six-sided dice. In the designers' description, a 1 to 4 is a failure, a 5 is one success, and a 6 is two successes and an extra die (designer Q&A, 2022). Characters have eight broad ratings that combine attributes and skills, plus Cascades, specialist trainings such as Bureaucracy or Firearms; attempting a specialist task without the right Cascade costs successes. Saves, rolled as reactions, use half your pool. A d20 "Danger Die" adds risk, and injuries are rolled on a d20 table, with each Wound adding another d20 and forcing you to keep the lowest.

Dangerous scenes use cards. Principal characters and major threats draw a hand of order cards and choose one each round, and turns run from lowest to highest. Low orders act fast but may trigger a hazard; high orders unlock powerful actions that everyone sees coming. You can also spend extra orders to act again or to roll a full save. Exchanges last three rounds before something has to change. The same encounter rules scale to vehicles, so a sky-galleon battle plays like a fistfight.

Characters and advancement

Characters are created either quickly (pick a species, an origin and a career) or with build points. According to the designers, there are eight species: Victorian humans, automatons, Ogres (humans transformed by Hyde-style science), Cenoates (the insectoid Selenites of earlier editions), telepathic Drobates from the Moon, lizard-like Skreelans from Venus, and two kinds of Martians, the Maatans and the wild High Martian Kraagans. Characters advance by completing personal and Crew Goals, which grant new build points.

Signature mechanics

• The Order Deck. Cards set the turn order and let you trade speed against power, which makes every round a small decision.
• Ships as characters. Ether-fliers and sky galleons use the same encounter structure as characters, and the Crew starts with its own ship.
• Inventions and devices. Inventors build electrified gauntlets, mechanical limbs, juggernaut armor or invisibility cloaks: steam-age super-science made by players.
• Equal-weight activities. Social manners, tinkering, piloting through gravity storms and rugged journeys all get rules as substantial as combat's.
• Peril without easy death. The injury system makes fights feel dangerous, but it is hard to remove a hero from the game for good.

What play feels like

A session might start with a Society charter to investigate a lost colony, move to a dinner where the Crew must not embarrass themselves before a Martian prince, then cross the ether through a storm and end in a fight with dinosaur-riding Skreelans or a Phaeton Death Machine. The tone is pulpy Verne and Wells adventure, but the book wants players to argue in character about progress, empire and freedom.

Running the game

The Referee needs to know the basic rules and look the rest up as needed, as the book says. The setting is large: Earth's Terrestrial Powers, Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Moon, and the Phaeton ruins in the asteroid belt. The core book includes Referee advice, a bestiary of threats and the two starter adventures, and the travel and vehicle chapters give exploration a structure. Expect medium prep, mostly in choosing which world and faction to focus on.

Campaign fit

This is a campaign game. The Crew's shared ship, the Society's charter, personal Goals and the open questions of the setting (why did the ether shift?) all assume ongoing play. The starter adventures work as an introduction, but character creation and the setting reward several sessions or more.

Reception

The original 1989 game was well received. Rick Swan called it "one of the most imaginative RPGs of the last decade," White Wolf rated it 5 out of 5, and Arcane readers ranked it 20th of all time in 1996, though Arcane found its rules a mix of "simplicity with incomprehensibility." The Kickstarter for After drew around 710 backers. Published reviews of the new edition are scarce. When checked on October 31, 2026, the Empyrean Edition showed a 5.0 rating on DriveThruRPG with no written reviews, and the 5e book a 4.8 rating from one review. No awards for this edition were found.

Where it is strongest

• A rich, well-known steampunk sci-fi setting, updated with a new mystery and ten years of change
• Ship and vehicle play that uses the same rules as character encounters
• Player-built inventions and devices that put steampunk technology in the players' hands
• A clear group premise in the Empyrean Society and its Crew
• A direct, thoughtful treatment of colonialism and Victorian attitudes

Where it can frustrate groups

• Few independent reviews of the new edition so far
• The core book is long and setting-heavy, so it is not a quick pick-up game
• Midjourney is credited among the book's artists, which some buyers avoid
• The order cards add a subsystem that some groups will find fiddly
• The print book is expensive compared with the PDF

Content and safety notes

The setting deals with empire, colonial conquest and slavery. The book takes a clear stance: atrocities happened, exploration is not the same as exploitation, and players are free to fight the system. It suggests using the Victorian Virtues and Vices table without letting a character's vices make the table unwelcoming. Expect pulp violence, dinosaurs and mad science. Discuss how much period attitude your group wants before play.

Best starting path

Read the free preview, then buy the Empyrean Edition PDF. Make characters with the quick species, origin and career method, give the Crew its ship, and run the first starter adventure from the back of the book, which teaches the rules in layers. Use a standard deck of cards until you decide whether the Order Deck is worth buying. Groups who would rather use D&D rules should buy the 5e edition instead.

Research notes

Last checked October 31, 2026. Sources:

• DriveThruRPG: Space 1889: After, Empyrean Edition (release date, 354 pages, prices, ratings, credits)
• Official free preview PDF (introduction, Empyrean Society, materials, themes, colonialism)
• The Hardboiled GMshoe's Office: Q&A with lead designer John-Matthew DeFoggi (November 2022) (dice, order cards, species, inventions; given before release)
• Strange Owl Games: Space 1889: After
• Kickstarter: Space 1889: After, 5e / Empyrean
• Wikipedia: Space: 1889 (history of editions, reviews of the original)