Wednesday, March 28, 2012

First adventures in the Band

As you all know by now, XL had a huge pile of debt and no longer had any contracts for shipping. Anatalia decided to take the Lammergeier out to salvage the wreckage around Tangerine Dream. Everyone except Eston (Lew) went. Eston was expected to stay behind for the two month round-trip duration and drum up some business.

The wreck near Tangerine was indeed from a Panoply/Military operation. It looked as though 3 cruisers (Panoply) and 2 unknowns had all been destroyed. Salvage of useful parts and metals went quickly, and among the goodies were some intact Panoply armaments, some valuable scrap metal, some useable snap matter, and a life support pod.

The pod was carefully brought on board and investigated. Inside was a Conjoiner, confirming suspicions that the two unknown vessels had been Conjoiner in origin. The Conjoiner (Svaedra, I believe) spun a couple of tales. The first was that the Demarchy was instigating a war against the Conjoiners and the other, that she and her crew were out here to rendezvous with an ancient Lighthugger, one of the originals that had left Earth's system hundreds of year ago on a deep space mission. That lighthugger (long story short) was commanded by Galiana, the founder, so-to-speak, of the Conjoiners. The hive had lost contact with it until recently. Galiana's body had been recovered and Svaedra had been sent to deal with the ship, which was in "interstellar" space just outside the Yellowstone system.

Always in a mood for adventure, the Lamm journeys out to meet the drifting lighthugger. The ship is badly damaged though, and utterly infested by black cubes of all sizes. Black tentacles plunge in to the crew members' skulls, freezing them in mid action aboard the ship. Though the cubes (Svaedra calls them wolves) seem inert, there is no guarantee that they are.

Svaedra wants to either direct the ship into deep space, away from its current Earth bound trajectory, or move it a little ways out and self destruct it. Svaedra seems insistent on this suicide mission.

And that's about where we are right now...

Eston, you received word that the two month voyage has now become a four month one.

Monday, March 12, 2012

more info

In the GlitterBand...

Angular velocity and gravity (If you're referring to the ring-shaped stations as seen in the film 2001, then it depends on the radius of the ring.
To generate a force equal to one 'g', the station would have to spin sufficiently quickly to cause an acceleration of 9.8ms^-2.
The velocity necessary at any point within the ring is given by:

9.8 = v^2 / r
9.8 = v^2 / 100 =>
v = 980^0.5
v = 31m/s

To calculate the angular velocity in radians/sec, use the equation:
W = v/r (Let W represent angular velocity)
W = 31 / 100
W = 0.31 rad/s

If you want this in RPM, we must first express 1 rad/s in RPM:
1 rad/s = 60 / 2pi = 30 / pi RPM
0.31 rad/s = 30 X 0.31 / pi RPM
0.31 rad/s ~ 2.96 RPM.
This may seem slow, but don't forget that I set the radius equal to 100m.)


More specifically:

You are all living on carousel New Haven, a hubless wheel 10km in diameter and a half click wide. Because there is no central docking hub, all docking occurs along the outside under edge of the wheel, which is moving at a velocity of 221m/s to generate 1G of gravity for the inhabitants. ( A single rotation of the wheel takes about two and a half minutes). The disadvantage is that ships must match velocity and angular acceleration, inducing there own “gravity” as they accelerate to dock with the carousel. Of course, autopilot routines are quite capable, but the best pilots love the challenge of doing it “by wire”, an old term borrowed from ancient times when atmospheric aircraft control surfaces were rigged to the pilot’s controls by actual wire or rope. Why not dock on the inside of the wheel, you wonder? If a vessel loses positive attitude control or its engines while on an “under” approach, the craft can simply “fall” away (although, technically it will just drift on the tangent line way from the rim). If the same were to happen on an inside approach, the craft would “fall” into the wheel.

The advantage of a hubless carousel is over 31km of docking space and a lack of a central Port Authority. Although it is obvious that such a set-up would make it easier to smuggle people and goods, a large portion of the New Haven’s bay spaces are independently run repair facilities or micro shipyards. The rest of the docking space is owned by various small moving and shipping companies, along with some charter yacht businesses. There are in the number of 120 docks/bays, ranging from 500m X 400m monsters to 100m X 25m service areas.

Characters: The initial in parantheses indicates owner. Embrace the confusion. You will learn about your "old" characters in due time.

Anatalia Berence - (T) Head Pilot of the Lammergeier, the primary business vessel of XL Salvage and Shipping (XL is short for Xavier Liu, the founder of the company, now deceased).

Chen Dera - [C] Head technician and engineer for XL. Anatalia may be the pilot, but Chen has a special bond with Lammergeier because of the hundreds and hundreds of hours he has put into repairing and modifying the old crate.

Eston Farlanx - (L) The only sales rep that XL has, Eston is the people person behind, or should I say, in front of the business.

Glass Henamei - (M) A general assistant to XL, he helps with freight loading and also sometimes pilot’s the company’s tug, “Red Rover”. Glass is also personable enough to be a flight steward on those occasions that the Lamm carries passengers for hire.

Isaveralt Jyln - [R] Energy Systems Specialist Isaveralt is freelancer who often works as overhire for Chen. Isa often does repair work in the XL’s bay for both XL clients and for his own personal side business. Isa also sometime builds custom ornamental skiffs for clients; quite an accomplished ship builder/designer in the very small craft arena.



Ships
The are a couple of overlapping categories of ships to be found in Yellowstone space.
There are Demarchist, Conjoiner, and “other” ships. Demarchist ships are mostly practical ships from a design aesthetic. Their forms are sleek and simple, like wedges or great space-faring manta rays. Conjoiner ships, mostly found as Lighthuggers, are also spartan in appearance. Some smaller Conjoiner craft, of which there are very few, will take on the design aspect of some exotic deep-sea creature with graceful arcing spines or fins which serve some inscrutable purpose.

“Other” ships, while mostly technically Demarchist in current technology, vary widely in design. Some 500 years of design aesthetic have evolved some exotic designs. Among some of the wealthy, it has become fashionable to take the shells of several ancient craft and stitch them together into some new “instant classic” design.

A detailed grid of reference info for broad categories of vessels is forthcoming.

Have questions? Bring 'em. You will each receive personal data very soon.

Friday, February 24, 2012

The next adventure

Now that Esai is out of the way you begin the next Chapter of your epic adventure! The storyline will be broken up into three, perhaps four, distinct locations or places in time. There will be an element of confusion brought on by this, but rest assured that is all an intentional part of the aesthetic of the story. The storyline itself becomes part of the mystery that must be solved.

Much of the inspiration for these next events is unabashedly stolen/influenced by Alastair Reynolds work. I mention this outloud because his fans have found this blog and ripped the image of the lighthugger I rendered and have plastered it all over the internet. So, I would not be fooling anyone if I pretended these coming chapters in the game were all original ideas. I am sure that as soon as you all interact with the universe you will cause plot strings to spiral off into unknown territory. But I am choosing this derivative starting point because of the overall strength of the plot and how well it fits with all that has come before.

I will update the game’s informational website with terms concerning people, places, and technology to help you orient yourselves. You’ll have questions, so don’t hesitate to ask!

You will start in the Glitter Band around Yellowstone. I have found an updated spreadsheet form for your characters and now all I need is your current character info to get everything updated and back to you.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Ab'Hara Thahn


So there you are, face to face with Esai who has possessed the body of a nine-year-old girl, and (s)he is telling you that you have done a wonderful job of throwing the world into a state of chaos. Now won't you all just help him light the Ab'Hara Thahn forge so he can complete a small little project?

How on earth did you get HERE?

It all begins with that cool tunnel that lit up and did funny things to your runic items. The tunnel lead into the Runic Temple of the Ab'Hara Thahn forge, not to be confused with Khul-Thahn Forge. What you all figured out over the course of time was that the temple was laid out in the form of the Tree of Life. In the first room on the inside of the runic circle on the floor were a set of 10 stone cylinders arranged as if they were on the hour positions of a clock; 12 and 6 were blank spaces without anything at all. Silus used his split phase powers to make 9 copies of himself and he pulled all the cylinders out at once. Once removed, the metallic rune circle rotated around nearly a full revolution. The holes where the cylinders had been closed up and a slot opened up at the six o'clock position.

Each cylinder had a number on the bottom, 1 though 10, and with the help of Mirella, Agar, and Landros you figured out how the cylinders must be arranged in the temple. You made it is far as the “Knowledge” room which left you with three more cylinders to put in place. This room houses a library of scrolls: some seem to itemize things made at the forge while another set of documents seems to include extensive directions on how to use the forge. It was at this point that you realized you had company. A number of demonic little beasties were gathering in the Kingdom room (secret passage ways behind the fireplaces) presenting you with a dilemma. Do you go ahead and just complete powering up the forge, or do you deal with the bad guys first?

You decided to try to take out some of the monsters, which went pretty well, but the thing is, they are just blocking the only exit out of the temple. This is when the crowd parts and a nine-year-old girl in tattered rags with dark, sunken eyes appears and asks you to follow her as she walks up to the Crown. Powering up the forge is easy she goes on to say, but she still needs Eldvod for some part of the process and she wants you to use it to light this forge for her. Oki suspects that Esai-En-Dar is actually nearby.

Other things of note that you have learned: Ab'Hara Thahn is a Third Order Forge. The implication is that there are many forges of different “Orders”. Oki strongly suspects that Atai is a higher, Fourth Order runic item.

Saturday, April 30, 2011

D'Agshalem

Node, Khouri and Agar went to work to try to repair Theoninn. Supplies are limited of things like optic cable and multiconductor (24,32, 48 pin) interconnects, and you are right out of LCD/plasma screen displays. So, while you can regain a fair amount of funcionality, things will not be perfect. Fortunately, most critical engine and life support systems use analog gages. Flight attitude, slip and elevation have basic gyro, vacuum and pitot-static driven gages. Advanced flight instruments for IFR flight are offline.

The rest of the party (Farallon, Oki, Landros, and Silus) uses Raven and Vaka to locate Lodos and Treasda. What remains of the captured Theoninn crew (Mirella, Treasda, Svarturinn and Ginsberg) are being force marched by a dozen Gromeks up into the mountains a couple hundred miles south of Marhund. Landros uses Vaka to look through Treasda's eyes to suss out a good attack point. The original plan involves having Oki and Landros banf in half the party in front of the Gromeks and half behind. Unfortunately (?) Void latches onto a passing thought of Farallon's and you all arrive in style in the Mako directly in front of the Gromeks. Another bit of wishful thinking and fate conspires to make killing the Gromeks easier than taking candy from a baby.

Mirella's lost her ring and pinkie finger of her right hand (she is a lefty). Treasda has been thoroughly beaten, and Ginsberg and Svarturinn are in no better shape. However, thanks to the Healing Circle cast by Landros, everyone got better quickly.

Mirella knew of an old Dwarven ruin in the mountains; you all suspect that is both where the prisoners were being taken and where Lodos (and Abassi) have been hidden. The other four prisoners of the Gromeks (a merchant, etc.) have become replacements for your old, dead red-shirts. A short journey onward and you came to a ravine which leads to the great silver doors of D'Agshalem.

The main entrance corridor has a vaulted ceiling and an upper hidden gallery with arrow slits that look onto the hallway. Obviously the defensive architecture of this location suggests is was built sometime during the Great War. The middle of the corridor is intersected by a circular room with a portculis at either end. Oki walked into the room and set off a trap which brought both gates down, trapping her there. She used her various powers to ascertain how the device worked and reported that info to Silus who then used Chronos to rewind time before Oki set off the trap. Silus then related to everyone what would happen if they went forward...

The work around involved levitating various party members across the room; these folks then went around and found the gate controls and disarmed the system by wedging an iron spike in the gears of the machine. At this point it was safe for everyone to cross the circular room.

Exploring the underground city you quickly found the 'throne room' which then lead, room by room, to a secret door and passage way. This brought you to some sort of ancient dwarven 'office' building of some sort which you found your way out of in short order. “Outside” of this building you find yourselves in a massive cavern with a series of waterfalls and a river running through it. Other buildings of various types are carved into the cavern walls giving t he sense of a real city built underground. Further wandering and you find a field of glowing flowers that have obscured an stone pathway (sort of) that leads to a circular metal double door. This door leads to a temple.

The corridor beyond the door is also circular and the walls are covered in runes. All the runes glow in a wave down the hall, pulse, and then glow softly. Farallon enters first; as he takes a few steps in, various runes along the walls light up in vibrant colors. He takes out Eldvöð and the runes along the blade project off like 3D holograms, revealilng another dimension to the shape of the letters. Landros enters the corridor and attempts to use his past sight ability, but is overwhelmed by seeing all past events simultaneously – so he steps back out.

A quick view of the past reveals that Ililsus and about 40 of his henchman entered the temple area only a couple of days ago. And, of course, the energy signature of Lodos is coming from within.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Anskut

You had been trapped in a temple wrapped in a nightmare hosted by Anskut, the baalrog that was working for Ililsus.

You had decided that the "crying baby" in the cell at the end of the corridor was most likely a trap, so you went in the opposite direction. The smooth cut stone walls gave way to rough, natural stone. A spell or toxin of some sort was present and temporarily incapacitated Agar. Farallon sacrificed his cloak to be used as a sort of rug so that you could all drag the very heavy and limp Agar along with you.

After a short journey you found yourselves in a large open cavern. There was evidence that this place was used for sacrifice...human sacrifice. Three diverging passage ways lead from the cavern toward what you hoped might be the surface. Only a few steps in the direction of freedom, and you saw dozens of demonic beasts coming for you from what you had hoped was an escape path. Landros quickly threw down a circle of protection.

Then, from behind you came the horrible slow stomping of the baalrog. Oki grabbed and joined the two parts of Atai. As a team you all made very quick work of Anskut, despite the fact that he was wielding Void.

Ah, Void....

Farallon now has Void.

But there was more: you learned from Anskut and some random clothing and body parts that the alternate team in Theoninn had been captured.

You immediately traced down Theoninn, damaged and partly sunk in marsh flats of a river delta just outside of Marhund. The ship was ransacked, and there is much work to do to put it back together again. Ginsberg had escaped capture by hiding in the Raven chamber; he explained that he and the others had been tricked by a fake distress call from Farallon.

So Mirella, Treasda, and the others are missing. Presumably held hostage somewhere or dead. You at least have the digit of Mirella to show that some form of torture has been going on. Now you must find your friends - if they are still alive.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Updates...

Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since an update! I feel as though some intervening got lost somehow. Sorry about that...

Well, really quickly, you returned to Palladium and found Aja under seige by forces from you local demon temple at Naylon. Actually, the city was deserted and it looked as though maybe everyone escaped through the rift point in the main facility, but the corridors in there kind of reminded you all of the inner depths of Naylon, which seems ominous, so maybe they did not have a happy ending. The gem was a nuclear warhead parked right there by the doors, timer ticking away. You easily disarmed the timer and took the warhead with you.

Next, you returned to the site of your last run in with Echo and those crazy crow beasts. By following the underground limestone caverns you were able to find and reunite the entire party.

Then on the agenda was wiping out Echo by using the warhead. It took a while to hammer out the logistics, but you nailed it and vaporized Echo. This also means that Necros is buried under tons of radioactive rubble deep inside the mountain, so it is unlikely anyone will retrieve this any time soon.

You know that Anskut and Illilsus are still hunting for you, so you decided to return to Marhund to confront them. You re-entered the temple and made your way deep inside and found yourselves in a small room, tucked neatly inside a deep illusion....

and that's where I get a little hazy, so if any of you remember details, let me know.