Captain's Log [GM Journal] *SPOILERS*


Dead Suns


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Last night we had our inaugral Dark Suns session. I tweaked the plothook to be as follows:

Quote:
Wherever it is that you grew up (whether on a Pact World, one of it's colonies or even the Vesk Imperium) there came a time in your career where you were in trouble. Perhaps you were a scholar and were accused of plagariasing your thesis, or a soldier who was about brought up on charges of war crimes, or a priest who had accusations leveled against them for inappropriate conduct or some other major problem in your career. Whatever the problem was (and regardless of whether or not you had done anything wrong), you reached out to a dwarf you knew by the name of Duravor Kreel. You had crossed paths with Duravor a number of times in the past and what you knew of him was that he was somoene you could reach out to in your time of crisis and trust he would help. Whatever the problem was that you had, Duravor made it go away quickly and quietly and so you feel indebted to him.

Our cast of heroes are:

Kunavon: Vesk "Ace Pilot" Soldier who fought in the war between the Pact Worlds and the Vesk Imperium. Was down on his luck following the Swarm wars until Kreel put him in touch with people for work. He is clearly Lawful Neutral.

Glub: Kalo Mahoy "Spacefarer" Mechanic who would mine resources native to the ocean floor of his moon. Kreel helped him with legal troubles when a mining claim of his was challenged. Kreel also let him stay at his place when he sold his ship at Absalom Station. He's from a small village out in the sticks of nowhere.

Eve: Human (ambiguous descent) "Themeless" Technowizard who lived in Pipetown. A self-taught technowizard, she tried to sneak aboard starships to get off the station on several occassions. Kreel had to help her not get in trouble with the law. She's poor, has been her whole life. Never even saw a tree before today.

Oraleus: Lashunta "Jedi" Solarion who lived in the Sun and preaches about Saranrae. Did some work that wasn't very legal which Kreel helped smooth things over for. He's the face.

Schect: Shirren "Scholar" Mystic (Healer) who lived on Verces. Got involved with the Space Aspis Consortium (news to me that they still exist). Kreel got him out of trouble. He loves talking to everyone and learning about who people are.

The tone of the game was very much "shooting lasers in space." The "common" language is Space Common/Galactic Basic. There's also Space Google, Space Wikipedia, Turbo Lifts, etc. Glub consistently spoke in a kiwi accent the entire time (for those not familiar, think of the rock man from Thor 4).

The players determined that they were all around the Dispoara (except for Eve) and so I had the Okimoro simply take them from there to Absalom Station. I let the 4 players introduce themselves. Glub had a crate filled with water.

Part 1: The Docks
Upon reaching Absalom Station they immediately saw Eve and walking up behind her was Duravor Kreel (who had been running late). However Kunavon, Eve and Schect saw some suspicious people with laser pistols in hand (one of whom had been driving a baggage cart).

Combat broke out with Kunavon winning initiative and calling out for Kreel to duck as he ran forward, drawing his weapon. The bad guys then went next. Alas I had the Downside Kings quite clearly shoot Kreel (who had carefully been positioned to be between them and the Level 21 Crew). The players were a bit unhappy to have the NPC box-text killed but went with it. A shot also went fired at Kunavon as he'd clearly marked himself as a target. I reworked the NPCs to have more reasonable to hits. This meant that shooting through the crowd with range penalties was difficult. The Downside Kings though did get a crit.

The battle continued with the players moving for cover and concentrating their fire on the Downside Kings. An empowered magic missile and fear spell took out some of them, with others fleeing and the PCs making sure to take them out. The Level 21 Crew called out that they didn't know the PCs had been hired to work this job as well and then left. The PCs stabilised some of the gang members and took their weapons before fleeing when they heard sirens.

Overall the combat was most impacted by the fact I kept critting. I critted the soldier at least twice, if not three of four times (the soldier did go down, but the Mystic was able to restore him to almost full HP). He caught on fire each time as well.

Part 1: On the Run
Thanks to Eve being a local and someone whose been on the run from the station police on more than a few occassions, they were able to elude capture and took the dwarf's body with them. While in the turbolift (the station's only "mass" transit) they got a news report on how day 30 of the trial of the century was still playing out with the Hardscrabble Collective lodging papers of tortuous interference and obstructing their Pact given right to earn a livelihood. Astral Extractions had three days to respond before the Court would hear arguments on the matter.

They finally got to Pipetown and into Eve's apartment. It was bare of furnishings and so she was asked where her bed was. She pulled down one of the walls, although unfortunately the bed was longer than the room is wide, and so even with her thumping on it to try to get it fully down, she still sleeps on a slope.

They found a phone on the body. Military grade encryption on the phone was barely disarmed by the Mechanic, which revealed the phone was a burner. It had some ability to send e-mails to an anonymous source and so they e-mailed him saying they had Kreel's body and needed to talk. They arranged to meet at a nearby bar and left the apartment after recharging their weapons.

They were in a workers bar and none of them really occasioned much talk. Although when they started asking for their racial drinks (because all races have one drink they always drink) this earned scorn. The Shirren called the bartender "barkeep" and so he put on a sarcastic "well here's your drink, your lordship".

After a couple of hours of waiting, someone even more out of place came in. He was a human wearing a business suit. He informed them that the body had already been recovered from Eve's room and that his employer, and the employer of Kreel, would be most obliged if they would investigate Kreel's death. The employer was the Dragon of Absalom (those who succeeded a DC 10 culture check were given conflicting info on who the Dragon of Absalom is. One of them was that he was a dragon from Old Golarion. Another was a powerful arcanist and I forget what the third one was). He was willing to pay 5,000 credits for their services (there's 5 PCs) with 500 paid upfront. The NPC did reveal that hackers had already checked station police's records and wiped the station video records and tweaked the police note's on the first hand accounts so that the players couldn't be identified.

Up to this point the players had been behaving as expected (except for stealing the corpse). They even found 500 credits on Kreel's body and chose not to take it. So I anticipated this would continue and so wanted to give them a substantial amount of credits to help prepare them for going aboard the ship and drift rock.

Part 1: The Downside Kings
Thanks to some Space Googling and simply knowing stuff on Eve's part, they had identified that both gangs were the Downside Kings (which kept being referred to as Downsiders by the players) and the Level 21 Crew. At first they were going to go check out the Level 21 Crew (because they knew where Level 21 was) when I realised that the Downside Kings were closer. They'd already learned the name of the Fusion Queen so I allowed a Space Google Maps to reveal where the Fusion Queen was and allowed them to choose which one to go to. They chose the Fusion Queen (in hindsight I could have dragged things out much more by not revealing where the Fusion Queen was, but had they worked it out they would have been annoyed as it is something their characters SHOULD have known).

They saw three guards at the front door (scaling up for 5 players) and saw them frisk someone before letting them in. They went further down to a food vendor and just watched the entrance waiting for someone to leave. I rolled 1d4 and after 1 hour 1d6 (rolled a 4) gang members came out and walked past them. They followed a bit behind and waited until they'd turned a corner and walked a ways down the corridor. Kunovon called out saying they wanted to join. Three of the four NPCs failed their sense motive (Kunovon rolled well and they weren't trained in sense motive). The one who did pass thankfully wasn't the one who was talking and so he was told to shut up.

They said to go talk to Nadaz about joining. Kunovon asked who should they say sent them when the gang member responded with "Boffo" (I'm not good with on the fly names). Once they got Boffo's name the PCs attacked them.

The alleyway was 10 feet wide with boxes strategically lying about to provide players and NPCs with cover and as blocking terrain. The PCs made short work of the NPCs who rolled poorly. They took the patches off the dead gangsters along with their credits, weapons and batteries. I had originally intended that this fight would be immediately followed by a fight with Nadaz so there'd be no time for looting. Furthermore the police were going to arrive shortly thereafter, trapping the PC's in the night club which would make it difficult for them to abscond with loot. Alas they had thwarted me and shoved the bodies inside a dumpster. They were all careful to stabilise NPCs so that no-one was dead. One of the NPCs surrendered and was allowed to escape.

They were short one patch, thankfully the solarion could go in without any visible weapons due to their ability to manifest their weapon. After a minute of the Solarion dancing akwardly the others followed. This time there were only two guards at the front (the third one was watching over the entrance to the storeroom now that no-one was in there). Kunovon gave the guards at the front claiming they were old members and had been offworld for a while. Two sense motives later the same situation came up with the one doing the talking failing (nat 1) while the other critted (nat 20). Fortunately for the PCs the one who failed was an old hand and he vouched specifically for Eve who he knew he reconised (although the fact she's only 19 gave him pause for a moment). The one who failed helpfully explained how the old boss they would have known was off on a penal mine in the diaspora and they were under new management (this repeated what their culture checks had revealed which said that Nadaz had been arrested a number of times, but her lawyers kept getting her off).

They were allowed in with their weapons. They went to the bar, the mechanic plugged into a dataport at the bar and broke the Tier 3 firewall to turn off the security cameras in the main common room. They then immediately went into the storeroom (with the Solarion who was a new recruit). They knocked on Nadaz's door when a Vesk greeted them. Kunovon's player was delighted to hear the description of the Vesk as they both had the same equipment. Everyone's response was "So that's what that weapon looks like".

When they told the Vesk that they belonged to the gang he asked Nadaz how many vesks she has working for her. The game was up, they were caught. Intrigued, Nadaz allowed them in and even let them keep their weapons (she was seeing potential new recruits who were clearly better than whoever they had defeated). They tried to diplomacize her and failed. She stood up and said "let me respond to that." Everyone instantly had weapons in hand (both PCs and NPCs) so we rolled initiative.

One empowered magic missile and a crit later the Vesk was down. They tried intimidating Nadaz who was at full HP (with a bonus for having defeated the Vesk so quickly). They rolled poorly so they failed. Nadaz tried hitting a panic button as a move action (alas it was disabled along with the cameras). They defeated her with another crit or two. Both of them were stabilised by the Mystic (after looking up massive damage rules to see if the Vesk could have survived the attacks).

They hacked the datapad (much lower DC) and found e-mails from someone within Astral Extractions asking them to not only attack Level 21, but to target Kreel "to send a message to those damn stumps". They took the datapad, left a note for Nadaz saying they left her alive and to not attack them or else they'd finish the job. Another note was left on the Vesk telling him to find a better employer.

They looted the room. We looked up the bulk of UPBs before allowing them to take them. They used the holoskin to make a new gang patch for the Solarion and then left. After walking away for a few steps Kunovon suddenly says he forgot something and heads back. He goes back into the room with Nadaz and snaps her neck before leaving. As he leaves cries and gunfire are heard as one of the guards finally checked in on Nadaz. They quickly ran off. The players are thankfully not looting armor which I'm happy about.

Eve knew some fences (being a native to Pipetown and so seeing the arms dealers on a regular basis and she goes about her daily life) and so they secured a meeting with the NPC who had hired them. I looked up the resolution of Part One and after they presented their evidence I agreed they had succeeded (they determined who hired the Downside Kings and that Kreel's death was not a strike against Kreel's employer, but was instead a strike against the Hardscrabble Collective whom Kreel had close personal ties to).

At this point in the adventure the players each have 2,400 credits in their personal wealth. I'm happy with this as it means they'll have appropriate equipment for the Drift Rock. However it also means that I need to tweak how much treasure they have for the rest of the adventure as my budget is only 8,000 credits. The NPC also gives them a contact from whom they can buy up to level 3 arms and armor (reinforcing that simply having the credits isn't enough) due to the speed with which they completed their mission.

Part 2: Mediation Begins
After they buy up some equipment Ambassador Nor requests an audience. When they meet him they have to hand over their weapons at a very secure facility (the guards are all wearing hidden soldier armor which obscures their features). They get given tickets for when they collect them on the way out. An android offers them refreshments until finally Nor meets them. He received word from "a mutual friend" that the PCs would be very competent.

This went pretty much as written, although Nor snuck in body cameras would need to be worn. When they reviewed the contract (as they were concerned about the request to retrieve the package) they saw body cameras were not incldued so they refused to accept that condition. Nor didn't press it. I did mention they were not allowed to take anything from the rock or the ship. This was to cut down on treasure they get. Anything the goblins or the hired mercenary Astral Extractions hire will clearly not be included in this limitation. The PCs will be able to negotiate keeping the ship as well (everyone will be willing to help them gain it, but they'll all want something in return).

They left and within a few hours were contacted by Astral Extractions about securing a dinner meeting. There Ms Joss gave them the big corporate sell about how awesome Astral Extractions were, with projects they work on to help the community, with the projects being selected to cater to each of the PC's own interests. Everyone seemed to like this part, although none of them were convinced Astral Extractions was anything but Big Business. Eve made a sense motive/culture check to realise that all of these projects were just tax write offs.

The next morning Schect called to arrange a meeting with the Hardscrabble Collective that day which is where the game finished.

As of the end of the session the players have 890 XP.

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