 May 25, 2012 - 6:18am | Players catch wind of a mysterious lost planet off somewhere with possible Tetrarch ruins They find the system and begin to explore it but become marrooned and are forced to unravel its mysteries. What the Isle of Dread had: Dangerous dinosaurs (ala Land that time Forgot) and primitives. dinos were included for some general EXP and primitives and their villages to the south were a strategic environment for R&R Lots of lairs sprinkled around the Island for the PCs to run into; basically combat encounters Pirates- Arrrhh, there be treasure and EXP Rakasta Camp- as a GM I would have courted the possibility of diplomacy with the cats though the party could have fought them Phanton settlement these creatures were a cross between raccons and a flying squirrel and bring yazirians to mind. many more lairs: lizard men, neanderthals, ogre, troglodytes, green dragon, etc. Gold vein: recently exposed vein of gold from an earthquake (dwarves would recognize it instantly) represented the possibility of brining in workers to mine in but required transport and later refinement, players could have made 15,000 gp if they made the investment. local villagers could be enslaved to mine the vein but would work very slow and rebel often. renegade Islanders gone head hunters preying on the good islanders and living in the temple on taboo island in the central plateau, good islanders of the plateau recruit the PCs to deal with it. Alternate adventures: about 5 adventure seeds not fleshed out The Isle of Dread is a basic exploration sandbox, lots of things that can be done but not a lot of compelling reasons to do all of them. turning it into a SF adventure: 1. pirates are good and logical as pirates look for hide outs and this could be a pirate hide out. If the PCs ship is damaged then the pirates could be a source for replacement parts 2. lost yazirian ship from before the yazirian star exodus misjumped and reached this planet- leaving a small tribe of yazirians who have lost most of their advanced tech and live like a group of primitives with essentially stone age tech thought they are not as ignorant as one might assume. A few of the original crew are still alive and very old but the group is made up of second and thrid generation ofspring. They might like to get off this rock and return to the larger yazirian society of the Frontier. The crash landed yazirian ship could be an adventure sight, looking like a Japanese Zero found in a lost island jungle with vines and plants growing all over and in it. 3. vein of Federanium- like the vein of gold, its possible source of lots of money but would require the PCs investing effort over time to recover that wealth. Along similar lines: just selling the mapped jump route is worth something. 4. Dangerous animals are easy enough to create, could even take that planetary brief from the SFman on the dino planet and rework it with the above details which would give you an Isle of Dread feel and save you some work, as I remember that was a pretty good brief. isle of dread benefited from the wide beastiary of D&D which afforded its writer a huge number of lairs and random encounters to include in the module. Lots of lairs. Some effort could be invested into this as well for the SF adventure. 5. Alien ruins. Always fun. Artifacts? one of the alternate adventure seeds of the Isle of Dread was dealing with the zombie master, nanite driven zombies could be a possibility here, explained as ancient alien tech recently awaked due to the PCs or pirates actions. 6. Sathar? Again why not? Sathar listening post? stranded sathar crew who want the PCs ship? sathar explorers looking into the alien ruins for lost artifacts? Saragasso System lost in the nebula, long rumored about and survivors of misjumps that have returned or pirates that have defected from the pirate band have wispered of horrendous dangers. Most people beleive its a space myth but the PCs have come into possession of evidence that it may be real and that they could get rich by recovering its wealth. Saragasso should be difficult to travel to but with sufficient promise of wealth that eventually corporations and such would found a colony there and open it up as a destination in the Frontier. The PCs could be the explorers that go down in the history books as the discoverers. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 25, 2012 - 6:56am | My recent reading on sandbox vs story driven adventures makes me think, that worked right this could be done well as a fusion of both, let the players choose directions to explore and once the potential story is entered develop it as a story adventure. EDIT: Isle of Dread is probably one of the simplest D&D modules to adapt effectively to SF due largely to the focus on outdoor adventuring in it as if out door adventures are less dangerous then dungeon crawls. A personal favorite and top ten module B10 Nights Dark Terror also comes to mind as a good candidate too. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 26, 2012 - 11:29am | Kicking around name: like i'd like to derive the name of one of the yazirians or the yazirian's ship from Moldvay who wrote the original Isle of Dread. Saragasso system was an early working system name but "In Search of Saragasso" could work as a title. Planet of Dread sounds like a dreadful name IMO and if for some reason the adventure failed to raise emotions of fear or dread, as a player, I'd feel let down. I hit wordhippo and looked up other words for dread as well as French, German and Spanish, only coming up with Pavor in spanish: Planet of Pavor which while being aliterated doesn't quite have the right ring to it. Picking up the witch doctor/ shaman angle from IoD though the Sathar hyptnotism ability could be the method of creating sci-fi zombies in this adventure. Part of the mystery of the planet could also be that while the initial rumor was tetrarch ruins and a promise of fabulous wealth the ruins here are not tetrarch but that of yet some other civilization destroyed by the sathar 700-900 years prior much like the eorna. This gives you a plot twist to unraval and explains the presences of the worms in the form of yet another sathar obelisk like the one on Volturnus. In that case slave bot tech is certainly on the table which is another zombie analog. The disembodied sathar brain running the obelisk has gone quite a bit eccentic/locco by sathar standards and is a little off due to being out of contact with his own kind and encased in a vat of nuitriants for almost a millenium. He's pursuing his own agenda creating his own zombie-esk army. Pirates are not obviously pirates but spin a tail of being stuck on Pavor. Their leader has been turned by the sathar brain and sabotaged his ship to prevent its leaving. Players can learn that secret as well as discover that the pirate leadrr is now under the sway of worm control. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 26, 2012 - 11:47am | The Pavorites did not survive their visitation by the sathar and the sathar brain left running the monitoring post has had nothing to do for 800 years. About a hundred years ago a yazirian scout ship searching for new worlds for the yazirian civilization to emmigrate to made an emergency landing and became stranded here. Its 20 or so crew have grown to 60-80 and a few of the original crew have started to die of old age. They know nothing of the frontier, humans, dralasites or vrusk. The pirates arrived only just a little while ago and speak of wild yazirians living in the trees. (Classic wood elf tree platform settlenent in style- perhaps the only reason they have not been totally enslaved by the sathar presense). Some of the Yaz crew want to return to their clans but the current "chief" who was a command officer on the ship has forged a new clan and desires to hold onto his power base and wants to keep his people here. The pirate crew wants to escape at any price as they are really spooked by the disappearences from among their number. Pirate captain has of course become a sathar agent and his mission is to keep everyone from leaving the planet, including the PCs. PCs are here looking for treasure in one form or another, whether scientist do research or adventurers looking to plunder. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 May 27, 2012 - 2:10am | Jedion, I like "In Search of Saragasso". It reminds me of an adventure title. Mystery abounds, could be dangerous. It would be good to plot out a non Tetrarch ruin complex. If pc's have played Sundown on Starmist, It will make them think along Tetrarch lines then spin it the other way. I also like the sathar brain idea. Easy to create zombie like creatures with their biotech and hypnotisim combined. The Gamma World module Legion of Gold was along those lines. An AI used robots to kidnap beings and then turn them into robot-like soldiers with technology. I would put the sathar influenced area on one side, with a sentient race in that sphere of influence. Some have been turned and some not. In a different area have the lost yazirian clan, maybe have some of that overlap the sathar zone. The same thing with the pirates. The pirates could also have enslaved some of the natives or yazirians to mine the Federanium. That way you can have some good and some bad, in each group to keep the pc's on their toes. As for dangerous creatures, I liked the dino planet article too. I was thinking though, with all the talk about a mega-type creature in one of the other threads, that would be fun to introduce on the planet too. A random encounter that no one side on the planet can control or really destroy. It is a force of nature itself. Maybe a very, very large dinosaur. It could rescue the pc's or hurt the pc's, whichever the gm wishes or rolls. |
May 27, 2012 - 6:23am | Jedion, I like "In Search of Saragasso". It reminds me of an adventure title. Mystery abounds, could be dangerous. It would be good to plot out a non Tetrarch ruin complex. If pc's have played Sundown on Starmist, It will make them think along Tetrarch lines then spin it the other way. With Isle of Dread as a spring board it seemed a natural to play up the rumor and space myth angle of a lost planet with fabulous ruins. The next discoverer of Tetrarch ruins could become insanely wealthy. The point with that is to build some expectation so the twist that they aint Tetrarch has some bite. I also like the sathar brain idea. Easy to create zombie like creatures with their biotech and hypnotisim combined. The Gamma World module Legion of Gold was along those lines. An AI used robots to kidnap beings and then turn them into robot-like soldiers with technology. thats all just a rip off of the sathar obelisk in SF-1, I figure if the sathar used it once they used it more then once. Cannon evidence from the modules says that the sathar are all about subjugation or destruction of other sapient races and the 1st & 2nd Sathar Wars need to be viewed as attempts of the same on the core four. We can surmise that sathar have been space faring marauders for about 1000 years since they did in the eorna 900 years before the Volturnus modules. That suggests to me that there are other planets out there that the sathar have "gone Volturnus on" So that said I'll be breaking out the SF-1 module and looking at Sathar assets and the obelisk but if memory serves it was defended by cybo slugs, quickdeath, and possibly sathar robots and run by a sathar brain in a vat of liquid. One has to think what 900 years of being a disembodied brain in a vat of liquid would do you? A human would be bat house nuts. So I'd like to play up this angle that the sathar brain is derranged. Perhaps thinking its the only sathar left in the universe and it will fulfill the sathar mandate of galactic domination beginning with this world. To do this he needs an army and he needs ships. thus he will be in conflict with the PCs in the pursuit of his goals.I would put the sathar influenced area on one side, with a sentient race in that sphere of influence. Some have been turned and some not. In a different area have the lost yazirian clan, maybe have some of that overlap the sathar zone. The same thing with the pirates. The pirates could also have enslaved some of the natives or yazirians to mine the Federanium. That way you can have some good and some bad, in each group to keep the pc's on their toes. 1. I didn't want to do pirates enslaving people to mine minerals as that felt like too much of a rerun of volturnus. If they're stranded and being picked off that makes them desperate and I sort of like that. In role play the GM would ham up their intense fear which is a subtle way of telling the players, "you should be afraid too." 2. my knee jerk reaction is 'I dont want yet another sapient race' but then it occured to me that I already did that by stating that the ruins are attributable to a race the sathar wiped out. Still by the nature of the kind of game Star Frontiers is we have way too many sapient races that have evolved within a parsec. Why? The Tetrarchs could be an answer as they were dying out about 10,000 years ago and 6,000-10,000 years of recorded history, from the example of Earth, would seem to be about the time frame for a civilization to develop from recording history to space flight. Perhaps the Tetrarchs new they were dying out and wanted to leave a legacy. The sathar were an early creation of the tetrarchs and reacted to this like a jealous spoiled child-thus the domination of other races. From the sathar view point the see it that nature never intended for what the Tetrarchs did. Perhaps they are at their core pure hearted galactic ecologist who are trying to prevent "galactic warming" or perhaps thats "galactic swarming" by all these races that will rise to space flight and inevitably junk up the galaxy. Rabbit trailled there but anyhow I guess a degenerate primitive like the wypong could work here though I absolutely hate introducing yet another sapient species. one thing that might work here is that the sathar brain has had an eon to mold and craft how this species has evolved as well as employing advance bio-tech on them so that now they are just bright animals at his beck and call or lobotomized zom-droids. Note I introduce the lost yazirians based on a race introduced in isle of dread that were a cross between a racoon and a flying squirrel. the lost yazirians were intended to fill the role of local primitives and that village of gliding creatures in the X1 module. but since you suggested a native species i can see that it would work As for dangerous creatures, I liked the dino planet article too. I was thinking though, with all the talk about a mega-type creature in one of the other threads, that would be fun to introduce on the planet too. A random encounter that no one side on the planet can control or really destroy. It is a force of nature itself. Maybe a very, very large dinosaur. It could rescue the pc's or hurt the pc's, whichever the gm wishes or rolls. I proposed that idea when I was still just rifting and brainstorming. At this point I think that this could be a 30th anniversary module so that said I think the planet deserves an ecological work up on its environment, flora and fauna. As for titans I'm not convinced that the discussion in that thread actually generated any usable rules I think to use a titan we'd need to develop something or simply scale up the existing rules/stats for huge creatures from AD. I do see one interesting possibility: players encounter and disable a titan by say shooting out its leg. latter they discover that the sathar has implanted a cybernetic control and mended its wounds-(where is Johny Rico Now?) Karzan I'm trying to remember login names vs emal addresses are you the same guy who submited Archangel and a follow up adventure to the zine? would you want to collaborate to turn out a module? A 30th anniversary module had some discussion a while back but has trailled off. whether or not you'd like to collaborate heres a rough outline I worked up with some notes, please do comment. I. Intro: Saragasso? Space myth (as in urban myth), rumor, or drunken rambolings? I envision crafting 3-4 pieces of evidence that could fall into the PCs hands. This gives a GM options for how to set up the adventure. if evidence B falls into the PCs hands then A, C, &D could be used as the fruit of further investigation. For example (A.) is anecdotal- Mad Maximum is an miner who claims his ship misjumped to sarragasso. he's hairy, dirty and ragged and looks like he belongs on a street corner holding a sing that says "The end is near." he tells wild stories that most people shrug off. (B.) is a shuttle who's flight computer has system data about a star and planet that do not match any in known space the computer recorded a trip to and from the planet and some other interesting data- if it was a miner's shuttle then its instruments picked up readings that were promising for federanium but equally there could be camera images of a fly over of a ruined city too. i haven't thought up what evidence C&D could be yet but they just need to be little pieces that suggest the existence of the planet and a promise of financial reward to entice the players. It also occured to me that they could start out as members of an archaeological team much like the Triad Inst. of Tech team I worked up or the Pan Gal team invented for the Polyhedron Encounter's article. That start is simplist- the institute has a line of evidence they want researeched by their team- go. Finally a small table of rumors, at least 10 (1d10), will aid a GM for when PCs are making casual inquiries in space station bars. Beauty of this adventure is that it can be started almost anywhere in the Frontier. Note I intended to provide a lot of evidence to support a sand box style of running this adventure and was trying to set up the major elements of the adventure that follow as investigative episodes that could be run in any order as they each only provide bits of information. that lead to the end though the order in which I present them is probably a good order to run them II. Arrival in Saragasso- I wanted the system to be sort of like the legend of the saragasso sea where ships become lost and stranded in a huge floating mat of sea weed. To that end I envisioned it as being a dim star in a gas nebula that is hard to navigate to or from for some reason. Might need some more work on that idea. I also planned to anticipate some player attempts to gather information upon arrival- for example it would be smart for them to do some orbital mapping with the ship- a "satellite" map is called for and areas of interest could be marked on it- I believe I have just the soft ware for this and can do a version with a "overlay" suggesting promising locations for mineral deposites or an overlay showing power sources (atomic drives of the pirate ship and or nurino emmissions associated with a fussion reactor suggesting the possibility of such burried in the ruins, stuff along those lines. Also upon entering orbit the ships radar detects an object- a satellite left there by the pirates but that seems to be dead, it its investigated it's data base reveals a command coming from the surface to send a power surge through the CPU to lobotomize it. the sathar controlled pirate captain did this to prevent anyone on the surface from using it to communicate with a ship entering the system. III. Stranded ship. They've built a pallisade and are desperate for rescue. a critical piece of their ships drive is missing and they cannot take off without that, the PCs dont have a spare but their ship works just fine so... The stranded dont present themselves as pirates but this is something that could be discovered. Players will get one encounter to talk to the pirates and the pirates will start thinking "hey we're pirates lets just take their ship" and make a move but in the inital role play encounter the pirates will be hysterically trying to tell the PCs that some monster from the jungle is abducting them one by one and turning them into zombies or whatever. At some point in the role play encoutner the pirates could try to use entangler grenades on the PCs announcing "Let's take their ship and get out of here!" the Pirate captain as a sathar agent cannot allow that so in the storming of the PC's ship he goes straight to the engine room/ engines and removes the same critical part that prevents take off. Panic pirates will accuse the PCs of hiding that part. End result is that the PCs can continue investigating but relations with the pirates will be uneasy. II. A.) Lost yazirian ship, PCs will understandably be interested in recovering their engine parts and will look for them and or may search the jungle for ruins which could lead to the yazirian ship. this thing will never fly again though but it is a bit of a mystery being pre-star exodus in origin. It points to the existence of yazirians and or perhaps another clue B.) lost yazirian clan- the yazirians of the original crew were from different clans but a leader has pushed and formed them into a new clan, he's been so focused on the neccessity of this for survival for decades he sees rescue and a return to yazirian society as a threat to his power thus he has not made formal contact with the pirates. I've already propose primitive yazirian equipment in the core four project so bower tents and some of that stuff will appear in the yazirian tree village. The yazirians are intended as a safe strategic location for the PCs to recover but with tensions between them and the "clan chief" they also can be possible allies but significantly they do not know Pan Gal and a poly vox or a yazirian PC will be needed to talk to them. III. Lost city- animal encounters perhaps a reveal of a sathar asset- but perhaps not a full reveal- zombie bot that gets away. I guess this is where I'd insert the native race. IV. The obelisk- I think the obelisk from SF-1 needs a little bit of a rethink and freshening up. The sathar brain has had all robots abducted and is having a mech built that it can have its glass jar plugged into having decided that its the last and that it needs to fulfill the sathar mandate, one of its objectives is to leave the planet.The players get to explore the mostly empty obelisk. The brain has finished his mecha bot and enough of his army he's ready to move. This means securing the ships which is where he's at while the PCs are investigating the obelisk. The pirate captain will be discovered here recovering the cached engine parts with some slave bots under his command. which is an opertunity for the PCs to gain some info. V. The Empire of the Dead and escape from Pavor- PCs must stop the brain and his army of slave bots and prevent their ship from taking them sathar off Pavor. (Perhaps the yazirians can help?). the sathar will want to hypnotize anyone that has star ship skills to fly the ships, starting with the rest of the pirate crew. maps: 1. Orbital and maybe a system map 2. Landing sites: the stranded ship 3. PC's landing site 4. yazirian ship in the jungle 5. yazirian tree village 6. ruined city 7. obelisk I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 27, 2012 - 7:16am | As a tribute to the Isle of Dread authors I was thinking to name the Pirate leader Captain Cooke and the Yazirian leader Mol Vay. Another yazirian NPC could be Sil Key a second generation yazirian hunter (her motivation is to leave Pavor and she becomes the PC's friend) Side note the original yazirian crew will have had a few khadans and zamiras (honor blades) and these will be precious artifacts of the yazirians. Thus any PC turning up with a honor blade will cause quite a stir. Debating how to set up the possibility of yazirian help. PCs rescue a yazirian from slave bot fate? recover the slave bot body of the chief's mate? Or simply role play where the PCs need to find a good arguement that the GM decides would appeal to the yazirians and or their chief (I can think of a few I would use). I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
May 27, 2012 - 5:26pm | For the yazirian help, you can have the pc's come upon the abduction of a young yazirian. This yazirian, male/female is a child of the leader. So the pc's encounter the zombie-bot(s) at the same time as the yazirian presence. The zombie-bot is not a standard sathar construct something different they have never seen so they are not sure whether it is sathar or something else. And finding a young yazirian on a lost planet is strange indeed. Especially if there is a yazirian with the pc's. I would have an npc yazirian if none of the pc's are one. This would give them a point to argue with the chief as it was his child but he still does not want outsiders around to mess up his new clan. I would love to help you. I also sent you an email from my yahoo account a few minutes ago. You can contact me anytime. I will look over the SF-1 module and read up on the obelisk too, see what I can come up with. |
 September 14, 2014 - 11:21am | interesting...just use and modify the Dino Planet. |
September 14, 2014 - 11:48am | I really should reread the entire thread its been two years! Planet has a massive plateau. Plateau is safe and area that the pirates have set up a base. Low lands are exceedingly dangerous. Yazirians have an old encampment in caves in the side of the plateau's cliff face but they evacuated/ were driven off by pirates. Perhaps more of they lacked the tech to stand up to pirates so they moved the encampment to a defensible spot in the low lands. Enter the PCs. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 30, 2015 - 7:30am | What if the Sarragasso System has an alien artifact that is a void space magnet triggering ships travelling in the area to misjump to this system? It could be linked to the ruins or located on a moon or something. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 30, 2015 - 11:51am | Tempted to merge this with this thread: http://www.starfrontiers.us/node/8808#comment-40520. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
