Vignettes

With a whole load of new (NPC) crew members aboard the Deepnight Revelation, I wanted to introduce some of the new NPCs to the players. So the next few jumps across the Federated Commonwealth involved a number of events driven by the shipboard NPCs.

Hopefully this will help be get a handle on some of the characters, and also give the players a reason to remember them. There’s only a couple of dozen new crew members, and I’ve given them all names and a Midjourney’d portrait. Most of the existing crew still have names like “Deck Hand #17”, and only a few have a real name. Most are also tokens, linked back to a single character sheet with a shared portrait. All the new crew are each a completely different character within Foundry. Possibly more effort than is necessary, but there’s only a couple of dozen of them.

Before they leave Avalon (and say final farewells to Yip), the players decide to invest into some of the businesses on this world. They can share a little bit of extra tech (mostly software, and things which don’t require massive infrastructure to support) to help them out. When they get back here, they hope their investments will have paid off, in order to help fund repairs and anything else.

Amelie (the company representative of the Deepnight Corporation) is happy to help out with the business side of things. It’s been a long time since she’s done real business stuff.

A couple of jumps, and a few weeks later, it is 86-1118, and the 11th anniversary of the mission. So there is a party. There is also a disturbance down in the lower decks which the security team are sent to investigate. Something about a wild animal running loose?

Turns out to be a large mechanical rhino-pine, being ridden by one of the Erline. Ekita (the Erline), Len Henga (a hitch-hiker they picked up years ago, who had mechanical talent and joined the engineering team) and Freda Yanosa (a newly joined engineer) had built a large robot to help celebrate the anniversary. It is decided to race it around one of the hangers, with different teams taking part in time trials. Nothing serious is broken.

The drunken games of zero gravity lob-ball however are another matter, and three people are sent to the medical bay with broken limbs.

Saashbag (a player character, who came out of character gen with JoaT-3) is given an impossible mechanical task to solve, which she does by re-interpreting the requirements. The engineers who set the puzzle decide that they need to involve lawyers next year.

The attempted game of pin a tail on a cybernetic Vargr is not well received by the Vargr in question.

The Deepnight arrives at the sytem of Oce Minor, which is a cold world dominated by the Church of Celestial Ascension. It seems to be the main religion in these parts, and teaches that the path to heaven is through education and knowledge. Doctor Ed Masters, a dedicated follower of the faith, pushes for the Deepnight to share its knowledge base with the Church, so they can store its records in their knowledge banks.

However, he is opposed by Lav Anistai, who grew up on a world where the Church’s shiny image is a bit tarnished. Work camps for those who aren’t educated enough, and the pushing of a single doctrine for education across the Commonwealth.

Another world further on, and Albrinn Moss manages to get hold of a ‘singing crystal’ from one of the local traders. It’s a small stone, that gives off a noise when it is held by a living creature. The type of sound seems to be based on the personality and mental state of the holder.

Albrinn is a known smugger, but the ship’s XO recognises that Albrinn’s ability to get hold of things and find out information is actually quite useful and arranges a regular meeting with him.

The science team are examining the crystal when the ship jumps – at which point the crystal begins to “scream”. It doesn’t stop until the ship exits jump 7 days later, at which point it goes back to normal. How is the crystal powered? How does it detect jump space? Is it psionic?

Some of the new crew members laugh at the mention of psionics. Then they realise that the old timers aren’t joking. Apparently psionics isn’t something that is commonly accepted in the Commonwealth.

At the system of Esapu Psure, the ship detects lots of objects around the gas giant. Some are derelict ships, others are cargo containers or small boxes. Eventually the sensor operators find transponders on most of the items. They return names and dates, and sometimes a description of a person.

The place is a graveyard, where traders, merchants, travellers and others have been left in orbit around this gas giant. Raix Delvaan, the keeper of the ship’s museum, wants to take some souvenirs. After some animated discussion with the locals, it is decided she will make some holo-scans of some of the larger tombs, so she can keep some VR environments in the museum.

A couple of jumps on, and there is a party. Nothing large, nothing unusual, but somethings go a bit further than expected. Jibish, Fay and Daevin get naked and very personal in a public place. Much enjoyment is had, but some of those present holo the events and the holographs are shared around the ship the following day.

Daevin, who comes from a culture where sex is neither taboo nor private doesn’t understand the problem. Jibish already has a reputation for being somewhat casual about such things, so she is slightly annoyed but not upset. Fay Karlston, a field researcher, is new to the ship and mortified that things were shared outside of the party group. As soon as the XO hears about the sharing, it is very quickly shutdown. Fay complains to HR, and a plan is put in place for diversity and harassment training for all the crew.

Several of the crew (Jack Markinso, Nevin Illisilasa, Try Oslo and Malorna Adalé) come up with an idea to paint nose art on all the small craft, in order to liven them up. It is decided to hold a competition amongst the crew to see who can do the best nose art. Each team gets a ship to paint. What could go wrong?

At the system of Akarirasa, whilst refuelling a fuel leak is detected in the ship’s piping. It’s in a difficult to reach spot, so two of the smaller engineers (Ling, and the Erline Ichika) are sent down to fix things. Ichika (a ten limbed blue ‘beetle’) comes screaming back up the service shaft, shouting about “BUGS! BUGS!”

Apparently a nest of arthropods has made its home down there, and Ichikia really didn’t like. What she liked even less though, was that Ling started eating them. Ling is sent to med bay to check that she hasn’t picked up anything bad. But bugs were one of the few things they had to eat when she was growing up, so she doesn’t see what all the fuss is about.

Ling spends most of the next day near the toilet however.

The next system, Yinawhe, has a B class star port, so the Deepnight Revelation stops off in order to stock up on duct tape and anything else they might find useful for the next stage of their journey. It also appears that one of the new scientists has discovered the ship’s wargaming group and has started thrashing everyone. Freddy Klavorn’s hobby is ready about military tactics and old battles, and he has a natural talent for the subject. Back home, he used to spend his spare time writing military combat sims. He is quickly moved to the ship’s “Red Team” by Lt Jana Irekia, who sets him to working on planning out ship strategies for potential conflicts. Freddy also ‘happens to have’ some detailed specs on both Commonwealth and Republic ships. Just don’t ask where he got them from.

This was a “nothing big happened” session, but just a series of small vignettes to break up the journey. It seemed to be well received by the players. I’ve got a few more to go before the ship reaches the Dual Alliance, a small polity of humans and droyne near the edge of the Commonwealth.

Not long to go now before the ship is once again in the wilderness outside of civilised space. I’m taking a break for a few weeks though over the xmas period, so the next session will be in January.