Dark Stars XVII: Netherspace Survey Sector Report 7 (End of Season One)

This was the conclusion of the first Season (opening campaign) arc for the storyline. I'd committed to running White Star through the end of February, and here we are! The plot ended on a cliffhanger, teasing at the direction of events to come for Season Two.

The crew of the Juan One (alias Star Dolphin) cruiser had survived their various encounters on the Curiosity 796 starport and prepared to leave the station with the dark star mind core stowed away in their cargo hold. A few more events took place on the station:

1. Tamralese the Imperial Loyalist met the Inquisitor Horus in his newly cloned body, with fresh mind imprint (post death from last week's encounter) and after a lengthy interrogation/discussion Horus charged her with approaching her allies and making them a significant credit offer to turn over the mind core and any data on Tesla Dane....and to discharge them from service to Captain Lars. He needs her to buy time while he finds replacements for his lost inquisitor team, and doesn't expect his offers to be accepted.

2. Erin had met with the station governor and been given a message broadcast from Tesla Dane received a month prior. The message provided coordinates and a message about finding her at the feet of the "Incumonitrox." Her holoimage in the message shows what looks like the foot of a great beast-statue behind her. The coordinates put them in subsector 12, uncharted space with an unnamed star system.

3. The crew gets the ship repaired and also scour the hull for tracking bugs, finding many. They also get their funds from Captain Lars at long last and spend a lot of money. 101010 tricks himself out...he's now a rolling gun platform, essentially.

4. While at the comm relay/bank securing funds they run into Tamralese doing the same. She pitches the Inquisitor's ideas to them with her own spin. The crew is not interested.

5. The crew realizes qinlons have taken an interest in them in the marketplace and they make a dash for their ship. A firefight ensues as the ship powers up, but the qinlons have a gunship blocking escape! A close quaters firefight results in the qinlon vessel being destroyed thanks to some timely initiative rolls. They escape the station. Unbecknownst to them, the Inquisitor Horus has hired the qinlons to do his dirty work while he regenerates his inquisitor agents.

6. The ship heads for the coordinates Tesla Dane provided. They find an uncharted star system with some evidence of massive trauma: a world is missing, and a moon from that world was captured in the orbit of a gas giant. The moon is heavily terraformed and shielded, and shows a great city built around a sky-scraper sized statue of a cthulhoid beast....the Incumonitrox.

7. In orbit around the moon is a space yacht with a star knight snub fighter tethered to it....it's Tesla Dane's ships! They speak to the AI of the ship named "Sally." Sally helps the Juan One/Star Dolphin's AI release it's own locked databanks...the ship suddenly remembers it's history under Captain Ephemeron and Tesla Dane. The crew tethers to the yacht, but not before finding out that there are numerous void lord weapons platforms cloaked in orbit, closing in on them like a chinese finger trap....they are okay as long as they don't try to leave.

8. On the space yacht they find out that Tesla left the ship and went to the moon below. The ship reveals a secret: a cyborg named Gavon in suspended animation who's blood is a cure for the Von neuman nanovirus plage. They extract samples, innoculate everyone who needs it (which is pretty much Dirk and Sam at this point since Tamralese, Erin and Dyvinil are slowly changing in to strange-matter from the gift of the Stellar Librarian; an 101010 is a robot), and then they break in to the hidden cargo module and innoculate frozen Captain Ephemeron. The cure doesn't remove the virus, but it quells the nanovirus and makes it controllable by the host...Ephemeron will remain a converted cyborg, but retains free will and control over the nanovirus.

After discussion with Sally they crew piece together that the dark stars allegedly created the very first star knights to fight the Incumonitrox, which were making "incursions" in to other universes, destroying them as they did. She says the Great Attractor region of our universe is evidence of an ancient incursion attempt. The first star knights were warped in this battle, creating the void lords.

9. The crew, with Ephemeron, decide to take the cruiser to the surface of the planet to the exact coordinates Tesla provided. They land in a large open park in the city, at the foot of the giant statue of the Incumonitrox. Here they find a great bowl-like depression with an impressive hoop-like stargate in the center. The gate has equipment with a fusion reactor already set up to power it all up. On approach they trigger an activation by accident and the stargate opens a portal...and an elder Void Lord named Corvus steps out!

10. Corvus asks them if they are allies of Tesla Dane and they assert they are (oops) so he proceeds to try and kill them. It's a tough fight....he's a 10 hit die Void Lord with level 4 meditations, a personal shield AND an energy absorbing glove and in the end they drive him back in to the stargate, but it was a tough fight. Erin pursues....only to discover the portal opens up into an immense Void Lord military compound at the edge of the galaxy, and Corvus is preparing to send his army of void lord soldiers through!  She retreats and they quickly disable the power source to close the star gate.

11. While checking out the area they find a mysterious hand in a glove attached to a star sword. There's evidence of blood spatters....they track it to the city, and find in one of the mysterious, monolithic buildings made of an unknown composition the body of an extremely old woman, something that modern humans rarely see anymore due to anagathic treatments. She has a data crystal....and on it after a decryption is a message from a woman claiming to be a colonist in Diaspora Sector on a world called Saber. On the recording she says she came through the star gate to warn Tesla's allies that a tachyon wave was en route, and to find a way to escape....but the message is damaged and hard to make out details on. The crew is mystified....records indicate Diaspora Sector is one of the original sixteen sectors of Old Human Space, from the first two centuries of slow FTL colonization by humanity, before the Fourth World War against the Ascended Apes destroyed the old seat of human control (yes, you read that right). Saber was the first world on which evidence of sentient alien life was found, in the form of ancient, giant statues of tentacled winged things....

They also find lots of evidence the city was built and occupied by the telepathic mindoids, but all that remains are skeletons.

12. Anyway, the crew proceds to investigate the immense statue, and find a giant star gate built in to it's base, large enough to fly the cruiser through. They meet an ancient mindoid who is waiting for them, and explains that they are only the most recent of several visitors in the last month. He tells them Tesla Dane went through the immense portal to escape the ones that followed (presumably the void lords). The mindoid reveals a shocker: when asked about their obsession with the immense statue, he explains that the Incumonitrox were the "first beings" to exist, and that the mindoids worshipped them as trans-dimensional gods. He explains that the dark stars were actually a race of aliens which tried to steal the god-like power of the Incumonitrox and succeeded....this statue marks the star gate which opens up into the sacred world of worship for their kind, in an entirely different universe.

The crew decides to power up the star gate and pursue....as they do so, bizarre gravity waves are detected and strange phenomena in the sky wreak havoc with their sensors. Is this caused by the star gate, or by the tachyon wave the dead woman warned them about? They hurry up and pilot the ship through the star gate.

13. The other side of the star gate turns out to be another universe, one which is near the end of it's heat death with no visible stars left in the sky, and which has slightly different fundamental properties (such as a different cosmological constant, variation in Planck length, etc.). The moon-like world below is distinct as all across the horizon appear to be the giant mile-high statues of the Incumonitrox, but it turns out that they are actually alive....and moving, albeit incredibly slowly. In a valley below the great star gate is a vast plain of hundreds of additional depressions containing more star gates. A single one of these has a force field around it, holding an atmosphere.

14. Investigating the force-field covered star gate reveals another fusion generator to power the star gate and a camp, as well as an atmospheric scrubber/creator and a heating system (the temperature is just warm enough that the atmosphere in the shield bubble hasn't frozen yet). They warm it up and deploy into the protected area....and in the camp find another diary from Tesla Dane.

It turns out Tesla determined that the threat to our universe began when the people of Saber accidentally activated an ancient artifact on their world long ago, one which summoned the attention of the Void Lords in their insatiable quest to find the artifacts of the Incumonitrox. The Void Lords would take 1,500 years to arrive, but it was that day in 2209 that started the process. Her diary indicates that her goal now is to stop all of the future from happening by going back to Saber in 2209 and preventing them from activating the ancient artifacts....and destroying it all, if possible!

The crew realizes that they are facing the final star gate she passed through, one which moves back to their universe in both space and time. Do they pursue Tesla Dane? The coordinates on the small star gate can be replicated on the giant star gate that the cruiser passed through....

END SEASON ONE!!!!

Dark stars XVI: Starport Curiosity-796 and Relic

14 Curiosity-796

The otherwise mundane starport of Curiosity-796 is orbiting the moon Relic, another Spacer catalog anomaly. Evidence of a prolific civilization is defied by the fact that no living sentient remains to tell a tale of what happened when their entire civilization was seemingly extinguished—or kidnapped—twenty thousand years ago. Relic is favored by tomb hunters who love the place, but colony efforts have been troubled as the moon is saturated bio and nanotech which is debilitating to humans.

Curiosity-796 is actually part of the remnants of the Human Commonwealth, the vast independent disaspora of man that was shattered when the Void Lords arrived in the Milky Way. The station is one of a handful that still function in the Netherspace Sector, and it is protected by a loose picket fleet of independent privateers handled by self-appointed Commodore Andrej Markov, who vigorously defends the stations ostensibly libertarian open-door government.

Relic proper has a large Toho Megacorp colony called Osaka-Prime. Toho has been doing extensive nanotech research on the nanoviruses at Curiosity 796, which while note related to the Von  Neuman Plague directly may provide evidence on how to quell the well-known plague virus in other systems. For this reason Curiosity 796 and Relic both have no-entry quarantine requirements for ships that may have or been in contact with the virus….fear it gets loose on Relic and mutates are too great.

Encounters/Events:

1.       The Goliani prospector Tearson who was entrusted with Cargo Hold 779’s contents by Tesla Dane

2.       Cargo Hold 779 contains the Mind Core of a Dark Star!!!! Just needs power and a body.

3.       The Chilopteroid Warlord Gadastron, brother to Chiron, is docked at the station for R and R. 

4.       Tesla Dane has enemies….and they know the ship. The Furies are the three sisters of darkness…..void knights who were turned star knights that have been hunting her; their spy, Emon Gloricam, a gray, will report the arrival of her ship and they will appear with an attack fleet in 48 hours.

5.       Port Governor Gav Tollis has news of Tesla Dane….she’s contacted him as recently as a month ago, from subsector 12, where the “missing system” of Arborea is located. Her transcript was brief: “Gav, tell them to find the idol of the Icumonitrox; they’ll find what they need there.” He assumes the crew of her former ship is the “they” she referred to.

(the following edited to avoid spoilers for my players...don't scroll over the redacted parts!)

6.       While in port, a stealthy cruiser from the Makamian Empire containing six assassins arrives, commandeered by Special Inquisitor Horus, specifically to assassinate the crew and uncover the mystery of Tesla Dane. They are here to protect the emperor from his original request to Captain Lars….as it turns out, Emperor Solvaros has been elevated by the Dark Stars and now controls dark energy as an immortal. His ascendance is what they seek to protect; they know Solvaros summoned Tesla Dane because he learned of her quest to answer the truth of the relationship between the Dark stars and the Void Lords, and they fear the answers (in truth,  Horus knows the answer: that the Dark Stars created the first Void Lords to be the original Star Knights, and that all Star Knights, given time, evolve into Void Lords….the young cull the ancient, essentially, in a never-ending war; they want the emperor to ascend and command both the Dark stars and the Void Lords!)

Dark Stars XV: Netherspace Sector Survey Report 6

This time around was spent more or less entirely in spaceport Curiosity-796, orbiting the moon called Relic, in an otherwise dead star system. Relic has evidence of a vast civilization which wiped itself out 20,000 years ago...yet another victim of the Netherspace Sector curse.

The crew in summary had the following events take place:

1. Most of the crew ran out to find ways to spend money, then realized they needed to "call home" to the empire to get their stipend and pay updated. It turns out that the spaceport, a fringe of the surviving remnants of the Human Commonwealth, has a 2:1 exchange ratio for local Commonwealth Credits (CCR) and Imperial Credits (ICR) in the PC's favor. Yay. Interstellar Communications still take days to travel so they have a wait for their credits to arrive.

2. 101010 discovered the glorious robotic emporium. I've been modding cybernetics rules to give robots more stuff to toy with, and also extended his leveling chart indefinitely....White Star needs a robust robotics supplement for robotic PCs.

3. Tamralese hatched from her chrysallis, now made of strange matter from another dimension. Recovers memories....can tell something is wrong (she can feel the elctromagnetic bonds of force holding matter together, and nothing feels "normal" enymore), tries to get a pheremone implant and poor chopshop is blown up in the process when they try to graft normal matter to her body. Boom.

4. A grumpy alien with a mysterious key to Cargo Hold 779 brings it by...he recognizes the ship, says Tesla Dane wants the key to return to the ship, and leaves. Also, an envoy from the Station Governor arrives, explaining he needs speak with the crew leader. Group sets an appointment.

5. Crew eventually spends money wisely on actual ship repairs and equipment then waits for extra funds for frivolous spending. Meanwhile heads off to check out Cargo Hold 779.

6. Along the way a trio of chilopteroids looking to collect a bounty unleash an Energy Eater on them. Fight ensues....it's a tough fight! But the group wins.

7. Group kicks chilopteroid ass.

8. Group opens cargo hold 779. They find an immense crate, almost too large to store in their own ship's hold, and lots of additional crates of ship supplies. When they discern how to open the master crate it reveals a structure of crystal, silver, gold and platinum with an immense orb at the center. Dyvinil figures out how to feed it dark energy to power it up. It's a Mind Core to a Dark Star! And there's a notebook from Tesla Dane in the crate, too....she indicates her next quest goal: find a body for the mind core, leave it on this station for safe keeping in the interim.

9. The mind core reveals it is weak, and needs a proper body and power source, but imparts some data on what it is. Apparenly the Dark Stars created the first star knights...the first ascended species imbued with the power to manipulate dark energy. Those beings eventually mutated and became the Void Lords. The new generation of the star knights was created to destroy their predecessors. This mind core was a concientous objector....it turns out that such objectors are not appreciated, and the mind core was cast out in the area of the Serpent Nebula, a fate almost akin to death. Tesla Dane found the entity and recovered it.

10. Amidst this discovery, six Special Inquisitors of the Emperor himself show up and attempt to requisition the mind core. The group is suspicious, and a fight breaks out (except Tamralese, who leaves under orders of the inquisitors and heads to their ship like a good citizen). Sam pops ALL the grenades. The group survives but it was a tough battle.

11. Group heads back to ship. They manage to get the mind core stowed in their cargo hold. There are many mysteries to be answered:
--Why did the special inquisitors of the emperor show up and act so strange?
--What does the station governor want?
--Why did the Dark Stars exile this member of their species to the Serpent Nebula?

Stay tuned for more!!!

Dark Stars XIV: Kedrak Prime

37 Kedrak Prime

The Kedrak system is doomed. The main star is about to go nova, and is an immense, ancient red giant which has engulfed much of the interior system. The gas giant Kedrak IX  has two dozen moons, and one inhabited moon called Kedrak Prime.  This civilized local world is unaware of what is about to happen; locals are a humanoid aggressive alien species of felinoids called the Keddirak, a lost colony from thousands of years ago during the pre-commonwealth expansion of the old keddirak Federation (which eventually collapsed, leaving countless felinoid worlds seeded throughout the galaxy).

Physically the keddirak are classic cat-men (Felinoids, see White Star core). The people of Kedrak Prime are survivors of a lost era of their expansionism….they have vague records of this time period, but no memory of how the old Federation collapsed (but war is a likely reason). There are relics of this ancient period still visible, including three immense terraforming atmospheric scrubbers. The machines failed long ago, and the keddirak regard them as almost mystical relics of their forgotten age, proof that they came from greatness and will one day ascend again.

Kedrak Primeis currently dominated by two world super-powers locked in a perpetual conflict: the Order of the Claw and the Razor Union. This has motivated them to spread in to space, and they have sophisticated late 21^st century equivalent technology, cybernetics, and efficient nuclear power. However, advanced weaponry, foldspace technology and more have eluded the keddirak.

Among the keddirak is a growing movement of scientists and free thinkers called the Science Union who stand in opposition to the perpetual cold war. They are aware of the dire predicament that their world faces, and know that it is only a matter of time before the red giant star collapses on itself, blowing its matter out in to space and leaving a white dwarf in its wake….the entire star system will be dead at that point. They have engaged in active searches and broadcasting in to space on primitive radio transmission in search of the ancestors of the keddirak, but without success….so far.

Possible Plots:

Quinlon imperials are offering foldspace technology and weapons in exchange for slave recruits in their armies (the quinlons love using keddirak catmen as shock troops and have taken keddirak from other lost colonies for this purpose).

Chilopteroids have been studying the keddirak with the intent to harvest them for slaves, albeit secretly.

The Science Union will attempt to contact PCs who enter the system and beg for assistance in fleeing their world, emphasizing that the system could perish any day when the red giant goes.

A black ops branch of the Order of the Claw has hatched a plan to capture an alien vessel, and needs a target. They are using highly experimental technology recreated from a hidden vault in one of the terraformer ruins to create an incredibly dangerous and unstable quantum teleporter. Those who use it do not intend to return without a captured starship, and they go armed with the toughest armor and slug throwers the keddirak can make. The transporter range is limited….a target vessel needs to be within 1,000 km, so a separate diplomatic division is prepared to try to convince any alien contacts to come in close enough to use the device.

Star knights entering the system who investigate the local culture may be shocked to learn that there is an order of keddirak star knights….alien mystics who study The Way and appear to have learned how to manipulate dark energy without exposure to the Dark Stars…..

Keddirak Characters: Keddirak can be alien star knights (from Between Star & Void), alien brutes (core), alien mystics (core), the quixotic alien from Five Year Mission, and possibly others at the GM's discretion. Keddirak have nasty claws that deal 1D4 damage on a strike, and an uncanny sense of smell.

Dark Stars XIII: Netherspace Sector Survey Part 5

This week's game was quieter, thanks to our guest players being absent. The group got a lot done, and there was much plot and serious effort at enjoying the game to be had! Good stuff all around.

Quinlon salvager/dreadnaught Dark Claw

Roster of the crew of the exploration cruiser ISS "Juan One":
101010 the combat robot
Erin the star pilot and her trusty emancipated void lord snub fighter Sole
Dyvinil the totally not Sailor Moon star girl and her cosmic space Nancat
Dirk the rugged mercenary
Tamralese the xenosociologist, aristocrat, super model and secret sociopath
Samaros the crewman and survivor of Blight (NPC)
Oski the engineer (NPC)
Max Fuller the crazy transporter who's lost his mind after touching a "Mother Box' (NPC)
Medical Bot NB8 (NPC)

The session more or less went like this:

The group left New Germanican space in a hurry, only to be ambushed by non-baryonic dark matter aliens in Transitional Space. Three of the alien ships, which were effectively invisible except for a gravitationally interactive "signature" that the PC's ship's sensors could detect and use to form a picture of sorts  showed two carrier craft and a warship of some sort. They had captured the cruiser in three gravity beams acting like tractor beams....and inside the beams a boarding party of dark matter aliens!

Erin's AI-infused void lord snub fighter Sole mentioned that the Void Lords called these beings the In-Betweeners, or the "Vogel" in the Void Lord language.

The crew did all it could to bust up the ships' gravity beams, which would quickly turn into powerful torque weapons, using increased graviton beams to rip and crush the ship. Erin could pilot "into" the torque to avoid too much damage while Dyvinil, Dirk and 101010 targeted the hell out of them....but the laser weapons weren't too effective, until they direclty targeted the actual ships; the lasers didn't seem to damage the ships but did disrupt the source of the beam energy. Once all three beams were interupted Erin jetted out of the area.

Meanwhile the vogel boarded in the upper crew quarter area. A fight ensued, during which it became clear they didn't care about lasers at all...the nearly invisible beings only displayed eerie colors of red and black energy as the light refracted through their bodies, which appears to be infused with gravitons to let the dark matter aliens interact. Using graviton particle guns the aliens managed to be formidable, but Sam the alien brute chopped one in half with a star sword....the dark energy of the star swords could harm them! 101010 figured out his newly installed particle beam cannon also harmed them. The aliens were defeated....but each one "imploded" in a graviton particle wave collapse on death, and being too close could cause harm...Sam lost some skin to the graviton implosion, and Dirk's arm was badly broken as he was almost sucked in.

After the dust cleared the ship had a massive engine failure and dropped out of t-space into the middle of nowhere, surrounded by other dead ships. They figure out they've jumped several parsecs, and are resting a light year from the Dark Twins, two immense black holes with a great nebula of gas between them, slowly engaged in a death spiral.

The group started on repairs but it was going to take at least a day. Once power was restored to minimum functionality a quick scan detected dozens of dead ships, and a few with faint heat or energy signatures. Several events took place from here:

1. A chilopteroid salvage ship showed up (suspicious!) and began investigating each ship with an energy reading....they powered their ship down although IR emissions would still give them away. Before the chilopteroid ship got to the ISS Juan One  (the cruiser), another ship dropped out of t-space and immediately cloaked....minutes later a quinlon dreadnaught blows the chilopteroid ship to bits!

2. Tamralese (corrected name! formerly Marlese) went into a chrysallid state in her room, as her form begins to change to the strange matter of the Stellar Librarian's universe in the midst of all this.

3. The crew investigates the mysterious hatch into the cargo unit attached to the bottom of the ship, which Dyvinil recently opened and discovered contains the frozen remains of the former captain of the ship, Ephemeron, along with an eerie growth of biomechanical substance that is super-cooled. Since the hatch was opened and closed the "growth" of silvery material has been creeping out of the hatch and quadrupled in covered area.

101010, Erin and Dyvinil decide that the substance is probably a variant of the Von Neuman Plague nanovirus, and they proceed to irradiate the area and repurpose some stasis units to freeze the area around the hatch to keep it under control. Efforts appear successful.

Amidst all of this Erin and 101010 read/process the diary of Captain Ephemeron she found. It reveals much interesting detail: the ship they are in was originally his, and was called the Star Dolphin before it was scrubbed of any IDs and repurposed by Captain Lars of the Makamian Imperial Navy for their "survey" mission. Ephemeron's last mission was to accompany Tesla Dane into Netherspace Sector! He believed in her mission, which started with a quest to find out the relationship between the Void Lords and the Dark Stars (the planet-sized starlike energy beings which created the star knights) and turned into a quest to stop "the void lords and the betrayers" but the diary doesn't elaborate. She intended to co-opt the Von Neumann Nanovirus to do this, reprogramming it...they found samples at Hapson's World, but this is where an accident happened and Ephemeron contracted the plague. They froze him to slow it down while a cure could be found. Ephemeron also confirms that Tesla Dane did release a version of the virus many years ago in New Germanican space that specifically targets and destroys t-space tech. Much was learned here.

4. The NPC Max Fuller who is obsessed with a "Mother Box" he was supposed to receive (I wrote about this subplot before, right? Hmmmm) is found in his underwear worshipping a metal fabrication of the mother box, and something about how it will reveal the true gods and the true way. Shades of apocalypse, but none of my players read DC comics so BWAH HAH HAH
...they try to keep him restrained.

5. The quinlons that blow up the chilopteroids begin investigating wrecks with signatures. They approach the PCs. Erin diplomatically invites them aboard before they blow the hull and send in salvagers armed with disruptors.

The quinlons are led by one Captain Zassa Tamralane. Recall that in Dark Stars quinlons are 1/3 klingon, 1/3 predator and 1/3 average dude from Mad Max. They are spooky looking. As it turns out, Captain Zassa is one of the many quinlon independent mercenaries in this area...they are salvagers. But apparently they are also actively at war with the chilopteroids. She offers to trade equipment or services to repair the PC ship in exchange for useful goods; she detects a faint trace of Void Lord tech on their ship, but the PCs decline, offering functional stasis pods instead. She agrees (inexplicably) and provides recovered engine parts from the recently destroyed chilopteroid ship in exchange.

No one seems to suspect (until they read this sentence) that the quinlons may have been so agreeable because they got what they wanted without having to fight. What that is remains a mystery.

6. While pulling out used stasis pods for trade the group notices a stasis pod assigned to one Thomas Hill is now vacant...he is missing. No one's been down here for days so they are not sure how long but initially assume it malfunctioned during the power loss when the ship dropped out of t-space. 101010 starts searching for the missing formerly frozen crewman. His record suggests a criminal thug, yet another of the hapless recruits of the devious Captain Lars.

101010 detects motion in the hangar bay....and finds evidence someone is tampering with Sole, the void lord snub fighter Erin re purposed long ago! He, Erin, and Dyvinil work to stop whatever is happening....

So it turns out Thomas Hill is an alias for a void knight spy who was awakened at a specific time. He had already gathered a great deal of information from the ship, and used an override code to gain control of Sole. Erin yanked the circuitry while the ship was powering up for an escape; the ship blasted the bay doors open and Erin's latent psi ability saves her as she develops vacuum adaptation. 101010 targeted the laser cannons and did enough damage to warp the barrels so they couldn't fire. The void lord "Hill" is using cloaking tech, but jumps out of the cockpit and almost disintegrates 101010 with a ball of corrupted energy. He then tries to kill Erin with a thought but fails...her psi resistance kicks in. Dyvinil transforms into an image of the space unicorn they had met on Blight and attacks...her cat attacks (remember, Dyvinil is a "totally not sailor moon" star girl) and 101010 blows holes in the void knight's armor....they defeat him.

On his body they find evidence that he was going to flee to a location called Void Station Vartinimos, only a parsec away. He knew the old code necessary to "leash" Sole and Erin works on fixing that backdoor control issue for her snub fighter. He also had downloaded all of the ship's data and survey information to date....with close attention evident in his data on two subjects: Tesla Dane, and the Mother Box! Apparently whatever Max Fuller was involved with, it's bigger than people realize...

The group gets some advice from Oski on possible locations where they can limp to a full feature star port for proper repairs, and set out to do so. Ironically they take about four times longer than necessary as they weave their way through The Tiberon Anomaly, but somehow they come out unscathed, although they get great survey data on the timepsace distortions in the area and record data on three massive wormholes spiraling around something undetectable except through gravity waves.

The group passes through Kedrak, and discovers a civilization on a moon around a gas giant at the edge of the system; but the system has an immense, old red giant nearing a collapse point. The moon's civilization is comprised of a race of cat-men who have developed 21st level space technology and even have space stations and some other moon colonies, but that's it. The ship is detected and contacted on primitive radio channels by three groups: two military groups of opposing factions trying to suss out what they are, and a scientific research group thinking they are the aliens destined to come save them from the imminent destruction of their star system when the star collapses. All three sides want help....but one does launch a missile (or something) at the ship's location, ETA 3 weeks.

The group finally decides to send the research group a pod containing an interface to a limited-AI computer they can hook up, which will teach them how to make foldspace drive tech. They send duds for the military groups to chase. They then leave....no one's feeling overly charitable right now!

The group heads for Curiosity 796, and they arrive in-system to find an indepenent space station orbiting the moon "Relic." The Taylor-9 Station is an independent station, part of the old Libertarian Commonwealth that survived (miraculously) the void lord incursion a decade ago. They are assigned a docking berth for repairs....the only rules are that they must not be harboring the Von Neuman Plague (uh oh) or smuggling cannicks. The group bribes the inspectors to look the other way.

At this point, the only real concern is that there's also a chilopteroid exploration vessel in port.....

TO BE CONTINUED!

Taylor-9 Commonwealth Freeport

Dark stars XII: New Germanica

37 New Germanica

The colony of New Germanica was founded during early colonial expansion from mostly German spacers. They have developed starfaring technology over the last thousand years, and are now advancing in to the colonization of the system.  The current regime is a fascist xenophobic array of personalities who are preparing for “war” against the outsiders, i.e. the Makamian Empire and the Void Lords. The leader of New Germanica (NG) is Hans Grueller, a strong personality who is seen as a war hero, the man who “drove out” the Void Lords and refused a treaty with the star knights. New Germanica barely survived the Void Lord incursion a little over a decade ago, and had the Void Lords not began a retreat when the star knights arrived they would have been annihilated. The Void Lords retreated when the star knight fleet of the Lost Seven arrived, and it was through NG subterfuge that they did not detect the incomplete Void Lord technology left behind.

Resting at the edge of the star system is a monolithic structure, the Anti-Matter Wave Generator that the Void Lords were building to extinguish the system. The Empire of New Germanica has done all it can to keep the evidence of this weapon secret, and will do all it can to hide its existence, even as the New Germanican scientist pour over the device in an attempt to reverse engineer the technology hidden within, so they may complete the construction of the device. Early results have been successful in learning how to harness antimatter particles and store them indefinitely; these are now being converted into crude but incredibly dangerous weapons and raw sources of power.

The starships of New Germanica are only equipped with foldspace engines, so they have yet to expand beyond a few light years of space, but this has led to colonies on Remandalis, Habaris and Serpikus. They have deep space explorers moving slowly toward other star systems; part of their mission directive is to capture any advanced FTL technology, at any cost.

Events at New Germanica:

Capturing FTL Drive Tech: The NG has slow foldspace drive, so they can travel without relativistic effects but it takes years or decades to go a parsec or two. They have been trying to capture a working Transitional Drive for a long time, and try to lure “xenos” as they call all outsiders into traps to gain access to a working drive. However, they have a couple complications…

The Modified Von Neuman Plague: The NG was exposed by someone (possibly Tesla Dane!) to the Von Neuman Plague, which is a rampant nanovirus that destroys and assimilates any target it is programmed for; it was originally released on a remote colony called Last Call and spread rapidly throughout the old Triton Commonwealth, leading to that sector’s downfall. The version released in NG territory is designed specifically to target Transitional Drive technology, although mutational strains of the nanovirus have begun targeting bioforms again recently.

Zomborgs: Cyborg zombies are a plague in the NG’s “slums” where most non-eugenicized races live in squalor. The nanoplague occasionally mutates and resets back to its original condition, which is to convert bioforms into mechanical life and a machine hive intelligence. These zomborgs are like assimilants, but any physical contact requires a save or the individual in question contracts the nanovirus, which takes 3D6 weeks to slowly convert the organism into a man-machine hybrid slave of the hive mind. The goal of the hive mind is to expand indefinitely….it has no other purpose.

Zomborg Stats: AC 15 (carbon plate armor); HD 4, HP 16, Move: 9, Attacks 2 or by weapon, claw (1D6) and bite (1D4) (and make a save or contract the Zomborg nanovirus) or laser rifle (2D6), ST 15, HDE 4/120 

The commoners of NG think that the zomborgs are a product of the NG government, and their lack of response is due to the disinterest the government has in "unmodified" genotypes. They are half-right: scientists of the NG did, indeed, seek to modify the Von Neuman Nanovirus initially to stop it from destroying T-Space tech, but later they realized it had a "locked" programming which they tampered with, then exposed their test population to. It got loose....but so far the threat is regarded as nominal to a system with a massive overpopulation issue and an elite genetically "superior" aristocracy in control.

The Dark Matter Aliens: There’s a sophisticated effort in the dark matter realm, which is bridged only while in Transitional Space, to destroy vessels which try to leave the NG system. The dark matter aliens are called the Kerig, and they use a complex form of biomechanics for their ships. More on these, and their motives, later….

Dark stars XI: Blight System

49 Blight

Blight was noted for its singularly unimpressive post-apocalyptic primeworld, the original name of which was long ago lost in favor of the scout’s nickname of Blight. On Blight rests the remains of an unknown civilization bombed back to stone age in what appears to be a genocidal war; debris in orbit and on the three moons of the planet clearly indicate they had progressed into space and were colonizing their system when the extinction level warfare took place. Now, the survivors of Bight are a handful of desperate wastelanders competing for precious resources with a large mass of mutated flora and fauna, a byproduct of biogenetic engineering for warfare and mutations from bioweaponry.

Events at Blight:

1. There is a strange orbital station/ship that looks like a vast, mirrored lens or saucer around Blight. It is defended by automated snub fighters, but may be friendly with the right approach. The vessel is run by a chilopteroid called Chiron, a race of ancient  near-immortal vampire bat-men. Chiron has arrived here from his home planet of Gleison, ostensibly to study the plight of the people of Blight; he represents himself as a benevolent god to them, and sends them on missions to gather ancient relics which he claims he is studying to determine what happened to the planet. In truth, he is implanting the natives with a red organic crystal, which he uses to sap psychic energy from the natives, feeding himself and his chliopteroid clan, and allowing them to continue with their indefinite life span. He is also secretly trying to find the Stellar Librarian (see below) which he believes contains the secret to true immortality.

2. A star cruiser from the Segurandi Dominion called The Infallible and piloted by the star witch Kalabretta (Mystic level 3; S 11 D 17 C 10 I 12 W 14 CH 18; HP 9, HD 2; AC 13, Attack 1, Star Sword +1 attack, 1D6+4 damage; ST 12; Meditations: invisibility, detect life, speed burst (gift); Mystic is in Between Star & Void, page 8). She has a dozen soldiers (WS page 80) in her service. She is investigating two issues: what the chilopteroids are up to (they are an enemy of the Segurandi Dominion and the witch queen in particular), and the recovery of a lost artifact: a Stellar Librarian. The Stellar Librarian is a holographic recording device that she believes is located in the ruins of one of the largest cities still standing on Blight, a haunted location which is overgrown with deadly flora and fauna. The Stellar Librarian may have been hidden here during the invasion of the Void Lords to save it from destruction, since the Void Lords tended to ignore already devastated systems. Kalabretta might be willing to hire the PCs to aid in its recovery, offering them 300 credits and the promise of an assist in the future if they need her help.

Bestiary of Blight:

Blight Natives are seven foot tall humanoids with insectoid features, four arms, and deep red and blue hues of “skin.” AC 13, HD 2, Move 12, Attacks 2, swords 1D6 or crossbows (1D6+1), ST 17, HDE 2/30; Special: most natives have odd random mutations, and all natives have all-around vision; surprise only 1 in 6 chance)

Gromics are 20-25 foot tall gorilla-like beings with wide, membranous wings. They actually have a limited form of telepathy which they use to gain lift and they then glide on the intense winds of Blight. AC 14, HD 6, Move 12 (15 fliying), Attacks 2, Fists 2D6+1 each or throw rocks (1D6), ST 13, HDE 6/400

Chilopteroids of Gleison are six to eight feet tall, and resemble humanoid bats. AC 13, HD 3, Move 15 or 18 fly; attack 1 (claw 1D4) or laser pistol (1D6+2), ST 16, HDE 3/60; chilopteroids can become invisible at will as per the meditation; a chilopteroid with its blood crystal receptor will regenerate 1 hit point per turn, and leaving a body around will let it come back to life eventually; only destroying the body will stop the regeneration.)

Spider-Hunters prowl the ruins of Blight, looking something like a furry mammal combined with an arachnid, the Spidere-Hunters were unleashed on Blight to hunt down Chilopteroid enemies and escaped slaves. They are larger than mastiffs and have a vile poison. AC 14, HD 4, Move 12 (climb 12), attacks 2, claw/pincers 1D6+2 each, plus poison (Save or suffer paralysis and take 1D6 damage/turn for 1D12 turns as guts liquefy); ST 15, HDE 4/120

The Stellar Librarian is a cosmic inter-dimensional sentient probe from another universe. It can be attacked but is made of matter from another dimension and can only be temporarily disrupted, reforming 1D12 hours later after HP reach zero. It can impart knowledge to those who desire it, releasing a small black globe which when absorbed requires a save; if the target fails, then the subject is cocooned and gains the abilities but begins to slowly transform into strange matter from another dimension (more on what this means soon!). Effects that can be granted include: gain a new skill (if using skill abilities), wild talent psionics (if using Psionics supplement), a meditation or even something more exotic at GM’s discretion. AC 18, HD 12, HP 42, Move 20 (levitation), attacks: none; the Stellar Librarian is pacifistic, but it can engage in a probe for 200 feet; targets must make a save, and on failure the Stellar Librarian knows all data on the subject; Chilopteroid nervous systems tied to blood stones are disrupted by this for 1D6 turns, and may affect unshielded cybernetics in the same way; ST 7; HDE 2,000

Zunathics are also other-dimensional energy beings, and are also made of a strange matter which fluctuates in an indeterminate matter/energy state. They can take any form (the one with the Stellar Librarian appears as a unicorn made of cosmic stardust….yes, that is right). Zunathics can absorb 50 points of energy damage before further damage disrupts their form; physical damage has no effect (but see below); if one is reduced to 0 HP it is disrupted and reforms 1D12 hours later. AC 19, HD 8, HP 28, Move 12 (18 running), Attacks 1, Particle Beam Horn 4D6 damage and make a save or take 2D6 damage for 1D4 additional rounds; Special: any physical attack striking the zunathic forces the attacker to make a saving throw; failure means the object is disintegrated or the creature takes 8D10 damage (and is disintegrated if hitting 0 HP); ST 11; HDE 8/800 

Dark Stars IX: Netherspace Sector Survey, Chapter 3

Not a lot of time to discuss, but I'll outline a lot of this in a near future post on the world of Blight and all that's going on with it. Some highlights:

1. The group thawed out two more cohorts (Sam the alien brute and Brutus the Star Knight)  (i.e. we had 2 more players)

The group, in succession, had the following encounters:

--stalked by camouflaged spider-goats from Mutant Future (denizens of the Chilopteroid world seeded on Blight to hunt the Stellar Librarian)
--found a crashed gunship from New Germanica, with an intact medical bot (more or less); learned that New Germanica is a lost colony from the days of slow FTL which tried to colonize Blight 68 years ago and failed spectacularly
--entered the subterranean subway system of the ruined city
--Found the hidden bunker* where the Stellar Librarian, guarded by what can only be described as "a wimpy mind flayer and a dark unicorn made of strange matter" were cataloging the records of a destroyed world
--Had a big shoot-out with a squadron of Segurandi Dominion soldiers led by a war witch
--Erin and Marlese discovered that the Stellar Librarian is a probe from another universe which records the lost knowledge of dead civilizations, especially ones like Blight which manage wipe themselves out consistently in all alternate realities. They convinced it to grant them psionic powers. Magical Star Girl Dyvinil did so as well. Now the group has three wild talents.
--101010 the combat robot was upgraded with a particle beam gun

Anyhoo....everyone's at 2nd level except the pilot who hit 3rd. They will likely level again next session.

Good Game!!!!

*Described as that bunker from Planet of the Apes, or maybe Terminator 3

Dark stars VIII: The Chilopteroid Menace

Wednesday players please hold off reading this entry until after tonight's game!

Chilopteroids of Gleison

The Chilopteroids are six to eight feet tall, and resemble humanoid bats, with membranous glider-folds between body and limbs. They are native to a bleak, windswept world called Gleison, where they have spent ten thousand years slowly developing an elaborate society built on slavery. The chilopteroids developed space travel thousands of years ago, and initial slow FTL ships migrated chilopteroids to other colonies, most of which failed. In time they discovered transitional drives and their later ships migrated into the stars, but this time with a different intent: to conquer and enslave.

Today chilopteroids are a decadent society that harvests slaves from other civilizations and drains them of life force using a technology called blood crystals, organically grown crystalline devices that bond to their slaves and drain them of vital psychic energy, feeding it to the chilopteroid master, allowing him regenerative abilities and near-immortality. The predatory nature of the chilopteroids means that they favor pre-FTL societies, or civilizations with low tech in general, for they are usually ill equipped to deal with the “space vampires.”

Each chilopteroid is equipped with an impressive photosensitive epidermis which is adapted to perfectly mimic light sources around them; this allows them to defeat attempts to see them through a normal spectrum as if they had used the invisibility meditation, but it fails when they move at full speed (they can maintain it at half speed) or if they engage in sudden movement. The invisibility camouflage does not work well against motion detectors or infrared detection, and is utterly useless against extrasensory perception.

Despite their similarity to Terran bats, chilopteroids do not use sonar and actually have incredibly well-developed vision, which aids them in detecting their own kind when camouflaged. 

Chilopteran Statistics:

Armor Class 8 [13]

Hit Dice 3 (11 hit points)

Total Hit Bonus +3

Attacks claws (1D4) or laser pistol (1D6+2)

Saving Throw 16

Special natural camouflage (limited invisibility); blood crystals

Movement 12 (15 flying; in 1G or lower only)

HDE 3/60

Blood crystal Implant: A chilopteroid with its blood crystal receptor will regenerate 1 hit point per turn, and leaving a body around will let it come back to life eventually; only destroying the body will stop the regeneration.

Chilopteroid Blood Crystals: these crystals have a “collector” type and a “receiver” type. They drain psychic energy, draining 1 point of INT and WIS per day to a target that fails a saving throw. When the target reaches 0 in either score it becomes brain dead and dies; the crystal has an emergency cutoff point, however; chilopteroids don't like to lose hosts. If a host is about to perish, the crystal will go dormant and allow the host time to recover (see below) before reactivating. Such hosts are in a deathly state described as "torpor," recovering 1 INT and WIS per day. When the host is healed, the crystal resumes draining.

During the draining cycle the target suffers madness and delusions, and develops a cult-like belief in the divinity of the chilopteroid or entity with the receiver crystal installed. The receiver crystal will regenerate 1 hit point of damage or remove one deadly condition per turn to the bearer so long as at least one collector crystal is in a living host. The chilopteroid will also be ageless and immortal. 

The crystals require a minor surgery to install but quickly bind to the nervous system. Removing one from a living host requires medical expertise and the target must have a saving throw or take 4D6 damage from the process. A target freed of the crystal can make a Save to recover, and on a success will recover 1 INT and 1 WIS per day until restored. If a natural 1 is rolled on the save then the target loses 1D4 of each, and could die if reduced to zero.

Other species have been able to use the blood crystals with mixed success; non-chilopteroids must make one save for each week that a receiver crystal is implanted, or develop debilitating, cancerous growths, as the crystal rejects the alien organism. This process causes a loss of 1D4 hit points per day until surgical removal of the crystal. 

Dark Stars VII:Youganat, the gadgeteers

Like this, but with more ears

Youganat (humanoid alien species)

The Youganat are a starfaring race of ancient age, and were quick to warm to humans when they first encountered them early in the 27^th century. The youganat were pivotal in winning the Machine War, in which the AIs of human space attempted to force a singularity which would have absorbed and wiped out biological beings.

Physically youganat look like wrinkled gnomes with four whispery “ears” that sweep back from their head, and skin tones from ruddy red to deep purple. They have male and female

The youganat species is native to a remote planet said to be on the far side of the Milky Way, it’s original location a carefully guarded secret. Most youganat are encountered in flotilla ship fleets, which move slowly and often through widely varying means of propulsion through known space. They seek out friendly civlizations with which to engage in trade and commerce and offer engineering advice and inventions. They seem to operate on a caste system based on profession, with the lowest rank professions dedicated to cleaning waste systems and air scrubbers, and the most elite positions managing flotilla operations and advanced engineering.

If using the sourcebook “Outer Space Raiders Volume I: Classes” from Magic Pig Media, youganat may pick engineer as a viable class. Youganat are also found as pilots (from White Star core), and rare youganat who rebel against their system are found as scoundrels (also from Outer Space Raiders Volume I) or mercenaries. Youganat seem to be unable to master the meditations of the mystical classes.

Racial Notes: youganat are humanoid but average 3.5 feet in height and move slower than regular humans (move 9). All youganat have keen hearing (as good as a dog’s) and can be hard to spot, thanks to being good at hiding when trouble brews (-2 penalty to a target trying to locate a hidden youganat, such as on a Wisdom check to detect his presence).

If you use Youganat as a racial class (as the Alien class in Outer Space Raiders Volume I) they have keen hearing and the ability to use all weapons and armor (thanks to their natural technical expertise) as alien traits at level 1, but still have move 9 and the -2 penalty to being spotted when hidden.

Sample NPC:

Oski

Humanoid male (Youganat) Engineer, level 3

Humanoid Description: red skinned, four long pointed ears, beady black eyes, 3.5 feet tall

STR 8 DEX 11 CON 9 INT 15 WIS 8 CHA 15

HD 3; HP 10; BHB +0; AC 12 (light; flight suit); ST 13

Save Modifiers: +2 save vs. explosions and similar effects

Engineer Abilities: Gadgets/day 2 (max level 2), burnout 1 in 6; Bubble Gum & Bailing Wire (1D6+1 hull points repair), Jury Rig (as level 1 pilot)

Typical Favored Gadgets: repair, personal gravity nullification field generator

Weapon: hydrospanner (club 1D6)

Oski is a dedicated engineer who chose his career/caste path among the Youganat people long ago. He is dedicated to the light exploratory cruiser “Juan One” currently. He is slow moving but very affable. Oski isn’t actually entirely sure what the ship mission is all about, but unknown to most of the crew he used to serve on Tesla Dane’s spacecraft, the Inescapable. She abandoned him in Imperial Space when she went on her mysterious crusade into Netherspace.  

White Star has captivated me enough that I actually
tried to....DRAW....again....!!!! Oh the humanity.
Anyway, here's a rendering of Oski, a youganat;
remember, he's only 3 feet tall

Dark Stars VI: Netherspace Sector Survey Report #2

Tonight's session had the group bump back up to six active players, so there was some shuffling about as we had two new characters to introduce; one existing player (Jeff!) couldn't resist bringing in a new PC while his old star knight was given over to a guest player who will be in our group for the next few weeks.

At the start of this session the group is en route to the Blight system when the engineer Otzi informs them that there's a new coolant leak, this time in the Cold Berth Unit....no one's fully explored this ship, so the news they have a cold berth section is a bit of a shock!

On arrival the crew discovers 24 cold berths holding a medley of people in stasis. Three have failed....after repairing the leak, the three failures have to be emergency thawed and awakened. Two process correctly, but the third person does not...apparently dead!

The two new members are, it turns out, backup replacements for the main crew; it is quickly revealed that Dyvinil and Marlese (sorry if I didn't get the names right!) were recruited before the other adventurers by the same naval Captain Lars, who then placed them in suspended animation in the cold berths as emergency backup crew should the primary crew fail....part of the reason being the actual light cruiser they are using isn't really equipped to handle more than 4-8 crew for long periods (it is rationalized) but also, it seems Captain Lars has little stock in his mercenary surveyors, as Dirk, Day-Ro, 101010 and Erin realize that there are a total of 24 (now 21) cold berths here, each ready to thaw in an emergency.... (the players figure out quickly this is where all their replacement PCs will come from in the event of death; or they can turn them into crewmen if they want to thaw early...)

The crew now consists of:

Dyvinil, a magical star girl (from that "Totally not sailor Moon" sourcebook for White Star)
Marlese, an aristocrat and xenosociologist
Dirk, a mercenary who is slow to trust
101010 the emancipated Combat Robot
Erin the crack starpilot with a pet AI-controlled snub fighter stolen from the Void Lords
Day-Ro, the Star Knight (pronounced Dee-Row; Day-Ro is his slave name!)
Samaros the survivor (NPC)
Otzi the engineer (NPC)

They have some ship-board escapades, which were a bit chaotic as the crew settled on a rough pattern of relaying actions to the GM (heh):

1. They realized that the body of the third stasis crewman was not dead of natural causes; a monoblade was sticking from his chest.
2. Dirk and 101010 investigate ship recordings and see evidence of a camouflaged being open the stasis pod, take a mysterious box from the man in stasis and stab him. The timestamps says it happened before they left on their voyage.
3. Day-Ro and Dyvinil explore the ship, realizing they haven't actually done this yet. They discover a mysterious hatch leading to a hidden cargo pod with a code they can't crack; A cargo chamber containing hundreds of metal hollow cubes that seem to be magnetically attracted and form some sort of immense puzzle; evidence that Otzi has disabled all monitoring systems in the engineering compartments; and finally a medical bay, complete with advanced medical droid M-8, who asks them if "Captain Ephemeran" is still in charge (nope). Day-Ro becomes obsessed with the puzzle, but realizes its pieces are too many, and the final product will be larger than the cargo hold.
3. Marlese stowed the body in stasis then dragged it to the medbay after the medical droid M-8 ("Mate") said he could probably revive the man if he was only 12 hours dead or less. The wonders of modern medicine!
4. While Erin skillfully plots a course around a mysterious wormhole they decide to avoid, the resurrected victim Max Suller bursts into the bridge with laser, holding Otzi hostage, demanding that whoever took his "Mother Box" return it immediately! After he's talked down and gives in, they find a man obsessed.....a professional transporter who was hired to deliver a mysterious Mother Box from a Makamian scout who claims it came from New Germanica to an unknown benefactor....but that's not happening now. And worse, Suller shows signs of withdrawal, apparently caused by contact with the box. They hand him over to M-8 for a detox.

Then the ship arrives at their next survey target: Blight, a world named by the first and only scout to traverse this area for its utter lack of warmth and singularly doomed post-apocalyptic world in the Goldilocks zone. They scan and detect the following:

1. Another T-Space exit signature only twenty minutes after they arrive...not unlike what the saw in the last system. Coincidence???
2. A large silver disk in orbit around Blight, the ruined world.

They approach the silver disk (some would say saucer....a quarter mile long saucer) and three snub fighters shaped vaguely like menacing bats launch and threaten them. Dirk realizes a protocol for contact is a good idea, and Marlese almost blows its before Erin intervenes. They begin speaking with a race of bat-like chilopteroids, and meet Commander Makama. After some discussion the commander seems to think his overlord, Chiron, would like to meet the adventurers so they are invited to the ship-station.

The saucer is a small world in its own right, dark and gothic and reminiscent of the ship from the movie Life Force, with giant holds filled with thousands of chilopteroids in stasis. The crew meets Chiron, the chilopteroid leader, in a large golden chamber with a ruby red organ-like crystalline music instrument. Odd slaves of other races serve food, and are a clue the new aliens may not be so friendly (one of many clues).

Chiron interrogates them to see why the crew is here, but seems satisfied they are not foes, and indeed assumes they are mercenaries from talking to Dirk. He offers to hire them to journey to the planet below, to retrieve something he calls the "Stellar Librarian" though he doesn't know what it looks like....a relic of the lost age of this planet, he explains; something his race wishes to preserve, in the name of history. He explains further that a star witch from the Segurandi Dominion is already looking for it, near the ruins of the city Camado on the planet; he is worried she is on to something. The crew thinks on it, but Dyvinil starts to weird out; the chilopteroids show evidence of camouflage, and are very suspicious, plus the slave thing. She starts glowing and changing colors. Everyone leaves as Chiron gets upset at Dyvinil's glowy stuff..

Back at the ship 101010 confronts a crew of chiloptroids trying to scan the vessel, especially the length of hull where the hidden cargo compartment is that no one's busted in to yet. They depart rather than fight the robot.

After returning to the ship, the crew gets a second message from the commander: he promises to double whatever Chiron offered if they destroy the star witch and her ship!

The crew leave and decide to try scanning the location of the T-Space exit location they recorded when they first arrived in-system. They find an ionized gas cloud signature that lets them calculate the direction of the vessel...sure enough, it made orbit and then went in to the atmosphere for a landing...near the ruins of this Camado City.

They follow the trail and break into a massive super-storm below, roaring over what appears to be a vast city of ancient skyscrapers overgrown by a dense jungle. As they are weaving through the immense skyscrapers covered in greenery, a cloaked gunship pops up and attacks! It's surprise volley misses.

The ships engage in a fierce chase/fight. The gunship blows a skyscraper over and Erin is able to pilot the cruiser to swoop beneath the crumbling mass then around and over it in a 180 degree turn, While everyone fires full lasers and torpedos. They take a major hit, but a daring series of strikes cripples the gunship and with a final pull of the trigger it explodes. Their cruiser needs repairs, though.

They set down in the jungle at an open area. They are greeted by seven-foot tall red and blue carapaced, inect-like humanoids with four arms and two legs, armed with primitive gear. The natives offer a piece of the downed gunship as a token of their appreciation. The leader, after the translator chips kick in, explains that they have been waiting for the benevolent "Star Gods" to come and save them from the Star Demons....both the ones in the sky who enslave their bretheren, and the others who now walk through the taboo city, seeking out their source of Life and Knowledge, the mysterious Stellar Librarian. The natives appeal to the PCs good hearts: save the Stellar Librarian, and save their people.

On the way to their village they encounter a gigantic, Kong-sized flying ape with great, membranous wings. They luckily roll initiative and a quick volley of fire takes it down. The natives are delighted, for it seems the sky-apes (called Gromics) are sentient and try to force the Blightians to worship them.....and this was a young scout. More will come!

The group arrives at the encampent, in a huge superdome once used to play ballgames. The natives swarm the "star gods" in joy. Beyond their base lies the taboo realm of the old city.....

We paused here.

This session we used some cool "Swords & Wizardry Karma Deck" cards from Creation's Edge Games which were a lot of fun. I've had them for a while and this seemed like a fine time to try them out....I just told everyone to substitute "meditation" for spell and they worked great.

We also implemented DWD Games' Skill system in Hyperspace Messenger 4. It's a nice, easy to use skill system add-on that works great and adds a little flavor to the PCs.

Darks Stars V: Transitional Space; the rules, the drives, and the hazards

Dark Stars: Transitional Space

In the world of Dark Stars all faster than light travel comes from the use of the Transitional Drive, while all local system travel uses Foldspace Engines, a form of localized warp drive. Mechanically any vehicle can be equipped with both drives; the technology for transitional drives is proportionate to the size of the vehicle moving through transitional space, so there is actually a diminishing return with larger vessels….but sometimes, the need is worth it, and most naval fleets in the Dark Stars universe are comprised of immense dreadnaughts and battle cruisers primarily so they can carry the necessary firepower to punch through the shields and armor of their opposition.

Transitional space (also called T-Space) is the term used to described folded dimensions through which ships “travel” when the drive is on. From a physics view it effectively wraps the vessel in higher-dimensional space (of 26 possible dimensions, most of which are folded in on themselves at a quantum level) allowing it to move outside of the normal spacetime continuum. In transitional space starships can move over vast distances, averaging one parsec (3.26 light years) for a class I T-drive, while avoiding problems with relativity.

There are only a couple downsides to T-Space travel: the first is that these dimensions are where gravitons operate, creating gravity waves in normal spacetime (see navigation below), so large gravity wells are really, really dangerous in T-Space.  The second problem is more difficult and more dangerous: T-Space is where nonbaryonic matter (dark matter) interacts with regular matter, and is where gravitons also interact with said matter, leaving dark matter’s weird “footprint” all over normal spacetime. Nonbaryonic lifeforms….some very cunning, intelligent and organized are out there, and they really, really don’t like us using their space for fast travel; especially since they can’t do the reverse. While in T-Space this is the only time nonbaryonic beings and normal beings can interact.

Foldspace Drives

All ships have foldspace engines, which are used for routine in-system navigation. Foldspace effectively creates a localized warp bubble around the ship, pushing it forward in the direction the ship wants to go. It has two huge benefits: it lets ships move quickly in-system, reaching most locations in hours or less, with low energy cost, and no relativity issues; 2: it helps to avoid the problem of moving at high velocities with sudden evasive movement causing terminal results for the squishy crew inside; to a ship in foldspace the ship is motionless, and the universe is moving around them. All ships still use artificial gravity (graviton generators) and inertial dampeners….but the risk of death due to high-gee maneuvers is space is severely lessened. GMs may rule that on a natural 20 in ship combat an attacker can roll a second time…and if a second 20 comes up, and damage is dealt, then the targeted vessel’s foldspace drive is knocked out. Such ships are sitting ducks.

Foldspace can be used for FTL travel, by the way; but it doesn’t allow for anything close to the speed of T-Drives; a ship moving at foldspace speeds can traverse 1 parsec in approximately 3 years. Very, very large foldspace engines with immense energy requirements can do the job faster, but are highly impractical. Ships with old foldspace technology used for FTL travel usually date back to the old human colonization era nearly 1,500 years ago and are considered bizarre relics.

FTL Drive Types

FTL drives in Dark Stars come in six ranks. A rank 6 T-Drive is the slowest (but cheapest) costing only 100 extra credits to install on a ship without a drive, or free if the ship comes preloaded with FTL. A Type 6 drive takes one week to traverse a single parsec. Other drives are faster, and cost more as follows:

Drive Type          Cost                       Speed

Type 6                   100                         1 parsec/week

Type 5                   200                         1 parsec/5 days

Type 4                   500                         1 parsec/4 days

Type 3                   1,000                     1 parsec/3 days

Type 2                   2,000                     1  parsec/2 days

Type 1                   5,000                     1 parsec/day

Type 0*                 special                  1 parsec/hour!

*Type 0 are hypothetical drives; a few alien relic ships are known to have them but no one currently knows how to make one this effective. Type 0 are good found tech, but navigating with such fast engines always imposes a -2 navigational penalty (see below)

Navigational Hazards

Navigational hazards while folded within higher dimensional space are just as important to consider, and some navigational issues (such as black holes) have a severely pronounced effect while moving through transitional space, due to the fact that graviton particles, which are responsible for gravity waves in normal spacetime, propagate rapidly through the higher dimensional spaces.

This means that any ship which moving at FTL speeds in Dark Stars needs to make a navigational check to see how smooth the ride goes. Pilots (and any pilot-based class, or class with some sort of pilot ability or skill) can make a saving throw with a +2 bonus when rolling to plot an FTL course. Other characters attempting to pilot without special skill or class abilities get no bonus. If the region the ship is moving through has significant stellar anomalies (such as strange special distortions, black holes, wormholes or dense star clusters) the GM should apply a penalty of -2 to -5.

Familiarity Option: pilots on a routine course, which is already charted in their astrogation system, do not need to make a roll; GM instead rolls a D20; on a 17-20 something unusual could happen, and the pilot must make a roll.

After making the roll, check the following table for the result (target save is the TS of the pilot; modifiers are applied to the die roll):

Navigational Save                          

Roll Was:                               Result

Natural 1                                 Meltdown! Ship suffers a catastrophic navigational or engine failure

5 or less than target save        major setback; ship knocked out of T-Space and must spend 1D6 days recalculating route; 20% chance ship took 3D6 hull damage

3-4 less than target save         minor setback; ship knocked out of T-Space and spends 1D6 hours recalculating route; 20% chance ship took 1D6 hull damage

1-2 less than target save         longer trip; ship took 1D4 times longer than normal to arrive at destination

Save target exactly                 Smooth sailing, no bumps

1-2 more than target save       Smooth sailing, no bumps. 30% chance ship arrived 20% faster than calculated

3-4 more than target save       very smooth sailing; ship arrived 20% faster than intended

5 or more than target save      amazing navigational skills; ship arrives in half the time

Natural 20                               Ship arrives very fast; takes only 1D4 hours for every day of actual travel planned!

Navigational Failure (Fumbles) Chart:

Roll 1D12:                                            Result

1-2                                                          ship has catastrophic engine failure and dumps out in normal space; engine takes 3D8 damage and requires as many hours to repair

3-4                                                          ship is attacked by mysterious extradimensional space aliens made of nonbaryonic matter! Emergency dump into normal space will evade but a new ST must be made to avoid engine failure requiring 1D12 hours to repair and 2D6 damage

5-6                                                          Engine failure but ship does not eject into normal space! Requires 1D6 hours to repair, but ship will continue in a straight line direction with 20% chance per hour of the following (D6):

1-2: catastrophic navigational failure (black hole); only escape pods will save everyone now

3-4: nonbaryonic aliens attack (see 3-4 above)

5: psionic warping occurs while trapped; ST per hour remaining or insanity and hallucinations begin to set in causing psychotic behavior for 1D12 hours

6: A stellar dragon moving through T-Space attacks while ship is trapped

7-8                                                          Ship takes 10 times longer to arrive at destination than intended in real space, but crew feels like they arrived in the expected normal time.

9-10                                                       Ship accidentally navigates in to a wormhole and the following happens (1D6):

                                                                1: wormhole drops ship back in time to period that most entertains the GM; PCs have to find the exit point to return to normal time

                                                                2: wormhole drops the ship forward in time 1D20X1,000 years

                                                                3: wormhole deposits PCs in distant remote location nowhere near their original destination

                                                                4: wormhole traps the ship in a strange parallel universe; goatees may be involved

                                                                5: wormhole ejects the PCs into normal space but ship is covered in strange alien parasites

                                                                6: wormhole causes PCs to meet alternate universe version of themselves! Only one ship may remain to escape wormhole…

11                                                           Ship suffers a catastrophic navigational hazard collision; a ST from pilot will cause ship to lose 80% of hull points but escape collision intact; failure means ship is a scrub and PCs have 1D6 minutes to escape via other craft or force an emergency drop into normal space before ship is annihilated. Collision is with a major gravity well of the following type (D6):

                                                                1-2: black hole

                                                                3: neutron star

                                                                4: quasar

                                                                5: timespace rip

                                                                6: unknown timespace anomaly

12                                                           Roll twice on the chart for two horrible events combined; if you get this a second time, hard soul GMs may declare the ship is lost in the Space Bermuda Triangle, otherwise the ship has a Unique Encounter (D6):

                                                                1: ship is propelled back and forth in time, watching the birth, life, heat death of the universe and a new big bang all over again; a new navigational check will allow the pilot to stabilize the ship in his “normal time” as well as normal space…otherwise Time Lords may appear to right the problem as the ship slingshots through time causing havoc

                                                                2: the PCs actually seem to have a normal voyage but when they arrive they discover that it is a million years in the future

                                                                3: the PCs begin to evolve in real time, as their bodies mutate into strange and horrifying monstrosities; is caused by (D4): 1-alien scientist from nonbaryonic realm; 2-godlike energy being; 3-weird anomaly; 4-someone just awoke latent psionic powers and T-Space is messing with it

                                                                4: ship explodes, and continues to explode and repeat infinitely in a loop until a PC makes a ST and is able to notice that they are caught in a time loop; creative escape ideas allowed

                                                                5: PCs arrive at destination like normal, but are missing time, and later scans reveal they have been riddled with weird probe devices

                                                                6: PCs black out on the voyage and when they awaken they are slaves of the (D4): 1-Void Lords, 2-Quinlons, 3-Grays, 4-advanced Xenomorphs of unknown nature!

Archaic Propulsion Systems

Early stellar civilizations which have not yet discovered foldspace technology or T-Drives are slow, require maneuvering that accounts for the gee forces applied to crew, and frankly modern vessels can run rings around them. To reflect ships that are using various conventional propulsion systems note the following:

Such ships can reach high local speeds but usually require a lot of “break time” to make course changes. For every 1 point of active speed the sip must spend 1 point to course correct. So, as an example, a ship moving in a straight line at speed 12 that wants to reverse 180 degrees must spend 24 points to do so. Normal ships don’t need to do this at all.

Normal ships have a hard time tracking and locking on the faster vessels equipped with foldspace technology. As a rule, such ships are at a base -2 penalty to attack unless they have surprise.