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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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Previous Installments
Elestrial Concordat Campaign - Session 8 & 9
Elestrial Concordat Campaign - Session 6 & 7
Elestrial Concordat Campaign - Session 5
Elestrial Concordat Campaign - Session 4
Elestrial Concordat Campaign - Sessions 1-3
New Characters
Elder Silverback Isswar (M, mid 40's Simian)
New Species Definitions
STAT Roll (maximum)
Simians (Pan Bonobo sapiens):
STR 3d (20) DEX 2d-1 (14) END 2D (15)
INT 2d-1 (14) EDU 2d-2 (15) SOC 2d (halved for dealing with Humans, and vice versa).
Standard Careers. Teeth do 1d+1.
Can handle smaller quarters; half sized.
Sexually promiscuous, strong gender roles.
Uncle Teeth (from prior)
STR 1d3 (7) DEX 1d+1 (10) END 1d3 (7)
INT 2d6 (15) EDU 1d6 (15) Charisma 1d6 (15)
Hunter, Militant Priest, Barbarian and Entertainer.
Flight speed 2x human walk, run speed 2x human run, swim speed same as human walk.
Can handle smaller quarters; half-size.
Emergent Story - Session 10
While on patrol, awaiting clearance to go onward, a ship jumps in. It's an unusual configuration; a 100Td pyramid.
They start gathering data with sensors... and it calls for them. It's The Col's simian contact (and rough equal). They negotiate to meet up at 100d. Much worry about the greeting; they know simians greet by a "quickie." Much build up... resolved by a hug between captains and comments between that it's a good halfway between both sides traditions.
The meeting is held in the "expandable room". It's gridded in 1.25m increments, in all three dimensions, with taught ropes. One of the simian crew and Cpl. Bluž Naždur disapear behind a hastily erected privacy screen off in the corner.
Much discussion. Dr Jones examines their jump drive schematics, and points out surplus and overengineered components for their next prototype. Ambassadore Danau tries to convince them to join the Concordat... No joy! "We no want to be minority race in big concordat... however, we not mind being equal partners in Alliance with Concordat!" Her role is described as "junior member of Troop of Troop of Troops".
The real issue is that the Simians lost their major science asteroid... it was bombed with anti-particles from a spheroid ship. A year and a half ago. They built the ship to ask for Concordat Assistance, and Isswar has simply been jumping in, calling for his Contact, and then moving on if he gets no response.
Finally, after a run of both captains running into "You're not cleared" issues, they retire to the Col's Stateroom, and proceed to get "officially drunk" while sipping coffee with bourbon whiskey and/or Banana Wine. They also then proceed to "not-tell" each other the various key things they both need to know but officially can't tell each other. Coffee was provided by Cpl. Castle, as was the whiskey; Isswarr provided the Banana Wine.
During the exchanges, it's noted that one of the Simian crew and one of the engineering staff have been busy. Seeing that Bluž has a bad 1st contact situation with simians in her past, Dr. Jones and Ambassadore Danau ask her, point blank, what went wrong. It seems she does Rish,* but doesn't do same-sex.
Session ends with the Simians off to refuel from a gas giant, and the crew off to make for Ryokan en route to Kamaj.
Mechanics and Rolls - Session 10
Peter starts session by scanning for "lack of pirates". No pirates, but yes finds something.
100Td:
Td_ component
010 Bridge w/ TL 7 experimental 1bis
020 TL7 experimental jump drive A (yes, 200% normal size; price is 10x)
009 TL7 Fission A PP
001 TL7 Fission A Fuel, 6 months
002 TL7 2G drive
020 Fuel, jump 2j1. (or 1j1 and 4 G-hours)
020 Reaction mass, 8 G-hours
002 Collapsible External Compartment
001 Cargo
001 Fuel Processing Plant
001 Docking Airlock - adaptive collar (custom component)
005 TL7 PA Barbette
008 4 small staterooms - all double occupancy.
Weapons are from Bk 2: High Guard.
Steph rolled HOT on the Diplomacy; Isswar Revealed a lot more than he'd hoped. I gave a major concession; he'll line her up with the Matron of the Tribe of Tribes.
Lots of excellent RPing, but really, not many rolls. A couple sensors rolls, finding out data about the other ships, a couple commo rolls, and some diplomacy rolls to back up the RP'd negotiations. I adjust the difficulty by up to 2 levels based upon the RP.
Emergent Story - Session 11
They are loaded with unrefined fuel.
They jump.
The Col decides to try to see what happens during jump entry; Dr Jones suggests he might want to see if he can do it without drugs. After some consulting with Dr. Burns, The Col decides to go for it. He puts his head right up on the forward hull, and... As his consciousness drifts out, A voice starts talking to him. He has a chat. It's Jump Space. It's female. He's got the feeling it's a woman, and doesn't like intrusions...
He comes out of it, and everyone's worried. The Doc has sedated him with Succicoline... a paralytic. A low dose, used for a side effect: reduction of psionics. He has, however, resisted those side effects. The Doc relieves the captain until she's certain he's not psychotic.
They come out, at 2000 AU out from the barycenter at at a right angle to the line between the two stars in the Ryokan system, on day 7.
They are not happy to be out in the middle of nowhere.
Dr. Jones on sensors, looking for anything else out there, detects a model Z scale Fission plant on an asteroid at 2 AU from them... Doing some figuring, it's not one of the known ones. They decide it has to be pirates. Realizing they would be easily spotted and flying into a firefight, they decide to bug.
The decision is made by the acting Captain, after consulting with the officers, including the almost paralyzed Col, (and Cpl Castle, who's apparently bugged the comm grid,) to jump on to Kamaj. Something is wrong, tho', as they enter jump... it isn't a smooth transition
The Col, off duty, and in bermudas, an aloha shirt, and a pair of flip-flops, and after 3 days of drunken party in his quarters, locks himself in the portside airlock, and tries to contact Jump Space again. He makes contact instead with a rather startled Corporal Castle...
Castle: "What can I do for ya, Darlin'?"
Beuaregard: "We can continue our earlier conversation.
C: "What earlier conversation"
B: "Never mind. Just tell me what it takes when we enter you."
C: "Whoa there... the end is exit only!"
B: "So you want us entering from the front?"
C: "Uh, yeah"
≤Castle is summoning the doc via computer≥
C: "That way I can at least use my teeth..."
B: "Oh, okay. So anything else we should do before entry?"
Castle suddenly realizes whom is talking...
C: "Captain, I didn't know you cared!"
He gets dosed, tries again later... and senses something at 499m... of his 500m range when dosed.
A day later, he tries again, with clairvoyance, and finds it... and clairavoyances aboard... he gets a rough configuration, and winged, toothed, 2 arms, 2 legs, tail, and UGLY... and wired into the bridge. Also the Col finds they have a missile bay, 4 triple Anti-particle turrets, 4 triple pulse laser turrets, and an unidentified barbette, and an antimatter power plant, no jump fuel, and one robot crewman.
A fleeting blip. He's convinced there's something there. But he's unable to safely dose again for a couple days. He does so just before jump exit... and spots the alien ship using clairvoyance at a mere "4m" of range... But, when they come out, it's on the bearing, but 1 LS away.
They realize it's targeting them, and they are also targeting them. The Doc, also has decided the Col isn't crazy... so he's back to duty.
Everybody suggests hailing it and seeing if the alien will stand down... The Col. caves.
So they radio it. Danau tries hailing in Old Galanglic... "Stand down and prepare for boarding."
In the same tongue, "Stand down your weapons, or you will be destroyed!"
They are informed they are being held as hostiles for having terminated a sentient species.
They are asked whom their patron is, and it's discovered by some discussion that 2 protosentient races, one on Racine, and one on Eau Claire, are ripe for uplift.
Danau claims no understanding of these; the alien asks directly "Who uplifted you!"
They transmit the history, such as it is. Meanwhile, they ask for clarification on the "killed off race"... they find out that it was killed shortly after about 1025 years ago, during the aliens last survey.... by influenza, from humans.
Upon reading the data, it suddenly says, "Ah, I see. I'll be back after I go talk to your patron!" It jumps out. They decide to burn in at 1G, sure it's 8 days, but the unrefined fuel has made a bad run, and they have bad drives, and want desperately to get the ship fixed.
They arrive at Kamaj, and are ordered to Yard 1A, 10km across the water from New Memphis, and is adjacent to the downport. They find out they get 4 months of luxury bungalows on the other side of the ridge, and the ship's basically going to be gutted. They also request a safety change; putting the bunks on the aft walls, so that they can have some gravity safely while under max acceleration.
Mechanical Notes
They misjumped... I'm using a Megatraveller style misjump rule, instead of the stock MGT. Mishap: 12. Moderate. Way out of course, but nothing catastrophic. But they won't know until they come out.
Meanwhile, Jerry rolls to lifesense Natural 2, fails by more than four, and unskilled attempt on Telepathy; 1+2+1 mishap dice; a 12. Moderate mishap. Jerry has a "cthulu experience"... he's convinced Jumpspace is talking to him. Instead, he's simply codifying what his character knows about jump space... Edu and Engineering... makes average, so I interpret it that he's just parroting basic questions a JPhys0111 Intro to Jump Theory class might ask... Jerry plays it up.
Jump exit then happens, and he's dosed. End, Carousing, Moderate, instant to resist the "Pside effects" of Succhinocholine (-failure margin to Psi for 1d6 hours)... roll is 9, adding 2, 11+ on a 10+ target.
Next jump roll is also a 2, and an 11 mishap roll... they will come out at 8 au from target, a minor misjump instead of moderate. They don't know yet, but the wrenching sensation is my warning.
Jerry blows YET another roll, and generates 2d of mishap; 1 for unskilled, 1 for fail by 4; total is 11. Rounds down. Wrong target. Jerry switches dice.
Castle gets an Intelligence roll to figure out who is talking to him... I rolled an 11, plus his 4 from int, 15+... yep.
His use of life sense is 1+range; mishap die guaranteed due to unskilled. So...when he succeeds, he has a superficial mishap... Spending 3 extra his range is upped from 3m to 500m. His target, however, has noticed the scan, and moves in.
The clairavoyance isn't that hard, and he takes extra time, and makes by plenty. He spends all available time searching the ship.
Commentary
Only one major digression bomb... Jerry really had no idea of the scale, even with the sketchup drawings having people in them... so I drew a box the size of his trailer... 12x12x40 feet... and it's just about the same length as the bridge plus commons.
Jerry reminded me he's got a sailcraft on world. He traded his 2 shipshares for a boat on Kamaj. We'll write it up during the week. Budget MCr1. His character's retirement home.
No game next week; Pascha.
edit: formatting error correction
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William Hostman
United States
Eagle River
Alaska
Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
Yes, this really is what I looked like when I uploaded that avatar. Not that it's quite current anymore.
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next installment: Elestrial Concordat Campaign - Session 12 & 13
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Gaming in Greater Anchorage area, Alaska since 1978. Looking for Indy-willing RPG players in Eagle River (or willing to drive to Eagle River). Geekmail me if interested.
