Friday, May 9, 2014

Down and Out In the Martian Underworld Again - A Stars Without Number - A Post Apocalyptic Mars Campaign - Actual Play



A Space Pirate's Life For Me 
The players were dealing with the double blind issues of the Martian Underworld tonight and its rather nasty black markets as they crawled through the hellish underworld megadungeon that exists below the surface of the planet's city states tonight.
The PC's were dealing with mutant cadlots, space pirate guilds, backroom deals and escorting an escaped murderer off world. There was a fire fight through the twisting back alley maze works of one of the Martian city states. A whole bunch of double deals on the green Martian space pirates parts and a run in with a telepathic mutant assassin as well.
The evening wrapped up with a whole back down deal with the characters going down the dark path with a cargo hold full of black contraband.
So tonight's game might as well have been called 'A Pirate's Life For Me.'

They've taken that first step on to a road of ruin now and there's no going back once they're on the path of the space pirate. They've been fingered as being a part of the Space Pirate's guild now and it's only going to get much worse from here on out. 
The PC's ran into a few of the following in tonight's game.1d10 Random Criminal Underworld Encounters 
  1. 1d4 Martain mutants dealing in stolen relic tech level four technology. Looking for some quick 'investors'  in their wares. 
  2. A whole pack of vicious Cadlots on several strains of nanite bio weapon grade drugs. Telepathically controlled to find out what's going to be the best experimental drug combinations. 
  3. A Martain prostitute, actually a shape shifting Xeno assassin fourth level. Armed with a needler pistol and a full clip of poisoned ammo. 
  4. Black Marketer a member of the Nova gang looking for recruits for his latest venture. 
  5. A drugged out wizard from another dimension completely lost. 10th level and looking to make a quick score. 
  6. A bunch of Cthulhu cultists with some hot goods looking to trade favors for goods. There's a thirty percent chance that they've got a planar tech level four device for a quick get away. Very nervous and high strung. 
  7. A priest of Tur looking for converts and a covert weapons dealer. Has a really nice deal on a couple of cases of Radium ammo. 
  8. A group of mutant Martian Barbarians fourth level fighters looking for trouble and employment. They'll start a fight out of boredom and spite. Heavily armed and with a bad attitude. 
  9. A dealer from Interzone looking to score some Martian snuff crystals in exchange for some black meat. Armed with a mind crystal rig and telepathic mind bomb. Very dangerous. 
  10. A group of mad scientists looking for victims to drag back to Interzone. Armed with Heavy Stunners and gas grenades. 
In tonight's SWN game the PC's were confronted with an escaped inmate from a space prison. I randomly rolled from the 100 Space Prison's list. Details on this product from Fish Wife Games. 

Grab It Right
HERE

Space prisons are a bit of a blank spot in many space based old school campaigns. This dollar reference list enables a DM to fill in those gaps randomly. This  allows a DM too keep the players guessing as to their ultimate opposition and sometimes origin point for many criminals.

Here's a description according to Drivethrurpg: 
10 Space Prisoners
A chart of 100 different prisoners to fill up those prison ships with, or those prison worlds, or even those criminal loving space bars with. Each entry provides the criminal’s name, gender, and known/convicted crime(s).

This list is a great resource to randomly create a wide variety of NPC's origins, a random number of adventure locations, and even places to lock up PC's should the situation warrent it.  The fact is that space prisons have really come into their own with movies like the Chronicles of Riddick and movies of that ilk. 
In my own games space prisons have often been the starting place for parties of adventurers who have had very good times preceding the adventure. The dirty dozen style gathering of adventurers is a classic way of gathering the party and works much better the the traditional 'you all meet in a space bar'. 
The list is actually quite nice and perfectly balanced to provide a DM with the tools necessary to create just about any random slam that he might need. The list is complete,concise, and should provide a DM with hours of options when needed. Did I mention that its only a dollar! All in all this is a very nice little product from Dave Woodrum and Fish Wife Games. 

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