 March 9, 2009 - 9:10pm | The UPF Comet, registry number 013, was an early model scout craft used in the 1st Sathar War. The design is a direct predecessor of the vaunted assault scout class but lacking all but one of the assault rockets and some of the maneuverability. The Comet disappeared during a major battle never to be heard from again and was presumed destroyed. This adventure opens with a miss calculated void jump into an uncharted system and the detection of a very old emergency beacon code squawking from the proximity of the only inhabitable planet. The beacon appears to be a battered antique weather sattelite. If it is recovered and cleaned a name plate identifying it as coming from the the UPF Comet. It is also evident that extra solar cells and computer components were added in a jury rigging attempt to make it a beacon instead of a weather sat. The truth about the Comet is that being damaged, pursued and cut off from it's fleet it's crew decided to "smoke the jump" in a bid to use the void to escape the Sathar. They reached an uncharted system and named it Becket after the captain. With the near miraculous landing on the only inhabited planet they named the planet after the ship. Though the ship landed successfully in the vertical orientation it latter toppled as a result of an earth quake. There is evidence of makeshift shelters next to the toppled hull as well as two graves. The ship has been stripped of all power sources (para-batteries) and usable equipment in the quest for survival. So the ship is in very sorry shape though one compartment is sealed and a flight couch was removed from the "wall" and reoriented to allow for easy access to a computer terminal. If the terminal is powered up and repaired a partial log/diary of one crewman can be retrieved. So this is the core idea for an adventure/encounter; its sort of a mystery to be unravelled while the diary/log will answer some questions concerning how the ship got there and some of what happened after but not the ultimate fate of the crew other than the occupants of the 2 graves their is still 4 more unaccounted for. Not terribly exciting yet so we need some action: 1. attacked by some native inhabitants Not terribly high stakes for the PCs: 2. strange infection happening to some of the crew oh yeah there is a cryptic reference to the infection in the diary/log and even a reference to finding a possible answer counter the infection. 3. things that could be explored: hull plates were removed to make shelters but not all the plates are present. no para batteries to be found as well as lots of other missing equipment. etching on some of the removed hull plates. I'm not sure I like the ship's name either so Comet is a working name I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
March 10, 2009 - 6:55am | For the infection angle I'm kicking around a few angles but I was also thinking to make 1 race immune to the infection. Since I consider humans and yazerians to be biologically similar it wont be them and since it seems to me that more people play drals than vursk I may just go with drals being immune- they really do have an out there sort of biology. though I guess that the way they breathe and eat would also make them more susceptable to enviromental contaminates. maybe the environment is the cause of the dral's sickness but it just looks like the infection: have humans and yazerians affected first with some visible symptom-bruises and a -5% LOG, STR, and STA. Shortly after that the drals in the party get a -5% STA & STR due to absorption of environmental contaminates- you'd be surprised how many people would assume its the same thing. May have to design an infection that has different effects based off biology something where the ultimate end is bad just different based off the characters race. As the PCs try to discover what is going on they learn early on that the infection is affecting each differently but they still don't know what's going to happen. Everytime a new effect gets applied in game the tension gets upped increasing the sense of danger. I was actually thinking of stealling from a Star Trek TNG episode where the landing party gets infected by the local race that reproduces by infecting host and the host DNA begins to mutate into the local race. No one knew the local race existed at first as they have a light shift ability that works like the Predators camo - plus they're sensitive to light and only come out at night. There is a point where the Damage to the DNA becomes permanent. This would be the source of the local race that attacks the PCs (some of them are the former crew of the Comet) maybe one has a id tag from the crew. If the bodies in the graves are exhumed and autopsied it will be discovered that the dead vursk died by being crushed (maybe as a result of the ship falling over hard to tell at this point but his carpace was smashed like an egg shell) The other body is a human or yazerian with some very odd bone deformations. (caused by the infection and rewriting of his DNA) The crew member who was least affected was the one to keep the log/diary and if a computer expert keeps working at recovering the log file over time more and more info can be generated from that source moving things along. He apparently was responsible for stripping much of the ship and removing it to another location that he called the Vault or some such. he could even still be alive having set up energy collectors to power a freeze feild and interned himself there hoping to be rescued one day. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 10, 2009 - 9:17am | Nice. The background is good. I guess the end result of the infection would also determine who is susceptible? You have nice multiple twists. good work. Keep it up Time flies when your having rum. Im a government employee, I dont goof-off. I constructively abuse my time. |
March 10, 2009 - 12:36pm | You have nice multiple twists. Despite running the Volturnus campaign I really dont like whats been called "linear dungeons" where the Players have to run a guantlet and their choices boil down to should I show up for the game or not. I really like the Volturnus series but it really is a linear dungeon right up to the finale module where it shifts gears in SF-2 becomes a series of skirmishes that have greater and greater effect on the outcome and the handling of the battle is cool. So I try to plan for lots of clues to be found and if the players find them good but if not then maybe that unused clue comes back to haunt them latter. I think I heard it called the octopus approach to running city adventures where you have 8 different things going on and the players get the illusion that they're running the game cause they have total control over what they do but you've just prepped lots of material and flesh it out as you go along when you see what they're interested in pursuing. It makes a lot of sense for city adventures but it also can be used in other kinds of adventures. The above described adventure could be run as a quick encounter: The players discover the beacon, the crash site, recover the flight data recorder and what computer files and blast off assuming everyone must be dead from the crew and proceed to figure out where they are and how to get home. any infection that was contracted (maybe they stayed in vac suits or the natives never got the chance to attack) could just as easily be cured back at civilization in a major hospital. The PCs would recieve money for the charted star route and be heralded for discovering the fate of the Comet. end of story. or not. Or they could be blasted in the news for failing to rescue survivors- remember the guy in the freeze field? that would be an unused clue coming back to haunt them. and I could just as easily retroactively make it 2 crew members in freeze feilds and the power failed on one but if the PCs had looked they could have rescued both before the power failure - so now everyone thinks they're losers and they catch some ridicule here and there but the crewman that survived now has a axe to grind with them as his friend could have been saved by them if they had looked. After all he had etched a map on the hull plates! I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 10, 2009 - 3:21pm | I like your idea so far. To throw off characters with the infection aspect of the game, consider this, perhaps all characters acquire the 'infection' at least initially, but your chosen race (Drals) for some reason of their biology, are able to fight the infection. Perhaps they suffer as well, but eventually plateau with symptoms, then after some time actually begin to recover. That will certainly throw off any character attempts to figure out stuff quickly, and may hold some 'clue' as to how to provide the 'cure' later when you decide to finish out that arc of your story. <insert witty comment here> |
 March 10, 2009 - 3:21pm | I can't improve much on those ideas, Jedi, that is just simply outstanding. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
 March 10, 2009 - 8:37pm | Here are some good twists: 1. Not only is the Comet a mystery, but quite valuable: several collectors and museums are anxious for its parts. These people are willing to pay top dollar for such a valuable artifact from the First Sathar War. The collectors that are refused by the party hire other mercenaries to find it - some quite brutal. 2. A famous holo director produced a documentary about the "Lost Ship of the First Sathar War" and is obsessed with the mystery. A clue falls into his lap and he is anxious to be there to record its recovery - Hollywood style. The film and distribution rights could be worth millions of credits - not to mention action figures and lunch boxes featuring the PCs! 3. The Comet was indeed a predeccessor of the great Assault Scout. And the Sathar are indeed aware of this - painfully so. As the Frontier finds out about the fate of the Comet, so do the worms. The race, and battle, is on to find and recover the ship. Even better, combine some or all of the above for out-of-control craziness. But cool idea, Jedion. Stories like yours are what this is all about. |
March 10, 2009 - 8:59pm | Oops got a small reworking here- the UPF Comet cannot be a UPF scout ship it will have to be a militia ship that was "federalized" for the wartime emergency on permanent loan to the UPF and attached to one of the major fleets. When the PCs reach the system they detect the beacon and it has a standard UPF header in the numeric code it's transmitting (think something akin to morse code) but the rest is unrecognizable. The reason being is that the code is the obsolete code used by that particular militia and after the war all militias conformed a lot of their policies and procedures to match the UPF and the UPF code became universal. Whoever set up the beacon only knew the militia code and the UPF header; the Captain certainly would have know the UPF code so this must be the work of a surviving crewman and not the captain. As the PCs recover computer files they will find a file with the militia code in it and be able to decode the message: "Warning all ships do not land biological hazard, avoid this planet at all cost." Also concerning the computer I plan to tell the computer tech looking at it that its badly corrupted and in need of some repair and a power source before he can even determine if there is any viable info. It can be repaired in place and powered up after 1.5 hrs or the memory drives can be pulled and worked on at their ship. Once they get a look at it I'll then tell him that the memory is badly corrupted but he can pull a small amount of data and give that hand out but he may be able to write a program to filter and clean memory files to get more So while the adventure is going on they keep getting bits and pieces from the computer files. I also think that with so much corruption of the memory drives that a virus might be able to infect the PCs computers if connected directly. Lots of infection to go around there that way. Originally I thought that the weather sat was left in orbit before landing but now with the code stuff it needs to be launched after the ship lands so I'm thinking that the least infected crewman was able to canablize parts from the assault rocket spares and the ships engines to launch the jury rigged sattelite- may as well make him the engineer. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 10, 2009 - 11:06pm | I'll toss a sub-plot out on the table for consideration: Have one of the original crew members be a sathar agent. Or at the very least, having been approached by the worms and made a generous offer to turn traitor. This could turn the whole disappearance act into a planned voyage, as the planet could have been a sathar outpost or other such gathering place during the first war. Then you could add the spin that the worms were immune to the toxic environment and gave said agent/operative an antidote, the formula of which could eventually be discovered by the newcomer adventure party's environmentalist. Not to mention it could become the first documented sathar subterfuge/inflitration of the soon-to-be UPF. |
March 11, 2009 - 9:43am | @ Shadow : I like your sub plot because I was thinking that the adventure needed the stakes raise beside just death from infection. something more of a threat. though I think making this a sathar outpost would change the flavor of the adventure. another way to raise the stakes would be if the PCs rescue the crewman from the freeze field he might take action to prevent the PCs from ever taking off thus preventing the spread of the infection. He would easily recognize and understand some of the modern changes in equipment and be able to steal components and sabotage the PC's ship and sneak away to a spider hole he had previously set up. Plus he had used the assault rocket spares to cobble together a rocket to launch the satellite but the warheads were not used- Improvised Explosive Devise? If the rescued crewman manages to stay one step ahead of the PCs he would do his initial sabotage then go work on the IED so he'd represent a serious complication. I suppose I'd play this NPC a little bit bat house nuts as well. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 March 13, 2009 - 11:54pm | Hi Guys, Something valuable, to encourage them to want to risk getting the Blue plague or Canoptic virus. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 14, 2009 - 12:01am | P.s. I like all the ideas. I guess I have had a few players make a left turn from too many adventures I worked on. hehehe At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 14, 2009 - 9:41am | @ Alberquerque? "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 14, 2009 - 7:17pm | Ha Ha I wondered if anyone would get the reference. For my wife and sons first Star Frontiers adventure I used The Alberquerque Starport adventure from Gamma World. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 16, 2009 - 3:03pm | Hmm. So, did your wife and sons get the idea to capture one of the Sathar zombies unalive to take back home for study? "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 16, 2009 - 3:57pm | They took sample of the brown goo stuff and got all the scientific info they could off the computers. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 17, 2009 - 2:52pm | LOL...cool. "You're everything that's base in humanity," Cochrane continued. "Drawing up strict, senseless rules for the sole reason of putting you at the top and excluding anyone you say doesn't belong or fit in, for no other reason than just because you say so." —Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stephens, Federation |
March 17, 2009 - 9:30pm | It was a lot of fun, much recommended.... Sorry Jedion357 didn't mean to highjack. I think you have some great ideas for adventures. Keep the ideas coming. At least I got to scare an alien rabbit thingy...... |
March 18, 2009 - 5:16am | It was a lot of fun, much recommended.... Sorry Jedion357 didn't mean to highjack. I think you have some great ideas for adventures. Keep the ideas coming. no worries you can only talk about certain topics so much I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
