Far stars, a Traveller game

[Old timer]

Thought i would put up this AP on my latest Traveller game, as is does not seem to be done much on this forum. Game is being played over roll20 as the players are from across Europe and the UK (Two players and myself are from the UK, one is living in Stockholm and the other is living in Belgrade. Been gaming with these guys for over a year now having meet them on roll20).

The cast of characters:
Vasily Velez-Engineer (ex cluster navy)
Anton Valere-Pilot (ex scout and ex navy)
Carter Sear (ex cluster navy marine)
Ruse Hompson (Researcher, down on luck drifter)

Basic synopsis-The PCs are part of the crew of a exploration/construction ship (the Star Seeker) from the Cluster, a group of eight worlds located in an area of space that is almost devoid of stars (called rifts in Traveller parlance), building the 'star bridge' (a series of jump stations/refuel points across a void to link to an area rich in stars and potentially habitable worlds). As standard practice half the crew are in low berth when not on duty.

The session begins with the PCs being rapidly awoken from their low berths, and the first thing they hear is a all ship emergency alarm and the repeating order to abandon ship. Vasily checks the nearest consoles and swears when he gets the damage report. He tries to make to engineering but finds the way blocked by a bulkhead door that has been dropped. Anton, following Vasily lead, tries to get to the bridge and also finds that the easiest route has been sealed by bulkheads as well. The PCs realise this is bad, so grab their gear and head to the hanger deck whilst the ship creaks and groans around them, sure signs that the structural integrity of the ship is compromised.
All reach the deck, but then part of the hull gives out and emergency bulkheads slam down, sealing off another part of the ship. The PCs throw their gear onto the first ship they find (a 20ton 'gig'), suit up and then get the hanger door open and launch from the ship. As they race away they see the extent of the damage to the ship, the bridge section has been sheared off, and engineering is breached and fires can be seen burning inside, fuelled by the oxygen rich atmosphere and the fuel leaking into engineering. As they race away from the stricken ship they see they are near a world and make course for the planet. Minutes later the star seeker explodes. The PCs try the comms to see if there are any other escaping ships but cannot make contact with anyone, so wonder if they are the only survivors.
As the approach the planet, their gigs sensors indicate no communications from the world, but do detect a weak power source. The planet certainly appears to be human compatible as seas and green covered land masses can be easily seen.
They fly to the power source and land next to what appears to be a part complete outpost, that appears to be being powered by solar panels and wind turbines. Ruse and Anton note the large, tall alien trees nearby (due to the worlds lower gravity), a number of large flying/gliding creatures and the lack of any obvious land animals. A quick check of the atmosphere reveals it to be heavily tainted with an irritant (pollen) so breather masks are worn to avoid any complications.
The PCs enter the outpost, and soon find the first body, or rather what is left of it as it is mainly a skeleton with no flesh left upon the bones. Other bodies are found in a same state (ten in total). The rest of the outpost has supplies, power and oddly a section that appears to be dedicated to growing native trees and plants, though the purpose of this is a mystery. A few data pads are found, but not much info is gleamed from them other than this outpost was active a few years ago, that there is a larger colony on the planet and the team here originate from another system.
The bodies are examined by both Ruse and Anton, and found to have had the flesh eaten off them. It is not clear whether this was post or pre mortem, as the bones show no obvious signs of trauma from weapons.
At this point the motion scanner carried by one of the PCs starts to activate, detecting something else in the outpost with them. The PCs rush to the location and see emerging from a broken floor grate a mass of eel like creatures, who move as one large squirming form. The PCs open fire with what ever weapons they have and the 'worm boil' (as the PCs call it) reacts to the attack upon it, striking out at the nearest PC with a Psionic attack, which stuns Carter and leaves him unable to act for a few minutes. The combined fire of the other PCs drives off the eel things, and the eels retreat back down the grate, which is sealed a few minutes late by Vasily, who then goes around the outpost sealing any holes or grated he can find. Carter recovers with a stunning headache, and spends the next few hours resting and taking headache pills.
The remains of the eels killed are examined, and their lamprey like mouths indicate that these things are responsible for the state of the corpse found, and the PCs conclude that these eels must stun their prey with their psionic attack then overwhelm the victim and tear them up with their teeth. It is also noted these creatures would probably be able to move through soil much like worms, and only have rudimentary senses, so the PCs speculate that maybe they sense prey by some form of psionic sense as well.
Once the outpost is secure, the PCs decide that they need to check out the mention colony site, and speculate about what they will find there, and why this world has been colonized in the first place with such a dangerous creature present. They hope some answers may be found at the colony, and a way out of the system as they have no jump capable ship.

(Part 2 will be played on Tuesday, and i will put up an AP for that later in the week. And in case it is not obvious this is not the OTU, though uses much the same technology assumptions with some tweaks from me.)

 

[simonh]

Sounds like a fun game, a lot of mysteries to figure out and enough action to keep the characters on their toes.

Simon Hibbs

 

[IanBruntlett]

Looks good, enjoyed reading about it.

 

[Old timer]

OK session 2 AP, split this into two posts as the session was a longer one than normal so a lot of stuff was done.

Part 1

The session starts with the PCs flying over to the colony site in their gig, the aim to try and find some answers. They overfly the site and see plenty of bodies laying in the streets of the small colony, and it is apparent there are no survivors. They land their craft at the small space port the colony has, finding 3 other ships on the pads there (2 shuttles and a modular cutter). The PCs check the other ships quickly, finding them inoperable without some serious maintenance and it seem they were either abandoned or unable to launch during the worm spawn attacks (PCs now decide to call the creatures worm spawn or 'eel balls'). The PCs then head over to the small flight control station of the starport and find a few bodies inside as well (all the bodies seen so far have had their flesh eaten of the bones, sure signs of the worm spawn attacks). Using a portable power source they are able to power up the stations computers and download some data, gaining a star map of the sub sector they are in and the location of the founders of this colony, whose homeworld is in an adjoining subsector. This information leads the PCs to ask why this colony was set up so far from their original world. They also have data that a supply ship visits once every 6 months, and if they are lucky, it should arrive at the world in a weeks time. The PCs also conclude that the attacks happened a year ago, and the colony has been here for ten years before the attack.
The PCs then enter the main colony, visiting the colonial administration building first. Outside the see more bodies and there was evidently a fight here as the building has damage from small arms fire and the skeletal remains have tattered armour and now useless ACRs. The PCs enter the building, finding more bodies and signs of a fight, and notice that windows and doors have been broken inwards. The PCS find a data library and get some more information about the colony and some footage of the worm spawn attack. It is not pleasant, the colony was attacked by hundreds of worm spawns (or 'eel balls') which stunned people with their psionic attack then engulf them. The most effect weapons appear to be explosives and flame weapons, but the operators of such weapons seem them to be almost immediately attacked by other worm spawns, and from this evidence the PCS conclude that the worms work in cooperation in their attacks and recognize threats to them or other worm spawns, a sign of at least animal cunning if not some form of intelligence.
The PCs then go to lab in the colony, and find it badly damaged by fire and explosives. The PCs then indulge in wild paranoid conspiracies at why it is so damaged (some group tried to cover up what they were doing in the labs, the colony is a cover for a terrible experiment with the worms, the worms are a bio weapon and so on) but after a little examination of the building, it seems that all that happened is some with a flamethrower was attacked and fired the weapon in panic, hitting and setting alight the building. The explosion that damaged it was caused by grenades' cooking off'. Not much is recoverable from the labs, the research conducted here a mystery. The PCs then head to the medical area of the colony. During these travels around the colony, Vasily is busy putting together a improvised flame thrower from various parts and the fuel found in some vehicles. No one is sure this is a good idea, as it is just as likely to blow up in his face than actually work, but he is convinced it will work at least once.
At the medical area of the colony they recover some extra medical supplies but find no useful information. They then head over to colony security and find it in damaged state. The PCs recover some data from here, and a few weapons and ammo. The data they recovered is about a team sent to the mountains to investigate a site found up there. The team took an air raft and flew to the mountains which are around 1000km from the colony. The team failed to report back after a day, but before another team could be sent, the colony was attacked.
The PCs decide they are finished here and head back to their ship, and come under attack by two worm spawns. The worms psionic attacks knocks Carter out again and stuns Anton, so Vasily attacks with his flamethrower. It works once and incinerates one of the spawns, then stops working. Grabbing the unconscious Carter and pushing the stunned Anton towards their ship, they get on board and blast off, heading to high orbit were they feel safe.

 

[Old timer]

Session 2 part 2
In orbit they discuss their options, and seriously consider going into low berths after sending the ship on course to the nearest world (which is one parsec away). They also decide to wait to see if the supply ship turns up. To pass the week they go into low berths anyway, programming them to wake them up in a week.
A week later they awake, and wait, but the supply ship is a no show. They also detect satellites in orbit and eventually hack into them, one is a communications sat and the other for flight control, and will give them a warning if a ship jumps in system. The comm sat is used to broadcast across the planet in the hope that there is some one down there, but there is no reply. The PCs decided that they might as well check out the site in the mountains them, but do not know what to expect.
The PCs fly to the mountain and the first thing they detect is the wreck of the missing air raft and the team, who are corpse scattered around the crash site. The PCs check the crash site out, finding that the air raft rear seems to have exploded as if hit by a missile, and the crash evidently killed the team. The remains of the team show now sign of being eaten by the worms, so the PCs hope that means the worms don’t come up this far.
The PCs then land near the reported site and find a entrance way, man made and open. The door has been opened by breaching charges. The PCs proceed in and find themselves in a small military base that was assaulted, as there are impact marks in the wall/floors/ceiling's from smalls arms fire, lasers, plasma and grenade blasts. The strange thing is that this seemed to have happened a long time ago, there are no bodies here which implies the dead/wounded were recovered and the power to the base is not functioning. The PCs explore the base, confirming what they already have found that the base empty, damaged by the assault upon it and long abandoned. This poses yet more questions for the PCs, when did this happen, why was the colony unaware of this place, what shot down the air raft?. The PCs locate the power plant, and through some serious jury rigging and some fuel from the ship get some basic power up and running. They also locate hangers, and though most are empty, one holds a ship. The ship is old looking and a little battered, and again there is evidence of a fire fight in and around this hanger. The ship is entered and found to be in reasonable condition inside. Vasily heads to engineering and sets about trying to get the power restarted as there is some fuel in the tanks.
Whilst doing this the others head over to the bases command centre, which was also assaulted and damaged and manage to get some power going to the consoles here and get some idea what this place was.
The base was a forward small scout base, operating a type of ship named the Artemis class, which the one in the hanger is. These ships seem to be small, fast armed scouts and also usable in a light escort roll or even assault due to their potent armament of two plasma gun armed turrets. The last report recovered from the bases fragmented database has the place being attacked over 60 years ago, but weirdly it seem that it was set up and operated by the same people who set up the colony many decades later, but they seem to have either forgotten this world was used for this purpose, or just did not know. The fragmented records indicate a war in this past time, but details are sketchy.
The ship, which the crew decide to name as Star seeker II, is jump capable and could give them a way of this world. Vasily works like a demon, and after much hard work has the ship at least flight capable, though he does not trust the jump drive due to lack of spare parts and decades of no maintenance. The base only yields a few spare parts but the plan is to refuel at the planets oceans then jump to the nearest world (which according to their data base is called Helos, but details on the world are very basic, and they suspect that these details have been redacted for some reason). Vasily and Anton insist on a flight and space worthy check first before refuelling the jump tanks, so the hanger is opened, as many spare parts and supplies as possible are taken from their craft and the first outpost they found loaded onto the ship and they take off for orbit. As the enter orbit they receive a message from the flight control satellite that a ship has jumped into the system. The PCs immediately send try to communicate with the ship, but do note that is awfully large for a supply ship (2000dt). The reply they get surprises them, a harsh sounding man who only identifies himself as the commander orders them to surrender their ship and been taken as prisoners, or they will be attacked and destroyed. The PCs attempt to talk more to him, but he cuts them off and then launches ten small fighters from his ship. The PCs are very surprised at this hostile reaction, and decide to flee towards the system gas giant, but it becomes apparent that they cannot outrun the fighters so it is just a matter of time before they will engage them. The ships weapons systems are powered up and the PCs get ready to fight an inexplicable hostile force.

 

[Alex]

Excellent stuff. Thank you for writing it up.

 

[Old timer]

Session 3 (in which dice rolls change the campaign in an unexpected way)

With weapons powered up and the fighters closing in, the combat begins with the fighters launching a spread of missiles at the PCs ship. The PCs are horrified when they see no less than 20 missiles hurtling across the void towards them. Anton sets about trying to jam the missiles but his unfamiliarity with the sensor systems mean that only a few missiles are jammed before they close. As the missiles close Vasily and Carter man the turrets and return fire upon the closing fighters, Vasily coolly destroys 3 of them and cripples a fourth, whilst Carter is only able to hit one and destroy it. The gunners then quickly switch to point defence and Anton kicks in the ships dedicated point defence system, but four missiles still hit their ship. The first appears to be a dud as it utterly fails to harm the ship, but the other 3 wreck havoc, damaging sensors, the hull, holing the fuel tanks and disabling the manoeuvre drive. The five reaming fighters close to a more optional range for their pulse laser and open fire, and all five hit the PCs ship. Anton and Ruse (both in the bridge) see their consoles light up with multiple damage reports, their ships hull is breeched, the power plant is damaged, all fuel has been lost, armour has been burned away, the manoeuvre drive is disabled, one turret is out of action and the ships structure is damaged. Knowing than cannot survive another series of hits like that, Anton sends a surrender signal. The signal is acknowledged and they are order to be prepared to be boarded once the carrier moves in.
The carrier moves along side and send in a boarding party, wearing sealed armour concealing there features, who accept the surrender of the PCS and take them prisoner. They are brought on-board the carrier and placed in a brig, stripped of all weapons, armour and equipment. Their ship is then recovered by their attackers.
An officer or commander then enters the PCs cell and tell them they are now a prisoner of Clan Malik of the Jomungand system. They will be take to the clans home, assessed and then made use of as slaves depending on their skills and general health. If they offer any resistance, they will be killed. The PCs, at least for the time being, accept this fate (though plan to watch and observe for any opportunities). The carrier preps for jump, then jumps for the Jomungand system.
A week later the PCs find themselves being lead of the ship onto the what they assume is the world of Jomungand. It appears to be a relatively pleasant place, though the gravity is lower than they are used to and the world is warm. They are lead into a simple barbed wire compound, in full view of where the ship has landed and a walled settlement. The PCs are left there for a while and observe what is going on around them until another armoured figure comes along. The figure speaks to the PCs via their helmet speakers, confirming they are now slaves who will be assessed and then assigned tasks. The PCs clearly tell their captures their skills and abilities, guessing that the more capable they seem the better they will be treated by this culture. The PCs sell themselves well, impressing upon the one talking to them their ship and engineering skills and obvious combat capabilities. The figure seems impressed and tell them they will be medical checked tomorrow and their skills tested to see if they are as good as they claim, and that will decide what is to be done with them. Once the figure leaves they observe more of their surrounds and their capturers, noting that there is some form of class system in play, with warriors at the top and a technician class who check and repair the clans ships and look over the PCS captured ship. The PCs conclude that strength and warrior values are favoured here, though technicians/engineers also have value, so feel confidant that with Carters combat skills and Antons and Vasilys engineering/ship skills they may have some good opportunities here to plan an escape, or possible integrate themselves with the clan and be seen as useful. Ruse is worried though, as his main skills are research and survival so he may not be so valued by this society.
The next day they are medical checked over, and found to have a number of implants between them. The clan finds these implants odd, it seems they consider cybernetic augmentation to be a sign of either weakness or something just not done by their culture, even though this culture is obviously technically advanced. After the test they are fed, and then have to await their final assessment to see what use the clan will put them to. They have no idea what this may entail and decide to simple wait and see.

 

[Old timer]

Session 4

The PCs decide to accept their situation and undergo testing to see where their skills lie. Anton and Vasily are assigned to help maintain and repair the clans small craft (and will be observed and supervised at all times) whilst Carter and Ruse are sent to join the Auxiliaries (support troops for the warriors). Time passes and the PCs prove themselves to be of value to the clan, both Anton and Vasily have skill in repair, and over time make a few suggestion on improvements and tweaks to the clans craft. Ruse and Carter handle training well and find themselves placed in actually support roles to the warriors.
The PCs actions come to the attention of one of the clan leaders, and she starts to listen to what they have to say, as she seeks ways to improve her clan and these offworld slaves may be the key to improving her clans future. After some time, the clan leader orders one of the fighters to be modified as suggested by Vasily and Anton, and the fighter performs well. The clan lord is impressed and orders the other technicians listen to their ideas and start modifying all their fighters. Over this time the PCs have learnt a little about the clans on this world (asking other slaves, talking to the engineers and technicians). They find out the clans are raiders because the world is a little poor in resources due to the difficulties of setting up extraction. Once a clan sets up some form of resource extraction, it becomes a target for the other clans, who will then attack, take it over, then likely lose it to a counter attack or another attack from a clan. This warfare interrupts easy resource collection and creates ongoing low level warfare between the clans, so it has become 'easier' to seek resources off world and hence the clan raids against other worlds.
The clans have some form of class structure, though the PCs have only really seen the warrior/navy class and the engineers/technicians and assume there are other classes. The PCs also realise that the clans are tradition bound and it takes time for new ideas to become accepted, but this clan seems more forward thinking than most.
The PCs soon become aware that the clan is planning an assault on another clans resources, and managed to suggest to the clan lord that a recon flight would give them more ideas about the opposition they face. The clan lord is convinced to listen (game wise a really good persuasion roll) and tell the PCs that the last recon flight was shot down by missiles and a few scout parties also sent on recon were intercepted. The PCS suggestions is to modify one of the fighters with the point defence system from the Artemis class and then fly NOE to the target, do a scan them transmit that info back, and if they get shot down they will still have the sensor data. The clan leader agrees to this, and Anton volunteers to fly the craft, impressing the leader with his confidence in his piloting skills.
Anton gets geared up, settles into the crafts cockpit, and then takes off to do the recon. Ruse and Carter meanwhile are told that they will be in the attack which is planned to start in 24 hours after the clan gets the recon data and this will be the time to really prove themselves. They are given their gear and are given time to adjust sights and get the armour fitting properly, then given a massive meal with alcohol which they do not take as a good sign as they feel this fight is going to be a hard one.
Mean while Anton flies towards the target NOE, and surprise the base as he flies over and scans the place. The defences are fast though and lock onto this craft. Four missiles scream after him, and despite his point defence system and jamming, one missile gets through. Anton is able to eject safely before his craft is destroyed, and parachutes down with no problems. Anton now finds himself deep into another clans territory and with no idea if he will be rescued.