Annihilators For Cosmic Patrol

Annihilators are one of the most feared weapons in the galaxy. Equipping a ship with one is practically a declaration of war, which is why very few Cosmic Patrol vessels carry this weapon. In contrast, many pirates take a fierce pride in the use of Annihilators, which have often been seized from the most ruthless and unspeakable of alien menaces.

First and foremost, they are a terror weapon. A species of Death Beam, Annihilators are so effective because they completely bypass armor, concentrating their lethal effect on living matter. This is of course very convenient for pirates (at least in theory) because Annihilators are a weapon which eliminates people while leaving plunder intact.

Of course, the truth is a bit more complicated yet.

Annihilators often inflict a condition known as Overkill. When absorbing annihilation radiance, the flesh has two responses. For most victims, contact with an Annihilator spells death. However a small but certain number of those targeted by this lethal radiance experience a weird transformation, leaving behind a ravenous, living corpse hell-bent on revenge. Many a pirate boarding party has learned to rue the day their Captain trained an Annihilator on another ship.

This terrible weapon also comes in hand-held portable versions:

• Annihilator Pistol: D6 damage that bypasses armor*;  Ranges: OK, OK, -3
• Annihilator Rifle: D10 damage that bypasses armor*; Ranges: -3**, OK, OK

*Energy screens may provide protection against this weapon.
**Because it is a very bulky weapon

It is unusual for a combat team to be equipped with more than one of these weapons, as the beam's penetrance combined with crossfire quickly poses lethal problems for all sides.

Special: Any time a target's health is reduced to Knocked Out by Annihilator damage, someone may spend 1 Plot Point to declare that the target has succumbed to Overkill. (Players can negate this for their own character by spending a Plot Point.) The target rises, and the person who spent the Plot Point determines who the Overkilled attacks next. It's future actions are determined by the LN, subject to narrative challenges by players.

Mooks In Cosmic Patrol

Lesser NPCs in Cosmic Patrol are hard to kill; here are some rules for NPC mooks:

• A mook has four skills: Brawn, Brains, Charisma, and Combat. Assign a d8, and d10 to one of the four stats each; give the two others d6's.    
• A garden variety mook gets one point of Armor.
• A garden variety mook gets one point of Health. When this is checked off, the mook is unconscious or dead. 
• Weapons and Equipment are assigned normally.

Alternatively, a mook has just two stats: Combat and Everything Else. Assign the two stats a d6 and d8 respectively, or a d8 and d10, depending on the desired competence of the mook. Armor, Health, Weapons and Equipment are unchanged.

A third variation may be used for mooks with unusual or special abilities. Give the mook three stats: Combat, Special, and Everything Else. Specify a special ability for the Special stat. Then assign dice to the three stats as follows: d6,d8, d10. Alternatively, promote the d10 to a d12, and reduce the d6 to a d4. Armor, Health, Weapons and Equipment are unchanged.

Mooks can act in groups. To create a group of mooks that act as one, the only change you need to make is to add the number of Health points corresponding to the additional members making up the group. Every hit to health after the first and only point of Armor is expended kills one of the mooks. 

The number of mooks in the mook group serves as a bonus to the mook's Combat roll as follows: 

• Mook Group Combat Roll = d12 + Combat/Special + Modifier [# Additional Mooks] 
• As mooks in the group are killed, the Modifier decreases accordingly

Keep the size of mook groups to about 3-4 members total. An NPC can control as many mooks (single or in groups) as their die type in Charisma. 

The Robots Are Taking Over

On the way to gaming last night, I saw this this robot repairman (complete with repairman's cap, sold separately) and his faithful robot dog companion. They both look pretty happy. The dog is definitely more of the chipper short than K-9.

The robot repairman has a gap in the teeth on the right side of his mouth - perfect for the placement of a robo-cigar, pipe, or a tool.

The side of the truck was even more fabulous, showing off the robot repairman's full-color tool belt.

If you visit Kunlun Station, these kinds of characters are a common sight. I may just stat them up for Strangers & Friends.

Strangers & Friends: Shining Lake Sector

http://www.suppressedhistories.net/goddess/xiwangmu.html

Shining Lake Sector is a vast region of space located just beyond the Empire. Shining Lake Sector is a prosperous autonomous zone - one with many local conflicts due to the prosperity of the sector. In this politically turbulent zone, factional alliances are often quite fleeting, and the plethora of micro-polities that may rule one or several systems rise and fall quickly.

The sector has both human and alien species, with humans belonging to one of two gene lines:

• East Asians who arrived in the sector on the free trader and colony vessels of the Early Diasporic Era.
• Comet Barbarians whose clan movements crisscross sector boundaries between the Empire and the Shining Lake Sector. The most prominent clans include: 
• Green Comet Barbarian clans that have migrated outward as the Empire's borders expanded; these tribes form the core of the Legio I Green Banner Army; 
• The Black Comet Barbarian clans, who form the core of Legio V and Legio X; and 
• The Gold clans who maintain several "independent" pirate fleets that invariably target any interests or powers that get in the Empire's way.     

Three prominent alien species also have a presence sector-wide, but none have their origins here. The sector's de facto capital, Kunlun Station, started its existence one million years ago as a vast refugee relocation facility. Built by the R.U.R., Kunlun Station was established using a slipknot connection from Fountain, an industrial system in a coreward region of R.U.R. space. Through the Fountain slipknot, three endangered species fleeing the Anti-Consciousness at the galactic core were evacuated from the Embattled Wavefront and helped by the R.U.R. to resettle in Shining Lake Sector:

• Parturitionists, a species of giant arachnids that have established friendly relations with humans. The Parturitionists helped the first pioneers from Earth establish new human populations in this sector. Parturitionists and humans have co-colonized many worlds in the sector, and on some worlds have even established households together. 
• Dragonbeams, a long-bodied, double-winged avian insectoid species. Dragonbeams avoid FTL travel, claiming it disrupts their consciousness. Instead, they visit other worlds by beamcasting their consciousnesses through hyperwaves. Their 'casts are then downloaded into prefabricated bioroids on destination worlds.
• Broughtlow, an extremely warlike species of insectoid 'hoppers. Shortly after their relocation to Shining Lake Sector, it became clear that the Broughtlow were not only a warrior race, but also xenophobes bent on exterminating other species. The R.U.R. acted quickly, using genegeneered viruses and other methods  to diminish this species. The resulting alterations in the Broughtlow genome caused a rapid crash in their intellectual capacity. The Broughtlow are no longer capable of piloting or navigating spacecraft, or of building technology above a  T3* level. They are still apt mercenaries, however, and are capable of using modern arms and armor with the assistance of a maintenance crew.

Numerous other minor species exist in the sector as well, such as the Ruhai (the kneeling winged figure depicted in the image at the top of this post). 

As noted above, most inter-system conflicts in Shining Lake Sector are economic in nature. They are due to competition over the particularly lucrative trade with R.U.R. space. The sector is largely friendly to the Empire because the dominant economic force in the sector - the R.U.R. - are the Empire's closest allies. The Empire in turn protects its R.U.R. allies and trade in the sector.  The Empire garrisons Legio XIV Lanterns of the Star Silk Road.on Kunlun Station, and as well as at several other critical trade outposts and worlds in the sector. Finally, the pirate fleets of the Gold Comet Barbarians also look after the Empire's interests, reducing the need for the Empire to maintain large battle fleets in the sector.

Next time we'll look at Kunlun Station itself. It's the heart of Shining Lake Sector.

*Using the Mindjammer scale.

Cosmic Patrol Was A Hit!

We ran the Cosmic Patrol RPG for the first time today as part of Free RPG Day at the Source. I had four players and two very nice observers who hung out for big chunks of the game (one for the beginning-middle, and one for the end). Open gaming like this has its risks; just earlier this week, I read a horror story about a player's bad experience with other players and GMs in the Games on Demand space at Origins.

But open gaming events like this also offer us the chance for valuable kinds of exchange:

• The ability to try out new games with folks who are curious and interested in them
• The opportunity to meet new players
• The chance to share knowledge about games and how they're played with other GMs and players

For example, the second observer (Dennis, I am pretty sure) asked me to hang out for a bit after the game, so that I could give him a look under the hood at the dice mechanics in Cosmic Patrol.  I did that, and then I asked him what RPGs he likes. He was similar in age to me, and shared that he enjoyed a broad range of games and systems - with an emphasis on ones that facilitate character-driven storytelling.

Dennis said that he likes to run Fantasy Flight Games' new line of Star Wars RPGs, especially Age of Rebellion. I shared that I had found Edge of Empire difficult to read because of all the different dice type icons in the text. Dennis smiled, pulled out his dice bag, and ran me through a couple examples of how the Star Wars dice are used. I really appreciated the exchange!

The Cosmic Patrol scenario I used was the provided in the 2014 Free RPG Day Cosmic Patrol booklet at the top of this post. I ran the first part of The Continuance Contingency in the four hour game slot, which is spot on with the book's guidance that each part takes a game session. I did a lot of improvisation, and so did the players. The Stat Die mechanics encourage the players to do a fair amount too - which they did. The Plot Point mechanics in Cosmic Patrol further facilitate players making narrative declaration, in much the same way that in Fate, you can spend Fate Points at any time to make a declaration.

Cosmic Patrol is designed so that the players will rotate GMing responsibilities between scenes. Players normally take turns being the "Lead Narrator" but for this open gaming event, I GM'ed the entire session myself. Asking players - who are just learning the game mechanics - to take turns running a published scenario: that's asking a lot. The LN model probably works best with a group of players who have experience with the mechanics, and are comfortable with improvisational play and narrative power-sharing. I'd also guess that the LNing also works better without a formal written scenario, so that successive LNs can take the story in whatever direction they prefer without worrying about "breaking links" that connect one part of a scenario to another.

Since I'd like to run Cosmic Patrol at some point for my own Thursday Night Group, I won't say too much about the storyline except that it has things that John Clute's Encyclopedia of Science Fiction calls World Ships: some of my favorite objects in the YOU-KNEE-verse, as Brian Cox might say. Well, I can also share that the players encountered one of the most loquacious Cylon Centurions in galactic history.

One more thing I can share is that the PCs had a shootout with some Achernarians, one of the alien species that are the brainchild of the Hereticwerks blog. (The Achernarians have also made their way into my Doctor Who games. They're called the people from The End of the River for a reason. They get around.)

While we're talking about Hereticwerks, be sure to stop by here and pick up Hereticwerks' Free RPG Day scenario at their blog.

So I'll be running Cosmic Patrol again. It's a great rules-light pick-up game.

If you look at the picture at the top of the post you will see that I also picked up a copy of the Valiant Universe Universe RPG Quick Start Rules today. Valiant uses a modified version of the Cosmic Patrol rules, so I guess I'll be buying that game when it gets released in August!

Deck Of Fridays 23: Left In The Dark

Morlocks in George Pal's The Time Machine (1960)

Welcome back to DECK OF FRIDAYS, our weekly feature here at FATE SF! Each week (more or less) since the release of the Deck of Fate, we have made a draw from the Deck of Fate, RPG Inspiration Cards, or another Aspect-generative randomizer. Then we do something interesting with it, using the Aspect as inspiration for a campaign or scenario seed, a situation, scene, location, NPC, thingie, etc.

This week's draw from the Deck of Fate is a card with the Aspect: Left in the Dark. In English, that's a commonly used colloquial expression that denotes not knowing what's going on, often due to the conscious agency of someone who is in the know. But we're interpreting it more literally today.

At first I thought of poor Gollum.

Then I remembered the Morlocks.

***

For the Morlocks, being left in the dark is a rite of passage. Sooner or later, every Morlock youth is drugged, rendered unconscious, and then abandoned in the underworld. In the cold and the dark. They're alone, with no food or water. 

Those who survive, make their way back to their band.  They gain a true name, a mate, and the beginnings of social status: a key to a machine, locker, or room in the underworld. Morlocks who don't survive, well, sooner or later their bones get discovered when someone trips on them in the Dark Galleries. Those bones get kicked swiftly into a dark corner to be forgotten. Or they are quickly claimed, pocketed, and later carved into fetishes and weapons.

But there's another way that Morlocks get Left in the Dark. All Morlocks love the things below, but their kind are also driven by a deterritorializing impulse. Bands move on, seeking new living spaces and places to labor freely by crossing the narrow dark spaces between the worlds. New machines. New galleries and rooms to conquer and explore. 

Now-useless keys soon become charms and wards.

At first, the Morlocks moved about in time and space using the Visitor's time machine. Later, they found similar machines created by others. The Morlocks spread to still more worlds. The machine tenders thrived wherever they found galleries to explore and machinery to tend underground.

In time, the Morlocks found other ways to squeeze between the worlds. There are passages in the dark, gates that open onto branching tunnels walled by absolute darkness. Shamans take the lead; the rest of the clan follows. Morlocks traverse these tunnels by forming chains of hands. Some even use real chains to bind one to the next. No one wants to be lost forever, blind in the dark. 

But on every such journey, someone stumbles and loses hold of their fellows. Or a link in the chain breaks, as if of its own accord. Those whose chains break lose their way; they cannot see in this dark between worlds. They find themselves alone, in a pocket of darkness. 

They quail, brood, and curse that darkness.

And the darkness curses them back. 

Those left in these dark interstices grow strange. They grow strange: their bodies change in gross and subtle ways. Their minds change. They hunger and thirst, alone in the dark. 

They become perverse desiring engines, seeking to transform others.

Those left in the dark When others pass, they extend a foot to trip other feet. They bite and break the chain tying one traveler to the destiny of another. 

Misery loves company. Mutation abhors a vacuum. 

Cosmic Patrol For Free RPG Day

We'll be running Cosmic Patrol for Free RPG Day at 2 PM Saturday, June 21. The action happens at Source Comics and Games in Roseville, Minnesota.

Cosmic Patrol is a fast-paced game of pulp-inspired SF. Friends have asked whether it is similar to Lady Blackbird (which I have never played). I gather it may be, from the number of times I have been asked this. I do know it has aspect-like Cues and Tags, so I gather it has some similarities to Fate. Cosmic Patrol also uses different die types for characters' different attributes, so it may also share something in common with Savage Worlds (another game that I'd really like to play some day).

My past posts about Cosmic Patrol can be found here. The creators even game me permission to convert a few of their lovely finned rocket ships for the Fate system, so you will find them in the link above. So if you are curious about Cosmic Patrol, please stop by and give it a try!

I'll let people know how the session went next week!