Vrun Starship Table of Organisation-

I finished this up last night, but waited until morning to post the LINK

It shows the Command <> Ranks, and Support Personnel.

The bottom row have no Command authority, although their Overseers can contact the Ship's Liaison or Logistics Officer and make their work-obstruction complaints known, if speaking with Department Chiefs does not generate a reasonable response.


This .pdf is also on a link to the right, under the Scavengers microgame.

March 18th Game-

A lot happened in yesterday's/last night's session.

* Captain Qulak managed to convince the GYS forces in orbit around Cold Home not to strip the ships down. He also heard from his first officer of an alien weapons shipment, and ordered Kitsune's assistance in determining their worth. He then entered a Sla-Mu tea ceremony as the council awaited the arrival of the salvage ship that Jake recently joined up with. The occasion was the discussion about purchasing the plans to the Dark Drive they have devised.

* Osyl Molen, in the Vae Realm, is about to break a door that has been magically sealed for over 1k years.

* Kitsune met Princess Nyx, the Patron of Negative Lightning, and was commissioned to send more folks Nyx' way, as she is bored and lonely. To facilitate this, a cache of Thl Lower Planar energy weapons was offered. Kit was in the process of investigating when the merchant's craft was shorn in two by a beam originating from a planet-side defence site. She managed to MacGyver/bodge together a ejection system for Akheron and herself, and it worked. Medics on route were also fired upon, as was her fighter escort which was engaging the site. The area is over or near a lake roughly the size of Superior, and thin ice was involved.

* Tyb, investigating the odd goings-on in the miscibility of the Elemental Planes, heard of a site named, Red Feather Hill, not far out of Aqqomen, that seemed promising. His recent g/f blurted out that he was affiliated with the GYS, and a stranger at the bar departed soon after that; followed by Tyb. The confrontation demonstrated that the stranger was, in fact, a damaged android with partial programming. Tyb called in Ashta to assist with the Red Feather Hill investigation...

* Jake went in search of his new crew-mates (who had been summoned to the Electrum Arrow), but became entangled in the Tyb/Ashta thread.

* Ashta arrived to take the android and Tyb aboard the Pearl while they made their way to the hill. Along the way, Ashta told Pearl to repair 'Smith'. This proved ... complicated when the restored android shot her in the back.

* The android and its companions in possession of the near comatose Jake explain that they had been left on the planet to guard it and that since its star system fell into the pocket universe, 'Cold Home' has been experiencing increasing fluctuations in the core's magnetosphere. These fluctuations, in concert with the Elemental miscibility, threaten to destroy the planet. The android plan was to kill the pair in the hopes of having the duo's nexial energies removed from the equation. It is later explained that the destruction of Orcus' Plague Sword in Tyb's possession, and Ashta's Pearl, would suffice, possibly even flinging Cold Home back into Mundane Space. Tyb decided to stay behind and make certain the sword was destroyed, while Pearl sent Jake and Ashta to her Aetheric fortress prior to Pearl's destruction.

* As Ashta appeared in her rainbow-mirrored redoubt adrift in the eternal twilight of the Aetheric Plane, she heard sounds in the place, with the word, 'Mommy?' uttered by the daughter created in an alternate timeline about 9 months ago.

We held the session there.

March 11th Game-

The blackness of the Void and Lower Planes has manifested as the Thl. A warlike species of many sub-species, all invertebrates, varying from jellyfish to insectoids and quasi-reptilians. Their craft scintillated from Void Black to iridescent black as they 'surfaced' into the Mundane to launch energy attacks against the GYS Cruiser Electrum Arrow ('Idabun Iarmun' ~ pronuc. 'Eedahboon Eearmoon') and the three other Cruisers now in orbit around Cold Home. More Yirinn blood-shenanigans when a first use of the Dark Energy weapons system was fielded in attack craft. This action (another high result after burning lots of Blood) propelled the PCs into a post-war situation where the GYS was successful in defeating the Thl, and Captain Qulak stood upon the enemy flagship and received the forced surrender of the alien leader. After most of the officials had left the ceremony aboard the vessel, Qulak and his cadre oversaw the transfer of the Thl to the Blood Guard for ... analysis.

Then a sabotage device grafted onto the Thl leader dropped and was triggered, causing a small explosion of flesh eating goo, and the Aetherboyant craft to 'submerge' back into the Deeper Darkness. Ashta and Delver were both contacted and kindly asked to tender rescue for the Commander (for millions of Credits). They arrived and folks disembarked the sinking ship. Talk included the possibility that the Thl ship could pass through the planet with unforeseen consequences or simply 'glub' beneath the Dark Aether that held it aloft. We held it there, but other stuff had also happened, such as:

* TV shows dealing with the Elemental legacy of Humanity from the Ancients to the Imperials grow in popularity in the mediaweb and after the war is over, Vern's show enters the coveted Top Ten Shows ranking, although the other PCs have thus far have declined participation, citing a lack of desire to re-introduce the Patrons in an age that learned to tame the energies through technology.

* Mela Mela went shopping in the Vae market and scored a nice suit of armour and a magicked sword connected to a high-ranking water spirit. The Winter Court is nearly finished with its Autumnal Purge and the blue-tinted snow-white Vae creatures have opened session with an invitation for Mela Mela to visit the Court. These actions tie-in with Osyl Molen's thread to do Lady Arctise's will and depose her previously favoured champion, a long-lived cyborg dwelling in a craggy mountaintop cave.

* Ashta's relationship with the Earthman, Jake, continues apace and was challenged when Jake accepted a contract to explore the Deeper Dark aboard a salvage ship fitted with an experimental drive, and then responded to the rescue call. Jake and crew were able to return.


Folks seem to find the new, spookier turn, exciting, and it challenges their previous conceptions of 'what-was-what' with Elemental reality.

More Adventures of the Playtest Crew-

While half of the group was on their way to the game, I ran with the other two.

Team Black (Pearl) sensed an alien craft and followed it into an anomaly that lead somewhere else entirely. Surviving that non-encounter, they then floored it for the nearer of destinations in the curious system, and in the process, devastated an asteroid base that was possibly still inhabited.

The Primary characters left with natives of Kelune upon their experimental craft, and explored what appears to be a portion of the Aelbaan System Ship, and decided to track the previous user of a telerelocation utility.

Then it was quitting time and we held it there.

Hasty Re-Cap Re: Campaign-

I've roughly 1.5 Hours before the game is slated to start.

Here's a FF>> of last week's game:

The crew of the shuttle landed after scouting around the worldlet they were closest to upon exiting the energy trough of the CVE. It is composed of a green mineral of a shade between emerald and jade. There are large bits of rock and debris (some of which looks like ship structure) suspended in the exosphere of the highly-irregularly-shaped planetoid, while the surface is not only pock-marked with impact craters, but due to the shape and shallowness of the atmosphere, many impacts have been simply flown in horizontally and smashed outcroppings of the green mineral-rock. The area of the worldlet above its ...um... equator is hard-packed soil and dust of a more terrestrial sort. The greenscape is rife with large and small mineral life forms, as well as creatures that appear to have been infused with the stuff in the form of armour plating or spines, etc.

It is on the brown-top that the shuttle observed structures (mostly ship hulls or cargo containers) half-buried in the brown dirt, but also jump-pack users and VTOL aircraft scrambling to intercept them. The transmissions were in some sort of Yirinn-Khem-Vrun hybrid, and included a game of something akin to Lacrosse.
--Once J.'s characters spoke up on the comm, the situation de-escalated quickly, and the shuttle was escorted to a landing pad quickly beset by reporters, observers, and the general population.

Meet and greet was held off until after the space-suited PCs were checked out using medical equipment and cleared for face to face interactions.
--Tyb, in 2D shadow-form, bypassed all of that and then popped up in the sterile environment to 'spook' the folks.

Lt. Plissken and Officer Rockatansky quickly distanced themselves from the group once Tyb began his initial 'I am a god' routine, which was simply met with coordinated 'Light e'm up, boys' military no-nonsense troop manoeuvring behind cover, and the prep of jump scouts and the re-fuelled jump-jets.
--Cooler heads prevailed and the group was handed e-readers with a message from Overseer Daen (their Kherstic League handler) congratulating them on surviving their posterity and so forth, and suggesting that as part of the KL, their participation in the Quest was still ... appreciated. The opportunities wherever they were (she gave no indication she knew when they would be found, let alone where) seemed to be a good re-boot for their enterprise, and they received a condensed version of future history from their perspective, including what happened to Doran and Kelzsyn's Bluff in the subsequent centuries. Daen acknowledge the high likelihood that she was long-dead by the time the PCs were viewing her courtesy comment.

We held it there.

Jan 21st Game Session-

New batch of the bug.
--This one was nipped in the bud with a shot of Lysol, Airborne, and a Zycam Swab. Now it is just fatigue and occasional headaches.

I forgot to mention this last time: Both Officer Max Rockatansky, and Lt. S. D. Bob Plissken are aboard the Aelbaan shuttle and have a gaggle of semi-feral kids native to the Aelbaan Starship as their wards. These two are along for the ride, and have felt suitably upstaged by the PCs.
--This is the second time that the duo have appeared in one of my games.

After the Khem's tele-experiences on the planet, the Yirinn character who had been gifted with a Black Metal alloy seven-bulbed lamp-stand (decorated to appear as a braid of roses) lit the oil reservoir with Elemental Fire. This produced softly writhing fractal shadows that fell in a circular pattern around the device.
--With this effect, the Aelbaan Starship changed attitude and began to alter its course as almost palpable Shadow Plannar effects could be felt by Tyb.

The Aelbaan who had occupied one of the System Ships (in which the shuttle the PCs are occupying is located) began to launch the System Ship. The System Ship then re-entered 'normal space', which was anything but, and the craft began to shake and shudder as its relativistic velocity and the wrinkle in timespace they were immediately caught in did not mix well.
--The Aelbaan informed the PCs that they needed to jettison roughly the same mass as the loaded shuttle to act as an explosive charge in their attempt to break out of the rut of the rolling space fold. Quick calculations by the PCs suggested that they would fail.

I'd like to explain more, but the blog is a poor substitute for the detailed information contained in the forthcoming Vrun Players' Module product.

The Party bickered a bit, but ultimately, the shuttle was jettisoned and sucked directly into the Charged Vacuum Emboitment. This was no surprise to the Khem, whose ancestor had heard that the other colonists had experienced the same event which led to their finding the curious planetary system.
--Debris started to cling to the shuttle's hull as Ashta saw a swirling multitude of possible timelines and past/future events.

Players had to leave early for various reasons (a date, and us fetching C.'s and M.'s sister at work), and so we called it there.

[Playtest Campaign] 15th, January-

Before starting the session, we hammered out Tybylt's particular sort of magic, which, at this point is still derived from canned sources, namely the 3.5 Shadow Magics, and the Warlock, but will eventually be drawn entirely from the native Urutsk 'constructive magic' rules. I've been too diffuse already to dedicate time to the magic system, and I am unwilling to write up a bunch of canned spells -- the Retros and Simulcs do that job well, as does the above edition -- but it just isn't my vision of magic, and hasn't been for decades.

After that, I had Ashta spend some of her free Adventure Points on purchasing competency in the Aelbaan Technology she has become increasingly exposed to and comfortable with, due to her partial Aelbaan ancestry (Western Isles Vrun).

I rolled my trusty d12 about a dozen times to divine a loose line of internal inquiry, in which I determined a future encounter that 'made sense' given the current situation, as well as the main point, namely, to introduce more stuff/tech for the PCs to have the opportunity to procure/purchase/trade-for, etc.

My d12 methodology is ubiquitous:

* Frequency/Intensity/Proximity of Encounters (in the extant Referee's Manual .pdf)

* Clock-overlay directions ('I've got your 6', man, now advance up to that cover and survey our 10 o' clock.') I extend this to geographic scale to determine the general continental region, and then use refinements of these rolls to determine exact origin not only at the governmental/national, etc. level, but even districts, quarters, and so forth.
--Don't mistake my organic Top-Downism for Non-Oracularism. ;)

* Intensity of Reactions, etc.

* Quality of goods, etc.

* etc.

My SO and her brother were regarding my mostly silent, unwritten die-rolling burst, and then I recapped what had happened the session prior.

While many moments in the play were notable, I will condense further, as there is so much to cover (we wrapped a bit after 1 AM, having played for at least seven hours).

* The Aelbaan sphere was utilised to assist the friendly ground forces, until a missile attack was partially deflected by Tyb, using the Wand of Plant Control, and partly due to the geometry of the craft. The payload was some sort of alchemical viscous fluid that appeared to possess both corrosive and electrical properties (in fact it is a Plasmatic Acid payload, aboard a small cruise missile).
--Using the sensors, a flight path was reverse-projected, and the firing craft, a sailing vessel about a mile offshore, was identified and set after. Much futzing about resulting in that ship going down, but only after the Humanoid crew (4) who were overseeing a literal skeleton crew (16) gave the party a bit of trouble, including the Humanoid captain using a beefier version of the Jaunt-type spell trying to scuttle his ship so as to prevent its weapon from being captured.

* Back over the island, the initial resistance by the pirates was crushed, but only at the cost of most of the local ships (including the WICE Misty Sea), and heavy loss of life. Her captain, Qeurryk, lost his left arm and foot, but was saved alive.

* Dealing with the wounded. Dealing in a cultural context with the need to dispose of the dead. During this time, as captives are being centralised, it becomes apparent that a large number of the pirates are unaccounted for.

* Accusations of individuals harbouring the pirates begins to erupt into street 'justice', and in the subsequent Truth and Reconciliation trial, dozens of names are brought up, but between eyewitnesses and sphere/probe sensor logs, fifty percent of those in question are cleared of wrongdoing, while a new thirty percent were proven to be guilty, mainly upwardly-mobile businessmen and noble houses.
--The second trial results in Tybylt's executive decision to draw and quarter by horse those found guilty of the greatest offences. Three are killed before two are ready to spill the names of fellow traitors. The entire merry Tea-Time Magical group, and all but one member of House Ahzenbakh, including the Ahzenbakh kennel master, are directly implicated. Tybylt does nothing yet to alert them of his knowledge of their treachery. At the same time, the two final to be d/q'd are instead stripped of 90% of their wealth, and exiled. Private individuals who, out of humanitarian drive, provided shelter to individual pirates (as in the case of three boys who served with the pirates) were never brought to trial.

* As a prison is being constructed, it is determined that up to 20% of the prisoners are Humanoids, and Tybylt decides to keep their number separated, and refuses to bring them to swift execution (as is the way across most of Urutsk, especially if the Humanoids have attacked a Human population centre). Instead, he has a second facility built for them, and begins to investigate the connection between the Humanoids and the pirates. This exposes the contract-work the very organised (and strangely 'civilised' [the religious leader claims to be a starship captain, and possess a following of over 250,000 of his Abbekqorru kinfolk, apart from being a Class III Phaser technician]) Humanoids had with the pirate network. A hinted-at number of agents of his are somehow able to blend in with the Human population (the Half-Abbekqorru's Humanesque ability to shape-shift, like a jackalwere).

* Salvaging sunken cargo, etc. underway with Ashta, Qeurryk, and another highly Aelbaanesque WI Vrun, Yan Tsurmen, utilising the Aelbaan sphere's TK abilities to greatly speed up and make safer the operation. Six days and all of the PMH containers are centralised for Doran's arsenal. Ashta finally bunks down after sleep deprivation begins to catch up with her.
--Instantly she is whisked away by some unknown force and brought up through the atmosphere to an Aelbaan ship that de-cloaks as she is brought inside and thoroughly interrogated as to the whereabouts of Delver Denab. She overhears that while his sheath (cadaver) had been handed over to them (see the post regarding the underground Dryvv ship sections, etc.), they cannot account for the whereabouts of his spirit. As she is being returned, one of the congress slips something into her mind/brain and she has to deal with that.

* Negotiations with the Abbekqorru leader results in his being allowed to speak freely with his leaders of hundreds and tens, dressed in full armour and weapons, and he informs his people that they are now under contract with the Governors of Doran. Plans to utilised one thousand of them for tunnel-clearing operations (to flush-out the remaining pirates) are initiated.

* Ashta struggles with the news that her prefrontal lobe is being altered by an Aelbaan protein so as to develop her latent Psionic powers (the Aelbaan are powerful psionics). She eventually chooses to have it removed and go back to being herself rather than risk being brought 'into the fold' against her choice. The operation is performed by the Abbekqorru, and assisted by Mela, but the ship, now an extension of Ashta, merely trimmed the protein chain so to, in a hypothetical future, allow Ashta to willingly activate Telekinesis.
--I explain that, in effect, Ashta can now control the craft without much in the way of conscious thought.

We held it there.

[RPG] Origins of Martial Backgrounds-

When the Ancients, the First Parents, fell from the sky in the War in the Heavens, they brought with them a diverse range of martial traditions dating from millennia before, and millions of worlds amid the infinite Empyrean.
Because of the haphazard manner in which they tumbled to Urutsk from the great heights of the Space Beyond the Sky <Aya 'Eye-Ah'>, the variety of troops and armed units became so dispersed that individuals or detachment-sized remnants of squads and larger groups simply became associated with enclaves of other survivors.
From this jumble of civil servants, constabulary, home guard from dozens of environments, to elite and specialised warfighters, isolated societies cobbled together their individual tables of organisation, training, and deployment as Black Winter set in with its scouring celestial wind of space debris and plasma storms.

In some locales, due to the distribution of more favourable geographic features, limited surface activity was possible over the time-forgotten span of the Scourge. However, the vast majority of the scattered Imperial cantons were forced literally underground and expanded their holdings over the centuries.
It was not long before the tunnelling unearthed and awakened long dormant creatures and monstrous civilisations as recent as their own, also escaped to Urutsk. These wars, The Onyx Battle , never truly ended. It was only the gospel report of the Scourge's cessation that allowed Humanity to flee the Stygian depths for the sunlit world of the surface.

While certain kingdoms and other cultures did meet during that long period, few had the resources to maintain larger communities and had often kept the contact secret from their constituents. Now upon the surface, the enclaves and empires of thirty or more generations removed cousins gradually were reunited.
Naturally, the grand traditions of the Imperium made the re-integration of the disparate colonies more easily possible. Of course, there were those who desired no part of the resurrected behemoth that had created the Cataclysm, and from these 'deserters' came the first intra-Human wars.
But Fate was kind to renew the enmities with the non-Human, and in some cases, also the Allied Peoples (human-like aliens). More often than not, Human enemies were brought past their bickering and resource grabs to unite briefly against their common foes.

Through these various organic mechanisms of transmission and re-implementation, there became a great commonality to Human military endeavours that was retained as various groups spread out to seed the barren planet with animal and plant life from their long-destroyed homeworlds and others once held within the Imperium's grasp.
From the hereditary melange that had defined the Core of the Imperium ('The Sphere of Suns'), as had been recorded in myths of the long vanished past, Humanity became a species of multiple peoples. As the Human pool of bloods split and refined, specialised, and re-introduced other groups, the ethnicities of Urutsk came into being in only a few hundred years. With these divisions, martial procedures changed and were lost to time and replaced with more ideal methodologies and practical measures as suited each group's particular needs.

As the planet grew lush and green, as the rains fed the multitudes with blue and white-tipped marsh grains and fattened game animals, in many cases, the non-human races began to find more ideal conditions above ground, and expanded rapidly -- often out-breeding humans by several generations.
These groups usually fell upon each other as readily as upon Humans, but in some cases, great bands or more subtle confederacies were formed, and these both were a thorn in Humanity's side for much of the Mad Spring.