Dirtside on Porozlo, the crew have spent twenty-one days dealing with the aftermath of the previous adventure as well as poking into other things.
Ella is obsessed with locating Sam and her investigation overlaps with Sae’s own digging into his unsanctioned Aramis operation. In a sleazy urban bar in Madua, Nemso, the two get involved in a fight with inexplicably enraged barflies. At the beginning of the fight, Sae observed a familiar woman who he suspects to be responsible for the sudden flare-up of hostilities. Following the fight, as they are exfiltrating, Ella and Sae encounter Envoy Dannica who passed on information she’s found from Sam.
At Nemso Orbital, Haank is approached by a drone bearing an invitation for the crew to meet with His Excellency, Count Para Anjiliac which he acknowledges and schedules for later.
Once the full crew is reassembled, they review the Sam information and learn he is behind the disappearance of the Spinward Star because he was concerned about being killed by Monsaanti-Neogene. He has also renamed the ship to Ellasaurus Rex so as to avoid further detection; everyone but Ella is delighted by this name change.
The crew proceed on to their scheduled meeting with the count. His Excellency’s aide-de-camp, Vago Gejalli escorts them planetside to the count’s personal domain where they meet him and his eldest son, Viscount Zonno.
The count informs them that a plague has enveloped the planet, Quopist, in the Lanth sub-sector, and it has been quarantined. His Excellency desires the crew to captain a ship that will be carrying medical supplies to assist … but more importantly, he wants them to locate his youngest son, Mika who went to Quopist on routine business and has since vanished.
Viscount Zonno interrupts and insists that the crew does not look up to this task. This eventually results in a duel between Sae and one of the viscount’s aslan retainers to prove they are capable. The fight is fast and frenetic, but culminates in the vargr kneeing the aslan so hard in the junk that the poor kitty passes out…
GM Notes:
There will likely be no game next week (4/14/18) since I (the GM) will be travelling. At least one other PC is out, and possibly a third (both related to my travel.)
Andricus (Aris’ player) was out and will miss the next two or three sessions due to wedding and work stuff.
I’m retrofitting the Star Wars d20 adventure module, “Tempest Feud” for this although I’m definitely making some tweaks and adjustments to fit better.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Dirtside on Porozlo, the crew land on the top of the targeted building in Nemso, having learned that one of the air cars has been shot down.Unfortunately, Eddy displays his utter lack of competence with the contragrav belt and badly overshoots, smashing into control panel of the uplink dish which knocks it out of alignment.
Aris reports that the mining facility on the island, which is the second target, has also exploded and there are reports of other explosions across the planet. Realizing that this likely means that Monsaanti-Neogene is trying to cover its tracks and that this building is probably also wired, the crew decided to conduct a frontal assault down the stairwell.
Almost at once, a fierce firefight ensues between the crew and multiple armored and armed personnel, with Sae pulling out some near movie-level gun fu theatrics. In the course of this encounter, Eddy pursues and tackles the facility commander only after she has activated a bomb. Sae ends up rescuing his friend with a well-placed pistol shot.
As Eddy and Sae disable the bomb, the rest of the crew spread out to search for intel. Haank discovers Roxy in Recovery and, when he checks her pulse, she wakes with a simple “Did I fall asleep?” It does not take him long to realize that she’s evidently been mindwiped.
In the level below, the crew also discover numerous cryo tubes containing important businessmen and women of Porozlo, though they are unable to determine what the purpose is as someone has initiated a remote system purge. Hearing the distant sound of sirens approaching, the crew exfiltrate from the building.
In the week or so after this, the news about Monsaanti-Neogene’s connection to the various explosions that have caused so much trouble across Porozlo comes out and a feeding frenzy ensues as rival corporations swarm them. Besieged on all sides by their various corporate rivals, MNC is quickly forced to declare bankruptcy.
The courts promptly throw out the case against Spinward Star, LLC, which means they are once more masters of their own destinies.
That is, until they discover that the Spinward Star is missing…
GM Notes:
We had to skip last week. There were two planned absences and one unexpected one.
This ended up being (as I feared) just one long combat. I could have (and probably should have) tried to figure out a way to speed up this process or at least make things more interesting for everyone.
Andricus (Aris’ player) was out and will miss the next two or three sessions due to wedding and work stuff.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Dirtside on Porozlo, the crew are aboard the train-bus Pod en route to Nemso.
During the trip, Buck finishes his hack into Sam’s computer and, with Sae’s assistance, they identify links to Monsaanti-Neogene Corporation.
There is a brief delay on the train line during which Sae is embarrassed by a very young child who is ecstatic about seeing a puppy!
Shortly before arriving at Nemso, Ella receives a voicemail message from Abe that strongly indicates that he’s on Porozlo (against her orders!) and is now at the Madua Metro Diner. Almost simultaneously, Sae receives a coded message from an unidentified number that all but confirms his theory that they’re being tracked by their financial accounts. Luckily, a former co-worker of Ella’s from the taxi company she once worked for happens to be pulling into the station terminal and he owes her a favor…
Following a quick, high-speed trip to the Metro Diner, the crew discover Abe chatting with a woman who introduces herself as Ivixia Dannica, an agent entrusted with extraordinary authority operating on a ducal warrant signed by His Grace, Leonard Stephanos Kirgashii, Duke of Rhylanor. She is tasked with apprehending Breyon Sodhii, who was once an Envoy himself until he went rogue.
After confirming that their foe is Monsaanti-Neogene, Ivixia offers an alliance: she wants to hit a data farm to track down Sodhii and would appreciate if the crew could provide a distraction by hitting a MNC facility. She offers three solid targets – one an abandoned oil rig no longer in use, one an island mining facility, and the third a building here in Madua, Nemso. After much discussion, the crew decide to go for the triple distraction: they will rent a pair of aircars with company assets, then send one to the oil rig and the other to the island. While this is going on, they will then hit the Madua building personally.
To that end, Eddy and Sae hit the startown, seeking out personal contacts first to get some clean funds (so as to avoid drawing further attention to themselves) while also purchasing gear like contragrav belts and explosives. Buck and Haank attempt to hack the building schematics but find they’ve been intentionally blanked out. Ella reaches out to the lawyer firm to arrange for them to begin researching (through the courts) the island and the oil rig in the hopes that this will cause further distraction.
The following day, while Aris lurks in a secure location so he can remote pilot the two air cars, the rest of the crew move to assault the Madua building.
And then, Aris announces that one of the two air cars has been shot down…
GM Notes:
Andricus (Aris’ player) was out and will miss the next three or four sessions due to wedding and work stuff.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Dirtside on Porozlo, Sae observes the approach of the utility vertols and is then startled when Aris passes out after eating some of the newly delivered pizza. The vargr opts to act quickly: he breaks into and hotwires a pair of cars.
The rest of the crew exit Sam’s apartment and take the stairs down. Along the way, upon hearing loud noises emanating from the roof, Ella pulls a convenient fire alarm which results in many people in the apartment building attempting to escape as well.
Sae, upon seeing armored personnel lurking outside the building while numerous building inhabitants come streaming out, decides to cause a distraction by firing a couple of rounds in the air. This results in chaos as some of the civilians see the armored people and go for weapons which results in some of the armed troopers shooting back.
Whoever is running this op orders the troopers to withdraw as distant sirens can be heard. The crew (sans Aris and Sae) don’t immediately rush out but instead try to help the casualties until the EMTs arrive, then make their escape (after grabbing Aris who they discover passed out in the back of an idling car.)
The crew decided to take Aris to an urgent care clinic where they learned he’d been roofied. Relying on common sense, I had the on-call medic refer this to a cop who checked with the PCs … who failed their Fast Talk rolls and gave conflicting stories. This led the cop to call this in which resulted in Detective Kennex showing up again. After giving him the full story, he arranged to have them taken to the precinct to fill out paperwork and make statements.
In the police SUV, the crew (sans Sae who has lurked in the periphery to avoid notice) are startled when one of the utility vertols drops out of nowhere and opens fire, grievously injuring the driver. Ella takes over and expertly escapes the vertol. Behind, in a rented car, Sae observes a half dozen air skimmers suddenly attack the vertol which is forced to retreat very quickly.
At the hospital where the crew has taken the injured driver, the crew converse again with Kennex who is understandably frustrated at these events. Against his captain’s orders, Kennex arranges to get the crew out of the city via a train while he tries to figure out what is going on.
The crew board the train-bus Pod and with loud clanks and hisses, it pulls out of New Gevae…
GM Notes:
I thought this episode was a complete mess. The PCs kept catching me off-guard; Sae’s decision to cause the distraction with the discharge of guns, for example, caused me to go all blue-screen of death. The pulling of the fire alarm was not obvious thing that I should have been prepared for but wasnt. Further, the decision on the part of the PCs to stay behind to attend the casualties was totally in-character for many of the PCs but something I had not considered at all.
As the PCs got on the train … bus … thing (we started calling it a ‘Pod’ I think), I had each player describe a passenger. Amusingly, the last time we were on a train, the GM at the time did the same thing…
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Dirtside on Porozlo, Buck arrives in time to see Ella and Haank being led out of the mall toward waiting ground-skimmers. Suddenly, an unseen sniper engages the group, killing two and sending the rest scattering. The crew manage to retrieve their weapons as the team led by “Roxy” are either reduced or flee.
On the highport, Eddy and Sae are cornered by a trio of addicts; when Sae kills one and grievously injures a second, they order their makeshift drone to engage. It does but uses riot gas, which blocks line-of-sight by the survivors (who are calling up the ‘rest of da boyz’) but forces Eddy and Sae to retreat and find an alternate escape plan.
The crew dirtside are interviewed by responding police but are released, thanks in part to Haank having vid of the encounter. The lead cop – Detective Kennix – especially takes a liking to Ella and provides her his contact info. In case she needs … anything.
Eddy and Sae meet Aris (who has temporarily damaged Jim’s weapon systems), then head dirtside upon receiving Haank’s summons. They arrive just as the police are letting the other members of the crew go.
The Crew then decide to investigate Sam’s place which they locate easily enough. While Aris and Sae wait downstairs (particularly for the pizza that Eddy just ordered), the others head up and break into Sam’s apartment, hoping to find some sign of him.
Eddy begins canvassing the other apartments, introducing himself as a ‘friend of Sam’s’ but this proves to be problematic when he tries to smooth talk a young lady only to discover she has a musclebound boyfriend on a hair trigger. He also gathers (from certain familiar clues) that Sam might have been a little too friendly with this lady. A fight ensues that Haank intervenes in so he can take down the tankhead.
Outside, Sae hears a familiar sound and observes the approach of two unmarked dropships. While one provides overwatch, the other deploys some of its armed personnel…
GM Notes:
A bit more disjointed than I would have liked. I should have run the two ‘combats’ simultaneously instead of splitting them up like I did so as to avoid having so much dead-time for fully half the party.
I’m still getting a handle on certain parts of the Traveller universe – the ‘highport,’ for example … I only just realized that all ‘official’ starports are run by the Imperium (though a planet might have lesser spaceports. As a result, the CR was retconned a bit. Not that it mattered to Sae who has that stealth attache case thing…
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Seven days after reuniting with Admiral Gloval, the crew departs 627-301 and head for Porozlo. Ninety-six days pass.
Upon arrival at Porozlo, the crew split to their own interests.
Buck encounters Ulysses Pitt, his commercial enemy, and the two end up getting drunk together which patches up their relationship.
Sae is summoned to his Imperial Intelligence contacts where he discovers that his operation in the Aramis sub-sector was wholly unsanctioned!
Eddy is mugged on the station and attempts to pursue the thief but the man escapes. Furious, he reaches out to Sae for help in hunting this guy down.
Ella and Haank go dirtside for the court date with Monsaanti-Neogene Corporation where they get hints that MNC was not expecting any members of the crew to show up. Afterward, Haank is contacted by “Roxy” who he believes is Sam’s latest girlfriend; she arranges to meet him and Ella at a nearby (familiar) mall food court.
Meanwhile, Eddy and Sae have tracked down the former’s mugger in a run-down hostel where they discover him dead, evidently of an overdose. They search the body and room but do not find the stolen monies. Sae, however, discovers a concealed camera observing the room and, as he attempts to get it, armored men kick in some doors…
At the food court, Ella and Haank meet with Roxy with the former quickly becoming suspicious. Her deception revealed, Roxy makes a signal and suddenly, the two are surrounded by armed personnel…
GM Notes:
Andricus was out for this session.
Spent a little more time than I would have liked trying to figure out how much each PC was paid.
We skipped the 96-day trip to Porozlo because it wasn’t all that relevant.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Flashback: Ten minutes earlier, on the engineering deck, Rolemnarla sneaks around like a gobliny Obi-Wan Kenobi. He remains undetected and appears to cause a massive cascade failure. Alarms shriek, warning of imminent core containment failure. All hands are warned to evacuate.
The ‘exfiltration’ team made up of Ella, Buck and Aris ‘borrow’ the system defense boat and launch, hoping to hook up with the ‘rescue’ team on the medical deck; simultaneously, the ‘rescue’ team (Haank, Eddy & Sae … plus the unconscious Ibrahim) opt to get off the station via an escape pod. The two groups reunite soon after.
A fast gig is observed leaving the station, protected by six fighters. Three of these fighters angle sharply toward the system defense boat, las-guns flashing. A fierce lightfight ensues, leaving the three fighters destroyed and the SDB lightly damaged.
The crew are able to deduce the destination of the gig: a jump system grav-anchored alongside an icy planetesimal. Recognizing their only way out of system, Ella aims toward it as well and a race is on! The three fighters then move to engage the SDB while the gig continues to burn hard toward the jump shuttle.
Two of the fighters are destroyed and, when Eddy’s attempts to talk the gig into surrendering fails, it too is shot down.
A strike carrier arrives in-system during the fight, commanded by Admiral Gloval, much to everyone’s surprise. The crew then realize that far more time has passed than the two or so days they’ve experienced. They’ve lost more than 188 days…
GM Notes:
We used GURPS: Spaceships for the lightfight and it worked fairly well. I made a couple of mistakes along the way, but that’s par for the course. I also introduced a spaceships range band chart that was heavily influenced by the starship range chart thing in the first d20 Star Wars RPG (which, ironically, I hated at the time because I was so accustomed to actually using miniatures for everything.) We then used some modified Chase rules that I sort of hashed out before the case for the race. I’m thinking of trying to rewrite them and maybe submit them to Pyramid magazine…
This completes Season 4, Adventure 1: Crucible.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Flashback: Ten minutes earlier, in the medical, the three rescued spacers from the INS Drake wake from low berth, begin screaming, and then start killing everyone present. Alarms sound.
The crew are reunited and, with LT Thanisson’s aid, formulate a plan that requires them to split up. Haank will take Eddie and Sae (acting as a prisoner) to rescue Abe, while Ella will lead Aris and Buck to the flight deck to “liberate” the system defense boat.
Both groups are forced to go through security checkpoints but encounter no real difficulty thanks to Thanisson’s remote assistance.
In surgical area, the rescue team discover that Abe has been implanted with some sort of implant by a sociopathic doctor who is very pleased that this subject survived. Sae has had enough and shoots the man in the head. While escaping, the crew are set upon by security personnel and must defend themselves.
At the same time, Ella’s time encounters resistance in the form of the system defense boat’s crew but handily cut them down in a short but fierce firefight.
Suddenly, the entire station trembles. Alarms begin sounding: ‘Core breach detected. You now have ten minutes to reach minimum safe distance…”
GM Notes:
The simultaneous firefights on two different maps was an experiment that worked out nicely, though in the future, I will need to name some of the bad guys differently so as to better differentiate between them.
No one was really surprised that Sae shot the doctor after the state they found Abe in.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
Flashback: Sae is interrogated by Imperial Intelligence types.
Crew is in the fighters, thrusting away from the INS Drake and are intercepted by a systems defense boat that provides them oxygen and coordinates.
Coordinates lead them to a space station. On the station, crew meet LT Thanisson who Sae realizes is an Imperial Intelligence agent.
Crew forced to go through decon but are gassed instead.
Wake up in cells. Abe is missing. Sae is escorted to interrogation by Thanisson, discovers that not only is Abe a psi but he’s being experimented on! Sae’s cybernetics are reactivated by Thanisson and he attacks.
In cells, a new alien the crew do not know is brought into the cellblocks by more guards who begin to beat it. The crew are enraged (thanks to subtle psionics by the alien) and, when the cells open, attack the guards.
As the last of the guards collapse … alarms begin sounding.
GM Notes:
Had to cut the session early due to work issues.
We were all very amused by Aris’ battle madness.
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at Ronnke’s Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline..
We open with flashback for Buck as he recalls something about his youth that he did not remember previously. Apparently, he has a highborn cousin who arranged for his memories to be altered.
Back aboard the INS Drake, the crew attempt to figure out what’s going on. This results in the discovery of a great many corpses, all of whom appear to have killed themselves.
When Eddy finally breaches aft engineering, he is horrified to discover an armless, legless human being secured in a bizarre contraption tied to the ship’s systems via cybernetic implants. Telepathically, this individual relates his horrific agony and desire simply to die.
Some hours later, just as the crew are beginning to settle in for the Jump, the Drake abruptly returns to realspace with a hideous shudder. To their horror, they realize that they are dangerously close to a black hole! Something explosively self-destructs and the entire aft end of the Drake is torn free, crippling the vessel.
The crew desperately race to figure out how to escape and ultimately decide to use the Sparrowhawk fighters still present. One such fighter is nonfunctional and they have discovered three of the Drake’s crew in low-berths, so it is decided to jury-rig fives ‘freezers’ to the fighters (three for the crew, two for Aris and Buck.)
We end with the fighters launching…
GM Notes:
As GM, I made a few errors here.
First, I should have actually read up on the radiation stuff (even though there actually wasn’t any radiation) because it came up.
Aris is a Klutz and in my notes, I specifically intended for him to be responsible for the aft end of the Drake getting torn free and he fumbles something, it causes a malfunction, which results in a cascade feedback and then boom. And, of course, when that point came in the game, I completely forgot about this plan and did not remember it until well after.
Finally, and this is something Gigermann brought up after the fact, I really should have had all the people in the cockpits of the fighters make their launch rolls secretly (or “into the box” as we say) and then end the session without letting them know what the results were apart from “Fighters … launch!”
Since we’re livestreaming our games every Saturdays (6:00PM Eastern) at the Olympus Twitch channel and then later uploading the stream on the YouTube channel, we’ve decided to dial back on the extensiveness of the recap to just the overall outline.
Login with Google
