Beta Max Black - War Among The Stars - Stars Without Numbers & Cepheus Engine Rpg Campaign Dungeon Master Workshop Session Report #2

 Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
  Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,
I have lived o'er my lives without number,
  I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.

I have whirled with the earth at the dawning,
  When the sky was a vaporous flame;
I have seen the dark universe yawning
  Where the black planets roll without aim,
Where they roll in their horror unheeded, without knowledge or lustre or name.

I had drifted o'er seas without ending,
  Under sinister grey-clouded skies,
That the many-forked lightning is rending,
  That resound with hysterical cries;
With the moans of invisible daemons, that out of the green waters rise.

I have plunged like a deer through the arches
  Of the hoary primordial grove,
Where the oaks feel the presence that marches,
  And stalks on where no spirit dares rove,
And I flee from a thing that surrounds me, and leers through dead branches above.

I have stumbled by cave-ridden mountains
  That rise barren and bleak from the plain,
I have drunk of the fog-foetid fountains
  That ooze down to the marsh and the main;
And in hot cursed tarns I have seen things, I care not to gaze on again.

I have scanned the vast ivy-clad palace,
  I have trod its untenanted hall,
Where the moon rising up from the valleys
  Shows the tapestried things on the wall;
Strange figures discordantly woven, that I cannot endure to recall.

I have peered from the casements in wonder
  At the mouldering meadows around,
At the many-roofed village laid under
  The curse of a grave-girdled ground;
And from rows of white urn-carven marble, I listen intently for sound.

I have haunted the tombs of the ages,
  I have flown on the pinions of fear,
Where the smoke-belching Erebus rages;
  Where the jokulls loom snow-clad and drear:
And in realms where the sun of the desert consumes what it never can cheer.

I was old when the pharaohs first mounted
  The jewel-decked throne by the Nile;
I was old in those epochs uncounted
  When I, and I only, was vile;
And Man, yet untainted and happy, dwelt in bliss on the far Arctic isle.

Oh, great was the sin of my spirit,
  And great is the reach of its doom;
Not the pity of Heaven can cheer it,
  Nor can respite be found in the tomb:
Down the infinite aeons come beating the wings of unmerciful gloom.

Through the ghoul-guarded gateways of slumber,
  Past the wan-mooned abysses of night,
I have lived o'er my lives without number,
  I have sounded all things with my sight;
And I struggle and shriek ere the daybreak, being driven to madness with fright.
Nemesis  (1917) 
by H. P. Lovecraft

So yesterday around about having a meeting with DM Greg & his wife (who murdered his PC) gave me a whole lot of  Mongoose Traveller material including Chthonian Stars rpg pdf a setting book from Wildfire. And its old news going back to 2012. 

But what we'd do is cut this setting back a bit by using Zozer Games Hostile rpg to run this setting but there'd be a few changes to boot  as suggested by Greg & Cathy: 

• Bring in psionics into the mix 
• Make adjustments to the Lovecraftian entities fit the setting we've been running so far. 
• Concentrate on both Earth side as well as other areas of the solar system.. 
• Use what's come before in our already established Eighties fueled campaign that's on going. 

And this brought up an pivot point in the Cepheus Engine/Star Without Numbers campaign of the Talon Sector . Earth has been cut off & fallen way down the technological ladder here cut off by massive psionic storms. Its been suggested by Greg that these aliens may know far more then their letting on to the Earthers. And this brought up our old Nineties campaign Dark Conspiracy rpg which will work with our Hostile rpg system. So in one fell swoop we've got two monster options as well as a slimmed down PC generation. The entire back catalog of DC material is available for sale on Drivethrurpg. So there's a lot of campaign notebooks to sort through. 

But there are plans within plans here as old ideas & new systems clash, we're still ironing out the details but campaign plans are moving ahead. One of the first things to deal with is the unexplored back adventure we had in DC about the Martian colonies that were cut off by the psionic storm. 
For this we're gonna be using Outpost Mars & going to be having a bunch of adventures on Mars coming up. 

For the Martian exploration we're gonna be using Roughnecks again & picking up right from the lower technology threshold. Mars isn't as unexplored as it might seem. There have been certain rumblings on social media but that's about it. More as this develops... 

The Talon Sector is starting to come together well, & that's thanks in part to the free resources from the Dark Conspiracy fan site here. 

Beta Max Black - War Among The Stars - Stars Without Numbers & Cepheus Engine Rpg Campaign Session Set Up Mark II

 This blog post is going to pick up right from last night's session report. Because game events have been heating up. 

The player's PC's made it back with the A.I. from the mecha from last night's game after Greg's marine Private Strawberry Shortcake was pushed infront of the M.A.R.K. 13. This was done  by his wife Cathy's character so the rest of the party could escape. RIP Shortcake your sacrifice will not be in vein. Greg was being a dick & holding up the game. He got in his wife's way & she took matters into her own hands for the party. No one went back for his dog tags because they were too busy escaping in the marine's ship. A bunch of Imperial marines had to land to do clean up after the events on Parson's hammer. 


And this blog post  is going to pick up in the Talon sector & marine head quarters  which crosses over into this blog post here.  The marine's tech com department is going over the A.I.'s life history & comes across several star maps of  sectors of space that have been closed since the psionic storms have kicked up. The A.I. brain  knew the hyperspace time space corridors needed to open up several 'lost' sectors of space. This is where we'll be using Star Without Number Revised for the Talon sector material . These are some of the sources  to convert back & forth between Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number'. 

Here's some of my sources: 
Stars Without Number Vs Original Traveller 

Mixing Traveller & Stars Without Number 

Traveller vs Stars Without Number 

The Earth Empire is hotly interested in those sectors because they've been cut off for so long from the interstellar scene. The Pan Asian Coalition agent among the marines has already turned her copy of the AI over to her employer. But in New England a small & very aggressive company is already  hellbent on making contact with the former colony worlds during the Earth Empire's greatest period. This could be very bad indeed as the Million Star Empire could rush in & take over 'The United Planets' without a second thought. Could psionics be having visions about the Godstar?

"Within the Million Sun Empire sits a desert world orbiting a sentient star: god-himself-the Godstar. Pilgrims flock to it with their offerings. The Godstar's oracles gives out advice, formulae, prognostications and strategy. It is a holy world. But war forced industrialisation on the planet Aurelia, causing social tension and conflict.

A new noble house, House Pelinor, has been granted the fiefdom of Aurelia, but it has many enemies: the local Utani Sand Men, the priests of the Church of the Godstar, the rival House Arakan that it deposed, local crimelords and even the Skygazers, those wandering mystics who claim to speak with the Godstar as they meditate whilst staring up at the blazing disc. They have paranormal powers."

Members of the Pan Asian Colition know the ancient threat  of the Church of the Godstar's armies. They have their own psionics looking into certain ruins out among the asteroid fields along the border of the psionic storms. Places where the Memori Empire pirate fleets have been waiting for blood. And along those same fields miners & prospectors move among the debris, asteroids, & worldlets. There are secrets among those fields. Deadly secrets waiting & dangling using Zozer Games Roughnecks. 

The New England Bouys have just picked up a corporate sponsor in last night's campaign session but that's a blog post coming up. 
Meanwhile the Earth Empire is still relatively cut off from the rest of the universe. How did things get this way?! This was caused by Dr. Hans Reinhardt taking the secrets of antigravity & certain aspects of gravity drive FTL with him when he stole the USS Cynus. 

 Dr. William Weir, followed in the footsteps of Reinhardt  & everyone knows of the second greatest space disaster  in history  with the U.S.S. Event Horizon. Its only a matter of time before the interstellar scene heats up. 

Unblinking eyes watch from the shadows & there are already whispers among the scientist & sorcerer classes among the Greys. And there are those members of the Akira Cosairs who follow the ways of the Varta who know some of the horrors that wait for our heroes. 

Beta Max Black - Turning Up The Eighties - Stars Without Numbers & Cepheus Engine Rpg Campaign Session set Up

 During last night's game session several PC's were rolled up that didn't quite fit & then today there was a visit from DM Steve. We're getting back together tonight & another old campaign is now haunting me as a dungeon master! 

'What happened to the Talon Sector?! Did your former Stars Without Numbers campaign disappear in a smoke cloud of redundancy? Did it evaporate in the morning light of old stale beer?!'  So DM Steve stopped by today, and we got to talking about Cepheus Engine & my former Stars Without Number rpg campaign. 'You were writing blog posts & what not. What the frell happened?!', Steve has a way with words. 'Your running a Cepheus Engine rpg campaign. Its fine & dandy. You know how to convert back & forth between Cepheus Engine & Stars Without Number'. 

Here's some of my sources: 
Stars Without Number Vs Original Traveller 

Mixing Traveller & Stars Without Number 

Traveller vs Stars Without Number 

The reason why the entire Talon Sector campaign setting went South was due to the death of two our friends & players. That's last year's news & its time to pick things up by their boot straps. The Talon sector was ripped off from erm inspired by Fifties, Sixtie, Seventies & Eighties sci fi shows. The sector is not completely isolated but hard to get through by hyperspace.. The Earth empire here is coming back after the wrenching of the moon from its orbit. Talon sector is one of the alien ghettos that still is easily reachable by Earth & the United Planets has been taking full advantage of this. Star ships with hyperdrives are being taken out of mouth balls & being manufactured again.  The corporations are only loosely in control barely holding on to their interstellar grip. The Star Law has only recently breeched the psionic storm & they have a very iffy bit of influence here. 


 Terraforming technologies have gotten Earth back almost but not quite where they need to be. Psi division of Earth is trying to get past the psionic storm that surrounds the outer edges of the Talon sector. So what happens when a Talon sector space pirate cruiser kidnaps a group of marines, a space cop, some psions, from my Hostile rpg campaign & drops them in the middle of a local interstellar war?

Because by the Varta that's a Roger Corman pirate cruiser with a stellar converter on it from 'Battle Beyond the Stars'. And you know that things are going to get very real coming up tonight. But what the players don't know is that that their PC's are about to be sold into slavery. 

Slavery in this case is too some NPC's from Cha'alt. Yes that's right kids. Cha'alt crosses over into the Talon sector who knew?! In tonight's game Cha'alt: Fuchsia Malaise time line has slipped up & into the campaign. Who will survive & what will be the result?! What did you think that Venger's gift was a one off?! Nope there's more happening then it looks like. 

So for the Cepheus Engine Rpg  & Stars Without Numbers books that are currently being used in tonight's game session: 
Hostile rpg campaign setting 

Hostile Technical Manual
Dead Names: Lost Races and Forgotten Ruins
Piracy and Privateering

The Space Patrol

Hartford Beta Max Black Book Stars With Number Campaign Notes - The Talon Sector Now With More Cha'alt - Zero Session Campaign Workshop

 If I'm going to tell the campaign setting of the Talon sector then its gonna be through the lens of  Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown.  There are several reasons for this but there's a lot of real world stuff behind some of this campaign switch up the least of which is Covid's impact. 

For the last couple of months a number of campaigns of mine have collapsed because of Covid & the deaths of two of our players. This happens when there's an empty chair or two at the table. These included Astonishing Swordsmen & Sorcerers of Hyperborea, the Victorious rpg, & to some extent my Cha'alt/Godbound rpg. 


So in the meantime while all of these events  have been going on around us, the time has been taken up with relearning the original Traveller rpg & Cepheus engine rpg at the same time. And with this out came the Stars Without Number rpg books. That's where the arguments started between the players which basically boiled down to scaling back the game. Now really this isn't a problem because a number of players want to bring over their Dungeons & Dragons characters. Now here's the part where we start talking about Stars Without Numbers Revised rpg . 
The SWN revised book has the space magic section & its here where the meet point between Dungeons & Dragons, Cha'alt, & the Talon sector is. According to the revised SWN rule book;"Space Magic, with rules and guidelines for introducing sorcerous powers and old-school magic into your starfaring adventurers, with sagacious Magisters, versatile Arcanists, and Adepts graced with supernatural powers."
Its within this zone of weirdness that the The Codex of the Black Sun: Sorcery for Stars Without Number emerges. 

The Talon sector is one whose planar stability has been weakened with Entropic weapons. Things from the outside have been coming through for decades. This has created psychers for hundreds of years & a new Caesar has only recently emerged. The Space Patrol has its agents & advisors within the court now. And this is setting up some of the coming conflict. 



 The sector is under the control of royals that resemble the courts from the '82 film Krull. Dangerously Dark Ages & utterly hide bound with royal houses with martial & family ties. Its only been a few hundred years after the events of the coming of something like the Beast from Krull. 

Contact between the Galatic Imperium has been reestablished but the royals are already chaffing under the invisible chain & collar of the Imperium. Psychers have emerged & left planet side as opportunities present themselves. Here's where Character Options for Stars Without Number From Stellagama Publishing comes into play. Players were asking about this particular book for alternative psychics. 

 Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown are figures out of legend & they cast a very long shadow among the adventuring community. But its the horrors that still lay in  the Caverns of Quasqueton that no one is talking about. Meanwhile silent black eyes watch from the darkness taking the odd farmer, banker, merchant, & prince. 

And what of Cha'alt?! The hordes of Cha'alt stand on the precipice & the threshold just waiting to invade through the old gateways & no one's the wiser?! Or are they?! Emerald seers watch from the sidelines & hidden places to advise the Caesar from the shadows. 

Witches & black masses are happening on the Borderlands as the Cults of Chaos gather their armies in the old places. The darkness gathers once again as the fires are lit in the keeps at the edges of the continents. 

So why has everything accelerated?! Has the world doomed itself again with massive plunge into darknesss?! No instead the events time table has moved up. Why? Because eighteen months have passed & the black pyramid waits for no man & the forces of Chaos know it! They can feel it! 

Hartford Beta Max Black Book Stars With Number Campaign Notes - The Talon Sector & Some Ideas With The Sword of Cepheus rpg

Been doing a lot of thinking about the Talon sector over the last twenty four hours. And really going over my campaign notes. Over the last couple of weeks 'the OSR' has taken notice of the fact that I've been doing quite a bit with both Cepheus engine rpg & the original  Traveller rpg  I started back tracking  Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown through an urban interstellar landscape. Is the Talon sector a post Scream location( the over acrching Stars Without Number rpg event) or other?! The more I'm looking into it the more I'm leaning towards 'other event'. But what about a fantasy interstellar landscape?! 


 So it became a matter of  thumbing through Dragon magazine issue #136, last night. If you don't have this issue its highly recommended because its an almost complete urban tool kit unto itself. The reason is because there's been a thought or two rattling around my head. 

My real reason is that going through my books whist reading my campaign notes some stuff just isn't gelling properly in my mind. The 'event' could be psychic in origin but there's more going on here. The truth is that there's no need for yet another rpg book on my shelf at this point. Yeah I know that Kevin Crawford does amazing rpg work for OSR  sand boxing. But when kickstarters hit the $155,000 dollar mark I back off a bit. This rpg is gonna come my way later on in 2021 I think so its being put on the campaign back burner. 

So instead I've  have been turning back to the smaller rpg table  ventures in this case, The Sword of Cepheus rpg in point of fact. Why?! Because of the scaling of the rpg system. And this is another advantage of the OSR. You can mix & match rpg systems as needed. 

So its nice to be under the radar of the OSR for a bit and there's a quite a trail of Cepheus rpg material that takes my imagination into ideas for the campaign. The mix & match of the science fantasy elements of the Talon sector is something that's weighing on me. The fiction of Paul Anderson especially his story Anderson's novella "Witch of the Demon Seas" (published under his "A. A. Craig" byline) has many of the elements that I'm looking for. 

Many of the genre elements are easily duplicatable: 

1. The Sword of Cepheus rpg has several systems that work well as a side campaign world. 
2. Because this is a convertable system its one that can be used as needed. 
3. The entire campaign mix is going to have a mix of Swords & Sorcery with psychics & wizards. 
4. This is going to take its P's & Q's from classic Pulp science fiction.
5. The fantasy elements are not over whelming and actually managable. 
6. There's campaign crossover potential with These Stars Are Ours!

I'm looking forward to Omar Joel's release of 2 Stellagama Publishing: The Zeta Menace! Gray Aliens and their UFOs for Stars Without Number: Revised Edition!

The Reticulans haven't let up their nefarious  activities even in a fantasy environment. Is the Talon sector near the sectors of  These Stars Are Ours! setting?! We shall see coming up.. 

Hartford Beta Max Black Book Stars With Number Campaign Notes - The Talon Sector

 

There are times when a ton of thoughts cross this brain of mine & the Cepheus Engine rpg  has been brewing at the back of my brain now for a while. But there another thought going round the back part of my lizard brain. But my thoughts drift towards the Stars Without Number rpg & how much I used to have invested in my Hartford Beta Max Black Book Stars With Number campaign. This campaign ran for many years & chewed up time,player's PCs, lots of creativity & a few broken friendships along the way. Right now the Castles & Crusades Kickstarter is on & its a matter of waiting to be paid to back folks. 
Now tonight  we're faced with a possible Halloween game?! So what is one to do!? Well I busted out my Talon Sector campaign notes. The Talon sector is a very complicated mess of a SWN campaign a part of the Beta Max Black series. So why is the campaign called Beta Max Black?! Because  99.9 percent of the vintage movies, TV shows, and even to a certain extent the science fiction appeared when Beta Max tapes were all of the rage. So what does this have to do with B2 Keep on the Borderlands by Gary Gygax?! Everything actually.. This series began with B1 In Search of the Unknown the plot of which goes something like this; "Many years ago two wealthy adventurers, Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown, built a hidden complex known as the Caverns of Quasqueton. From this base, they conducted their affairs away from the prying eyes of civilization" In this campaign yes its very true that  Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown were adventurers but they were far more then they seemed. They were veteran adventurers in an interstellar war that was kicking up millions of light years  away. 

They created   Quasqueton in order to contain something very sinister & nasty that they had come across in their interstellar travels. If your looking for more really solid B1 resources see here on this blog.  But then 'the Scream' happened & they were presumed dead. But I'm looking into the possibility that they didn't simply vanish into the annals of history. So I've been looking into the possibilities of using Cheating Death 2nd Edition By Omer Golan-Joel.

This little nineteen page pdf isn't simply for the White Star Rpg but other OSR games ie the  Stars Without Number rpg . And I started to really look through my notes into the possibility of using Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown as major NPC's. These two having cheated death for thousands of years through some pretty nefarious means. Here's where I think they've both been doing some very dangerous & possibly nasty stuff. Rogahn the Fearless was said to have many strength enhancing 'magic items'. Maybe those 'magic items' were in fact cybernetic systems or even pre technologies. 

 
What about  Zelligar the Unknown?! We know that his stash of 'magic items' was often taken from other wizards & his books on magic were sought by guild masters of the wizard's guilds. He was rumored to have gotten into many wizard duels over the centuries & won. Did he bind something deadly within  the Caverns of Quasqueton or was there something already there?! 
There are rumors of him coming in contact with the forbidden techologies of the Great Race. 

So for adapting the Talon sector into the present day I'd design the sector itself using   the Cepheus Engine rpg & possibly Stars Without Number for the local Star System. So what's awaken Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown from cyro slumber?! That's where B2 The Keep on the Borderlands module comes into play. Some one or something has kicked up the heels of the mechanisms that are monitoring the locals. And Cult of Chaos has returned to the Caves of Chaos. This means that seat of one of the cult's place of power has returned back to full power. This in turn has summoned an army of humanoids. So in this back water planet military forces are in motion already with these Caves of Chaos house multiple species of vicious humanoids. If the cult was to get off planet the effects on a technologically backwards solor system could be devestating. 

The inspiration for this mix & match comes partially from  Poul Anderson's The High Crusade which was originally serialized in the July–August–September 1960 issues of Astounding. 
"First published in book form in 1960 by Doubleday, it has been published in (at least) June 1964 and September 1968 (by Macfadden Books), 1983, 1991 (by the SFBC and again by Baen Books), 2003, and most recently in 2010."

The PC's in this campaign are sent into this backwater sector to find out if   Rogahn the Fearless and Zelligar the Unknown are still alive & why a signal from  the Caverns of Quasqueton has reached the outer edges of the Talon sector. Why was this signal sent & what is the cause of it? 
Secondary inspirations for this campaign are the '82 film Krull which is the inspiration for the royal family family & the minor houses for the Talon sector. 

A minor detail of the Space Patrol has been assigned to the royal family but they've been in the Talon Sector so long that they've become a part of the local interstellar landscape. 

Already at the fringes of the Talon sector is the machine planet  Za- br7. three a pre Scream cybernetic hot spot run by the A.I. gods. This place is a haven for pirates & cyber criminals going back centuries. The planet is currently ruled by the current Cosair Queen Yrina. Many of the cybernetic organisms, wild robotic life forms, & rogue cyber creatures are descendents from the original Delos colony. The whole cloth material is taken from the Piracy and Privateering From 

Stellagama Publishing supplement. 

 One of the other supplements that's come in quite handy for designing the Za- br7. three has been Augmented Reality, The Holistic City Kit For Cyberpunk Games.This is pretty much been one of my go to cyberpunk city design kits for years. 

This is some of what I've got for the Talon Sector tonight but we'll be exploring more coming up. 

Dark Reaches - 'Into The Back of Beyond' Hartford Beta Max Black Edition Stars Without Numbers Actual Play Mission Part III

After dealing with Mi Go, and having their ship jump light years to a ruined & very primitive Earth. The PC's arrived in a world locked in a cycle of savagery and super science. They found the origin point of the time space gate was centered above some ancient insulation. There were signs and heat signatures that within the last seventy two hours there had been incredible activity at this location in the wastelands.
Details to the last game right over HERE

The party sent in probes from their ship into the area to investigate, catalog, and perhaps find out what the hell was going on. They managed to locate the vault doors to the military complex.

After a series of harrowing rolls to bypass the controls, the party managed to open the facility door. The interior of the place opened a second 'false front' and the party found themselves in a weird military style hanger filled with strange aircraft and huge stacks of alien and relic technology.
There was massive evidence of a series of melees and dust ups here.

Photo by Michael right over here

Fully armed the party moved in and saw loaders a ton of shell casings as well as carbon scoring on the boxes and artifacts. They found that one level of of the facility had been flooded with deadly radiation but they found a secret passage that lead to a hidden hallway.



Power was running, lights were on, and the facility had been powered from some external power source. There was more evidence of combat and plenty of shell casings on the floor. The party heard noises above them and encountered four mutant Suit Chewers.
The mutant monsters dropped from the ceiling onto the party attracted by the party's probes and maintenance bots that followed in the wake of the party, it took the party a long time to deal with them.

The party made it past the suit chewers and into a deeper part of the underground base. Here more sights of a struggle and some sort of staging area.
There was very little resistance here at all. The party was a bit spooked as they were expecting mutant monsters round every corner. A few more mutant roaches and some skeletons were all that was found. 

More mazes of underground tunnels and a van greeted the party cautiously they checked out everything and other then a mutant roach encounter everything seemed rather oddly quiet.
Cautiously the PC's made their way down the halls finally coming into a massive warehouse space.

Stacked floor to ceiling with shipping containers and baring old Earth military markings. These containers contained ancient relics, alien artifacts, and at the center of the room the final 'treasure'.

Photo by Danny Cornelissen - http://www.portpictures.nl

The final prize stood in the center of the massive warehouse space. The Moondial which had created the first time space gate activated by the other party of adventurers in the Thundarr game last week. The dungeon was free of monsters because it had been cleaned out by the other players last week. There were all kinds of dangerous relics and artifacts lying around and not to mention the Moondial. So after some lengthy discussion the party of SWN adventurers decided to take the treasure and shut down the moon dial. The time space gate artifact was too dangerous to fall into the hands of a group of primitives such as the Thundarr party. There will be massive repercussions for this especially after the SWN party closed down the gate! Thus limiting the options of the other adventures after dealing with the base's primitive A.I. system. The other party of adventurers will be returning to the vault and expecting their treasure and artifacts to be present only to have it stolen out from under them by some technological terrorist upstarts.
To be continued next week... 

1d10 Table of Weird Technological Finds Table From Tonight's Game 

1. Alien power crystal set with most of the common crystals still present worth 200 gold pieces 
2. Strange multi sided crystal matrix prism that shows the shadows of other planes & nearby gates. Worth 500 gold to a wizard. 
3. An alien blaster weapon capable of doing 1d8 points of damage per shot. Only has seven shots left. 300 gold pieces for the item. 
4. A partially melted piece of diamond, if analyzed by an alchemist the effect can be duplicated on other gems.  Worth 200 gold pieces 
5. A wand of detect technology, capable of finding artifacts and relics. Glows in the presence of level 4 science or better. 
6. Alien mind storage device, capable of downloading a mind for the uploading of a soul into a new clone body. Damaged though worth 1000 gold pieces to the right wizard. Doesn't look damaged. 
7. An ancient alien eye preserved in salt and brine that is capable of producing magical illusion of phantasmal force. This artifact can create seemingly real glowing monsters of weird and strange colours. Worth 400 to the right wizard. 
8. A sawed off shot gun notched with kills. With the words 'Close Encounters' on the butt. 
9. Ancient metal wand capable of creating force field bubbles of 50 points. 1d30 charges remaining. 
10. Ancient alien antigravity generator unit, capable of opening time/space warps to other dangerous and forbidden dimensions. Worth 500 gold pieces with a 60% chance of exploding ripping a hole in the time space continuum. 

Dark Reaches - Pluto Bound Hartford Beta Max Black Edition Stars Without Numbers Actual Play Mission Part II

The PC's ship arrived in the outer edges of our solar system near Pluto and discovered a United Planet's ship in sleep mode with 200 Riccian warriors in stasis on board. They were expecting a trap but the minor A.I. systems were in tact. There was little fuel and the ship had dropped out of hyperspace having run from some battle. The party only found out it was Mi Go later on.
The area that their in is very forbidding and tonight's game was mostly an investigation of this ship and an automated refueling station in deep orbit around a very remote planetoid.



The ship was a converted colonist and luxury craft now used for troop transport. The sleep pods were nominal and in the green.
The spike drive was off line and the redundant hyperspace system was low on fuel.

The PC's were able to get most systems on line and cautiously boarded the craft with a probe unit. That's when they detected a time space warp gate in engineering. The gate is stable but further investigation indicated that it would move with the ship should they tow it out of deep orbit.
The refueling station was on full automated status even though it should be fully occupied by Riccian United Planet crew at this point.

Weirdly enough records aboard the fuel station had the ring ship in its registry but none of the Riccians had any memory or recollection of it. The ship had been built while the crew were in sleep pods aboard the Battle Star Lemuria.
Records aboard the fuel station indicated that the crew who were missing had tangled with the Mi Go but the hive worlds of these horrors were not present much to the relief of the PC's.

There were indications that the star ship had tangled with an ran from the Mi Go after a protracted contact period.
After a complete and very by the book investigation of the ring ship. The PC's docked and came aboard. They let the Riccians take charge and get many of the lesser systems on line, bring some of the A.I. functions and computer systems back to spec and then check out the time gate.
The PC's sent another probe through the gate and arrived in a type E world with beautiful mountains and a strange set of ruins with recent horse tracks. There were indications of primitive tribes, some psychic activity, and a vast complex set of  underground ruins from which the gate way was being projected. The gateway of course leads straight to this world HERE
For now the PC's are in a deep orbit around the fuel station and are very cautiously peering into the darkness and keeping an eye out for the Mi Go. They've tangled with them a few weeks ago and have no wish to deal with them again ... yet.
Ending up in a brain cylinder doesn't sound like fun at this point.