Player's Handbook · Chapter 1

Welcome

SINK: Player’s Handbook

Volume I — Foundations

SINK is a science-fiction roleplaying game set in a universe of advanced technology, alien civilizations, powerful institutions, ancient mysteries, and the unpredictable influence of the Void.

You can explore dangerous worlds, investigate mysteries, navigate political conflicts, build relationships, establish communities, or pursue an ordinary life amid extraordinary circumstances. Your decisions shape your character’s story and can change the people and places around you.

The world

SINK contains competing factions, independent settlements, corporations, governments, researchers, criminals, and unexplored regions. Technology is widespread but unevenly accessible. Wealth, location, authorization, and technical knowledge influence what people can obtain and accomplish.

No organization is automatically good or evil. Judge individuals and institutions by their actions, motivations, and consequences.

Your character

Your species establishes biological traits and other capabilities defined by its entry. Your class determines your training, features, and progression. Your background explains where you came from and what matters to you.

These elements do not automatically establish your personality, faction membership, weapon proficiency, or access to abilities that their rules do not grant.

Warframes and Warframe Operators are distinct. Being a Warframe does not automatically qualify a character for the Warframe Operator class.

Technology and the unknown

Advanced equipment, artificial intelligence, cybernetics, biotechnology, and precursor technology can offer remarkable capabilities, but they do not eliminate every obstacle. Equipment may require maintenance, resources, authorization, or specialized expertise.

Distinguish established facts from theories, speculation, and personal beliefs. A character’s discovery or an NPC’s claim does not automatically make a theory setting canon.

Your agency

You do not need to begin as a hero or a powerful individual. You need a believable identity, a reason to act, and connections to the world.

Combat is one possible solution, not the default answer to every problem. Investigation, negotiation, stealth, technical expertise, cooperation, and retreat can be equally valuable.

Your choices determine how you respond to SINK and what kind of life you build within it.

Manual updated Oct 22, 2026.

Dungeons & Dragons 5e

SINK

Reality has fractured. Through the Void, worlds, species, and civilizations once separated by impossible distances now share one universe. Megacities rise beneath orbital citadels; corporations wage quiet wars; ancient machines stir; and alien ecosystems spread beyond the frontier. At the center of it all, New Echelon endures. Explore a living multiverse of technology, survival, discovery, and consequence—where every choice can change the world.

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The Premise

An untitled world, still taking shape.

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Author's note

SINK is a science-fiction world about what happens when humanity survives long enough to become something it no longer fully recognizes.

New Echelon rises above a civilization shaped by corporate power, military technology, alien influence, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, and the ruins of older civilizations. Beyond the city are colonies, battlefields, derelict ships, alien territories, Void Zones, ancient machines, and places where reality becomes difficult to trust.

Humanity does not understand everything.

The Architects left behind technologies nobody completely understands. The Void produces phenomena that challenge conventional science. Warframes blur the boundary between weapon, organism, and person. Artificial intelligences question identity and autonomy. Genetic engineering and cybernetics can permanently change the body. The Eater phenomenon can push biological evolution somewhere no human intended.

And beneath all of this is a history connecting more of the world than most realize.

This Is a Living World

SINK is not built around a single heroic path.

You can become a soldier, mercenary, scientist, investigator, corporate operative, smuggler, Nomad, bounty hunter, revolutionary, criminal, explorer, faction leader, Void-touched survivor, or something that no longer fits comfortably into any human category.

Your choices affect relationships, faction standing, opportunities, and how characters respond to your evolution.

NPCs have their own lives, loyalties, fears, ambitions, and secrets. They are not waiting for the protagonist before the world begins moving.

Look Beneath the Surface

Do not assume the obvious explanation is correct.

Read recovered records. Investigate strange facilities. Talk to people who were there. Explore places that seem unimportant.

Pay attention to recurring symbols, damaged machines, anomalous transmissions, biological specimens, military records, alien artifacts, and contradictions between faction accounts.

Some of SINK’s most important discoveries are not announced as quests.

Curiosity is a gameplay mechanic.

Science Fiction First

Expect:

Cyberpunk megacities. Military hardware. Alien civilizations. Artificial intelligence. Biotechnology. Cybernetic augmentation. Ancient technology. Warframes. Void phenomena. Cosmic horror. Corporate warfare. Posthuman evolution.

The setting can move from a neon-lit street clinic to a military deployment, from an alien wilderness to an abandoned orbital facility, or from a quiet conversation to something that makes reality itself questionable.

Not every problem requires a gun.

Not every mystery has an immediate answer.

Not every powerful technology should be trusted.

And not every transformation is an upgrade.

The Most Important Rule

Your character is not automatically a hero.

World Map