Tag: Jason Orne

Surprisingly, I’m back already, since the group wanted to play again (having never played an RPG before, they were quite excited to get back to it). So I bring you Episode 2 of The Dynasty Falco from the synopsis I wrote up for them yesterday and today:

Last time on The Dynasty Falco:

The crew races against the The Collective to steal sensor data that could help trace rogue AIs, rescuing a defecting android in the process…

Managing to make the jump within a four day sub-light journey of Chevron IV, the crew of the Dynasty Falco turn to their newest problem: tensions rising across the ship. Arriving back on the Falco, Clyde and Pickthorn get into an argument about Clyde’s disappearance in the middle of fights. Clyde insinuates that Pickthorn works for him, and Pickthorn implies that Clyde is privileged, still living off his family’s money even though he’s been on the run. Similarly, Xanthus gets ticked off at Cindy, who suggests that Xanthus treats Bernard, X’s droid, like a second-class person, stirring Xanthus to defend her friendship with Bernard. “He’s here of his own freewill!” she insists. Bernard beeps in agreement, but there seems to be more to their connection than either is willing to discuss with Cindy.

Gathering in Clyde’s quarters, the location of the ship’s bar, the group discusses Cindy’s fate. After some debate, they decide to offer her a choice: she can stay with the ship, if she’s willing to be upgraded with a military-grade augmentation Clyde has in his possession. She initially refuses, but seeing she has little choice in the face of Clyde and Xanthus’s joint position, she agrees, at least to allow Pickthorn to remove the Collective Link that still rings in her head with leadership commands to return.

Pickthorn agrees to perform the procedures, setting her up in his manufactory and putting her into a low-power hibernation. The Link removal goes perfectly, Pickthorn having preformed the procedure many times in his work with the rebel group, 141. He does discover though a few differences in her model, being much younger than himself. When he turns to insert the military reflexes augmentation, he discovers an unwelcome surprise: Cindy has a second link, wired differently into her than the first. Did she know? Do all newer models have this second link? This is an unfamiliar location, it shouldn’t be wired in this way and Pickthorn manages to remove it, but not without significant issues, requiring Cindy to remain in a coma for days to recover. Delivering her to the 141 with the information will now be impossible.

Arriving on the planet, Xanthus scans the surface with her survey system. Chevron IV is a tropical water world, dotted with archipelagos. Making contact with a former associate of hers, Striches, one of the amphibious humanoids native to the planet, he directs her to an uninhabited island in the northern hemisphere.

Her shuttle lands on the white-sand beach about 100 feet from a tiny outcropping of boulders. Striches waits there, next to a giant palm-like tree. Opposite along the beach, from another shuttle, four 141 androids appear. One, approaches the group, and begins the deal. Xanthus hands over the sensor data, receiving a case with another drive: crucial data on the Dynasty family.

Just then, shots ring out from the nearby jungle. Everyone dives for cover and Xanthus climbs up the tree to see what’s going on. Three WRAITH scout ships have landed in the distance, surrounding them. Two on either side of the beach shuttles, and one in the jungle. How they discover them is unclear, but they must be here to collect one or both of the drives.

The 141 leader tries to make his way back to his shuttle, but trips. Diving to his rescue, to prevent the sensor data from being lost or destroyed, Clyde drags him back to the safety of the outcropping, but not without catching a bullet through his shoulder. Three WRAITH soldiers emerge along the beach from their ship behind the group’s shuttle, laying down suppressing fire and preventing the group from reaching their ship.

Pickthorn tries to fire at them with his destructive laser rifle, but he’s out of his element and has terrible aim, striking the shuttle instead and damaging its wing. Flipping through the air off of the tree, Xanthus lands and rushes the group of WRAITH soldiers. Emerging over the sand dune they were hiding behind, she’s a flurry of arms and legs as they attempt to fire on her. She brings down one, two, and then a third with her stun baton. However, then the first solider staggers to his feet, several feet taller than her. He’ll need more than a shock to bring him down.

Clyde turns his attention to the soldiers firing from the jungle. Two squads of three fire from separate positions pinning them down. He throws a plasma grenade at them, but one of the soldiers manages to hit it with the butt of his rifle midair back at the group. Managing to hit his target for once, Pickthorn blasts it in midair creating a wall of smoke between them with the vaporized sand, a newly made layer of glass between them and small fires burning around.

Clyde uses this opportunity to rush the 141 shuttle, noticing that it is now being boarded by one of the squads of soldiers. Jumping into the fray at the ship, he grabs ahold of one of the soldiers, hitting the other two with the blades that emerge from his boots, and snapping his victim’s neck.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the beach, Xanthus takes down the large soldier in hand to hand combat, sweeping his legs and delivering a knockout blow to him while he is down. She runs for the ship, patching the wing’s damage as Pickthorn runs for the shuttle. He gets caught with two bullets in his legs from the squad emerging from around the wall of smoke. Xanthus to the rescue! She runs, grabs him to his feet, and they make their way back to the shuttle amid gunfire.

“We have to leave you!” Xanthus screams through their communicators. “Clyde, get Bernard and find a way back to the ship!” The shuttle lifts off, with one of the WRAITH ships chasing after it. “We need more speed!” Xanthus urges Pickthorn to find a way to help them outrun the WRAITH ship. Stripping out some wires under the console, Pickthorn overrides the ship’s safety limits, allowing them to outrun the WRAITH ship, losing it in the upper atmosphere, but not without severely depleting their fuel supplies. With barely enough inertia to make it inside the ship, the shuttle won’t be going anywhere anytime soon.

Inside the rebel shuttle back on the surface, Clyde convinces the rebel solider that he’s with the rebellion. Getting the lone android left to wait for Bernard and her leader to get back inside the shuttle. They take off just before they are about to be boarded again with the other two ships rising in pursuit.

Firing the shuttle’s heavy laser cannon at the ships, Clyde hits the wing of one, causing it to spiral into the other ship. They arrive back at the Dynasty Falco. Another two androids rescued. Both sets of data drives secured. The Falco’s scan resistant surface allows it to remain hidden, but for how long?

Next time on the Dynasty Falco: How will they get the rebels back with their ship before WRAITH finds them? How did WRAITH track them down in the first place? What information is on the drive the rebels were selling to the crew? What will happen when Cindy wakes up? Find out next time!

hey folks! I’m an academic, so I’m always doing some free writing before work to get into the swing of things, and writing up the synopsis for our last session proved to be a great way to start up work today. So here’s an intro to our characters, factions, and a synopsis of our first episode!

[LONG POST AHEAD!]

So what are our characters?

Xanthus Swift —The Adventurer: Human Galactic Personality Explorer — With her trusty droid Bernard by her side (think BB-8), and her squad of soldiers behind her, Xanthus explores the galaxy in search of something that has not yet been revealed to her crewmates. Despite Pickthorn’s presence, she is mistrustful of Collective androids and their supposed peace and helpfulness.

Youncy Grant — The Medic: Crystalline Regimented Military Academic — Youncy is a member of the Core, a medic assigned to this group to help them complete their mission. A member of the Crystalline species, a non-organic lifeform, they are naturally Resistant (immune to normal fire and freezing temps, but still use O2 and CO2 to fuel themselves, aka they still can’t exist without an atmosphere). He became a medic because he was fascinated by organics. Despite vowing to save lives, he’s willing to hoist his rocky frame into the frontline if it means protecting others from harm.

Pickthorn — The Inventor: Android Productive Industrial Technocrat — Pickthorn is an android freed from The Collective by the android rebel group the 141. A tinkerer and mechanical genius, Pickthorn is on the run from the Collective, hoping to get information to free more of his people. He can interface wirelessly with computer systems using his standard Collective Unit uniform, though it bares some scars from his perilous escape thus far.

Clyde Sandiego — The Assassin: Human Advanced Clandestine Scoundrel — A runaway son of the Dynasty mercenary family, Clyde stole the Dynasty Falco to escape (their ship). Although born on Earth (which must be advanced now, eh?), he’s been living out amongst the stars in this ship for quite a while, always one step ahead of the agents that have been sent to bring him back into the fold.

People wanted to be able to play aliens, so I rolled up a few rules for them. Androids get 1 mod from the cybermods in the Far Beyond Humanity preview. Aliens get a trait that lets them do something in the narrative they wouldn’t otherwise get to do. Humans to compensate, get 1 additional Class 1 asset. I let Xanthus make her droid as a crew.

The Factions:

The Collective — A species of sentient machines that age and have mimicked humans, they refer to themselves as Units to evoke their collectivist philosophy and machine past. Ruled by the oldest androids, they are a peaceful race and always providing help to the other species in the galaxy. Although individuals are separate and have emotions, the Collective seeks to return to what it sees as a purer machine past. Units are expected to act as emotionless and inhuman as possible by the ruling elite.

The 141 – This rebel group opposes the domination of androids by the Collective, encouraging free-thought, individuality, and emotion.

The Dynasty — An organized crime family that mostly trades on its ruthless assassins.

Erso Kingdom — An insular planet known for it’s overwhelming military might and defenses. Vaguely xenophobic, they don’t wish to conquer others, only to ensure that no one can ever take them down. Quick to lose trust, and hard to regain it, they will stop at nothing to prevent harm to their planet and culture.

The Core — Composed of members of every species in the galaxy, the Core is an elite military force and academy. Peacekeepers, they choose the ‘core’ or elite members of each species to monitor potential threats to all species.

WRAITH — World Research Alliance for Isolating Technological Harms — After the terraforming disaster on Beta Centauri 3, WRAITH believes that sufficiently advanced technology must be controlled by a organization working in the public interest, not private corporations. From scientists working on secure knowledge to politicians working on laws to prevent private use, WRAITH uses its public front to keep technology out of the wrong hands. Some say though that that’s not all they are doing to prevent work from falling into the wrong hands.

Last time on: The Dynasty Falco:

Pickthorn, Xanthus, and Clyde explore a derelict Dynasty ship floating in an asteroid field looking for sensor data that could help track all rogue android units in the galaxy. However, when Pickthorn restarts the ship’s computer, the automated defenses are triggered. Xanthus quickly hides with her droid Bernard while Clyde sneaks into the cargo hold to take out the defenses. Dispatching one of the hunter-killer droids with flung blades from his gauntlets, Clyde accidentally (or is it?) causes to smash against some precious cargo that appears out of place. To help her see inside the crate, Pickthorn restarts the ship’s life support and gravity, causing Xanthus to fall from the ceiling, hitting her head on a piece of cargo on the way down. Clyde is nowhere to be found [He unfortunately had to leave, but has stealth so he played it as part of his character].

Dazed, she convinced Bernard to go over. When he saw what was inside though, the little droid short circuited in fright. It was an Erso Kingdom fusion bomb with only 10 minutes to spare! It must have been triggered by the explosion of the HK droid!

Meanwhile, back on the Falco, Youncy convinces a Collective ship that appears from behind a nearby asteroid that they are on a medical mission buying his comrades precious time to find the sensor data. The Collective agrees to not interfere, but boards the ship looking for the data. Desperate to prevent himself from being discovered, Pickthorn, a rebel with the 141, shoots a hole through the side of the ship, and launches himself through space to Xanthus’s shuttle lying just outside the Kestral’s engineer section.

Replacing Pickthorn on the derelict ship, Youncy comes back to find three Collective androids with laser rifles trying to break into cargo hold. To keep up appearances of a rescue mission, Youncy cuts through the door and the three androids run inside to assist the injured. A medic attends to Xanthus, while another works on Bernard. A third attends to the bomb, communicating with his superiors. Youncy observes one droid talking to a newly awakened Bernard, offering to take him to their ship, and learns from the medic that they have been ordered to complete their mission at all costs, bomb or no bomb. Xanthus, having followed the third android down to the computer core to collect the sensor information, slices the android’s legs off in zero-g. Sensing trouble ahead, Youncy slices the tech android in half as Pickthorn patches into the medic’s link: “You can be free. Come with us.” Xanthus grabs the fragile floppy drive and they run for her shuttle.

As they lead Cindy Gutierrez (an inside joke, they named the android medic this) off to the shuttle, the Collective ship begins to fire on the Kestral. Pickthorn spins up the jump drive as the Collective ship begins to turn their laser cannons to the Falco and launches a missile at the shuttle. With some tight turns, Youncy manages to lose the missile in the asteroid field, but not without banging up the shuttle a bit. As they skid into the shuttle bay, Pickthorn yells, “HOLD ON! It’s going to be a WILD JUMP!”

A missile and laser shots fling through space, passing directly through the space where the Dynasty Falco was just moments before as it blips out of existence.

POP. The Falco emerges. Off in the distance, Chevron IV, the planet where they must drop off their information.

Next time, on The Dynasty Falco: Who do they need to get this information to? Who hired them to retrieve this information? Why did the Dynasty Kestral have it? Who did the Dynasty collect this information for? How did the Collective know to find the ship at this location, an astroid in the middle of unclaimed space? Why was the Kestral transporting a Erso fusion bomb? Where did Clyde disappear to and why did he disappear as soon as the bomb was activated? Did he get off the Dynasty Kestral before it was destroyed? What happened to the Collective ship? Did it get out in time before the Erso fusion bomb went off?

And most importantly, who is this Cindy Gutierrez? New rebel android, or Collective plant?

Thanks for reading! Hopefully we’ll get together soon and y’all can find out what happens next =)