Swords & Stitchery - Old Time Sewing & Table Top Rpg Blog: Mecha

Showing posts with label Mecha. Show all posts

Sunday, December 26, 2021

Handling The Mecha Problem With The Cepheus Engine Rpg -- Independence Games Artificial: Robots of The Clement Sector & Moon Toad Design's Cepheus Engine Rpg Vehicle Design Guide

How do a group of aliens defend against the mecha of mankind?! Mankind seems to think that its top of the food chain. But its not out in the depths of interstellar space. There are empires whose cosmic legacies stretch back millions of years.There are artificial & cybernetic life forms that can take out anyone who crosses their world's borders.

The Greys have always been a source of absolute terror & horror within our campaigns. After the Fall of Mankind campaign has the Greys using artifical life forms to police, administrate, and even kidnap humans to work their colonies. So here's where Independence Games Artificial: Robots of The Clement Sector comes in. The Greys have learned the hard way that humanity means trouble & so they've taken the opportunity to take it upon themselves to take the cybernetic & robotic technologies from the Clement sector. Why?!

Because they know that humanity has taken it upon themselves to exploit mecha to add the technology to many arena's of mankind's endevours. This of course includes warfare. In the depths of space with mankind expanding into the void of space and across vast interstellar distances the clashes with the Greys are increasing.
The Greys have an interesting stragey for handling the 'human problem' and that is using medium, heavy duty, & light duty robotic life forms to man their bases. They keep the Greys safe & humanity on its toes. The SW11 Malingee Warbot is top of the line for giving mecha & walkers bloody noses. KAY9 Security and Guard Robot patrol Grey Science & Research bases. Cleaning robots monitor & keep the upkeep of Grey bases solid.
Meanwhile type 2 (TL13) AI Core biosynth's handle any interaction with humans & A.I. core life forms handle their own fleets of drone, war droids, and even walkers.
Whole arrays of drone war drones & vehicles can easily be designed using Moon Toad Design's Cepheus Engine Rpg Vehicle Design Guide. And since the door swings both ways so to speak the chances are that it is very unlikely that the Greys would put their numbers in harm's way with humanity & their toys. When the aliens themselves can also use humanity's weapons against itself.

The Mecha Question In The Cepheus Engine rpg -- Moon Toad Design's Cepheus Engine Rpg Vehicle Design Guide & Walkers Vehicles Volume 1 from The Traveler's Aid Society from Northern Edge.

" Rafe watched the shell from his tank’s 120mm main gun hit the enemy grav tank on the rear quarter facing, punching through the thin armour and sending it spiraling into the side of the closest hill where it exploded into a large fireball. He fancied he heard the tiny shattered pieces patter off the front glacis of his turret.

“Next position Jessika, before they pick on us”

“Aye Skipper”

As his tank swung out of its hide and disappeared into the piled up rubble of the small town, Rafe smiled at the stupidity of an enemy thinking they could mount a big energy gun onto an armoured vehicle and still not provide sufficient armour to protect it. High tech fools.

So you need a vehicle and cannot find the right one? Does the vehicle you have lack for speed or a big gun?

With the Vehicle Design Guide you can simply design your own with your specifications to suit your setting and campaign.

The VDG allows you to design pretty much any vehicle type for any role you can think of. From massive sea going battleships to fast grav vehicles perfect for fast jaunts around the new world your player’s battered trader has arrived to explore.

Included in the VDG are multiple chassis types, weapon types, armour rules and all manner of internal and external options for any design. Further, a new streamlined vehicle combat system is provided. Finally there are over fifty completed vehicles to use in any adventure and for any setting.

Including with this product are a number of form fillable PDF forms, that you can use for your own creations. They cover all the chassis in the book."

For the last twenty four hours, the question of mecha in Cepheus Engine rpg have come up. These mecha are on the smaller side for PC's & after posing the question to the Cepheus Engine rpg community on social media on Facebook & Me We. The Cepheus Engine community responded in spades. Overwhelmingly the consense was that Moon Toad Design's Cepheus Engine Rpg Vehicle Design Guide has a very well designed section on walkers or mecha.

These walkers will do very nicely for the types of encounters we're going to be designing for our upcoming campaign According to Robert Allen Murphy; " there's walker design notes, a design sheet, and 3 example designs in the book:
A Macross-style medium combat walker, an ALIENS-style power loader like exoskeleton, and a light "rock crawler" recreational sounding one." This is going to be excellent for old school space opera & planet side mecha battles we're going to be planning. Now Jeff Hoff in the Cepheus Engine Facebook group suggested, Walkers Vehicles Volume 1 from The Traveler's Aid Society from Northern Edge. Man, this is a beauty of an rpg product and no frills at all but all mecha ready to go! And a really nice favorite cover of ours as well! That mech looks ready to kick major ass!

Walkers is an excellent product that clocks in at fifteen pages of walkers, mecha's, and nasty smaller mecha that looks like it could be real headache to PC's. And this product is easily added into the Cepheus Engine rpg. These types of mecha could easily be added into These Stars Are Ours or even Independence Games Clement Sector.

These mecha in both Walkers & Moontoad Vehicles Design Guide are perfectly suited to the Clement Sector. The Clement sector has the perfect blend of Cepheus Engine rpg technologies & the engineering knowhow to make mecha work within the setting. The mecha could have had a role within the wars for the human's freedom in the These Stars Are Ours setting. This is especially true of mecha converted from industrial haulers into walkers. These pieces of equipment could have been critical at the human's break point from their alien masters within history of the TSRO's campaign setting.
As humanity has loosened its alien shackles mecha have simply been a part of the weaponry that humanity has come to rely on over the centuries.
Within our own Cepheus Engine campaigns humanity has rediscovered the secrets of mecha manufacturing & distribution. Humanity has used mecha in running warfare against several alien races including the Grays. The Cepheus Engine rpg community continues to be amazing with an incredibly creative & vigourous creator & fan community. These guys & gals have had myself & player's backs! Thanks guys!

Monday, September 13, 2021

Empire of the Petal Throne rpg & Metamorphosis Alpha rpg - From Ares Section Dragon issue #101 'The Man Machines of Gamma World' By James Ward & Rudy Raupp

" I have never written an MA adventure like this one before. In the fourth version of the MA rules I presented a storyline where the ship runs into an invisible asteroid filled with mushroom and crystal life forms. That storyline has always needed a transition piece that ties the starship Warden into the asteroid. This is that adventure. Take any of your characters from pure strain humans to androids or robots and introduce them to the little valley where the new hole in the ship is presented. One of the unusual features of this product is that this game can be run solo. All you have to do is use a strong character and pay attention to the numbers and you can test out the adventure all by yourself. You can then turn around and run it for any number of friends."
So originally Gamma World 1st edition was supposed to be the follow up game to Metamorphosis Alpha rpg 1st edition. But what if it was the other way around?! What if the Starship Warden is actually all that's left of the Human Space Empire?! We've been reading through Goodman Games version of the 'Long Hard Mile' And this picks up from this blog entry here

If the Human Space Empires fell during the Social Wars of Gamma World. And there were only bit & pieces of interstellar technological bastions left out in the universe. Did Gamma Terra actually get sucked into its own planar miniverse?! This might explain quite a bit of the fact that there's no one actually looking for the Starship Warden from Gamma World.
And it could also help to explain the continuing bits & pieces of alien life aboard the Warden. For my own money the Warden has passed through other dimensions & universes.
Some of this is reflective of the fact Goodman Games version of the 'Long Hard Mile' adventure's monsters remind me of many of the alien things in the classic Empire of the Petal Throne rpg.
There's a lot more boiling below the surface here. The godlike feats of engineering of the Warden are reflective of the feats of 'science' of Empire of the Petal Throne's Human Space Empires. Brett Slocum's 'Warriors of the Lost Planet' rpg supplement a 'pay what you want title' has its own advanced version of the classic android;"Yéleth are androids, built to be the artificial servants and companions of the rich and powerful. They are limited to 6th Level in the Mentalist Class, but are unlimited in other Classes. Ability Scores DEX +1, WIS -1, CHA +1 HD: 3 AC: 12 Move: 9” Abilities Not Biological: Immune to poison, disease, and mind control. Hypno-Ray: Range 100’, d6 targets with 30” diameter, Mentalism save or puppet/paralysis, permanent until psychic or magical healing or death of Yéleth. Usable (Level) times a day. Android Healing: If damaged in combat, Androids can rest afterwards to gain +1 Hit Points, but cannot heal from daily rest without parts from another Yéleth, Ru’ún, or other similar construct. A Scientist can cure their Level in Hit Points of a Yéleth once per day. Each cannibalized android body can supply 1d12 points of healing. This design is for the security model of Yéleth. Other models of android are possible, such as the fully-functional concubine model. Replace the Hypno-Ray with social and performance skills. Maybe an Orgasmo-Ray for pulpy goodness." These things are creepy as hell?! A android assassin using the Warriors of the Red Planet rules is not something that you'd want to encounter. And there may be thousands or millions of these things hidden behind some door of the planar locations & colonies. Could these be only the beginning?! There are small hidden armies of interstellar empires scattered across hyperspace?! Here's where Night Owl Workshop's Colonial Troopers comes in handy.

Reading through the PDF it got me thinking about what really happened during Gamma World's Social Wars. You've got personal armor across the board in Colonial Troopers. But as the years rolled on during the Social Wars experimental technologies were being trotted out. And this included the so called Man machines. In Dragon magazine issue #101 released in September of 1985 we got in the Ares section, 'Out of the Sun The Man Machines of Gamma World by James M. Ward & Roger Raupp. We got the 'Empire of the Sun' who pilots what are some of the mecha of Gamma World essentially Gamma World Japan & the Asian block. And in this same article we got the AATAAV (Airborne All-Terrain Armored Attack Vehicle) which according to the article, "AATAAV (Airborne All-Terrain Armored Attack Vehicle). Manned war machines of incredible destructive power, they had only been in the testing stage when the Social Wars and the Apocalypse brought an end to all civilization."

What the Hell does any of this have to do with the Empire of the Petal Throne rpg & traditional Metamorphosis Alpha game?! Quite a bit actually. The Human Space Empires had pissed off just about every alien race across the multiverse. The who affair was beset by aliens wanting a piece of humanity. Very similar infact to the Gamma World timeline presented in Dragon magazine's Ares section. And Colonial Troopers. Many of the miracle technologies talked about in Empire of the Petal Throne are born out in Gamma World & Metamorphosis Alpha. So is there hidden someplace upon the Warden manmachines just waiting for some adventurers to stumble across them?! These are very powerful & highly dangerous mecha though. They can give a death machine a bloody nose & should be used sparing to the point of being the point of a mini campaign or quest. Just some food for thought folks.

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

The Brigand Class Light Specialist Class Mi-Go Mecha For Stars Without Number

The Brigand Class Light Specialist Class
Mi Go Mecha
Armor : 10
Speed : 5
Hit Points : 20
AC: 5
Weaponry : Light Laser 3d8 Range : 500/1K, Cutter plates 2d12
Defenses: Bio Regeneration Flesh, Duro Nano Flesh Sheath
Fittings - Pulse Transceiver, Panotic Cloud, Mi Go Multi Eye System

Coated in duro nano Flesh sheaths and driven by a single surgically shunted human brain the spider like Brigand Class Light Specialist Class Mecha were a common sight on the battle fields of the 23rd century. They still guard the Mi Go space lanes today. Even though other humanoid mecha has since out striped these predators of the battle field.
Powered and driven by a single human mind these rapid response mechas can sit idle for centuries lost in their chants to the Great Old Ones. The Mi Go bio fusion systems can last years at a clip. The marvels of the stellar powered "bio regeneration system flesh" have never been fully under stood the entire system is self renewing.
Once the onboard sensors detect the slightest hint of artificial or positronic activities. The mecha comes to life and its single deadly laser system snaps into position. Even as the mecha crawls across the surface of an asteroid or other combat position its systems are live. The Pulse Transceiver, Panotic Cloud, and Mi Go Multi Eye System are relaying all information about its targets to its insane insectoid like masters.
The Brigand Class Light Specialist Class Mi Go Mecha are a hazard to be feared throughout the Talon sector and beyond.

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Shogun Warriors Retrospective & The Mecha Megadungeon Problem

Since I've picked up the Stars without Numbers rpg I've been busy getting a campaign together I'm putting a sector together based on 70s & 80s science fiction & science fantasy elements. One of those elements was the Shogun Warriors. A franchise of its day which was pretty damn successful..
According to wiki:

The Shogun Warriors were the central characters of a line of toys licensed by Mattel Inc. during the late 1970s that consisted of a series of imported Japanese robots based on the then popular anime shows featuring giant robots. Originally manufactured in three sizes: the 24-inch (610 mm) plastic versions, the 3.5-inch (89 mm) diecast metal versions and the slightly taller but much more detailed and articulated 5" diecast versions, several vehicles were also offered as well as a set that could be put together to form the super robot Combattra.

I had seen the entire line at a local Bradleys department store back in the day.. The toys were a massive line really. You can see the whole line from Here
Instead I'm concentrating on the Marvel Comics Series

Shogun Warriors were licensed in 1979–1980 for a 20–issue series by Marvel Comics,^[1]written by Doug Moench and featuring art by Herb Trimpe. In the comic, the Shogun Warriors were created by a mysterious group called the Followers of the Light. Human operators were chosen from all around the world to operate the massive robots in order to battle evil.

Marvel was only able to license three Shogun Warriors for the comic:

Raydeen, piloted by Richard Carson, an American stuntman,
Combattra, piloted by Genji Odashu, a Japanese test pilot, and
Dangard Ace, piloted by Ilongo Savage, an oceanographer from Madagascar.

The series was firmly rooted in the Marvel Universe, as evidenced by their interactions with the Fantastic Four in the last two issues. Issue No. 15 was a fill-in written by Steven Grantwith art by Mike Vosburg. The series took a dramatic turn with issue #16, as the Shogun Warriors' mentors were destroyed by the Primal One and his followers. This alien force decided that Earth's technology had outpaced its morality, and so it was their duty to destroy the Shogun Warriors as well as other powerful humans, including Reed Richards andTony Stark. Between February 1979 and July 1979, Marvel had the comic book rights to both Godzilla and the Shogun Warriors. While the characters never crossed paths in their respective comics, artist Herb Trimpe (who did the artwork for both of the series) drew a variation of Godzilla and Rodan alongside Daimos, Great Mazinger, Raydeen, and Gaiking on the top page of a comic book ad soliciting the Shogun Warrior toys^[2]. Mattel Toys (who had the license to the Shogun Warriors) also had the licence to produce toys based on Godzilla and Rodan at this time^[3]^[4].

After Marvel lost the rights to the characters, they had a huge robot called The Samurai Destroyer destroy the three robots offscreen before encountering The Fantastic Four and robot pilots Richard, Genji, and Ilongo.^[5]

Though he never appeared in the comic series, Red Ronin, a robot created for Marvel's Godzilla comic), was mentioned occasionally and was frequently written about in the letters pages.

The whole thing took place in the regular 70s Marvel universe & the "Followers of Light" who were in charge of the whole affair were sort of egomaniacs who basically wanted to bring their alien blood feud to our placid little corner of the galactic community! They were going to off Tony Star & Reed Richards! This alien force decided that Earth's technology had outpaced its morality, and so it was their duty to destroy the Shogun Warriors as well as other powerful humans, including Reed Richards and Tony Stark.

There's a huge plot hook right there for a game. They don't sound very nice at all do they?

Here are the so called Followers Of Light from Wiki :

The Followers of the Light were members of an alien race, the Lumina, who came to Earth eons ago in the Jurassic period to wage the Great Chaos Wars with Earth's alien conquerors, the Myndai. After the last Myndai on Earth were defeated and cast into suspended animation, the Followers of the Light remained on Earth in suspended animation in case the Myndai awoke and restarted the war. The Myndai did indeed revive in recent years, led by Maur-Konn, and the Followers of the Light reawakened to combat them, creating theShogun Warriors. The last remaining Followers of the Light on Earth were killed by the Followers of Darkness^[1], but presumably there are more elsewhere in the universe.

Known members included Basque, Charn, Sherna, and Tambura. You can read a much more extensive background on these folks Here

Their opposite number was the Myndai - A humanoid race which appears very similar to Earth humans. The Myndai were once members of the federation of alien races called the Charter (along with the Lem, Lumina, and Nanda). They were engaged in a galaxy-wide war with the Lumina, and some were placed on Earth in suspended animation eons ago as sleeper agents. First seen in Shogun Warriors #1 (Feb 1979). Also Here

Who Were The Followers Of Darkness / Light & Why They Are A Menace To Your Children

I'm going to go out on a limb here & say that both groups were pawns of a greater war that has been raging across the universe & multiverse for eons. That is that these two groups were using advanced technology that was left over from the Celestials! That's right both of these groups were nothing more then dupes in the old Eternal vs Deviant conflict! For a game like Carcosa or Arduin they make perfect fodder! Grab your nearest weird artifacts, Lovecaftian mechas & go. These folks might be the weird religion fad of their day. You want to see a huge tentacled Lovecraftian mess that almost destroyed the Earth check these Here

Could these folks be on Carcosa right now converting the natives into their latest cult of rabid eyed followers? Could they be battling right now for the amusement of their Celestial masters right now? Short answer yes!

The Mecha Megadungeon Problem

The biggest problem I'm having right now is a size issue. Stars Without Numbers mecha is small roughly the size of a hard suit from Bubble Gum Crisis. The largest one is something out of the smallest scale of Battle Tech.
This isn't really an issue accept what do you do with a guy in a mech? Well you give him something on the scale of a stellar object to explore. That's right stellar sized mega dungeons! There not that hard to imagine at all. In fact both Stars Without Numbers & Terminal Space has this style of game built right in.
Where does this fit in with the Shogun Warriors? Oh that's simple a massive dungeon based inside a dead wreck of a Shogun Warrior's hide.

A nice overview of the toys can be found right Here

The Public Domain Equivalent

Surely I can hear you saying that there can't be a public domain equivalent that doesn't violate the trade marks of Mattel, Marvel, etc. Well actually there is a public domain story about changing robotic life forms that came out decades before the Shogun Warriors & Transformers. Marvel has been raiding the public domain for decades & so can you.
The Metal Monster is by is an Abraham Merritt fantasy novel.

The epic adventure starts with a foreword where Merritt is assigned the duty to relay Dr. Walter T. Goodwin's incredible tale of his encounter in the Trans-Himalayan mountains to the world, to let everyone know the terrible fate Goodwin's group barely escaped and the possibility of other such monsters out there.

The Plot With Spoilers Ahead!

Dr. Goodwin is on a botanical expedition in the Himalayas. There he meets Dick Drake, the son of one of his old science acquaintances. They are witnesses of a strange aurora-like effect, but seemingly a deliberate one. As they go out to investigate, they meet Goodwin's old friends Martin and Ruth Ventnor, brother and sister scientists. The two are besieged by Persians as Darius III led when Alexander of Macedon conquered them more than two thousand years ago.

The group is saved by a magnificent woman they get to know as Norhala. She commands the power of lightning and controls strange metal animate Things, living, metallic, geometric forms; an entire city of sentient cubes, globes and tetrahedrons, capable of joining together and forming colossal shapes, and wielding death rays and other armaments of destruction.

They are led to a hidden valley occupied by what they name "The Metal Monster", a strange metal city occupied by the metal animate Things Norhala commands. This city is governed by what they call the Metal Emperor, assisted by the Keeper of the Cones.

Ruth is slowly being converted by Norhala to become like her; her little sister. Martin, her brother, tries shooting the Metal Emperor, who retaliates with a ray blast, putting Martin in a comatose state.

Closed in between the Metal Monster and the Persians, it falls to Goodwin and Drake to find a way to escape their predicament.

OSR USAGE
If you own Terminal Space, Mutant Future, Carcosa, Arduin,Human Space Empires or any of the other science fantasy Rpgs that are out there. You can create your very own robotic life form menace ! You can read the whole store right here