Has anyone tried doing house rules for these?
The more I read up about them, the more I like these Lovecraft-esque Old Ones....
For those who've not had a chance to read the book version (it's excellent)
it also goes into a little more detail than "Whooo! Scary Space Squids from another dimension*!!"
There are a few bits written from their perspective - not that there's much of a personality, it's very much the 'beyond human understanding' (TM) monster, unlike the Vorlons and Shadows - who were quite human in motivation, when you come down to it. Example quote:
"The forces of the One caressed the station with their probes, lapped up the energy eagerly, and readied themselves to make the jump into the new realm. The realm that would soon be taken for the One, sacrificed for the One, destroyed for the One. The One whose names were almost as multitudinous as his ancient eyes or writhing tentacles."
(Yes folks, It's Cthulu....)
I realise that there's only one recorded incident of them escaping into the B5 universe - though there's always the original war fought by/against the Vorlons (and quite possibly the other first ones as well), and it's always possible that what is done once can be done again - the way some characters act even before the gate is activated Thirdspace Aliens have some limited ability to influence minds in realspace, and the IPX data on the design of the gate must be out there somewhere....
I was trying to think of game elements for the fleet...
Bits I've come up with so far:
Basic hull: Definitely a superior technology/damage resistant hull race. Self-repairing makes sense, but I'm almost tempted not to add it to stop them being Vorlon/Shadow clones.
Telepathy: Needs some sort of mind control mechanic. Not to put too fine a point on it, these....beings....mindslaved Vorlons - who are not noted for being incompetent at the whole telepathy thing...
Taking over a ship wholsesale doesn't seem to be how they work; none of the white stars started shooting the wrong side - but I had the thought that they could cause rioting and mutiny amongst crews - potentially turning a ship's Troops (or even just regular crew) against it. Have an opposed CQ check - generating an enemy Troops unit on board the targeted ship for each point the thirspace ship wins by.
Shields: As seen on tv.....unlike most B5 defensive measures, these seem to be a 'finite limit' defence - the shields will take so much, and no more, rather than adaptive armour or stealth that reduces the amount of damage. I was almost thinking of a second damage track that you have to knock down before hitting the hull, so a ship might have the trait Shields 10, meaning you have to do 10 damage to the shields before you hit the hull. To make it more than just a different way of giving it a damage score 10 higher than normal, the hull value varies - 6 whilst the shields are there, but if a ship shoots at it once the shields are gone, it drops to 5. Possibly some other scaryness, like making AP traits not work until the shields are gone...
Hyperspace: No jump points. Wrong reality.....
The Vessels:
Thirdspace Fighter
Seemed to fight white stars on equal footing. You can't draw too much inference from a lot of B5 battles, but this seemed pretty clear-cut. At one point the two ships meet in a head-on pass, firing at one another, and both explode more or less simultaneously. That pretty firmly slots that at raid priority to me....
The open structure doesn't seem to leave any space for a pilot, so I had the thought that maybe it's not crewed - it's borderline alive, but little more than a sentient weapon - an attack dog for the capital ships. So no mind control and probably no special actions of any kind. In the book, when the capital ship is destroyed as the gate goes up, all the fighters turn and fly straight into the explosion:
"they sensed that the death of the mother ship was irrevocable, inevitable, and they wished to share its fate, as if they were all linked somehow."
Thirdspace Capital Ship
A stunning looking warship - however it of course gets obliterated in the destruction of the gate - so we've nothing to base the fighting power off except that (a) it's ****ing huge and (b) it's in the same fighting power bracket as first one vessels. Hard to see it being any less than war, and probably armageddon priority. The design suggests massive forward arc cannons to me....to make them different I was thinking of something like giving them the energy mine trait instead of beam.
Will go away and meditate on some statlines, but wanted to get people's opinions.
Thoughts/suggestions/gratuitous personal insults/advice/improper offers all welcome
*Between Thirdspace, Hyperspace, the Hand's prison reality, the Drakh fleet's null zone, and the Technomage's hiding place, the local multiverse must be getting a tad crowded...
The more I read up about them, the more I like these Lovecraft-esque Old Ones....
For those who've not had a chance to read the book version (it's excellent)
it also goes into a little more detail than "Whooo! Scary Space Squids from another dimension*!!"
There are a few bits written from their perspective - not that there's much of a personality, it's very much the 'beyond human understanding' (TM) monster, unlike the Vorlons and Shadows - who were quite human in motivation, when you come down to it. Example quote:
"The forces of the One caressed the station with their probes, lapped up the energy eagerly, and readied themselves to make the jump into the new realm. The realm that would soon be taken for the One, sacrificed for the One, destroyed for the One. The One whose names were almost as multitudinous as his ancient eyes or writhing tentacles."
(Yes folks, It's Cthulu....)
I realise that there's only one recorded incident of them escaping into the B5 universe - though there's always the original war fought by/against the Vorlons (and quite possibly the other first ones as well), and it's always possible that what is done once can be done again - the way some characters act even before the gate is activated Thirdspace Aliens have some limited ability to influence minds in realspace, and the IPX data on the design of the gate must be out there somewhere....
I was trying to think of game elements for the fleet...
Bits I've come up with so far:
Basic hull: Definitely a superior technology/damage resistant hull race. Self-repairing makes sense, but I'm almost tempted not to add it to stop them being Vorlon/Shadow clones.
Telepathy: Needs some sort of mind control mechanic. Not to put too fine a point on it, these....beings....mindslaved Vorlons - who are not noted for being incompetent at the whole telepathy thing...
Taking over a ship wholsesale doesn't seem to be how they work; none of the white stars started shooting the wrong side - but I had the thought that they could cause rioting and mutiny amongst crews - potentially turning a ship's Troops (or even just regular crew) against it. Have an opposed CQ check - generating an enemy Troops unit on board the targeted ship for each point the thirspace ship wins by.
Shields: As seen on tv.....unlike most B5 defensive measures, these seem to be a 'finite limit' defence - the shields will take so much, and no more, rather than adaptive armour or stealth that reduces the amount of damage. I was almost thinking of a second damage track that you have to knock down before hitting the hull, so a ship might have the trait Shields 10, meaning you have to do 10 damage to the shields before you hit the hull. To make it more than just a different way of giving it a damage score 10 higher than normal, the hull value varies - 6 whilst the shields are there, but if a ship shoots at it once the shields are gone, it drops to 5. Possibly some other scaryness, like making AP traits not work until the shields are gone...
Hyperspace: No jump points. Wrong reality.....
The Vessels:
Thirdspace Fighter
Seemed to fight white stars on equal footing. You can't draw too much inference from a lot of B5 battles, but this seemed pretty clear-cut. At one point the two ships meet in a head-on pass, firing at one another, and both explode more or less simultaneously. That pretty firmly slots that at raid priority to me....
The open structure doesn't seem to leave any space for a pilot, so I had the thought that maybe it's not crewed - it's borderline alive, but little more than a sentient weapon - an attack dog for the capital ships. So no mind control and probably no special actions of any kind. In the book, when the capital ship is destroyed as the gate goes up, all the fighters turn and fly straight into the explosion:
"they sensed that the death of the mother ship was irrevocable, inevitable, and they wished to share its fate, as if they were all linked somehow."
Thirdspace Capital Ship
A stunning looking warship - however it of course gets obliterated in the destruction of the gate - so we've nothing to base the fighting power off except that (a) it's ****ing huge and (b) it's in the same fighting power bracket as first one vessels. Hard to see it being any less than war, and probably armageddon priority. The design suggests massive forward arc cannons to me....to make them different I was thinking of something like giving them the energy mine trait instead of beam.
Will go away and meditate on some statlines, but wanted to get people's opinions.
Thoughts/suggestions/gratuitous personal insults/advice/improper offers all welcome
*Between Thirdspace, Hyperspace, the Hand's prison reality, the Drakh fleet's null zone, and the Technomage's hiding place, the local multiverse must be getting a tad crowded...
