Do Not Piss Off My Players [Stars Without Number]

BOOM!

So, my Stars Without Number players set off a nuke.

My players got their hands on a nuclear device and used it to destroy their enemies and a large chunk of the surrounding city and residents.

Serious.

It's easily the most destructive event to ever happen to me in 25 years of gaming. 

It wasn't a quick thing, either. They spent several sessions plotting and planning this thing, then took sneaky action to execute it. I'm not going to even try to fully relate several sessions of action and intent, but I want to go over the highlights. It's neat how a bunch of different elements from the entire campaign fell together.

Player “Heroes”

Dr. Donna Danger (Jackie Montana's new identity) (Expert, xeoarcheologist)

Pete Stevens (Warrior, assassin) 

Hana Sola (Expert, pilot)

NPC Hangers-On
Dr. Henry Chase (morally-suspect old professor)
Gluglich Sheboygen (Yurgling Psychic)
So very many robots.

Our heroes' started their careers by doing the occasional freelance mission for Oroborus Industries, the most powerful megacorp in Persephone Sector. After a few adventures, the players figured out that Oroborus Inc isn't just vaguely sinister, but actively evil. This didn't really bother them that much, truth be told.

Eventually the PCs struck out on their own, discovered a pre-tech garden and got their hands on a space ship.  

While exploring the pre-Scream ruins on Las Diablas, they discovered the coordinates to Darsalam, a system the PCs had never heard of. Excited, our heroes restocked their new ship (rechristened Wild Hunt) and headed out to Darsalam, full of exploratory spirit.

Imagine their surprise when the PCs discover that Oroborus is already in the Darsalam system. Not only that, but the evil megcorp has interdicted the entire system! Patrol ships keep out any interlopers, like Wild Hunt.

As soon as Wild Hunt enters the Darsalam system, the Oroborus ship Invisible Hand accosts them and orders their surrender. 

This doesn't go over well. Wild Hunt is boarded. The PCs repel the boarding crew and kill the enemy captain. Invisible Hand blasts them good. The PCs realize that they are heavily out-gunned but manage to spike out of system before they are destroyed. 

The PCs are pissed.  Not only in this interdiction illegal, but the PCs are mortally offended that Oroborus had the audacity to try and keep them out!

Thus begins the long plan. The PCs have an enemy now, and they want to hit them hard.

Do not piss off my players.

The PCs nurse their wounds on Cedar, the the native, forest-covered planet of the Naga. Oroborus has a small presence here. Hana and Pete use their criminal contacts to try and find other people with a grudge against Oroborus. 

The PCs hook up with a small terrorist faction known as The Native Clutch. This radical Naga group wants to remove all human presence from Cedar. Their current target is Robofactorum-14, an Oroborus commercial robot factory on a small island. They give the PCs a small quantum detonator. This device itself isn't actually a bomb, but if the PC attach it to the side of a reactor, it will cause the reactor to overload and explode once they hit the timer. It's a dumb man's bomb. 

The PCs blast their way into Robofactorium-14, with Hana gleefully using her new rocket launcher. They decide that they don't really need to use the quantum detonator to explode the factory's reactor. Instead, they use Donna's technical skills to cause a meltdown, and the factory goes up in a massive explosion. During the raid, they were also able to make off with over a dozen commercial robot chassis (mostly nemesis and echo frames).

Do not piss off my players.

The PCs leave Cedar, letting The Native Clutch take the blame for the attack. They now have a quantum detonator. They can attach it to any reactor (in a factory, city, starship, whatever) and make it explode. Or, if they get their hands on some fissionable materials, they figure can make a nuclear bomb.

Now they have a plan. They want to blow up Oroborus's corporate headquarters on Croesus.

They need to get their hands on some fissionable materials. The PCs set up a meeting with a representative from Titanomachy Technologies, the largest military tech corporation in the sector and Oroborus's most bitter rival. In a secret meeting on Las Diablas, the PCs broker the deal. In exchange for the pre-tech lab they discovered (complete with the highly valuable fruit garden), the PCs get 3 million credits in Titan Tech "gift certificates" and a small quantity of cobalt-X (a powerful explosive). 

As I expected, the vast majority of the Titanomachy credits go to re-outfitting their ship--better weapons, more armor, repair materials. Since cobalt-X is a controlled, tracked material, Titan Tech just can't give them the explosive. However, the Titan rep slips them the coordinates to a small, automated research station, out in the wilds of Netherpool. "The robots and equipment there might have some cobalt-X there. It'd be a damn shame if a bunch of miscreants stumbled in and took off with it."

This is, of course, just what the PCs do, although they do have to fight a giant cryo-wyrm that (unknown to all) had made the research station its new nest.

The PCs have cobalt-X. The PCs have a quantum detonator. Any tech worth her salt can make a nuke out of this. 

Donna uses one of the stolen echo frames to build Bob, a robot that looks exactly like human and will pass all but the most evasive medical tests. She puts the bomb inside his stomach and links them into with Hana's new ghost-talker cybernetics systems. They now have a robot suicide bomber (Bob Ba-Bomb).

Once a year, all the major stockholders, CEOs, and other corporate captains hold a shareholders' meeting/Roman bacchanal. The worst kind of excesses--the kind of stuff Enron only wishes they could have done. The PCs have been doing all this in the three months leading up to the party, and that party is almost here.

The meeting/retreat/bacchanal is going to be held on Oroborus's private pleasure airship. All the guests will board the ship at Oroborus tower. The president of Oroborus, Draconis Suresh, is even supposed to be in attendance.

This is the PCs' target.

Using the vintage Hawaiian shirts they originally found on their ship, they disguise Bob as an eccentric billionaire. Donna programs him with a loud and boisterous personality. Pete and the Wild Hunt are wanted in the Croesus system, so he and Donna hid the Wild Hunt in an asteroid field while Hana loads Bob into their shuttle. Hana uses some fancy flying to slip onto the planet undetected. She uses a good chunk of their dwindling cash to rent Bob a top-end grav-limo and send him off to Oroborus tower. Hana heads back into orbit.

Bob gets to the tower, but he has no invitation, and security is tight. However, Donna programmed him well, and he is able to bluster his way inside. Bob comes to another security check-point, right outside the boarding area. This check-point includes powerful medical scanners that will detect his robot nature.

The PCs trigger the bomb.

It's a nuke, a Hiroshima-sized nuke. It takes out Oroborus tower. It takes out the pleasure ship. It takes out a massive chunk of city and all the residents therein.

Do not piss off my players.

The Croesus system is now in lockdown by the planetary government, but the Wild Hunt sneaks out of system before patrol ships can stop them.

In the following weeks, Croesus falls into civil war. The legit planetary government looks weak, and the megacorps take this opportunity to stage coups to grab total control of the system. Titan Tech already had warships in the system (since they were aware of the PCs' plans). Oroborus is hurt bad and has to pull its fleet from Darsalam in order to keep the Titan ships in check and prevent its utter destruction. The entire planet is a war-zone as megacorp fights megacorp with the planetary governemnt stuck in the middle. The death toll continues to grow.

But at least now our heroes can use this distraction to slip into the Darsalam system.

Do not piss off my players.

And do not ever tell them that they aren't allowed to go somewhere.

Megacorps in Persephone Sector

My Stars Without Numbers players are starting to get involved with the machinations of the various megacorporations that operate in Persephone Sector. These massive companies wield incredible power and influence in the sector, often rivaling that of planetary governments. On Croesus, the megacorps are the government.

The planets of Anatu, Netherpool, and Croesus form The Amalgamated Trade Confederation, a loose coalition bound together by trade treaties, non-aggression agreements, and extradition laws. Efforts are being made to bring Moloch and Cedar into the ATC. Cedar continues to dither and debate joining the Confederation, while Moloch is downright hostile to the idea.

While listing every corporation in Persephone Sector is impractical, the following are the four major megacorps everyone should know about...

Oroborus Industries

Oroborus is the most powerful megacorp in Persephone Sector. Their main industry is robotics and consumer electronics, but they have branches and child corporations in everything from biochem, to space transport, to weapons, to private security. Oroborus products have a distinctive, sinister glossy black look with chrome and neon red accents. Oroborus has bases of influence on several planets, but their main headquarters are located on Croesus.

Titanomachy Technologies

Titan Tech is Oroborus's main competition with over a century of bitter (sometimes violent) rivalry between them. Titan's main industry is military tech and weapon development, but (like Oroborus) they have their fingers in a lot of different pies. Products from Titan Tech are noted for their spartan functionality, not their aesthetics. Titanomachy ships and gear tend to be angular and boxy things, brown or gunmetal gray. Titanomachy Technologies is based on Netherpool.

Omnipresent Entertainment

Omnipresent Entertainment is Persephone Sector's premier source for entertainment, information, and media. Thousands of talented individuals are contracted to Omnipresent, and the corporation protects their stars like the precious resources they are. Omnipresent Entertainment's numer-one product is The Bernie the Flumph Show, a multi-media cartoon franchise that follows the comical exploits of a bumbling Flumph. Most Flumphs see Bernie as an insulting stereotype. Omnipresent is based on Anatu.

Panacea Phramacom

Panacea is the leading source for high-tech medicine, biochem, and gene-tech in Persephone Sector. The corporation has easy access to Anatu's wealth of rare fungal compounds, which gives them the edge over their competitors. Almost all level-5 medical technology in the sector originates from Panacea. Panacea is based on Anatu and is largely owned by the planetary government.

Random Passenger Table [Persephone Sector]

Now that my Stars Without Number players have gotten themselves a spaceship, they want to make some extra cash taking on passengers as they travel from job to job. Real Firefly-like.

The random charts in the SWN book do a decent job of crating random NPCs, and there are dozens of random people generators scattered across the Net, but none of them have quite what I'm looking for. I've been told that the new merchant campaign supplement for SWN, Suns of Gold, would be useful to me, but I haven't had a chance to pick it up yet (something I will rectify shortly).

I'm looking for a random table that will tell me who the passenger is, where they're going, what they are taking with them, and what they want to do when they get there. A twist factor would be nice, too.

So, in the DIY spirit, I made my own table. It should be easily hackable by interested parties. Just swap out your own planets and alien species in the proper proportions.

You can also see the thing as a PDF or Document.

Roll 1d20	Passenger is a...	Who works as a...	Who needs to go to...	With...	In order to...	With the complication that...
1	Human	Businessman	Cedar	An alien artifact	Attend a wedding	They have a mysterious illness!
2	Human	Priest	Netherpool	A cache of drugs	Get married	There's a bounty on their head!
3	Human	Scholar	Moloch	A religious icon	Avoid getting married	They are an AI in disguise!
4	Human	Mercenary	Anatu	Prototype designs	Start a new job	They are a homicidal maniac!
5	Human	Bounty Hunter	Anatu	A robot sidekick	File a report	They're perused by a jealous lover!
6	Human	Explorer	Croesus	Fat stacks of cash	Deliver a message	It's a race against time!
7	Human	Journalist	Croesus	A dead body	Go sightseeing	Their money is all counterfeit!
8	Human	Noble	Kraken	A strange alien animal	Explore some ruins	They are working for space pirates!
9	Human	Salesman	Las Diablas	A strange alien plant	Kill someone	They are monster in disguise!
10	Human	Entertainer	Volgograd	A pretech artifact	Escape the law	They are perused  by rivals!
11	Naga	Space Hobo	Volgograd	A large cache of weapons	Avoid a murder rap	They are wanted by the local authorities!
12	Naga	Musician	Katarina	A treasure map	Attend a funeral	They are smuggling illegal goods!
13	Naga	Veteran	New Arcadia	Dangerous maltech	Rob someone	They are one of the PC's childhood friends!
14	Yurgling	Servant	Yurgoloth	A bundle of correspondences	Sell their wares	They are nobility in disguise!
15	Yurgling	Laborer	Gehenna	Much-needed medicine	Complete a religious pilgrimage	They develop a crush on a PC!
16	Yurgling	Engineer	Dolores	Large crates of bio-samples	Join the military	They have odious personal habits!
17	Hochog	Artist	Uld	A personal vehicle	Visit relatives	They ask to join the PCs' ship crew!
18	Hochog	Office Worker	Chiaroscuro	A huge collection of various things	Start a new life	They belong to a weird religious cult!
19	Flumph	Doctor	Chiaroscuro	Nothing but the clothes on their back	Return home after a completed mission	They are working for the PCs' arch enemy!
20	Other	Scientist	An Unknown Planet	Just the thing the PCs were looking for	Return home after a failed mission	They are working for the person who can help the PCs the most  right now!

(EDIT: Wow, that is some border-busting table, isn't it?)

Spaceships and Teddy Bears [Urseminite PCs for Stars Without Number]

So last week, our space-heroes finally got themselves a starship, though not without complications.

They found a electronic ship locator on the bodies of some less-fortunate explorers in the old bio-lab ruins. The locator indicated a shuttle a few miles away, buried under many years of sand. When our heroes get there, they discover that a band of road agents (the Dread Bear'uns) have inadvertently made camp over the buried shuttle.

This led to the larges firefight or combat that I've ever run with the group. The PCs did an amazing job because they fought smart. They split up the bandits and used heavy weapons and long-range rifles to take out most of the bad-guys before they could get into range. When the surviving gang members lost morale and ran, they let them go. The PCs got through it with barely a scratch.

They managed to kill the Dread Bear'uns leader. Big Lou is a three-foot-tall, foul-mouthed, teddy bear in power armor carrying a massive thunder gun. He is, in fact, an Useminite, an alien species for vile, badass teddy bear mercenaries I lifted from the Bulldogs! RPG.

The party quickly dug out the shuttle (having a couple of robots helped) and blasted off just as the surviving Bear'Uns staged a counter attack. Hitting the ether, the shuttle was able to auto-pilot back to it's home-ship,a free merchant class frigate called Electric Worry.

Electric Worry was abandoned for 25 years and had drifted to the other side of the Las Diabla's smaller sun. The empty ship had been over-run by silicone-based crystaline vacuum monsters--spider-like creatures that shot lasers out of their eyes and served a bloated queen node. These creatures proved to be a greater problem than the Bear'Uns. The ship was cold with no power, and the PCs had to fight with no gravity in hard vacuum. After a several desperate sorties, and with the loss of loayal battle-bot Helper-2, the PCs were manage to clear the ship and claim it for their own.

'Sup, mutha-fucker?

Urseminite PCs
Urseminites resemble cute, cuddly, little three-foot tall teddy bears. They are violent, loud, vice-driven
creatures with universally obnoxious personal habits and no sense of personal honor. An Urseminite war-band is an abrasive, adorable, blood-thirsty, fuzzy storm of murder and pillage.

Lenses: Gluttony, Wrath

Home Plant: Cuddlehugs Farm, a wretched world of vice and evil that has, thankfully, has remained out of contact since the Scream.

Requirements: Must have a Constitution of 14 or more, and a Charisma of 8 or less.

Benefits: You get to be a bad-ass teddy bear with an attitude like Lobo. Also, you have claws at the end of your hands that let you fight as though you had kinesis wraps.

Because of your dinky size, any armor you wear must be custom fitted and might cost 50% more. Thankfully, because of your compact build and large paws, you can use human-sized weapons with no problem, no matter how silly it looks.

More Adventures on Las Diablas

A quick recap of what's going down on Las Diablas out in the Persephone Sector. As you'll recall, our "heroes" are exploring an ancient pre-Scream bio-weapon's lab. Here's our cast...

Player “Heroes”

Dr. Jackie Montana (Expert 3, xeoarcheologist)

Pete Stevens (Warrior 3, assassin) 

Hana Sola (Expert 3, pilot)

NPC Hirelings and Henchmen

Helper - A stalwart security 'bot. 

Salussa - Naga psychic-for-hire and healer.

Dr. Henry Chase - The aging xenoarcheologist who stayed outside at base-camp.

After camping out in the garden, the PCs found a cache of seeds--peppers, strawberries, apples, blood oranges, and brussels sprouts, all things no longer available in the Sector since the Scream. They continue their exploration, heading down to the second level of the base where they immediately run into mutant Koth hounds. They continue to explore, using their formidable tech skills to disable security systems and fighting many rogue monsters and mutated bio-weapons. Re-skinning oozes and slimes from Labyrinth Lord has worked really well. A batch of mutant space spiders almost take out the PCs, but they mange to just squeak out a victory.

Lots of dead bodies in this place. Serious.

After some time, the heroes once again hear the sound of the mysterious, as-yet-unseen "Grudge" monsters. They're in a corridor this time, not a nice secure door. The party decides to buckle down, set up some cover, and finally see what these things are.

These things are strange, possibly human creatures with hard, black and gray, corpse-like skin. Their faces are skulls with blue lights in their eyes and softly glowing nanotech circuitry tracing across their sexless, naked bodies. They carry laser rifles of some unknown make and continue to fight long after their bodies should stop working. The PCs fight two of them, and brave, loyal Helper is destroyed. After finally defeating the monsters, the PCs poke through the bodies. The cold, gray-oozing flesh is laced with what looks vaguely similar to hyper-advanced revenant wiring, unlike anything they've ever seen. Also, one of their brains seems to be putting out some kind of communication signal. 

What are these things? Were they created in the lab? It's a mystery for now. 

The here's find the bodies of three explorers who came to these ruins 25 years ago. Each has a piece of a locator  key for a space ship. The heroes are excited! If they can recover the ship after they leave the ruins, they'll finally have their own spaceship!

Eventually, our heroes locate the AI Nest and the technicians take a few hours to re-awaken Gabriel, the stations long-sleeping AI. Gabriel has a 3 Charisma and it shows. He was designed to make bioweapons and doesn't have a great value of human life. When a gibbering mouther attacks the group, he calmly quips "Huh, Dr.Nesmith finally got that thing working." 

The PCs manage to talk Gabriel into helping them out. He agrees to let them have access to the station's vault and shuts down the two heavy security 'bots therein. The PCs agree to transfer his AI matrix into one of the 'bots (after Jackie remove's it's plasma thrower) so he can leave Las Diablas and perform biological experiments "in the field." Jackie reprograms the other guard-bot and replaces Helper with a new, bigger, meaner robot mascot.

Flushed with success, and carrying a load of credits, recovered weapons and armor, fancy pretech gear, and valuable biological samples, the PCs leave the ancient ruins and return to base camp. 

Quite a profitable adventure!  I'm curious as to what the crew does next.

Welcome to Las Diablas, Y'all! [Stars Without Number]

We're about five or six sessions into our Stars Without Number game. I haven't been making regular actual play posts (and I'll probably continue to be inconsistent with it), but some folks have expressed interest in hearing what's going on in Persephone Sector, so I thought I'd give a game report. A handful of sessions in, our “heroes” have had several exploits. Most of these involve varying degrees of robbery, kidnapping, and murder. You know... adventuring. They have traveled from the corporate planet of Croesus to the prison world of Oubliette and now head for the twin-sunned, desert planet of Las Diablas. Characters have died and been replaced a number of times. The current party looks like this:

Player “Heroes”

Dr. Jackie Montana (Expert 3, xeoarcheologist) – The only still-living PC from the original line-up, thanks to her very effective technique of “running and hiding.” She faked her own death and is considering going by the name “Jackie Danger.” She has no combat skills but carries a pair of matched pistols “for show.”

Pete Stevens (Warrior 3, assassin) – A no-nonsense, expert killer from Netherpool, quick and deadly. He sank all his starting funds into a high-tech shear rifle, a decision that has served him well so far.

Hana Sola (Expert 3, pilot) – Born in the Scavenger Fleets, Hana was raised in space. She is abrasive and crude—a spitting, swearing, cigar-smoking space-broad. She's also a fair hand with a monoblade.

NPC Hirelings and Henchmen

Helper – A decommissioned guard 'bot the heroes wrangled from the warden of Obuliette as part of their reward for dealing with his “hideous alien monster infestation” problem.

Professor Henry Chase – Eccentric “genius” xenoarcheologist wanted by the Oroborus Corporation. The PCs were hired by Oroborus to take him form his prison on Oubliette to their corporate HQ on Croesus. Instead, they faked their own deaths and took the Professor to Las Diablas, where he claimed to know the location of an old pre-Scream lab full of unknown treasures.

Welcome to Las Diablas!

"Oblivion," a movie only I liked.

Las Diablas is a desert planet with a strong western/cowboy theme. It is a home to pirates, refugees, smugglers, banditos, and other desperate types. It's equal parts Mos Eisley, Oblivion, Tortuga, and Sparks Nevada's Mars. With two suns, there is no night on Las Diablas. Adaptive nanites in the atmosphere trigger slow mutation in residents. Over the course of years, humans on Las Diablas gain red leathery skin, jet black eyes, and horns, supposedly to protect them from the heat and radiation of the twin suns (Lilith and Jezebel).

Jackie, Hana, Helper, and Prof. Chase arrive in the town of Lost Dog, having hitched a ride with the smuggler Jack of Spades. Pete arrives later, separately, on a commercial tour ship full of rich college kids. Taking a quick walk around, they first meet Lost Dog's new preacher, Ezekiel Forgiveness, and his bodyguard Pollyanna Stew refurbishing the abandoned old church. Instead of being abusing of violent, Jackie and Hana are surprisingly polite to the earnest young reverend and hire themselves out to help him put up the new roof.

At the marshal station, they briefly meet the local law, Sage Redd and her koth hound Blue. They take some time to look at the newest wanted posters. They are pleased to see that none of their names appear. They do take note of the three largest bounties posted: Slaughter 5000 (a rogue AI tooling around in a war-bot chassis), Amala Matrix (the rubenesque queen of space pirates), and Ghrüt (the Hochog leader of the local banditos).

With a steady source of income, the party sets themselves up in the Tin Pan Inn and the Last Leg Saloon. Once Pete arrives a few days later, the PCs quickly gather exploration supplies while selling off a big pile of unneeded gear collected from past exploits. The ruins they intend to explore lie a thousand miles south, so most of their money goes toward buying a beat-up old ATV Explorer from the marshal's impound lot. Rightfully concerned about their health, they also comb the city looking to hire an psychic healer. They find a Naga named Salussa, a telepath with some skill in biopsionics (Psychc 2, Dexterity 3!). S/he agrees to accompany the PCs for 10% of the salvage.

All equipped and ready, the PCs roll out into the desert badlands. Due to some weird malfunction, "MMMbop" plays on a continual loop on the old vehicle's sound system. Several tech rolls (using the experts' precious re-rolls) are made to fix this.

After a few days of steady travel, the Heroes come to the great dry canyon where the ruins are supposed to be. A small shack is perched on the edge of the canyon, and they decide to check it out. Outside the shack they meet a crazy old man on a rocking chair with a shotgun talking to a poorly taxidermied squirrel. This is Crazy Old Levi, the former preacher from Lost Dog, now gone thoroughly space-crazy. He's a character I shamelessly lifted directly from “Sparks Nevada,Marshall on Mars.”

Crazy Old Levi claims that the ground they all stand on is filled with explosives, and that he can blow them all up with the press of a the detonator he holds. He demands that the PCs strip to prove that they don't have three nipples or other witch marks that would show demonic influence. The PCs only put up for this for a few minutes before they just up and shoot the old guy. It turns out that the detonator is just an empty black box with a stick-on button. Now they have a shack to use as a base of operations. Also, a free shotgun and a stuffed squirrel.

The next morning they zip-line into the canyon and make their way tot he half-buried doors into the ancient compound. The old ruins have no power, but the Experts manage to hard-wire a power cell to the door to get the open-up-actuators to work.

The place is a mess. 500 years of neglect has destroyed the tile floors and rusted the steel walls. The interior of the compound is strangely humid and musty. There is no power, and the players quickly fall back upon their Minecraft experience, leaving a trail of glowbugs (palm-sized, sticky, portable lights) wherever they go.

Snap snap snap...

The place shows signs of (relatively) recent exploration, as they find graffiti on the wall that reads “Holz, Zin, and Kirby were here, 3175.”

Glitterwasps attack, and are quickly squashed.

They discover a large menagerie room with independent power. The room's environmental control is broken, however, and the room is a deadly -300 degrees. The bodies of several alien animals and an armored man lie frozen solid on the ground.

In the old sickbay they find some injectors full of powerful pretech medicine.

The body of a dead man holds a will leaving everything he owns to his daughter on Pinipat, a planet none of the PCs has heard off.

Camouflaged spider-lamprey things attack. Helper gets torn up pretty good, but is repairable.

The walls of a monitoring station is covered in skull paintings with the words “We are all doomed.” Logs indicate that the compound was a bio-lab from the Genetech corporation and there was some kind of accident, possibly due to the Scream. Also, the station had an AI named Gabriel.

The PCs find the back-up quantum generator and bring it online, powering up the station. “Your Cheating Heart” plays on the PA system... over... and over... and over...

While camping for the night in the generator room, some unknown things bang on the door, making creepy “girl from The Grudge” noises. There is no trace of them in the morning.

They find a ruined lab guarded by automated laser turrets. Jackie finds an access panel and cuts power to the turrets. They find more pretech medicine and the Grudge-things return. Luckily the PCs had closed the doors behind them, and the things eventually wander off. Still no clue as to what they are.

In the barracks, they find some good (if standard) armor and weapons and are attacked by a giant amoeba (ochre jelly). It dissolves Hana's armor, and she has to quickly strip out of it's remnants to avoid its gooey embrace. Monoblades and mag pistols only split the critter into smaller critters, but plasma throwers and lasers boil it away nicely.

The PCs find the indoor gardens, complete with independent power and cute little gardener 'bot, of which I spoke of previously.

Thoughts

I used the random complex generator in Hulks & Horrors to create the map of the abandoned complex. I used a combination of flavor and room dressing tables form both H&H and SWN to fill the map. This worked exceptionally well, and I managed to get a complete two-level “space dungeon” in just a couple of hours. Monsters from Labyrinth Lord work very well for mad-science alien bio-monsters, especially slimes and oozes.

Before this session, my Stars Without Numbers games have been pretty straight and pedestrian. That's weird because I love crazy/gonzo sci-fi. Hell, I co-wrote LeopardWomen of Venus, y'know. There's just something about SWN that makes me think Mass Effect and Blade Runner, not Heavy Metal or Flash Gordon.

That changed with this session, as things took a much-needed turn for the weird. The cowboy planet certainly is a big reason for that. I love space westerns, and I mean real space westerns like Galaxy Rangers, Bravestarr, and Oblivion, not Firefly.

Oh man... I need to add robot horses to this game.

Stars Without Number, Strawberries, and Mid-Session Inspirado

I ran another session of Stars Without Number set in Persephone Sector this past weekend. The heroes explored an ancient, pre-Scream lab complex beneath the surface of a desert planet. It was essentially a sci-fi dungeon-crawl. I designated one of the rooms as an artificial garden—a large chamber full of overgrown plants, trees, and vegetables, diligently tendered by a stalwart little gardening robot for the past 500 years.

Originally, I had intended this room to just be a bit of flavor. No monsters, traps, or treasure, just an unusually pleasant and safe place in the middle of a dangerous locale, as well as a shout out to Silent Running. Something changed, though, as the heroes explored the garden, looking for anything of value. It suddenly occurred to me no one in Persephone Sector has tasted strawberries, apples, even brussels sprouts, in 500 years. “The stuff growing here,” I told them, “it's is old-Earth fruits and vegetables. It's fucking valuable.” The players were suddenly excited. They came into the ruins expecting to get all their money off artifacts and data. Instead, they stumble into something unexpected and new.

I love this part of GMing, when sudden inspiration hits you in the middle of the session, when things suddenly “click” together and something new emerges about the shared universe that was really just sitting there all along, ready to be discovered.

And the PCs decided to keep the gardening 'bot.

Alien PCs in Persephone Sector [Stars Without Number]

Persephone Sector is mostly human-centric, but these alien species are available as starting Player Characters. More aliens might "unlock" as the PCs encounter them.

Hochog

The “space orcs” from the Stars Without Number core book. They are the warrior-culture aliens familiar to any fan of Klingons or Luxans.

Lenses: Conquest, Honor

Home Planet: Like humans, the Hochog lost contact with their native planet during the Scream. They have large settlements on Uld.

Requirements: To be a Hochog, a PC must have a STR of 14+. You cannot be a Psychic.

Benefits: You get to be a bad-ass space-orc. Shout a lot and die for glory!

Naga

The Naga are androgynous, hermaphrodite reptilian humanoids possessing a weirdly exotic allure. In aeons past, the Naga had a shamanistic religious tradition. This tradition disappeared centuries before first contact was made. When humanity colonized Cedar, the Naga had no concept of religion or spirituality. They were fascinated by the idea, and rapidly embraced the teachings of the Temple of Babylon Eternal. The humans and Naga of Cedar have worked together to form a prosperous society.

The Naga are an introspective, casual race that values the pleasures of life and learning. Their reverence for philosophy and wisdom has kept their hedonistic nature from declining into decadence.

Lenses: Joy, Sagacity

Home Planet: Cedar

Requirements: To be a Naga, a PC must have a CHA of 14+. You can be any class.

Benefits: You get to be an exotic/transgressive lizard person.

Yuglings

Yurglings resemble human-sized furry-faced slugs with high-pitched, grating voices. The Yurgling species possesses three sexes—an egg maker, an inseminator, and a womb-provider. Yurgling marriages are complicated three-way affairs. Partially due to the complexities of these triple-relationships, Yurglings have evolved to become the greatest traders, arbitrators, and contract lawyers in the Sector.

Yurglings cannot swim and have a superstitious fear of their planet's cold, salty oceans. When humanity first arrived on Yurgoloth, the Yurglings were more than happy to let them settle on the mineral-rich ocean. However, the yurglings charge the human settlements outrageous rental fees and taxes. They have wheeled-and-dealed human corporations for trillions of credits, and Yurgoloth has grown to be one of the richest planets in the sector.

Lenses: Greed, Tribalism

Home Planet: Yurgoloth

Requirements: To be a Yurgling, a PC must have an INT of 14+. You can be any class.

Benefits: You get a +2 to saves against poison, but you cannot swim. Also, you get to talk like Gilbert Godfrey, Andy Kindler, and Eddie Pepitone. 

Persephone Sector, a Primer

For character generation in our new Stars Without Numbers game, I gave my players a list of the "known" systems in Persephone Sector. These are the planets and systems that get regular space travel and are part of  greater interstellar society (for good or ill). As the party discovers new planets (especially out in Frontier Space) they will "unlock" new planets they can use as homeworlds for new characters.

Here's the list of starting planets, along with a brief description of each. As things progress, I'll detail each planet in greater detail.

Anatu

Language: English

A hot, humid planet covered in fungal jungles and swamps. Human cities are built on high plateaus where the temperature is cooler. The unique flora and fauna allows Anatu to produce medicines that rival pretech, and the citizens are uniformly beautiful and youthful.

(High Concept: 1970s lycra sci-fi)

Cedar

Language: Akkadian

A beautiful planet of ancient forests and warm oceans, Cedar is the home of the Temple of Babylon Eternal, the most powerful and popular religion in Persephone Sector. Cedar is the homeworld of the exotic reptilian aliens known as the Naga.

(High Concept: Techno-pagan Mesopotamia)

Chiaroscuro

Language: Spanish

This planet is constantly shrouded by massive black storm clouds that pour wind and rain upon the fortified cities. Chiaroscuro is the home planet of the powerful Titanomachy Technologies corporation. Titan Tech is locked in constant, bitter competition with Oroborus Inc. The planet is ruled by a hereditary monarchy and old-money noble families.

(High Concept: Space-Borgias)

Croesus

Language: English

Croesus Minor is a habitable moon orbiting the gas giant Croesus Major. Large sprawling supercities are surrounded by vast tracts of tamed wilderness and industrial farms. Croesus is a second-wave colony founded by a consortium of corporations from Anatu and Netherpool. It is now the largest corporate hub in the sector. The powerful Oroborus Incorporated wields incredible power on Croesus and surrounding systems..

(High Concept: Blade Runner meets Mass Effect’s Citadel)

Dolores

Language: English

A planet of rolling hills and forest littered with the ruins of an ancient alien civilization. The New Wave colony allied families has dissolved into a violent three-way clan war. Travelers are encouraged to avoid landing on Dolores.

(High Concept: Appalachian Mountains/Hatfield-and-McCoys IN SPACE!)

Gehenna

Language: English

A hellish planet of volcanoes and lava oceans wrapped in a corrosive atmosphere. The planet holds great mineral wealth, and a rugged lava-mining colony has sprung up here. Humans work alongside the silicon-insect aliens known as Myrmidons.

(High Concept: Janus VI meets Mustafar)

Katarina

Language: Russian

Cold taiga planet covered with mountains and pine forests. Centuries ago, the Mankiller plague devastated the male population. Katarina now has a matriarchal society divided into small city-states with a black-powder level of technology. Contact has recently been re-established with Katarina after large veins of Prometheum were discovered by corporate prospectors.

(High Concept: Russian black-powder amazons)

Kraken

Alien

This ocean world is home to the octopus-like Kraken. The Kraken are known as the greatest shipwrights in the Sector. There is very little surface land on Kraken, but the natives have many ancient cities deep under the waves, and many shipyards orbit the planet. There are no human settlements here, but Port Nautilus is a port of call for many human spacers.

(High Concept: Alien water-world)

Las Diablas

Language: Spanish

Las Diablas is a binary star system consisting of two large read suns (Lilith and Jezebel). Its lone habitable planet is a desert badland littered with the ruins of a dead FIrst Wave colony. It’s now the home to bandits and outlaws of all stripes. Humans who spend too many years on Las Diablas begin to develop adaptational mutations: solid black eyes, scaly red skin, and horns.

(High Concept: Western/cowboy planet; Mos Eisley mixed with Sparks Nevada's Mars)

Oubliette

Language: English

A cold planet of coral forests with an argon atmosphere. The planet is surrounded by a dense asteroid field known as the Sea of Stones. The only habitation is a large maximum-security prison all-but abandoned by it's founders on Netherpool.

(High Concept: Prison planet, Arkham Asylum IN SPACE!)

Moloch

Language: English

A planet of rocky deserts orbiting a red sun, Moloch is ruled by the powerful psionic caste. Moloch is home to the largest and most powerful of the already-rare psionic academies. The psionic cult Omega Ascendant wields massive influence on Moloch and surrounding systems.

(High Concept: Korriban mashed up with Dune)

Netherpool

Language: English

A barren, rocky world covered with massive spire-mountains of glistening crystal. Vacuum-sealed cities harvest sunlight reflected from the crystals for power. The crystal mountains hide remnants of long-dead unknown alien civilization. The Netherpudlians have a strict, conservative society with an esoteric legal system. Tread carefully.

(High Concept: Space-Calvinists)

New Arcadia

Language: English

A young colony and the new spiritual homeworld for the Church of the New Prophets. The giant Golden Tree is a pilgrimage site for the Faithful. “Archons” (religious warriors) protect the Faithful from the violent and primitive native aliens known as Golgothans and other dangers.

(High Concept: Dogs in the Vineyard IN SPACE!)

Uld

Alien

A Hochog colony world, Uld is a planet of cold granite mountains and snowy tundra. Hochog warriors constantly clash for control of the planet’s limited resources. Young Hochog warriors often leave Uld in order to gain honor and gather wealth and power to bring back to their warlords. A weird aberration of  Uld’s magnetic field create massive floating “islands” of stone that drift across the surface of the planet, forming veritable mobile nations.

(High Concept: Space orcs living in a Roger Dean painting)

Volgograd

Language: Russian

A temperate planet of steppes, prairies, and mountains. Volgograd is ruled by an omnipresent police state that maintains an highly-efficient semi-caste system. City-sized factories constantly churn out product that supplies the entire sector. Volgograd suffered the least of all local planets during the Scream, and boasts the largest population in the sector (5 billion).

(High-Concept: Space-soviets with a touch of Imperial Rome)

Yurgoloth

Alien

This cold, rocky planet is the homeworld of the slug-like Yurglings. The Yurglings have allowed several human colonies to establish floating cities on Yurgoloth’s cold, salty oceans. They charge the human colonists outrageous leasing fees.

(High Concept: Crafty, wheeling-dealing space-slugs)

Stars Without Number: House Rules

So we wrapped up our second Season of Monsterhearts and my group decided to do something different. I love me some high-narrative story games, but I decided that I wanted to run some straight-up adventures. “There's a big ol' dangerous thing over there. Why don't you go take care of that? Here's some material rewards to encourages you.” Classic.

So after pitching Crypts &Things and Adventures on Dungeon Planet (I was really, really pushing for Dungeon Planet) my group decided they wanted to play Stars Without Number. We did a SWN one-shot a couple of months ago and had a good time, and the promise of “Mass Effect meets Firefly” really appealed to the team.

We've had one session so far, and it's gone pretty well. Despite my suggestion that they try to avoid going “too-evil,” my players didn't take long to dive into murder and grand theft. We all had fun, though, so it looks like we're going to have a team of would-be pirates and bounty hunters.

Unlike a lot of my RPG brethren, I don't usually use a lot of house-rules. I do have a few I'm using for my SWN game, though:

Character Generation

1. To generate attribute scores, roll 18d6 and divide them into six groups of three. Put them into whatever stat you want. You don't get the “automatic 14” in your prime requisite, though. If you somehow can't get a net +1 in your modifiers, re-roll the entire set.

2. Maximum Hit Points at first level.

3. Available non-human races are the Hochog (space-orcs from the SWN book), the Naga (androgynous/hermaphrodite lizard people), and the Yurglings (crafty space-slugs).

I'll have more details about these races in a later post.

Combat

1. I'm swiping most of the combat maneuvers from Adventurer Conqueror King System. In short, to grapple, disarm, trip, etc. you make an attack a -4 and the target makes a save vs. paralysis (Physical Effect or Evasion save in SWN).

2. Dual wielding two melee weapons or two ranged weapons gives you a +1 to hit. Use the damage for your main weapon. (Also stolen from ACKS.)

3. Add your Attribute Bonus to Saving Throws:

• Physical Effect = CON (occasionally STR)
• Mental Effect = WIS
• Evasion = DEX
• Technology = INT
• Luck = CHA (representing your sense of self and place in the universe)

The game takes place in Persephone Sector. I will share those details with you all soon!

Flumphs for Stars Without Number! [Flumph Friday]

Flumphs are peaceful, inquisitive aliens resembling leathery yellow jelly fish with dexterous tentacles and expressive eye stalks. They float quietly though the air using a form of natural air induction. The flumph language is comprised of a mixture of tentacular body language and chemical signatures. Communication with humans and similar species requires the assistance of electronic translators or the Telepathy discipline.

Flumph society is peaceful and orderly, with each flumph helping its neighbors in a kind of enlightened socialism. Communities are led by members of a psychic priest caste dedicated to the mysterious High Ones. Most flumph settlements are Tech Level 4. They technology tends to focus on psychology , psionic research, and exploration. Aside from their Pacification Rays, flumphs are not known for their weaponry.

The flumphs were hit by the Scream as badly as the rest of the galaxy, destroying the entire priest caste in an instant. However, due to their cooperative, nonviolent culture, flumph settlements generally didn't collapse into the chaos that plagued human colonies.

Flumphs try to avoid combat if necessary and prefer peaceful mediation. In seriously threatened, a flumph can emit a steam of noxious ichor to temporarily disable attackers. Psychic flumohs often carry a psitech Pacification Ray to harmlessly deter opponents. Only in the most desperate of circumstances will a flumph use the atavistic tooth-spikes hidden in the center of their tentacles.

Flumph

Armor Class: 5

Hit Dice: 3

Attack Bonus: +2

Damage: 2d4* Pacification Ray or 1d6 spikes

Number Appearing: 3d6

Saving Throw: 13+

Movement: 20' fly

Morale: 9

Any given flumph has a 25% chance of having psychic powers and Psi Points equal to a (1d8) level psychic, usually focusing on the Telepathy or Biopsychic discipline.

Flumph Pacification Ray (psitech)

Damage: 2d4*

Range: 30/60

Cost: 5000

Attribute: Wis/Con

Tech: 5

*Like a stun baton, damage from the pacification ray will leave a target unconscious, but will not kill them. Unlike a stun baton, this damage doesn't take the form of nerve pain, but as lethargy and fatigue.  

In the City on the Night Side [Stars Without Number AP]

It's interesting where game ideas come from. Most recently I found the seeds of adventure and setting in the form a song, specifically “Night City” by The Sword.

Running scared through endless night
Too afraid to put up a fight
They shackle her wrists
It's too late to resist
Scanned for weapons and transmitters
Sold at auction to the highest bidder
That's the way it goes
Now you know...
You can find us on the Night-side
In the shadows where the killers and the pirates hide
Come around if you think you can survive
in the city on the Night-side

It's a fairly basic story of a kidnapped princess sold into slavery, but I found it nicely evocative. Also the song's just bad-ass. This weekend I ran a Stars Without Number one-shot, and when I needed an adventure idea, this song gave me enough seed ideas to work with.

So... The PCs are low-ranking members of the Red Banner Mercenary Company. The debutante daughter of a VP of Titanomachy Technology was kidnapped by pirate slavers while on a pleasure cruise. She's been listed for sale at a slave auction in Night City, an outlaw human settlement on Las Diablas. The PCs need to rescue here by any means necessary, while keeping Red Banner's name out of it.

Las Diablas is a desert badlands planet. Because of the tilt of its axis, the northen pole is in perpetual night. It's the home to killers, outlaws, smugglers, pirates, and slavers. It's pretty much an equal mix of Deadwood, Mos Eisley, and Bartertown. A nice dangerous place.

When the PCs landed outside of Night City, they (half-jokingly?) insisted that I draw a map of the town. (“You said it was small. You can draw that!”). They've been spoiled by Monsterhearts, where we keep drawing the map of their town as we play. But no worries, we took a break, and I drew up a quick map. Couple of roads, market here, power plant there, slave market here, lots of spaceships parked around the perimeter. “There should be an arena,” said a player. Oh hell yes, we need a Thunderdome... right here!

The City on the Night Side!

The adventure itself was fun. As I do nowadays, I didn't have any preconceived idea on how the heroes were supposed to complete the adventure. I came up with a situation, I decided what the major NPCs wanted, and I figured out what would happen  if the PCs did nothing. That's all I need to drop the PCs into the action and let them figure out solutions for themselves.

I wasn't disappointed. The PCs went undercover as a couple of rich rubes and their bodyguards, looking to buy slaves. After discovering that the debutante had already been sold to an infamous gang boss (Magnus Thorn), they are forced to fast-talk their way into the boss's manse, then rescue the debutante in a running gun battle.

Some highlights...

• The Stars Without Numbers mechanics are dead simple, and combat is wicked fast and tense!
• The female engineer disguised herself as a pregnant woman, hiding guns and grenades in her fake boobs.
• The noble-born psychic-healer with no combat skill disguised as a bodyguard and loaded down with weapons he can't use.
• Wheeling-and-dealing with the alien slave-broker to purchase the other survivors from the debutante's kidnapped party.
• Smooth-talking Magnus Thorn's Hochog lieutenant into letting them to have one of their women fight in Thorn's gladiator ring, thus getting an invitation to the manse.
• Ignoring that plan and purposely(?) getting captured to get themselves into the heart of Thorn's manse.
• A running gun battle, punctuated by blowing up an elevator with grenades, and exploding badguys' heads with the psychic's cancer-gun.
• Making it to the roof and having the engineer hack into the manse's defense towers, blowing away opposition with cannon-fire.
• A successful rescue as the PCs ship (The Private Dancer) flew them back into space.
  

We may very well come back to Stars Without Number after we're done with Monsterhearts.