Weasel and Kid Sinister - a solo RPG, session 2

In the City everything is free, yet comes with a cost.

The Airship Pilot.

* Do Weasel, Kid S and Rook manage to get out of Nemos Bar before the Law arrive? 

*  - Yes, but...

*  I get a random icon from Game-icons.net, it is a picture of a microscope lens, so I decide there is an airship in the sky watching events down below through an optical device. 

Weasel, Kid and Rook make it out of the entrance to Nemos Nook and take off down a side street just moments before several electric vehicles draw to a halt, twenty or more Law Enforcers get out of the vehicles and enter Nemos, Weasel slows down, thinking how lucky they were then he glances up and sees a Law Enforcement Airship hovering above, he knows these things have spy glasses that pick out runners, he crosses his fingers hoping they have not been spotted.

* Has the Airship spotted Weasel, Kid and Rook

*  - Yes, but...

* I use the 'But table' in d6demiurge to find out what the but means

* A nearby obvious associated bane is overcome.

The Airship sweeps a searchlight across the rooftops and streets and picks out Weasel, Kid and Rook, Weasel pulls a pistol out of his pocket, aims it at the Airship and fires.

* Roll to hit: 6 (needs 4+ to hit)

His shot hits and smashes the search light, the side street goes dark again and Weasel and his friends continue running.  When they finally slow down they are near the squat where they have made home.

* I ask the oracle if anything else happened to them on their way home

*  - No, but...

*  I get a random icon from Game-icons.net, it is a picture of a padlock, so the entrance to their squat has been locked, boarded up and barred.

* Is there another way into the squat?

*  - Yes, but...

Another random Icon, this time a Winchester Rifle, someone with a rifle maybe

* Is there someone else outside with a weapon?

*  - Yes

Is there more than one person?

*  - No

* Is the NPC known to the hero's

*  - No

* I generate a random NPC using SoloistRPG and get

* Hif Klomo, a devious, treacherous Airship pilot. (Undistinguished)

* To help find out what he is doing here I get two random verbs, Trick & Communicate.

Kid Sinister sees that a boarded up window may be easy to undo with his knife and give access to the squat and hopefully their possessions.  As he attempts to prize the boarding from the window a man dresses in Airman's clothing and carrying a rifle steps out of the darkness and stands before the trio.  

Weasel puts his hand on his pistol and asks the stranger what he is doing here, Hif replies that he could ask the same of them, seeing as how they are attempting a break-in.   

Before Weasel, Kid or Rook can do anything, Hif lowers his rifle and tells them that he is a friend of Lavanta's, she had asked him to help them, she told him that they are looking for a girl named Shona who may have gone to Coldhaven,  He has a small airship and has a cargo to take to Coldhaven in the morning, he would be happy to take them to there, it is far safer by airship, they would never make it there walking through the wildlands, bandits, slavers or worse would get them well before they made the northern town.

Kid Sinister walks up to Hif and looks him straight in the eye and asks him what's the catch, what's the cost, Hif replies there is no catch and the ride is free, he is going to Coldhaven and offering to take the trio as a favour for his friend Lavanta.

* I want to see if Kid is deceived by Hif so I roll a 6 sided die for each of them, highest wins,

* Hif rolls 6, Kid rolls 3, so Kid takes Hif at his word.

Kid nods to Weasel and says that Hif seems genuine, Weasel asks Hif when and where he is leaving from.  Hif gives them directions to the mooring and tells them he is leaving dead on 9am the next morning, he will see them then.

As Hif wanders off, Kid resumes breaking into the squat, he makes fairly short work of breaking and entering and the trio climb through the window.

* I ask if their possessions are still there 

*  - Yes

The house has been boarded up but it seems no one went inside, they eat what little food they have, share the last of Weasels strange blue green alcohol and manage to get some sleep.  In the morning they gather up their meagre belongings, Weasel tells them to say goodbye to the place and to the City, there is no coming back.

It was no more than a half hour walk to the airship mooring, 

* I want to know if anything happened on the walk there 

*  - No

* I ask if there is anything amiss at the mooring

*  - No

The trio make their way to Hif's airship and he welcomes them aboard, he tells them his crew have almost finished loading the ship and they will be departing shortly, if the wind is good they will be in Coldhaven in 5 or 6 hours, he tells them to make themselves comfortable and enjoy the journey.

Shortly after take off, one of Hifs crew comes to the trio with food and drink.

* I roll d6 for each of them to see if they take the meal and if they notice it is drugged, 1-3 they eat and drink, 4-6 they notice something is amiss

Weasel

* Roll : 1

Kid Sinister

* Roll : 2

Rook

* Roll : 3

All three are hungry and happy to have a meal, shortly after eating all three are out for the count.

When they come around the airship is moored again, they find their hands are bound and Hif and his crew are all pointing guns at them, Hif smiles and tells them to get to their feet, each of them are manhandled off the airship and awaiting them is a group of bandits, one of whom speaks to Hif and looks over the trio, he haggles with Hif over a price for the three, soon a deal is struck, as Hif walks back to the Airship, Kid manages to stand in his path and tells Hif he is a dead man walking, Hif pushes Kid out of the way and laughs as he walks past, telling them they will never see him again. Weasel, Kid and Rook find themselves captive to the slavers somewhere in the depths of the wildlands.

Read Session 1 here, Weasel & Kid Sinister Session 1

Weasel and Kid Sinister - a solo RPG, session 1

Setting the tone, outside Nemo's Nook Bar, in the City

Weasel looked from Kid Sinister to Rook then back again, he sighed and poured himself  a glass of whatever alcohol  was in the bottle the bartended had given him.  Feck, was it his fault Shona had walked, she was their sister, okay, maybe only metaphorically speaking, but Shona, Kid and he were family, they stuck together, at least he thought they did till Shona split.

Weasel poured the blue green nectar down his neck, boy did it burn his throat, but as the  viscous spirit meandered through his veins the pain of losing Shona began to subside. he looked back at Kid S, then at Rook again, he rubbed his face with his grubby hands, then scratched his scalp through his greasy brown hair, why in the name of the dead did Kid have to pick up Rook, another pretty young face he would use then throw away when he had lost interest in her.  Maybe had Kid S not brought Rook on the scene Shone would still be here.  Weasel sighed and scratched his neck, no Shona was already on her way out of the city, it was neither the fault of Kid Sinister nor his new plaything, Rook, but that didn't stop Weasel missing Shona nor did it stop Kid S from blaming Weasel for letting her go.

Weasel poured himself another green blue drink, what is this stuff!  He vaguely heard Kid S say something, something like "maybe Shona was right, maybe its time to leave the city, maybe it is to dangerous for us to stay in the city, maybe we will swing by our  necks, maybe...

Weasel thrust his chair back and stood up, he heard himself snap, "Feck Sinister, shut the feck up already, you wanna fecking blame someone for Shona fecking off, fine, just don't blame me.  You wanna find her, fine, come on them, lets fecking do it, lets leave this hole and go after her", pointing at Rook. Weasel shouted " feck man. you can even bring that thing with you".  Grabbing his bottle of poison, Weasel kicked his seat out of the way and headed for the bar exit.

Weasel steps out in to the street, glancing back to see if Kid Sinister had followed but all he sees are the neon lights above the entrance to Neros Nook bar which buzz like fly's above his head, maybe a walk in the night air would help clear his mind.

* Is there anyone else on the street - Yes

I get a random icon from Game-icons.net, it is a picture of a skirt, so I decide whoever is in the street must be female.

* is it Shona - No But

so its not Shona herself but it could be a friend of hers

* is it someone who knows Shona - Yes

Weasel recognises Lavanya Ashterka standing at the corner of the street, one of Shona's closest friends after Kid Sinister and himself, he strolls up to Lavanya and says something stupid about girls standing on street corners.

(I am using the d6 demiurge protocols for solo play)

I see the Environment (the street outside Nemos Nook) as Neutral, rolling d6 to see if there is any change to the environment 

* Roll : 3 = no change

I roll d6 twice to see how Lavanya reacts to Weasel 

* Roll : 6 = Violent and furiously

* Roll : 2 = Willing to assist

Lavanta grabs Weasel by the scruff of the neck and starts hitting him, calling him all the names under the sun and asking how he could let Shona leave the city on her own, if he is interested to know why and where Shona went, she will tell him.

Weasel asks why everyone is blaming him for Shona leaving the city, like he could have stopped her, all he wants to do is find her and bring her home.

* I check again to see if there is any change to the environment (the streets outside Neros Nook) and get

* Worsens and a distant and vague boon begins to materialise.

* Checking to see if Lavanta's reaction to Weasel has mellowed I get

* Violent and Furiously/eager to assist (again but eager this time)

The sound of vehicle sirens, can be heard in the distance but seem to be getting closer.

Lavanta grabs Weasel by the collar and pushes him up against a wall, she tells him that he is not a little street child just doing what he can to get by anymore and Kid Sinister isn't a kid no more, Shona told her that they had got on the wrong side of more than just the law and that it was getting too dangerous for her to stay in the city.  Shona wanted Kid and Weasel to leave with her but Weasel had said no to her.

The sound of the sirens is getting ever closer and blue/red lights begin to appear dancing in the air not far away, Lavanta loosens her grip on Weasel and tells him that the city is changing, the law is cleaning the place up and the crime lords are looking for someone, anyone to blame, Shona knew this, knew it was getting too dangerous to hang around here, that's why she left the city, if Weasel wants to find her he should get Kid Sinister and head north out of the city, go to Coldhaven, Shone had friends there, thats where she would likely be heading but this place wasn't their home no more.

As the dancing lights get closer, Lavanta tells Weasel she has to head home, she tells him he was wrong, she did not blame him for Shona leaving the city, she blamed him for letting her go on her own.

Weasel didn't look to see where Lavanta went to, he runs back to Neros Nook, Kid Sinister and Rook are still there at the table, Weasel tells them that he knows where Shona is heading and if they want to find her they need to go north but the law is on its way to this district and they need to go NOW!

Other Suns RPG, solo campaign, the Scattership and crew.

I have been talking about playing a solo adventure or two of the 80's game Other Suns, progress has been hampered by work, as you may note by looking at the top right of the screen, I run a miniature painting service and a online store selling bits and bobs suitable for modelling as well as a few sets of plastic miniatures.  By necessity I have had to put much more effort into my little business than I perhaps would normally need to do and  as a result I have not had any time for gaming., this is one of the reasons I play solo games, it can be difficult for me to commit to playing with a group on a regular basis and to drop out for periods when I am busy with WDMscenics.co.uk would be unfair to the other players.

Finally I have managed to grab some time to sit down and do a little work on the game.

The solo campaign.

At the moment I am not sure how much a of a campaign this is going to be, it may just be one short scenario, it may be a series of short scenarios, one offs that I can dip in and out of between other games as time allows me or if I really enjoy the game again, a full blown campaign.

I have decided that the games will revolve around the crew of a Scattership, the ship has 8 crew members (characters) sort of split into 4 ship crew and 4 planetside crew, the idea isn't to have all 8 characters involved in each and every scenario but to have 4 or 5 involved in a game depending on the mission.

So I have my Scattership and I am putting together the crew, next up is to create a few stars and planets for the ship and characters to explore.  Book 2 of Other Suns has some crazy clever and complex charts and tables for star and world creation as well as some details about the major 'human' worlds in the hegemony.  In addition there is info on flora and fauna so plenty to work on.  In addition, I downloaded the free copy of Stars without Number, its a really useful  pdf, load of useful stuff to help with worldbuilding and for generating ideas for adventure's.

I am still looking for other material to help with world creation and adventures, I have a bit of the old classic traveller stuff and I am tempted to try and get a hold of some of the other 80's Sci-Fi RPG's to see if I can pinch background and rules from them but that will depend on how involved I get in the Other Suns universe.

The Scattership

The Scattership, according to Jane's All the Galaxy's Starships is one of the more common and versatile Starships used by the military and the star arm. The total mass of the Scattership is 8000 metric tons and its maximum acceleration with a full load is 1500 gs.  It is capable of travelling in jump space at a pseudo-velocity of 60 light years per hour.  Crew size ranges from 1 to 8 depending on the mission assigned, usual crew is 4.

Spare cargo capacity is 25.9 metric tons.  The ship has 8 single cabins and two quad cabins, (one is the bridge, one is the common room), as well as a sick bay and 4 science labs.  To defend itself the Scattership is armed with an array of weaponry including 24 Attack Missiles for use in normal space and w-8 warheads for use in jump space.

I love the image of the ship (above) and it seems a good all round military/exploration vessel and so long as you have a pilot it can travel.

The Crew

I have already generated 4 characters for the ship, I did that before I read the books again and I will need to amend some of the skills on a couple of them to fit in with the required crew members for a scattership but that is not a big problem.

So far I have the following 

Zandra a human planetologist 

Yewlira the H'Reli soldier

Badratilat the Korli Survial Expert

Scout the Executive Officer (Weapons Officer)

Scout was originally going to be the pilot but I now want him to be the weapons officer as, after reading the rules, the captain is usually the pilot and that seems to fit in with things better.

I still have to generate the final four characters, I have to have a Captain, who I think I will make an Altani, the Altani resemble a fox and are able to use psionics.  Then there will be an Engineer, a medic and another scientist.  Maybe I will vary the speciality of the scientist depending on the mission, this idea could also apply to Yewlira who could be dropped in favour of a third scientist if the mission doesn't warrant additional combat troops.

And that's where I am at at the moment, still a lot a of work to do before I get a game going, although I may jump in quick with random adventure generated by using the super Stars without Number rules, once that's done it could be 

Adventure On!

Solo 'Through Sunken Lands RPG', a Tilly and Moonwane adventure, session 9

The Final Session

I have got to the climax of the Tilly and Moonwane sessions of Through Sunken Lands, here is the write up.  I used owlbear.rodeo to run this session, 

The ruins of the White Citadel.

Tilly scouts around the perimeter of the ruined citadel keeping out of sight, she spots the Lamassau guarding one of the entrances but spots nothing else moving in the area, she reports back to Moonwane and Farhad.  They decide to hide the camels as best as they can in amongst some rocks and scrub and with the Lamassau blocking the more hidden entrance they decided the only way is to enter the citadel is by its now dilapidated main entrance.
Farhad spends the morning performing the Mage Armour Ritual and gets +4 AC (ritual lasts for up to one month).  They decide to check out a large ruined tower set apart from the main citadel and to their right but as they step out into the open they are met by 8 lesser chaos children armed with clubs who rush out of the very tower they planned to investigate.  Tilly draws her Runesword and Moon his battle axe, Farhad keeps behind the two for now.

Lesser Chaos Children 

HP 4

Attack +0, 1d4 damage Club

AC 12

Tilly and Moonwane have positioned themselves between two rocky outcrops, the lay of the land will act like a funnel to the onrushing Chaos men, narrowing as the near the adventures, meaning only three can attack at once, Tilly and Moonwane have a good defensive position.

In the opening attack, 3 chaos children move into contact with Tilly and Monewane who have the advantage.

Tilly misses her assailant but suffers no damage in return. 

Moonwane hits one of the chaos children causing 5 damage, it goes down, but a third hits Moon with its club causing 2 points of damage (moon now has 15hp), 

In the second combat round, Tilly hits her attacker for 5 damages, a second Chaos beast goes down.

Moon also hits one of his attackers for 6 points, so a third is out of the fight, neither Tilly or Moon take any hits.

Round three and Tilly again strikes her attacker for 3 damage, not enough to kill, but she takes no hits in return.

Moon too hits another, this time for 6 damage and a fourth is taken down, he takes no hits.

Round 4 and Tilly finishes off her attacker.

Moon again hits one and a 6th chaos child if taken out.  The last two turn and flee the battle.

Tilly, Moonwane and Farhad catch their breath after the brief but furious combat and cautiously move towards the large ruined tower, Whiskers is no where to be seen have quickly disappeared at the first sight of the chaos children.

Moon and Farhad enter the ruins of the larger tower only to find it is empty, containing nothing but rubble and some bushes, Tilly walks over to the check out the old walkway cut into the rocks leading to what is now the ruins of the main gateway into the citadel.

With the reality of finding the ruined tower empty now upon them, Moonwane and Farhad cross over the open ground to Tilly who is keen to press on into the citadel itself.

As the three march up the walkway towards the main entrance of the ruined citadel, two skeletons armed with bows appear on the ramparts and fire arrows at the trio.

A further two skeletons armed with swords appear at the ruined gateway entrance to the citadel.

Skeletons

HP 4 
AC13

Attack +1 to hit, 
2 have longswords 1d8 damage, 
2 have shortbows 1d6 damage (if they attack or are attacked in melee, they will use a dagger 1d4 damage)

Tilly is hit by one of the arrows being fired at them, she takes 4 hit points of damage.  The trio rush the sword armed skeletons in the citadel entrance and in a quick sword fight the two skeletons are dispatched by Tilly and Moon, Till though is hit by a sword and takes a further 3 hits.

As they run across the ruined courtyard the bow armed skeletons fire more arrows at the 

adventures, Farhad is hit for 5 points, Tilly engages in a fire fight with the skeletons, arrows are flying back and forth, Moon and Farhad make their way to the second tower.  Tilly is hit for a further 3 hit points, she does manage to take out both skeletons though, however she has now sustained 10 hits

of damage.

In the ruined tower they have just entered a search reveals a stair way leading to an underground passage.  As they explore the passage they see a skeletal figure clad in mail armour, it seems not to notice the trio who attempt to sneak past it but as they do so it reaches out and grabs Tilly, before anyone can react both the skeleton and Tilly disappear.

Tilly finds herself in a large well lit room,  on a large throne  in the centre of the room sit a large fat purple humanoid demon,  gorging itself on rotting food brought to it by a precession of mindless chaos creatures some of whom it devotees along with the food. 

It seems to take little notice of Tilly. 

Tilly looks around and sees the broken figure of Karloak chained to the wall,  she goes over to him,  he seems unconscious but alive.

The demon stops eating and turns to Tilly,  manic laughter reverberates around the room,  it stuffs it's mouth with more food and chaos creatures then tells Tilly that she is just in time to see the old man breath his last breath before she breaths hers.  The demon clasps his hands together and Karloak grunts then breaths his last breath.  

As the demon turns its attention to Tilly, she draws her Rune Sword which is glowing ice blue, she rushes at the demon and before it can react she is able to sink the sword deep into the flesh of the demon which screams then a blinding blue light and a shock wave throws Tilly back against the wall, that was the last thing she remembered.

Moonwane and Farhad search the citadel grounds, keeping their distants from the Lamasue, but Tilly was not to be found, eventually they gave up the search for her and made their way back to the great city.  The war with the chaos children in the southern lands ended with the death of Karloak and the demon, Tilly was lost to them but they both vowed to

Adventure On.

Beyond the Wall and Other Adventures. The Manor of Barley.

 I find the hardest part of map drawing is knowing where to start.  Faced with a blank piece of paper my mind just goes, well, blank.

Beyond the Wall makes things a little easier for the cartographically challenged like me, at least it suggests putting the characters home village in the centre of the map, it's a starting point at least and the sheet of paper is no longer blank.

Barley, manor and surrounding countryside

In a normal game of Beyond the Wall, one where there is a GM and several players, the task of mapping is shared but for my solo campaign its all down to me, I have to decide where to put the key features and places of possible interest in the area surrounding the village, this has both positive and negative aspects to it.

On the positive, I control what goes on the map, for the Barley games I knew I wanted a monastery near Barley, I wanted a second smaller village not to far away, a stone circle and a burial mound as well, the negative is that the dilemma of where to put them and, beyond those few locations,  what other places of interest should go on to the map. 

What made things a little easier for me with the above Barley map was the fact that I had already described where the village of Thune and the monastery where in relation to Barley so it was a relatively easy task to place them on the map (link to that post here), also I had mentioned the river Orn so that to was easy to draw in.  To place the stone circle and burial mound I roll two 12 sided dice, one for direction, one for number of hexes away from Barley, finally I just filled in the blank space with lots of hills and trees and hey presto, I had my map.

The scale of this map is 1 mile to a hex, everything on the map is within a days walk of the village, the characters could set of early in the morning to explore the stone circle and make it back to the village by nightfall, certainly in the summer months that is.  There is also plenty of blank space to place other areas of interest, maybe a cavern system to explore or a goblin lair, a small secluded settlement in the Emerald Forest where the Fox Fairies dwell, there are lots of possibilities even in such a small localised region, indeed, without adding any more features there is at least 4 or 5 possible session of play already, The village of Thune may need the help of the characters, perhaps the monastery has a mystery to solve, who knows what strange things lurk in the burial mound.

Next though, I want to map the wider area of Barley, the mountains known as the Cold Ones in the north, the royal city to the west, its rival the imperial city to the south, how does the the Emerald Forest stretch and what lies to the east, then the characters can

Adventure On!

Other Suns RPG, a new solo campaign, a fourth character, 'Scout' the Scatterships Pilot.

 After completing the January character creation challenge you would think that I would have had enough of creating characters for a good while, after all, if you can't get a game going after creating 31 characters there must be something wrong.

It is a fact, I have 31 characters and some great characters for some great games at that but I was looking at which characters got the most interest, the most page views.  I was not altogether shocked to find out  that the character I created for Stormbringer was the one that got the most interest, it is such a much loved  classic and my all time favourite game, what did take me by surprise was the interest the characters for Niall Shaperos 80's Sci-Fi game 'Other Suns' generated, way above some of the more modern games I created characters for and more than the character I created for 'Classic Traveller'. 

I have really fond memories of Other Suns, its the only game except Stormbringer that I have managed to keep from the 80's, but unlike Stormbringer which I have played to the point that the book is falling apart, Other Suns only ever got an outing for short time back in 84 to 85, the rules were just a little to heavy and the background just a little to light for me to do much with back then, I loved the idea of it but I just could not get my head around it all. 

38 odd years on, I think, given the interest the characters I created got and the fact I really want to play a Sci-Fi game, its time to run the game again.  I am not in a position yet to run the game with others, face to face, so this is going to be another Solo outing, this will give me a chance to see if I can get to grips with the rules now, see if I can make the game work. see if there is any interest.  It may well not work out but I want to give it a shot.

I am putting together a crew for a Scattership, I need 7 characters, I have already created three during the character creation challenge,

Zandra, female, human, the planetologist.

Yewlira, female, H'Reli, the soldier

Badratilat, male, Korli, the survival expert

so now I am going to roll up 'Scout' the pilot. I have now changed scout to be the 'Weapons Officer'

Name : Johnn 'Scout' O'Kieran Human, Male, Star Arm (Survey Branch) Line Officer non specialised.

Rank : ComRichtor (rank points 96) (equivalent to Ensign)

STR : 11 INT : 18 WIL : 15 CON : 15 END : 29 DEX : 12 CHA : 12

LEN : 158cm BLD : 11 SIZ : 20 (mass 80kg).

Telepathic Strike TSC : 1 Telepathic Resistance TPR : 4

HITS : 16 LUCK : 17

Abilities -

ACC : 23%

ATT : 23%

DAM : 0/0

DOD : 22%

KNO : 20%

MAN : 27%

OBS : 24%

PAR : 10%

PER : 14%

STE : -4%

As a non-specialised line officer Scout has the following skills

Administrator : 37%

Pilot : 37%

Astrogator/Navigator : 37%

Tactician : 37%

Command Skill : 37%

Command Suit Operation : 37%

Legal Semantics : 37%

Orator : 37%

Sensor and ECM Operator : 37%

Space Lawyer : 37%

Weapons System Operator : 73%

Johnn 'Scout' O'Kieran is the scatterships persons expert and executive office (XO), though as far as scout is concerned sometimes piloting the ship is as far as his duties go. Scout is epicurean by nature, that is he enjoys his food and drink, (though rarely if ever touching alcohol), also he is very calm under pressure, rather laid back and perhaps a little lazy but a good pilot non the less.

Scout is also telepathic, very rare for a human and although limited in his powers in comparison to some of the other naturally telepathic species, there is no limit to how much he can increase this characteristic with the right training and experience.

That about sums up Scout, the fourth member of the team. There is a section in the Other Suns rule book that sets out the usual crew of a Scattership, I now need to roll up its captain and two more crew members to fill the vacant slots, I will detail those in my next three posts, until then

Adventure On.