Another SF Setting: Pharos IV (revised)

[seneschal]

Dolphins are durable opponents. In one of my HERO System games, I had the PCs attacked by a squad of dolphins ... equipped with jet packs and dorsal-mounted rifles. They swam up beneath the ship the characters were traveling on then burst from the waves. A downed dolphin begged for mercy in a Day of the Dolphin type squeaky voice, but the PCs killed it anyway. The brutes! :shocked:

[Mister Apocalypse]

Gee, if you make Varun much more inhospitable, the PCs would be better off asteroid mining.

Re: dolphins. Keep them as NPCs only but perhaps they're a lot smarter than they've been letting on. They've had thousands of years to study humans and learn to resent humans at this point. Now they're on a water world where they have every advantage and the humans have every disadvantage. Payback time!

Resent them for what?

What if the "trained dolphins" are quietly staking out colonies of their own and dealing with the locals in their own way. Maybe those "lost" Terran fish stocks weren't gobbled up by native predators. Maybe the dolphins are setting up their own aquatic herds and plankton farms. When they're ready, they'll abandon those despicable (if useful) land-dwellers to their fate, maybe performing a little well-informed sabotage along the way. >:->

Why should dolphins act like humans and be sneaky and hostile? It might be better storywise if they were friendly and helpful, but the dumb humans never listen.

For example the dolphin could advise strongly against adapting the environment to suit humans, warning of bad repercussions. The humans don't listen and end up introducing some Earth lifeform that grows unchecked, mutates and threatens to wipe everything out.

For instance, kelp. Only it turns out the local life forms can't eat Earth Kelp, and the Earth Kelp is wiping out the native equivalent. This threatens the survival of the creatures that rely on it for food, and the predators that rely on them, and so on up the food chain.

Or the humans deliberately wipe out some local predator only to get drowned in the local herd fish, who breed like rabbits and now have no natural predator.

It would be funny if the dolphin just kept shaking their dorsals and saying "We told you so."

[rust]

This reminds me that I have to read "The Legacy of Heorot" and "Beowulf's

Children" by Niven, Purnelle and Barnes again, to get a bit of inspiration for

the ecological desasters that can be caused by colonists who do not yet

understand the ecosystem of the planet they are on. :cool:

[rust]

Meanwhile I have designed the SWATH Carrier (= "floating starport") and the

colony's domed habitat Ghara Dome with the GURPS system to find out how

much construction material will have to be transported to Varun, and what it

will cost.

The SWATH Carrier has a mass of 4,800 tons, its parts require a transport

volume of 8,100 cubic meters, and they cost about 70 million credits.

The Ghara Dome has a mass of 3,300 tons, requires a transport volume of

8,800 cubic meters and its parts cost about 150 million credits.

So, with another 70 million credits for the mining platform, the biggest items

of the colony's equipment will cost a total of about 300 million credits - less

than I had expected. And the bulk transport starship that the colonists will

have to charter for the transports also has to be less big than expected.

The next step here would be to calculate the approximate mass, volume and

cost of all the other, minor stuff (machines, vehicles, robots ...), but this has

to wait, because I am beginning to suffer from mild symptoms of a "numeracy

burnout".

I mean, whoever invented "1 dton = 500 cubic feet = 100 VSP = 13.5 cubic

meters" and similar conversions obviously had a sadistic streak. :eek:

[Mister Apocalypse]

I think the reason behind that was because Traveller uses liquid hydrogen for fuel. Liquid hydrogen has a mass of about .07% that of water, and so would take up about 13.5-14 m3 per ton.

Be glad that they rounded off the numbers a bit. 13.5m3 is not 500 ft3.

FYI, since Traveller bases everything around liquid hydrogen, the final masses are going to be too light anyway, probably by an order of magnitude. So you could get away with a guesstimate.

What I would do is take the total volume of the structure and multiply it by a density factor to get an approximate mass. Water, for example has a density of 1 and steel is about 5.5

So if you wanted the average density of the dome to be able the same at water, you could multiply the volume by 1 to get a mass.

If you image the dome to be about as clutter as a car you could use .15 for a multiplier-that is about the same as a car.

I use .125 for BRP Spaceships, so you can just divide the volume by 8.

It can probably save you a lot of time, headaches, and will probably be close enough.

[rust]

What I would do is take the total volume of the structure and multiply it by a density factor to get an approximate mass.

Yep, this is what I intend to do for all other seafloor facilities, but I wanted

to design one of them in a little more detail to get a plausible value for the

density, which I can then use as a "shortcut" for all future calculations.

Besides, the design gave me a nice list of all the stuff in the setting's main

location, and makes it much easier to write a description of it for the play-

ers.

But juggling with stuff like "137 VSP = 18.495 dtons" once is quite enough

for me, from now on density will rule.

By the way, the Ghara Dome, without furnishings, vehicles and inhabitants,

has a little more than 14 kg per cubic meter.

Edited December 28, 2009 by rust

[rust]

Up to this point the setting has been somewhat generic, it can be played with

different systems. Now it is time to take a look at the actual system used.

Here is my first draft of my ideas for adapting BRP to the Varun setting, but

there will of course be more than a few changes before this becomes "final".

Power Level

Normal, no Powers

Characters

Point-Based Character Creation

Education/Knowledge Roll

Total Hit Points

Fatigue Points

Encumbrance

Skill Categories

Complimentary Skills

Allegiance

Aging and Inaction

Professions

Aquafarmer

Diver

Doctor

Dolphineer

Engineer

Explorer

Journalist

Mechanic

Merchant

Pilot

Politician

Priest

Seafarer

Security Officer

Scientist

New Skills and Specialties

Animal Handling

Craft (Aquaculture, Seafloor Mining)

Firearm (Sonic Weapons, Spearguns)

Hardsuit Diving

Heavy Machine (Seafloor Crawler)

Knowledge (Varun Nature, Varun Project; specific other cultures and planets)

Language (Diver Sign Language)

Melee Weapons (Diving Dagger, Diving Spear)

Pilot (Shuttle, Spaceship, Submarine)

Repair (Spaceship Systems)

Science (Cartography, Marine Biology, Oceanography)

Technical Skill (Marine Engineering, Spaceship Engineering)

Varunian Cultural Skills

Knowledge (Varun Project) + 20 %

Swim + 20 %

Edited December 28, 2009 by rust

[rust]

Just to let you know that the Varun setting is still alive and doing well ...

Meanwhile it has reached a volume of 76 pages of text plus 12 maps and charts, but

much of this are descriptions of spaceships and other items of technology or stats

of nonplayer characters and creatures, the details of the planet Varun and the cul-

ture of the colonists are still not complete.

A couple of spot rules are also still missing, especially those for diving and activities

under water, where I am still unable to decide how much detail these rules should

have. On the one hand I want to give the players a feeling of what life under the

conditions of a water world is like, on the other hand I do not want to make any ru-

les so complex that they get in front of the story.

I have started with the Campaign Plan, basically a description of the various back-

ground events that will influence the situation on Varun, from "news from afar" to

"strange visitors", and also sketched a few outlines for adventures the characters

might get into during their work for the colony's council.

As usual for my settings, this one is also a "sandbox", and the players are free to

decide what their characters will do, so the adventure outlines consist mostly of

descriptions of specific locations with the persons and / or creatures to be found

there, but without a pre-planned plot.

Yep, that's where I am at the moment.

[rust]

My personal setting and campaign design nemesis are background events,

the unfolding history of the setting that influences the "feeling" of the cam-

paign and the options for the player characters' activities.

Our campaigns usually consist of up to three adventures during each game

time year, with each adventure dealing with some important event in the

setting's ongoing history, and much off time to allow the player characters

to work on their jobs (e.g. research projects), found and raise families, im-

prove their skills, and all that.

This means that our campaigns tend to cover a lot of time, our record was

more than 120 game time years, and as the referee it is my job to come up

with the major background events during that time: Wars, epidemics, na-

tural desasters, inventions, megacorps takeovers ...

While designing all this tended to be a chore, I have now discovered that

it can also be fun, by using Runequest Empires and Runequest Guilds, Fac-

tions and Cults.

These books contain a rather generic system that treats states and orga-

nisations much like characters, with characteristics and skills, and provides

rules for their interactions - a system that creates a background history as

the result of a "background metagame".

Meanwhile I have created the stats for the Varun Colony and its most impor-

tant organisations (Jain Alliance, New Society, Aquafarmers' Cooperative,

Miners' Union ...), and the stats alone already provide a lot of ideas for fu-

ture conflicts, alliances and so on that may have consequences for the cha-

racters.

[Dredj]

Hey Rust,

Since you've mentioned Traveler, have you seen this: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=78452

[rust]

Hey Rust,

Since you've mentioned Traveler, have you seen this: http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=78452

Yep, I used it to design the various basic creature types of my setting, which I then

used to design and stat the different species of each type.

For example, the basic shape of all "Type A" creatures (warm blooded, radially sym-

metric, six limbs, and so on) was designed with Flynn's Guide to Alien Creation. Then

I worked out a "family tree" of these "Type A" species, assigned some special feature

to the members of each "branch" of that family tree, and finally used the design system

Frogspawner uploaded to the forum's download section to decide upon the BRP stats

of each species.

The result looks like this, with one "branch" still left "missing", just in case that I will have

a good idea I want to introduce later during the campaign as a new group of species to

be discovered by the characters:

[rust]

Not really Aliens ...

Having used various kinds of more or less "furry" aliens in my previous settings,

I think I will design the Varun setting without any real aliens at all.

Instead of true aliens, the as yet undiscovered neighbours of the Varun colo-

nists could be humans, the descendants of a colonization attempt that went

wrong because of a hyperdrive failure and stranded the colonists far from their

planned destination - a "lost colony".

However, while "lost colonies" usually are described as "neo-barbarian", this one

could have developed in the opposite direction, "forewards" instead of "back-

wards", and could now have a technology far superior to that of the worlds of the

known space.

I am not yet sure whether I will really use this idea, but if I do so I will probably

use the Darrians of the Traveller universe and the Minbari of the Babylon 5 uni-

verse as the base of my design of the "human aliens" society and culture.

[Atgxtg]

How about intelligent Plankton?

Maybe it's intelligent, but can't really do much to interact with the world (just goes with the flow).

It could be telepathic and have very high scores in mental skills and dealing with abstract concepts.

[rust]

How about intelligent Plankton?

I used something very much like this in an earlier setting, inspired by the book and

movie Solaris, an "intelligent primordial soup" with telepathic abilities.

[Atgxtg]

I used something very much like this in an earlier setting, inspired by the book and

movie Solaris, an "intelligent primordial soup" with telepathic abilities.

That's what I get for listening to a can of Campbells.

I take it the super-evolved Rice Crispies idea isn't worth mentioning?

[rust]

In this case I would prefer MMMMM, the Miraculous Monstrous Marsh Mellows Man ...

[Atgxtg]

Me too. On wheat bread with some peanutbutter.

[rust]

Since Varun's culture is based on the Indian culture, which is rumoured to be a very

status conscious culture, status and the influence it gives will be important elements

of the setting.

A player character will start with an average Status of 40 %, but this value can get

higher for someone with an advanced education (engineer, scientist) or a position

of authority (security officer). The maximum beginning value will probably be 65 %.

Status gives influence. Within the Varun colony, the normal Status value will be

used for this purpose, but outside of the colony the value will be reduced, depen-

ding both on the distance from Varun and the kind of people the character tries to

influence.

Within the Demidov Cluster, the value will be reduced by 20 %, and in the Far Ava-

lon Region by 50 %. If the character attempts to influence someone from a diffe-

rent field (e.g. a scientist attempting to influence a politician), the value will be redu-

ced by another 20 %.

So, a Varunian marine biologist with a Status of 65 % who attempts to influence a

CDA bureaucrat on Lubeck Station in the Far Avalon region has his Status value re-

duced by 50 % because of the distance and by another 20 % because the bureau-

crat is a non-scientist.

With the resulting Status of -5 %, the bureaucrat will obviously not be impressed

by that strange egghead from some unknown remote colony ...

Status can be gained and lost during play. Since the Varunians respect their elders,

increasing age gives a Status bonus. The actions and successes or failures of the

player characters can increase or reduce their Status value, depending on the im-

portance and consequences of their activities for the colony's community.

While increases through age affect all uses of the Status, increases through success

are more specific, they can affect only the character's status in certain regions (the

merchant who is well known and respected on Poselok) or with a certain group of

people (the starship captain who rescued a CDA official from certain death and now

is the CDA's local hero).

[seneschal]

Saw this, rust, and figured you'd be interested. It's an "underwater airplane." Sounds like Varun gear to me!

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/108737/branson-goes-20000-leagues-under-the-Sea?mod=retire-planning

[Atgxtg]

Saw this, rust, and figured you'd be interested. It's an "underwater airplane." Sounds like Varun gear to me!

http://finance.yahoo.com/retirement/article/108737/branson-goes-20000-leagues-under-the-Sea?mod=retire-planning

At 2-5 mph it's more like an underwater go kart. Not that I woundn't mind having one if I were at the beach.

[rust]

Saw this, rust, and figured you'd be interested. It's an "underwater airplane." Sounds like Varun gear to me!

Thank you very much.

There seem to be various versions, and they could indeed well become

something like the "private cars" of Varun:

http://www.deepflight.com/

[rust]

The economy, once more ...

BRP does not really help with the design of a plausible economy for my setting, so

I used the ideas from Call of Cthulhu for this.

I started with the average wage on the planet Shiva, where the colonists of Varun

come from, and decided that it is 3,000 Credits per month, or 36,000 credits per

year.

According to Call of Cthulhu, the average property of a character would be five

times of his yearly income, which would make it 180,000 Credits - a lot of money,

far more than I want a character to start with.

Therefore I decided that 150,000 Credis of this are his colony share, used to estab-

lish the colony and to buy its infrastructure, machines, vehicles, robots and all that.

In return for this colony share, each colonist gets board, food, medical care and

the use of the colony's basic infrastructure for free, so I do not have to care for

these costs during the campaign.

Another 20,000 Credits are used to buy the basic outfit of the colonist (clothing,

hand computer, communicator, tools, first aid kit, identicard and all this) and to fi-

nance his passage from Shiva to Varun.

This leaves the average character with 10,000 Credits to spare, for example to buy

what he needs for his profession, and as a financial reserve.

Calculating the profit from the crystal exports from Varun to Poselok and the running

costs of the colony, the remaining surplus is sufficient to pay each colonist a monthly

wage of 2,000 Credits, which he can use to pay for everything beyond the basics

provided through his colony share.

This is not bad, his standard of living is approximately as it was when he lived back on

Shiva, with 3,000 Credits per month, but having to pay for everything.

The 2,000 Credits per month give an average hourly wage of 12,50 Credits for each

of the 160 work hours per month.

People without a steady job have to demand more per hour to cover the hours when

they have no customers, so I decided that the average price of services will be some-

where between 25 and 50 Credits per hour - a labourer will ask for a little less, an ex-

pert for a lot more.

Since Varun is a much too small economy to have its own price structure, the prices of

equipment do not have to be in a direct relation with the income - almost all goods are

imported, with high transport costs, and therefore can be much more expensive than

one would expect because of the wages of the Varunians.

This suits me well, because I can set the prices of all kinds of equipment arbitrarily, pro-

vided the prices have a plausible relation to each other. In other words, I can use the

equipment prices from GURPS and Traveller with slight modifications.

Yep, that is it - I hope that it works.

[rust]

At the beginning of the campaign, almost all of the colonists - including the player

characters - will be employees of the colony council.

This suits me well, because as the referee I can send the characters on missions

that will enable them to "learn the ropes" of the setting.

However, I want the characters to become "freelancers" soon, because other-

wise the "sandbox" idea of the setting could not work, I would have to provide

adventures and the players would not really be free to decide what their cha-

racters are going to do.

Therefore I need some incentives to encourage the player characters to become

independents.

One incentive are the colony shares. Once the characters give up their steady jobs

with the colony council, they will still have the benefits of the colony shares: Free

room and board, free use of the infrastructure, free medical care. They will only lose

the monthly income of 2,000 Credits and will have to find another way to pay for

everything beyond their basic needs with their services or products.

Another incentive is that every new freelancer or newly founded company on Varun

will not have to pay any taxes during the first five years of their existence, and

there are a few more similar incentives built into the game.

------------------------------------------------------------

By the way, as mentioned elsewhere, I plan to use Runequest Empires and Runequest

Guilds, Factions and Cults for the "background metagame" to make it easier for me to

develop the background's ongoing history.

To connect my setting's economy with the Runequest system, I had to convert the set-

ting's Credits into the WTH Points of the Runequest system. This was easy enough, the

only problem was that the Varun colony (played with Runequest Empires) and the orga-

nizations within the colony (political groups, unions, etc., played with Runequest Guilds,

Factions & Cults) use different "currencies: A WTH Point on the colony level is the equi-

valent of 100,000 Credits, a WTH Point on the level of an organization is the equivalent

of 5,000 Credits.

Edited February 7, 2010 by rust

[rust]

The first adventure of the campaign will see the player characters on a mission

to the Chandalini System with the task to verify the previously obtained data,

to explore the planet Varun and to find a suitable location for the advance base

and the future settlement.

One of the "props" I intend to use for this adventure is the "survey map" of Va-

run. Unlike the normal maps of the planet, this one is divided into hexagons,

and each hexagon represents the area the player characters can survey in some

detail within about one week.

Since they have only a few months before the freighter with the advance team

arrives, they will have to make choices which parts of the planet to explore in

some depth and how to best use their available equipment.