Note: After a hiatus of more than two decades, I restarted this campaign using the Basic Roleplaying system from Chaosium.
Note: After a hiatus of more than two decades, I restarted this campaign using the Basic Roleplaying system from Chaosium.
We have a whole new team, and a new ship. Probably the same old chaotic fiascos though.
The ship is an Empress Marava class Far Trader (as yet unnamed). It is an elderly and somewhat battered vessel, third- or fourth- or even sixth-hand, but it is kept running by the tender attentions of Patience and Janey.
(Note: don't be misled by how nice and clean the ship in the illustration looks. Appearances can be misleading.)
NEW CANAAN: A barely-habitable world, New Canaan was deliberately selected for its harsh conditions by its original settlers. Motivated by religious faith, they sought to create a society that met the most exacting requirements of all religions. The original settlers were Christian, Jewish, and Muslim, but since then settlers from dozens of other religious groups have immigrated to New Canaan. Under New Canaan's constitution, all citizens must obey the tenets of all religions represented on the planet. In cases where practices directly conflict, a citizen can choose, but otherwise he has to follow all the rules. New Canaanites eat no meat, drink no alcohol or caffeine, may not divorce or use contraception, and wear robes and veils. They use only the minimum technology necessary to support life. Needless to say, the planet's not exactly a tourist destination.
VAXANDROS PRIME: Located in the spinward regions of the Outer Core, Vaxandros Prime is the first of five planets orbiting the yellow dwarf star Vaxandros. Dis covered in the late 2400s, it's a pleasant, Earthlike world that's attracted over 200 million settlers in about a century and a half. Most live in one of the planet's five major cities, but a few have struck out into the wilds to establish homesteads.
Unfortunately, the planet's relative proximity to Drago's Reach makes it a convenient stop for smugglers and other neer-do-wells traveling to or from that lawless region of space. The Intelligence Bureau, a combination law enforcement and espionage agency under the control of the planet's ruling oligarchy, often has difficulty keeping track of all the criminals in or passing through the Vaxandros system. The enormous Vaxandros High Port in particular has a reputation as a haven for criminal activity.
Our story opens with the team departing, with relief, from the bleak and tedious New Canaan for Vaxandros Prime, ostensibly in search of cargo and/or passengers to help keep the ship flying, but actually because Patience, via Lee Thomas, had heard murmerings that members of the Malorean Syndicate (the gang responsible for the murders of her parents) might be found there.
They broke orbit and made their way out to Minimum Safe Distance for jump, and hit the go button.
Immediately there was a loud bang, a stench of burning hair and flesh, and a brief squealing from inside one of the bridge consoles. The jump-drives started to spin down, then they spun back up again, out of control, and the ship went into an uncontrolled stutter-jump which went through six or eight cycles before they could cut the power and turn them off.
They found themselves floating inside a system of six planets, which sensors revealed to consist of two gas giants and four rocky worlds, orbiting an old orange star. The second planet from the sun could conceivably support — just — human life, but there were no signs of any kind of industrial settlement that could be detected from this far out.
Janey opened up the console and found, hanging from an energy bus, the barbequed corpse of a New Canaan creature, a bristly cross between a pangolin and a rat. She saw more signs that the creature(s) had been chewing on other pieces of equipment, most importantly the navigation control systems, and there was poop a-plenty as well. Listening carefully she detected the sounds of skittering feet, so it looked like the ship had become infested on New Canaan.
She removed the corpse of the vermin and made a quick survey of the damage. The jump-drive controller would need to be replaced, and there was no spare on board. That's a big problem. But fortunately the navigation array controller looked simple enough to fix.... and lo! It blew up in her hands (rolled a 00 for the repair) and is now completely irreparable, and will also have to be replaced. If only they hadn't put off paying for all those spare components...
The mis-jump had virtually drained the fuel reserves, so getting more fuel became of pressing importance. The gas giants were the obvious place to look, and Patience set a course for the nearest — about a week by thrusters. Looking ahead with the sensors, she discovered not only that the gas giant's atmosphere contained useful quantities of fuel-gases, but she also detected an intermittent radio signal from its orbit — incomprehensible, but clearly artificial.
Lee, Eskai'nos and Keld filled their time during the passage attempting to hunt down the infestation of galacto-rats, with limited success. Someone suggested just opening the ship to vacuum, but janey was resolutely opposed to the idea of venting all their atmosphere without the certainty of being able to replace it.
When they got close enough for more detailed scans, and eventually even visual inspection, they discovered that their signal was coming from something big. Very, very big.
Floating within an extensive debris field that created a complete ring around the planet was an unreasonably massive hulk, in space. A Space Hulk, if you will. It was not of any recognisable configuration: certainly not Terran, nor Perseid, nor any other tech known to any of the crew. It reached over three kilometres in length, the remains looking like a weird Gothic space-cathedral dreadnought.
It appeared completely dead, except for the mysterious radio bursts which seemed to be emanating from somewhere towards what they assumed was the stern due to the presence of gigantic thrust cones there. Large parts of the structure were completely missing, apparently disintegrated by some unknown weapon that left perfectly spherical voids, leaving the vessel like a brobdignagian Swiss cheese.
Patience maneuvered the ship, with great care, right into the bowels of the giant via one of the disintegrated holes. Lee managed, though without really knowing what he was doing, do send a magnetic grapple from one of the cargo locks directly exactly where he meant it to go. He, Janey and Eskai'nos suited up and wheeled themselves across the line into a corridor in the behemoth.Nobody died during this exercise.
The corridor extended off into darkness. Mysterious structures jutted out into the passageway, function unknown. All of the surfaces are etched and embossed, decorated in a gothic baroque style.
What lies ahead? We don't yet know. It'll probably be fine.
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