In Presences Unknown - Cepheus Engine Rpg Session Recap & Report Using Cepheus Engine Journal issue #8

 So last night once again I was behind the screen playing in DM Steve's Cepheus Engine rpg game campaign. I was a helpless spacer was a part of a crew of adventurers doing grunt work on a super Earth out around Alpha Centuri. We were exploring the deeper interior valleys of this world IX.8 also known as Harris's Planet. We rounded the corner of the valley's interior & almost had our party's head's taken off by a Grey saucer. 


What we saw next scared the Hell out of us from under the dense canopy of alien vegitation came three Martian walkers! They aimed heat rays at the saucer & there was a play of heat, sparks, and the craft started to smolder with a cloud of smoke coming from under it. Two more mirror like appartus moved on the other craft and the saucer exploded in mid air! DM Steve rolled furiously for damage. What the Hell were the Reticulans doing here!? And why were their unknown aliens on strider mecha here as well?! We needed to get back to Command! The bigger question is will we make it back there. For the moment we're way underarmed to be taking on a Martian war machine and so we're hiding. That's the plan as we quietly make our wayback to Command. 


Seeing retrovision here with issue Eight of the Cepheus Engine rpg Journel & its got some fantastic retro Science Fictional adventures, articles, & adventure hooks. Yes, I'm glancing over a fantastic issue article by Norton Glover titled, 'Cepheus Engine Martians'. And its a fantastic article about H.G. Wells 'War of the Worlds'  Martian race. And it hits the high notes quite nicely. 

We as players have so many questions. How are the Martians conducting warfare on the Reticulans who are an obviously superior force?! Why are the Martians on this exoplanet and what the Hell have we stumbled into!?! Personally I've got a couple of theories as a player: 

1. The Reticulans & the Martians are ancient enemies who compete for the same resources mostly alien animal life this includes humanity here. 
2. Reticulan empire's interests cancel the Martians who are a dying empire so this automatically implies war. 
3. Martian interstellar interests are on the wane because their the Martian empire has been dying for literally millions of years. The Martians are forced to ground & are waging a gurilla war with the Reticulans 
4.  These empires would automatically hate each other because of the competition for interstellar resources are similar. 
5. The exoplanet incase the super Earth is actually an old interstellar colony of either alien race & the other has stumbled upon it. This ignites the ancient war once again. 

Cepheus Engine Journal issue #8 Available For Free Here 

1d6 Random Martian Finds In The Wasteland Table For Your Old School Post Apocalyptic Campaigns

There are few things that adventurers panic about more then the unexpected meetings with the tripods of the so called "sarmaks" or the so called Outsider Martians for they are not native to Mars at all. They inspire dread and utter panic in adventurers who out in the wastelands run into these beings or their machinations. They do however leave behind certain valuable and yet very dangerous relics.
And this Thing I saw! How can I describe it? A monstrous tripod, higher than many houses, striding over the young pine trees, and smashing them aside in its career; a walking engine of glittering metal, striding now across the heather; articulate ropes of steel dangling from it, and the clattering tumult of its passage mingling with the riot of the thunder.

• Book I, Ch. 10: In the Storm
  H.G. Wells War of The Worlds

“Few people realize the immensity of vacancy in which the dust of the material universe swims.”
― H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
Because of the alien nature of some of these finds PC's have a 20% chance of recognizing some of alien relics for what they are. As always caution should be used when approaching any of these types of relics.

1d6 Random Martian Finds In The Wasteland Table

1. High polished heat ray lens useful for focusing energy or laser weapons as well as the Martian heat ray. Worth about 300 gold pieces to certain wasteland collectors. 
2. Martian blood extractor unit and treaded crawling unit, this beast of a unit is useful in Earth's heavy gravity. It has seven needle like extraction units that do 1d4 points of damage to a target as they draw the blood and vital floods from a victim. Certain medical collectors & wasteland wizards will pay handsomely for these units. Worth about 6,000 gold pieces especially with the mechanical vacuum systems intact. 
3. Package of seven black smoke grenade canisters and launcher units. These can be launched in a 70 foot radius and will coat everything with a 15 foot radius in the black smoke like poisonous particles of the Martians. Targets must save vs poison or begin suffering the choking and poisonous effects of the smoke. Victims will die within three rounds after exposure to the smoke. Worth 700 gold pieces to the right collector.
4. A chunk of highly unstable radioactive Martian fuel there is a 30% chance of the piece being found with a suitable containment unit for safe handling otherwise targets within a 20 foot radius must save vs wands and take 1d6 points of damage every round. The stuff is worth 10,000 gold pieces to the right wasteland wizard. 
5. A set of Martian tools, these are very useful for working on the Martian technologies and repairing their tech. These are worth about 2,000 gold pieces to the right collector, scientist or wizard. They are often found in the remains of tripods or at the site of Martian operations. 
6. A giant artificial ruby focusing crystal for a Martian heat ray cannon, very useful for creating high yield heat ray weapons and artillery. Worth 20,000 gold pieces to the right collector but they sometimes are coated in a mildly poisonous preservative slime. Targets must save vs poison or break out in horrid red rashes.
   

1d6 Random Mi Go Surgical Alterations Table For Your Old School Campaigns

Mi Go by Khannea SunTzu

Deep in the wastelands of  Accursed Atlantis alien powers fight ancient wars using surgically altered slave soldiers in their sick wars of attrition and decadence. The ancient Martian warlords and wizards fight a four sized war against the Mi Go for control of territory and control of valuable resources using slave stock who live and die at their alien master's hands. Loss of life from their slaves is tallied and the slave stock continues to flow into the hardened alien city state fortresses of these uncaring masters of super science and alien sorcery. The alien mercenaries continue to bring new slaves as the wars continue under the alien uncaring suns.Life and death means little to these creatures whose strange alien chess game has gone on for centuries with new war machines added or some new weapon of war making its way onto the battle fields.

 The true masters of the deserts wastes of Accursed Atlantis has been the ancient Martian warlords whose grasp once extended over vast dimensional holdings of a plane spanning empire. Their empire was held in check by their genetically altered creations among their holdings populations such as the unique ecological and religious cycle of the Therns and The First Born on Barsoom. Cycles of history that play out in Accursed Atlantis as well. 

"Like men, and yet not like men; combining the human and the beast in their appearance, it required a steady nerve to look at them.... In our eyes their moral character shone through their physical aspect and thus rendered them more terrible!"

The wastelands ring out with the clash of cybernetically and surgically altered slave warriors playing out bloody and dangerous games of blood and dust in the wastelands.  The Martians keep a gaining and losing ground against the Mi Go with no clear winner yet. The Martians continue to push with their alien troops and war machines however.

The Martian warlords controlled Earth 7500 BC and their handy work still resonated with the events of their genetically created super soldiers invading Earth in 1998. The wide spread terraforming efforts of the invasion almost succeeded in turning the Earth once again into a playground for these terrible beings. They're efforts throughout the centuries clashed with the alien Mi Go and has been a source of conflict ever since. The conflicts played out in the back wastelands of Accursed Atlantis only heighten the tensions between the two alien powers with neither side gaining or losing much ground. There is speculation that these wars are merely for the alien spectacle and entertainment of their benefactors. The Mi Go are the leaders in sheer super science and cybernetic surgical skill however. The Martians employ alien and demonic surgeons to match the Mi Go. But the stalemate continues.  Here then are 1d6 Mi Go random surgical alterations for your old school campaigns should your PC's fall into the claws and nippers of the Mi Go


1d6 Random Mi Go Surgical Alterations Table

1. Energy projector hand that does 3d6 points of damage to its target at a range of fifty feet. There will be 1d6 charges at the dawn of each day, the weapon charges with the light of its alien sun. It appears a jeweled ruby hand and continues to function as would a regular hand but its surface crawls with alien energies from time to time.
2. The victim's body holds a swarm of alien things that act as a swarm of vermin and will fly to their target biting, scratching, and eating their victim for 1d6+3 points of damage. The owner of these cyber bio things will experience all of the target's senses of violence and violation on a telepathic level and there is a 10% chance of this driving the owner mad.  The alteration may be used three times per day. The things are housed in special bio mechanical cells within the owner's body, the things nurture themselves on the blood and body fluids of the owner as well as those of the targets. 
3. The slave becomes a spotter and their cranium,eyes, and mind are altered with oversized bio cyber eyes with dark vision, ultravision, and telepathic projectors so that the Mi Go can see through the eyes of the slave. All attacks are at a +3 for damage as the bio computers feed the the fool all possible  suggested weaknesses of their targets. The slave may be driven mad by the telepathic buzzing and binary alien speech patterns of the aliens in their heads constantly and the alien impulses of the implants in their bodies. 
4. Existence Skin is implanted on the victim's muscles and flesh is replaced with a bio synthetic living thing. The implant allows the slave to take only half damage from all physical attacks as they are slightly out of phase with the local space time and existing in the astral  allowing them to have a half like ghostly existence. They take full damage from certain types of magic spells that effect demons and the like. There is a strange purplish hue to their existence and a 3% chance of a demon or some other astral parasite eating them. They can phase through doors, bars, etc. as a ghost but escape is never an option from their Mi Go masters.
   These poor fools can do +3 damage because of molecular disruption to physical targets but they will phase out completely after a successful attack for 1d8 rounds. They're physical existence yanks them back into our universe so escape into the astral completely is impossible because of the Mi Go implant. 
5. The slave is given 1d30 alien mouths over their entire body and these will do +3 damage bonus to anything the slave attacks. They a +3 to hit on all attacks because of the small alien eye things that pass for senses for the mouths. The victim will have chunks of their existence eaten by the implants and the resulting holds in the reality of the victim will leave them open to all types of astral and Outer Darkness horrors that will quickly devour them. The slave is given over the psychic alien thoughts and horrible impulses of these semi living things. 
6. The slave is given over claws, fangs, and alien sensor spikes as a living weapon of melee and warfare. The slave gains a +2 to all to attacks their bodies drip with weird bio molecular acid. Seven times per day they may spit up to twenty feet with a goo of acid for 2d6 points of damage. The stuff will continue to do 1d4 points per rounds.