OSR Commentary On The Hostile Rpg & Round Rigel's Moon A Part Of The Military Action At The Shoulder of Orion - The Chess Pieces Move Into Place

 One things that one does to be a dungeon master is to look outside of the norm and over weekend I was talking with some folks about ecology. Specifically, planetary ecology &  that brought our attention back to our 'Shoulder of Orion' Hostile & Cepheus Engine rpg campaign going on. And this brought my personal attention back to the Dirtside rules by Paul Elliot.  Why?! Because the planetary wilderness is as much of a character in our games as the war. Today's blog post picks up right from here. 

The corporate powers have made their move. The 'Shoulder of Orion' action has moved to the star Rigel and if we look at the Rigel wiki entry; "Rigel is a blue supergiant star in the constellation of Orion. It has the Bayer designation β Orionis, which is Latinized to Beta Orionis and abbreviated Beta Ori or β Ori. Rigel is the brightest and most massive component – and the eponym – of a star system of at least four stars that appear as a single blue-white point of light to the naked eye. This system is located at a distance of approximately 860 light-years (260 pc) from the Sun." 
Because Rigel is a blue supergiant that has exhausted it's outer core, the systems around it are perfect for the fast moving, loosely put together, and easily deployable 'Gypsy attack ships'. There is very little to these ships except for a cockpit, ion engine, and weaponry. These ships are perfect to go up against the big boys in this case Historical ships of the Clement Sector's Trent Destroyer.  

The Trent Destroyer is literally the cutting edge of corporate interstellar mayhem and fielding one costs large amounts of money. Why field a few of these artillery pieces into the war?! The fact that Betelgeuse is also on the field of war & that star means resources folks. The action however is going to be starting planet side on one of the minor planets of Rigel first. The planetary action is going to be man to man with soldiers going up against each other with the alien wilderness playing it's part.