The Mecha Question In The Cepheus Engine rpg -- Moon Toad Design's Cepheus Engine Rpg Vehicle Design Guide & Walkers Vehicles Volume 1 from The Traveler's Aid Society from Northern Edge.

" Rafe watched the shell from his tank’s 120mm main gun hit the enemy grav tank on the rear quarter facing, punching through the thin armour and sending it spiraling into the side of the closest hill where it exploded into a large fireball. He fancied he heard the tiny shattered pieces patter off the front glacis of his turret.

“Next position Jessika, before they pick on us”

“Aye Skipper”

As his tank swung out of its hide and disappeared into the piled up rubble of the small town, Rafe smiled at the stupidity of an enemy thinking they could mount a big energy gun onto an armoured vehicle and still not provide sufficient armour to protect it. High tech fools.

So you need a vehicle and cannot find the right one? Does the vehicle you have lack for speed or a big gun?

With the Vehicle Design Guide you can simply design your own with your specifications to suit your setting and campaign.

The VDG allows you to design pretty much any vehicle type for any role you can think of. From massive sea going battleships to fast grav vehicles perfect for fast jaunts around the new world your player’s battered trader has arrived to explore.

Included in the VDG are multiple chassis types, weapon types, armour rules and all manner of internal and external options for any design. Further, a new streamlined vehicle combat system is provided. Finally there are over fifty completed vehicles to use in any adventure and for any setting.

Including with this product are a number of form fillable PDF forms, that you can use for your own creations. They cover all the chassis in the book."

For the last twenty four hours, the question of mecha in Cepheus Engine rpg have come up. These mecha are on the smaller side for PC's & after posing the question to the Cepheus Engine rpg community on social media on Facebook & Me We. The Cepheus Engine community responded in spades. Overwhelmingly the consense was that Moon Toad Design's Cepheus Engine Rpg  Vehicle Design Guide has a very well designed section on walkers or mecha. 

These walkers will do very nicely for the types of encounters we're going to be designing for our upcoming campaign According to Robert Allen Murphy; " there's walker design notes, a design sheet, and 3 example designs in the book:
A Macross-style medium combat walker, an ALIENS-style power loader like exoskeleton, and a light "rock crawler" recreational sounding one."  This is going to be excellent for old school space opera & planet side mecha battles we're going to be planning. Now Jeff Hoff in the Cepheus Engine Facebook group suggested, Walkers Vehicles Volume 1 from The Traveler's Aid Society from Northern Edge. Man, this is a beauty of an rpg product and no frills at all but all mecha ready to go! And a really nice favorite cover of ours as well! That mech looks ready to kick major ass! 

Walkers is an excellent product that clocks in at fifteen pages of walkers, mecha's, and nasty smaller mecha that looks like it could be real headache to PC's. And this product is easily added into the Cepheus Engine rpg. These types of mecha could easily be added into These Stars Are Ours or even   Independence Games Clement Sector. 

These mecha in both Walkers & Moontoad Vehicles Design Guide are perfectly suited to the Clement Sector. The Clement sector has the perfect blend of Cepheus Engine rpg technologies & the engineering knowhow to make mecha work within the setting. The mecha could have had a role within the wars for the human's freedom in the  These Stars Are Ours setting. This is  especially true of  mecha converted from industrial  haulers into walkers. These pieces of equipment could have been critical at the human's break point from their alien masters within history of the TSRO's campaign setting. 
As humanity has loosened its alien shackles mecha have simply been a part of the weaponry that humanity has come to rely on over the centuries. 
Within our own Cepheus Engine campaigns humanity has rediscovered the secrets of mecha manufacturing & distribution. Humanity has used mecha in running warfare against several alien races including the Grays. The Cepheus Engine rpg  community continues to be amazing with an incredibly creative & vigourous creator & fan community. These guys & gals have had myself & player's backs! Thanks guys! 

The New England Bouys & The Tablet of Destiny - The Corman Incident - Game Session Report Number 8

 

Last night's gaming session was interesting, the New England Bouys want to really concentrate on the mining side of things.  They want to let the mercenaries deal with the other issues on Xabria Prime. The cover from below is for the new Hostile setting book coming out soon! Can't wait so I've been using it for my DM screen art work. 

Tonight's Hostile/Cepheus Engine hybrid game picks right up from last week's game session here.

 





























The bouys came across this alien tablet when they were hitting mine claims on Xarbia  based on the artwork of  Andrea Bonazzi used without permission.

When it comes to  the Xarbia sector the players don't have all of the answers. The  Reticulans play a very significant role in the Xarbia sector but their almost afraid of it. A sort of 'hands off' land lord role in the sector. The question is why?! The Bouys have set up three mining claims on the planet of Xarbia prime so far. And while they have been buzzed by Reticulan military their clashes so far have been with the mercenary units on the planet side. The mercenaries have literally pushed them away from the 'abandoned'  wreck of the USS Roger Corman. But it was the activity of the mercenary forces at the alien pyramid  using flame throwers on a whole lor of weird proto plasmic like alien life forms! The merc's lost three of their own to the alien bastard things due to cold dice on my part! 

The Reticulans brought in two of their military saucers & blasted the Hell out of the protoplasmic life forms. They then brought any mercenary survivors aboard their saucers. 
The New England Bouys scored several lucrative mining claims planet side & its been handy to have Joseph Mohr's Gold Rush on hand for this. 

So far the corporates back home have been please about the 'Bouys' progress but Xabria is proving to be a bit of a mystery. And the 'Bouys' want to bring in a full corporate  security & xeno squad to handle some of what their seeing. They are extremely cautious! Several of the alien ruins & dungeons.  They deployed a robotic probe & followed the NPC merc's back to their camp on the night side of Xarbia. 

And that's when they found out that there was no mercenary camp anymore on the nightside of Xabria Prime. They detected strange single celled goo all over the area where the camp used to be! 

Terrestrial Shoggoth by the very talented King Ov Rats (www.devaintart.org) 

The New England Bouys & The Tablet of Destiny - The Corman Incident - Session Two

Tonight's Hostile/Cepheus Engine hybrid game picks right up from last week's game session here. Here's the new Hostile rpg rule book cover & the setting book cover as well. Can't wait to get my hands on these from Zozer Games! According to Paul Elliot in the Cepheus Engine Facebook group; "The rulebook and setting book will be separate purchases, but if you already have the 2017 Hostile book, you will get the setting book PDF automatically."

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The party in tonight's game began exploring the mining & genetic research station on the remote desert planet of Xarbia. But they did this with their own the 'Hermon' the 400-ton   Leopold class drilling rig belonging to the Bouy's employer Allard Electronics. They dropped their own drilling rig on the planet to operate as both headquarters & survey point. The bouys will not trust any of the older facilities planetside?! 

 During tonight's game the New England Bouys found out that they are not quite as alone as they thought on the remote desert planet of Xarbia! They detected a fast moving six man APC which held mercenaries who apparently came through the same gateway as the Bouys. The PC's didn't take any chances. They deployed a robotic probe & followed the NPC merc's back to their camp on the night side of Xarbia. 

They found activity of the merc's using flame throwers on a whole lor of weird proto plasmic like alien life forms! The merc's lost three of their own to the alien bastard things due to cold dice on my part. 

Terrestrial Shoggoth by the very talented King Ov Rats (www.devaintart.org) 

The mercenaries have put up a guardian  military force around the 

the Xarban Gateway. The Bouys are avoiding direct military conflict until they can get word from Earth. 

The second Xarbia gatway based on the artwork of 

 Andrea Bonazzi used without permission.

The Bouys managed to get a slice of a burst transmission that was directed at the gateway from the mercenaries. The question is which corporation is at the moment directing the mercenaries & whose on the ground directing operations on Xarbria. The Bouys further survey mission uncovered another Xarbia gateway. The questuon is where does it go?! And then there's the question of the the pyramid discovered in last week's game. 
They have detected a downed saucer & a Reticullan  transport crashed near the pyramid. Both of these space craft are straight outta of Stellagamma Publishing's U.F.O.  supplement.  

The Reticullans play a very sigficiant role in the Xarbia sector but its gonna be a New York minute before the players learn about this. But the players are extremely cautious about the U.S.S. Roger Corman. The 'abandoned' delerict marine transport bothers them on so many levels. 

The New England Bouys & The Xarban Gateway - The Corman Incident - Session One Report

 

The Xarban Gateway 
Artwork by Andrea Bonazzi used without permission.


There's been a ton of things afoot in the New England Boi's Hostile rpg sessions over the last two weeks. The PC's managed to pass through an ancient alien gateway into the Xarba sector! And they found themselves half way across the galaxy! And at an old mining  & genetic engineering research station pre Shattering. The Boi's also found an old marine transport vessel the U.S.S. Corman floating in low orbit. 

The Boi's found an anbandoned  genetic research station located on the remote desert planet of Xarbia. In low orbit was a marine troop transport ship also with no one on board. The space craft was a tomb but a very lurcritive tomb. Near the mining outpost was a very nice little flying saucer manufactored by the Nestor alien collective. Again worth a bit of a packet unto itself. 

But somehow I get the feeling that the players aren't trusting me at all as a DM. So they send down a prodroid  to take a look planetside. Remember this is a Cepheus/Hostile hybrid campaign using the events of 'These Stars Are Ours' as a part of the background. They found an alien pyramid on the nightside of  planet of Xarbia, The players were not happy with the appearance of this alien pyramid at all. They sent in another probe robot to the pyramid & their preceeding with caution. The party has detected the presence of some human DNA around the station. But certain section of the station had been exposed to the desert elements of the  planet of Xarbia. 

A third probe robot was sent into marine transport the USS Corman. The probe was 'assaulted' by spinning lights that whisked around the pro robot. But sensor readings were inconclusive. The lights disappeared but they did detect A.I. robotic activity coming from within the Corman. 

Treat the Nestor saucer as if it was a Civilian Saucer & use the stats from Stellagamma Publishing's U.F.O.  supplement.  We've upgraded the Boi's suits from Zozer Games Hostile's Explorers as per our last game's corporate restock & reward for finding the gateway. 

OSR Commentary - Dark Conspiracy & The Origins of the Malmori Empire in The Talon Sector Campaign For The Cepheus Engine Rpg

 Gotta love gamers, since yesterday their have been numerous folks now jumping on the Dark Conspiracy train. Well today we're gonna talk about the origin of the Malmori Empire within my modified Hostile/Cepheus Engine rpg  campaign. The campaign's version of the Malmori empire was born out of several  books Hostile's Crew Expendible, Synethtics, Darktek, More G3G book, & These Stars Are Ours campaign setting book. The Malmori Empire is a race of space pirates under the control of the warlord Sador. They've been the 'big bad' since the campaign's inception but actually their a red herring in every sense of the word. 

When the Reticulan empire fell their humanoid clone worker race was left to its own devices but they were completely purposeless. Their Gray masters had left them many of their own devices but the ancient  Malmori were vulnerable to the whispers of far darker voices from between the stars. So they took up to the stars again mining & generally behaving in the fashion that they had under their master's yoke. The Malmori were cloned from ancient peoples of Earth eons ago taken in one of the many Reticulan raids on Earth. 
Soon came mankind spinning out among the stars with planetary colonies & taking control of many of the Malmori mining terroritories. Shades of the 'Pirates of the Ancient Mediterranean' ; "the decline of the Seleucid Empire in the 2nd century BCE and ended when Pompey the Great (l. c. 106-48 BCE) defeated the Cilician pirates at the Battle of Coracesium in 67 BCE when, actually, Egyptian records substantiate piratical activities in the Mediterranean centuries earlier and Roman accounts report its continuance for centuries afterwards. " Many of the alien species encountered were actually mankind genetically modified by the Reticulans. The Malmori were an early attempt & were perhaps made with a modified genetic flaw. Their organs & body parts would break down after the 20 year mark. 

A Malmori warrior whose battle/medical suit keeps him intact against the hostil effects of a planetary atmosphere. 

The warlord Sador was a part of the elite cast & could live up to two hundred years with organ & limb replacement. The Malmori were made using the rules & guidelines found in Zozer Games Synethtics book. But these clone armies are flawed because the clones were force grown using the cloners found in the Darktek book.

 This particular band of Reticulans had fallen under the sway of dark forces & so too were the Malmori. Since the advent of the psionic storms they have had no further contact with humanity. But they retained many of the star ships left by their Reticulan masters. This included several stellar converters used for harvesting the cores of planets or converting stars into highly unstable radioactives for processing.

 

 Only recently have several Habringer cargo carriers  started to go missing along the border with the Human Empire have the corporations noticed the return of the Malmori empire. Patterns indicate that there may far more going on here as entire crews have been missing or harvested depending upon the rumors. The Reticulan empire is particuarly silent upon the mattter for moment. Weaponry & tactics of the Malmori  come straight out of the More G3G book. While some of the technologies of the Malmori themselves are left over Darktek equipment used by their twisted Reticulan empire former masters. TSAO: 50 Wonders of the Reticulan Empire  represents another branch of the Reticulans who have not fallen under the thrall or yoke of the dark masters of the far darker Greys.  Star Law is only coming under the suspision that the Malmori are becoming a problem once again. What's really been helpful here is Piracy and Privateering in fleshing out aspects of the Malmori Empire. Are the Malmori victims of circumstance or have they become tools for something far more dangerous?!