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Pretty much what Xev said. Chapter 1 went pretty quick because you all avoided making things worse back on Akiton and because I skipped the filler combat with drift leeches, so it kind of makes it seem like second level came fast and third is taking longer lol. More important IMO is that you're close to having your own ship thats a lot more than just an Amazon van in space. That's why BPs are part if the severance package bit, they'll allow the crew to do some upgrades and/or invest in some cargo.
No problem, my week might be pretty busy as well, take your time!
Lord Sinjin sucks his teeth, "no, sorry, no map. However, I know that once inside the facility as shareholders, tours are freely available. That would help you scout the location. You might need to hack the system once inside to narrow it down, and maybe get the other details you're hoping for." "The only other thing I can recommend is to find the perfect timing to make your move. The last thing you want is to catch Reisora's attention while you're in the act." He stands up and pushes his chair in then leans on it as he signals the end of the meeting. "Deminda will authorize an up-front payment and coordinate delivery of the vessel."
TO: EJ Corp personnel serving aboard
Asking if anyone had the Kalistocrat background (nope) reminded me that I may be conflating a couple of characters and their NPCSs, lol. Fortunately, the other two PCs' special NPCs don't show up until early next book. Unfortunately, it's easy to mix those two up as well because they work together.
"That's them. I believe they live under the credo that, 'He who dies with the most toys, wins.'"
Current folder with crunch for three PCs. Let me know if it isn't working right. I'm working on various tweaks and have left languages mostly unselected, but these are the current stats. I'll flesh out more details (and gear) as we go, but here is a short bit on each of these characters: Brekan is young, ambitious, and pragmatic, yet also compassionate and romantically-inclined. Understanding that on Athas everyone is just one bad day from being enslaved, he believes in treating everyone fairly, not just customers. For this his family, House Tsalaxa, stripped him of status and exiled him from company operations. What they could not take away was his good looks, warm smile, and merchant house training. Brekan knows he can parlay those things to success for himself, and any loyal partners he makes along the way. Koura was once one of her tribe's top hunters, trained from an early age to take advantage of her natural grace and strength to hunt game to keep her people fed and clothed. Returning from a hunt one day, she found her tribe was destroyed. Most killed or dying of mortal wounds. Others were simply missing, taken. What she learned from one dying survivor was that humans had come and laid waste to the tribe. Now without her people, Koura has traveled to the Tablelands in a vain attempt to find those taken and avenge the dead. Mahti has never had much. Never much money. Never many friends. None of that matters to him, for what he does have is all he needs: faith. Whatever his patron truly wants, he knows not, but he has faith that the elements wish to restore balance to Athas. He has faith his Lord in Earth is using him as a tool to that effort. It has become his life's focus, which means something to a dwarf. He can't know if his Lord in Earth is truly using him as a tool for good, but he has faith, and that's all he needs.
The drow nods. "The woman heading the project is named Eline Reisor. She's an executive vice president with EJ. And a devout follower of the Prophecies of Kalistrade. Her people have been pushed pretty hard lately by her. That makes them vent and grumble and generally talkative. Some of the reports she is filing with the company makes her subordinates suspect the true nature of the project is being kept secret from the board. My working hypothesisis that that's because she wants to use the technology for the Kalistocrat's Golden Barges." The drow leans back in his chair with his fingers locked behind his head. "I've been able to confirm those rumors through some of my business contacts. This means it would be in her best interest to keep the whole thing low-key. If her bosses discovered what she was working on, and that she obfuscated the project..." he shrugs and returns to a less casual position in his chair. "I'm sticking my neck out here too, you realize?" He chuckles, "And if things go horribly awry, I like to use the "goblin contingency." Goblins make excellent patsies and are usually clever enough to escape trouble anyway."
Anyone else have questions? How long will the submission process run? How many characters would you consider appropriate for the tree? If selected for the game, will we have some ability to move a few skill points/languages around prior to the game going live?
Tarika whips out her comm and rings Lord Sinjin's office, letting them know that the crew would be accepting the drow's invitation. She pays the bill, tipping well, and promises to write an amazing report that makes the characters look like loyal employees who fell upon the misfortune of war, aided by the incompetence of the Gideron Authority who placed them in the line of fire. Later that evening and BD514 is docked at a particularly jumbled section of the Armada. The semi-permanent station seems more sprawling than usual, and that makes the crew's attempt to navigate the twisted hallways all the more difficult. Eventually, and after only asking around twice, they find King Curney's Kasbah. Standing outside is Deminda, their point of contact. She is a beautiful drow woman, wearing a supple suit of armor so black it seems to soak up the light around it. She carries no gun, only a large knife can be seen strapped to her thigh. Inside King Curney’s Kasbah, you’re instantly bombarded by sights, smells, and tastes. A live band playing an assortment of strange instruments from across the galaxy jams with a chilled rhythmic thrum. The air is full of smoke from a variety of illicit substances and the layered murmur of clandestine deals. Members of many unusual species from Near Space and the Vast fill the establishment—a squid-like ijtikri crawls atop the bar to order a drink, and across the room a leafy ghoran and peaceful fur-covered neskinti pass a dose of hyperleaf back and forth. In a darkened corner, a masked embri negotiates with a strike team of vesk commandos. Deminda maintains a steady pace, moving across the large chamber to a bulkhead door guarded by a pair of female drow. The door opens as she approaches. Beyond lies a sumptuously appointed chamber with a central rectangular table, at the head of which sits a handsome drow who rises as Deminda enters. “Ah,” he says with a smile. A half dozen armed female drow are positioned around the edges of the room, avoiding direct eye contact. The man steps out from behind the table and extends a hand. “I, of course, am Lord Sinjin. Please, have a seat.” "I suppose I should be upset about Voxha. I am, some. It would have been preferable to make a profit. But the stars have aligned in your favor. I need a crew for a very special job, and you may have just the skills I need. I mean, you made those single-minded hobgoblins happy. I think getting any new weapons is a good time to them. Besides, I have to imagine your superiors are writing up your discharge papers as we speak." He stretches in his chair and pours a glass of water before continuing. "You’re all Evgeniya-Jaimisson employees, but how much do you really know about the Company, hm? Well, I’ve spent enough credits to learn quite a bit about it, and I’ve discovered that they’ve made a breakthrough in hybrid nullspace technology. Null-space chambers aren’t new, but no one’s been able to figure out how to make them bigger than a few feet across. Your friends at EJ Corp, however, led by a woman named Eline Reisora, have cracked the code. They’ve discovered how to make a null-space chamber large enough that it makes a space bigger on the inside than it is on the outside—large enough to double the size of a starship’s cargo hold.” "Imagine if every emergency vessel carrying supplies to victims of the Swarm could carry twice the medicinals, if every starship bringing settlers to a distant uninhabited world could carry twice the spare parts and supplies, or if a place like this station could give everyone holed up in Downside twice as much room! I know the galaxy seems like a pretty big place, but I assure you, when you’re paying for air, food, and water, it’s really much smaller than you think. If the Pact Worlds had access to this technology, it would suddenly become twice as big. That’s more elbow room for everyone. Who doesn’t want that?” With a press of a remote, Sinjin summons up a holographic representation of a transport starship, its image slowly rotating over the table. “The answer to that question, of course, is your employer. EJ Corp wants to keep this technology for itself and use it to crush the competition. They’ve built a prototype starship for it, called the Oliphaunt. It’s housed on the Horse Eye Orbital Plate, near Aballon.” Sinjin thumbs his remote again, and the image of the starship is replaced by a three-dimensional holographic model of a large starship construction facility in space. “No outsiders are allowed on the orbital plate, with one exception: many corporations have starship construction projects there, and shareholders for those corporations are allowed to dock and move around freely. “You aren’t shareholders in EJ Corp. At least, not yet. But you do all have stock options as part of your severance pay bonus structure. If you were to leave the Company— before you’re all fired—you could redeem those options for a not-inconsiderable amount of EJ Corp stock. You could then walk onto the Horse Eye Orbital Plate and steal the Oliphaunt for me. And then, my friends, I could make you all rich beyond your wildest dreams... and you could do whatever you want for the rest of your lives.”
She shrugs, "Who knows? Scenes and schemers. Just like the company. Anyway, I can't dig up a lot of information about the guy. Most that I know is that he ain't welcome on Apostae's surface and he's a male drow with money and power. That's a rarity."
"Not so much. His exact words were, 'They handled a tricky and risky situation with skill.'" she shrugs. "It was an active war zone, and it sounds like the loss of cargo was out of your control entirely. I reckon maybe he thought what we want the company to think? That the goods were delivered and Gideron is solely responsible for the missing portion. Or, hell, he's a drow, right? Maybe he wanted half the shipment lost? An insurance thing? Maybe he was double-dealing and sold half to the resistance?" She finishes her bowl and leans back, brown eyes twinkling, "Maybe both?"
Tarika's whiskers droop. She sighs and sets her chopsticks down on her bowl of noodles. "I ain't no lawyer, but I'd say it would depend on how much it would cost to litigate that. But again, I can't dispense legal advice." She picks up some dried pepper flakes and applies them liberally to her meal. "But hey, it does sound like malfeasance, right? I'll go over the logs and write up a real spiffy report. Try not to worry." she takes a bite and nods approving with her added spice levels. "They're keeping Shan on that ocean planet after all, Xev. They denied her transfer, said her skills were still needed on that project. I might be able to lean on some contacts using that as leverage." A server comes by to refill drinks and as soon as they depart she slurps a noodle and then says, "Well, for what it's worth, that Lord Sinjin character seemed to be impressed with the Voxha job. When he reached out to me I assumed things had gone well. He says he'd like to talk to y'all 'bout a new business opportunity. He's stayin' at King Curney's Kasbah out on the Armada. Feelin' up to a little face-to-face?"
How exactly do you want to do starting money/gear? Also, native Athasian weapons are designed to avoid the material penalty rules, but i can't recall if there are any analogs. Any thought to those? Id figure most can just use the weight, cost and damage from the setting book translate fine, but crit and range values may need a tweak... The crunch for the rogue and barb should be about done, fluff is in my head for both, just not written up anywhere yet. Still indecisive about another tree character. Going with a cleric for sure, but that's literally all I know lol, other than that they're on the road following some ineffable task for their patron element. Edit: also the old link for Brekan may not work right anymore, moved him to a different folder to keep things organized. I'll post a link to the folder itself later on which will include the halfling.
After three days in the Drift, BD514 and her crew arrive at Absalom Station. Immediately after returning to normal space, the ship's comm lights up with a text message from Tarika. "I owe y'all a meal, send me a wave when you get in and I will meet you at Noodles Between!" A few hours later and you're sitting at a table with Tarika in the fast-casual noodle joint that's a favorite of locals aboard the station. "Well? How'd it go? We square with the bosses?"
TBH I have the clearest vision of my rogue-merchant character, but the halfling is growing on me. They're polar opposites, funny enough. The barbarian would be a fish out of water in the tablelands, the rogue is a charming face who can fast-talk his way out of trouble in most citystates. With character trees there will always be some overlap, but that's a good thing. It means we can assemble the best team for any job. And if/when someone is lost, killed, or otherwise made not available, backups are always good to have, lol.
Best bet for bard might be a rogue with one of the two or three archetypes that gain poison use. Toxic talon is probably a good bet. You'd just needs skills and traits to add the rest of the flavor. I thought there was a bard archetype that lost spell access, but I dont see one at a glance. I've reverted back to my initial idea of a halfling barbarian over ranger. Currently working on that now. She will be a hurler archetype and take hurling rage powers. I can't find a good angle for another tree character. The elf preserver just seemed meh. I'm considering instead some sort of air priest instead. Possibly pterran, IDK yet for sure.
The officer nods. "So only half the cargo, then?" clearly his priority is with the weapons. He grunts and continues, "Half the shipment, half the payment. Now, as to the men? The insurgents are already on the scene, they're vicious brutes and will kill them. Hopefully, they died in the crash and won't suffer. Do not mourn, they are war heroes. There is no greater honor." He orders an entire platoon of his troops to escort the crew back to their ship. "You did decent work. Quartermaster is transmitting the funds now. The Authority thanks you for your efforts." A few hours later and the crew is able to break orbit. Half pay. Again. EJ is not going to be happy with the situation. There is nothing left to do but return to Absalom Station and face the music. Maybe, just maybe, Tarika will have another run already pending. Maybe, just maybe, that job will be enough to balance out the last few week's troubles.
Ace pulls out some hidden high gear as the remaining 'copter fights against mountain winds. He quickly leaves the pursuers behind. Crashing into the road is the other truck, merging from the narrow side trail it took. ++Tunnel should be just-++ The hobgoblin trooper's sentence is cut short. After a half second he swears loudly in goblin. Ace and the others in the cab watch as the truck tries to take a sharp curve but careens forward and spins about after striking a tree. The open mic from the truck captures both hobgoblins screaming as the hovertruck falls off the cliff and plunges down the mountain, then the communication ends entirely. Ace, warned of the sharp curve, makes the turn easily and the truck is plunged into temporary darkness upon entering the tunnel. Eyes adjust to the dim lighting quickly, and with the help of sparse lights, Ace can pilot the rest of the tunnel without incident. Xevras watches the dwarf tuck and roll off the back of the truck right at the curve. Before he loses sight of the attacker entirely, he can see purple smoke rising from the point the truck went down. Clearly he is using the smoke to signal the remaining resistance enercopters to rally at the crash site. Perhaps they will recover some intact rifles and grenades after all. It only takes a few minutes of driving to reach the Gideron armory, just after the tunnel exit. Soldiers guide the truck to a nearby garage and a hobgoblin lieutenant approaches asking what happened to the other truck.
If you really want to be stuck on this planet with brutal hobgoblin occupiers it's a good choice. It isn't one I recommend, however. Once again, I feel the need to remind folks that book 1 really, really makes the characters (and possibly the players) hate life. Just bear with it a little bit longer and things will be much better soon, lol.
DM Rolls:
"If you would have agreed earlier, we could have ensured you got away clean! Now, quit stalling! Stop the truck and we will stop the attack and let you live. You can join the resistance and do some good!" The dwarf replies. Somewhere up the mountain is a pair of explosive detonations. The remaining enercopter pursuing the second hovertruck can be seen swerving in the air, apparantely avoiding improvised flak from the hobgoblins aboard the other truck. A plume of thick smoke trails the flying machine which is slowly losing ground from the damage it sustained. The truck's radio crackles again and the hobgoblin trooper driving it reports, ++Tossed a few well-cooked grenades, seems to have bought us time! That tunnel is coming fast, less than half a mile, maybe closer.++
Oops, should be fixed now!
I've got half of Brekan, a human rogue/trader done. I will try to post a link to a Google doc with his crunch tonight (don't like to create aliases until I know I'm playing the character!) He was always the black sheep of his trader family, House Tsalaxa. His soft touch with the slaves Tsalaxa focused heavily on made him seem weak to his family, and when it was discovered he was romantically involved with "company property" he was banished. He would be the primary. Two tree characters I've got rough outlines for are an elven preserver interested in recovering lost magical knowledge and a halfling ranger whose tribe was slaughtered by humans and now she's looking for some sort of payback despite not having a clue how to find the perpetrators. Edit/Update
All my gladiator ideas so far are not very interesting, so considering instead a rogue "merchant" for that original DS feel. I am thinking a dishonored and ostracized member of one of the merchant houses who has been trying to use their family training to make a fortune big enough to buy their own oasis fort. If I were to submit a rogue for consideration, would unchained be available? It's not core or APG so I'm assuming no, but might as well ask!
I'm a big Dark Sun fan and it sounds like you're starting with the original timeline, is that correct? I saw mention of Kalak still being around... I will work up something that's as close to an original flavor gladiator as possible (a threat with any weapon handed to them, likely combat maneuver focused to be tricky). A halfling barbarian would be fun, but that's always hard to find a reason to be on this side of the mountain's and in a city-state.
What the characters know: A supposedly cursed gem, the Heart of Darkness was stolen from a museum just a couple weeks ago here in Sydney. This gem is reputed to be the gateway to a powerful "sorceress" who was locked away in a prison dimension a thousand years ago, and her followers seem to want it and may already have it. Faith was able to ask around to get the investigation started, and learned a few interesting things in the process. After interrogating another guard named Fitch through some social engineering, other details would emerge. The heist seems to have been carried off by a lone perpetrator, Marvin Willoughby, a museum guard with the access and means to steal it. His motive remains unknown. Willoughby passed a polygraph, but with unusual results in how his brainwaves were recorded. Willoughby would later take his own life. Not stolen, but catching Hibo's attention, was a companion piece in the museum. A silver pendant similar to the one found on Klaus' cyborg bodyguard. It is known to have a psychic aura. It was also mentioned by Fitch to be something Willoughby was fascinated by. Someone is trailing Faith. Specifically, a team of freelancers is keeping tabs on her. Who hired them, why her, and what their goal may be is unknown entirely. So far, the three main principles that "Tanomoshi" and his organization wanted to interview have not been contacted. These are the museum director John Bellingham, a local mine owner/operator named Winston Smythe, and a local gem expert with ties to new agers known as Joey Miller. Stringer turned up some dirt on Winston Smythe, who is having some serious financial issues and may have murdered his company's CFO. Rumors say it was to cover up the financial problems.
Faith tries hard to spot the woman Salvo described, but comes up short. Salvo trails Fitch and he is relatively sure after fifteen minutes that no one else is following the man, who walks briskly in the direction of his apartment, stopping along the way to grab a six-pack from a corner store.
The rebel 'copter pushes hard to catch back up to the truck and even overtake it, but somehow Ace finds just a little more speed to coax out of the engine. The truck roars furiously over the road and onto the bridge. Somehow, Ace manages to thread the very narrow section of bridge remaining intact, keeping the fans over solid road, mostly, and avoids dropping into the gaping hole in the bridge. The squox' shot goes far and wide, but considering that Ace was working on keeping the truck from plunging into a ravine, that might be expected. Nik's shot is closer to the mark, but the electrical pulse slams into the wireframe cockpit rather than hitting meat. Vog, sensing that maybe his last ditch plea may have an effect, holds his fire. "Just tell us we can have the guns, damnit! Then we can take out the invaders in the other truck! We can have a team get your ship, it isn't too late to help us!"
"A few crates? We are being occupied! We need it all!" shouts back the dwarf. His voice cracks with frustration and desperation.
Robyte finds the rebel's comms frequency and fills it with signal noise. Both of the enercopters swerve slightly in the air as their pilots grab at their headsets. A little distance behind the crew's truck a missile launches from the ground and impacts one of the other hovertruck's pursuing enercopter, destroying it completely.
DM Rolls:
++One down! One down!++ shouts the excited hobgoblin trooper driving the other truck. ++But that was a one-shot launcher tube...We just have to hang on a little longer. Not long after the bridge will be a tunnel, and the other side of that we have ground-to-air batteries ready to cover us the rest of the way!++ Ace sees the bridge the trooper mentioned just ahead. And of course, there is a massive bomb crater right in the center!
Nothing jumps out at Stringer or Snoop as abnormal and Faith ends up splitting the check with Fitch who insists he ate all the prawns so had better chip in. He tells Faith to give him a call before she flies home so he can bid her a farewell and thanks her. "It does kinda feel better to talk about it some, and I wasn't thinking of how you knew him too, I didn't mean to be selfish, but thanks. Maybe I really should talk to a therapist. The tightwad director actually offered to pay grief counseling," he chuckles and tries to give her a hug before he heads out.
DM Rolls:
Two resistance fighters move to stand on the enercopter's skids as the pilot tries to maneuver the craft into position over the truck. The troopers attach cables to descend, but Ace drops the hammer down and forces the truck forward at a high speed. The other 'copter tries to keep up, but Nik-a-Nik's surprising shot causes him to flinch and veer off course some. One of the resistance members in the copter farthest back tries to take a pot-shot at Xevras. Despite the extreme range, he nearly manages to put a bullet into the dragonkin, but only catches a corner of a crate.
Crawling up from the back of the trailer is the hobgoblin with the resistance who approached the crew earlier in the day. He must have been concealed between the hoverfan ducts! As he clears the skirt to take cover among the crates, the wind and dust whirl about create a strange optical artifact, distorting his appearance digitally. Then he ceases looking like a hobgoblin entirely and is revealed as a dwarf. "It's not too late to avoid bloodshed!" he calls out as he aims his rifle at Xevras. "Come on, do the right thing!"
"It had to be him." Fitch shakes his head, clearly feeling a mix of emotions he can't easily process. "I just don't know why."
"Ah, hell, to be honest, Faith? I'll save it for my therapist," Fitch says, trying to laugh it off. "It is all still so raw. Him...hurting himself like that. Him nicking that damn opal. It is all just too much. Y'know, I'm getting tired, maybe we should call it a night?"
Other Inits/DM Rolls:
The truck's radio crackles and the voice of one of the hobgoblins aboard the second truck shouts over static, ++We got incoming! Not friendlies, I repeat, not friendlies! There is a split in the road ahead, we will take the rougher path, try and keep them from massing both of us! Just keep following the road and try to shake them!++ Sure enough, a fork in the road opens up ahead and the hobgoblins veer their vehicle onto a narrow, rocky path barely wide enough to navigate. Flying down the mountain are four light enercopters in a diamond pattern. When the lead truck takes the alternate path, two of the light fliers break formation to chase them. The other two move on an intercept course with the truck.
The hobgoblin frowns. And harshly whispers, "Fine. I get it, can't help children and grandmothers. The boss needs his boots licked, right?" He stomps off before the rest arrive. The loading wraps up fairly quickly following the strange encounter, and soon both hovertrucks are ready for the trip up the mountain. The soldiers tell the team it should take about two hours. The trucks move slowly, but steadily up the mountain's switchbacks. Cliffs and steep drop-offs bracket the path and trees and scrub pop up in patches. Between the sunlight and fresh mountain air, it is easy to forget for a moment this planet is in the middle of a war. About halfway to the destination a strange noise cuts through the humming of the trucks. A dull, rapid "thwump-thwump-thwump" sound.
The strange guard glances around and addresses Nik-a-Nik in whispered common, "Look, you can see what’s going on here. Vohxa is a peaceful world of miners and their families. The Authority’s come on some trumped up excuse, and they’re not going to stop until we’re all enslaved or dead. We want to fight back, but hunting rifles are no match for hovertrucks. But if one of these trucks ends up going to a resistance hideout instead of an Authority armory, we might have a chance. Now, we could make that happen. What do you say?” Elsewhere, the Authority soldiers are just about finished cleaning up the mess left behind by the hounds getting loose.
"Your words ring false, mortal. You're trying too hard to be obsequious. The feathered one should speak, you should remain silent. Now about that tribute? You said you had wine?" Malora can discern from it's speech patterns and accent that the creature's native language is possibly Aklo, spoken by some creatures native to the Darklands.
Stringer quickly gets results on the blonde, named Rebecca McGuin, a local private eye who has a contractor record with Oyama. She is known to Oyama as the leader of a freelance team of surveillance experts. In addition to Rebecca and Gregory, her team typically includes Chinatsu Shimizu, a tech expert, and Joseph Njoroge, a corporate-trained bodyguard turned independent operator. Their team has a solid corporate reputation for a small group of contractors. When Fitch gives her the right opening, Faith gently nudges him to open up a little about the theft and death of his coworker and friend. "I just don't understand it. It had to have been Marv. Why else would he...do what he did? I know it wasn't me, Carter can't even tie his shoelaces without an adult, and Martinson had a weird superstitious streak and always said the Heart was cursed. They might be onto something, because it don't make sense what happened." He sighs and sips his beer. "I just don't know what made him do it. Especially since it was that stupid silver pendant he was fascinated by, not the opal. He told me he thought it had a history. The first time he saw it he just stared for a good five minutes."
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