help for interactive story newbies- Executive Summaries

[hirch duckfinder]

i would love to get involved, however i only noticed the game when it had already gotten to be quite a long thread. now i don't have time to read it all. is there anyway someone could summerise the current situation please?

perhaps there could be a thread with suggestions of roles that could be played so people can join for a bit-part or a major part?

what do you think?

[ December 12, 2006, 09:25 AM: Message edited by: kafka47 ]

 

[kafka47]

Executive Summary

The Pride of Naasirka was launched from New Terra (Nu Earth) amd was the largest vessel of its kind ever launched in Foreven to a border world called Farpoint. The time is sometime circa 1112.

Soon after launch, things went.. well... batshit. Mostly revolving a series of sightings of strange entities which appeared when the ship was in jump and mechanical failures.

There is also a high level of intelligence operatices on board given the promixity of the ship to the Zhodani border.

The large number of rich travellers has in turn attracted a large number of rogues and pirates (oh my, oh my). The arm of the law ventures from totalitarian ruthless to completely small town USA corrupt living the players to make their own way without antagonizing law enforcement.

Meanwhile, something mysterious has happened on the surface of Farpoint...

Ref says: It would be wise for you to aquaint yourself with the whole script using the Printer Friendly feature (without actually printing the thing out). This will also reveal links to library data and a players' forum.

The style of play is role playing over roll playing when dice are called into play eg. for tasks and combat, it is expected that these are done off board and the results are role played on board. Queries and direct questions are handled through the Personal Message (PM) function and I am usually quite punctual (within a day or so).

My refereeing style is the desire to create atmosphere condusive to bringing in others to play. So if your posts begin to attract others to play...you will be rewarded. Similarly, good role in-character playing will be rewarded. The more this is done, one can expect higher rewards.

From the tabletop days, I never tolerated stupidty in gameplay. This usually gets punished nastyly. In this adventure, I have given over and above my limit of second chances to a number of players.

At the current moment there are many unresolved threads. You can take on any role that you like but you might want to clear it with me, first.

If you have any specific questions that I haven't covered don't hesitate to contact me.

 

[kafka47]

Executive Summary 2

Our intrepid heroes jumped from the frying pan into the proverbial fire. They exited the pride to jump across into an ailing Scout ship where upon they found the twisted body of a former comrade - the Scout Bromgrev. Also, several characters fell to the fate of the strangely intelligent and seemingly self-aware robotic spiders that were sent to take apart the Scout ship. The only survivor was Franklin of Zeldar who would be later revealed to be Benjamin of Zeldar.

Benny found under the cargo deck in a smugglers compartment, a frozen berth containing a Julianne from the Gallian League who apparently did not have the wherewithal to afford a trip aboard the Pride and convinced Bromgrev to smuggle her aboard his Scout ship.

They both escaped with the thinnest of margins back to the Pride where the entire bridge crew was held hostage by a pair of fanatical members of the Green Spiders Pirate Gang.

The Captain managed to save the ship from certain destruction and dismemberment by the pirate gang by separating the lower ends. How the pirates could have survived the depths of a Gas Giant is unknown.

Zeldar was immediately accursed of the murder of his temporary travelling companions. Pleading innocent before the mysterious Count of Farpoint, he was given temporary clemency and escorted under Marine guard to the satellite surface.

There he met a new cast of characters including an athlete and a journalist and a patron. The first encounter with the patron was not smooth one; in fact it began with him trying to kill one of the members of the party.

What the patron wanted was the holovid something in Area 51 - a top secret Imperium installation. Having come across a crash site and rescued the sole survivor whose escape pod revealed a couple of burnt bodies with holes in the back of their heads (bullet holes?). Great unease and distrust exists but the job that patron has asked them to be done needs to be completed.

They have pulled together and scaled a volcano; in the volcano's crater is no simple group of warehouses but a full scale security installation. Taking a few pictures and breaking into a warehouse...just got a little tougher.

The area seems to be guarded by a combination of regular Imperial Forces and a Merc detachment feared and known across the Sector known as: the Black Dragons. Both groups are well armed and armoured.

The party sits unseen at the top of the caldera pondering their next move.

 

[kafka47]

A daring break-in commenced as our players broke into the deepest levels of Area 51, an Imperial installation studying an unknown object. After playing Cat & Mouse with Imperial Security and hired Mercs, the intrepid players come across what the Imperium had been hiding.

It was a vehicle of some kind. Initially, it rebuffed their attempts to gain entry ejecting using some force of air.

The Count discovered their position and provided them with an offer to descend to the depths of the planet to find the manufacturers of the object or die.

They chose to live but the object frustrated them somewhat by allowing selective entry of the members of the party to gain entry once again. However, as they entered the objected astral projections of themselves remained imprisoned on the top of the object. All weapons at long range have been rendered ineffective but close range seems to still inflect damage.

Meanwhile, one of the Mercs (the leader) has managed to gain entry. Separated from the rest of his team and imprisoned by suspended webbing. The object and he have attempted to communicate to no avail. The object whilst does respond to thought or emotion, does not have a direct contact nor understand direct commands or maybe has its own agenda.

As the party explored the "control room", they realized that it was not a control room at all rather some area where waste is dealt with. Panthera, Ditzie, Owen pressed ahead. Julianne & Ben stayed behind. The injuries that Julianne received on the top of the object were aggravated by injuries at close range. The object has absorbed the body of Julianne (both the spectral & material form). Ben the Hiver had a chance to escape with Panthera & the others but concentrated on working the object. Two things have appears. One, a corridor has materialized leading to places unknown; the second, a pair of coffins-like objects containing skeletons.

Panthera & co. meanwhile are in a strange corridor. Thus far, stable but like the whole object...strange.

 

[kafka47]

Executive Summary for June 2006

Decent Into the Depths

Having barely escaped the quasi-organic entity that subsumed the lives of two of party (Panthera & Dtizie) which seemed be an artefact of immense power, they land back into the Count’s clutches.

Fortunately, Panthera was rescued by the Count and nursed back to life by the Count’s own physicians. Her health seems to be picture perfect and retains the same bubbly personae that she always had.

The Count offers to spare their lives for an investigation of the origins of the object and takes them to a blasted crater in the middle of the main city where the object was found. Days of travel yielding nothing much of interest save an abundance of low quality gemstones until they came across a highly acidic lake inhabited by one (or more) nasty predator(s) which very easily took the life of another companion (Zeke).

Currently, there are only two active players in the game – Ben the Hiver Scientist/Manipulator & Panthera the human adventuress. And, two PCs currently played as NPCs (as the owners’ whereabouts are unknown – Owen & Felix) and the Ref is eager that they get back into the game. <hint, hint>

What lies beyond the lake is Unknown. The depth of the lake is Unknown, although some stones form a precarious footpath at least part of the way, assuming it does not tip off the predator. Oddly, the predator does bear some resemblance to the object that they were sucked into whilst exploring the Imperial Research Station. The answers no doubt lie further ahead beyond the Lake.

However, the route over the lake did not seem particularly effective; the acid in the water makes the idea to transverse the lake an impossibility. Backtracking reveals that the passage has been blocked by fallen rock from a recent moonquake. The players sit confounded by this quandary whilst silently a fin appears in the water which is moving rapidly toward the shoreline. A rather nasty thought suddenly occurs to them…maybe the creature is amphibious, as well as psionic…


OOC: Ok, folks, I have to go to Paris for about 2 wks, I had rather hoped that you would have progressed further beyond the lake. We will resume when I get back. There is as always opportunities for new players to join in or NPC cameo appearances just PM with your proposal and we can see how we can work it in.

In the meantime some things to be played in this order to set the mood (sound files):

Sound Clip 1


Sound Clip 2

As always with these breaks review all that has gone on, however, Felix actually is trying to tell/help you with a solution and he will not be able just to blurt it out. Of course, you always can Take20 but that would too easy.

 

[kafka47]

At'n all players, I will assume that you have read and played the sound clips?

 

[kafka47]

Executive Summary for Players and the Board at Large

The story up to now has followed, a fateful party of players after breaking into a top secret Imperial Navy installation which encountering a strange object that was neither fully mechanical nor organic; yet to call it a cyborg would equally also be erroneous. Rather, it was a machine that exhibited organic characteristics. Nonetheless, the strangest aspect was that its insides seemed to be hollowed portals between radically different spaces again exhibiting traits of a machine and also that of an organism. Clearly, this was artefact beyond any known science, Imperial or otherwise.

Branded as criminals, they are compelled to search the Underdark of this world where the artefact is said to originate. Otherwise, face execution or lifetime imprisonment by the unpitying and enigmatic Count who runs this world with an iron fist in the name of the Imperium. After exploring days in lifeless cavern, they came upon a pool of highly acidic water and were savagely assailed by a monster whose outer body resembled the artefact. Much of the party died in this encounter...**

The lone survivor, the Hiver, pushed the emergency beacon that the Count entrusted them with before the descent. This in turn, brought about the appearance of the leftovers of an Imperial Marine squad that been appointed to go after the original party (for reasons known only to the Marines). The Marines, even with their notable firepower had immense difficulty despatching the above mentioned creature. Notwithstanding, in the end, they did so and at grave cost and personal injury.

Soon after the creature expired, they found that it was a fully organic creature, possibly, even sentient. However, more importantly, they found the creature in death possessed many helpful characteristics: its flesh could be utilized as armour, secretions that it wept from its skin was an excellent abrasive and protection against the acidity of the water, and lastly entrails acted as an excellent rope.

Also, after dispatching the creature, the Party discovered in the hide of the creature, two harpoons with symbols of a completely unknown origin along the shaft. Low on food, they resolve to find a way back to the surface but not before uncovering some of the mystery of harpoons.

As luck would have it, the problem of the lack of food was solved by a fortuitous encounter with the remains from the Count’s first expedition to the depths who led them to a cavern which mushrooms grew in abundance. Complicating matters is that the internal locators/GPS systems have somehow gone haywire due to some sort of natural phenomena. Worse still this survivor from the first expedition has not found any secondary grav shafts and the combination of cave-ins and moonquakes have rendered the original exits unusable.

They now are in cavern where food is in abundance seemingly safe but with no way of knowing how to reach the City let alone any point on the surface. Shafts that lead up, could lead to land or be merely the bottom of an ocean that encompasses the world (hydrographic stat A). Easy routes seem to point downward, although, here the peril is unknown. Or they could roam around aimlessly much as the survivor they encountered had done with little success.

For now, breathable air and food is in abundance. Also, to go back to the surface would mean dealing with the Count and not having the solved the mystery of the artefact would probably mean the reinstatement of sentence of execution. Then there is the mystery of the harpoons…

**Real Life commitments necessitated that they exited the game.