M-Space: Pirates of Drinax Campaign

[Pentallion]

I originally started this thread on the forum for The Design Mechanism.  However, I won't agree to Tapatalk's (lack of) privacy policy.  so I will be continuing that thread over here.  To get up to speed for those who don't mind their policies and analytic intrusions, here is the original thread:  https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/designmechanism/viewtopic.php?p=26351&utm_medium=email#p26351

So now on to our latest adventures.

When we left off, the PCs had finally caught up to the Ginnea and were about to catch their stowaway and bring her home to her father.  When they jumped into the Sagan system, however, the Mercifuge found itself in the middle of the wreckage of a recent space battle.  Two Aslan escorts wiped out.  Two other ships signalling Mayday.  The Ginnea was there.  She was dead in space.  Reefer Jeeders was captaining the "Merc" as they had begun calling her and he established comms with the surviving two ships Ravager and Catgutter..  It turned out they were pirates in Peytr Vallis' gang.  These were the guys that hated all Aslan and exclusively raided Aslan ships.  These guys recognized Jeeders and his crew from their earlier visit with the Pirate Lord Vallis.  The PCs had taken a liking to Peytr being as they hated Aslan almost as much as he did.  So when they heard that an Aslan Slaver from the Glorious Empire had raided the system and taken everyone aboard the Ginnea, that Peytr's gang had taken out the slavers escorts and that the slaver had only just jumped out of the system, they decided to quickly refuel and pursue.

There was only one problem.  Their flagship, the Darklight, never jumped into the system.  As more and more time passed, it became apparent that the Darklight had probably misjumped.  the crew had to work under the assumption that their leader, Captain Highfall and his entire crew were lost forever.

Actually, there were two problems.  Which way had the slaver gone?  The crew of the Merc guessed they'd jump next to Lacideaus.  With no escort, they reasoned that the slaver would run for home.  They were wrong, but a few weeks later as they circled back to the Dustbelt, they caught up to her as she was refueling at a gas giant.

As they closed in, the Slave ship finished refuelling and began climbing out of the gas giants gravity well when it opened fire on the Merc.  They missed.  Lucas Aurelius did not.  A few shots from both sides and suddenly Aurelius critted the salvers power plant.  She went dead in space.  Q Bot calculated the slaver would fall back into the gas giant and be destroyed in 6 hours.  It would take 3 hours and 40 minutes for the Merc to reach her.

As it turned out, the situation wasn't quite as dire.  The slave ship managed to restore emergency power and get into a stable orbit.  The Merc came alongside, extended her forced linkage and boarded the much larger ship.  As the boarding gun blew a hole open into the hull, the boarders were met immediately with blaster fire.  Lucas was on a roll, a burst from his weapon tore an Aslani limb off.  Q Bot muttered "Monkey needs a hug" and unleashed a burst of electricity into one Aslan who was stunned.  Return fire damaged Q Bot slightly, but he muttered "Monkey Loves You" and passing his manipulator over the blasted area, repaired the damage.  After a couple rounds, only 2 Aslan still stood and as Bixel and Torlann charged in with cutlasses, the Aslani roared, their dewclaws snapping from their paws and met them in melee.  Bixel, already employing his Q Tech to enhance his cutlass' damage, critted his opponent, cleaving him in two at the chest.  Torlann quickly dispatched his own enemy and Q Bot took the stunned Aslan prisoner.  The battle was over.

The remaining Aslani crew were female technicians and the pilot, who surrendered.  The PCs found 600 humans frozen in cryo, waiting to be taken to the Glorious Empire for a short, brutal life as a slave.  Their girl was one of them.  Q Bot and the crew of the Ginnea got the power plant repaired enough to limp her to the next star system, Dpres, which had a starport capable of repairing their latest prize.  They tore out the cryo chambers and sold them along with their other treasures accumulated during their journey - though they steadfastly refused to part with the Gravity Distorter.  This paid for the repairs to their new ship, christened the Esmerelda.  It would take quite a while for the repairs to the power plant to be completed.  In the meantime, they were one jump away from Solaria, where Lucas' uncle, Vlen Beckett, had told them he'd seen a strange starship buried under a ton of giant bones in a valley.  This seemed a good time to explore that boneyard and see what they turned up.

And so we called it a night.

Meanwhile, in an uncharted star system hidden within a thick, dark nebula, the Darklight found her engines were mysteriously dead and she was being drawn inexorably towards a small planetoid.  As Captain Highfall demanded his engineer Trixana Banks get the engines fired back up ASAP, Red Molloch noticed something strange about the dark orb as they got closer.  "Captain, that's no planetoid....."

[clarence]

Good to see the scenario continued here!

[...]

Nice stuff, years ago I was a player in a Drinax game. This is not the first Traveller game I have seen run with M-Space; I have recommended to some Traveller people and they have tried it too.

[clarence]

Traveller and Mythras/BRP go very well together. Conversion is quite easy.

And I might, or might not, be writing a short conversion guide at the moment. 

Edited June 1, 2018 by clarence

[...]

There was a download for Striker here, which had all the Traveller stuff. I think the biggest conversion factor is that Traveller ships need fuel, and M-Space's do not in the same way.

[soltakss]

There is also RQ SciFi which merges the Traveller and MRQI SRDs.

[Pentallion]

So tonight was a ton of fun.  This is my own adventure, something I hope might find it's way into print one day.  The Darklight finds itself on an orb made entirely of wrecked starships.  There is no underlying planet.  Only starships.   Something is draining their energy.  But the Darklight uses a Torch Drive so if they can get enough material called Casimirium out of the wrecked starships, they could theoretically get off this "Junkyard".  They've got 4 weeks of life support left, however.

They aren't alone either.  There are strange aliens and a group of humans who live in a place called The Can.

The PCs met up with one alien race and the humans.  Together these groups hope to find enough Casimirium.  One problem, too many passenger wannabes, not enough space on board the Darklight,.  

They just explored an aliens starship and unknowingly brought something back to their ship with them.  A NanoIntelligence that if it gets to populated space could spell the end of humanity.  It attacked them as a glittering cloud of dust, but they captured it.  Right now, the mad Dr. Stein is gleefully testing it in his lab.  It's gotten bigger thanks to him.  He's pondering if he should let a human come in contact with it.

Edited June 6, 2018 by Pentallion

[Pentallion]

We've missed several weeks the past few months, but this week we gamed twice in one week.  They began by investigating a nest of alien vermin, looking for more Casimirium.  Turns out that battles in which the PCs get 8 critical hits - EIGHT!!! - are rather one sided and end quickly.  Who knew?  Having wiped out the alien Skrikx nest they then noticed in the distance an imperial ship crash site.  They returned the next day to explore it.  They found more Casimirium and learned another Torch Drive ship called the Torchbearer was already shielded and has been coming and going from the Junkyard, plundering it for alien artifacts.

Then, on the way back they got caught in the open during a meteor storm.  They found cover but when a large meteor struck several miles away, the resultant explosions left two of them pinned down by debris and leaking oxygen.  There was a great deal of panic as the would be rescuers lacked the Brawn to dig their comrades out as their air escaped.  This was one of the tenser moments in the entire campaign as it looked like Aaron Jackson and Commander Stern weren't going to make it.  But they finally managed to free them and seal their suits, then shared their remaining oxygen tanks between themselves to just make it back to the Darklight by the skin of their teeth. 

The human inhabitants of this place lost their primary power plant in the meteor shower and now they can't survive much longer.  Definitely not long enough for the PCs to take some of them off world and then return for the others.  So the stress to guarantee a space on the Darklight is getting greater.

They've completed about 80% of the shielding they need to install to get off the Junkyard.  But they've only got enough life support to last them a week.  Meanwhile, the humans they found who are helping them have planted a bomb on board the ship just to ensure the crew doesn't suddenly leave without them.  No one is even willing to think about how they'll survive the week long journey home should they be able to make the jump.

Meanwhile, the silicon based life form that created this place have become aware of the PCs efforts to collect their sacred Casimirium and are preparing to launch a raid to take it back.  The PCs are about to meet the masters of this twisted metal hellhole.

Edited June 8, 2018 by Pentallion

[Pentallion]

And so tonight the silicon based life form the Wuh'ja'ta attacked the Darklight.  Their goal was to blow her airlocks and vent her air.  But they failed pretty dramatically.  the dice definitely did not like me and loved the players.  So they were easily repulsed and Aaron used his bounty hunting Q Tech to reach his mind out to his prey.  They were fleeing through dark tunnels that led a mile deep to their city.  Some bargains were made at the Can, npcs hired in guarantee of residence on the Darklight.  They climbed down through twisted metal and viewed the city.   They made out what they thought was a life support complex, maybe, weren't too sure.  A power plant pretty sure about that and a guarded area they suspected had everything to do with the energy drain.  They decided if they took that out they wouldn't need Casimirium to escape so they climbed back up, went and got a guy who knew demolitions from The Can and brought him back down.  He made a bomb out of some Thermal Detonators, with a chemical timer.  Then Aaron used his Q Tech again along with his camoflage armor to sneak in while the others created a diversion,.

In that room he saw what no other carbon based being had ever seen before.  Sadly, he lacked the astrophysics, or any science skills actually, to make heads or tails out of what he was looking at.  So he didn't understand blowing up the device that was draining all the energy was a Really Bad Idea.

So he blew it up.  And then the race was on to get back to the Darklight and get off planet before the protosingularity that was being held in stasis began to form into a black hole and swallow the entire planetoid.

There was some stressful moments and a showdown with the humans from the Can, but in the end, they took on as many as they could and escaped.

A few weeks later they jump into Solaria just as the Mercifuge is arriving.  A happy reunion with the rest of their friends.  Now they are ready to go down and check out that buried star ship that Lucas' uncle Vlen Beckett told them about.

Oh, and I forgot.  they met the Torchbearer, a duplicate of the Darklight, but it got away.

I really can't wait until they take a hit to the med lab and the NanoIntelligence escapes.

Edited June 13, 2018 by Pentallion

[clarence]

Sweet. Sounds like it will be a great published scenario. 

[Pentallion]

Only if my writing improves.  Still too small , but Im working on it.  Fingers crossed.

[Pentallion]

So tonight was a fun way to play my favorite board game Betrayal on house on the Hill.   They landed on Solaria and sent Q Bot, Trizana, Red and Lucas to scout out the area where Lucas' uncle Vlen Beckett told them they would find an alien spacecraft.  What they ran into was a psionic ambush by the two people who escaped from Dr. Steins abominable experiment when he broke the psionic plane.

In the experiment, Stein attempted to use a psionically gifted child to mind control an Aslan.  What he got instead was the childs psyche transplanted into the Aslan whose own psyche is unaccounted for.  A third personality, that appeared when Stein broke the psionic plane, took over the childs body.  This person can best be described as innately evil to its core.

These two now await the arrival of the Darklight so they can kill Dr. Stein.  They have found the alien starship.  It is also psionic.  It has an organic computer system that was linked to the psionic plane by an experiment similar to the one conducted by Dr. Stein but eons ago.  The child amplifies the ships psionics to create a dream like illusion to the four PCs who enter the ship.  They see a house instead.

Each PC finds themselves lost in the house and separated from the others.  Q Bot has the worst of it.  He can't access his memory files but suppressed memories come forth.  Memories of Vlen Beckett ripping open the psionic plane and putting something inside of him.  Doing to Q Bot what aliens once did to this space ship.  He tries to break out by discharging energy into himself but only succeeds in stunning himself.  Eventually, he is overcome and a rift opens up in his mind.  The same rift that Vlen tore open long ago.

But this time it is the child tearing open the rift and unleashing four of her friends from what they perceive as Hell.  These phantasms rush from the ship and go to the Darklight where three of them are destroyed but the forth possesses Ambrose who then tries to kill Dr. Stein. 

Meanwhile, the ship pierces Trizana's neural comms and explains that it is also under psionic assault and that they have to find and waken Q Bot to close the rift.  They manage to do so.  Not before Ambrose is restrained and they record his ravings, which are in an unknown language.  The computer identifies the language as Russian of ancient Earth, specifically the lingua of the cossacks.  The entity within Ambrose was saying that he needed to kill the Doctor in order to free himself from Hell.

Afterwards, they made contact with the ship, which is now theirs.  Other than speak telepathically to the crew, it has only one psionic power.  It has a luck point it can use in battle.  But it also had shocking information.  The same being that created it, created Q Bot as well.   And that being arranged for the child to wait here in ambush for Dr. Stein and use Q Bot to open a rift.  Why this being did that, the ship does not know.

[Pentallion]

They traveled quite a bit last night.  They returned to Drinax to learn that Lucas' Uncle Vlen had suddenly passed away and they had to go all the way to Tobia to pick up his remains and claim Lucas' inheritance.  Along the way they encountered a lone ship from Admiral Daroykins pirate fleet.  They met up and treated them to a meal and learned that an Imperial Flotilla had been spotted in the Reach hunting down pirates.  Their flagship was a Planet class Heavy Cruiser.  The flotilla sounded immense.  They proceeded to Cordan where they delivered the weapons the aborigines needed to overthrow the rulership.  Now that's a haven for their pirate fleet.  They then encountered an old belter in Wildeman who had discovered a hidden star base of a long dead famous pirate.  They learned the only way to get past its security was to find  a descendant of the pirate who built the base.  Their investigations led them to believe that she was in the employ of Admiral Daroykins pirate fleet.  They had business in Tobia, however, so they left it at that and proceeded into the Imperium.  They learned Vlen had been murdered and were starting to investigate when we called it a night.

This was the lull before the storm.  The start of Secret of the Ancients will lead them on an epic campaign, but the appearance of the Imperial Flotilla means the beginning of an epic 18 month game of hide and seek.

[g33k]

Did this'un die ?

[clarence]

I believe Pentallion still runs it - but with a twist : )

[g33k]

11 hours ago, clarence said:

I believe Pentallion still runs it - but with a twist : )

Hey, I don't need to know if @Pentallion is twisted.  TMI, man... TMI !

🤡

 

I'm just wondering if the campaign is being AP'ed / forum'ed / blogged / etc anywhere ...  🤗

[Pentallion]

We had a new player to our group of 12 years. He didnt work out and the campaign got derailed.  We started an RQG campaign.  I cant say much more as my players started reading this forum.

I would love to restart a Pirates campaign.  But time is an issue.

[g33k]

On 3/7/2019 at 9:21 PM, Pentallion said:

We had a new player to our group of 12 years. He didnt work out and the campaign got derailed...

Ahh.

Sorry to hear; but of course RL has derailed us all... 

 

Were there any more sessions you could (would be willing to) report?

Did you make any conversion-notes, or have any  "how-to"s  you'd be willing to share?  Maybe docs for the Downloads section?

Edited March 10, 2019 by g33k
F'ing auto complete

[Pentallion]

IIRC, right where I stopped is right where we left it.  Most of what I did is on a server for Roll20.  The ship conversions are in a binder on paper.

One thing that I dumped in the conversion was the massive amounts of fuel.  M-Space doesn't have that  so in converting I dropped the tonnage from fuel.  Fuel converters I kept, but those are usually only a ton or two. My reasoning is the fuel is exotic matter for the warp drive.  It doesn't take tons as it isn't stored, it's created as part of the drive process.  I call the stuff Casimirium after the Casimir Effect.  It's a lot to type out so here is one for an example:

Star Ray Class Interceptor

TL12  200 tons  Streamlined  Armor 6  Thrust 3 Jump 1 Double Jump

01-02 Improved Sensors +15% 0/3

03-09 Bridge 6/10

10 Forced Linkage Apparatus 6/2

11 Beam Laser Turret 6/1

12-32 Staterooms 6/32

33-34 Cryo 6/3

35-38 Common Areas 6/6

39-42 Hvy Grappling Claw 6/6

43-44 Cargo Crane 6/3

45 Cargo Scoop 6/2

46-52 Fighter Docking Space 6/11

53-82 Cargo Hold 6/44

83 Rear Beam Laser Turret 6/1

84-90 Jump Drive 6/10

91-95 Power Plant 6/7

96 Fuel Processor 6/1

97-00 Thrusters 0/6

The hit locations mirror the deck plans, so high rolls hit the rear of the ship, low rolls hit the front and so on.  This allowed me to allocate excess damage.  If one hit location was destroyed the excess was split between adjacent locations.  In combat, this meant a high roll to the engine area with enough damage could potentially take out everything.  That's what happened on occasion.  If you note the Darklight below, it has dispersed powerplant, jump drive, etc.  No one hit takes out everything.  Some ships are specifically designed to have critical areas dispersed for that reason. 

 

Edited March 11, 2019 by Pentallion

[Pentallion]

Here's a view from inside Roll20

[Pentallion]

Here is a random character homeworld table.  Each player got one character from Drinax and one from a random world.  The part that says Origin is for the upcoming M-Space Companion which allows you to roll up characters backgrounds and home worlds.  I can't go into that any further as Clarence would probably rather you bought it than have me spill the beans lol.

01-15 Drinax (Scholar, Engineer, Pilot, Diplomat, Official) -1d4 STR, -1D4 CON, +1d4 INT, +1d4 CHA Origin: Skyrise

16-20 Drinax Grounder (Mercenary, Colonist, Thief, Smuggler, Scout) +2D4 CON, -1D4 INT, -1D4 CHA Origin: Jaffa

21-25 Asim (Mercenary, Colonist, Thief) +1D4 CON, -1D4 INT Origin: New Haven

26-30 Theev (Mercenary, Thief, Criminal, Gambler, Smuggler) Origin: Ghoster's Rock

31 Nabeth (Merchant, Scout, Colonist, Scholar, Medic) Origin: Lunopolis

32 Walei (Colonist, Detective) Origin: Burrex

33 Yggdrasil (Mercenary, Colonist, Gambler, Merchant, Official, Scholar) Origin: Jaffa

34-38 Dpres (Mercenary, Pilot, Engineer, Scout, Scholar, Official) Origins: Archangel

39 Thalassa (any) Origin: Atlantea

40 Chalchiutlicue (any) Origin: Atlantea

41 Noricum (Colonist) Origin: Jonestown

42 Number One (Colonist, Official, Engineer, Medic) Origin: Atlantea

43 Palindrome (Criminal, Merchant, Smuggler, Mercenary, Thief) Origin: Sanction

44 Salif (Colonist, Gambler) Origin: Jaffa

45 Colony Six (any) Origins: Atlantea, Warehouse 77, The Belt

46 Goertal (any) Roll 1D6: 1-2=Psionic Origin: Panopolis.

47 Delta Theta (any) Roll 1D6: 1-3=Psionic Origin: Lunopolis

48 Hilfer (any but Pilot, Engineer, Scholar) Origin: Jaffa

49 Paal (Official, Merchant) Origin: New Haven, Jonestown

50 Pourne (Detective, Merchant, Official, Engineer, Medic) Origin: Olympus

51-53 Torpol (any) Origin: Atlantea, Warehouse 77

54-57 Vorito (any) Origin: Lunopolis, Space Station Alpha

58 Acrid (any but Pilot, Mercenary or Bounty Hunter) Origin: Ironden.

59 Argona (any but Pilot, Mercenary, Scout, Bounty Hunter) Origin Archangel

60 Arunisiir (any) roll 1d6: 1=Aslan.Origin: Jonestown, Mosek Uhn

61-64 Strend (any) Start with two free cybernetic upgrades. All cybernetics cost half.Origin: Olympus, Panopolis

65 Ergo (Thief, Criminal, Mercenary, Official, Colonist,) Origin: Jonestown, Home, Ghoster's Rock(non orbital).

66 Tech World (you are an android) Computers

67 Gikarlum (Pilot, Engineer, Merchant, Colonist,) Origin: Hera

68 Burgess (Agent, Detective, Mercenary, Scholar) Origin: Home

69 Fantasy (Colonist, Gambler) +1D4 STR, +1D4 CON, +1d4 CHA, -1D4 INT, -1D4 POW roll 1D10: 1-9=female, 10=gay male Survival All have the skill Seduction Origin: Sanction

70-75 Inurin (any) Origin: Jonestown, Mosek Uhn, New Haven

Imperial Worlds:

76-78 Caraz (Any) Origin: Lunopolis

79 Neumann (any) First cybernetic upgrade free, all others cost half. Origin: Panopolis

80-82 Albe (any) Origin: Jaffa

83-86 Tobia (any) Origin: Olympus

87 Boulder (any) Origin: The Belt

88 Fist (any) Origin: Jonestown

89 Imisaa (Merchant, Pilot, Engineer, Smuggler) Origin: Jaffa

90 Scaladon (Priest, Colonist) Origin: Burrex

91Simok (Official, Mercenary, Diplomat) Origin: Jaffa

Alien Races:

92 Aslan Imperial from Hradus (Any) +2d4 STR, -2d4 DEX roll 1d8: 1-6 female, 7-8 male and add 2d4 size Origin: New Haven

93-96 Aslan (Outcast, Outlaw, Wanderer) +2d4 STR, -2D4 DEX roll 1d8: 1-6 female, 7-8 male and add 2d4 size Origin: any

97 Florian Barnai (Agents, Mercenary, Medic, Colonist, Merchants, Pilot, Engineer, Scholars or Scouts. During each term, roll 2D – on a 12+, the Barnai must take the Noble career next term for a single term.) +2D4 INT, +2D4 POW, -2D4 STR, -2D4 CON Origin: any

98 Florian Feskal (Mercenary, Pilot, Merchant or Colonist) +2D4 STR, +2D4 CON, -2D4 INT, -2D4 POW, -2D4 CHA Origin: any

99-00 Vargr from Umemii (any except Official) +1d4 DEX -1D4 SIZ Origin: Jaffa

 

EDIT:  When using this table, I asked each of my players if they wanted to roll first and choose an available occupation or choose an occupation first, then roll till they had a planet that occupation was listed for.  Some wanted a specific character and chose the latter, others liked rolling the planet and then seeing what they got.

 

Edited March 12, 2019 by Pentallion

[Pentallion]

The only other ships that had files made for them in our campaign as of the day we quit:

 

 

[clarence]

As Pentallion has written above, a much more detailed system for backgrounds will be included in the Companion. It’s been a pleasure to see his campaign come to fruition like this.