Tag: exploration

#Lore 24 – Entry #107 – Sci-Fi Month II #16 – UEF-04, Maharani Morgiana, Launching!

Special Announcement!  For Immediate Release!

From the observation deck of the Maharani Morgiana, Seiko Kajira reporting.

Today marks an important moment for the United Expeditionary Force as we announce the official launch of the Fourth Demon Sector Expeditionary Fleet, led by its mothership, the mega-carrier Maharani Morgiana, herself captained by the venerable Durgen Silvercask.  Spearheaded by the joint efforts of the Veylani-Varmyrl Transport Corporation, Aurum Associates Amalgamated, Fizzlesprocket Microelectronics, and the many other members of the Aphelion Station Council, this mission has become the single largest expedition into the Demon Sector to date.  Bound for the distant Marchosias system, the journey is expected to take some five years at least, likely longer depending on what amazing discoveries are made along the way.

The Morgiana herself has been expanded to over 7500 meters in length and is capable of transporting an unbelievable amount of personnel and material within her many modular compartments and has all the manufacturing and production ability to create practically anything they could need while on their journey; certainly handy when the nearest support will be many lightyears away!  Not venturing into the deep dark alone, she is accompanied by multiple support vessels and a fleet of smaller research ships drawn from across known space, a mix of private and corporate-owned vessels representing the best of the best.  Supporting her already formidable defenses are no less than six starfighter squadrons, half a dozen battlecruisers, two heavy cruisers, and multiple smaller military vessels, including the venerable and decorated battlecruiser Obstinate Phoenix.  Remarkably, the Morgiana herself can carry ALL of these capital-class vessels through hyperspace, docked to an outer framework in a first of its kind advance that will surely become a standard of long-range space travel in years to come.

Countless groups are represented aboard the Morgiana in a combined effort to provide a diverse and varied wealth of experience, skills, and magical talents that will see that this journey is the most successful to date.  Their goals will be to learn all that can be learned about the Marchosias system, trailblazing routes through space on their way there, while opening the possibilities for countess resource mining operations, long-range colonies, and the spread of faiths to regions once believed unreachable.  Truly this will be a new historic milestone as we expand deeper and deeper into the Demon Sector.

May fortune favor the bold, and may the gods bless and protect our brave explorers in this momentous endeavor!

For further information on this incredible expedition and the many companies and groups sponsoring it, refer to the links below.  Be sure to keep an eye on our continuing coverage for the latest and greatest news and stories from the voyage, from the edge of the frontier itself with the Most Trusted Name in Galactic News from your favorite reporter, Seiko Kajira!  Until next time!

#Lore 24 – Entry #106 – Sci-Fi Month II #15 – Devil Dog

From the Personal Journal of Kiara Mizutani, Arcane Support Division, assigned UEF-04 Maharani Morgiana

I have had such a confusing day!  As we finalize our preparations to launch into the Demon Sector, Director Tallfoot has been relentlessly drilling us in the ASD on our skills and magical talents, and I’m exhausted from it all!  To make matters worse, she’s continued to give me hell over being late all the time.  It’s not my fault!  I just can’t understand the layout of this ship!  It’s still so confusing!  But she’s demanded I improve, and has taken steps to see it happen.  I can’t believe I let her browbeat me into going along with this, but…she put a chastity cage on me!  Said it was to help to improve my focus!  And it’s got some enchantments on it for punishments that she’s in charge of!  I guess she got it from the Yurisayan delegation? 

Oh, why did I let her do that?!  What was I thinking?!  I had to wear one for five years at the Academy and it was maddening, and barely a year out, and I’m stuck in one again!  I’m such a pushover!  It’s so tight already, and I can’t stop getting hard and making it pinch more, and it’s really annoying!  But she promised it would stay right where it is until my performance improved.  She even put an arcane lock on it to make it as hard as possible to remove!  I have to try to start waking up early tomorrow or something, try to get there on time.  Maybe if I at least make the effort, she’ll take it off? 

But there might be a bit of a bright spot even with all the hell that Miss Tallfoot is giving me.  I met someone new…after the stupid cage was locked on, unfortunately…but he seems…well, I’m not sure.  I’m a little intimidated by him, but he’s got this bad-boy thing going that really has me intrigued.  I mean, with a nickname like ‘Devil Dog’, that just screams cool, right?  He’s a feradogian, can’t say I’ve really dealt with them much, but we wound up on an elevator together after work today.  He was staring at me the whole ride, and we had more than enough time to get each other’s scents.  He’s huge, too!  Like almost nine feet tall, and all of it wolfy muscle!  The more I think about those scars, the more excited I get (and the tighter this stupid cage gets!  URGH!!)! 

He followed me off the elevator toward the cantina and offered to buy me a drink, so how could I say no?  We chatted some, learned a bit about each other.  He’s working on one of the scouting teams, says he’s a really good tracker and hunter.  He seemed really into me, too, said I was a bundle of interesting scents that had him more than a little worked up.  I could tell.  Really wonder if I could handle that gigantic thing he’s carrying around in those leather pants?  Did I mention he goes around shirtless?  Mmmm…

I might’ve had a little too much to drink, gotten a little…touchy-feely with him under the table.  I might’ve been a little cocktease tonight, lol.  He was positively panting for more, and I thought his pants were going to pop open right there.  Guess feradogian tails act like regular dogs when they’re excited, too.  That’s when this stupid little cage decided to pinch me again.  Total mood killer.  I had to try to break things off at that point, but DD was pretty insistent, so I wound up sticking around a while longer.  We started making out in the corner, and I’m sure he felt the cage when he was feeling me up; the look he gave me when he was squeezing me in my sexy little shorts was…oh, gods, I think I’m in trouble!  I think he’s excited by the idea!  I bet he’s into all kinds of kinky stuff!

We’re going to hook up tomorrow after work; I’ve got a day off before we launch, so I’m curious what might happen…I’m a sucker for the bad boys…

#Lore 24 – Entry #105 – Sci-Fi Month II #14 – Encountering Frontier Colonists and Treasure Hunters

Memo for all crewmembers aboard UEF-04 Maharani Morgiana.

Attention:

Please be aware as you traverse recently revealed territories within the Demon Sector that your duties will inevitably lead to contact with those who have ventured ahead of you.  Though the number of early explorers is small in the grand scheme of things, there are tracked vectors from hundreds of vessels that have ventured into uncharted space.  Though it is unlikely that most of these will ever be seen again, simply going by the odds of survival without a support network, there is little doubt that a small few at least will have survived.

You should be prepared to discover remnants of these early explorers, most likely in the form of ships that have run out of fuel and are either adrift or crashed, perhaps even broken up due to aetheric harsh currents and storms, or other astrological phenomena in the given region.  It is entirely possible that remains may be on board.  In such circumstances it is proper to offer prayers or a short ceremony of some kind, as your or their particular faith indicates, but do not linger overly long unless it is deemed relevant by your commanding officer.  Follow any funerary traditions as may be applicable if time and opportunity permits.

With that said, you are also likely to encounter living people who have ventured out to experience the frontier and all that it has to offer.  Several ships loaded with potential colonists have been recorded leaving Aphelion Station, so it is entirely possible you will come across these settlers, perhaps even those with successful, thriving colonies.  You should not be overbearing when dealing with these people; simply inform them that your mission is exploration and mapping, and that you are not there to challenge their claims.  Only resort to violence as a last resort, and only if they engage it first.  It is also likely that some of these colonists, if not a vast majority of them, will be struggling to survive in conditions they could not have prepared for, and may find themselves in dire straits.  If that is the case, then we will be obliged to offer what aid we can, whether it is resources (assuming we can spare them) or possibly taking them aboard our exploration vessels (again, if space and resources permit).  On the other hand, it may be beneficial to try and join with existing colonies as local bases of operations, as the locals should know much about the particular areas they have claimed.  Each case will have to be evaluated individually, and the ultimate decision lies with your commanding officers.

There are also those who ventured into the depths of the Demon Sector looking for profit, whether it is natural resources they can claim for resale, or, more likely, those thinking there are lost civilizations and their treasures to be claimed.  UEF-01 and 03 have encountered at least half a dozen of these groups, and each encounter has been hostile, half of them devolving into shooting matches due to the perception by the treasure seekers that our explorers are there to claim their wealth.  When encountering unknown groups, always exercise extreme caution, and do not stray far from your assigned protective detail.  Be sure to maintain proficiency with your defensive small arms as well while aboard your primary vessels; you likely won’t have time once you’re on a deployment.  Speak with your commanding officers if you require further training.  Remember:  it is ultimately YOUR responsibility to protect your own life; never rely wholly on another for this.

Thank you, and may your journey be safe!

The Time, where does it go?

I swear, this year is just flying by.  It’s been an eventful year, with a slant toward the frustrating rather than the good or bad.  Have had a lot of weather-related damage to the house and have had to have the roof and front porch replaced entirely, have been fighting the lawn mower pretty much all summer to figure out why it keeps breaking belts, and have had various other things come up to fill in the gaps, but I won’t go into details here.

I’d rather focus on how my RPG projects are faring since it’s been four or five months since I last updated here.  I’ve not been idle, though my focuses have changed and evolved…or my brain has just jumped around like a cat chasing a laser pointer, take your pick.

01

The I-89 Megadungeon Project

I had to put this project on hold back in June.  I still like the idea, but I kept running into the same problem:  lack of excitement.  By this time, I was making progress into the sixth level of the dungeon, but my excitement began to wane.  I realized this was due to lack of development for the setting and a lack of inspiration for the design of the level itself.  

For the setting, I had never really delved too deep into it, my focus being more on my science-fantasy setting at the time, along with my actual tabletop gameplay being fantasy-focused.  So, the post-apocalyptic vibes just weren’t flowing.  I began to lose interest in the level as I’d had it originally planned, because things just started to seem far too similar to previous levels.

Basically, I was working on a secret underground military base, but it felt a lot more like the hidden government facility I’d just finished the month before, basically more office-like and less top-secret military project.  This was during the height of the Great Lawnmower Saga of 2023, so I had been feeling a little drained in general, and just decided to shelve the project for the time being and focus elsewhere, and pick it back up later once the ideas started flowing that way again, and likely with a complete redesign of that level.

02

My TTRGP Games, and A PF2e Rant

I’ve kept up with my actual tabletop games pretty consistently thus far.  The Abomination Vaults game I’ve been running is still moving along at a steady pace.  The players just finished level 4 during the last session, and are beginning some additional content relating to the town’s Founder’s Day festival, which is tying in with the need to retrieve four items that once belonged to the founders.  I’ve been keeping track of the players’ progress daily in game, and it has proven very useful in providing additional ideas for new encounters and enemies outside what the AP itself offers.

For example, just last session, the players came across a message scrawled on the door of their home talking about the “New Blood awakening”.  I’m making things a little more exciting by not having the denizens of the dungeon be entirely cut off from the outside world with new allies that share their goals.

As far as my playing experiences, I’ve been in an Age of Ashes game for a while now as well, and have been having fun with that, though it is proving to be quite the challenge since we’ve only got three players.  Even though we’re dual-classed characters with a free archetype, it’s not enough to make up for the lack of a fourth person and those three extra actions in each combat.  We just hit level 11, and after scouting out the dungeon we have to tackle next, I’ve got doubts about our chances at success.  There are some encounters in there that will be rough for us on their own, and it’s very easy to have encounters multiply there from what I’ve heard (it’s the Quarry dungeon for anyone familiar with the AP).  Thus far, we’re considering our options for a commando-style strike, teleporting into the room with a particular boss and taking them down hopefully without alerting the rest of the dungeon, grabbing the artifact we need to progress the story, and then getting out again; since we’re using milestone experience for that game, it’s really the smartest play.  However…due to one character having a very strict anti-slavery stance, and there being quite a few slaves being held captive in the first chamber of the dungeon…our plan has been complicated immensely.  Likely we will have to try two strikes, but we’ll see how it goes next session.  TPK is always an option, lol.

The two games mentioned here have both been Pathfinder 2e games, and since we started with the system earlier in the year, I’ve had my opinions shift a bit on the system.  While initially it seemed pretty fun, I’d heard repeatedly from one particular player that being a caster was just not fun in the game; he’d played multiple casters in these games and others I’m not part of, and had nothing good to say about them.  I thought he was just bitching to be bitching, as he’s been known to do that before.  Having seen casters in action from both sides of the GM Screen, however, I’m leaning toward the camp of “casters suck” in PF2e. 

To put it simply…it’s not a lot of fun if you’re expecting your magic to be effective against enemies.  If you’re playing mostly a support caster buffing the party, yeah, you’re probably going to be having a blast, but the way these APs are setup, don’t expect to feel the same if you’re trying to damage or debuff enemies.  The way the numbers work, you’ll be lucky if most enemies only Succeed on their saves against your spells and debuff attempts.  For example, in the upcoming dungeon, most of the encounters are on the high side of the difficulty scale, and thanks to the numbers, most of the monsters will be able to get a Success on their saves by rolling 5 or better, and most of the time, that means half damage, or they get no effect from the spell at all.  If they Critically Succeed, well, it’s just no fun at all.  I feel like my spells succeed maybe 1/3 of the time at best, whereas the martial characters are hitting enemies successfully at least half the time, if not more.  I’ve dove into the debate and researched what I’m “doing wrong”, but no matter what explanations I’ve seen to the contrary, it just isn’t fun when a system that is so tight in the math, where every +1 modifier can make a difference, is so geared against me as a caster.  My numbers are behind the martials on my spell attack rolls, and I have no way of increasing those numbers through item bonuses like they do.  I can try to debuff monsters through skills, sure, but it’s usually not enough to matter in my experience (true, I guess the dice rolls are just against me most of the time), and trying to affect them with magical debuffs is just an exercise in futility most of the time.

Take a fight against a golem during one of the earlier games in the Age of Ashes for example:  all of us failed our Recall Knowledge checks on the golem, so we had no idea what spells would affect it at all.  This led to me hitting the martials with a buff or two, the cleric/champion trying desperately to keep himself and the fighter alive while they were getting pounded, and my summoner pet doing everything it could just to keep the golem knocked down and flank, because it could barely hurt the thing.  To put it mildly, the fight was a slog.  The second golem fight not so much, since we made our checks, but then the last golem fight was another slog, because we failed our checks again and had no idea of its weaknesses, and nothing I did affected them until I hit them with a cold spell.  This didn’t damage them at all, but did slow them, so I just spammed Ray of Frost the majority of the fight while knocking them over with my pet, until I had to pull the pet back, because, even though all summoners are masochists, they have limits, namely their shared HP pools.

I’m enjoying the game, but I’m growing very frustrated at how my experience as a spellcaster has been going, and everyone I’ve spoken to in my circle who has played the game feels the same way, and has similar experiences to share.  And yet I keep hearing that I’m doing casters wrong because I’m not supporting enough or debuffing enough, and that casters are super fun to play.  Well, I’m not seeing it.  Maybe it wouldn’t be so noticeable if we’d actually encounter some lower-level threats from time to time, but pretty much everything we encounter is close enough to our level that at best it’s 50-50 on my success rate or worse.  But even that isn’t a guarantee; one of the fights last game had a group of enemies using stats from another enemy we’d encountered 4-5 levels earlier fighting alongside a pair of golems we’d failed our knowledge checks on…these supposed “mooks” either got Successes on their saves or Critical Success when I tossed out a big AoE spell to start that fight, so across five or six enemies, I got a total of about 12 damage.  Yeah, really not feeling too great about that…  

03

NEW TTRPG Developments

Though I’ve been playing mostly Pathfinder 2e (and one lingering D&D 5e game which is…meh; I don’t care for 5e), my developments on my own TTRPG projects continue in other directions.  I’ve renewed my interest in a custom version of the Star Wars Saga Edition system.  I feel like this is a great option for a more cinematic-action styled sci-fantasy game, and after having played PF2e for several months now, I have changed my course a bit on revamping the system for my own needs.  Basically, I’m implementing PF2e’s Three Action Economy.  Since both PF2e and Saga Edition are rooted in D&D 4e mechanics, they mesh really well.  I’ll be reworking the SE Force powers into spell effects, and removing the condition track, replacing them with PF2e-styled conditions.  Overall, I don’t think it’ll be too difficult to do at the core level, but will take a bit more work to tweak spells and certain abilities to replace mentions of the condition track.  I’m hoping to try a play test in the next few weeks to see how it performs at an early stage.

I’ve also been developing with an eye to the Old School as well.  With my apathy toward D&D 5e already high when the Great OGL Kerfuffle of 2023 happened back in January, and my faith in PF2e as a viable replacement waning based on my experience as a caster, I’ve been looking hungrily toward trying an OSR campaign using Castles & Crusades.  The more I read into the system, the more I like what I’m seeing.  Things are just so simple.  It really does feel like an evolution of AD&D 2e (which is where my group started way back in the late 90s, though it was only a year or two before we jumped to 3e and stayed there for ages).  After seeing how PF2e has so many rules dictating exactly what you can do, it’s refreshing to see a minimal character sheet that isn’t filled with practically no restrictions.  You can try anything you want, and might even succeed if you describe it well enough or roll high enough; that simplicity is what really sells the OSR games to me.

As such, I’ve taken a renewed interest in evolving my fantasy setting over the last few months.  I’m working on some new characters and ideas to try some solo hexploration gameplay to help develop the actual campaign setting areas for the players, and have been working on renewing some old characters from my previous games and stories to work them into the newly evolving setting, while putting my own flavor into the classic fantasy staples (elves are more like vampires from the classic Vampire: The Masquerade setting, for example, in which they tend toward grand, long-running schemes to control everything behind the scenes the older they get).  Thus far, I’ve got the groundwork in place for the Curse of Cypress Isle (a hex-crawl island exploration adventure in the style of the classic Isle of Dread adventure, flavored with aspects of the real-world Oak Island treasure mythology), the Muckenmyre (a new area of the world, a massive swamp area with some interesting characters in the costal town of Grimbridge), a newly started northern area with some flavor of Skyrim (I’m using my Skyrim gameplay to try out building up an adventure using inspiration from various sidequests and moments in my current playthrough), and of course, the city of Arcavarlon, which I will continue development on as I further expand my campaign setting.

I’ve got a lot of ideas, and I just have to get them out of my head and onto the screen!

04

Onward to the Future

Well, I think I’ve gone on long enough for now.  That covers the major updates on my gaming projects.  From here, I’ll say that I’m going to attempt to get back to posting updates here more often as I go, detailing the various settings and locations within them, as well as my continued experiences as a player and GM.  

The best of luck to you on your adventures!  Thanks for reading, and keep your eyes peel for more soon!