It seems that my next setting is now almost finished, and I thought a de-
scription could perhaps be interesting for someone ... :wink:
The focus of the campaign is a remote water world on the edge of the ex-
plored space, Varun in the Chandalini System of the Demidov Cluster.
I designed the planet and the entire system with GURPS Space, the life-
forms of the planet with Flynn's Guide to Alien Creation, and I borrowed a
lot of informations about the Indian society and culture from various sour-
ces on the Internet, because the explorers and colonists of Varun have an
Indian cultural background.
The background universe beyond the small Demidov Cluster with its seven
inhabited planets will remain beyond the reach of the player characters, it
will influence the campaign only in the form of news and visitors from afar.
Still, I wanted a plausible and well detailed universe, so I did use the Far
Avalon setting written by Martin J. Dougherty.
The next step was the technology of the setting, from the starships down
to the seafloor mining robots.
For the space vehicles I used Mongoose Traveller, for most other techno-
logy either GURPS Vehicles and GURPS Robots or the CORPS Vehicle De-
sign System, and the equipment available to the characters comes from
various sources, from Mongoose Traveller Scout and Central Supply Ca-
tolog through Audace ad Gloriam to the Modern Equipment Catalog for
the BRP roleplaying game and the old Ringworld RPG - finding the right
mix of underwater equipment was a bit difficult, most games do not cover
this kind of technology well.
With this finished, I turned to notes on the colonists and the important per-
sonalities among them and fine tuned their politics, economy and culture,
down to the usual clothing, the cuisine and the most common proverbs.
For the campaign's background events I will use Runequest Empires and
Runequest Guilds, Factions & Cults. While they were written for fantasy,
the very generic systems to play nations or organizations much like cha-
racters should make it easy to create the setting's history in a kind of "in-
visible metagame" behind the actual campaign. At least I hope that this
will be easier and make more fun than coming up with all the events on
my own.
Well, this is where the campaign stands now. At the moment I have about
100 pages plus some maps of setting description and a few more pages
on the "campaign plan", all of it still mostly "systemless", so that the cam-
paign could be played with either of my favourite systems, Mongoose Tra-
veller and BRP. However, most of the creature and character stats cur-
rently are for BRP, so I will probably try that system first.
The player characters will be the members of the first exploration team.
Their task will be to explore the planet, to prepare for the arrival of the
colonists, and then to serve as the colony's "troubleshooters" for a while.
Once they have "learned the ropes" of the setting, I will continue it as a
"sandbox" and leave it to the players to decide what the characters will
do.
Until then they will be busy exploring the planet, learning as much as pos-
sible about the native wildlife, searching for resources, and so on.
The marine biologists will want them to capture a number of rather dan-
gerous creatures, alive of course. The oceanographers have an underwa-
ter volcano chain and a deep sea trench they want explored. The geolo-
gists want ore samples from remote locations on the seafloor. You get
the picture, I think.
And when the characters have understood this part of the setting, and ma-
de contacts with all the important personalities of the colony in the pro-
cess, the focus will shift away from the environment to politics and trade,
for example diplomatic missions to neighbouring colonies and thelike.
Yep, that's it for now. :wink:
scription could perhaps be interesting for someone ... :wink:
The focus of the campaign is a remote water world on the edge of the ex-
plored space, Varun in the Chandalini System of the Demidov Cluster.
I designed the planet and the entire system with GURPS Space, the life-
forms of the planet with Flynn's Guide to Alien Creation, and I borrowed a
lot of informations about the Indian society and culture from various sour-
ces on the Internet, because the explorers and colonists of Varun have an
Indian cultural background.
The background universe beyond the small Demidov Cluster with its seven
inhabited planets will remain beyond the reach of the player characters, it
will influence the campaign only in the form of news and visitors from afar.
Still, I wanted a plausible and well detailed universe, so I did use the Far
Avalon setting written by Martin J. Dougherty.
The next step was the technology of the setting, from the starships down
to the seafloor mining robots.
For the space vehicles I used Mongoose Traveller, for most other techno-
logy either GURPS Vehicles and GURPS Robots or the CORPS Vehicle De-
sign System, and the equipment available to the characters comes from
various sources, from Mongoose Traveller Scout and Central Supply Ca-
tolog through Audace ad Gloriam to the Modern Equipment Catalog for
the BRP roleplaying game and the old Ringworld RPG - finding the right
mix of underwater equipment was a bit difficult, most games do not cover
this kind of technology well.
With this finished, I turned to notes on the colonists and the important per-
sonalities among them and fine tuned their politics, economy and culture,
down to the usual clothing, the cuisine and the most common proverbs.
For the campaign's background events I will use Runequest Empires and
Runequest Guilds, Factions & Cults. While they were written for fantasy,
the very generic systems to play nations or organizations much like cha-
racters should make it easy to create the setting's history in a kind of "in-
visible metagame" behind the actual campaign. At least I hope that this
will be easier and make more fun than coming up with all the events on
my own.
Well, this is where the campaign stands now. At the moment I have about
100 pages plus some maps of setting description and a few more pages
on the "campaign plan", all of it still mostly "systemless", so that the cam-
paign could be played with either of my favourite systems, Mongoose Tra-
veller and BRP. However, most of the creature and character stats cur-
rently are for BRP, so I will probably try that system first.
The player characters will be the members of the first exploration team.
Their task will be to explore the planet, to prepare for the arrival of the
colonists, and then to serve as the colony's "troubleshooters" for a while.
Once they have "learned the ropes" of the setting, I will continue it as a
"sandbox" and leave it to the players to decide what the characters will
do.
Until then they will be busy exploring the planet, learning as much as pos-
sible about the native wildlife, searching for resources, and so on.
The marine biologists will want them to capture a number of rather dan-
gerous creatures, alive of course. The oceanographers have an underwa-
ter volcano chain and a deep sea trench they want explored. The geolo-
gists want ore samples from remote locations on the seafloor. You get
the picture, I think.
And when the characters have understood this part of the setting, and ma-
de contacts with all the important personalities of the colony in the pro-
cess, the focus will shift away from the environment to politics and trade,
for example diplomatic missions to neighbouring colonies and thelike.
Yep, that's it for now. :wink:
