project-image

Lodestar: A Spacefarer's Manual | Space Fantasy in 5e!

Created by The Dragons Vault

Sail the galactic seas of Lodestar in a swashbuckling space-fantasy campaign setting for 5e that evokes the magic of Treasure Planet and Spelljammer, finally bringing the glory of "D&D in space" to your table as it was always meant to be!

Latest Updates from Our Project:

Campaign Wrap Up!
11 months ago – Mon, Nov 24, 2025 at 03:03:57 PM


Ahoy Spacefarers!

What a month it’s been, from start to finish perhaps the greatest we’ve yet to experience here at the Dragons Vault, and that is all thanks to you. So thank you, to all who followed and backed, who commented and voted in the polls, who shared our project far and wide, who cheered us on as we charted these seas together, we say thank you!

We have the best job in the world, truly, and because of your support for us and for Lodestar we get to keep doing it for another incredible year (and Aston can finally come aboard full-time!!). We can’t wait to begin work, and take you along with us as we discover the seas of the Beyond together. Speaking of, I wanted to point those who might’ve missed it towards the finale of our Choose Your Own Adventure posts, in which the final fate of the Dawnstar is revealed, as is the contents of the final treasure!

Update Schedule

Now the campaign has wrapped up you can expect updates from us every other Monday. These updates will keep you in the loop with the books production, show off new art and mechanics, and even invite you to playtest early access rules and mechanics from the book and then discuss them via our community discord (more on that below).

A Brief Intermission

We will have more information for you next Monday, including a breakdown of our production timeline and pledge manager info etc., but until then Aston and myself will be taking a week off work. We’ve been working incredibly hard over the past few months as you can imagine, so we are going to take some time with our loved ones and to get our heads ready for the epic voyage ahead of us as we bring this book to life!

The Dragons Vault Discord

This is your official post-campaign invitation to come hang out in the Dragons Vault Discord! We’ve got a nearly 1000 strong community there already, full of people talking everything from community made Lodestar soundtracks to our own Vault Gauntlet monster creation competition! We also post our playtest materials in there, as well as workshop mechanics and ideas with the community long before they ever make it to print. If that sounds like your bag, then come join us there now via this LINK.

Until we return we trust you’ll keep an eye on this here vessel, we’ll need it in good nick when we get back if it’s going to take us all the way to the end of this exciting voyage we’ve all embarked on! So till then, thank you all, and have a wonderful week!

- Conor, Very Grateful Captain of the HMS Dragons Vault

The Final Chapter! LIVE NOW!
12 months ago – Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 11:28:25 AM

Ahoy Spacers!

Just a brief one for now since I know you've all been bombarded with notifications over the last couple of days.
First of all thank you all ever so much for a wonderful campaign, we are ever grateful for all 2909 of you!
Me and Conor are currently live celebrating the success of the campaign as well as making the FINAL ROLL of the adventures of the Dawnstar and crew. Come check it out here!

We'll be back on Monday for a full proper end of campaign update so we'll see you then!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Aston

⏰ The Final Hour! ⏰
12 months ago – Fri, Nov 21, 2025 at 08:44:30 AM

Ahoy Spacefarers!

We have less than an hour left on the campaign, which means less than an hour to grab a copy of the book for those that haven't, and that means less than an hour to save the Dawnstar from the dreaded grips of the black hole!

Head over to the 🟢 Live update 🟢to take part in securing the safety of your vessel and unlocking new additions to the final book whilst you still can!

We shall await your presence on deck!

💫 Less than 14 hours left! 💫
12 months ago – Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 07:26:45 PM

Ahoy Spacefarers!

We are now in the final hours of our campaign! And what a campaign, nearly £250,000 raised by 2700 backers with 14 hours left! With that in mind I wanted to direct your attention to a couple of places:

The Fate of the Dawnstar

The fate of our intrepid vessel the Dawnstar is still undecided! If you’d like to take part in the epic finale, and even fight a space kraken, check out the LIVE update post here! You can also help secure victory for the Dawnstar, and unlock some exclusive new material for the book, by helping us complete our two community share achievements attached to this update!

Campaign Celebration Stream

We will be closing Lodestar out with a celebratory stream on our YouTube channel, kicking off at around 7-7:30pm GMT Friday 21st! Be sure to hop in and say hi, especially if you want to see us roll the final d20 roll of the Choose Your Adventure!

That’s all from me, thank you all for being here! I look forward to seeing you all post-campaign close!

P.S If you’ve not already, come and join the Vault Discord! We will be chatting all things Lodestar, and post campaign launch we will begin releasing Lodestar playtest material there too! 

🔴 ENDED | Choose Your Adventure - THE FINALE
12 months ago – Thu, Nov 20, 2025 at 06:27:28 AM

🔴 This post was being updated LIVE as we progressed aboard the Dawnstar, toward the heart of a dying star to claim the treasure hidden within! 

  1. CHALLENGE 1 COMPLETE
  2. CHALLENGE 2 COMPLETE
  3. CHALLENGE 3 COMPLETE
  4. CHALLENGE 4 COMPLETE
  5. FINAL CHALLENGE COMPLETE
—————————————————————————————————

Ahoy Spacefarers!

When last we left of, twas the final breathe before the plunge into our stories conclusion; our valiant crew have decided that knowledge be the key to the fate of this voyage, and so in the penultimate stretch of silt to our final destination you have spent the learning better the secrets of where ye be going and what ye might expect! Our challenge shall culminate in a single roll of the d20, and by choosing to study you have granted yourselves a 💫+1 BONUS💫 to that final roll! But more on that later, we join back now as the Dawnstar finally approaches its long awaited destination…

After days in the quiet silt of the Beyond you are awoken by the rumbling of feet upon the deck, and the ringing of the ships bell. Something has been sighted, though you arent sure what. You leap from your bunk like the crew around you, and race up to the top deck to lay eyes upon the horizon.

There, you see it, the dying star spoken of in tales, etched upon that strange map you’ve been following all this time! It sits like a gem of brilliant hues, arcing coronas of colour ejecting from its rippling surface and radiating out into the beyond. You stand in awe, your shipmates falling silent about you as the beauty of both promise and vision washes across the deck.

But you’ve little time to bask in the wonder of such a sight, as more and more crew begin to spot something far more sinister; an ocean of debris orbits this star, the corpses of ships scattered like pebbles in the sea. You’ve seen this sort of destruction before, and you feel your heart sink before your eyes catch sight of the exact thing you expected yet hoped wouldn’t be true…

The silhouette of a massive tentacled beast moves about the star, its mass shifting the debris like the fin of a siltshark through the Beyond. The stars blink out as it obscures their light, a monster most tremendous guards this treasure it seems, and you have sailed right into its hunting grounds…

To reach the heart of this star you must make it beyond the debris and past the kraken before sailing into the star itself! A series of challenges now lie before you, each more daunting than the last. But now is not the time to fret, now is the time for action, and your first challenge is upon you!

As we draw closer to the treasure at the heart of the star, this post will change and update live with the action. New challenges, polls, and puzzles will emerge for you to complete in order to safely guide the Dawnstar to victory! You must succeed in 5 challenges in order to secure the treasure at the heart of the star, but be swift spacer, for each challenge will only remain active for a few hours…




Despite hopelessness, despite the odds stacked against you, you all rallied together to see this story through to its very end! As the Dawnstar pulls away from he collapsing heart of the star you each bear the burden of hope that carries the ship to safety. Some spoke of promises of tomorrow, others the bonds forged before today, but all spoke of the bonds built by this here crew on this here vessel.

And so with the crew inspired the Dawnstar just manages to pull away from the sable expanse behind, today shall not be the day the crew of the Dawnstar perish! Instead you succeed, and in succeeding you recover the treasure that awaited at the end of this storied journey; We only awaited our Final Roll to determine exactly how much treasure you were able to escape with, against a DC of 15 (and thanks to some incredible bartering for advantage during our closing stream)…

And we rolled an 18!!!


With our final roll a success you drag the chest aboard, crack open its gilded lid, and reveal the loot inside:

The Loot of the Kraken Tamer, hidden within the heart of a dying star and forever guarded by the very beast what gave its former own their name. This loot contains several new Kraken themed items, munitions, and ship upgrades that will be added to the book (including the ability to summon yer very own terrible tentacled beastie) along with an entirely unique Kraken Silt Sail ship! 
 
But more on our treasures in the future, for now we celebrate! Treasure won and crew safe we now close this chapter for good, but who knows what might still await the good ship Dawnstar out there on the starry expanse of the Beyond….

Thank you everyone who took part, who answered the polls and made your voices heard in the comments! We hope you enjoyed this story we told as a community as much as we’ve had putting it together! If you want to continue on with community discussions, polls, and more (such as our yearly Vault Gauntlet Monster Creation competitions), head over to the Dragons Vault Discord and say hi!