The Lost Universe - A Review

The Lost Universe - A Review

15 July 2024

In March of 2024, NASA released a TTRPG adventure called The Lost Universe, and after much procrastination I finally got to run it! It sees players taking the roles of NASA engineers on Earth who are transported to the science-fantasy planet of Exlaris to rescue the Hubble Space Telescope, as well as some Exlarian researchers, who all disappeared around the same time. The adventure was designed by Christina Mitchell with graphic design by Michelle Belleville.

The adventure claims to be system neutral, but I ran it in D&D 5e since that's what it's quite clearly built for. It would definitely be possible to run in other high fantasy d20 systems like Pathfinder, but references to specific 5e skills and even the Underdark hint that it was originally built with 5e in mind. This was disappointing to discover. I don’t have much experience with the wave of supposed “D&D Killer” games that have come out in the wake of the OGL controversy, so maybe my idea of “system neutral” is just very different to the designer’s, but this does not match my definition at all.

The adventure also claims that it's designed for 4-7 players with characters at level 7-10. There is a single noteworthy fight in the adventure and its 5e challenge rating is 8, a medium difficulty encounter for 4 level 7 characters. I ended up running it for 4 level 6 characters, but the fight ran a little long, so I wish I'd bumped them up to 7. Technically that fits within the given range, but I wouldn't dream of running it for a larger or more powerful party than that.

There are some parts of this adventure I really love, especially the setting! Exlaris is a rogue planet, which means it was pulled out of its orbit path by a passing black hole and slingshotted across the universe. The only way civilization could survive was by a group of wizards coming together to form a protective shield around the planet, containing its atmosphere and blocking any space debris Exlaris would collide with. Also, since it's not orbiting a sun, Exlaris is in a constant state of darkness. The surviving civilisations use magical lighting to replicate a day-night cycle, but outside those cities is permanent, pitch blackness populated by monsters that lurk in the dark.

This is AMAZING. I love how the setting takes a weird and interesting scientific phenomenon and builds a really unique world where everything is centred on this concept of a rogue planet. While reading the explanation of the world, I definitely got the feeling that the author would want to return to Exlaris if given an opportunity, which I am fully in favour of. In an interview on the Duck Pond Wall podcast, designer Christina Mitchell says that she began writing the adventure by designing the world and you can definitely tell, for better and for worse. While the grander worldbuilding is creative and compelling, I was less interested in the lore surrounding the 5 major cities of the world, when only 1 features in the actual adventure. The whole document seems to be a mix of adventure and setting sourcebook, but I would have much rather they be split into separate books, since navigating this 44 page oneshot can be awkward at times.

While I love the concept of the isekai story, where the players start on Earth and are transported into the fantasy world, most of my problems with the adventure as a whole stem from the isekai plot jarring awkwardly with the worldbuilding that Mitchell started out with. It ultimately ends up making the story complicated in ways I chose to skip past when I ran it. 

The main way this manifests is with the disappearance of the telescope itself. As written, the Hubble Space Telescope is taken from Earth’s entire timeline, meaning it never existed as far as the PCs from Earth are concerned. This leads to a really clunky introduction where the GM narrates the importance of the Hubble Telescope and all the scientific breakthroughs that it helped before telling the players that their characters don’t actually know any of that, but instead, that they’ve always felt like something important was missing from their lives. I thought it would be a much more exciting opening to have the players witness the magical disappearance of the telescope from the control centre. It also gave the characters a better incentive to rescue the telescope, since they actually know it exists and care about it.

I was also disappointed that the adventure didn’t play up the horror of a world without a sun. At one point, the characters must travel outside of the city to investigate some ruins from before the planet went rogue, and there are no threats between the two locations. I ended up cutting this for time, but I planned an encounter with some ghouls out in the darkness, and I would definitely suggest doing something similar if you want to add some extra challenge to the adventure.

Ultimately, I think the Lost Universe presents a really unique and interesting world that I would love to return to! But the adventure that it's packaged with is a little lacking. I would definitely suggest giving it a read and making some tweaks to better suit your party’s playstyle before running it. I hope NASA takes another shot at making TTRPG content, because there’s some really promising stuff here and I’m sure there’s lots of crossover between the two communities. But as it currently stands the Lost Universe is just a little disappointing.

Thanks for reading this review! Check out the Lost Universe on NASA’s webstie here. Give it a read and form your own opinions, it’s free!