Adrian Tchaikovsky’s Children of Time series is at the heart of a new ttrpg in the works from Rowan, Rook, and Deckard.
Entropy and evolution and generation arks that carry the future of humanity all come to the fore in a new RPG from Rowan, Rook, and Deckard, based on Adrian Tchaikovsky’s hit Children of Time novels. It’s little wonder that we’re seeing this – 2026 seems to be all about sci-fi RPGs, and the Children of Time books are great fodder for exploring in an RPG. And this is an ambitious game that blends worldbuilding and generational storytelling inspired by some of my favorite RPGs.
Children of Time RPG In The Works
First of all, the Children of Time RPG has just been announced. It’ll be a few months before it hits BackerKit, though you can sign up to be notified when it does. And second, what a cavalcade of incredible designers are working on this game. There’s Minerva McJanda of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins and Voidheart Symphony fame, as well as Grant Howitt, whom you might know from Heart: The City Beneath, Eat the Reich, and Honey Heist, and Elaine Lithgow whose work on Imperium Maledictum and Soulbound should be familiar to any Warhammer RPG fan.
They are making an RPG about an exodus from Earth. You’ll leave behind the homeworld we should have better cared for, as the desperate remnants of humanity set out from a dying world to try and find your home among the stars.
“In the wake of global annihilation, the desperate remnants of humanity abandon a dying Earth aboard colossal ark ships in a desperate bid to find a new home among the stars. Their journey will last thousands of years: as they follow ancient star charts that promise terraformed paradise worlds, just waiting for humanity to claim.
n Children of Time: The Roleplaying Game, you become the authors of this grand tale. Construct an ark ship of your own and embark on an uncharted exodus towards a planet of your own making, where you uplift and nurture species of your own choosing. Or retell the epic saga of the ark ship Gilgamesh and the evolution of the Portid spiders on Kern’s world. The choice is yours.”
So what do they mean by “generational storytelling”? Well if it’s anything like Life Among the Ruins, there’s a fluid interplay that lets you tell stories around big societal shifts. Where you don’t just play a character, you play a faction or a group of folks to show how the story echoes out on larger moments – as embodied by a character. It’s a great narrative system.
Play is expected to shift between the ark and the planet said ark is headed towards. I’m excited to see how this one turns out, we’ll be following it with interest.
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