Star Without Number Revised Campaign - Mixing Trey Causey's Strange Stars & Terra Arisen rpg - Space Trucking Session Two

 We picking right up from two weeks ago's last session available right here.  In this game campaign we're using a combination of Stars Without Number revised Trey Causey's Strange Stars and Terra Arisen. I kept Trey Causey's Strange Stars. And his OSR Strange Stars rulebook handy. 

We were escorting Terran Alliance local authorities into the Reticulan space around the former military bases that had been converted into Human bases. There was a smaller Human military presence with far more alien & Reticulan traders. The player's PC's dropped off their passengers and got paid. 
The PC's were contacted about moving  Gnomes genetic material for helping a post apocalyptic world stabilize it's genetic base. They met the Gnome transporter and courier who took possession of the material. There were no real words exchanged. Our telepathic link helped with the transaction and the party were really weirded out by the Gnomes. 
 The players wanted to get out of the area as soon as possible! The Gnome's ship departed and the crew of the Lakota left Gnome's space.

 We then got a message from a set of Kosmoniks traders who were interested in some of the trade goods that we've got in stock. The Lakota has a number of small high yield luxury cargoes for the colonies we've been visiting. Chocolate, pornography, etc are some of the smaller items that yield big to the humans that are acting as client colony for other aliens. We got the genetic material to the post apocalyptic world and were almost blasted out of the sky by a nuke! 

Stars Without Number Game Session Four - Phaseworld & Trey Causey's Strange Stars Campaign - You Can't Go Gnome Again

 The job from last session from the Engineer and his mafia bosses is a seemingly simple one. Take this genetic material to a Gnome asteroid colony for transport. In return we upgrade your ship, sell you weapons, and provisions. The players are not stupid so thier cybersneaks started checking for a 'gene guy' to check out the material. PC's were looking for viruses and bioweapons snuck into the sample of the material they received. 

This whole part of the session became a cat and mouse deal between the Lakota crew and the house mafia of Circus,Circus. The player's PC's hired Mr.Ling a Kosmonik who looked over his intergalatic tarot and saw that the signs were favorable for him to work with the PC's. 
The genetic material checked out. So where the catch?! The catch is that the material belongs to a rival faction of  Gnomes who have lost the 'right' to reproduce and are at war with another rival faction. 
The PC's could end up within the sights of a Gnome rail gun and seemimgly on the outs with powerful mining concern. 
And of course the PC's took the job!

Yup oversaw the upgrades, provisions, and even the weapons ammo for this job. There was never any unathorized drones, droids, or personel from Circus,Circus, near the Lakota. 
I kept  Trey Causey's Strange Stars. And his OSR Strange Stars  rulebook handy and the Lakota departed Circus, Circus, & gate jumped into System 76/6 which is Gnome controlled space. Seven very large gas giants dominated the system. They headed for the largest past debris and several wrecks of ships. They transmitted thier codes and waited. A small transport came from the largest asteroid to meet them. And they had a weapons lock on them the whole time. They met the Gnome transporter and courier who took posession of the material. There were no real words exchanged. The players wanted to get out of the area as soon as possible! The Gnome's ship departed and the crew of the Lakota left Gnome's space. And that's when they spotted some sorta of small ship tailing them. As soon as they got within sight of the system gate they activated thier ace up thier sleeve thier Drivebox. The catch?! They have no idea where she'll take them! 

Stars Without Number Game Session Three - Phaseworld & Trey Causey's Strange Stars Campaign - The Circus, Circus isn't What It Used To Be Session Five

 The crew of the Lakota ditched Mr.Hight from last session, but this is hardly the end of the meddling proto humanoid. The crew docked at Circus, Circus and mingled with the crowds to re equip. The last round with Mr.Hight had put a damper on thier ammo as the bastard had drained all of thier weaponry's energy cells. As you'll recall last game session here. 

The PC's got involved in a 'Quickling' gambling game which is one part race & two parts sport. The Quicklings wanted to get the party involved but fortunately the party's resident problem solver 'Yup stepped in. This 'game' would have involved the party living in the Quick's acellerated time contnum & this involved pre mature aging on the PC's part. 
The PC's were actually on Circus Circus to meet with an Erato party & purveyor of pleasures to help set up and deliver the holo & sensory equipment for tonight's festivals. Also getting paid was an added bonus. The party met with Mrs and Mr. Anderson two cloned bioroids. Again Yup stepped in a made sure that the pheoro chemical clouds that surrounded the Andersens didn't affect the party in an adverse way. This was so the Andersen's didn't wiggle out of contract.

Acroyear by Pat Broderick

And then the Alliance agents showed up to 'interview' the PC's about a new contract. The hyehoon agents were getting a bit too nosey for the PC's taste and were turned away. The party also left messages with another Alliance representive about thier agents.  The party got rooms at Circus Circus and posted thier Cybersneaks inside the Lakota. All of the while the party kept in constant contact awaiting thier Engineer gun & weapon smith. He made his way to the PC's table and they spent a small fortune on new equipment and saw the floor show. But now the PC's have been summoned to the room of Mr. #@#!@% whose got a new job for them according to the mafia boss's agents/brain cells. 
Once again  Trey Causey's Strange Stars. And his OSR Strange Stars  rulebook have  been getting quite the workout! 

 

Stars Without Number Game Session Three - Phaseworld & Trey Causey's Strange Stars Campaign - Radiant Polity Problems

 Let's pick up from our sessions where we left off here with the player's PC's getting into the groove of Phaseworld. The PC's picked the warrior Yub Gorkin a rather excentric Thrax warrior that they literally bought from the Slavers along with his equipment.

Acroyear by Pat Broderick 

The crew of Lakota were able to get Yub under contract as hired muscle & 'problem solving' after awakening him from Cryo. The parameters of the contract included meals, medical, combat training, and violence qoutes!  The Lakota delivered colony supplies & habits to a local 250 million light year location. And they successfully got paid. 

Then it was off to another drop zone on the outskirts of the former  Radiant Polity worlds. Here they were to pick up a very special cargo. A cryo pod in the green awaited the faithful crew. 
And this didn't sit well with the crew of the Lakota. After a few tense minutes, Yub defused the situation by stating that live cargos violated the letter of the cargo contract of the Lakota.

The crew came face to face with one of the former  Radiant Polity super humanoids. And were able to wiggle out of contract with some very fancy foot work. Jack Kirby's Lightray was the image I used for Beta Tora Radiant representive. 

Mr.Hight was more then happy to hear the PC's points and was quick to shutdown any attempts at the party trying to find out when he & the others had awakened. 
What the party didn't want to do is engage in combat with Mr. Hight nor any of his superiors. The players have had dealings with these jerks ! And so left as soon as possible. When safely out in space they checked over the Lakota top to bottom for any tracers or tracking devices. 
The party is making it's way to Circus,Circus a gambling world just to be sure they ditched Mr.Hight. 

 So  Trey Causey's Strange Stars. And his OSR Strange Stars  rulebook came out of retirement at the table top. And it's been getting quite the workout! 

Stars Without Number Game Session Two - Phaseworld & Trey Causey's Strange Stars Campaign

 

I had to pull a campaign out of moth balls  & so  Trey Causey's Strange Stars. And his OSR Strange Stars  rulebook came out of retirement at the table top. "It's the far future, Old Earth is lost and shrouded in legend, and the children of paleo-humanity have long ago populated the stars, branching into new forms and strange cultures. Adventure is measured in light-years!" 

The PC's were trying to find work doing trucking jobs with the Lokata. And the PC's then proceeded to try and get information on the background of the Lakota.
This let back to Phaseworld's Slaver's level & the PC's wanted to avoid that place if they could! They started looking around Phase world itself. Phaseworld  is an incredible transdimensional city that is also a space port located at the edge of three galaxies. 
And our little group of adventurers actually found themselves inside a rather nasty arena belonging to the slavers! They were facing down a full blown ancient dragon! The party were TPK'd! 
Or at least they would have been if they weren't in transhumanoid bodies! 
What they were actually facing down was the Zhmun  Cybergames arena champion. A champion named N'liu who had contacts deep within the Federation trucking union. N'liu was thier 'ancient dragon'. He was able to get them a garbage hauling job with the Lakota after they found themselves back in thier bodies! 
The crew have to haul bio brain drives to a Zhumn cyberworld these drives are 'used'. 

The crew of the Lakota have three days on Phaseworld to do a bit of upgrading to gear and whatnot. They know that Kotgo is leaning over thier shoulders but they've got a plan or two on several of the levels of Phaseworld. Now I've got a copy of Cities Without Number which I'm planning to flesh out several of the urbanscapes of Phaseworld. More on that to come! 

Stars Without Number Game Session One - Phaseworld & Trey Causey's Strange Stars Campaign

Tonight I had to pull a campaign out of moth balls on the fly and I don't think the game session went bad at all! 

 Tonight's game wasn't the usual gang of players but instead we had a few older players who came into  tonight's spur of the moment Stars Without Number game. Which meant that I literally had an hour to come up with a quick campaign off the cuff. Fortunately, earlier this evening I had been reading Rifts rpg Phaseworld. And a copy of Trey Causey's Strange Stars.  Phaseworld  is an incredible transdimensional city that is also a space port located at the edge of three galaxies. The premise is simple the PC's are there to buy a spacecraft for themselves & get a contract hauling cargo into the Vokun Empire . 

Immediately things star going South as the PC's make it through the interdimensional gate. The PC's are cleared for one of the smaller market levels and run smack into a large party of   s’ta zoku The PC's got swept up in with this party and before they knew it they found themselves in an telepathic mind meld. And then someone dropped the 'cosmic acid' and this where things got weird. 
The party awoke to have purchased a telepathic clone of 1960's era Jean Grey on ice in cryo instead of a starship from the Slavers.  There's no take backs or returns when it comes to the Slavers. Fortunately before the Repo soldiers were called in a rather impetious Vokun warlord named Kotgo purchased the clone with a rider for a used Harbinger ship called the Lakota. 

The players didn't even want to know what happened to the prior crew of the Lakota. As they had to spend a few credits to get one of thier number cured of a rather nasty flesh eating STD caught from one of the  s’ta zoku. Don't ask. 

The party wanted to make some quick cash & there was an auction going on in shop right below where the Lakota was docked. The auction was for an A.I. intelligence that had merged with a human mind or soul naturally that was housed in a cybernetic body. The party won the auction but the Zizta auctioneer warned the PC's not to free the cybernetic organism as it has a malevolent cunning. The players were less then thrilled when they learned that they bid on Maximillan.  The party traded him for 20,000 credits to a group of 'the Programmers of Lom'. A race who studies A.I. entities for thier religion. 

The PC's wanted to check out the Lakota more and what they found aboard was a working Drive Box. The Drive box has upgraded the systems and answers to the name 'jenn'i'fer'. The A.I. artifact system is incredibly valuable. So why would Vokun warlord named Kotgo have sold such a valuable starship with this technology?! 

Well what's really going on here is the fact that my last Stars Without Numbers Strange Stars/Phaseworld game back in 2020 went nowhere. The players fell apart after one of them suddenly got married and had a child on the way. The Lakota went back to the last party's patron. Kotgo is taking a gamble on the new party. This was all from my Strange Stars campaign notes. 

Weird Wednesday OSR Film Inspiration - Disney's The Black Hole Film from 1979

I actually saw this movie at a drive in back in 1979, I was nine years old. It pretty much screwed me up for life. The movie plot is as follows: It is the year 2130 A.D. An Earth exploratory ship, the USS Palomino, discovers a black hole with a lost ship, the USS Cygnus, just outside its event horizon. Deciding to solve the mystery of the Cygnus are: the Palomino's Captain, Dan Holland; his First Officer, Lieutenant Charlie Pizer; journalist Harry Booth; scientist and ESP-sensitive Dr. Kate McCrae, whose father was the Cygnus's First Officer; Dr. Alex Durant, the expedition's civilian leader; and the robot known as V.I.N.CENT. The Palomino attempts a dangerous fly-by of the darkened ship. As they come within close range of it, the buffeting they experience (due to the black hole's gravity) suddenly ceases. They bring more instruments to bear on the derelict, but do not even realize the gravity-free zone is artificial; slipping outside it, they are almost drawn into the black hole, an abyss from which no one can escape...

.There are a few things about the movie that just jump out at you The black hole is one of them. To my mind it was like a bath tube drain on reality. Crushing, sucking, eating everything around it. It might have been a new god if there ever was one. It was relentless. The thing was like a red hued hell mouth. The soundtrack brought this right in.
  Then there are the robots but maximilan is the one that really stands out in my mind's eye. This evil red thing looks like a robot designed by Satan himself. This multi tooled thing of evil  is straight out of a Lovecraftian nightmare. I've seen all kinds of theories about Max on the internet. The bot was the devil watching over the Doctor, the bot was actually the doctor & the mad scientist was simply a clone,  & Max was the embodiment of the doctor's genocidal evil in robot form. The list is pretty endless. 

 Then there's the The U.S.S. Cygnus. WOW!!! What a beautiful ship.That holds more then a few deadly secrets!

Vincent & Old Bob are great little bots & somewhat in the vein of R2D2 & C3PO but they have their own charm. As can be seen from this scene.
Robert Forster is the quietly authoritative captain of an exploration ship that stumbles across the seemingly derelict ship, and Anthony Perkins, Yvette Mimieux, Ernest Borgnine, and Joseph Bottoms fill out his crew. 

 Then we've got this guy! Dr. Hans Reinhardt is the heart & evil soul of this outfit. He is both the past of the Cynus & its present. He's a Dr.Nemo, Mr.Spock, & Victor Frankenstein all rolled into one. Only he's got the ego to wrestle with the black hole & the will to develop the technology that allows him to survive amid the most destructive force in the universe! At a price though.

I'm not mentioning the crew because well  go watch the movie.. The influences on another film like say Event Horizon are pretty clear 


The Black Hole & The OSR 


One wouldn't think that there's a lot to work with here. One would be wrong. Let hit the highlights.. 

• The Cynus - This ship has megadungeon all over it. Seriously this monstersity has a number of decks plus hydroponics, factories, drones, abandon sections, etc. The ship is made to be explored! Do you think that the crew of the Palomino is the first aboard this haunted derelict of a ship? What other secrets are aboard. The gravity generators keeping the ship away from the monster black hole, the incredible reactor systems, the secret note books of Hans himself! 
•  ESP-sensitive scientist Dr. Kate McCrae & here relationship with the rest of the crew. Hans treats her as if Psionics isn't that big of a deal. Perhaps its not in 2130 A.D.
• What's up with this future world of 2130 A.D.? The world seems pretty exploration happy. We're expanding outward into the universe in this movie & not all of space is a happy place at all. What's up with those other ships that the Palomino goes through while identifying the Cynus? What happened to those other ships? Maybe there's an adventure waiting in the wings right there. 
• The movie tests the boundaries of reality at the edge of the event horizon. There's an atmosphere here. What's up with that? Perhaps the black hole touches the outer darkness between the stars? Who knows what might emerge from some planar nether world
• Could there have been a few survivors of the Dr. Hans Reinhardt mutiny? Perhaps their still out there in cold sleep. There  might be an adventure right there. 
• Perhaps the hell that the crew of the Cynus reaches isn't entirely closed off & there may be those willing to serve vs working in the strange hell like place. 
• Perhaps a rescuae ship is sent after the Palomino & encounters the remains of the ship. The trail leads to the black hole where the Max/Dr. Hans Reinhardt entity are still trapped. Things might go from bad to worse.
• How did  Hans Reinhardt  build all of those robots & Max plus those anti gravity generators, the reactors etc. Where might he have gotten those types of technology? May be he found an artifact of this type & had his intellect boosted Here

Black Hole Links 

• 
  One of the best break downs & reviews of the movie
• Concept art of the robots from the black hole
• An Atomic Rocket Site for those inspiring impulse engine designs
• Space 1970 Black Hole Comic Book
• Great Model of the Cynus