Stars Without Number Campaign 1: Session VI and VII

Skipped a week as two players were sick, and then I didn’t quite have time to finish my write-up for the last session, so you get two in one! Today’s session summary includes a lot of medical drugs, as usual. Continuing on from last time anyway, The group decided to pursue a few more trips into the ‘Spire’ dungeon in order to get enough sellable pre-tech artefacts to fund their ship…

Okay, so GM-talk time for a minute here – I didn’t map out this dungeon at all. No plans, just hell! Instead, I used a combination of ruin generators (room type, # of exits, etc.), thematic ideas I pasted on paper/modifying what I rolled to make sense for the situation, and encounter rolls for any incidents. The theme was going to be ancient pre-tech aliens, and water-based shenanigans (which ended up not being explored), and I had a few monstrous encounters rolled up.

The party once again immediately disregarded the ‘this route has been pre-plotted, and there’s a mysterious artefact at the end’ area I’d lifted from a campaign module, and forged a new path through the monolith. Heading back down to the hall of yellow pools explored last session (though I don’t know if I actually touched on that – ah well), the foursome chipped through the wall and found themselves in a slowly sloping downwards, slick hallway, culminating in some kind of trash chute waterslide (a waste receptacle of sorts) which they opted to not jump headfirst into (alas).

Being stuck at a dead-end, this meant there was no way to go but back, and after some humming and hawing about taking out the abominations from last session, the four of them entered another unknown area of the complex – this location filled with a thin layer of oily dust – it had been untouched for a long time. In the first room, dozens of tiny tunnels had been established, dug out by small six-legged rat-like creatures (which the party coaxed out of their holes with some sardines) destabilising some of the nearby exits. A momentary thought of keeping these rascals as pets crossed the group’s mind, but decided that perhaps putting an entire rat creature capable of digging through dungeon walls was best left wild and free.

After a bit of walking, the players found themselves in a hallway filled with delicately constructed decorative pillars, and a large set of double-doors which they managed to pry open after some effort. Inside was a cylindrical room filled with a gigantic, floating, glowing orb, radiating off immense amounts of heat (they fried a sardine on it to check if it was safe to touch – it was not). Tall, headless, alien statues lined the walls. Pillboi opted to touch one of them, peeking inside at a smaller, ice-cold glowing orb within the covered center of the statue (keeping the rest of the complex from overheatng) and nothing seemed to happen. Confused and awed by whatever this was, the group left to explore other rooms.

Down the hallway – faced with what appeared to be a giant washbasin, the group slipped down and lowered Blanche down the centre drain and pulled out a few discarded, accidentally-dropped pre-tech artefacts. Blanche could have headed further down the U-Bend of the drain, but decided not to push her luck with the unknown. The party began heading back to turn them in when they noticed additional footprints in the oily dust – in the shape and size of the statues from the other room. Hurriedly following the steps back, they found themselves face to face with the footprints ending at the very statue Pillboi had touched (he’d activated it by touch – it went off on protocol to inspect one of the other similar power-source rooms as there was a disturbance there – more on that in a moment). The party found themselves able to ‘charge’ the small devices they’d found by placing them in the proximity of the orb in the centre. Confused and impatient, Hermes threw caution to the wind and approached the statue – attempting to remove its central cooling orb. The statue, of course, activated a defence sequence and began grappling Hermes, lifting him up and pushing him towards the superhot power core in the centre. The party, panicking, managed to stall the beast as a single shot managed to pierce and burst the core – the statue itself crumbling into oily dust.

As none of the other statues seemed to activate (they’re still ‘asleep’), the group followed the footprints the other way, curious to see where the thing had gone, and found themselves in a near-identical power room – this one, however, was significantly dimmer, and many of the statues were either gone or just dust piles on the floor. Not wanting to remain here, the party took some notes and hurried back with their meagre prizes and drawn maps to sell them off to the Heritors.

They regrouped, and headed down into the Spire one last time, down another unknown path offshoot from the main vestibule, and found themselves in a half-submerged room, filled with the yellow liquid from earlier. After throwing a sardine into the water to test for acid, and cautiously plunging a hand in, the group decided they weren’t cut out for swimming and headed back into the vestibule down an alternate route. There, they met a young unnamed 18-year-old and their dog, Buddy, clearly inexperienced and brandishing a sword they didn’t know how to use, who told the party that they should “prove themselves” to be just as intelligent and powerful as they are and to please find a way to get rid of the ‘ghosts’ in the nearby passage. These ‘ghosts’ were actually brain-copied imitations of dead adventurers (their bodies could be found below) unbeknownst to the adventurers, but with some quick -thinking of her psionics, Caitlin managed to ‘grapple’ them in place while the distortions were shot away by the fellow party members. Not wanting to explore any further, and as the session was drawing to a close, the group headed back to get paid for their ruin maps – letting the young adventurer know that unfortunately they couldn’t figure it out, and “sometimes it’s best to take a break” and encouraged them to leave the complex as well.

The players have some neat ideas about what the Spire is (a ship, a home…) – it’s actually a pre-tech planet destruction weapon – abandoned, and broken, and with folks removing parts, perhaps it will never quite work precisely the way it was meant. But it’s operational if the right folks figure it out. Or the wrong ones. I’m still torn on if I should conveniently have it activate during the player’s campaign/lifetime (and destroy Shan – that’s conveniently where it’s pointing), or if it’s one of those things better left alone. Time will tell, but it really brought them in on it. They loved the mysteries of it and I adore exploring the unknown. I do feel a bit bad that half of this was made up on the spot, but I think the emergent storytelling that came from it was pretty fun.

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The following session begins with the group heading out of the system back to their home planet – Ilnar (which I have described as essentially cyberpunk Earth), and collecting a few supplies. Ilnar is more Pillboi-focused (as much of Blanche’s life is either work or Terra Purr’ma based), though I have a few ideas for Caitlin and Hermes to explore in the future as well. To that end – Pillboi received an email, from a genderfluid acquaintance named Patches, letting Pillboi know that there might be some ‘good info regarding Pillboi’s late mentor, the Professor’ to be had, but he ought to ask in person, as he didn’t want to leak it over the comms.

Landing on-planet, the group realised, however, that there was a bit of a problem: while the ship had been stripped of identifiers, Caitlin was wanted by the Ragni, Blanche had technically stolen the ship (though her employers weren’t off-planet), and Pillboi hadn’t been around to pay his local drug lord his fees. Hermes wasn’t in any sort of trouble, and so he opted to take Blanche with him to shop for disguises for the group. The two of them settled on three brightly coloured cat-kigurumi pajama sets, and poorly-printed glossy face masks for the humans, and a realistic human face mask, a la Mr. Clean, and a muscle-suit for Blanche. The perfect disguises.

Caitlin is horrified, and uncomfortably went out in her hot pink cat costume (but with added sunglasses). Pillboi opted to wear his as more of a… scarf accessory, and Blanche and Hermes went out loud and proud into ‘Pharmacy Street’ – the main off-colour hangout district for all kinds of cons, crooks, and dealers – Pillboi’s home. He wanted to pick up a few things, and meet Patches for that info that he had mentioned. Patches greeted him upon his arrival, and let him know that The Professor had potentially left behind a vestigial AI upload of his brain, and Pillboi may glean some information from his ‘copy’ regarding a new drug formula left behind by The Professor, that Pillboi can’t figure out.

Pillboi, planning on heading to his old lab anyway, brings the rest of the party with him to investigate. The lock is missing on arrival, and the entire place is a dishevelled mess of papers and appears to be torn apart. The Professor was never organised, but not this bad – someone else has been here. Rooting through the areas Pillboi knew about, he eventually finds a secret switch revealing a hidden room in the lab – containing a chair and what looks to be, upon Hermes’ inspection, a cobbled-together whole-brain emulator. They find a dataslab with what appears to be a mind on it – likely The Professor’s. The party disconnects the dataslab and the brain device, and loads it up onto a cart to take into the ship, and begins heading out of the lab…

The gentleman who unofficially runs Pharmacy Street calls himself ‘Medicine Man’. He’s basically a gang boss and Pillboi left Pharmacy Street not only because his mentor died, but also because Pillboi doesn’t want to deal with him. Medicine Man is, ironically, in service to the Ragni (but nobody knows about this), and as the party begins leaving, is seen strolling down the street, towards the group. Hurriedly rushing his companions inside, Pillboi uncomfortably confronts Medicine Man, who lets Pillboi know he has a debt to pay – two months ‘rent’ for the time he’s been away, and would like to invite him over for dinner tonight before Pillboi leaves permanently Sweating bullets- Pillboi agrees to dinner.

The group quickly return to the ship with The Professor’s mind upload (and machine to create copies – a nice way to backup themselves if they wanted to mess with it), and Pillboi and Blanche (as his plus one) go out to get ready for the dinner. Meanwhile, Caitlin and Hermes head over to Caitlin’s eviction-notice-filled apartment (which seems to have been broken into; nothing is missing, however) to collect some of the personal belongings she may have left behind from their drunken escape.

Pillboi and Blanche arrive at the drug lord’s ‘mansion’ and head inside past a few armed guards. Medicine Man knows about the Professor’s formula – and he wants to know what Pillboi knows. Pillboi refuses to admit to knowing any information, but the Medicine Man doesn’t believe him, and presses them to reveal info about the plant, the Lion’s Lily (we finally named it) that grows locally on the planet. Medicine Man forces Pillboi to agree to a deal – head to Terra Purr’ma, bring back the Lily, and he’ll let him go. One of Medicine Man’s cronies prepares to inject Pillboi with a tracking chip to ensure he doesn’t renege on the deal, and Blanche, not wanting this to happen, begins hacking up a hairball, which, of course (thanks to some very good rolls), is hacked directly into Medicine Man’s open throat, distracting the lackey to assist him with the Heimlich manoeuvre. Pillboi and Blanche make a run for it, dodging bullets left and right, and rush to the ship and have Blanche initiate a rush spike drill. A risky manoeuvre, but she pulls it off, and the four take off, heading into the nearby Thorunn system.

Hermes, while the crew was at dinner, set up The Professor’s mind copy so that it would be accessible through the ship’s computer. After debriefing each other on their escapades, the party booted it up, and Pillboi was face to face with a copy of his old mentor, from prior to his death in October of last year. The Professor (now integrated into their ship’s AI – fun!), is a little rattled and will need some time to organise his files, but lets Pillboi know about the extra ingredients for the special drug created via the formula – it involves a plant on Terra Purr’ma (which the party was already keen on looking for, the aforementioned Lion’s Lily), but also speciality ‘dust’ from Ias, in the Teus system. The stuff is near impossible to come by – the whole damn system it’s in is quarantined. It is freely traded on the world, and the planet’s denizens consider it ‘refuse’ from some genetic engineering project they’re up to, but bringing it elsewhere is usually an invitation to a long prison stay or worse. “Don’t do anything stupid carrying it, okay?” But if Pillboi can convert it with the plant matter, whatever gets made will be highly, highly valuable. Enough to set you for life. The party thinks about their next move and plans a course to pass through the system in a few jumps…

With that, the session draws to a close, the party with a more focused, linear goal in mind. We’ve moved away from the sandbox a little bit but these are all things the players’ requested to follow, so off we go! I’m really glad that we got to start digging into backstories more – Pillboi’s player said I played Medicine Man very well, and the whole group loved him (they’ve made a new enemy, hurrah) and, conveniently, the system they hopped to, Thorunn, contains a planet with a well-known Psionics academy on it, and Caitlin’s player has expressed interest in having Caitlin’s estranged grandmother be a tenured professor at the institute…