Hello, all!
I'm currently GMing a B5 campaign running concurrently with the original series. The PCs are, for lack of a better term, the "supporting heroes" that never got any airtime during the show. 8) More on that later.
We started with Season One (half "originial episodes" and half being The Firey Trial) in late January 2258, and have moved on to (nearly) the end of Season Two, about late September/early November 2259. I'm planning on running the game at least through Season Four (end of 2261) but it may go a bit further.
We've played roughly eight "episodes" per season, with each episode being a single six-hour session, each wrapping up a main story and continuing and/or resolving sub-plots for each of the seven main characters. Naturally, as of the end of Season Two, some of these sub-plots are starting to lead back into the main story.
The characters include:
- Lt. Commander Nikolai Romanov: He's an EarthForce Officer (fleet) stationed aboard B5 as the "sector liason" and handles all the inter-fleet communication and coordination between B5 and the rest of the fleet. Okay, mostly, he's a traffic cop and handles the night shift in C&C, but he's gotten a lot of field time off station as well. He's recently run afoul of Psi-Corps after helping his niece (a recently awakened telepath) escape the Earth Alliance with her fiance, and has made personal enemies with a Psi-Cop.
- Lt. Commander James MacGregor: He's an EarthForce Physician (a Scientist) and the head of MedLab Two on the station. He's a bit of a drunkard but a top-notch xenobiologist. His brother (like his father) is an Earth Alliance diplomat, and he's getting caught up in bad-ness happening back on Earth.
- Ni'Sha: A Narn soldier who started as a diplomatic courier and has now become the head of the Narn delegation's security on B5. He's been dealing with his people's hatred of the Centauri and seeing that a lot of the choices they've made have been less than moral. He seeks to change this.
- Octavio Jaddo: A Centauri merchant (an agent) whose got his <ahem> tentacles in all sorts of illegal dealings all over the station. He's bought his way into the nobility and, despite an earlier covert war with the Narn PC, come around to a more enlightened point of view. He's realized that the Centauri have done some pretty scummy things -- recently. He's become Ambassador Mollari's "go to" man for getting a lot of things of "questionable legality" accomplished.
- James Jones: An IPX xenoarchaelogist (a scientist) and specialist in interstellar law who has taken up residence on the station. He's done a variety of digs (the most recent episode got the other PCs involved in finding a Vorlon artifact in the Dorac system) and is doing some court-related work on the station.
- Lennon: A warrior-caste Minbari officer (fleet) who came to B5 as part of an "officer exchange program" set up by Shai Alyt Branmer before his death. He's worked closely with the EarthForce officers and become a close ally of Ambassador Delenn. He's seen her inherent honor and nobility, and has begun to question much about his caste after seeing their treatment of her following the beginning of Season Two. He is considering switching castes (and is likely to be recruited for the Rangers very soon).
- Ambrosius: A Technomage. He's joined the cast as of Season Two (replacing the player's former PC, a rogue telepath who basically started the underground railroad in Season One, then got exposed to an experimental virus, mutated uncontrollably a la Ironheart, and sacrificed himself at the end of Season One to save the rest of the PCs from a Shadow vessel). He is, essentially, the eyes and ears of the Technomages on B5. He's both an advisor to and a guardian of the rest of the group, and is combatting a group of Shadow servants (Morden was the only one we actually saw) in the style of a game of chess.
The PCs originally came together as the Babylon 5 Advisory Council's Special Investigative Team. Ostensibly, as representatives for the major governments of the Council, they were to provide follow-up investigations to unusual incidents, investigate threats to sector security, and submit unbiased reports on these events. The doctor and the IPX fella were recruited as scientific advisors, and the telepath as a "security specialist" (mostly thanks to some forged credentials). The first season was spent following up one one crisis after another (notably the Soul Hunter affair and the Deathwalker fiasco) and investigating the activities of one Roland Anderson (see the Firey Trial). The second season has seen them take a more proactive stance in heading off one crisis after another (including preventing a war between the Drazi and the Brakiri). Season Three should see them take the role of facilitators and agents of the Conspiracy of Light and field commanders in the Shadow War. It's quite possible that the EarthForce Officer might quit after the events of Severed Dreams and join the Rangers, while the doctor may be on his way to becoming a Servant of the Vorlons (!) :shock:
It should be a blast -- espcially the Season Three episdoe I have planned where they have to take out a Shadow shipyard and find out what a Shadow encounter suit is like. :twisted:
Well, I hope you are all having as much fun as we are!