Campaign Scenario: Project Cook

[rust]

Back to the Pandora setting ... :wink:

At the core of this scenario idea is a ship, probably not really surprising
for a water world campaign.

It is a SWATH ship with a mass of ca. 210 tons and a volume of ca. 1,200
cubic meters (85 dtons). It was designed with the modular design system
from GURPS Transhuman Space – Under Pressure. The ship's fission reac-
tor has a power output of 5,500 kW, most of it is used for the 2 hydrojet
engines of 2,500 kW each in the ship's submerged pods. The maximum
speed of the ship is about 50 km/h.

The ship is outfitted for a crew of 10 and up to 40 passengers, it has all
the necessary facilities to operate independently for quite some time:
Sickbay, Technical Workshop, Water Desalination, Oceanography and
Marine Biology Lab, Aquatic Survey Drones (designed with the German
robot supplement), and so on. Plus, it has a landing pad for the colony's
small craft, a 20 dton launch that can reach the ship everywhere on the
planet to deliver supplies, exchange passengers, and so on.

The ship was designed as a multipurpose ship, for research mission as
well as the transport of passengers and cargo (up to 12 dtons) but its main
use will be for an adventure named „Project Cook“, an exploratory cir-
cumnavigation of the planet Pandora, visiting about 15 islands and island
groups as well as the northern and southern polar regions for a first detai-
led on the spot survey of the planet – survey satellites often miss the re-
ally interesting stuff. The distance covered will be about 53,000 kilome-
ters, and the entire voyage is likely to take about 6 to 9 months, depen-
ding on what is discovered and encountered.

I intend to turn this into something like "Sinbads's New Voyages", demon-
strating to the players that a single planet is an incredibly huge and va-
ried location, and showing off all the wondrous geographic features (deep
sea trenches, underwater volcanoes, etc.) and weird creatures of Pandora
as well as its temperamental weather (hypercanes, tsunamis ...) and ad-
ding in the usual social problems life on a small ship tends to cause.
As a sideline, the characters will be away from the actual colony for quite
a while, and will be unable to react to the news about the events there.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Nice.

Entire new ecosystems to find. Expansion points for the colony to survey.
Ruins not spotted by the satelite surveys to uncover* :shock:

Attacks by giant predator octipoids to fight off, breakdowns to repair, giant floating islands of vegatation to explore, a slowdown caused by build up of an agresive micro molusk on the hull to research.

Lots of fun to be had.

* you did mention no other setient life was known about at the start of your game so are these ruins very strange natural features or are they evidence of your soon to be found alien people not yet contacted :twisted:

 

[rust]

Lots of fun to be had.

I really hope so.

Plus, it should create a list of unexplained mysteries ("We have to move
on and investigate this another time ...") as a potential to do list for the
characters, giving the players a number of options where to send their
characters whenever there is no more urgent business.

* you did mention no other setient life was known about at the start of your game so are these ruins very strange natural features or are they evidence of your soon to be found alien people not yet contacted :twisted:

Yep. I mean, submerged cave systems with right angles and smooth
walls could also have been created by some strange and now extinct
animal or some very unusual natural process ...

 

[Jame Rowe]

* you did mention no other setient life was known about at the start of your game so are these ruins very strange natural features or are they evidence of your soon to be found alien people not yet contacted :twisted:

You have struck gold-sir-gold, sir, and I mean that - gold-sir-gold. This advice needs to be taken!

 

[rinku]

I agree. Rust, this really does deserve to turn into something more than just a campaign. You should definitely look at writing it up in some form, as I've said before.

 

[Captain Jonah]

The Pandora Chronicles

 

[rust]

I am perfectly happy if I manage to get the setting in a shape that is suf-
ficient for a nice campaign, and with currently just 34 pages and a dozen
maps and plans there is still a long way to go before a campaign could ta-
ke off ...

 

[rust]

By the way, I am currently beginning to interconnect the different scena-
rios of the future campaign.

For example, in 2449 AD an engine failure will force a research ship from
Cassandra that explored systems beyond the current frontier of the sett-
led space, the "Outreach", to make an emergency landing on Pandora du-
ring its return voyage to Cassandra.
Among the planets visited by the "Outreach" was one that was mostly co-
vered by oceans, and in return for their help with the repairs of the ship
the crew will give the Pandora colonists access to the data and genetic
material collected on that planet.
However, while the life forms of that distant planet have a genetic structu-
re and biochemistry that is surprisingly similar to that of the life forms of
Pandora, the data are of no immediate use.

Much later, in 2453 AD, the crew of the Pandoran research craft "Ian Lin-
coln" will survey the polar sea of their world during Project Cook.
Among the creatures they will encounter there will be some that are very
different from the usual biological pattern of Pandora, and also from the
fossils discovered in 2447 AD at the Lincoln Island caves - but they are
almost identical to the life forms the crew of the "Outreach" found on the
distant planet in 2449 AD.
If this is not an incredible coincidence, there is a connection between Pan-
dora and that other planet, and if this connection is an artificial one - a
natural one is hardly imagineable - it is very likely that it is not the result
of human activities.

This would of course be an excellent reason to visit the distant planet, but
the colonists have neither a hyperspace capable spaceship nor money to
spare to charter one for such a mission - the mystery will remain for a
few more years ...