Saturday, July 29, 2017

Borderlands Adventure 1: Wreck in the Ring

Stellagama Publishing is proud to present:

Borderlands Adventure 1: Wreck in the Ring

The interstellar transport Tallmadge's Splendor crashed on an asteroid moonlet of a remote gas giant in a barely-explored frontier system. Twenty-four years later, a belter hires some intrepid adventurers to help him salvage the wreck. Navigating and inspecting a dead ship – most of which is in hard vacuum – is not an easy job. Worse, the belter's team members have ulterior motives, and something is still alive aboard the doomed spacecraft.

Wreck in the Ring is an old-school deep space exploration adventure for 3-5 PCs, using the Cepheus Engine rules and fully compatible with any 2D6 OGL Sci-Fi game. The default setting is the Parvati system, on the very edge of Terran space, in the These Stars Are Ours! setting published by Stellagama Publishing. However, it will fit very easily into almost any interstellar sci-fi setting.

The PCs should have a variety of shipboard skills, whether they have their own ship or not. Mechanical, Engineering, and Zero-G skill will be most helpful for this job. 

Get it HERE!

10 comments:

  1. Is this part of your Stars Are Ours!/Visions of Empire setting?

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    1. BY default, yes. But it is also perfectly usable in any other interstellar sci-fi/space opera setting.

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    2. Since TSAO's setting is different from the default Traveller Third Imperium setting, in regards to technology are there differences between the two settings' assumptions on technology?

      Like computers here are different from the default Classic/Mongoos Traveller computers for example?

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    3. The base technological assumptions are very similar. The main exceptions are that at high TLs, low berths are much safer and that high TL ships can use their gravitic drives to move people and objects around them (ala a UFO lifting abductees on a "light beam" - i.e. by its grav field). Beyond that - TSAO base tech is essentially OGL 2D6 SRD tech as written, with some additions.

      Note however the different distribution of technology in TSAO - all worlds belonging to a polity are TL10-13, while only a few unsanctioned colonies might be at a lower TL. This differs from the default Traveller assumption of very different TLs on neighboring worlds.

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  2. Interesting.

    1. Are jump drives in TSAO/AOE different in some way from the standard Cepheus/Traveller norm? Like ships are limited to a certain hull size due to them or some other thing for example?

    2. How big is all of Known Space by the time of the Ashes of Empire era? What was the furthest extent that any of the races had explored you would say, compared to the OTU Third Imperium setting? Could all of Known Space in this ATU fit comfortably within one of the OTU nations' territory or something?

    3. One interesting group I notice is the Matriarchate that becomes a group later on in your timeline. It's mentioned that by the time of the Ashes of Empire era, that the Terran Empire was at TL 15, albeit a conservative TL 15.

    Is the Matriarchate at the same tech level or are they higher or lower or what?

    http://spacecockroach.blogspot.co.il/2014/10/traveller-matriarchate.html

    4. What is the status of antimatter in your setting? Considering the power and wealth of the Reticulans, and considering the destructive power they could bring to bear, did their great minds ever play around with such a thing on those who dared to take arms against them?

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    1. 1. Jump drives are essentially as given in CE/Traveller. However, as in old CT, there are No empty-hex jumps - you need a gravity well on both sides of a jump. If you misjump and roll an empty hex, you land at the nearest star system.

      2-3. The "official" (commercial product) AoE is still in the early stages of work. It will probably be very different from my older blog writing due to game design considerations - as we invest quite a good amount of thought into it far beyond my initial ideas, Known space will still be small by OTU standards, probably 2x2 sectors at most, possibly less. Note that there will be human colonies beyond that, as jump travel is cheap; but settlement outside the empire will be sparse. As for the Matriarchate, I am working on them to make them more gameable, which means limiting their posthuman aspects to a level allowing meaningful interaction in game. They should be TL15 with a radical/accepting approach to cybernetics and AI.

      4. Stable antimatter is high TL - probably TL15-16. As for high-tech Reticulan destructive weapons, the standard are meson guns... Meson ortillery is monstrous.

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  3. Are Reticulan ships and ground troops generally comparable in firepower and capability to their Third Imperium counterparts in the OTU? Did the Reticulans have tanks and other vehicles?

    Are the Matriarchate the Zholani equivalent in Visions of Empire?

    Hmm is Majestic 12 a thing here?: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majestic_12

    Because that is a rather interesting piece of UFOlogy I feel. Heck maybe the research division of the UTR is named after them. :D

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    1. Regarding Reticulan military tech and vehicles, we have a product discussing them (among other cool things):
      http://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/213177/50-Wonders-of-the-Reticulan-Empire

      In a nutshell - lots of walkers and tripods. Tripods with meson cannons. And warbots.

      The OTU Zhodani are more similar to the Reticulans than to the Matriarchate. The Matriarchate are nomadic post-humanist belters with a strong preference for cybernetics.

      MJ12 probably evolved into the "Men in Black" - FSA (Federal Security Apparatus, the secret police of the Reticulan-dominated Earth Federal Administration). Some might have evolved into the old Terran Defense Committee (TDC), the distant predecessor to the Resistance and eventually the UTR. This is all very old history by 2260...

      The OTU Imperium is somewhat more technologically advanced than the TSAO powers, as the Imperium is TL15 and the Reticulans are late TL13. In AoE, everything will be at the OTU level or even a bit higher, at least before the collapse.

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    2. Nice!

      I just got the primer for the setting and it looks interesting. It feels sort of refreshing from the OTU because even most scifi doesn't use some of the tropes like the grey-skinned bug-eyed alien invader.

      Also I apologize for asking so many questions. It's just from reading the blog and everything, it really paints an interesting setting.

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  4. That is really good post, I enjoyed reading it as it contains lots of new information for me in it. Thank you for sharing it and keep posting more such stuff

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