Boxes

The Travellers are on the world of Kishnar, where they’ve been talking to Professor Irga about the native population. It seems that they are regressed Vilani, suffering the effects of certain chemicals in the native plant life.

The previous session finished with them discussing whether to take a couple of the natives back with them to Sylea, where the university was wanting ‘specimens’. Now that they know that these are Vilani, and not pro-sophont humanoids of a different race, they have decided to probably not do this.

A topic we have a discussion on before the game begins is that of in-character versus out-of-character discussion. One player was concerned there had been a lot of OOC conversation, relative to in-character role playing. Part of this was down to some of the in-game topics being things that players had knowledge/interest in, which didn’t match the knowledge/interest of their characters.

It’s also tricky for a planet-of-the-week (which this campaign is pretty much designed around) game for their to be deep relationships with NPCs. It’s a problem I had with Deepnight Revelation, but there we had a large NPC crew to call upon (something I realised quite late). With five players, there’s also less opportunity for each character to have screen time. Maybe adding some NPCs to the ship would help (there is plenty of room). Hopefully some of the worlds will be more than just ‘pop down’, ‘have a quick chat’ and then leave.

Professor Irga hands over a copy of her notes to the Doctor Agardur, and asks about the possibility of going up to the ship to make use of some of the more advanced medical equipment there. She also wouldn’t mind a chance at a proper shower.

She’ll finish off more of her reports, and meet up with them again tomorrow. Meanwhile, the Travellers will head over to the Old Ship, where there is the remains of a Solomani settlement.

The settlement is based around an old 800t Python class trader. It’s overgrown, and is pretty much a wreck at this point. There are some overgrown wooden shacks, a graveyard plus a stone building at the centre.

The graveyard seems to have a predominance of young women aged between 20 and 30. Dates on the graves showed the last of them seem to have died about 120 years ago. In one of the huts, they find the remains of a couple laying on the bed. They are male and female, and in the male’s hand is a pill bottle. Possibly sleeping pills. Were they the last ones to die, and took their own lives?

The stone building has a circular stone covering the entrance, and there is a mechanism by which it can be moved. It looks like it’s been moved recently, but it currently closed. Dimitry moves the stone back, allowing Dr Agardur to shine in a torch. There is a narrow corridor, with niches along the walls. Inside each is a small wooden box, about the size of a shoe box.

The Travellers have a feeling they know what’s in here. Picking up a box, something rattles around inside. There is a name on it as well. There are names on all the boxes. The Doctor decides that he doesn’t want to confirm his suspicions.

Irian does though, so opens one of the boxes and confirms the remains of a dead baby. There are about two dozen boxes in the cairn.

They close up the box, and seal the building.

From there, they examine the ship. The cargo ramp is down, and they go up into the open hold. Gan stays at the ramp to keep guard, whilst the others explore the dead ship. Animals have made their homes here. The cargo holds are full of empty cargo containers, some of which show signs of having held food supplies at one point.

Whilst they explore, Gan is surprised by a couple of voices, making what sounds like very simple grunting sounds. Going down the ramp, he startles two primitive humans carrying spears. They point their spears at him, and he starts singing an old Naval battle song. This surprises them, and they run off into the woods.

Exploring the rest of the ship, it seems to have been abandoned some time ago. There are cracks in the hull, and water dripping in from the outside. All the controls and doors are dead. They manage to open the airlock to the bridge, and find some plush toys on the consoles, and a nodding-chirper desk ornament.

The ship seems to be the Dancer of Gurishi. Gurishi is also the name of a planet at Core/3022, currently in the domain of the God Emperor, a rather autocratic dictatorship. Where the ship had come from hadn’t occurred to me to plan out, but one of the players had said they were looking for evidence of that, so I had to come up with something. Now I need to think about why the colonists came here, and what they were running from. The characters picked up some data tablets during their investigations, so there’s probably going to be some information.

I mention that it may be possible to salvage some scraps from ships like this, in order to get parts if they ever need to repair their own ship. None of the systems will work, but some of the hull plating and general parts may be useful – as long as they have the right tools and skills.

This is considered a good place to leave things for the evening.