Angels Above & Demons Below - Hostile/Kosmos 68 Game Session Report Two

 This blog post is going to pick right up from this session on May 14th here on the blog.  Having gotten the Soviet's robot memory banks picked clean the PC's find out that the PC's may have been exposed to a necrovirus! 

The PC's had to deal with a street contact between them and the underworld corporates that represented the syndicates on Abysss. So the Soviets in last night's games left behind a surprise in the form of a necrovirus aboard the wreckage that the PC's explored which meant dumping a ton of gear for decom & disposial. And the PC's have been dealing with a rather shady character named  Baosheng, a veteran Snakehead operating in the Off-World colony of Abyss. Dealing with the PC's hackers the design of the necrovirus is actually a  Chinese corporate creation left behind to discredit the Soviets on the colony world. It also hints at a possible all out war! During last week's game the players felt as if they were going up against  the Soviet SSB. And they actually were! Thier street samurai hired bodyguards reported to them that they were being cased out! At stake on Abyss is the fact that the Russians months ago have entered the fray on the side of the Chinese corporations as mercenaries.
High above Abyss sits the Orca a corporate Rokke Class Research Vessel that belongs to the head of the Science division of the Matsuyama corporation. No one is sure why he's there and his vessel is several technological levels above other Hostile starships. The vessel & her crew are all hand made and hand picked.  
Suddenly the PC's and the Soviets were surround by the corporate forces of the Matsuyama corporation! Both camps were escorted aboard a shuttle and whisked up into the bowels of the the Orca a corporate Rokke Class Research Vessel. Cloths were stripped and burnt, weapons were decomtaminated, and the PC's were checked over. 15 hours later the PC's were given the all clear!! 
 

The Chinese corporate forces had set up both the Soviets & the PC's. The PC's noticed that the shuttle they had ridden in was being hosed down as well. They were taken too the head of the the Science division of the Matsuyama corporation. And the Soviet psychics were allowed into the conference. Both sides were given information packs in order to avoid a interstellar corporate incident. They were told that the Colony worlds were burning and  the Matsuyama corporation wants to buy thier contracts in order to head off a mini interstellar war on Abyss. There's far more going on here then meets the eye.  

Angels Above & Demons Below - Hostile/Kosmos 68 Game Session Report

 Tonight our group got together for a round of our Hostile/Kosmos 68 game campaign where we found our party on Abyss doing a bit of black OP's against the Soviets. 

High above Abyss sits the Orca a corporate Rokke Class Research Vessel that belongs to the head of the Science division of the Matsuyama corporation. No one is sure why he's there and his vessel is several technological levels above other Hostile starships. The vessel & her crew are all hand made and hand picked. 

At stake on Abyss is the fact that the Russians months ago have entered the fray on the side of the Chinese corporations as mercenaries. No one is sure why the Russians are there except to shore up support for the Chinese criminal sydicates and act as ore pirates. 
So our little party's mission is to figure out how deep the Soviet influence runs. We're serving aboard two submarines while running interference on largest island city. Our runners are plugged into the local grid while we've hired local street samurai to act as bodyguards. 
The players in tonight's game felt as if they were facing down the Soviet SSB & think that there might be far more going on below the waters of Abyss. During tonight's game the party almost bought it when some of the local wildlife decided to give them a bit of a scare and turn. 

What the player's PC's found tonight didn't help thier love of the Soviets in our Abyss campaign. The PC's were able to find a bouy that the Soviets had left behind in Chinese controlled terrority. They dived on the spot with thier submarines and found a Soviet wreck on the bottom. What they came across is a wreckage of submarine sitting on a deep underwater reef. And in tonight's game they recovered the remains of a Soviet robotic unit. The party's technician was able to do a brain & memory bank recovery. And now the party is on it's way back to port to bring the memory bank into a cybernetic expert in the capital city. Meanwhile  corporate eyes are watching from above! 

OSR Review & Commentary On The Hostile Rpg rules pdf By Paul Elliot From Zozer Games For The Hostile rpg & setting or Cepheus Engine rpg or Your Old School 2d6 Science Fiction Rpg's

"Welcome to the gritty, retro-future universe of HOSTILE which now expands with its own, dedicated rulebook. Based on the Cepheus Engine, these Rules add in the realistic combat rules from Zozer Games’ popular Modern War game, as well as setting-specific rules from some of the eighteen HOSTILE supplements. When combined with its companion book, the HOSTILE Setting, you will have a complete, stand-alone, retro-future sci-fi game. Please look out for the HOSTILE Double Shift Bundle which gives you these HOSTILE Rules as well as the HOSTILE Setting book, at a 20% discount off of the listed price.

HOSTILE  is a gritty, near future roleplaying setting that is inspired by movies like Outland, Bladerunner and Alien. It is a universe of mining installations, harsh moons, industrial facilities, hostile planets and brutal, utilitarian spacecraft."

Welcome back and tonight we've got some Cepheus Engine goodness with the revamp of the Hostile Rpg rules pdf. And its awesome! Paul Elliot goes back into the Hostile rules & peels back the layers of the Hostile rpg engine. This 2d6 set of rules compliments the retro future horror of the HOSTILE Setting. Paul Elliot takes full advantage of the Cepheus Engine rpg rules set to gear the Eighties science fiction horror rules to actually be playable. The Hostile Rpg rules compliments the HOSTILE Setting with bells on and Ian Stead's artwork really sets off the intergalactic campaign setting. The Hostile Rpg rules  takes full advantge of the 239 pages of gaming goodness. 
The Hostile Rpg rules  tweaks the career paths, details, and rules to create a coheriant whole system that is excellently playable. The devil is within the details of the world of Hosile & the rules reflect this in spades. The 2d6 rpg rules take the Hostile material and boils it within the juicies of the game to reflect the details put forth in the Hostile setting book. What the rules do is to take the Hostile game into the murky terrority of its own take on the Cepheus Engine rules. It does this by leading the players into the path of their PC's. And the rules have that late Seventies & early Eighties Science Fiction movie asthetic. This is a brutal, lived in, and downright dangerous universe and the rules reflect this. Your party are not heroes or adventurers but spacers doing the jobs that few are going to want to do. Needless to say that the  Hostile Rpg rules reflect this and yes you can die rather badly in PC generation. 
But that's to be expected, having played Hostile for many months now & gone through quite a few characters myself. Hostile is a dangerous game where space can & will kill you if it can. You can get an injury quite nicely and there is sometimes no coming back from that. 
The  Hostile Rpg rules reflect the retro future technologies, devices, weapons, etc. & this set's up the infrastructure of the game. And the rules  does it very well. The system is refined standard 2d6 Hostile but its edited very tightly. The survival rules are done nicely,doing the job of planetary exploration, mining, taking on space walks, the whole package of the Hostile rules are so well done. 

What makes the Hostile Rpg rules pdf so good is the internal consistency of the Hostile rules. The 2d6 done by Zozer Games is done excellently & Paul Elliot has an easy writing style that makes this an easy rule book to get through. If it was me then I would rush to grab a physical copy of  the Hostile Rpg rules pdf today! 

You can find the Hostile Rules PDF Right Here