John (or is it Bob?) - B&D (play both)
Nick - B. Maybe D.
Thomas - B&D (play both)
Tim - ???
Seem like at least three wish to continue with Path of Tears, so let's start there. I will absolutely continue with this campaign if there is interest. If someone drops out, we'll recruit, but I like this group dynamic.
As to Pirates of Drinax, I absolutely will run that, too. Probably starting in November. I want to give you guys first dibs on a seat at Pirates of Drinax, but don't feel as though you have to play if you're full up or just don't want to. Nick, do you think you will know whether you're in by the end of October?
Flatfoot - I'm so sorry I can't remember whether you're Bob or John! I'm... getting old...
For sure. Likely sooner
It's John.
Yes, I am interested in both.
Great!
So ill get us started on the next chapter of Path of Tears in a bit. I hope Tim/Mascot will join us, but I understand what it’s like to be overextended. Tim, let me know what you’d like to do.
As for Pirates of Drinax, I’ll begin recruiting for that once Nick/Spider decides whether he’s joining us. I’m thinking 5 players (maybe 6). It’d be nice to have some female voices in the mix, too.
If you're in on Pirates of Drinax for sure, head over to the DISCUSSION TAB.
MS-7 spent the better part of a year flying beyond the official Area of Operations, being taken as slaves by an insane AI, freeing the passengers from The Ship, discovering and rescuing Sandman, and escaping from Promise. In all that time, each of you has been able to hone many skills. Here's how we're going to represent that.
FIRST note that we're now using Mongoose Traveller 2nd Edition. It has some slight differences from 1st Edition.
SECOND, note that the limit of skill levels you can possibly acquire is 3x(INT+EDU).
THIRD, each of you can pick any ONE skill you can justify having learned during any part of what adventure and advance it by 1. If you don't have the skill, you gain it at 1. You cannot pick Jack of All Trades.
FOURTH, each of you can also pick ONE of the charts below and roll to gain ONE skill.
FIFTH, each of you can spend a total of 24 weeks of training in any skill or skills you like, per the normal training rules. This means that you have three training periods. At the end of each training period, you may roll a 8+ EDU check (2d6+EDU bonus). Success indicates the Traveller has learned something and if they were attempting to learn a brand new skill at level 0, they can now add that to his character sheet.
Failure indicates the Traveller has learned nothing new or useful but may try again after another successful Study Period.
To improve skills to the next higher level, the Traveller must accumulate a number of successful Study Periods equal to the level of skill they are trying to reach. For example, if a Traveller had Electronics (computers) 1 and was trying to learn Electronics (computers) 2, this would require two successful Study Periods.
Exception: The Athletics skill may be learned or improved but does not use EDU. Instead, use the appropriate physical characteristics (STR, DEX or END). Any physical characteristic can be used to gain Athletics 0.
_____________________________________________________________________
Chart 1:
1 - STR +1
2 - Melee (Unarmed)
3 - END +1
4 - Jack of All Trades
5 - EDU +1
6 - Gambler
Chart 2:
1 - Athletics
2 - Deception
3 - Profession
4 - Streetwise
5 - Melee (Unarmed)
6 - Persuade
Chart 3:
1 - Stealth
2 - Melee (Unarmed)
3 - Streetwise
4 - Survival
5 - Athletics (Strength)
6 - Mechanics
Chart 4:
1 - Investigate
2 - Broker
3 - Deception
4 - Stealth
5 - Streetwise
6 - Admin
Ok, lets see if I get this all right.
For the free raise I want to get Naval Tactics 1.
For the three training slots. I would like to learn the following:
and Chart 1.
Ah, I didn't realize you meant run both campaigns concurrently. Based on where I am right now, I will continue with Mascot for the Guilded Lily, but I will reluctantly bow out of Pirates of Drinax. Hopefully you get some new blood for that one.
Looking over the skill advancement, is the limit on skills 3 time the sum of the INT and EDU modifiers or the actual INT and EDU scores? Because Mascot has a 0, when you add his INT and EDU mods, and 3 times zero is not good for our former marine.
Ah, I didn't realize you meant run both campaigns concurrently. Based on where I am right now, I will continue with Mascot for the Guilded Lily, but I will reluctantly bow out of Pirates of Drinax. Hopefully you get some new blood for that one.
Understood. No problem.
Looking over the skill advancement, is the limit on skills 3 time the sum of the INT and EDU modifiers or the actual INT and EDU scores? Because Mascot has a 0, when you add his INT and EDU mods, and 3 times zero is not good for our former marine.
The actual INT+EDU, not the modifiers.
Drifter, I realize it doesn't matter because you failed all three rolls, but that's not quite how it works. You couldn't gain Persuade 0. You'd gain Persuade 1 if you had no Persuade skill. And gaining Pilot 2 would take you two training periods per try.
Now updated to Traveller 2nd ed..
FREE SKILL - Recon. Flatfoot attempted this multiple times when on Promise, sometimes even making it with the penalty for not having ranks in the skill.
ROLL: Chart 1 More Strength ...
TRAINING: One week on Drive (currently 0), one week on Flyer (currently 0), one week on Medic (unknown). EDU is 6, so 0 modifier
1. Improve Drive -
2. Improve Flyer -
3. Learn Medic -
So, only improve Flyer to 1, with speciality of Grav.
For the automatic skill bump, I believe Spider had more than ample opportunity to improve his Survival skill from 1 to 2.
For the random-ish skill, he'll roll on Chart 3:
OK...I guess he really got a lot of practice in on Survival. That bumps it to 3
Training Period 1 - try to improve Melee 0 to Melee(Unarmed) 1. ....nope
Training Period 2 - try for 1st success to improve Gun Combat(Slug Rifle) 1 to Gun Combat(Slug Rifle) 2. ....nope
Training Period 3 - try to improve Stealth 0 to Stealth 1. ....ding!
So Spider improves Survival from 1 to 3, and improves Stealth from 0 to 1. He now has a total of 18 skill levels.
Sweet! Just need Mascot to train, then.
Free Skill Survival 2
Chart Jack of All Trades!
Training
Nothing! That -1 to EDU really hurts.
Everyone please make sure your character sheets are updated.
Then, tell me what you'll do with five months of light duty. Because before the next scene, MS-7 is put on administrative leave. You can go home. Get married. Sit on the beach. Learn to speak Schalli. Write a holo-novel. Spray paint the admiral's car. Follow up on a rival. Annoy a hiver. Whatever!
I have fixed the sheet with the new skills. I do not think I add anything else.
For the time off I will help Natalie and the others settle in and check to see if Jessica is able to be brought out of the stasis.
Figuring we will see more space battles I would like to work on some simulations to get an idea of how to handle a potential space battle which is why I picked up the Naval tactics.
I also look into as much news as possible about virus fleet encroachment into Coalition space since one of the things that Sandman (I think it was him anyway) said was that there would be an increase as the Virus ships rebuilt and became more unified.
So did RCES Virus Expert Tatai McClain.
Character sheet updated.
Flatfoot will want to spend a portion of his leave on Aubaine and will invite Paka along. The pair will spend several months together - Flatfoot showing Paka his home and other places important to him, in addition to spending time at a resort.
Finally, however, the situation begins to wear and Paka begins to check postings for crew on free traders. When a good opportunity arises, she and Flatfoot have a long discussion and come to an understanding. They will keep in touch and meet when their respective schedules permit. Long term plans are for the future, for such as them.
Mascot and Spider?
Spider spends a good deal of his down time researching and investigating the last mission of DLS Lady Elise. He will follow any lead as far as he can go, calling in whatever favors are necessary to overcome security barriers. Should he find anything that he considers a possible lead in finding the ship, he would begin looking for support for another search & rescue mission.
Spider also does his best to stay abreast of developments in the Sandman debriefing/parley/interrogation. If anything leads him to believe that the understandable prejudice directed towards Sandman is preventing RCES from taking advantage of the opportunity presented, he would look for someone directly involved that he thinks he can influence in (what he sees as) the right direction.
[character sheet is updated]
Spider would also make his way back to Baldur to visit his family for a few days.
Spider gets a call, telling him to turn to the news service:
COALINFONET, CLASS: NEWSREPORT DISTRIBUTION: PUSH, AUTHORITY CIN/AUBAINE RC ES HQ AU BAl N E (0738/AUBAINE, A78A884-C), 21/9/1202 KEYWORDS: COVENANT OF SUFREN, DLS LADY ELISE, MISSING SHIP, PROMISE, STARFARING ORGANIZATIONS
The normally unflappable citizenry of Brusman were electrified by the twin announcement of the recovery of the survivors of the Dawn League ship Lady Elise and the opening of relations with the Covenant of Sufren, a previously unknown starfaring civilization.
The announcement followed the successful return of a rescue mission dispatched to the planet Promise in the Promise subsector. Although returning personnel ware sequestered for debriefing, unofficial reports described a nightmare world inhabited by Virus-infected advanced technology robots.
The Covenant of Sufren is apparently a small group of inhabited worlds to coreward of the Coalition, but with a governmental structure and social outlook similar to our own. Senior assembly representatives have expressed cautious optimism concerning the possibility of cooperation between the two governments.
DLS Lady Elise was one of the first Dawn League warships outfitted to discover the fate of the original 12 diplomatic vessels. The vessel disappeared without a trace in 1200, and was long since thought to have been a victim of Vampire activity. Initial reports seem to confirm that theory.
No news at all can be found out about Sandman.
Baldur is its usual tight spaces and crushing gravity...home!
Mascot starts his leave drinking himself silly and crashing in various flophouses. Soon, however, he returns to Aubaine and spends the rest of his time at a seaside hovel miles away from the nearest town. He windsurfs most days and spends the nights reading. Periodically, he jumps on his magnocycle and rides into town for supplies, drinking, and night of companionship. He always leaves the next morning, however and returns to his hermit hole on the beach.
Why is that, Mascot? What drives him to be so alone?
This isn't entirely out of character for Mascot. Most times after a deployment, he disappears to go surfing for a while. However, this time is a little different. Losing friends and partners, especially to the Vampires weighs on him.
And despite his agreement to bring Sandman back, he can't help but shake the feeling that they've brought a nuclear bomb into an elementary school for the kids to study it. MS-7 might have just been the catalyst to ensure the (self-)destruction of the Reformation Coalition. He's returned to Aubaine to see the sun rise and set over his home just in case it doesn't happen much more.
As soon as he sees the news, Spider starts making calls to find out if Karina is among the survivors from the Lady Elise.
When he opens it, he sees a hologram of Sean "Hammer" Lathrop, senior officer of RCES and Spider's old CO onboard DLS Ashtabula.
"Spider, it's Sean Lathrop. I'm so proud to hear you brought your people home safely. I wish I'd been at Trybec to shake your hand and buy your people a beer. I knew I was right to pull you from SAG and Decap raids and put you on Special Ops. You have a talent for flexibility and survival that does credit to both RCES and the Marines."
"I've just come from a briefing - the first briefing mind you - about the fate of DLS Lady Elise and her crew and this new Covenant of Sufren. They sent a list of survivors of the Vampire attack the ship suffered somewhere in Pasdaruu subsector. They were injured and on the edge of starvation when the Covenanters found them.”
Here, Hammer looks directly at the camera. ”Karina’s alive, Jasper.”
”We don’t know much beyond the fact that she is listed as ‘stable’ with a full recovery expected. She’s somewhere on Sufren and according to our guests, she’s being well taken-care of. Karina sent letters to her family and one for you. I’ve appended it to this message.”
”Before you shut me down to go listen, let me just say this one last thing: Spider, she’s safe. Don’t try to go haring off after her. She’s more than forty parsecs away across the Vampire Highway. Let the Coalition and the Covenant arrange a safe passage. That may take some time, but she’s safe, and that’s a miracle. If you go after her and get yourself killed, that will be a high tragedy. I don’t want to have to explain to Karina how you died in a foolish, gallant stunt.”
”We’ll get her and the whole crew. That’s a promise, not just from me, but from Prime Minister Maggert. But it’s going to take time. Do your job, Commander. Let us do ours.”
”It’s good to have you back, Spider. Hammer out.”
Attached to the Commodore’s message is one with a strange formatting. It takes Spider a few tries to get it working. When he does, he sees the familiar face of his fiancee, older, much thinner and missing most of her hair. She’s sitting in an armchair next to a large green houseplant, but Spider can’t tell much about where she is.
”Jasper,” she says. She reaches out towards the camera and stops, letting her hands fall to her lap. ”Jasper,” she repeats.
”Are you there? I...I don’t know what to say. It’s been so long. I don’t even know if you’ll see this, or when. I... don’t know if you’re alive. You were heading into an invasion when I last saw you. I think if you died I’d, I’d feel it somehow. And I don’t, so I’m going to proceed on the belief that you’re alive somewhere.”
”I’ve thought for so long what I’d say to you if I got the chance, and now the chance is here and I just don’t know what to say. I don’t want to assume. Maybe you thought I was dead. Probably you did, right? Well, you don’t have to... I don’t know... I don’t want to assume anything about your life now, or what you feel now.”
She smiles, tears in her eyes and laughing at the same time. ”I mean, maybe you’re watching this with your wife and children. If so, please turn this off now. The rest will be fairly embarrassing.”
”Still with me? Well, if you’re not married, then I’m just going to say that I’ve had a miserable three years and most of the time the only thing I wanted was to live. Some of the time the only thing I wanted was for life to be over. I didn’t have the energy to want anything else. Do you know what it’s like to barely survive, day after day? Look who I’m talking to: Mister Marine. You probably do know. Then you know what it does to your mind. What it does to your soul.”
”I loved you, Jasper. You were my world and I just wanted to settle down with you and make a life. But duty called and you were going away anyway, so I went to the stars to see what was out here. I never thought I’d be gone so long. The long and the short of it is that I’m not the same young girl I was all that time ago, and I’m only now starting to think in terms of a future, of what I want.”
”I want you to be happy. More than anything I want that. But right now I’m not sure what I want for myself. I don’t know who I am any more.”
Karina sighs and looks at the camera directly. ”I’m good here. They’re good people and they’re taking good care of me. Maybe I could make a life here and not go...” she waves a hand vaguely toward the stars.
”I don’t want to hurt you, Jasper. I do care deeply for you. But I’m not... I’m not sure who I am anymore, but I’m sure I’m not the girl you knew.”
”Don’t come looking for me. Don’t risk that. If you did something foolish and got killed or... or worse... I couldn’t stand it. I mean it, Jasper. Don’t. Live your life and be happy. Maybe send me a message if you can and you want to.”
”Maybe some day it will be safe to travel and we’ll meet again. If not, have a good life, Jasper Webb. You deserve it.”
With a sad smile she kisses her fingertips and touches them to the camera, like she used to, then turns off the recording.
See the updated campaign map for more information about the planned flight path of Resolution.
As before, the black map is the current situation. The white map is the situation 97 years ago, pre-Collapse.
Flatfoot will be working on Survival - reading what he can about the location that they are headed to, particularly the dangers of the wild areas and what is recorded about what native plants and animals used by the residents.
I will keep trying to work on Diplomacy.
Spider works on improving Melee 0 to Melee(Unarmed) 1
For each of you that will require a total of 8 weeks of study. It's 7 weeks to Berens (action and adventure aside), so you'll each need a week of study after that before you can roll to see if you succeed in your studies.
During their time on the ship, Mascot drills with the weapons system, running multiple simulations. He figures if Sandman doesn't kill them, he wants to be able to take out whatever Vampires they might face this time around.
Training Gunnery 0 to Gunnery 1
Flatfoot be reading about the flora and fauna of their destination, plus practical exercises. His companions and the rest of the crew tell him to practice making shelters somewhere other than the common room.
Okay, guys, what're you working on next? Switching to new topics or pushing forward on the same ones? Please tell me here.
I will stick with Diplomacy. Its our mission and all.
Spider will practice functioning in Zero-g (raising it from 0 to 1, hopefully).
Might not get to reap the benefits of this, but Mascot will train Carouse to 1. Carouse, aka the "drunk diplomacy."
I love the mental image of Mascot "training" to Carouse.
Flatfoot will persist with trying to learn Survival.
Out sick. Will return in a day or two.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
Folks - my mother has been in the ICU for two weeks. After work, I spend my evenings there. When I have a spare hour...like now... I sleep.
I'm not giving up on the game. Those of you that know me personally know how much I hate that idea. But please understand that I will not be around that much for the foreseeable future.
Heading on travels tomorrow to Europe. I should be able to post from the hotels, but it might be intermittent.
On vacation from tomorrow to next weekend, with no computer access.
Feel free to bot Flatfoot.
I'll be gone to Gen Con from Tuesday July 30 to Tuesday August 6 and will probably not post at all during that time.
I will be taking my family to beach this week and will have no Internet connection.
I'll be gone from Monday August 12 to Saturday, August 17.
Have fun while I'm gone!
Have fun, yourself!
I am off to Australia on a work trip, leaving Thursday, August 15 and returning on Saturday, August 24.
At least, that's the plan. I am flying Cathay Pacific through Hong Kong, so we'll see how that actually works.
The Australia part sounds like fun. Hopefully, the Hong Kong airport is still running when you get there.
I really sympathize with the HK protestors, but feel they're doomed.