Arion 1-17: Escape from Hollis

Previously, on the Arioniad: Karagoz and Major Sheng are on the run after surviving an assassination attempt, and Cori has apparently been recruited by a Zhodani agent and left with her. Arion and Mr Osheen are heading back from a meeting with that agent, having been betrayed by Officer Muhammed, who is working with the gangers who run Hollis Highport docks. They are nearly back at the ship when their way is blocked by a group of gangers. Now read on...

Hollis Highport, 106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Arion sees a group of gangers ahead of him with wrenches and knives, and manages to squeeze off a pistol shot before Mr Osheen barrels into them, laying about him with his fists. One goes down, but Osheen is in real trouble and badly bludgeoned and cut up before Major Sheng hits the gangers from behind, and demonstrates just how good she is in hand-to-hand combat, taking out three of them with the advantages of surprise and trained, focused viciousness. She and Arion take one of Osheen's arms each, and lug him away.

By the time the three of them have disentangled themselves from the brawl, Karagoz is already at the Dolphin, having sneaked past the whole affair in the shadows and keyed in an access code Arion didn't think he had to open the airlock and extend the ramp.

Everyone piles inside, and Karagoz breaks cover, using his Intelligence credentials to expedite an emergency undocking. The Dolphin runs for the jump point before anyone else gets involved.

"That," Karagoz muses, "Is not going to look good on any of our permanent records."

But everyone else is too busy to rise to the bait; Sheng is tending to Osheen's multiple stab wounds, and Arion is hastily plotting a jump.

Jumpspace, 106 Week 02

"The one thing we know for sure," Karagoz says, "Is that Cori won't turn up on Hollis."

Privately, Arion is unsure, but says: "Educate me. Why is that?"

"Zhodani culture is as uniformly honest and law-abiding as humanity gets. If you do something antisocial, they read your mind, figure out why, and rehabilitate you, if necessary by editing your mind. They see the Imperium as a dangerous place where thieves and liars are allowed to run loose. So, the number of agents they have who can function effectively in our space is very small; it's a very rare mindset for them. They already have an agent on Hollis, and Cori is already blown there; I think living in the Consulate proper long-term would be too much of a culture shock for her. So, I'd say they'll send her back to spy on the Imperium."

"Okay, I can see that. She can get back to Jewell before we can, because she can go through Consulate space and we can't, really. So she could tell her version of the story before we can tell ours. Do you have a plan for that?"

"Send our version back by the fastest available courier. And be very careful when we go back to the Imperium, because who knows what they'll think we've been up to. For all I know, our mission was a fake, designed to get her close to the Zho agent on Hollis."

There doesn't seem to be much Arion can do about any of that, so he changes topic.

"When were you going to tell me Cori is psionic?"

"Probably never."

"Did you even know?"

"I suspected. She was just too good at reading people, at knowing exactly what arguments to make, to be anything else."

"So the Imperium - where psionics are utterly illegal - has psionics in its intelligence service." Karagoz shrugs.

"They're too useful not to. Any agency has thieves, liars, and murderers working for it already, why not psions as well?"

Arion doesn't have a good answer to that.

"I'll go check on Mr Osheen," he says. "See if he needs more soup to regenerate."

Meanwhile, Sheng is quiet. She has just realised that with Cori apparently running off into Consulate space, and Muhammed having both betrayed them and been left behind, she has a clear run at Arion now. She made her pitch when they first arrived in the Hollis system, but perhaps a gentle reminder would be in order?

But supposing he agrees, how will she get them both out from under Karagoz's thumb?

GM Notes

Here, I'm starting to put some reversible distance between Arion and the Official Traveller Universe; the change of date is inspired by the old Italian habit of leaving off the first digit of the year; you don't see that much any more, but letters from (say) the 1940s are often dated something like "16 Aprile 946".

I was feeling lazy, so ran the actual combat as a Dangerous Quick Encounter; Mr Osheen and Major Sheng used Fighting (rolling 1 and 6 respectively), Arion used Shooting (rolled a 10), and Karagoz used Stealth (11) 'cos he's a sneaky S.O.B. That means Arion and Karagoz escape unscathed, Sheng has Bumps & Bruises, and Mr Osheen takes a Wound. Mr Osheen succeeds on his Vigour roll, but has an injury which reduces his Strength one die type until he heals, which takes five days.

A Dangerous Quick Encounter is worth 2 VP under Interstellar Rebels, so that takes Arion to 10 VP and victory, as the enemy has only 2 VP. I suppose we do know what's going on locally, and the mission could well have been a distraction while Cori infiltrates the Consulate. It's entirely credible to me that while I as a player know Arion has won, he himself is unaware of it - that fits the SF espionage genre.

I'm feeling somewhat burned out on the Arioniad, and dramatically this is a good place to end a season. So, next time, a retrospective, and then let's try something different for a while.

Aslan Route Interlude: Mid-Season Break

"You go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time." - Donald Rumsfeld

The sun and the beach are calling, so I must away for the moment; but I've learned a number of things from this season so far.

First, what works best for this group at this stage of our lives is what Savage Worlds calls a Plot Point Campaign; a selection of scenarios loosely coupled into an overall story arc, with limited agency for the players. Give the party a patron who sends them on specific missions, but lets them work out how to achieve the objective for themselves; Charted Space works well for that, as the party is generally weeks away from their patron. RPG gurus online extol the virtues of sandbox play, the West Marches style, the Traveller free trader game loop, and so forth, and frankly it all sounds great; but I've tried those approaches with my crew of exhausted, jaded grognards in their 60s, and they don't work for us. There comes a point when it's best to accept that and move on. You sit down to play with the players you have, not the ones you had 40 years ago, even when they are the same people.

Second, said Plot Point Campaign needs to be agreed as part of Session Zero. Unless the PCs are specifically designed for the campaign, the players will decide that the current PCs have no motivation to engage with the story. Rather than come up with their own 'daring schemes for the acquisition of wealth and power', however, they will then sit there and wait for another commission to be offered. Which they will also avoid unless an acceptable patron engages them to undertake it. I've noticed this in several campaigns run by other GMs with various mixtures of the same and different players, so I don't think it's me, or them; it's something wider than that. Maybe it's a generational thing, and boomers are especially prone to it?

Third, and related to the first two, I've tried various things as scenario and campaign generators for the Aslan Route, in an attempt to avoid prewritten scenarios; 5150, Five Parsecs from Home, Fronts, Mythic, Stars Without Number, The Scheme Pyramid, Traveller, and Just Making Stuff Up, most of them offscreen. None of them has produced viable scenarios for this group, although once I have a scenario, The Scheme Pyramid is pretty good for working up a location for the PCs to infiltrate or assault - that's not what it's intended for, but it does it well all the same. Now what's interesting about this is that several of those approaches work just fine for solo games; I'm not sure why that is yet - for further study.

Fourth, while I do have a number of one-shots left over from earlier campaigns which I could - in theory - stitch together to make a new campaign, when I tried that I realised there is usually a very good reason why the one-shot hasn't already been used, and I only managed to get a couple of sessions out of them. Triple Ace Games' Daring Tales of the Sprawl make a nice little cyberpunk mini-campaign, and I would run those, but I don't think they work for the current PCs or location. Maybe later.

Finally, and this is less about the Aslan Route and more about my increasingly dispirited attempts to find another face to face group, our play style is no longer typical. There are several RPG groups locally, but they are divided into those who will only play D&D 5th Edition published campaigns, and those who have enthusiastically embraced Daggerheart; neither of those games appeal to me, even if I could attend the sessions, which are at inconvenient times and places.

So I'm pleased to take a break for a few weeks, as I am now completely out of ideas for where to go next. I had hoped this game would run to the end of 2025, but if I can't think of, or find, any more scenarios during this break I should probably draw things to a close as gracefully as I can, and move on to the next thing.

The Aslan Route will return in about a month. Meanwhile, here is some dance music, and a few reviews.

Arion 1-16: Revelations

“When every one is dead the Great Game is finished. Not before. Listen to me till the end." - Rudyard Kipling, Kim

Hollis Highport, 1106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Arion, Cori, and Mr Osheen sit down at Officer Muhammed's table at the cafe, with her and the tall woman from the dockers' godown.

"One thing you learn early on in law enforcement," Muhammed says conversationally, "Is how to tell when people are going to say something incriminating. And if those people are your friends, you learn to leave before they say anything you have to do something about. I recommend the Danish." She stands, smiles at everyone and marches off purposefully.

Arion looks at the tall woman.

"Okay," he says. "This has to be about you, because my friends can talk to me anytime. What do you want with us?" He doesn't bother asking for a name. Nobody ever gives you their real name anyway, that much he has learned.

"I have a message from the Consulate, and an offer," she says. "First, the message. The gang boss is right, there's no way you can smuggle across the border, and we're not going to let you set up a cell on our side. If you want information, ask us nicely. I'm having that message delivered personally to Mr Karagoz right now; I'm sure he's listening in, so I'll give that a moment."

Through his earpiece, Arion hears a shouted warning from Major Sheng, then silenced gunfire and screams, indistinct voices, and a couple of slow, deliberate shots.

"We're blown," Karagoz says. "Escape and evade. Sheng, with me." That last tells Arion that Sheng, too, is still alive.

"Ah," says the tall woman. "I see the two of them are more alert than I gave them credit for. No matter. Now, the offer; that's for you, Ms Ganzfeld. There's no need to keep on working for these deadheads. Your talents would be appreciated so much more by my superiors."

Arion stares at Cori in shock, as he realises both women must be psions. Judging by their expressions of concentration, there is another, purely mental, level of conversation going on. After a long moment, Cori looks at Arion, then the woman, and at last says simply: "Fine. See you in another life, Arion." She sighs for things that might have been, then, with absolute certainty: "I would've rocked your world."

The tall woman smiles an unpleasant, cruel smile, and stands to leave with Cori.

"Don't try to stop us," she says. "That wouldn't end well for you." Arion takes in the unusually hard-looking baristas inside the cafe, who are now all watching him intently, and the sudden shortage of other customers.

"Back to the ship," Arion says to Mr Osheen. "Fast." And they move off, as quickly as they can manage without attracting too much attention.

Arion takes stock as they head back to the docking bay, where with any luck Karagoz and Sheng will meet them and they can leave the highport. Muhammed is obviously working with either the tall woman, the docker gang, or both. She fought alongside them against the gangers, but Arion imagines any gang has members the boss wants to get rid of, and what better way to demonstrate she isn't working with them than to shoot a couple?

Cori is off with the Zho; maybe that's because she's tired of being suppressed inside the Imperium, maybe it's a set-up to get an Imperial psionic inside the Consulate. There's no point asking Karagoz, he realises, because if it is an Imperial plan, nobody whose mind could be read would know about it. For the first time he wonders who was really in charge of the mission, and what it actually was.

Above my pay grade, he decides wearily. I'm just the bus driver. At that moment, his commlink buzzes, and he accepts the call. It's Muhammed.

"Heads up," she says. "The gangers are waiting for you in the docking bay."

"And I should trust you why?" he asks, bitterly.

"Because you're a fun date, and I owe you this much. Listen, you spacers come and go, I have to live here, and neither the Port Authority nor the gangers are going away anytime soon." He can hear the smile in her voice, but then there's always a smile in her voice, and in another moment of sudden clarity he wonders how deep the cheerfulness really goes, and what's underneath it. "Be safe," she finishes.

"You too," he says, and to his surprise he means it. But she has already broken the connection.

Up ahead, there are people in overalls, with wrenches and knives. Beside him, Mr Osheen is grinning fiendishly, in his element.

"Just another day at the office," Arion sighs.

GM Notes

A few Mythic checks were needed to move this on. Was Muhammed working with someone? Yes, and a couple of other checks told me this was the gangers. (I didn't see that coming, but it was a logical development from episode 15.) Was the Zho going to be straight with the Imperials? Yes, and the roll was 22 - doubles - so triggered a random event; NPC Action, Oppress Intrigue. That's what led to the firefight involving Karagoz and Sheng, which as only NPCs were involved I resolved as a Quick Encounter offscreen. Karagoz and Sheng both rolled ridiculously high though.

The Zho tries to Persuade Cori to go over to the Dark Side, and the detail of that is offscreen because only they know about it and neither is a viewpoint character. In game terms, however, the Zho rolls a 17 for Persuasion thanks to Aces, and Cori rolls an 8 - also with Aces, but the Zho still gets success and two raises. So Cori is away with the Zho, although as you see above, we don't know why.

Finally, is the ganger boss going to attack Arion and company in broad daylight near the docks? Yes, yes he is; I was more or less expecting that, he'd lose too much face otherwise.

It looks like the next episode is going to be another fight. The harem comedy is pretty much trashed at this point, and I think I'm about ready to move on from Interstellar Rebels, although the NPC Variants are handy, so they can stay.

Aslan Route 20: Catch of the Day

Previously, on the Aslan Route... The crew of the Macavity have recovered the missing maid of honour, and now the wedding of Elehasei and Prince Hteleitoirl can proceed. Surely all the unpleasantness can now be put behind them, and steady but profitable freight runs may resume? If you thought that, you really haven't been paying attention...

Tyokh, 1106 Week 23

Tyokh B566A77-E Hi Ht GG

The day of the wedding arrives, and by dint of not saying anything and just listening to the ceremony, the crew of the Macavity avoids offending anyone. Rex duels an opponent to first blood as part of the entertainment, but being Rex gets carried away and almost kills the fellow; fortunately, Dr Matauranga is on hand to stop the blood getting all over everyone's party clothes and manages to save the loser.

The crew present their presents to the newlyweds. Ellie thanks them for the thoughtful gift of, well, whatever it is; some sort of flying beast that Dr Matauranga made for her. However, she says it is as nothing compared to the gift of her husband's life, for which she will be forever in their debt. The Prince himself is touched by the gift of Rex's artificial dewclaws, which saved his life when Rex fought his would-be killer a year ago, and responds with a new and flashier set, as it's not right one of his retainers should be without claws.

Later, the happy couple engage the Macavity - which most of the clan now considers part of the clan fleet - to take them to their landhold on Sink, and the Macavity spends a few weeks shuttling between Sink and Tyokh, helping set up the landhold properly and carrying properly vetted ihatei there to join the Prince's burgeoning following.

Sink, 1106 Week 29

Sink D665220-5 Lo Ga Lt GG

Returning to Sink with their latest load, the crew is intercepted by Ahoakhi, the Port Authority, who says the new landhold recently learned of potential fishing grounds near a place called Messana Bay, and sent a small party out there to assess it as a possible food source. That group is not checking in on schedule; it occurs to her that while the landhold proper has only a few ground vehicles - there are so many other things competing for hold space and maintenance time which seemed more important - the Macavity has an air/raft, and rather than sending a ground party which will take days, that could be on site in a couple of hours. Gaining the Prince's permission, the crew tool up and set off. Rex is delighted at being able to carry his brace of laser SMGs without any snivelling concerns about law level.

Holding at forty and doing a slow circle of the site, the crew find a couple of ATVs, a fishing boat in the shallows, an advanced base, and a couple of pop-up tool sheds; all have been wrecked as if by combat or a hasty search, and there are ruts in the beach, possibly made by small watercraft. Vila drops the rest off and takes to the sky again, ostensibly to keep a better lookout. Dr Matauranga and Mazun search the wreckage for clues, finding nothing to suggest this was anything other than a group checking out the local fish; the notes they left mention a large concentration of creatures like a cross between a starfish and an octopus a few hundred metres offshore. The only curious feature is the laser burns on the insides of the buildings.

Meanwhile, Rex is drawn towards the boat by a powerful smell of dead fish; some smells are so disgusting you just have to roll in the source. At this point a much larger tentacled monstrosity critically fails its Stealth roll and explodes out of the surf, clawing at Rex's heels as he retreats. The beast shows no signs of either intelligence or a desire to communicate, so the crew split up and open fire on the beast, scoring multiple solid hits which simply bounce off its tough, rubbery hide. Distracted by the lashing tentacles, Rex puts a couple of rounds into the air/raft by mistake, but its light armour protects Vila, who has gone for even more altitude in case the creature decides to grab his vehicle. Deciding that they need heavy weapons to deal with it, the crew piles into the air/raft and makes their way back to the starport, where they pick up the Macavity. Returning to Messana Bay, they discover the creature's armour is proof against the ship's gatling laser and are forced to resort to antiship missiles, blowing it into sushi.

"Do you know how much those things cost?" asks Vila, who is concerned about the impact on the crew's profit-sharing.

The conclusion is that the fishermen accidentally started laying waste to the larger creature's offspring and it took revenge by smashing up their boat, drowning them, and wrecking their camp.

"In that case," Dr Matauranga asks thoughtfully, "Who made the laser burns in the huts?" A fair question, and Rex's keen nose is put to work tracking anyone who might have escaped or fled. At length, this leads them to two armed ihatei on foot, making their way back towards the starport. These claim to be looking for a place to set up their own landhold, Mazun explains that the Prince has already claimed the whole planet (except for the monastery), but this initially civil conversation rapidly devolves into a gunfight; outnumbered and outgunned, the two aslan fall quickly, but again Dr Matauranga manages to patch up the wounded one, and the other - having been merely stunned - is quickly tied up.

The crew return to the Macavity with their prisoners, intending to look more closely at the bodies in the boat (some of which they now suspect may have laser burns), find the intruders' ship, and place orbital beacons warning off other ihatei hoping to claim land.

GM Notes

I thought there had been enough excitement around the wedding, so let it go off without a hitch and moved on into the free Savage Worlds one-sheet Catch of the Day. That went pretty much as expected up to the point where Dr Matauranga queried who had made the laser burns if all the bodies were in the sunken boat? That was actually an oversight on my part in presenting inconsistent evidence, but rather than correct that error I decided to run with it and see what happened, relying on Mythic to keep the game going. Before the next session, I need to figure out who the mystery ihatei are and what they're up to; I'd been wondering where to take the game next, and maybe this is the answer.

Arion 1-15: Negotiations

"Provided it is handled by the right spokespersons, a simple but persuasive public narrative regarding the what, how and why of the negotiations or their outcome is vital. Yet, so is private outreach to influential but excluded actors who, for prudential reasons, may need to be made aware of the talks early on." - Mark Freeman and Vanda Felbab-Brown, Negotiating with Violent Criminal Groups

Nothing like gaming for broadening your horizons, amiright?

Hollis Highport, 1106 Week 01

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Finding the dockers' union offices is not hard; it's public knowledge. Officer Muhammed can't officially be involved, so is maintaining plausible deniability by taking coffee and doughnuts at a nearby cafe; Karagoz prefers to be "the guy in the van", so is puppeting Arion through an earpiece, as much as that is possible to do for a loose cannon like him; and Major Sheng is making sure no rude strangers distract Karagoz. That leaves Arion, Cori and Mr Osheen entering the lion's den.

At interstellar technology levels, being a docker is more about wrangling robots and computers than it is about moving heavy things from place to place by sheer muscle power; but judging by those waiting for them, the latter method still has its place.

Across the godown from them are four dockers, including a large bullet-headed one the others refer to as "Boss" and a tall woman, who Arion notices seems more interested in Cori than the negotiations.

"I believe in you," Cori whispers as they approach that delegation, laying her hand on his arm. He feels suddenly more optimistic, although the boss is frowning at them.

"Last time you met my people," the boss says, as they come to a halt before him, "You killed one, drank his blood, and put three of them in jail."

"That time, eight of them attacked three Imperial officers and a Port Authority cop, without provocation, and put three of them in hospital. The time before that, you tried to sabotage my ship, and broke my friend's arm. This is all bad for business. It doesn't need to be this way," Arion says.

"You shut down my surface operation," the boss counters. "That makes me look bad."

"We could've talked about that, reached an agreement. You didn't need to shoot us."

"My docks," the boss says, stone-faced. "My rules. You asked for the meeting. What do you want?"

"We're in the small package trade," Arion says, meaning smuggling. "This station is one side of a border. Anywhere there's a border, there's an opportunity to make some money trading under the radar. We'd prefer to do that with your blessing."

"There's no smuggling across the Zhodani border," the boss says flatly. "Any time they're unhappy with the customs regime, they get a visit from the secret police, who make them happy with it again. By editing their minds."

"You say that as if there were some Zho on the station already. Is that right?"

"None of your business. But, in case you do manage to smuggle something across the border, let's talk about my cut."

The rest of the meeting revolves around negotiating the boss' percentage for smuggling deals which neither side really thinks will ever happen, but wants to be prepared for if they do.

As they leave and head for the cafe, Arion speaks to Cori and Mr Osheen, using the commlink to patch in the others.

"Three things," he says briskly, wanting to share the information before anything else happens. "First, that was too easy. Second, I don't trust our contact; there's something off about him. Third, did you see the tall woman at the back? She was very interested in Cori. Stay frosty."

As they approach the cafe where Muhammed is holed up, they see the tall woman obviously knows a short cut. She's already there, inviting herself to join Muhammed, who doesn't seem at all bothered.

Arion mutters an expletive, wondering whether anyone has sold anyone out, and if so, who and whom; but the tall woman is already beckoning him over, so he makes the best of it and joins them. One piece of knowledge from his old atmospheric combat training seems transferrable; never turn away from the enemy, it just gives them a better shot at your rear end.

GM Notes

I was going to roll a Mythic Event Meaning to see what Karagoz is up to, but a viable idea came to me, so I'm using that. One thing I'm trying to do in this run of the Arioniad is accustom myself more to 'fiction first' gaming and see what I can do with it; this isn't much of a move in that direction, but baby steps.

Considering the situation, I think Arion fronts the negotiation, with Support from Karagoz and Cori, and an attempted boost Trait from Cori on the pair of them before he goes in. We'll let the ganger boss oppose their rolls, and give him support from a couple of advisors as well. Mr Osheen has little to contribute unless things turn violent, say because of a Critical Failure on a Persuasion roll.

• Entering negotiation: Cori rolls Psionics to boost Arion's Persuasion... 4, success; his skill and hers are both boosted to a d8.
• Round 1: Discussing the fight in episode 12. Arion gets 6, including a +1 from each supporter; the boss gets a total of 10, including +1 from Support. Arion fails and so gets no Influence Tokens this round.
• Round 2: Discussing what each side wants. Arion gets 10 thanks to Aces; the boss gets 4. In an opposed roll, Raises are figured using the defender's score as the target number; Arion succeeds and beats the boss by 6, so has a success and a raise, thus two Tokens.
• Round 3: Striking a deal. Arion 7, boss 8; no more tokens. Total, two Tokens; minimal support.

Sadly that is worth no VP; Social Conflicts are harder than I expected. The score is still Arion 8, BBEG 2. However, Mythic tells me that there are Zhodani on the station after all, though they're not controlling the dock gangs; that one of them was close enough to detect Cori and read her mind; and the SWADE dice rolls for that tell me the Zho did detect her as psionic, and did read her mind without her noticing. Just because the gangers are pretending to be Ine Givar doesn't mean the Zhodani aren't around, after all.

A roll on the Allied Personality table in SWADE tells me the Zho's defining personality trait is that she is cruel. Meanwhile, other Mythic rolls tell me the boss intends to double-cross Our Heroes and go after them again. Arion gets a Notice roll to spot something off in the boss' demeanour and succeeds.

I'll have to think about where all this sends the story next. As time goes on, we're drifting further and further from Interstellar Rebels and more back towards Mythic, which I didn't expect, but having fun with the game is more important to me than sticking to any particular rules.

Review: Five and Infinity

The final part of my trilogy of reviews of Modern AGE and accoutrements.

In a Nutshell: A campaign in five adventures for the Modern AGE Threefold setting, plus scenario and plane generators. 130 page PDF by Green Ronin, available here for $18 at time of writing.

Note: You need both the Modern AGE Basic Rules and the Threefold setting to use this book.

Contents

Introduction (1 page): Capsule summaries of the adventures and generators.

Chapters 1-5: The adventures. Between them, these will take heroes from level 1 to level 16; it's hard to review adventures without spoilers, but I figure it's safe to tell you what's on the back cover of the book and in the initial mission briefings for PCs. The default assumption is that your PCs work for the Sodality or the Aethon.

• Hunting Night (18 pages): Levels 1-4. A spider goddess seeks safe exile on Earth. What better way to kick off the campaign than fighting giant mutant spiders in an office building?
• The Dreaming Crown (15 pages): Levels 1-4. On a diplomatic mission, the PCs learn that the rumoured discovery of the crown of the last Divine Empress inflames the political ambitions of demigods.
• The Soul Trade (22 pages): Levels 5-8. Beginning in media res during a doorkicking raid on a smugglers' hideout, this takes the PCs to a prison planet which holds the secret of the illegal trade in souls.
• Midnight Gold (21 pages): Levels 9-12. Dark deeds force heroes to a literal urban hellscape, where they must find and recover a missing person.
• On the Threshold of Apocalypse (22 pages): Levels 13-16. The Earth has been destroyed. Merely a temporary setback, surely.

Each adventure has multiple parts, each with multiple scenes. There are appropriate maps, NPC and creature statblocks, and as usual for Modern AGE, each scene is tagged to show whether it is a combat, exploration or social encounter.

The Infinity Machine (25 pages): This chapter provides the GM with random generators for adventure scenarios and the planes on which they are set.

As with the Threefold setting book, there are sidebars throughout the book with capsule descriptions of minor planes.

What I Liked

• The scenario maps. Nice work.
• Hunting Night and The Soul Trade were both enjoyable adventures, and I'm tempted to run them at some point.
• Threefold uses non-linear time for some plotlines, and this is showcased in On the Threshold of Apocalypse. Tricky to pull off, but worth it if you can.
• The minor plane Loop; Groundhog Day for all, with everyone remembering hundreds of previous cycles to the detriment of their mental health.

What I Didn't Like

• There are a number of schoolboy spelling errors, usually missing letters, most often the letter R for some reason. 6/10, see me after class.
• The adventure generator was too abstract for me to work with; it felt like writing an adventure by rolling on the Mythic event tables.

Conclusions

I wanted to like this, but I didn't, despite it having some interesting points and scenarios. This is because like Threefold, it focuses strongly on the fantasy and infernal planes, whereas I much prefer more mundane alternate universes.

If I could get past that, the five-scenario campaign arc would be worth running, but the adventure generator doesn't give me enough guidance and I would plunder my collection of SF and fantasy books for the planes rather than generating them at random.

So, this one's not for me; Your Mileage May Vary, especially if you like the magical and infernal planes more than I do.

Review: Threefold

"These are human stories that express hope in the face of impersonal metaphysical forces. The Metacosm may be in the thrall of warring cosmic powers, but nothing is more important and valuable than the human spirit." - Threefold

In a Nutshell: Dimension-hopping campaign setting for the Modern AGE RPG. 186 page PDF from Green Ronin, available here for $20 at time of writing.

Contents

When It Starts at Home/What If You Could Go Anywhere? (7 pages): The obligatory introductory fiction and an explanation of what the setting is; portal fantasy, in Modern AGE terms, where gates take the PCs to various settings of three basic types; baseline Earth and her alternate timelines, Otherworlds where magic works, and Netherworlds where dark forces reign. The gates are protected and kept secret by a conspiracy, and that's where the PCs come in. The point of all this is to allow all the PCs from all the genres to set out together on all the adventures.

Across a Thousand Planes (19 pages): This chapter is an overview of the setting; its planes, gates, and factions. It speaks to the different kinds of planes and gates; gates are connected in chainlike routes, which use the primary Earth timeline as a sort of hub, with alternate histories nearby, magical Otherworlds further out, and hellish Netherworlds further away still. Heterarchies are nexus planes with gates to multiple kinds of planes, and are mixtures of the planes they connect to, so they can be magical alternate Earths, for example. This chapter also speaks to the major powers and the history of the setting as the PCs would know of them; the planes mentioned here are all of major importance, as are the governments which rule them.

Threefold Characters (26 pages): Additional character options, including a wide range of new backgrounds, professions, talents, specialisations and ancestries. All PCs in the Modern AGE Basic Rulebook are human, but ancestries offer the possibility of being what D&D would call a demihuman; the game's conceit is that these are humans from alternate realities. Want to be a dwarven psychic detective who can channel spells through a firearm? Knock yourself out.

Secret & Potent Powers (23 pages): This expands the Extraordinary Powers section of Modern AGE to include occult rites and cybertech implants. New powers, new arcane colleges, the effects of being near nexus points, how to suck magical power out of (un)willing colleagues. Did I mention the new powers? Soooo many new powers; the ones I found most intriguing were those connected to dreams and those which manipulate ionising radiation.

Moving on to Augmentation, cybernetic implants are a little different from other powers in that they're not talents as such; instead, each PC has a number of noetic (mental) and somatic (physical) "slots", representing how much augmentation they can take before they start suffering penalties on various tests. I especially liked Spider Hand, which lets you detach a hand and use it as a remote-controlled drone.

The Sodality & Aethon (16 pages): These are the two factions most likely to employ PCs; characters can join other factions, or go it alone, but the main thrust of the book assumes the PCs work for the Sodality, as a diplomatic/exploration team and their bodyguards. The Sodality is the paramilitary arm of the Vitane, a kind of magical United Nations of the planes, while Aethon is a similar organisation leaning more towards cyberpunk and working for the Peridexion, an organisation which exists to protect Earth by being nasty to the enemies of those gods who watch over it; cyborg black ops teams, Section 31 to the Sodality's Star Fleet. This allows PCs with both patrons to adventure together. This chapter explains how each organisation is structured, what it does, how it recruits and trains members, and signature equipment; the Sodality provides members with a Scarab, essentially a magical smartphone, and a Shabda Plaque, which like Dr Who's slightly psychic paper can masquerade as any sort of ID or authorisation one might need, while the Aethon favours more tactical gear; guns, armour, computers. Since the Aethon has been (re)created numerous times in numerous timelines, multiple Aethons can have operations on the same plane, and it's anyone's guess to what extent they're part of the same organisation.

Eternals at War (17 pages): This chapter marks the start of the GM-only section, and gives the GM details of the major factions of the setting, their purposes, structures, members, and conflicts, beginning with the deepest secret: Why the "metacosm" of planes exists at all, why it is the way it is, and why people are important. The full secret is more than a little trippy, and although one could infodump it on the players at the start, I think it would be much more fun to reveal it gradually over the course of a campaign. Later in the chapter, we learn of lesser factions, and their structure, history and goals; I think finding out about these, too, is part of the fun of playing in the setting, so no spoilers here.

The Planes (18 pages): More details on the nature of the "metacosm" and prominent planes within it; the code used by planar travellers to describe planes, descriptions of the six major planes and the Sentium, which one can picture as the medium in which the planes float, connected by chains of gates. There are also sidebars scattered throughout the book, each describing a minor plane in one short paragraph. Here, we also learn about Incessance, the way that planes interfere with items brought to them from elsewhere; in game terms, this manifests itself as extra Stunts, which do things like make equipment glitch.

Treasures (10 pages): Setting-specific gear and rewards, including a few sample weapons, armour and vehicles associated with the major powers; advanced versions of gear are represented simply by giving them bonus Stunt Points. This chapter also talks about the currencies of the major powers, and how they translate to Resources within their boundaries. I was especially interested in soul transplants (and the illegal trade in disembodied souls which supports them), self-pork (flash-cloned versions of your own body that you can eat to restore Health quickly), myrmidon armour (made from giant beetles and has to be drenched in blood to work properly), and the quantum ark (allows interplanar travel without a gate).

Denizens of the Planes (18 pages): Additional NPCs and creatures dimension-hopping PCs might meet. NPCs sorted by faction, creatures from minor vermin to godlike campaign-climax opponents. It's a bestiary, what can I tell you?

Metacosm Campaigns (9 pages): What it says on the tin; the GM's guide to running campaigns in the setting. At its heart, Threefold is about exploring unknown locations and discovering their strangenesses, and it's recommended that each adventure be focused on a plane which is the world we know, but with a single difference, explored through play. What if everyone had a malicious doppleganger? What if the laws of physics changed with your mood swings? What if your dreams came to life every night?

Identity (13 pages): An introductory adventure. It's a simple recon mission to a newly-discovered plane, what could possibly go wrong?

...and we close with an index and a revised character sheet.

What I Liked

• The setting concept. I'm a big fan of World of Tiers, Sliders, Fringeworthy, Stargate, Half-Life, that kind of thing; strangely, not Amber, though I like Zelazny's other works.
• Some of the planes are really quite imaginative, for example the Fetter, an infinite coil of land thousands of miles wide with a saltwater ocean/river running along the middle.
• Since different planes have different physical laws, the GM can easily remove overpowered items ("It only works on the plane where you found it"), and the dimension-hopping nature of the setting means that the GM can add, rework or remove NPCs, items, etc. between sessions ("Oh that NPC, the one with the overpowered skills? She died, time passes so much faster on her plane. There's an alternate version of her from a parallel timeline waiting for you in the lobby, though; similar personality and skills, but she hasn't met you yet.").
• The way the multiple instances of the Aethon help or hinder one another, or indeed are completely ignorant of each other. Very wilderness of mirrors, that.

What I Didn't Like

• All ancestries except human have a range of additional powers, but I couldn't see much in the way of trade-offs or disadvantages to balance them. I suspect that demihumans have an advantage over baseline humans, as is often the case in RPGs. At least not all of them have big pointy ears.
• I'd like to have seen fewer magical and infernal planes, and more straight-up mundane alternate history.

Conclusions

I think this is one of those settings whose vision is too grand for my smooth brain to encompass, one that I lack the imagination to run. It would also be difficult to play in, now that I have learned its deepest secrets.

I enjoyed reading it, though, especially said deepest secrets.

Arion 1-14: Barflies

"I don't go around gratuitously shooting people and then brag about it in seedy space rangers' bars." - The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 52

Hollis: A370642-C NS De Ni CsIm GG

Major Sheng and Mr Osheen have recovered by now, but Cori and Officer Muhammed are still healing and on light duty, which Karagoz and the Port Authority have both interpreted to mean "not going slumming in seedy starport bars looking for rumours".

"Can I be the bad cop?" Mr Osheen asks, a little too eagerly for Arion's liking.

"Easy, tiger," he replies. "Let's try being nice first. We can always turn nasty later, it's a lot harder to row back from that." Mr Osheen subsides, grumbling.

"You never let me have any fun."

"Only two weeks ago you ate a ganger."

"Consumed his bodily fluids for nourishment," Osheen corrects. "He started it. And I needed to rehydrate after he blew a hole through my abdomen. And you didn't so much let me, as not notice in time to stop me."

"You're in a hole," Sheng advises Arion. "Stop digging."

Choosing a likely bar, Arion leads them inside and starts buying drinks and asking questions about local gangers, rumours of Ine Givar and Zhodani involvement, and so on.

"You didn't hear it from me," one local ruffian explains, "But a friend of a friend tells me the Ine Givar have taken over the local dock unions. You pay a surcharge, and your ship and crew don't get mysteriously damaged. Not a good time to negotiate, though, some Imperials got into a fight with them and killed one of theirs. They'll want payback." He looks at them with bleary eyes, connecting some dots.

"Wait... people are saying they had a grey-skinned alien with them. Looked a lot like him," the ruffian concludes, nodding at Mr Osheen.

"Oh him?" Arion says. "That's my gunner. You may recognise him from such hits as 'I was an Alien Mercenary' and 'Blood-drinkers of Hollis'." And that's the end of co-operation in that particular bar.

They emerge, poorer but wiser.

"What now?" asks Major Sheng.

"Well," says Arion, "I'm starting to think we're not dealing with a Zhodani spy ring, just some local smuggling and extortion. Anyone can say they're Ine Givar, and claim the Consulate are backing them up. Whether they are is a different matter. So I say we start by finding out from Karagoz what he wants out of this mess, and then try to negotiate with the dockworkers' unions. I don't know if any of this is worth killing for."

GM Notes

At the end of episode 13, I asked myself what should happen next, and decided the logical next step is for Our Heroes to do some Networking to find out more about who attacked them. According to Interstellar Rebels, which I'm using as the adventure generator, you may only Network once per mission, probably because it gains you an automatic Victory Point and otherwise you could just Network until you got to 10 VP and won the mission. Nonetheless, I'm the GM here, and I say I can. So there.

A roll of 1, 3 on the Curveball Table tells me things go ahead as planned, but I think it's about time to pull in the second subplot, which was represented by the battery charging icon. (I find words on an oracle table much easier to deal with, frankly, but the icons are what this product uses for subplots. Completely out of ideas for that, I roll on the Complex Question oracle and get 2, 1; Communication, I decide to check intensity as well, and get a 1; extreme reversal. So this reads "extreme miscommunication". I decide that means these guys may not be spooks or terrorists at all, just pretending to be for some purpose.

Arion's Wealth has grown back in the intervening weeks, so he spreads some of it around to get a +2 on his dice roll (his Wealth drops to d4), and rolls a 17 thanks to Aces; adding the +2 takes that to 19, success and three raises. That's worth a few tidbits, and I decide to roll on the Complex Questions table for each success and raise; I get Revenge, Prevention, Health and Property. The outcome of that, you see above; it all came together quite nicely, I think.

Current score: Arion 8, BBEG 2. First to 10 wins.

Next time: Social Conflict with the Ine Givar.

Review: Modern AGE Basic Rulebook

"Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders." - Ronald Reagan

In a Nutshell: Classless but level-based generic RPG for 17th-21st century worlds; 194 page PDF from Green Ronin, available here for $20 at time of writing. The same engine is used with minor variations for Dragon Age, Blue Rose, and Fantasy Age.

Core Mechanic

Roll 3d6, add a relevant ability score and a further +2 if the character has a relevant focus; meet or beat a target number (11 for an averagely difficult test) to succeed. If two of the dice come up doubles, the score on the Stunt Die (one of the three, but distinctive) counts as Stunt Points which can be spent on special moves.

Contents

As usual, I've shown the page counts by chapter, as I think they give you a rough idea of the relative importance of topics in the game.

Introduction (6 pages): The usual; what an RPG is, what you need to play, example of play, the social contract at the table, basic rules concepts. Worthy of note are the three game modes, gritty, pulpy, and cinematic; the mode is applied as a lens or filter to various aspects of the game, and the GM may apply different modes to different aspects.

Character Creation (22 pages): There are nine steps to creating a character.

• Character concept.
• Abilities. There are nine of these; Accuracy (ranged weapons), Communication, Constitution, Dexterity, Fighting (melee), Intelligence, Perception, Strength, Willpower. They range from -2 to +4, with the average PC having +1. There are both point-buy and random options for generating them.
• Background. This is how you grew up; it determines your social class, and thus early life and (to an extent) available resources. It also provides +1 to an ability, one focus, one talent, and one benefit. More of those later.
• Profession. This is what you did for a living before you became an adventurer. It gives you another focus, another talent, and a starting Resources score (modified by background); it also defines your starting Health score, i.e. hit points.
• Drive. Why the PC does what he does. This provides two traits to guide roleplaying, another talent, and one of a list of improvements such as more Health.
• Resources and Equipment. Resources is a abstract score covering cash, credit and income, and you use it to make a test to buy stuff. This is similar in concept to the Savage Worlds Wealth rules. However, your PC enters the game with clothing, home, vehicle, etc as appropriate for the setting and Resources, any tools needed for his profession, and any weapon he has a focus or talent for.
• Secondary Traits. There are 4 of these, Health, Defence, Toughness and Speed; they're calculated from earlier steps.
• Goals, Ties, and Relationships. Goals (what the PC wants to do) and ties (how he knows the other PCs) are narrative, but relationships have numerical values and can help you in rolls which benefit the relationships.
• Name and Description. Purely narrative.

Characters amass experience points to level up, and when they do, they gain various improvements depending on the game mode and your level; Health, Defence, Toughness, Resources, a talent, a focus, a relationship bond, an ability improvement.

Basic Rules (20 pages): The core mechanic is as outlined above. In opposed tests, the higher score wins. If you need to know how well you succeeded, check the Stunt Die; higher scores give better results. Initiative in combat is a Dexterity test, and you act in decreasing order of score; each turn you take one major action (e.g. attack) and one minor (e.g. move), or two minors. Generally, if you need to make a dice roll for success, it's a major action. Attacks use the enemy's Defence as the target number; if you hit, roll damage dice, subtract target Toughness and Armour, and deduct the remainder from the target's Health; characters at zero Health are dying, but what that means depends on what game mode is in use.

When you start using Stunts in a fight, things get more interesting. Things that would be critical hits, or special combat moves, in most systems are Stunts in Modern AGE, which require Stunt Points to trigger. Let's say you shot someone, rolled doubles doing so, and have a 2 on your Stunt Die. You can use that to do one of a dozen different things, including knocking the target prone, doing extra damage, increasing your bonuses on your next attack, making extra attacks, and so on. The book recommends that you spend some time reading through available Stunts and noting your favourites on your character sheet; my experience with similar effects in other games is that players tend to pick one or two options and use them by default.

As well as combat encounters, the game has exploration and social encounters; the expectation is that most of a modern scenario is about gathering and interpreting information. These other types of encounters have their own Stunts, but as there is less time pressure, the rules are less detailed and complex. There are several options the GM can use to have the PCs find information; it can be automatic for anyone, automatic for someone with the right focus, or require a successful test.

Character Options (18 pages): This chapter goes into more detail on the various focus and talent options, with more detailed descriptions, and the benefits of advancing talents to expert and master levels. Starting at 4th level, you can also take specialisations, which are additional talents with additional benefits; these are how you stack talents to develop your PC's career or archetype.

Equipment (10 pages): My least favourite part of any game system, but covers what you'd expect; weapons, armour, adventuring gear, vehicles, lifestyle. Prices are listed as a target number for a Resources test rather than a specific amount of cash; if the GM wants to use cash values, that's up to them, but they need to figure out what those values are. I did notice that weapons have a Capacity rating for ammo; if you miss, and the Stunt Die meets or beats the Capacity number, you're empty and need to reload. Oh, and some of the Lifestyle entries are interesting; alternate ID, discreet affair, drugs, throwing a rave.

Stunts (10 pages): The Basic Rules chapter lists a few dozen basic Stunts; that list is greatly expanded on here, with more (and more expensive) Stunts; combat stunts, exploration stunts, social stunts. Stunts are similar in some ways to Savage Worlds Edges, but are all available to any PC who rolls well enough at any time, without having to spend advances on them.

Extraordinary Powers (20 pages): Powers are entirely optional; you can play a game without opening this chapter at all. If you do use powers, then each of the 16 power groups is treated as a separate talent, covering four related powers and with its own associated focus, and they are divided into arcane powers and psychic powers. By default, using a power requires you to spend power points and make a test - the usual 3d6 roll, modified by ability and focus, although there are several options.

 The Game Master (8 pages): This is the start of the "no players allowed" section, and begins with the usual advice on how to be a GM and the importance of being inclusive, keeping things moving, and being fair. It then moves on to story structures; this game favours location-based (map as flowchart), scene-based (somewhat more linear), and social stories (exploring relationships between characters as a kind of map). Next, it talks about different kinds of play styles and how to frame the various game mechanics in narrative terms, how to manage your game information at the table, and how to make the game world come alive. Nothing world shattering here, but it's sound enough and clearly conveyed.

Mastering the Rules (13 pages): More GM advice, but this chapter is tailored to the game system whereas the previous chapter was more general advice. Here, we learn about the ability tests at the heart of the game; whether and when to use them, which abilities and focuses to use, stakes and consequences, time taken; opposed and cooperative tests; advanced tests, used for things like chases, which require multiple rolls and success is driven by how many points on the Stunt Die you rack up during those rolls. Breaching tests, using to break into facilities or hack networks, are similar, but require you to succeed using multiple focuses, with each failure introducing a complication. This section is also where we find out about hazards, NPC morale, and so forth.

Adversaries (21 pages): Here's the bestiary. As in Savage Worlds, although NPCs and creatures use largely the same abilities and focuses as PCs, you don't need to build them using the same rules, just give them whatever seems appropriate. Each adversary has a threat level from Minor to Legendary, which balances them against PCs of certain levels, and has combat stats adjusted by the game mode. So, here we have the opposition for your PCs, each with a description and stat block; colour is used to show their stats in different game modes, ranging from the humble guard dog to the brainwashed killer or cyborg. There's an unusual division in play; the adversaries are grouped together by the intended encounter type - combat, exploration, or social. You might encounter the Smooth Operator socially, and he has a statblock, but you're not likely to use combat skills on him.

Rewards (9 pages): This is about how you reward the PCs for success, and how fast they level up. The obvious rewards are cash - which probably manifests itself as a temporarily improved Resources stat - or XP, gained for successful encounters and good ideas or good roleplaying, or reputation (which may or may not have tangible in-game effects), or membership and rank in organisations, or relationship bonds with NPCs (positive or negative) - such bonds generate extra Stunt Points in certain circumstances. The guidelines about relationships are especially interesting in that they range from the simple ("I won't rest until he's dead") to the complex ("She is my boss, my best friend, and someone I love, but to whom I can never express my feelings") to the contradictory ("I’ll do whatever I can to make her happy" and "I must prove I’m smarter than her", for the same NPC). You can also have relationships with a religion, culture, or other abstract topic.

Campaign Setting (13 pages): Fairly standard advice for a generic RPG, about building or adapting a setting in one of a range of genres such as alternative history, heist movies, survival horror, police procedurals, etc.; it also looks at the various eras from the Age of Reason onwards, the Golden Age of Piracy to the Near Future, by way of the French Revolution, the Victorian Era, the Cold War, and others. The eras are marked with a coloured symbol to show which game mode works best for them.

A Speculative Venture (12 pages): Set in the present day, this begins with the PCs as guests at a party, when an FBI agent, a business rival of the host, and a group of mercenaries crash the party. This adventure showcases action, exploration, and social encounters, and some that could be any of those depending on how the PCs approach them. It interested me enough that I might repurpose it for another campaign.

...and we close with a glossary, index, play aids, and character sheet.

What I Liked

• Being able to generate PCs either using a point-buy system or at random, because I like to design my PC but retain the random option for NPCs.
• The Stunt Die and how simply checking that removes a lot of book-keeping in combat and elsewhere.
• Stunts; what they are, how they are triggered, all the fun things you can do with them. My favourite part of the game system, actually.
• Solid advice for players and GMs. In particular, the advice on how modern scenarios differ from those in other genres, for example increased focus on avoiding danger and gathering information.
• Multiple ideas for rewarding PCs that aren't cash or XP.

What I Didn't Like

• Ability advancement requires you to keep a separate tally of how many points from levelling up you're allocating to buffing abilities.
• Different types of damage with different effects; impact, ballistic, or penetrating, any of which can be either stun or wound damage.

What I'm Unsure About

• Specialisations. I'm not sure I understand how they differ from, and interact with, normal talents. I think this is the most complex part of the system. However, I do like the advice on how you can stack and merge specialisations to create particular archetypes.
• Stunts. They're available to anyone, anytime; but that means you potentially need to know all of them, or at least read through them and scribble notes on the ones you want to use.

Conclusions

I like Modern AGE. If it were a little less complex, it might tempt me away from Savage Worlds for this sort of game; but it looks like a bit more work to achieve the same level of fun. The characters and basic rules are simple and straightforward; the complexity is in the Stunts and talents.

You can play it simply, using just the Basic Rules, or you can ramp up the complexity dramatically by bringing in all the Stunts and Specialisations and using different game modes for different aspects of play.

I'd definitely play it, and would consider running it.

Aslan Route 19: Troisei

Previously, on the Aslan Route... the crew of the Macavity have carried Prince Hteleitoirl of Clan Iuwoi triumphantly back from exile on his landhold on Sink, and as his boon companions they are naturally invited to his wedding to Elehasei of Clan Aftei. This suits Captain Ashran's handlers in Imperial Intelligence very well, and they're now so far from Imperial space that the Shugaka crime syndicate has lost track of them. Probably. Unfortunately, the Prince has offended Okheai the Alley Cat and her local organised crime ring, the Rea’a Hrilkhir. Thus it is that once again, the course of true love doth ne'er run smooth...

Tyokh, 1106 Week 21

Elehasei contacts the crew of the Macavity to say that her sister has gone missing. In addition to simply being worried about her sister, Ellie needs her as maid of honour at the wedding. Perhaps they could discreetly find her and bring her back, in case the reason for her disappearance is something the clan would rather not know about? The sister is the rising commercial brain of Clan Aftei, and likely to be able to connect them with lucrative work later.

Ellie gives the crew a holo of her sister, Troisei, and a quick description of her; she's is a huge fan of gladiatorial combat, persuasive, reasonable, rigidly honourable, and a stickler for the aslan code; she's also a close friend of the local fteirko, a guru of the code who rules on its finer points.

The Macavity’s crew search for clues leads them to learn that one of Troisei’s favourite duellists was in a bout at a rural restaurant called the Bloody Claw the night before. Acquiring video footage of the fight – destined to be sold offworld to afficionados who couldn’t see it in person – they analyse this and find a short clip of Troisei being escorted into a back room. Troisei is a highly skilled negotiator, and the crew are unable to tell from her poker face whether she has been kidnapped or merely has some inconvenient gambling debts to discuss.

Leveraging Ellie’s contacts in the local communications operators, they learn that Troisei’s commlink is still in the Bloody Claw and hasn’t moved for the last 24 hours.

Captain Ashran digs deeper and learns that the Bloody Claw is a money-laundering front for the  Rea’a Hrilkhir, or as the crew calls it, the Unpronounceable Mafia – a criminal syndicate they have crossed paths with before. This poses a problem for any covert approach, as they must either hire guides and interpreters – all of whom are also fronts for the Rea’a Hrilkhir – or openly carry their Clan Iuwoi ayloi to indicate they are under the clan’s protection.

Mazun slips a stunner into a presentation box as a backup, having realised that any attempt to open it or scan it without his permission would be an insult to him, the Prince, and Clan Iuwoi; to him because it implies he is breaking the law and therefore dishonourable, and to the others by implying that they are so incompetent or dishonourable themselves as to have such a person on their staff. Hopefully, he will not have to draw it and thus demonstrate his lack of honour.

At Dr Matauranga’s suggestion, they book a table and enter blatantly, eating and watching a duel or two before making their move. Dinner, consisting as it does of hunks of raw meat thrust onto the spikes of small, randomly dodging robots which simulate prey animals, is a lively affair, with everyone except Dr Matauranga managing to grab a morsel; his attempt is stymied by a simultaneous dive from two of the others. Rex, famous since his first duel on Tyokh incapacitated a highly-ranked opponent, is approached for his autograph, and revels in his fame; just as well the crew didn’t try to sneak in.

Etiquette thus satisfied, Mazun summons a waitress and says he and his companions have a message from her sister, which they are charged to deliver to her privately and in person. At length, the waitress reappears and leads them to a back room where four aslan, two male and two female, are sitting with Troisei, who seems none the worse for wear.

Vila reiterates that the message is private and to be delivered in person, and after looking at each other, the Bloody Claw aslan step outside, as do Rex and Mazun, since clearly this is a female matter and it would be inappropriate for them to eavesdrop.

Vila verbally conveys details of wedding preparations, expecting the room to be under surveillance, while slipping a note to Troisei asking if she is hurt, and if she is here of her own free will. Troisei replies “No” to both. Vila updates the note asking if she wants to leave with the crew, which she does, and with no further ado Vila, Dr Matauranga and Troisei slip past the gaggle of aslan, Rex, and Mazun, who are all jostling in the corridor. The three “females” move at a brisk walk towards the exit, although it would be unseemly to run, so they do not.

As it is improper for the two aslan females to engage Mazun and Rex, they shuffle back further up the corridor and the males push through. Mazun has been waiting for this, and strikes one with the intention of stunning rather than wounding; he succeeds better than expected, and his opponent goes down. Rex has no such compunctions and slashes away with abandon, getting several strikes in before the enemy can move. The two male aslan disabled, Mazun and Rex fall back into the hallway, dashing past Vila and Troisei.

Vila notices a group of three aslan entering, one female and two male, but the furries all look alike to him in the heat of battle and he turns to face the two female bruisers moving to contact behind him; so it’s left to Dr Matauranga to recognise Okheai the Alley Cat, boss of the Rea’a Hrilkhir, and two of her bodyguard as he squeezes past on his way to the door.

The time for subtlety is past, with Rex and Mazun each taking out one of the bodyguards as the crew and Troisei make best speed towards the door; but then Okheai calls for a parley, telling her people to stand down, and the crew are intrigued enough that a few of them stop to listen while the rest head for the car park to start up their air/raft and Troisei’s. Okheai tells them that the manager of the Bloody Claw has overstepped his authority in this matter, and it was not her intent to hold Troisei hostage. An internal disciplinary hearing will be held later, but for now, Troisei and the crew are free to leave. Which they do.

Troisei is reunited with her sister, but Macavity’s crew leaves Troisei to explain matters; this whole affair is above their pay grade, and they are decidedly outranked.

Tyokh, 1106 Week 22

With the wedding fast approaching, Elehasei asks Rex if he would be prepared to duel someone to first blood as part of the entertainment, and he agrees somewhat too eagerly for the rest of the crew’s comfort.

The crew decides that gifts are in order, and it would be appropriate for the males (Rex and Mazun) to give the Prince something and the “females” (Vila and Dr Matauranga) to give Elehasei a present. Rex and Mazun decide Vila should artistically decorate Rex’s ayloi, which they put in a suitable box with the note that these are the claws which restored the Prince’s honour when he first returned to Tyokh, and Dr Matauranga genetically and surgically modifies a local bird of prey as a gift for Elehasei.

It’s now only days to the wedding; dozens of fractious and heavily-armed aslan overeating and getting inebriated on dust-spice, and the crew of the Macavity in the middle of it. What could possibly go wrong?

GM Notes

As an experiment, this scenario was worked up using the random tables in Stars Without Number. I began by deciding that Tyokh had the tags Trade Hub and Ritual Combat, rolled a random plot seed, randomly selected a Place and a Friend for each tag and merged them, and rolled a personality for the Friend. The party have recently offended the local crime syndicate so they are the logical Enemy. None of the dice rolls individually were very inspiring, but I trust the process; the human brain looks for patterns, and once you have enough dice rolls going on, it will find a pattern for you. The fact that in this case, what I came up with diverged from what the dice were telling me doesn't matter, the objective is to get a scenario framework and the approach did that regardless. What I made of it, you see above.

Much of the actual play was dominated by the Not-Kansas factor; aslan law and culture are very different from the Imperial equivalents, but some of the players are getting the hang of that now, hence the stunner-in-a-box and the blatant approach to the Bloody Claw; so long as you stay within the Aslan Code, even criminal outcastes will play ball.

I fumbled several of the detailed combat rules, but fortunately the Deadlands GM is one of the players and was able to correct me. For this and other reasons, I think I need to start shifting solo play back towards more combat-oriented scenarios, and broaden the range of statblocks I use. Perhaps some gladiatorial combats would be useful for this, and would also let me work on the NPC combat AI. For further study.

Meanwhile, I need to figure out some interesting events for the wedding. Everybody knows it's not a proper wedding without a fight...

Arion 1-13: Prisoner's Dilemma

"Questions are a burden to others; answers a prison for oneself." - The Prisoner

Hollis Highport, 1105 Week 52

Arion enters the interview room, with Karagoz watching through the one-way mirror and advising him through an earpiece. The first of the three prisoners is waiting for him with a surly expression, handcuffed to a raised bar on the desk.

"Are you the good cop or the bad cop?" he sneers.

"Yes," Arion replies pleasantly.

"I've got nothing to say to you," the prisoner goes on.

"Well, suit yourself, but I need to make my pitch anyway. Here's how it is. You and your friends gunned down two members of the Scout Service and one member of the Port Authority. And they were all my friends. And you ruined my best jacket. So the best I can offer you is a choice of who gets to deal with you; the Scouts or the Port Authority. I don't mind telling you, they've both made me some tempting offers. So, you can tell me nothing, in which case I'll decide; or you can tell me something useful, in which case you can state a preference."

"Get him to expose his right forearm," Karagoz says in Arion's ear. "I thought I saw something." Arion weighs up the idea of simply asking him, but instead snatches the man's hand, pulls it forward, and holds it as steady as he can while the man rages.

"Good enough," says Karagoz. "You can let him go now."

"What's wrong with you, man?" the prisoner demands as Arion releases his arm.

"I haven't got the time or the crayons to explain it to you. What's your answer? I've got another two to see before lunch."

The prisoner responds with a suggestion which only one of the Six Races would be anatomically capable of carrying out, and then probably wouldn't want to.

"All right then, I'll let you know where you're going later on. Or maybe I'll lie about it."

The second prisoner remains stoically silent throughout their brief and one-sided conversation.

The third explains that if he says anything, they'll kill him.

"Who'll kill you?" Arion asks.

"Them," the prisoner replies, unhelpfully.

"You can tell me," Arion cajoles. "It'll be our secret."

"No," the man replies. "They'll know. They always know. They're everywhere." A thought occurs to him. "You could be one of them, testing me to see what I'll give up."

Deep in thought, Arion leaves the last prisoner and meets up with Karagoz.

"What was that about the arm?" he asks. Karagoz shows him an image from the interview room's camera.

"See that?" he says, indicating a blurred shape in pale skin on the darker tones of the forearm. "Ghost image. You sometimes get them when a tattoo is lasered off. Recognise it?"

"No".

"The tattoo was an Ine Givar sign."

"Well, that's in bad taste, but it's not illegal."

"No. So why does he want to remove that tattoo, but not any of the others?"

"Hmm. The last guy said 'They always know'. Do you think we've stumbled on an Ine Givar cell with a Zhodani ringleader?"

"Maybe. Have to do some more digging."

"How are we going to gather intelligence on mind readers?"

"If I tell you, that's two minds they can read to get the answer instead of one." Beginning to understand Karagoz's reticence, Arion sighs and changes topic.

"What do you want me to do with the prisoners?"

"Throw them to the Port Authority. Whoever gets them, picks up the tab for looking after them. I need to conserve operating funds."

Mechanics: Social Conflict

Arion and company left the last encounter with three prisoners to interrogate, so I decided to run a Social Conflict with each round representing an interview with a different prisoner. Everyone likely to be involved has Persuasion d6 or Spirit d6, so it's a crapshoot who wins.

Round 1: Arion rolls Persuasion d6 and a Wild Die, and gets a 5; the prisoner rolls Spirit d6 and gets a 3. Arion succeeds thanks to the Wild Die, which I usually interpret to mean by luck rather than skill, so acquires one influence token.

Round 2: Arion 4, prisoner 4; as it's an opposed roll and the defender has met or exceeded the attacker's roll, he successfully resists.

Round 3: Arion 5, doesn't like that so spends a Benny to reroll and gets an 11; the prisoner rolls well, but not quite well enough; 10. That's a second token for Arion.

Ending the third round with two tokens means Arion gets the minimum support possible, which I interpret to mean he learns which organisation is behind his troubles. According to Interstellar Rebels, no VP for us as we scored less than 4 tokens. Bah. We're still on Arion 7, BBEG 2.

GM Notes

I have heard that when Marc Miller runs Traveller at conventions, he will often use PCs stripped down to characteristics and careers, with PCs resolving tasks by rolling a characteristic or less on 2d6; the player chooses the characteristic, but can't use that one again until he has used all the others.

It was tempting to expand on Interstellar Rebels by saying that the scenario couldn't repeat one type of scene challenge until all the others have been used; by the time I thought of that, I'd already used combat twice, but otherwise I've used everything except Social Conflict, so here it is.