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Bittersweet Truths and X-Cards

So, last week. Noy confronted Hyde about his being an Alioptes-R and after a harried scene of true colors, Hyde blew himself and several tens of R zombies controlled by Y'nar. Afterwards Noy agreed with Riv's suggestion to spend a couple days on the ship. Noy talks to G'nov about it and she shows him the Alioptes-O's history and he finally realizes that they aren't malicious to be malicious. Simply that they've had no other option until now. He agrees to do the hybrid experiment and tells her he will be telling the others.

So, today he gathers them together after Lud proposes to Xillia and the dispute of a Torqua being killed accidentally is settled. And he levels with them on his plan. This turns into a full on argument. When Noy leaves, G'nov takes over for his side and from there it became a screaming argument as G'nov is very much in love with Noy. In the end the person who plays Noy had to X-Card the argument because it was too stressful.

After an hour and a half of arguing, the Alioptes-O agreed to do their experiment elsewhere. Saying goodbye for the very last time to Noy. They won't be seeing each other for quite a while.

This was Bittersweet for Noy, as he had hoped by doing good and listening to everyone would bring peace. He has learned now, humans aren't very good at keeping the peace. He had to say goodbye to his friend and now he feels more alone than he ever has before.

I have no idea how to get the others to agree to see him as a leader. It seems they only want to focus on his bad points.

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Cancellation

Last night was the first night that we weren't able to game due to two people being absent and one of them being essential to the plot.

Noy visited Y'nar last night and gave his DNA to build the hybrid body. In four days it will be ready, but he's also learned that K'pole is Hyde. So Noy plans to confront Hyde in the morning to make him do as he wants by threatening to expose Hyde as K'pole.

The only thing that sucks is that Hyde wanted the truth to come out slowly. And Y'nar needs this body, so if course she told Noy. I can't wait to see what becomes of the group when Noy reveals this.

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Y'Noy (update 1)

Noy visited with Y'nar today. He ended up being sent to Y'nar the Bold to discuss a plan for peace and safety.

Y'nar the Bold explained the idea of this hybrid between the Alioptes and Humans. Noy is resistant to the hybridization but the player is interested in it (so that's good). Noy ended up taking home an Alioptes-O as a trust pet. It will report back to Y'nar on whether or not Noy is trustworthy and prove to Noy that Y'nar is trustworthy. Noy's player has expressed the desire to depose Y'nar on this planet. He really seems to be doing away with the old factions and desires to rule them all, Terran Mandate style. He said no to the fake invasion, I might still have them invade anyways. I'll be interested to see how he plans to take down Y'nar when she is so built into the planet. Plus if he kills Y'nar the Beast, the Torqua will attack the colony. Most other things can be simply burned to the ground save for Y'nar the last who is dug into the mountain beneath her. J'tal is in a whole other city so who knows if they'll ever find her. If they try to burn the buildings inside the city, the city will catch fire. So there's that.

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Tragedy, or a deal?

So when Fedra found out that Noy and co killed her two brothers, she vowed to kill their families first and come back for them. Since then she has been hunting down their families and taking them out one by one. However Noy's mother martyrd herself and save the father. Who is now running across the Sector to get to his son Noy who previously messaged him his location.

So, since the father hot away, Fedra Is simply going to pretend she has killed him and try to bluff Noy. Instead the Queen will find Noy's father on his journey across the Sector to trade Noy for allowing her to access Hyde's brain. So, if Noy doesn't want his father to die, Hyde's brain still goes to the Raze. If Noy refuses, his father dies.

This is so the Queen can gather the info for creating tech 5 starships. Which she needs to transcend everybody from planet dwellings to space like her.

I also plan on Fedra being killed by the Queen. A classic ultra villain back stabbing...

As Fedra's weapons hum to life readying themselves for your annihilation, the MDE from the nearby star surges. A bright light blasts across the system before a shadow is cast over Fedra's ship. The much larger and and menacing ESS Irazea appears from the center of the solar system. Contact with Fedra is still established the moment a blast of light bursts forth from the ESS Irazea cleaving Fedra's ship in half. Fedra's voice over the comms channel screams out "we had a deal you barbaric bitch!". And with that, Fedra Is silenced.

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Too many ideas...

I hate this, I'm nearing the third act of the three act campaign I have written and now my brain is jumping to what I'm going to run next. Which sucks because I need to stay focused on this SWN game.

But I really can't stop plotting both a Wraith: the Oblivion and another SWN campaign.

Wraith would be about these ghosts protecting their haunting grounds. Fighting hunters and making deals with demons or mummies to secure it.

The SWN would be the players running a bar at the mouth of a wormhole. They gets lots of weird patrons, and the weirdest things happen when the patrons mix.

I have to stop this nonsense!

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R'noy

So, all of my players have secrets they're hiding from each other. However one character Captain Noy, who has no secrets. Last session, Riv the spy laid out her secret of being a spy who has been blackmailed and that she has in fact done as Giridion propaganda says and disconnected a Giridion. Lud has already laid out that he is the prince of the Empire and that he isn't loyal anymore to them. Hyde is keeping it hidden secret that he is actually an Alioptes plant that has taken a direct host. (More on Alioptes in the next post).

So Noy's player has expressed to me that he is the only one without a secret and wants to get in on the secrets game. So I talked with him after the game and we came up with him speaking to another Alioptes plant. However this is an old old Alioptes. Much older than Hyde. In fact this Alioptes, named Y'nar, knew Hyde 200years ago when Hyde first took this body. Then Hyde went into stasis, so this plant is much much older. Y'nar tried to kill all the direct hosts in the year 439, Y'nar is a remote host. Now that Hyde is back Y'nar is very aware and wants revenge for Hyde almost killing her 200 years ago.

So Noy in game mentioned he wants to speak with Y'nar, because he feels that is the Alioptes leader. So outside of the weekly session Noy is going to go find Y'nar and have a chat. This can go several ways:

1.) Y'Noy: A symbiosis between Noy and Y'nar. Y'nar give Noy a trimming of herself named Y'Noy. This trimming will be instructed to not be invasive and to simply form the most beneficial symbiotic relationship ever. Possible trauma of having two consciousness inside of you.

2.) Y'nar the Agile: With Noy's help Y'nar takes her first direct host in the form of captain Noy. The player essentially stops playing Noy and is now in control of this iteration of Y'nar

3.) J'tal and her farms: If Noy speaks with the iteration of Y'nar known as Y'nar the traitor (who has renamed herself to J'tal). J'tal will try to convince Noy that both species can live in unison if humans sacrifice some of their numbers to furthering Alioptes presence in the Sector. Once enough Alioptes exist, they may begin to reproduce humans from their bodies. These babies are still very much human but J'tal will tell Noy they aren't.

4.) Remote Host Paradise (O's only): Y'nar or J'tal will convince Noy that Alioptes-R are the bad ones. That Alioptes-O are the peaceful ones. And if humans can learn to be nice and work with the Alioptes. The Alioptes won't take direct hosts. Therefore no bodies are sacrificed, and no Alioptes-O have to die.

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Lead Detective, Patricia Steppes

The lead detective steps into the scene, or rather glides in. Trenchcoat flowing behind her, black and white stripes underneath flap lightly in the breeze. She adjusts her cockeyed beret and stoops down low to look at the body.

"Yep, just as I thought. It's just another gang killing. Look at the bruising on her wrists and abdomen. She was restrained and beaten."

She takes out an old Terran cigarette and lights it up. No one knows if she finds these cigs or if she simply found a rolling machine, but she always has them. Standing up she takes a long drag.

"No wonder this place was turned into a hell hole. Anybody who fucks with Fedra, is asking for death."

Detective Rom was already tired of her "I was born in the wrong era" shtick and the amount of cigarettes he'd seen her smoke could not be healthy. He has only known her for today, but he felt he should say something.

"Hey, you ever think about not smoking so much? You don't need that crap. We have stress relieving meds at the station. Nobody thinks you're cooler for smoking them. And nobody has even heard of France! Can we please just solve this case without your dramatics?"

She cast her eyes to him and with 3 long steps closes the distance to him. A cigarette limply dangling from her left hand, and her right reaching down to his groin and clutching.

"My girlfriend has bigger balls than you. You want to stand up to me? This is my case. I will work it how I want to work it. If you don't like that, I'll strap you down to my bed at home. You can keep Serena company."

She walks away throwing her right hand into the air and waving it chaotically grumbling half-heartedly "Honestly, these fucking newbies their sending me are gonna make me lose my shit"

Rom didn't mention anymore that day. No point. This bulwark of a woman wasn't going to be changed. He spent the rest of the day watching her scold officers and make conjectures about the case. She was rough, but right. Everything she said about this case turned out to be true. Maybe all of it was just for show. Maybe people didn't respect her when she was nice. He didn't have the time to care though. He would be requesting a transfer asap.

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Right as I finished the Phase Two map...

The stupid internet goes out. Which doesn't suck for making the map (got it all right up here in ma noggin). It sucks because I host the game on Roll20 with some people across the country. Hence my fear when the WiFi goes down and tomorrow is game night. I have to call my ISP tomorrow and get it all settled, or I'll be sorely disapointing my players.

[the-gm-perspective-blog]

Alternative solution to Jump Gates

So in this SWN game I GM, the giant creature that the Queen is attempting to wake up, is going to consume several solar systems in it's march through the Sector. Effectively changing the map of the Sector dramatically. So, I want my tech savvy New Ol'Commerce center to have a solution to this. Essentially Jump Gates, however they use a very specific pattern of Meta-Dimensional Energy output that is trackable through the MDE currents of drill space. So once a ship has locked into one of these gates, they can go full throttle through the MDE currents. Achieving jumps that would be night impossible otherwise. Jump difficulties no longer end with people getting lost, it simply takes longer to get there. Systems can still fail, and only the toughest of ships or the the most skilled of pilots should attempt it in its current prototype state. But the New Ol'Commerce wouldn't release this tech if they didn't have a couple ships already kitted to withstand the torrents of MDE when preforming these runs.

On the other hand. The Queen uses a slightly different version of this. She has been around for 167 years, and has had time to track statistics others wouldn't have cared about. She has every star in the Sector written down with their own unique MDE emission patterns. Instead of using a jump gate that will need to be lugged all the way to the new destination, she is able to use the stars themselves as the gates. She has done extensive work to plate her ship against the perils of being so close to a star. In the hundred years it took her to perfect this technology she has become quite a terrifying person.

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I've changed my mind

I've decided since I'm already halfway through this campaign there is far too much to actually post to get you guys caught up. So I'll just try to fill you in as I go along.

[the-gm-perspective-blog]

The Prologue: Riv

In the Golbetron system, on the planet Raqis. An entire planet covered in a mega city. There is a young woman, 20 years of age, she sits watching people. Waiting for her compad to light up. And after her coffee had become cold and her patience thin, it lit up. However it was not for the same reason she had hoped. (Agent's name has been redacted to avoid exposing assets)

"Hello, *******. I know that's your real name. And if you don't want your anonymity sacrificed, you'll do as I say. There is a man on Raqis that needs capturing. Do not kill him. If you kill him I leak your name to some very interested people. Bring him to room 26 at the Jalt'inn." The message included a picture of the man wearing his Raze embassy uniform. He was a middle management guy, happy because he landed himself an office on the top floor! Well, the third floor. Which is technically the top floor, since the upper two floors haven't been built yet.

The woman's name is Riviera, Riv for short. Or at least that's what her handlers called her. She was someone different to everyone. She was a ghost of a woman. She joined the protectorate when she was 15, she had always dreamed of true anonymity. She chased leads and landed herself a spot as a Protectorate agent. 5 years later and she has true anonymity, and this fucker has somehow figured her out. This wasn't something she could ignore.

She made her way to the embassy to case it out. She marked the guards and their routes in her compad. She could only pretend to drink coffee at this new shop for so long though, she had to go in and find him. She had Tagger Nannites installed a while back, all she would need to do is touch him once. She calmly walked past the guards and after a lovely chat with the front desk attendant (who now knows Riv as the cheerful Samantha, an inner city Raqisan who just can't help looking on the bright side); made her way up to the third floor under the guise of an HR rep from the knight ship in orbit. The third floor didn't really exist, save for one room that had been built first on demand of the floor manager. The rest was all I-beams and plasteel framing. She found him in his office having a very important phone call, so of course she waited. And listened. He talked about how he can't come home just for a baby, how he has to stay with the planet dwellers under Queen's orders. Exasperated, he slams his fist and ends the conversation with "then why don't YOU go talk to the damned Queen! I'm sure she she'd love to obey your orders!" And him punching the desk again. She walked in casually and chatted with him about the bullshit she could remember about HR. That is to say, the things she heard people complaining about. She of course never held a documented job. He nodded and answered, he ranted about his employees making him lose sleep. His stress, his joints ache all the time... She slowly transitioned the conversation into a more friendly jaunt one. She invited him to dinner later and they shook to agree on it. Contact info was exchanged and she took off. The rest of the day was spent watching people in a mall just down the street from the motel she would be taking this guy.

He liked talking about himself, being the boss, and being on the top floor. She couldn't imagine this dude really had much of a home life, not once did he talk about his wife.

She met him at the restaurant, Bolton's Bouillon Barrel. It was pretentious, and also his choice. He insisted. As they ate and talked he let slip, accidentally, that he worked for something higher than the Embassy. Something secret. She got him drunk, and the rest was easy. Drag him to the motel, stick him with some truth serum, and have some fun while she waited for her new contact to come get him.

He woke up in the late morning, she had been awake since dawn. He was tied up and laying on the carpet. Dazed and confused, but he realized very quickly what was going on. His demeanor had entirely changed. Now he was a calm and collected individual. The Gerald Hoyt she met at the Embassy was simply a mask. She expected this, though wasn't certain. She had thought maybe this new contact had simple jobs, nope, and she wasn't mad at all. He really was a spy, she thought. She dosed him, interrogated him, and eventually trusted him enough to not run away. Under truth serum he had admitted to having two wives, and that the empire wouldn't like knowing that. He said they might end up killing him anyways. That night there was a sudden shift in the room, a teleporter had dropped in. He looked around frantically at Riv with her knife drawn, and Gerald with his Raze uniform (untied at this point). He panicked and teleported again, not wanting to deal with whatever the fuck that was. Riv sat stunned, knife still out waiting for something to move. That's when a knock at the door launched her forward with cat like reflexes. She flew to the door terminal and opened the hallway viewscreen. It was Raze knights. A whole squad checking each door. If she played calm they wouldn't notice anything. She told Gerald to hide and he ran to the bathroom. She let the knights in, and they explained they were looking for a teleporter who was loose in the area. Riv pointed out the area in the room that the teleporter had stood moments ago, and in they filed 6 Raze knights one by one. They set up this device in the center of the room and people with datapads circled typing and glancing at the device. It crackled with electricity and and the light in the center grew brighter and brighter until she had to hold her arm in front of her. When the light dissipated a hole in reality the shape of a man had appeared in the room. On the other side of the hole was a magrail terminal. The guy was running up stairs in the distance. Each knight filed in chasing down the teleporter. Each one of these knights wearing heavy armor, pointed at the edges, was a terrifying sight to behold. It reminded Riv that the Raze were not simply pirates. When everyone had disapeared and the device was folded up and walked out, the hole had disapeared. Along with her prisoner. He was not in the bathroom, nor the little kitchen, and not in either of the bedrooms. Frustrated she made her way down to the ground floor where her gravcar was parked. She didn't know what car she was looking for but there was no way he climbed out the 28th floor window and down to the ground. There had to have been an accomplice. She started looking at cars who were beelining through the buildings, ones that were flying lower to avoid detection. That's when she saw him. It was a grey minivan with tinting on all the windows. Gerald had been leaning out the open door, while a pale arm tried to pull him back in. Perhaps there was still hope for Gerald. The driver pulled him back in and the drove low and slow, which made it hard to tail. She was spotted before she could act casual and turn, they fled full speed ahead. She took off chasing them, rising higher and higher, they flew close to buildings. Whoever this driver was, they were better than her. She clipped a building and went spiralling. By the time she got control of the vehicle, she had too much momentum to stop. She slammed into the ground hard, but shallow. She got out with mostly bruising and severe whiplash.

She woke up in the hospital after passing out in the crash. The doctors informed her of her injuries, and she checked herself out. She had been put on record as Jane Doe, as she had no paper identification and had turned off her neural uplink. She had shitty instant coffee and waited for a cab. She had tagged him with the Nannites so all she needed was a car. She scoffed at herself for forgetting that yesterday and turned on her Inner Eye(tm) connection to look for the glowing gold trail that would lead her to Gerald. She followed the trail from the city over her head and down into a neighborhood nearby. This just got a little easier. When her cab arrived she told him to start the meter and she'll tip good if he follows directions. She led him to the end of the golden trail. A small house in a suburban neighborhood, it kinda reminded her of her family and their house. She dismissed the thought and told the cabbie to stay nearby, he assured her he'd keep the meter running. She snuck in through the back to find the house empty save for Gerald Hoyt sitting on a couch tied up and muffled. There was a shuffling at the front door, keys being inserted into the lock. She pulled out her tranq gun and slid into a bedroom. The door swung open, and light filled the dark living room. A mellow low voice rang out.

"Good morning Gerald. And good morning to the one hiding. I heard you go in the back when I was walking up to the house. Don't bother hiding I won't kill you first."

Riv inched around the corner. She aimed her gun at him and he sat down on the couch, comfortably. He slowly pulled out his pistol and aims it at Gerald. Riv is confused for only a moment before she realizes what's going on. She engages in light conversation with the man briefly before his cocky attitude annoys her and she shoots him with the tranq. He also fires when she does. His bullet however, was much more lethal. Gerald Hoyt's brains get spread across the wall like raw beef. The man in front of her takes two more tranqs to knock out. She drags him to his car out front and ignores the cabbie waiting for her. She leaves Gerald, there's no reason to bring and unidentifiable corpse. She lugs the man she just tranqed back to the motel hoping she can trade in this one instead. When he wakes, she is ready with her tools for her favorite pass time. She injects the truth serum and finds the truth, that Gerald Hoyt and him (Aleron) are spies for the Raze empire. Gerald is to be killed for his selling information to suspected Protectorate agents. However, after a while she cannot stand his cockiness. So she decides to shoot him with an actual bullet for once and aims for his foot, but at the last second something in the back of her head says.

"Aim for the head, kill me"

She jerks the gun up to his head and pulls the trigger. She grinds her teeth at having done that. Now she wont have anything to give to her contact. Fuck, fuck fuck!

Later that day she sends out a message to her mysterious contact. She outlines the complications, the other agent. She mentions he was a telepath, that he made her kill him. Her contact doesn't care about it. The result is the important part. She gets a message that she will be sent to protect two Giridions while they transport a box to the Giridion homeworld in Arkeas. There is a possibility of a Raze spy invading their ship.

[the-gm-perspective-blog]

The Setting

Game: Stars Without Number

Setting tweaks:

Originally I read the history wrong AND I had the old edition of the book. So I had started writing the story for the scream being 200years ago. This plot. Takes place in Sector 72, a frontier sector that fully lost interconnectivity for 20years. Not every planet has been brought back into the fold of interstellar existence though. Even 180years after the birth of New Ol'Commerce LLC, lostworlds are still being discovered. In the last 180 years, the New Ol'Commerce LLC has set up trade posts in the Northeast, Southwest (homeworld), and due south of the Sector. They brought spike drives back to the people living in their systems and others took those drives to the lostworlds. In the year 3046 an empire was beginning to form in the bowels of the sector's northwest. The Irazean Empire was growing and would only be matched by one woman (Asanya Edrus) and her crew of daring pirates in the year 3095, who took the ship by force in a short amount of time. However the price she paid was grave indeed. The man she loved (Gorrunt Slaz), died protecting her. She spent the next year trying to bring back her love Gorrunt, only to find that when she brought him back, someone else had settled into the body (Ludwig). The new Queen of the empire renamed it the Raze empire, in honor of the old empire. She spent the next 100 years perfecting her immortality through nanomachines, biopsionics, and mysterious research into meta-dimensional space. She found many many artifacts and amazing discoveries along her journey, making her a truly terrifying force to reckon with. In the Southeastern part of the Sector a planet in the Arkeas system still retains a government from pre-scream times. The Giridions, a group of people who believe in altering their bodies with cybernetics for efficiency in their work have also made it mandatory to implant a neural network that assists the brain in computation and gives complete connectivity to all Giridions who are within a set distance. In the year 3152 they return to the stars to find the other factions already starting their secondary plans. In the Northeast, sometime within the last 50years the Free Men started popping up. A gang ran by the San family, however each family member renamed themselves in case they get caught, not trail. Their father was a beat cop, and upon seeing his children form this gang he tried desperately to stop them. But alas our intrepid heroes ignored his pleas and has now died (after the campaign started). Now, the Raze are going after a large black box located on Olberhaag-1 in the Olberhaag system. The Giridions want it, because the Raze want it. The New Ol'Commerce LLC wants to help the Giridions to prevent the Raze from using the box for bad (they don't know what's in it). So the Giridions send out Noy and Kal to retrieve the box. The protectors (a group of Giridions who act as silent protectors of the Giridions/silent because the Giridions tried to destroy them when they found out that a shadow organization existed withing their government) sent Riv to protect them. And the Raze sent in Ludwig (the Queen's failed resurrection) to take it back.

Player Characters:

Noy: Captain of the ship. Used to be a merchant captain prior to the campaign. Has a sister who is a top notch telepath and uses an unusual psionic discipline utilizing dreams.

Kal (retired): Old partner of Noy. They worked together for 6 months prior to the campaign starting as drug runners. Kal was the muscle, Noy was the brains. Kal's player decided he wanted Kal to leave after about 14 sessions, so he's not around anymore. He is replaced by Thomas Hyde.

Thomas Hyde: Turns out the black box was a human who had cryostasised themselves to survive the scream. However looks can be deceiving, and he is not simply human... A smart man with memory of pre-scream technology, he built Olberhaag-1. His plan was to wake up 50 years after the scream, but things didn't go to plan...

Riv: A protectorate spy who was assigned to watch over Noy and Kal because her handler has heard rumors of a Raze spy trying to infiltrate Noy's ship. She has a soft spot for the unwanted types. The more someone is hated for things they did in the past, the more she wants to protect them.

Ludwig: When the Queen tried to resurrect her lost love, what she got was a new consciousness. Ludwig unknowingly suppressed Gorrunt. Eventually he would try to get out and Lud would always win. The last 30years of Ludwig's 100year life, have been a rouse by the Queen to try to draw out Gorrunt.