Warden's Log #3 - Spoilers for Dead Planet
Once again, Private Carl's player was unable to attend our meeting, but luckily another friend of ours was interested in playing, and he played Private Carl well - as you will see.
The party chooses to go right towards the airlock labeled "BRIDGE" after clearing the hallway of crawlers, and there they find a command center, corpses, and two androids: Pander and Kranot.
They make introductions to the confused bots. They claim to have only booted up 10 minutes ago - an interval they recognize as the time since the dreadful portal opened. They themselves have been on the ship for about 40 minutes, so they know that what the androids are saying cannot possibly be true.
AKT-0 attempts to help Pander recover the ship's files. They are corrupted and have been erased many times, but Pander is stuck in his frantic search. AKT-0 resigns from him; Pander continues.
AKT-0 notices that the ship is quickly draining power - presumably because of the departure of the grim monolith.
The others speak to Kranot.
In whatever it is that androids experience - something indiscernible from human consciousness, but yet not - Kranot varies wildly in emotion. He suspects them as saviors, then as pirates. They explain their true plight as Kranot views the derelict ring through the bridge window.
At this point, I was expecting the players to have to remind themselves of what they were looking for, but they did not have to. The meandering feeling players often get did not occur here, and I think that is a testament to the adventure design, game design, and hopefully some improvement in my running of the game. I haven't been doing this very long, and I am always trying to get better. In that vein, if you have any feedback for me, please give it. The more ideas to choose from the better!
Carl tells Kranot that they are looking for functioning jump drives, and if he and Pander help them find them on the ship, they can travel out of this void together. Kranot agrees; Pander continues in his corrupted frenzy.
Carl cuts some safety belts of the seats in the command center and uses them to hang Kranot over his shoulders and in front of him.
They head to the engine room.
The power on the ship stabilizes and begins increasing again.
The party enters the engine room using Kranot's credentials. They survey the thrusters and the jumpers to find this ship in the same shape as theirs: thrusters are fine, jump drives are non-functional but not damaged. They are disappointed but not surprised.
The room bears the usual scatter of corpses, but as they are looking around, one of the corpses gets up, walks out of the engine room, walks toward the cargo hold, and goes inside.
A familiar shriek - the shriek of the Alpha Gaunt - echoes through the vents.
Elijah uses his locator and notices a familiar pulsing energy in the cargo hold.
Dr. McKraken gathers her specimens as the rest of the party - including Kranot - prepares to leave.
They hear the shambling monster tearing through the ducts of the ship in various directions.
The prospect of loot overcomes their fears, however, and at their request Kranot leads them to the first mate's quarters where they find some supplies.
Elijah grabs another vibrachete with visions of dual-wielding-space-Vietnam.
Dr. McKraken - relatively disgusted with her measly tranquilizer after all that has happened - grabs a pulse rifle and some other supplies.
They offload the ship with their two skeleton walker laser-cutter suits, weapons, supplies, specimens, an android and all.
It may seem strange that the party did not have another encounter with the Alpha Gaunt, but not only were the characters stresses, the players were extraordinarily freaked-out by all that was going on, and I wanted that real stress to continue. Thus, I withheld a satisfactory resolution.
Back on the Red Sun Alpha, they shredded the Alexis with their machine guns. Extermination was required for whatever that thing was.
"Pander is lost, but I fear he was lost long before", said Kranot.
The crew debates for a while about what to do next. Searching more ships seems inefficient and dangerous. Moving into closer orbit with either the moon or the planet seems like it would give them more information. Noticing the lack of ships orbiting the moon, they are suspicious, so they move into orbit around the Dead Planet and take a rest.
---
They rise and begin the day by scanning the planet up close. They notice a menagerie of locales on one section of the surface: a pulsing energy like the monolith on the Alexis, but huge; an ancient abandoned city, a gouge in the land that looks like a quarry, a swamp, a large tower, and a crashed ship.
The crew debates whether to land and explore. Most only want to land to destroy whatever that pulsing energy is that keeps messing with them, but most of them realize that landing might not be the best idea.
The swirling black clouds and purple lightning that surround the energy source are dangerous, and they cannot be sure of its size from this far away.
Carl and Elijah hatch a hair-brained scheme. They will take one of their planetary research pods, fill it with explosives for mass and volatility, and program a flight path for it to fly straight into the energy source.
The others find this a radical plan, but it is at least less radical then their previous plan to drive their own ship into it, and no one really sees why not given the circumstances.
They fly the pod into the epicenter, it explodes, and the energy grows more chaotic and violent.
After that, they are definitely not landing on the planet.
After more debate, the crew decide to orbit the moon to gather more information.
While running their scan, they detect an underground bunker with much evidence of life, another crashed ship, and a giant harpoon gun.
Dread fills the crew as the harpoon flies towards their ship.
Elijah tries to dodge the harpoon, but two smaller probes grab their ship along with the central one, pulling them to the surface where they crash land, loosing power and mobility.
They talk among themselves for a while, trying to decide what to do. Some are still in denial and talk about repairing their damaged vessel that is now buried in grey sand. Others want revenge.
They know if they stay here they will eventually just die. So they decide to head to the nearest landmark and possible cathartic release: the harpoon station.
End of Warden's Log #3
The party chooses to go right towards the airlock labeled "BRIDGE" after clearing the hallway of crawlers, and there they find a command center, corpses, and two androids: Pander and Kranot.
They make introductions to the confused bots. They claim to have only booted up 10 minutes ago - an interval they recognize as the time since the dreadful portal opened. They themselves have been on the ship for about 40 minutes, so they know that what the androids are saying cannot possibly be true.
AKT-0 attempts to help Pander recover the ship's files. They are corrupted and have been erased many times, but Pander is stuck in his frantic search. AKT-0 resigns from him; Pander continues.
AKT-0 notices that the ship is quickly draining power - presumably because of the departure of the grim monolith.
The others speak to Kranot.
In whatever it is that androids experience - something indiscernible from human consciousness, but yet not - Kranot varies wildly in emotion. He suspects them as saviors, then as pirates. They explain their true plight as Kranot views the derelict ring through the bridge window.
At this point, I was expecting the players to have to remind themselves of what they were looking for, but they did not have to. The meandering feeling players often get did not occur here, and I think that is a testament to the adventure design, game design, and hopefully some improvement in my running of the game. I haven't been doing this very long, and I am always trying to get better. In that vein, if you have any feedback for me, please give it. The more ideas to choose from the better!
Carl tells Kranot that they are looking for functioning jump drives, and if he and Pander help them find them on the ship, they can travel out of this void together. Kranot agrees; Pander continues in his corrupted frenzy.
Carl cuts some safety belts of the seats in the command center and uses them to hang Kranot over his shoulders and in front of him.
They head to the engine room.
The power on the ship stabilizes and begins increasing again.
The party enters the engine room using Kranot's credentials. They survey the thrusters and the jumpers to find this ship in the same shape as theirs: thrusters are fine, jump drives are non-functional but not damaged. They are disappointed but not surprised.
The room bears the usual scatter of corpses, but as they are looking around, one of the corpses gets up, walks out of the engine room, walks toward the cargo hold, and goes inside.
A familiar shriek - the shriek of the Alpha Gaunt - echoes through the vents.
Elijah uses his locator and notices a familiar pulsing energy in the cargo hold.
Dr. McKraken gathers her specimens as the rest of the party - including Kranot - prepares to leave.
They hear the shambling monster tearing through the ducts of the ship in various directions.
The prospect of loot overcomes their fears, however, and at their request Kranot leads them to the first mate's quarters where they find some supplies.
Elijah grabs another vibrachete with visions of dual-wielding-space-Vietnam.
Dr. McKraken - relatively disgusted with her measly tranquilizer after all that has happened - grabs a pulse rifle and some other supplies.
They offload the ship with their two skeleton walker laser-cutter suits, weapons, supplies, specimens, an android and all.
It may seem strange that the party did not have another encounter with the Alpha Gaunt, but not only were the characters stresses, the players were extraordinarily freaked-out by all that was going on, and I wanted that real stress to continue. Thus, I withheld a satisfactory resolution.
Back on the Red Sun Alpha, they shredded the Alexis with their machine guns. Extermination was required for whatever that thing was.
"Pander is lost, but I fear he was lost long before", said Kranot.
The crew debates for a while about what to do next. Searching more ships seems inefficient and dangerous. Moving into closer orbit with either the moon or the planet seems like it would give them more information. Noticing the lack of ships orbiting the moon, they are suspicious, so they move into orbit around the Dead Planet and take a rest.
---
They rise and begin the day by scanning the planet up close. They notice a menagerie of locales on one section of the surface: a pulsing energy like the monolith on the Alexis, but huge; an ancient abandoned city, a gouge in the land that looks like a quarry, a swamp, a large tower, and a crashed ship.
The crew debates whether to land and explore. Most only want to land to destroy whatever that pulsing energy is that keeps messing with them, but most of them realize that landing might not be the best idea.
The swirling black clouds and purple lightning that surround the energy source are dangerous, and they cannot be sure of its size from this far away.
Carl and Elijah hatch a hair-brained scheme. They will take one of their planetary research pods, fill it with explosives for mass and volatility, and program a flight path for it to fly straight into the energy source.
The others find this a radical plan, but it is at least less radical then their previous plan to drive their own ship into it, and no one really sees why not given the circumstances.
They fly the pod into the epicenter, it explodes, and the energy grows more chaotic and violent.
After that, they are definitely not landing on the planet.
After more debate, the crew decide to orbit the moon to gather more information.
While running their scan, they detect an underground bunker with much evidence of life, another crashed ship, and a giant harpoon gun.
Dread fills the crew as the harpoon flies towards their ship.
Elijah tries to dodge the harpoon, but two smaller probes grab their ship along with the central one, pulling them to the surface where they crash land, loosing power and mobility.
They talk among themselves for a while, trying to decide what to do. Some are still in denial and talk about repairing their damaged vessel that is now buried in grey sand. Others want revenge.
They know if they stay here they will eventually just die. So they decide to head to the nearest landmark and possible cathartic release: the harpoon station.
End of Warden's Log #3
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