A blog about sewing machine repairs,but mainly my hobbies which include old school role playing games, science fiction,films, horror, and general geekery. Sit down and stay a spell.
What do you as a dungeon master do if things go a bit too well for your zero session?! One of my players right now is going over & making his PC with Godbound/Cha'alt. I've got another possible player coming up for this campaign. Originally I planned for this to be a one shot mini campaign to explore the system & create some adventures for a few months. Well that plan seems to have gone to crap! I kept staring at the cover of issue #42 of The Dragon magazine. That cover got me thinking about the Godbound product line & a specific book.
I began to think about Godbound's Ancalia: The Broken Towers adventure/source book. This book is really interesting with some very different OSR takes on undead, fae, etc. I'd say that its one of the core books for Godbound in my opinion. Its got a very different African Middle ages mythology feel about it. But its the book's take on the Fae that has me interested. Basically the Fae in Ancalia: The Broken Towers are the humans who have evolved into Fae during the time of the storming of Heaven. So yeah these are not Fairies in the traditional sense but something else. The Dragon issue #42 has articles about adventuring on the inner planes. I've already mentioned the Tolgey Wood on this blog. The endless woods that are under the realms of Fairyland & connected with the lands of Fairy. Realms of dark woodland, endless forests, shadows so deep that they allow nightmares from the the plane of Shadow to haunt these same woods. The Tolgey woods are so vast that they are part of the endless Winter Realm of the kingdoms of ice. Places where the winds of the para plane of ice blows through the trees & its only Summer for one day of the year. This is the realm of the immortal kings & queens of ice & snow. Some of these border the wastelands of the great wastelands of Cha'alt but these were blown open during the War of the Great Old Ones. John Elwood Bundy: Woods in Winter
Royals whose power comes from the heart of the plane of ice & whose kingdoms are constantly raided by the chaos forces of the Great Old One The Wendigo. These kingdoms are the realm of the frost kings & queens. Many of the richest dungeons & ruins are within the territory of 'Old Man Winter'. Glittering ice jewels full of mystic power & dripping with darkness tempt many a foolish adventurer. Winter – Night – Old Age and Death (from the times of day and ages of man cycle of 1803)By Caspar David Friedrich
The minions of Old Man Winter also constantly look for the souls of mortals at the edges of the Winter Realm. They drag them off to the edges of Hell to bargain for occult power & hell fire to keep warm against the elemental storms that rage through this region. Yeti stalk the edges of these storms for man flesh to eat.
Yeti Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Monster Manual first edition
So this adventure setting comes from the New England tradition of telling ghost stories in Winter & around Christmas. The Winter Realms are directly inspired by Castle & Crusades 'Monsters & Treasure' book & the Castles & Crusades 'The Codex Slavorum' book both of whose monsters, classes are converted over into Godbound for all intents & purposes. C&C has to be converted completely over to make it usable & this is one of the strengths of Castles & Crusades in its flexibility.
A dungeon master has to use one system to take care of all the needs of the campaign & this is why I'm sticking with the Godbound system. The whole affair is me using some of my older campaign notes & stretching some of the D&D elements into a usable whole of a campaign setting. How will the player's PC's fare? Only time will tell folks but I've got plans within plans coming up!
For the past several months some of my players have been on hiatus for my Beta Max Black Book Hartford Edition of Stars Without Numbers. That changed tonight when they picked up where we left off. Last time the PC's were running salavage on some Capital class ships on the edge of Phraint space. The PC's were caught in the grip of two rival hives acting out ritualized warfare and their war ships ships showed over the rights of salvage. That's when it went all to hell!
With sheer luck and some really good rolls they managed to get the heck out out of the system with their hyper drive carrier wreck and its ion system in tact. The insectoids offered the party 1.4 million credits for the But there was another party stirring the pot and making demands of the hive. Another group of insects playing one hive off of the other using logic, trickery, and down right sabotage! The Ovions have been expanding their influence very subtly over the last couple of months. This group of players tangled with them some months ago over the rights to a downed Eagle and its cargo of atomics! The matter was resolved with a good bit of space combat and some downright hostile words.
Now this same hive of Ovions were back and this time they were using a refitted 'Carrier' as their Hive. The USS Pegasus has been dealing with their efforts in my other SWN campaign. The Ovions are an invasive alien insect species in Phraint space and they've been slowly making recovery efforts for some type of artifact from the Battle Star Lumeria.
The party did not stick around to find out what the so called 'Control Metal' was or its connection to the Lords of Kobol. Instead they beat it back to Phraint space and their pay day! The two mile megadungeon of the Battle Star Lumeria however remains two days journey from their correct position in Phraint space in the Talon Sector.
This was the pilot for 'The Man From The 25th Century'. This pilot is like something from a combination of Star Trek's Assignment Earth and a preparation for an alien invasion. The film basically concerns James Darren's character who has been raised by the Planet Andros as the advanced scout for a alien invasion. Robert Prentice has been trained by these large cranium aliens to be their advanced scout upon Earth except he has the sins of Pride and arrogance. He's been accepted into the ranks of 'Project Delphi' and given a civilian identity. This film pilot follows the usual tropes of an Irwin Allen production and I'm quite fond of his work. You can read more about Allen right over HERE
This great little site goes into quite a bit more detail HERE
Utilizing the Man From The 25th Century For Your Old School Games
There is a ton of material that can be borrowed from the 'Man From 25th century'. There are the bald headed aliens who might be be another type of Metaluna refugees. Or they might be from the Mutant Future race known as the Master Minds via their diabolical creator Tim Snider HERE
The Mega dungeons of 'Project Dephi' looks pretty awesome and would make a great addition to the Mutant Future as a possible set of Lovecraftian style ruins. Which Mega Corporation has a hand in the construction and maintenance of such a facility as 'Project Delphi'? Whomever they are and I do have theories would have to almost be the military someone whose got their hands on their own alien technology. The Delphi Project might actually be its own mega corporation waiting to happen upon an unsuspecting post apocalyptic world. A vault into the future and the source of unspeakable evil waiting to unleash itself upon the world. Perhaps this is might be an arm of the Pax organization I've talked about before. More on that in a future blog entry.
The set up looks very similar to Project Tick Tock and these massive alien looking ruins are perfect mockups for Krell style laboratories and weird technology abounding as the Earth fights to deal with the menace from Planet Andros.
Level after level of hidden and sheer dangerous alien and government paranoia as well artifacts await the PC's as they being to deal with this strange and utterly bizarre mega dungeon. Perfect stuff for Mutant Future. Vaults, levels, and weird 60's style colourful wonders await the PC's. This is a perfect environment to discover and encounter another great mutant menace or survivor issue waiting for the characters! Could Project Delphi be somehow or some where connected with 'Project Tick Tock'? You bet they could!
There are a lot of unknowns connected with Project Delphi and Robert Prentice. A clever DM could exploit those holes to fill in what, who, and what they need to have waiting down in this creeptastic hole in the ground.
This is meant as a fan based piece of entertainment and in no way shape or form as a challenge to the holders of the copy right or trade marks of these properties. This is for entertainment purposes and the opinions expressed here are my fan based attitudes only.
Artwork by painted by David Edward Byrd stolen from Space 1970 Right over HERE
Last night I got together with some friends to play out the fate of the Hyper Space Carrier 'USS John Brown' and its brush with the Cylons. There are eight players each taking the role of a group of disgraced Colonial Warriors who are actually on a secret mission to determine the fate of the John Brown. They know that the Cylon Base Ship is gone. However that doesn't mean that the Cylons have not left traces behind. Details available right over HERE of the original mission. This information was available to the original players. The Saggitaron IV system
Havard 7 is a gas giant with raging storms & a crushing gravity. There was something very wrong on the surface of the planet & the players knew it. They detected various metallic ruins & debris flying through the storm laced atmosphere & they wanted no part of it at first.. There is a small mining outpost on the outer edge of the system. There is a small E type planet where 'Born Again Terran' colonists have terraformed and settled on the planet. They're actually the ones who've hired the players.
The players were aboard another refitted, "Antares Class star ship". The USS Waterbury is a low risk, high profit merc ship which is actually an ship that handles high priory ultra black and ultra violet missions. They have various trained personnel on board for many missions. The players are playing the various department heads in this game. There has been some evidence within the star system of 'Cloud Giant' activity in the past four million years or so. Some ruins have been found but these have been nothing more then shells and the odd artifact. There have been concerns raised with the 'Council of Twelve' about this and the Book of Truth consulted.as well as the clerics of the Order of Truth. So far the system has been deemed safe for colonization. The players have beamed down to the planet with old fashioned projectile weapons for close encounters of the fourth kind. Everything was going quite well when the 'Ships Of Light' showed up and things got complicated really fast!
Possible encounters in the Saggitaron IV system 1d10
Vagabond refugee star ships looking for work and possible worlds to colonize.
A group of wandering star gypsies on a holy mission. Actually cut throats looking for possible targets. Trained in zero gee combat. 3rd level fighters SWN
Wandering traders who will waste characters time. Actually religious zealots looking to convert folks.
A merc ship in deep sleep on its way to a mission.
A group of wandering performers working their way across the system.
A possibly ancient relic ship moving at sub light speed.
A group of traveling alchemists on their way to sell their wares.
A group of cultists and zealots looking for sacrifices and recruits. Passing themselves off as farmers and space ranchers.
A group of wandering robotic experts selling 1d20 units for resale and trade.
A cloud giant in hypersleep with weird weapons of mass destruction on his way to deal with a troublesome infection on a nearby planet!
These are the voyages of the USS Perseus (an Antares class vessel) a mercenary/ survey star ship on its continuing mission of exploration, surveying the cosmos and finding traces of the Lords of Cobalt. Now begins the quest for Moonbase Alpha. The moonbase has been lost to the cosmos and only now is mankind become worthy of its legacy.
This adventure picks up right after the PC's have first gotten aboard the Darians derelict. The PC's haven't gone more then 400 yards into the ship when they're confronted with the first of the invasive species that they will encounter!
They find themselves coming face to face with a group of Ovion warriors. The Ovions seem pretty peaceful and the PC's were alright with these insectiod bastards at first. The PC's were taken in by the Ovions kind words and seemingly peaceful intentions. They lead them to an almost resort like level. Anyone who remembers the Battle Star Galactica movie remembers these monsters. Here's the lowdown according to the Battle Star Galactica Wiki :
Ovions are insectoid creatures that manage a mysterious gambler's paradise on the planet Carillon. They are one of the members of Cylon Alliance. Their extensive tylium mines are an extremely valuable asset.
The Ovions use Carillon's playground on the surface to attract their prey. The chancery is rigged to let the players always win, and there is grog and entertainment to keep the people occupied. Ovions occasionally prowl discreetly on the entertainment level, but generally remain out of sight. Individual humans are trapped selectively when they enter the elevator, and are taken into the hive-like structures underground instead of their desired destination. They are then placed into chambers which slowly transform them into food.
Cassiopeia is trapped in such a manner, until she is rescued by Starbuck and Apollo. They are presumably wiped out when Carillon is destroyed by the explosion of the tylium mines (Saga of a Star World).
More information HERE Special thanks to Kindertrauma for the idea right over HERE
They're an invasive species aboard the derelict and their Queen agrees to trade a bit of tylium for some technology.
They will allow some of the crew of the USS Perseus to beam over for R&R within their gambling halls and for resupply of certain ship essentials.
The PC's began to wander the halls of the derelict and only too late learned that number one rule of dealing with Ovions!
Never, ever trust the insect bastards.
It didn't take the PC's long to discover that 'they' and their crew would be part of the Ovions life cycle!
A blaster party ensued and the Ovions fared pretty badly as the PC's had to rescue their comrades. . The PC's mainaged to gain a few cases of Tylium before departing for ship and finding another airlock to get aboard!
"Another Time, Another Place" is the sixth episode of the first series of Space: 1999. The screenplay was written by Johnny Byrne. Its one that I've used for many a post apocalyptic game or for a quick one off that can be transferred into a full campaign at the click of a pen.
This episode has quite a few things to offer the DM who wants to dig deep into the mythos of Space 1999. The action is subtle the opportunities are harsh. And dying is very easy in this episode if it should be turned into a full campaign set.
The Plot from Wiki:
It is a routine 'morning' on Moonbase Alpha. As Regina Kesslann passes through Main Mission on an errand, she pauses in mid-step, sensing something amiss. Soon after, the entire community experiences the same nameless apprehension. The cause is as yet undetected by the instruments: a tremendous, swirling mass of energy looming in the path of the speeding Moon. Once in range, the Moon is jerked forward by the anomaly's intense gravitational force. Everyone is sent reeling as the Moon plunges into the spiralling centre. Velocity readings go off the dial and the overwhelmed sensors short-circuit.
Falling through a vortex of multi-coloured energy, the Moon is buffeted by violent turbulence. Regina tries to run from the room, but all motion ceases as the Moon arrives in the still, timeless centre of the anomaly—and everyone acquires a ghostly facsimile. As a duplicate Moon separates from the original, the doppelgängers peel away one by one, each leaving its original with a twinge of angst. At a window, Helena Russell watches the other Moon speed off into the distance. Finally, everything vanishes in a blaze of white light—
—which fades to find the Moon in normal space and the population of Alpha regaining consciousness. John Koenig organises repair operations and calls a medical team for the still-unconscious Regina. He approaches Victor Bergman for an explanation. The professor is baffled, as they are now in a completely different region of space. The anomaly must have propelled them uncountable billions of miles in a matter of seconds. Koenig joins Helena in the diagnostic unit, where a comatose Regina is not responding to treatment. While everyone else experienced similar symptoms—shock, headaches, double-vision—and recovered, Regina's condition is deteriorating.
As the repairs progress, they discover the Moon is approaching a new solar system. Suddenly, Regina awakens, disoriented and talking nonsense: she was up 'there' again...she saw two Moons...how everyone was 'there', including Alan and the Commander...but itmust have been a dream, because Alan and the Commander are dead...no, they're not dead. Helena ends this schizophrenic exchange by assuring her the two men are not dead. Relieved, Regina gazes up at the ceiling, commenting on how hot the sun is today. The doctor examines the girl's hand and finds it sunburned.
With the repairs completed, scans of the solar system reveal nine planets orbiting a yellow star. When long-range scanners are focused on the familiar-appearing third planet, Computer confirms it to be Earth. Furthermore, the Moon is slowing down and on a course to re-enter orbit. In private, a sceptical Koenig says that while he can accept that a chance encounter with a spatial anomaly could have shifted them across space, he cannot conceive it placing the Moon on a trajectory to re-establish its former orbit around Earth. Bergman is philosophic; there must be a fundamental sense of order to the universe that even Man's worst blunders (such as blasting the Moon out of orbit) cannot alter.
Though still living in her fantasy world, Regina is on the mend. Happily painting a picture, she attributes her recovery to the return of her husband, Alan. The sudden realization that he has not yet come to visit upsets her. Helena's excuses only makes matters worse. After a moment's thought, the doctor promises he will come. She summons Carter to the Medical Section, interrupting his meeting with the Commander. The astronaut insists on sending a reconnaissance flight to Earth, but Koenig's decision is final: no one will allowed down to the surface until the Moon is safely in orbit.
Reporting to Medical, Carter is stunned when Regina hurls herself into his arms. One minute she is weeping with pleasure at the sight of him, the next she is hysterically screaming he is dead. Helena is forced to sedate her. The doctor informs a bewildered Carter of her intention: to jolt Regina out of her delusion with the shock of seeing him—her dead husband back from the grave. She shows him the picture Regina has painted of her world: a geodesic house sitting in a field of flowers with a cheerful sun in the sky.
Continuous hails to the World Space Commission—or any Earth station—go unanswered. Koenig makes a base-wide announcement, reporting that Phase One of Operation Exodus (a reconnaissance probe of the surface) will be launched as soon as the Moon has safely settled into Earth orbit. Hearing his words, Regina awakens to a nightmare vision of a black-cloaked figure beckoning to her. She approaches and realizes its face to be her own, older and saddened. After experiencing a sharp spasm of pain, she looks again: the face is now a skull. Terrified, she runs away—to be brought up short by her own reflection in an endless mirror.
Screaming, Regina lashes out and smashes the mirror. Escaping from the care unit, she encounters a patrolling Security guard. In her madness, she clobbers him and takes his weapon. In Main Mission, the joyous announcement of the Moon's re-entry into Earth orbit is interrupted by Regina, wielding a stun-gun in one hand and holding her pain-wracked head with the other. Hysterical, she rejects all attempts to calm her, having eyes only for Carter. The girl flings herself into his arms, whispering, ‘I knew you didn't die, I knew.’ She convulses in agony, then goes limp. She is dead.
Later, Bergman privately briefs Koenig on a startling revelation: the world, as they knew it, has been destroyed. A five-degree deviation in the tilt of Earth's axis has resulted in devastating geological and climatic changes. The only remotely habitable area is a site in southern California known as Santa Maria. Helena joins them with the results of Regina's autopsy. What she thought was a mental condition had an underlying physical cause—the girl's skull contained two separate brains, and the resulting pressure killed her. Further discussion is interrupted by an urgent summons. A celestial object is moving out from behind Earth.
It is the duplicate Moon...from which they receive what sounds like their own Moonbase navigation signal. Bergman muses they have somehow caught up with themselves. Koenig and Carter fly to this other Moon. They find another Moonbase, deserted and stripped of all equipment—the end result of Operation Exodus. Further investigation reveals a crashed Eagle straddling the rim of the crater. Boarding the wreck, they find two dead astronauts still strapped in their seats. Wiping dust from their helmet visors, they find themselves face to face with their dead selves.
Helena's post mortem reveals the duplicate Koenig and Carter died five years earlier, killed on impact when their Eagle crashed. Koenig reckons the rest of the duplicate Alphans settled at Santa Maria. Helena agrees, feeling Regina′s ‘delusions’ were telling them that all along. If they encounter their ‘others selves’, she fears what happened to Regina could happen to them all. However, unexpected events force Koenig to initiate Operation Exodus. The duplicate Moon has increased velocity—moving in the same orbit as theirs, it will collide with them in less than two days.
With evacuation to Earth now a necessity, they must quickly assess the situation. Helena insists that only Koenig and Carter should go, as their other selves are dead—though she, too, must go to study the medical implications. They arrive at Santa Maria in the middle of the night, finding a settlement in a desolate valley. They land a distance and continue on foot, Helena plagued by a nameless anxiety. On arrival, they see dwellings identical to those in Regina's painting. Sending the others out to reconnoiter, Koenig approaches the nearest geodesic house. He watches a figure making observations with a telescope. It is a duplicate Bergman.
The older man seems troubled by the Moon he sees, as if it were in the wrong part of the sky; he keeps looking to the other side of the sky...where the other Moon emerges from behind a cloud bank. When Koenig steps out of the shadows, Earth Bergman does not seem at all surprised. At another living unit, Carter peeks through a window. He sees an older Sandra and another woman preparing a meal. He is startled by the identity of the other woman and tries to prevent Helena from looking. She is drawn to the window—and sees her older self. The two identical women lock eyes. Sandra shrieks in horror, bringing the Earth settlers out in force to confront some very familiar intruders.
At daybreak, Bergman putters in his garden while conversing with Koenig. He tells him that this is Earth, but not the world they knew. It is a past or future Earth, perhaps one where they never existed. Apart for their community, the planet is empty (aside from artifacts of an extinct civilization). They are interrupted by the antics of two children—Paul and Sandra Morrow's offspring. Koenig admires the settlers' fortitude and commends the decision to bring back life to this dead world. Bergman wryly replies that Koenig should approve: he made it in the first place.
Carter visits Earth Regina's grave. Earth Morrow informs him that she died after an unnaturally violent storm. Carter reckons that was when they came into orbit and his Regina died, too. Morrow does not feel this is a coincidence. During this, the two Helenas meet. They reflect on how they were once one person, but are now two separate individuals existing at the same time. Earth Helena knows her life here is at an end. 'Death' is a means of returning to herself and to those she loves—especially her husband, John Koenig. She leaves the living unit to find him. She walks over to Koenig and, without a word, they share one tender kiss before she dies in his arms.
Enraged, the Earth settlers demand that the Alphans leave at once. Koenig tries to reason with them, but weapons are soon drawn. Bergman intercedes. He proclaims that, though they are the same people, they are trapped in different times. Should another set of Alphans come and settle on Earth, chaos and disaster would reign; as witnessed, both Regina and Helena died when confronted with their other selves. The coming collision, however, will restore normality...leaving one Moon, one community, one time. He ominously concludes if the Alphans are not on their own Moon when time corrects itself, they will have nowhere to die.
After returning to Moonbase, Koenig and company solemnly await the collision. When the two Moons touch, they create a space-time schism—returning both to the chaos of the anomaly. There, the Moons merge to form a single Moon. Once complete, everything vanishes in a burst of white light—which fades as the Alphans awaken to find they are again in a different part of space. Carter wonders if the other Alphans also survived. As Koenig questions if they ever really existed, Helena reaches down and retrieves something that had fallen to the floor...a bouquet of roses given to her by Earth Bergman from his garden.
Using Time,Another Place For Your Old School Space Based Games
The whole episode is one big time anomaly waiting to happen. There are plenty of opportunities here for interaction. The first question is did the new time line merge with the original one or simply merge and go its own way. The timeline allows a DM to inject in a post apocalyptic element into their own game without disturbing their own campaigns. The incredible environs of Moonbase one and its technological artifacts are there in the waiting. Who knows what alien creatures would be waiting on the surface of the moon. There is also an entire future Earth of Space 1999 waiting for a party to land and ripe for an alien invasion or menace to be had. This place is a perfect world for an alternative take on the show complete with weird mutant menaces, odd aliens, and strange 70's inspired 1999 technology. The world may have all kinds of space craft artifacts waiting in the wings for PC's to liberate for the good of this dark world. This is not the world that the PC's know and its dark environs are perfect for wizards and heroes from other post apocalyptic games to travel to. Here are ten possible finds from 'Another Time, Another Place' 1d10
1d4 communicators with network capabilities. These things have the last records of the victims of the anomaly.
Two moonbase alpha weapons with battle damage. They will need two hours worth of work.
A cracked computer disk set with the stored maps of several interstellar systems on it.
A broken fuel rod leaking 1d4 points of damage radiation per round.
Skeletons of two security officers with two neat round holes in their heads. They have scanners and weapons on them. The weapons are drained of all power.
A painting depicting death herself. The robed figured has the face of a woman in distress.
A scanner in perfect working order without the power. The planet below sends a signal repeatedly from Earth.
An antique book of forbidden knowledge showing the anomaly's location and spells dedicated to the Outer Gods.
A large computer bank containing many of the technology of the Space 1999 universe. The bank does need some work but otherwise will give up her secrets to another computer.
The last will and testament of Commander Koenig. Contains the codes for the base's Eagle transporters.
