Back Track on Trade Part I - Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Session Report

 We're picking right up from two week's ago session here on the blog.  After tracking back on the Old Earth blasters & our map. We began investigating several leads on the whereabouts to the system the blaster had come from. Had any more of these been sold on Circus?! 

We learned about the alien trader who'd traded the blasters on Circus. We tracked him to the space station orbiting the hyperspace gate. 

He or it had gotten the blasters off a party of adventurers for cheap. They'd needed fuel for thier space rig badly and were willing to deal in cash or trade goods.
They were in a bad way after catching a senient disease or micro lifeform. 
That meant that they were probably in the  decontamination wing of Circus. We didn't want to go all of the way back to the giant trade venue. 
So we made our own trading with a flock of Wanderers.  Who had crossed paths with the adventurering party after leaving Circus. They provided us with thier route and we provided them with VR 'entertainment' of thier species. 

And then we'd found what we were looking for a United Planet cruiser's wreckage. We didn't want to go in because of the micro life form that was living on the interior of the wreckage. 

We had a few tricks up our sleeves as the UP cruiser was equipped with a reactor that was good for a few hundred years. Thier computer systems were still active. And with our hackers we were able to down load thier data banks. We wanted the cruiser's departure point. After dropping a beacon warning of the micro life form. We departed the wreckage. There was no way we were going near that thing. We dived deeper into a local station to look at the data. 

We did a bit of horse trading at the station unloading some farm animals and animal stock to the local colonists. We made a small profit on that trade but more importantly we had time to translate the data aquired from the wreckage. We ended the session here. 

Debts of Honor & Cash - Part II - Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Session Report

 We pick right up from part I of the last session with our party having going on a series of  trucking and cargo runs to get our former party member out of debt. During these runs we did a bit of trading along the way at the hyperspace gate waystations. 

Our group came across two blasters that were from Old Earth's United Planets & therefore very rare. The trader had a map to ship laden with treasure from the same empire. We bargained our trade goods and some fire gems for the map. 
We were able to secure the map for a small fee and then transmitted our completing the cargo run for the debter. We knew that our friend would soon be freed of his debt so it was time to take a quick VR trip to the local representive of the Library of Atoz-Theln about map. The representive didn't want payment per say but a favor back on Circus for the library. They varified the interstellar map being legit and from an earlier time period. This might be a rare coup. 
We ended the session here and then for the next five days I came down with whatever form of the 'plague' was going around. I was in bed & got very sick. As quickly as I came down I recovered! 

Debts of Honor & Cash - - Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Session Report

 One of the pleasures of using Stars Without Number is being able to make the game work for you as a DM to keep the players engaged. The player's PC's are on Phase World's Grand Arena level looking for a Thrax warrior who was a part of thier crew many moons ago and they heard rumors that he's in the Grand Arena fighting, again. This session picks right up from where we left off last time. 

In Darthx The Destroyer's off hours he's been an instructor and gladiator coach within a seedy Gladiatorial school. He's been working at the Blood  Moon School from Citybook III Deadly Nightside. 

There's  got to be a reason because Darthx had gotten free from his old gladiatorial patron. So what's drawn him back?! Our party has been speculating on this as they made thier way to the Blood Moon school. The connection is that half of our party's fighter types was trained there and came up the ranks as gladiators. 
Darthx is on a suicide path because he's been going against mecha. We dodged   Cabilan mercenaries who wanted our hides quite literally. 
A few ambushes and traps took out four mercenaries with little fanfare. 

Inside the Blood Moon school we made our way to pay our respects to our old coaches & called over Darthx. We found out his old patron had his Thraxu blade  for ransom! Thrax warriors who have such a blade covet them as honor debts for a sum or money.  We pulled our cash and went to the patron. But such a debt was not easy to get out of. Because now we've got to make a cargo run for this guy to get out of the debt. 

Circus Cargo Haul - Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Session Report

 My player's PC's picked up a cargo haul from Circus to Phase World through the hyperspace gateways. The player's PC's have ditched the cannibal Scavenger Fleet that they engaged with two or so sessions ago. We're still in the middle of our Trey Causey Strange Stars Campaign using Stars Wihtout Number Revised. This session picks right up from last session here on the blog. 

 The player's PC's picked up three tons of ore & were to deliver it to thier contacts on Phase World. The Gnomes seemed very nervous around the PC's & they were not up to chit chat with the PC's. The party checked over the cargo twice with scanners to make sure that there weren't extra devices through thier cybersneaks. The party found an extra radiation signature that didn't belong in the ore haul. A low grade radiaoactive isotope had been secreted among the ore. The party suspected Cabilan mercenaries! 

 They began to look into homing & tracking devices on thier space hauler. They found none. Then they found another bit of the isotope that had been secreted onto thier hauler via a cyberspace scan! They had no doubt that the Cabilan mercenaries were laying in wait along thier route to Phase World. And so they took the long way around via the secondary gateway. 

The  Cabilan mercenaries want the party's space hauler, the party, and the honor of consuming them. The party has been giving them a merry hunt so far. They've got drone ships now scowering the systems along thier route to Phase World because they aim to get paid. 

OSR Commentary - Cannibal Scavenger Fleets & Trey Causey's Strange Stars - Session Report

 

Chris Floss artwork used without permission 

During tonight's Stars Without Numbers game centered around Trey Causey's Strange Stars campaign setting things got really nasty really fast. This blog post picks up from a few days ago on the blog here. 
Alright so the PC's got it in thier heads that they wanted to seek out a Scavenger Fleet & trade ancient parts and pre Scream artifacts with them. 
After some very good cyberspace rolls the player's cybersneaks were able to catch a deep interstellar scavenger fleet not too far from thier location. A jump into the hyperspacial gateway and a trip to an old system netted them an ancient looking scavenger fleet. They communicated and were able to make a parley. What they got wasn't what they were expecting when they encountered Cabilan mercenaries! 

The Cabilan were open to trade as long as they got to choose the crew member to be eaten for supper. They had not had any real non artificial humanoid meat in many months! The PC's were horrified but were able to trade some rare Earth cow meat for three minor artifacts! The Caliban were not completely satisfied and began to shadow the PC's space hauler! The PC's also noticed a sleeper ship among the fleet full of Caliban mercenary soldiers! 
The PC's took the space hauler into silent mode hiding in the shadow of a star until the scavenger fleet had passed or so they hoped! The cybersneaks then hid the star hauler's transponder signal and they quietly made thier way to the jump gate. The party wanted to get anywhere but this system. The problem is that the Caliban mercenaries are now aware of the party. 
The party dove randomly through the hyperspacial gatway & ended up coming face to face with a fleet of Gypsy ships. Randomly put together space junk that had become starships by clans of travelling Magi. 

The Magi were open for business and trade! So the player's began to trade some of the minor cargo finds that they had and found a spare hyperdrive. They trade food stuffs and some extra fuel that they had. The Magi insisted that they stay for a feast. The party's cybersneaks were looking deep into hyperspace to see if the Caliban mercenaries scavenger fleet were following. They had looked over the artifacts for any tracking devices. This is where we ended for now. 

OSR Commentary - Trey Causey's Strange Stars & Stars Without Numbers Scavenger Fleets

 

Chris Floss artwork used without permission 


"The year is 3200 and mankind's empire lies in ashes.

The Jump Gates fell six hundred years ago, severing the links between the myriad worlds of the human diaspora.

Now, the long isolation of the Silence falls away as men and women return to the skies above their scattered worlds.

Will you be among them once more?'

 Our player's PC's want two 'new' space haulers and getting into the deep dynamics of it. I turned back to Strange Stars setting's blog entry, 'From The Sorcerer's Skull Starships In The Strange Stars and this has to do with the hyper drive systems which the players are after; "One example of a lost technology is superluminal drives. The vast majority of modern craft are sublight vessels that utilize the hyperspace network to short-cut interstellar distances. The most advanced current civilizations have a rudimentary understanding of the science behind some FTL travel methods, but they are are currently unable to build them." A space hauler equipped with such a drive would have an incredible advantage. However, there might be far more going on then meets the eye. And hence why the hyperspace networks were used and relied on. 
Hyperspacial drives might be far more terrorfying then then the player's realize and the standard spike drive is the alternative which became industry standard. There are other technologies that the PC's want too salvage;"The salvage of ancient derelicts or wrecks is an important (and lucrative) activity. Gravity generators and inertial suppressors are only two of the important technologies than many civilizations are able to exploit, but not necessarily manufacture themselves. Intact data systems are a particularly spectacular find. There is always hope of engineering schematic files executable in modern nanofactories." This dives into the heart of Stars Without Number's rules and setting. Although the fantastic pretech & overtech are available the secrets to thier manufacture are almost certainly lost unless some space wreck or other ancient starship remains gives up thier secrets. 
Then there's the matter of the salvage fleets that are still flying in hyperspace and using the secrets of spike drives. These might seem like thier unlikely to be found in a Strange Stars setting but think again. 

Mandate Archive: Scavenger Fleets has the details on vampire fleets of stellar ships that swoop in & strip bare a planet that has any pretech technology. This could well be true of the Strange Stars setting or at least ours. Space is big & there's more then enough room for these scavenger ships to vulture themselves off of high tech planets. Thier presence a constant strain on the interstellar community who might simply chalk such invasions and visits up to space pirates. The scavenger fleets are simply another incarnation of this. Making deals with Scavenger Fleets could prove deadly or lucative depending upon the scavenger fleet's reactions. One group of whom I'm planning on using within thier own scavenger fleet is the Caliban.  All of this gets back to the fact that my players are hunting for hyperdrives & it look like it's going to be lots of space craft crawling coming up. 

Businesses As Usual - TRey Causey's Strange Stars & Citybook VI: Up Town From Flying Buffalo

 If you've been following our Strange Stars sessions then you know that at sometime everything is  going to go back to Circus. Circus.  With Circus I had to get a series of higher class up town sections. Fortunately, I had the answer already on my book shelf! 

Coming out in '92 Citybook VI: Up Town this is part of the iconic Cataylist series. Citybook VI: Up Town  is going to be an old part of Circus. 'The Lost Inn' is going to get a work out coming up! The idea of an inn that takes on the lost and the desparate harkens back to the 'Bygone Age' of Strange Stars. The Greenhargon's Museum is also going to be featured with the owner not knowing anything about the alien nature of the place. The museum is going to be a patron for the PC's coming up. 
Another business that's going to be making an appearance for obvius reasons is Iron Shield Financial Services. For adventurers Iron Shield is a must! And this includes space based adventures. The Age of Ravens blog has a complete review of Citybook VI: Up Town right over here. 

For Trey Causey's Strange Stars the businesses from Citybook VI: Uptown fit in very nicely. Given the weird and alien natures of the businesses there's some really solid businesses and NPC's to mine for games. Stars Without Number fits the Citybook VI: Up Town asthetic quite nicely. 

Among The Riffraff of The Galaxy Session Report - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Numbers Hybrid Campaign

 The player's PC's stumbled across a trade starship  of the Mole Men of Mirach IV last night & they traded starship fuel for some trade high techlogical nick nacks. Things went well with several starship repairs being trading for future errants from the party. The used   RAX Type Protected Merchant  needed several minor repairs and the party traded favors & fuel for the repairs. 

The adventurers now have a standing contract to meet the Mole Men on 

In petlacalli # 3 Station  , the station is a hive of traders, interstellar drovers, and all kinds of intergalatic scum. Just the kinds of place where the PC's will fit in. Its also a haven for galatic grifters, space pirates, and alien spacers looking for work. 

There are several leads that the PC's want to follow up with their bounties and since the Talon sector straddles the Clement sector. And attracts the whole of the galaxy into its wake. In petlacalli # 3 Station has a nasty reputation as the haven for being neutral ground for the underworld of the galaxy. Many of the human species  are not aware of this. And its gonna be a pretty big shock that humanity isn't at the top of the food chain out in the greater galaxy. Many of the mutate zenotypes are actually modified humanity that have been engineered to fit worker status on a variety of world. This includes the ancient nearby Reticulan empire. 

Right now the crew is using their used  RAX Type Protected Merchant  for their current job & the computer exchange of information also benefitted their  Mole Men  trade partners & friends. 

Session Report 12- 'Shoot out On Inverfurnous IV '- Cepheus Engine/Stars Without Number Revised

 Last night on the cyberpunk world of Inverfurnous IV the player's PC's ran into far more then they were expecting. This session report is going to pick with adventure elements from this blog entry here. 

During last night's our Cepheus Engine/Stars Without Number Revised  hybrid campaign the player's PC's got into an extended fire fight with an unknown group of mercenary space pirartes in last night's game after being on the cyberpunk world of Inverfurnous IV. The whole sector is steeped deeply  in the mythology of the A.I. gods from before the collapse of the Conduit.  The pirates were hauling a cryo pod in the local space port with someone or something on board from an illegal gene jockey's lair. The PC's took heavy fire from several of the pirates having been discovered. Two of the player's PC were killed in a hail of gunfire. 

And it became aparent that the pirates were led by some type of what appeared to be an undead. It wasn't instead was one of the pawns of the alien Slavers.  An
d I used the stats from both From The Sorcerers Skull blog and later  from the Sword of Cepheus. 

The players are trying to figure out what happened to Logan Murphy. This whole thing would or will lead into the capture of   Logan Murphy was a ruthless dictator on the world of Casudxe in Old School Role playing's Justice Denied.

Is there deals going down between the A.I. gods and the slavers?! The Slavers have been supplying the brothel planet network with spy/assassin/sex clones. These taliored  clones have qualities that were take  directly from Clement sector's Tree of Life book. 

Eddie The Maul's Legacy - - Session Four Report - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number Revised rpg Game

 

The party made a side trip to Cebu Three the Communication's planet where they ran smack into Eddie The Maul. Eddie's a drifter, spacer, & all around bum ie adventurer whose got a murky past & even more murky cybernetic implants. Here's the back story.  Right at the moment I've got two different Stars Without Numbers Revised & Cepheus Engine rpg campaigns happening. One of these was given to me by DM Steve whose friend DM Huby passed on recently & I've taken over the old Phaseworld rpg. The game campaign's bounty hunter and more then slightly shady slant didn't change only the rpg system did. And while did lose two PC's to the machinations of bullets & bad dice rolls things have been going well. Well until Eddie one of our regulars brought up the other campaign which you can read about here. And this is where things get tricky because the Slavers are still on the brothel planet. And the PC's managed to make contact though pirate connections in response to the Flint Corporation & its holdings. They still want to go after that end of the campaign. But there are other complications. 
The PC's have managed to squirrel away enough money to buy a starship but Eddie joining our regular group with his spacer PC started to tell em about ins & outs of 'saving' ie buying  that sentient drive from the slavers. Eddie's PC Harry The Maul knows a guy whose got a ancient use  RAX Type Protected Merchant for sale from the Million Suns Empire. 

Eddie comes with a few advantages including hyperspace charts to get to our Strange Stars sector hyperspace gates. But Eddie's got some secrets of his own including cybernetic brain parts & systems that he's not sure about. Eddie was a belter and miner who was captured by some rather nasty Greys who implanted him with these. Eddies can almost but not quite interface with  the drive box and several other Strange Stars weirdness. Eddie showed up because of his connection with Bobby Daystrom from last game with details here. In the past Bobby Daystrom has been digging into Eddie's rather murky past. If the party doesn't trust Eddie he's got passage back to where my other party is via a Bright Water Class Personal Yacht that a friend of his owns. Eddie of course is sticking around for the moment because he's done nothing to the player's PC's but they don't trust em.

The party didn't get the information they were looking for but they got Eddie instead. And he's been feeding the party information all during the game. So its worked out so far. The party wants to take Eddie to a cyber doc & have his implants dug into to findout what or who their dealing with. That's next week.. Oh did I forget to mention the three Flint corporate goon erm agents who contacted the party?!

Ghost of the Goya - - - Session Three Report - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number Revised rpg Game

 

Well, my players have been doing a bit of bounty hunting in our Cepheus Engine/Stars without Numbers rpg campaign and things just got real complicated. The PC's have been hanging out at the Frontier Trading Post & this picks up right from this blog entry here.   And they caught up with the Flint Corporations  president's Brightwater-class Personal Yacht which was being used for transporting pre Scream artifacts from Relics of The Lost.   And while he wasn't on it they down loaded the complete data base from the ship. 

Just as an easter egg I threw in the fact that the Flint Corporation was finiancing the starship Goya to go look for the flying Dutchman of space the starship Warden. This was only supposed to be an Easter Egg  & down the road the party might look for it. Umm no! They dug in deeper instead shaking down their latest bounty to find out the extent of the Flint Corporation's involvement in securing certain experimental nuclear fuels for the corporate mission. 

So things start getting real interesting real fast as the party dives into the connections between the Scream & the disappearance of the biggest space going story ever, the disappearance of the Starship Warden. Every school kid knows the last known heading of the Warden but its only recently that the space pirates have located a hyperspace shadow of the Warden. And those are the Dark Terror space pirates one of whom they just busted. 
And the space pirates weren't the only ones in search of the Warden. The infamous space tyrant Logan Murphy was as well. Which means their taking a side jaunt to Cebus Three the communications world of the universe. The party knows that a cyberdecker named Bobby Daystrom ( a clone of Richard Daystrom) has the hyperspace course that the Goya took to get the Warden. But they have no idea where he is. So the party is going to be doing a bit of hard core investigation to find him on the street level. 

The Cybernetic Legacy of Logan Murphy - - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number Revised rpg Game Campaign Commentary

 One of our PC's in our Cepheus Engine/Stars Without Number Revised  is from an advanced cyberpunk sector. But as an alternate from Phaseworld whose crossed over into our campaign setting. Said PC ran into a corporate representive & his cyborg bodyguard. For the players this was like running into a piece of ancient history. Ancient history from a colony world of Michael Brown's New World: 2D6 Adventure in a Cyberpunk America. 

All of this decends into the Hellscape of SWM's Polychrome deep in the heart of the PC's former home sector. The whole sector is run by A.I. 'gods' who control a good portion of sector's commerce & population. 

This whole thing would or will lead into the capture of   Logan Murphy was a ruthless dictator on the world of Casudxe in Old School Role playing's Justice Denied. Logan was actually a manufactured dictator literally created by the A.I. gods to give the people something to hate. The cyber dictator did far more then simply rule with an iron fist. He harvested organs, chemicals & drugs from the human brain, used people as living factories, & more. 

 Now Joseph's PC is after Logan Murphy, but he's unaware of the artificial nature of the cyber dicatator. This creates some interesting variations on the themes of Justice Denied. As the bounty puck for Logan Murphy has come up last time we played. 
And the PC's want to take a trip out to  the world of Casudxe to get on Logan's trail but there's already a body double NPC or two waiting in the wings of that world in hiding. 
What I'm doing is making a huge linked sector series of encounters so that the PC's will run into some of the campaign's adventure threads one way or another. 

Sectors & Set Up's - - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number Revised rpg Game Campaign Update

 A campaign & adventure point that has been used numerous times in our campaign is the fact that the Clement sector supplies a huge amount of food stuffs, minerals, nuclear fuels, etc to other sectors. This has made the Clement sector incredibly wealthy and gives the PC's time to do a bit of double sector duty. How?! Well its easy. The PC's are going to be doing a bit of guard duty on a Clement Sector Hercules class Heavy freighter 

Now this isn't the first time that  I've used this bid but it is the first time that I've used the 'These Stars Are Ours' campaign setting as the receiving sector for the sundries, food crops, etc. And this happened out in the American West all of the time. The Hercules is perfect prey for space pirates and having an escort starship is going to help. 

'These Stars Are Ours' sector has a post war economy which deeply reminds me of the American Civil War. The Clement sector is positioned to be the perfect cure offering alternatives for interstellar trade. 

And this is going put New Liberty in the cross hairs of the PC's as a bit of a lawless colony and this isn't the first time that the colony has been on the table. 

The players are not going to be used to the fact that all of their high tech toys don't work on New Liberty & they're going to have to think outside of the box. And I don't see the Reticulans going the way of the American Indians at all. And is Terra of TSAO actually Earth?! In our game actually no. 
This dives into several themes that Stars Without Numbers Revised rpg goes into with the Scream and some post interstellar themes. These do fit our campaign so there's more coming on that end. 

On The Space Tides - - Session Two Report - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number Revised rpg Game

 This play session report is going to pick up where our last one left off on the blog here. The players don't exactly trust me as they've been doing a bit of recon on their target.So they've been asking around several star ports about the Flint Corporation. And they've come up with the fact that their heavily invested in antiquities brokering, military contracts and more in the local sector. The 'Flint Corporation' has heavily pissed off members of the Dark Terror space pirates gang. The Dark Terrors comes from Independence Games 21 Pirate Groups. 

And while asking around they stumbled upon a 'wanted' member of the Dark Terror space pirates gang whose wanted by the crime lord of the Frontier Trading Post. Devel Toricl's crimes are unmentionable but the holo puck for his capture is worth a cool 70,000 credits alive. And the PC's captured the  pirate in a very nifty double cross. 
The players grilled the space pirate about the Flint Corporation and found out about the president's Brightwater-class Personal Yacht which was being used for transporting pre Scream artifacts from Relics of The Lost.  

The PC's are not taking any chances and have the bounty in heavy restrains because their not sure that the NPC's not a heavy gravity  Altrant. And the PC's sedated him before landing back on the Frontier Trading Post where they handed over the space pirate & collected their reward. 

Their employer gave the party charts & approach courses to the Flint corporation's retreat world & its mini star pad. The world is rich in rare minerals & nuclear fuels. The players are very wary and not one has caught on to the significant's of the planet's homage  to original Star Trek's 'Requiem for Methuselah' episode. 

More coming up as the player's PC's buy a star ship on the black market next week! 

Into The Black Market & Playing Space Pirate - Session One Report - Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number Revised rpg Game

 Coming into filling a DM whose passsed on's shoes isn't an easy thing. There are three things working in my favor, one the rpg campaign was transition from one dimension to another, the players have played old school Traveller in the past, & they all have experience with Dungeons & Dragons or Advanced Dungeons & Dragons first edition in the past.  So the party is now dealing with the black market & their looking to sell some of their other worldly artifacts for a starship. We played on Sunday with the player's PC's milling around  the Frontier Trading Post where black market operations were held on a Sunday. So this blog entry is going to pick up right here from the other day. 

Over the weekend I slotted the players into Clement Sector's Skull & Crossbones's The Demon-class lembus and the Ironbard-class longship for a shake down course on these ships. The party were eagar to learn these starships as long as the crew weren't looking to kill them or anything. The space pirates weren't & were actually looking to the player's PC's as possible crew replacements. 

This shake down time for both ships took about ten days game time with accelerated training. Yes, the players know that their working for the black market in our campaign. But after talking with the Kingpin the player's PC's are back to their old profession, bounty & rival space pirate hunting. And this picks up with Stellagamma Publishing's Piracy & Privateering pdf is going to come in very handy. 

The party has been hired by a corporate interest through a third party to recover a planetary retreat from a space pirate whose laid claim to it. The party is not to damage the property if possible or keep it to a minimuim of property damage. The property in question hasn't been occupied in centuries but has been maintained by cybernetic systems. Because of this, a band of space pirates claimed squater's rights on the property over the past three months. The owners 'The Flint Corporation' are very eager to get their coprorate retreat & outpost back. Their hackers have been able to get the pass codes for the cybernetic units that maintain & control the planetary property. The player's PC's are to be paid 400,000 credits for the job. 

The players are to recover several very valuable cybernetic android units from the property that hold great centimental value to the head of the corporation. They can expect possible resistence due to the space pirates being lead by a so called black wizard. 

The property in question is protected by pre Fall of Mankind technologies again from Stars Without Numbers Relics of the Lost . And astute readers of this blog will recognize my homage to original Star Trek's 'Requiem for Methuselah' episode. Long time readers know that there's far more to this assignment then meets the eye.