The Hepplewhite Crash Site.

The Wrecked Spaceship



A. Entry Lock. The inner hatch is locked. Any tampering will activate a recording that says, "Only authorized Hepplewhite, Inc., employees are allowed past this point. Please enter your security code." The door has a level 1 security lock. It must either be opened by a technician or blown open with explosives.

B. The Cockpit. A short ladder leads up to the cockpit. The body of a human pilot is strapped into the seat. All of the instruments are scorched and ruined, but beneath the pilot's seat is a black box labeled "Flight Record" that seems undamaged. If the characters play the tape, they will hear a yazirian saying, "There's been an explosion! Dierba is dead. I'm sealing off the engine compartment. Has anyone seen Rinny?" There is a fire extinguisher on the wall and an odd, slimy trail on the floor.

C & D. Wrecked Cabins. The room to starboard is caved in and contains nothing of value. A black trail of slime covers the plastic floor in the port side room. There is a child's toy on one of the bunks. The crash weakended the floor, so anyone walking into the room must make a RS check or fall through the floor, taking 1d5+2 points of damage.

E. Storage. All three storage lockers on the right are open and empty. There is a fire extinguisher on the wall and many black slime trails on the floor.

F. Rear Hatch. If the characters open this hatch, they will find dangling wires that are throwing sparks. Touching the wires will cause 2d10 points of damageand stun the characters for 1d10 minutes. To enter this area, characters must use an insulated tool to move the wires out of the way. Two doors leading down to the cargo area are blown open. A ladder leads up to the engine pods, and the hatch is badly scorched. An access panel in the port wall is open. More slime trails criss-cross the floor.

G. Engine Pod. The body of a dead yazirian is slumped in a control chair.  The engines are cracked, and acid and oil are collecting in pools on the floor. There is a 10% chance each minute that a fire will start in this compartment. If a fire starts, characters will realize that the ship will explode in 2 minutes (20 turns). The fire extinguishers in the ship will not stop the fire, but each turn the fire is sprayed delays the explosion for one turn. The characters using the extinguisher takes 1 point of damage per turn.

H. Cargo Hold. Nothing is left here but wreckage and slime on the floor. The slime was left by a small omnivore, a slime bug, that is hiding in the wreckage (Move Slow; IM/RS 6/55; STA 35; ATT 55; Dm 2d10). It looks like a flat bug with razor sharg claws. Characters move at half speed in slime.

Any character with Demolitions skill can find enough evidence in the hold to prove that a bomb was planted in the cargo hold. Otherwise, the players must figure this out themselves.

I. Service Passage. The characters can hear the sound of crying from this passage, but wreckage blocks the the crawlway. A fire extinguisher will cool the wreckage so characters can get past.

J. Wheel Well. A small yazirian child, Rinny, is trapped in this landing wheel well. He is crying and scared, but unhurt.

Q? Q is labeled on the map 3 times in three different locations? Why?

Volturnus Brief (Post Discovery)

[Insert physical data on Volturnus here]

A UPF Territory

After the Battle of Volkos and the Battle of Zebulon by native and UPF forces against the sathar the UPF came to stay in the Zebulon system. Defense planners in Space Fleet quickly realized that Zebulon was the system through which the sathar invaded the Frontier during the First Sathar War and as such was too important to leave unguarded. This fact drove the push to annex the system as a territory more than the benevolent reason touted in the press of concern for the primitives.

In short order the UPF had appointed a governor, established a forward Space Fleet base and dispatched a large contingent of Star Law marshals to Volturnus all over the initial protest of the eorna. The governor has at his disposal a civilian police force, called the Volturnus Protective Agency, for maintaining general law and order. Space Fleet concerns itself with policing the system. Star Law concerns itself with largely with investigating sathar activity and interstellar crime. Thus the governor is responsible for diplomacy with the eorna, ensuring the primitives are not abused and monitoring corporate activity on Volturnus.

The Native Populations
The eornan civilization was destroyed nearly a millennium ago by the sathar and less then a few hundred individuals had survived until their discovery by the UPF. In the intervening millennium the eorna survivors embarked on a "Great Mission" to evolve a replacement species that would rise up and defeat the sathar when they were eventually gone. It seems that there was not a consensus on how to go about this great mission and thus three separate species were evolved to sapience: ul-mor, kurabunga, and edestakai. There is a fourth potentially sapient species, the mechanons. Apparently they evolved from eornan robots instructed to self-replicate and continue doing their missions. The eorna staunchly deny them the status of sapience. Some have theorized that the mechanons were no accident and are simply the engineered product of a dissenting eornan scientist believing a race of machines would be better suited to defeating the sathar.

The eorna have not fully relinquished their custodial relationship over the primitive races despite the proclamation of self-determination of all sapients by the Council of Worlds. Most of the early governors exercised tact concerning the primitives and the eorna as long as the eorna were not perceived to violate the civil liberties of the primitives by enforcing their bio-engineering programs on them.

The Mega Corporations
Due to the nature of the charter and the organization of the Zebulon territory all of the mega corps are allowed to exploit and develop resources in the system. Early governors interpreted their mandate to protect the primitives in ways that put some limits on mega corp activities and have forced them to maintain their corporate enclaves in a central location to better keep an eye on their activities. Concessions are awarded for resource development in out-lying areas that do not impact the natives.

Some mega corps buck the restrictions and play a semantic game of challenging the authority of the governor and claiming their trade enclave is actually attached to the eornan government which, which according them has sole discretion of awarding resources concessions. The eornans, being money, resource and manpower limited have played along taking some corporate payouts for concessions they judge to not impact the natives. To date none of the corporations that challenge the governor's authority have done so in too flagrant a manner but at some point the issue will come to a head.

Star Law on Volturnus
Star Law was busy in the months after the Battle of Volkos investigating the activities of the Star Devil pirates and attempting to confiscate all the abandoned sathar equipment. They have since taken over the old pirate town and established a training base and impound facility there. Some believe its also a secret lab for working on sathar equipment and bodies. A pair of marshals is also posted to the City of Volkos to monitor the mega corps and mercenaries there.

For the most part Star Law has downsized its contingent. At any given time there is 1-5 marshals plus support staff on Volturnus. The Volturnus post is consider very important despite its size or the overall population of the planet.

Space Fleet
Space Fleet has established a sizable forward base and supply depot on Volturnus. Without a station in orbit its shuttles are kept busy ferrying personnel and supplies back and forth from space.