Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Overkill.
Pirates of Drinax - GMs thread
- Thread starter Sven2300
- Start date
Overkill.
Cronurd
Mongoose
Yeah, I was chuckling the entire time forcing myself not to give away how much they had the upper hand the entire time. They've only barely flipped through High Guard so far, so barbettes being a Big Deal(tm) wasn't even on their radar haha.
And also as I said to you on Discord, I'm flattered! I was so proud of them that entire sequence.
- Reasoning that if the Harrier was found floating in space, they might find cool stuff (if not a full ship) in another abandoned old empire cache
- Immediately drawing up plans for how to find the painting site, up to cross-referencing topographical maps with ihatei settlement locations and trying to figure out how long it would take to fly around the planet in a flyer
- And just their immediate biting hard on the hook. My group has had a bad habit of accruing side quests and things to check out but never getting back around to them, but I fully expect them to remember this one off painting and actively plan to come back in the near future
Hopefully your players engage just as much as mine did ^_^
Cronurd
Mongoose
As far as planning for the next session goes, I had some thoughts. My plan once they get to Drinax is for Oleb to congratuthank them, give them their LoM to pirate for him, and for Rao to take them aside and give them some pointers and suggestions from the referee. My issue right now is that with my setup, the Harrier has to undergo some major repairs since it was never fully fixed up after being recovered. This on top of any upgrades the PCs will cash in their ship shares for (one player rolled five on their own, so the party'll be able to fix her up pretty good.) So this implies that the Harrier will be in the shop for a few weeks, I'd not a full month or two. What the hell do I have the PCs do during that time?
I've considered pointing them towards Marooned on Marduk into potentially Makergod, but I'm also inclined to try and nudge them toward Exodus since I've already namedropped the Glorious Empire. And even if I go with either or neither, I'll have to come up with some sort of errand for Oleb to send the Travellers on, otherwise they'll just kinda be sitting there in the Floating Palace for a good while. Which I can certainly fast forward through after enough role-playing has occurred, but it feels unsatisfying. Y'all have any thoughts?
I've considered pointing them towards Marooned on Marduk into potentially Makergod, but I'm also inclined to try and nudge them toward Exodus since I've already namedropped the Glorious Empire. And even if I go with either or neither, I'll have to come up with some sort of errand for Oleb to send the Travellers on, otherwise they'll just kinda be sitting there in the Floating Palace for a good while. Which I can certainly fast forward through after enough role-playing has occurred, but it feels unsatisfying. Y'all have any thoughts?
J. L. Brown
Emperor Mongoose
I strongly suggest Rao mentions 'We want to do regime change on systems hostile to us' and a quick summary of the whole end-game in 'Finale' where they need to convince worlds to join up based on their political stances. This is NOT expressly mentioned in the adventure, but it certainly is the goal of the whole scheme from the start -- don't just spring it on the players in the final chapter.
Also, Endie (I am pretty sure) made up some resources for playing around on Drinax to recruit Vespexer tribes -- some of whom are less than enthusiastic about folks from the Floating Palace. That might be good filler / pacing material for the players. I also think it happens to be a good place to introduce Prince Harrick -- and if you want a little delay before Oleb & Rao trust the player characters with the (figurative) crown jewels of Drinax, then having them do a good job here might help.
And having the characters spending some time at the Floating Palace gives you a chance to introduce the various NPCs that will be important later -- Kasyil, Thao Poloc, Sal Dancet, Lady Hil, Admiral Wrax, Rachando, Chieftain Galx, & etc.
One option you might have is swap their ship -- Wrax has designs on the Harrier, and a lot of Drinax's resources are going to be poured into fixing it up. If it takes a few months to a year to get it fixed up, the players can be given a tramp freighter that was the property of some unfortunate who ran afoul of intrigue related (maybe Rachando did not want the competition) poison. They get some time as Far-Trader flying pirates themselves, with a healthy respect for anything that may carry a Barbette; and later have to do some politicking to upgrade to the Harrier & reinforce Wrax's bad opinion of them.
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These are good ideas: taking the time to introduce the players to four or maybe five at most (so they don't all blur together) of the key players on the palace early on is a very good point: Oleb, Rao and Harrick to introduce the three visions for the reborn kingdom, maybe Galx to introduce the idea of the Vespexers (and plant seeds about reliable marines for the future) and Wrax to have an antagonist?
I'll send you the Vespexers minigame stuff I have in Discord, @Cronurd if you want it. Another idea might be to do what @J. L. Brown suggests and send the party out in a low-key ship to run another mission, partly by way of job interview for the main gig later on: The Hellworld Heists is one that I've been thinking of as a transition for my second group when they finish crossing the Great Rift to get to the Trojan Reach: perhaps Rao wants to make possible a favourable alliance with the Senlis Foederate in order to secure Drinax's Coreward flank? Someone earlier in this thread ran the Calixcuel Incident for their party with their party taking Oleb incognito to see his mother (cue disaster movie). Although maybe Oleb would require something a bit less vulnerable and more Sindalian than a Far Trader for such a jaunt...
