Questions about Pirates of Drinax campaign.

[J. L. Brown]

Okay; apparently a Resource Unit is about the same as the number of Credits required to pay cost-of-living for 100000000 people. In Mongoose 2e that is (for an average SOC of 7) 1500 Cr/month per person. 1 RU = 12 x 1500 x 100 000 000 = 18 x 10^12 or 18 TCr. Tyokh has about 4766.3 RU per year from interstellar trade; and Fist has 309.833 RU per year.

Drinax, at the start of the Campaign has only Asim to trade with, but the number still comes out to 1313.559 RU per year from Interstellar Trade -- which seems high for a Pocket Empire with no ships of any kind. I think I may arbitrarily rule that Drinax only gets a fraction of this (maybe ~1%) at the start, and gets bigger fractions of it as the number of ships in the fleet (dedicated to trade) grows and the players insist on budgeting for starport upgrades for Drinax.

The GeDeCo (or PDQ, on some worlds) stake in governments in the Trojan Reach is also easy to estimate. Pocket Empires allows calculation of 'Popularity' of the government in each system -- and a big factor in that is the 'Discretionary Tax Rate'. Popularity is a 0 to 15 scale, and there are a fair few governments in the Reach which go above the top of that scale. I cynically figure those governments just raise the Discretionary Tax Rate until their popularity drops to (at most) 15 which is still wildly popular. Governments under the thumb of GeDeCo owe extortionate levels of debt, or have granted GeDeCo the rights to extract obscene amounts of profit directly from the population -- so these systems will raise the Discretionary Tax Rate until they are rather unpopular maybe a 6 or 7 Popularity. I am still working up these numbers; right now it looks like GeDeCo is making more than 19500 RU per year off of their investments in the Trojan Reach.

Marrying Princess Rao or Prince Harrick to kick off a multi-generational Pocket Empire style game means reverse engineering their genetics. I figure Princess Rao is (Genetic + Environment):
STR: 8(4 + 4) DEX: 6(4 + 2) END: 6(5 + 1) INT: 11(5 + 6)
And Prince Harrick is:
STR: 5(4 + 1) DEX: 6(4 + 2) END: 8(5 + 3) INT: 8(5 + 3)
Oleb & his Queen remain a mystery. Clearly the small gene pool in the Floating Palace has not been kind to the Royal blood-line.

 

[Jet_Black]

I'm currently running Pirates of Drinax for my group and they really love it! They're now on Arunisiir, trying to steal the entire treasure ship Martin II. Two of the characters were successfully hired by the naval crew - one (Myke the Magic Mechanic) as an engineer, the other (Don Ernesto Silvestre Maria de Tobia) as the new ship's doctor. They've aquired a canister with a neurotoxin to put the entire crew down. Also, they've persuaded the launch pilot Henshaw to help them by promising to help her solve the situation with her daughter. The players are planning to use the neurotoxin with the ship's life support systems, make sure all crewmembers (except Henshaw) are unconscious, but still alive, and then put them into low berth. After that, Henshaw will calculate a jump to Falcon instead of Exe to shake their Navy escorts, and to meet with their Harrier, the Morally Gray Area, to get more of their own crew. To open the vault, they plan to jump the Martin II to Tyokh's outer system to complete the unlocking sequence. After plundering the vessel, they'll jump her back to an inhabited system and just activate a distress beacon so the frozen naval crew is found eventually.

So far, so good. Now, how do I, as the GM, deal with the PC's having loads of loot from the Martin II, including several battledresses and heavy weapons? On one hand, I want them to have the spoils of war for coming up with a cunning plan, but, on the other hand, I do fear it may unbalance the whole campaign... So, can I have your thoughts and opinions, please?

 

[IanBruntlett]

So far, so good. Now, how do I, as the GM, deal with the PC's having loads of loot from the Martin II, including several battledresses and heavy weapons? On one hand, I want them to have the spoils of war for coming up with a cunning plan, but, on the other hand, I do fear it may unbalance the whole campaign... So, can I have your thoughts and opinions, please?

I haven't run a Pirates of Drinax campaign but am reasonably familiar with the setting.

If the problem with the players having battledresses and heavy weapons is what they will do with them, remember consequences. If they go round massacring people and other things, let them do so. Then, later on, have consequences. Arrange for a security camera to have recorded everything or have someone miraculously survive a massacre - either by fluke or by arriving late, hiding, and seeing everything. Arrange for one of the victims to be the cherished sibling of a wealthy crime lord who is now out for blood.

If the players insist on wearing battledress to relatively peaceful planets, remember that battledress is banned at law level 1 or higher and they won't be allowed to visit.

EDIT: If the player's turn out to deserve prison, take a look at Mongoose Publishing's "Prison Planet" here.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I have thought the obvious way to loot the treasure ship is to 'fail' to make the synchronized jump with the escorts; then incapacitate the crew, haul off the loot (or just dump it into space for pick-up later), re-start the planned jump sequence & abandon ship before the countdown finishes. The Treasure ship arrives, with all crew but no loot, ideally within just a few hours of the escorts. Heck, if the astrogator is really good, they might be able to shave off a few hours & actually have the Treasure Ship arrive before the escorts. It buys you two weeks, minimum, to collect the goods & get away. There is the problem of cracking the vault, which promises to take some time -- plus, the fake treaty will seem a little odd if it is the only thing left on the ship after the thieves clean everything else out.

A truly elaborate heist would swap the loot for valueless duplicates (the port and starboard holds are pretty easy to get into), and make copies of all the data in the mail-drums -- but that seriously undermines the credibility of the fake treaty.

Of course, the escorts might not want to execute a synchronized jump, but that risks having the Treasure ship arrive at a possibly wildly different time & place than the escorts.

The treasure on the ship is not terribly valuable in terms of RUs; so it will be spent quickly either building up Drinax, or its' fleet, or bribing other systems or factions with stuff like starport upgrades. The armor and weapons might have security locks to prevent unauthorized use; or transponders responding with coded location info whenever an authorized authority asks -- reducing usefulness, or value, or both. Probably good to take one of the suits to the Scholar's Tower & have them break it down for research and possibly duplication (minus the pesky security features).

Or, if the players get a bunch of good stuff Oleb might claim it as part of his cut; at the very least bits can be salvaged to get a few more Hawk Warriors back into the air.

 

[Garran]

Pirates of Drinax works just fine even if the PCs have access to top-of-the-line military gear; it actually seems intended that the PCs will get to play with all of the cool toys that a standard campaign tuts and wags its finger about.

Given that the Drinax campaign involves a lot of politics (at various levels), acting like maniacs at every turn is ultimately self-defeating, and the kind of opposition that they'll occasionally be up against actually warrants breaking out the big guns, or at least making it clear that you have them if the other guys try anything stupid.

 

[Jet_Black]

Luckily, I'm blessed with players who usually don't act like murderhobos. For example, they don't want to kill the crew of the Martin II if they don't have to. Also, I don't deny that it's fun sometimes, especially after a stressful day, to just bring out the big guns and shoot some scumbags in the face - in-game only, of course! That said, I was surprised that they did kill Aparo, the GeDeCo agent on Arusiniir, after interrogating him and realizing that he knew way too much about everything... His corpse ended up in the swamps surrounding the starport.

And I just realized to my eternal shame that the Martin II doesn't even have any low berths! So much for their plan to just stash the crew there...

 

[Condottiere]

Fast drug plus sedative.

 

[J. L. Brown]

I am still thinking about the treaty adjustments for the various powers. (edited 2024, March 16)

I could use some help brainstorming political agendas for some or all of the following.

Making up a set of clan-specific (Ahroay’if, Tlaiowaha, Yerlyaruiwo, Syiosuis, and Tokolfeahr) treaty adjustments for the Aslan starts out pretty easy -- but there are other Aslan clans (Tiykhisto, Htyowao, Hkaaiheir, Khyahe, Khaukheairl, Iuwoi) that the players may deal with throughout the campaign. I don't even have all of these cataloged, much less have much of a grip on their overall interest in Drinax or their agendas. Same goes for the Zhodani, Florians, Glorious Empire, Darrians, Sword Worlds, Strend Cluster, Belgardian Sojurnate, and the Senlis Foederate.

The Zhodani are here primarly to cause trouble for the Third Imperium, and maybe the Aslan Hierate. They will want refusals to lift blockades, and higher trade levies against both, a commitment to oppose Aslan expansion, Zhodani (probably Tozjbar) advisors, and maybe a base or two. They will dislike low trade levies for the Imperials and Aslan, unblockading all trade routes, unblockading any of the 'other important planets', and bases for (or non-aggression pacts with) the Imperium and Aslan. Any treaty which might get the Imperium and the Aslan fighting will probably be very happily recieved by the Zhodani. Plus maybe other stuff. With no military 'We will crush you' threat of a common border, it seems like the Zhodani need to offer something if they are to be represented diplomatically, and they will certainly want to establish an embassy to collect intelligence on the goings-on in the Reach. Not sure what sort of rewards the Zhodani would have to offer in exchange -- maybe they can help the Drinaxis test for psionic potential, or offer training to talented Drinaxis? What else? How would these things be represented in the game?

But while the Zhodani are pretty well described; the Florians seem very mysterious. It seems like they refuse to trade with the Aslan, and have a strong preference for the Aslan to not expand, and they do participate in some trade with other neighbors (the Imperium, at least). There are four trade routes (one J-2 {Forandin-Fist, 13 jumps}, and three J-3 {Forandin-Fist, 8 jumps; Forandin-Nekrino, 7 jumps; and Halka-Pax Rulin, 7 jumps}) between the Florian League and the Imperium; only two of those (both to Fist) can be blockaded without control of the Dustbelt / Sindalin main. The Halka-Pax Rulin route jumps through (up to) two consecutive red-zones, so I have to imagine that the Forandin-Nekrino J-3 route is preferred. The new Kingdom of Drinax may not control the Sindalin main, so will have limited leverage over the Florian League; so instead of wielding a big threat, perhaps the Drinaxi could offer some enticements.

Darrians seem fairly insular, they may not want to even establish an embassy. But... there are culturally-Darrian Aslan; which is strongly indicative that the Darrians have found a way to refocus or channel the biological need for territory and expansion. Drinax is very much going to need that knowledge. Darrians also (rightly) regard technology as a strategic secret which is essential to their survival, and they certainly will not want to share. Given that the distance involved makes trade unlikely, what can Drinax offer to or expect from the Darrians? Maybe there is a common 'Contain and counter the Zhodani' agenda?

I guess the Swordies and some of the Aslan clans will want (or at least accept) military hardware -- 'Fighting dice' from the new Kingdom's resource pool, although they may not give the full +2 per 1 fighting dice that Kasiyl can offer them.

I have just gotten started on this, here is what I have so far:

 

[adzling]

Luckily, I'm blessed with players who usually don't act like murderhobos. For example, they don't want to kill the crew of the Martin II if they don't have to. Also, I don't deny that it's fun sometimes, especially after a stressful day, to just bring out the big guns and shoot some scumbags in the face - in-game only, of course! That said, I was surprised that they did kill Aparo, the GeDeCo agent on Arusiniir, after interrogating him and realizing that he knew way too much about everything... His corpse ended up in the swamps surrounding the starport.

And I just realized to my eternal shame that the Martin II doesn't even have any low berths! So much for their plan to just stash the crew there...

At our table my players managed to take over the Martin 2 through a combination of poisoning the the food to sicken the crew and help from henshaw to sub the jump coordinates at the last minute.

The drugs did not affect all the crew (not everyone ate on the same shift) but it helped by reducing their capabilities and removing a few crew to the medbay entirely.

Changing the jump coordinates to divert the martin 2 away from her escorts to an out system gas giant where their tiny armada of 3 pirate vessels was waiting was the real key.

Some sabotage and plinking from long range (the martin has no long range weapons) forced her surrender.

Players were mildy upset but not surprised to discover that this resulted in plenty of time for the marines on board to sabotage their pgmps and battledress.

So for us the power creep was not an issue as they never got the 'dress et al.

They did carefully maneuver the martin back to drinax where oleb promptly claimed it as his new "super secret fleet carrier" and began a project of retro-fitting it as a powerful SDB carrier. All financed by the money the PCs tithe to him.

 

[MasterGwydion]

My players realized that the only thing needed to be considered Aslan by the Aslan is acting like an Aslan, actual biological race doesn't matter to them, so once they had enough allied systems, they counted as a Multi-world Clan and then dealt with the Aslan by offering land for vassalage. This allowed them to vassalize a few smaller clans as well as creating new vassal clans. This allowed Drinax to gain control of several Aslan systems as well.

 

[J. L. Brown]

My players realized that the only thing needed to be considered Aslan by the Aslan is acting like an Aslan, actual biological race doesn't matter to them, so once they had enough allied systems, they counted as a Multi-world Clan and then dealt with the Aslan by offering land for vassalage. This allowed them to vassalize a few smaller clans as well as creating new vassal clans. This allowed Drinax to gain control of several Aslan systems as well.

The Knife Edge mentions that it might be possible for one or two smaller Aslan clans to pledge vassalage to the new Kingdom, but there are no details beyond that. I have just assumed that they were referring to the Ahroay'if under Kasiyl -- but the Tokolfearl are another possibility. There are other clans (Tiykhisto, Htyowao, Hkaaiheir, Khyahe, Khaukheairl to name a few) which the players interact with that (with GM's grace and a LOT of role-playing) might join up; but the big clans (Tlaioawaha, Yerlyaruiwo, and Syiosuis) absolutely will not.

Even getting the Ahroay'if on board seems like a stretch; they are well established and very successful -- they may even control more systems than the entire New Kingdom. That said, they have very good reasons to want to leave their current liege-lords (the Tlaioawaha); a restored Kasiyl owes his new ascendancy to the PCs; plus there are plenty of opportunities for the PCs to have Kasiyl to regard them as friends purely on a social level; and the clan guards/controls some of the very lucrative trade with the Third Imperium -- which Drinax has demonstrated is now subject to their navy.

I think getting some Aslan (or better, a whole clan) to swear fealty is a very good outcome; they can be used as a buffer state against the Hierate. If the Kingdom has a 'Drinaxi ihatei must move only to spinward and rimward' policy, then that might be enough to deflect the Hierate.

 

[MasterGwydion]

The Knife Edge mentions that it might be possible for one or two smaller Aslan clans to pledge vassalage to the new Kingdom, but there are no details beyond that. I have just assumed that they were referring to the Ahroay'if under Kasiyl -- but the Tokolfearl are another possibility. There are other clans (Tiykhisto, Htyowao, Hkaaiheir, Khyahe, Khaukheairl to name a few) which the players interact with that (with GM's grace and a LOT of role-playing) might join up; but the big clans (Tlaioawaha, Yerlyaruiwo, and Syiosuis) absolutely will not.

Even getting the Ahroay'if on board seems like a stretch; they are well established and very successful -- they may even control more systems than the entire New Kingdom. That said, they have very good reasons to want to leave their current liege-lords (the Tlaioawaha); a restored Kasiyl owes his new ascendancy to the PCs; plus there are plenty of opportunities for the PCs to have Kasiyl to regard them as friends purely on a social level; and the clan guards/controls some of the very lucrative trade with the Third Imperium -- which Drinax has demonstrated is now subject to their navy.

I think getting some Aslan (or better, a whole clan) to swear fealty is a very good outcome; they can be used as a buffer state against the Hierate. If the Kingdom has a 'Drinaxi ihatei must move only to spinward and rimward' policy, then that might be enough to deflect the Hierate.

At least until the Imperial Civil War starts and the hordes of Aslan overrun everyone, Human and Aslan alike all of the way up to the Spinward Marches. lolz

 

[J. L. Brown]

Here is what I have for the Zhodani Treaty Adjustments so far. I still do not know what they can offer the Kingdom of Drinax -- perhaps military hardware and support (fighting dice) from stuff being decommissioned from their reserves. It may not look like much, but they are real warships instead of just enthusiastically repurposed freighters (hat tip to Howard Tayler).

The Tozjbar have offered telepathic influence before, but I suspect that that sort of thing is very much a double-edged sword.

 

[RogerMc]

What we know of the Imperial civil war in the Marches is that Aslam Ihatei overrun the Imperial worlds of the Trojan Reaches.

Which does allow for the possibility that your new pirate kingdom is actually employing at least some of the Ihatei or is allied to them.

 

[MasterGwydion]

What we know of the Imperial civil war in the Marches is that Aslam Ihatei overrun the Imperial worlds of the Trojan Reaches.

Which does allow for the possibility that your new pirate kingdom is actually employing at least some of the Ihatei or is allied to them.

Yeah. None of My players went the pirate route. They took the ship and said see you in a year (by transmission just before they jumped out). lol. They went and did some trading, did some adventuring, stopped by Tobia and bought 200tons worth of automated mining and manufacturing equipment and had it delivered to Drinax with the Harrier as the escort. Congrats, now Drinax can produce it's own stuff including more industry. All problems fixed. Then they started expanding.

 

[Ol'Weedy]

In my campaign GeDeCo eventually became the main antogonist. I spiced it up a bit by having the one of the main clans on Oghma reveal to the travelers, that they had one of the Aslan mercenaries who raided the original Vorito starport locked away as a bargaining chip... complete with bodycam footage of the raid, and their meeting with the GeDeCo rep that organized the fake raid.
They ended up giving a copy of the evidence to the GeDeCo main office, with the threat of revealing everything to Imperial authorities.
Once Drinax was under 'new management', they blackmailed GeDeCo into giving up most of their Reach division, then they arranged things so Vorito, and not Drinax were the Aslan's eventual target.
It all got very cloak and dagger.

 

[Garran]

Canonically the Aslan overrun the Imperium in the Reach, which also implies that GeDeCo's grand plan is doomed to fail.

A strong Kingdom of Drinax (or Star-Empire of Sindal, if the project is successful enough) might change that outcome, whether by force or by guile, especially since it includes a successful group of PCs who've already altered supposed destiny once.

 

[Sigtrygg]

I have a question.

Are there fleet combat rules?

Are they easier to use than High Guard?

Could they be adapted to resolving FFW fleet battles?

 

[Garran]

There is a single guaranteed fleet battle during the Drinax campaign and it does have a simple set of rules that include narrative events and PC actions. You could probably adapt it to other engagements.

 

[Jet_Black]

Yesterday's session was extremely fun and had some really cinematic actions. It was the start of the Ihatei! adventure. The PCs were at the Floating Palace to upgrade their Harrier with the spoils from the treasure ship Martin II. While palace technicians were working on their vessel, they decided to head down to the surface of Drinax, to a Vespexer meeting place called Barter Town because they wanted to hire some hardy Vespexer warriors as their new boarding troops. Of course, the PCs set up the Thunderdome (without the cryogenically frozen corpse of Tina Turner, unfortunately) in order to find the best warriors via gladiatorial combat. While there, Chieftain Galx told them about the Aslan scout ships they had observed and about the missing tribesmen.

Calling Lord Wrax from the Star Guard and bossing him around for a bit to scan for the Aslan scouts, the PCs soon had a possible location. They took the three most promising Vespexer recruits and headed there in an air/raft to investigate. The target area had some old ruins among the dunes and an ihateisho-class scout partially covered by sand. Also, the PCs soon discovered two Aslan warriors hiding in the ruins. Scrubby (PC), Miria Silverhand (they had hired her earlier) and the three Vespexer recruits tried to flank the Aslan, while Don Ernesto and Myke (the other two PCs) covered them with long-range weapons. One of the Vespexers failed his stealth roll miserabely and was shot by an Aslan who was in turn put down by the two snipers. At that point, the Aslan pilot still crewing the scout realized what was going on and blew the explosive charges to clear the sand from his ship, obscuring the whole area and preventing the snipers from shooting.

Suddenly, Srubby and one of the Vespexers started running towards the scout ship, jumping on its wing to get to the airlock. Myke got down to a deeper level of the ruins to hide while Don Ernesto was powering up the air/raft. Miria and the third Vespexer managed to put down the remaining Aslan warrior. Holding onto the rising scout ship, Scrubby suddenly remembered that he couldn't understand Trokh, so hacking the airlock access panel was impossible! Myke was shooting at the scout ship from his hiding place in the ruins, but one return salvo from the ship's pulse lasers brought the ruin crashing down on him, burying him alive! In the end, everyone else got back on the ground, while Don Ernesto engaged the air/raft's autopilot to crash the vehicle into the scout ship! The Aslan still got away, but is now being pursued by a Star Guard vessel.

To be continued...