EOTE: Droid-like Typing Detected

Modesty Blazing 02

Episode 02: Droid-like Typing Detected

The Zeltron pilot Darter Kel had been detained for questioning by the authorities of Smallberries Skystation on Hypori. After all he was the one who dealt with and was up close with the former Captain Razi Sunmote.

The errant Captain Sunmote used a droid caller to muster an attack force made of dormant battle droids. The droids had been reactivated from salvage taken from the Hypori. After dealing death and destruction within Section 12 of the skystation, Sunmote and his droid force jettisoned their captured section and jumped into hyperspace on a desperate mission of vengeance.

But Darter's shipmates, the droid 41-VEX, the Trianii bounty hunter Qillian Ryn and Trandoshan hired gun John Tray'Essek, were released on their own recognizance, after a good word from the entrepreneur they rescued, Gir Tashkent.

The crew of the Modesty Blaze was waiting for Darter's questioning to end when a sharply-dressed human came knocking on the ship's ramp struts. VEX, in the lower cannon turret, spun the weapon at him in retaliation to the knocking. Qillian rushed down to greet the man, who introduced himself as Colonel Zev Sleen an Imperial officer.

He offered 4000 credits to take him to and bring him back from the nearby Khov system.

Qillian took over the pilot seat, apprehensive over having to fly the freighter without their designated pilot Darter. He had trained for some hours (buying 1 Rank in Pilot (Space) with the last of his XP) and had gotten slightly better at it in the last few hours.

It should have taken three hours to reach Khov, but VEX forgot to carry the one in his calculations (with no successes in Astrogation) so they arrived three hours late.

Khov System

There was a blue white planet shrouded with clouds. Its polar caps is too frozen to support life. VEX scanned and spotted an automated intermittent signal from the liveable equatorial region. Colonel Sleen confirmed from the coordinates that it was their destination.

Qillian fought the winds as he dove under the clouds, causing the drinks Tray was serving Sleen to spill. Soon he was flying the Blaze through an overwhelming ice storm. The clouds cleared to reveal a cliff wall before them. The Trianii - to his own surprise - banked away and threaded his way through a canyon (thanks to a series of Piloting successes).

The signal led them to an open hangar bay at the foot of an icy mountain. Fifty metres above it on the steep mountainside was a command structure with a large window overlooking the frozen countryside. Both were dark and did not appear to have any lights activated.

Qillian had a bad feeling about this. A sudden downdraft tried to force the Modesty Blaze into a crash as it came in for a landing, but Qillian - again to his own surprise (with a success that involved 2 Triumphs) glided in with hardly a tremor.

Our first double Triumphs!

EOTE: Modesty Blazing

Modesty Blazing

Episode 01: Skyfall

Note: This GOKL campaign follows the Star Wars Edge of the Empire Beginners Game that started with GOKL Escapes Mos Shuuta and continued with GOKL Escapes The Insurmountable Ned. Now that the former Krayt Fang has been renamed Modesty Blaze (after a short stint as Babymetal before retcon renaming) after its major refitting on Rodia, the campaign will now be named "Modesty Blazing."

No Obligation roll just because.

Initial Destiny pool rolls resulted in this:

The Force was used repeatedly over the course of the game.

Ord Throsol

Ord Throsol was a white dwarf system with multiple asteroid fields and thick cometary clouds. The airless planetoid known as Ord Throsol was centre of mining refinery and manufacturing. The Modesty Blaze is berthed alongside the scout vessel, the YV-929 armed freighter Veracity Slush. The Blaze crew had just been commissioned to deliver machine parts to Gir Tashkent of Spacewell Manufacturing Inc. on Smallberries Skystation in the Hypori system.

But first, Zeltron pilot Darter Kel, the droid 41-VEX, the Trianii assassin Qillian Ryn and the new Trandoshan hired gun Tray'Essek bade farewell to Nora Romanova, the Wookiee Lowhrrick and Twi'lek Oskara who have joined the crew of the scout vessel for a job beyond the Saijo Sector. A moment later the trio was gone with the Slush.

As they prepared to raise ship, an RA-7 droid stopped them. He had a package that also needed to be delivered to former Imperial captain Razi Sunmote of Sunmote Trading on Smallberries Station. Darter was reluctant to take on any impromptu jobs but the droid was very transparent. He showed the holo message from Sunmote, which had the proper documentation, and opened up the package to reveal the old droid caller inside.

An extra 1000 credits earned from going to Hypori couldn't hurt.

On the Road

VEX calculated the hyperspace jump perfectly (with 3 Successes on Astrogation) shaving some time off the journey. However, they were violently pulled back into realspace 20 light minutes away from the planet Hypori. VEX scanned the area and discovered a gravity field projected from a nearby asteroid. Also, three R-41 Starchasers were accelerating to attack speed toward them.

Darter's superior piloting skills allowed him to execute a tight turn keeping the fighters boxed inward of their turning arc. (Successes and Triumph on Darter's Piloting roll gave everyone else an upgraded skill and a Boost dice.) 41-VEX angled the shield as Qillian loosed a barrage which missed. However, one of the Starchasers were slammed by Tray's multiple blasts and disintegrated catastrophically. First kill!

Most successes with the least dice we've ever seen thus far. 

EOTE Tabletop Day Episode: First Day on the Job

For International Tabletop Day today, Irfan a quick game of Edge of the Empire for Irfan. Then, Farid and Cikma came a-visiting and Farid joined the game.

Edged by the Empire

Episode 05 First Day on the Job

Previously: Hondo Pash and his little sister Yuzy Pash had finally freed themselves of the crime lord Teemo the Hutt. With their newfound friend the armoured bounty hunter Giin Lawquane and two astromech droids R2-8B8 and R5-K2, they began to carve a life for themselves in the spacelanes of the Outer Rim Territories with their YT-1300 light freighter Lava Jaeger. The first stop in their quest for their first freight job: the planet Rodia.

Formerly the Krayt Fang, the Lava Jaeger soars away from the Tatooine system. 

The ship set down in Landing Bay 4 in the small town of Port Trammel on Rodia. (Music played: "Approaching Rodia" by Kevin Kiner from Star Wars: The Clone Wars for atmosphere. You can find the mp3 at his website.)

Hondo is met by 32-VEX, the starport authority droid who welcomed him to Port Trammel. Hondo had 375 credits. After port fees, he now had 345 credits.

32-VEX asked, "Are you here for business or pleasure?"

Looking at his wallet, he said, "Definitely business. I'm looking for a freight jobs with my ship."

VEX informed him, "Although we're a small settlement, we do have requirement for offworld shipping. Feel free to ask around. Have a nice day."

After the droid left, Yuzy came running down with her walking staff, followed by Giin and R5-K2. The nine-year-old chirped, "Okay, Hondo. I'm off to go buy some food and provisions for the ship!"

Hondo was surprised. "Wait! We don't have the money to spend!"

"Oh," she grinned cheerfully. "I swiped 200 credits from Teemo's palace before we left. We'll be fine."

Giin shrugged. "You want me to go with her, bothth?"

"Yes. Protect her. Please."

"See you in three hours," said Yuzy with a smile. And then R5, Giin and Yuzy was out the landing bay doorway.

Man, I need a better gaming table. 

Robotech RPG: The Sinkhole Situation

Irfan began a playing a new game today: Palladium's Robotech RPG. Sila had a copy back in our teenage years. I played less than her friends and her did because I was away from home for most of the time. We were totally into Robotech. Sila taped every episode for me to watch when I'm back from boarding school. We bought and read as many of the Jack McKinney novelisations as we could.

And 25 years later Irfan is now playing it. I'm running it. I admit I was curious to see how the system feels like when I'm now 40 years old.

He rolled up an RDF Veritech pilot named John Barnes, named after Troy Barnes of Community, played by Donald Glover.

Actual play report follows:

January 7, 2009

RDF Nouakchott Base 

Flight officer Barnes was an F-22 fighter pilot, assigned to the Robotech Defense Force base outside Nouakchott, the capital city of Mauritania. His usual missions were flying patrol sorties along the West African coast. He had been training in a VF-1 simulator for months, but he had never seen one before...

Until today.

A flight of three new fighters landed at the base early in the morning. They had livery of dark blue with light grey highlights. The Nouakchott base insignia was painted on both its tailfins. Although it resembled the obsolete F-14s, it had modules that fit onto the fuselage strangely. He knew what they were. It was time to see them at work.

Squadron Commander Shiryo Kikue ordered Barnes to fly the new VF-1J on a northwest heading at ten thousand feet and engage an F-35 in a mock aerial combat sent from RDF Gibraltar. The base had a dozen Destroids - ground-based mecha - assigned to it that was used to patrol the coastline and the wastelands surrounding the city, but this was the first time Veritechs were assigned to Nouakchott.

Barnes made himself comfortable in the VF-1J's cockpit and familiarised himself with the "thinking cap" helmet. Just after sunrise, the fighter was airborn.

Night's Black Agents: Let Slip The Ovcharkas of War

Last time on Night's Black Agents: Jacob Novazembla, Nikolai Kaidanovsky, Sami Härkönen, Brendan, Shiina "Misha" Mikado and Zlatan Kljujic were finally reunited at the heavily fortified ranch of King Valentin the "Devil's Husband" after extracting his love, the Romani vampire Vienna "Vin" Cesarescu from the deadly R-Team, Inish Medical's special operations team. Leaving Faris Barrar and his men stranded in Bucharest, Romania, they fled across the Bulgarian border and the Danube river near Ruse and Shtraklevo. 

Day 05 Monday: Very Early Morning

Brunch Planning

It was late after midnight after everyone had some hours of catching up, rest and planning. 

Since Vin needed the Inish serum to function in daytime without adverse effects from the sun and going on a bloodlust, Nikolai - a former Russian GRU operative who was also a medical doctor - went immediately to work at the ranch's lab trying to analyse the vial she entrusted them with. She kept the other one, rationing it for herself.

Misha, who had arrived earlier with Brendan, told them that Julia, the cousin of Georgeta Andrea Grigore, their anti-human trafficking activist contact in Bucharest, was being held there - reminding them that King Valentin was still a human trafficking scum. They cannot rely on Valentin's help and would need to leave as soon as possible. But to where? Options include Stockholm (their allies from the Eurovision mission) and Novosibirsk (Nikolai's GRU allies), and how would they get Juila out as well.

Sami and Zlatan planned to take the Niva to scout the surrounding towns the next morning while the others would protect Nikolai and reconnoiter the ranch, looking for assets and exploits.

Zlatan used a burner cellular phone to call his former colleague Rosa Martinez in Munich. She was an American field office manager for Case Protection Services, a private military contractor Zlatan used to work for in Afghanistan during Operation Anaconda. She agreed to do a favour for him: to send a surveillance team over the border into Austria. If Farris Barrar and his team reached their safehouse in Vienna, Zlatan wanted to know. Zlatan told her, "Do not engage them whatever they do."

"What are you working on, Zlatan?"

"It's big. You'll know it soon. Thanks." The Bosnian wheel artist sent her contact instructions and hung up. Fatigue took its toll and he fell asleep.

Two Female SWAG Thieves

No, not art thieves on the Star Wars Artists' Guild. Just drawing two Star Wars thieves as requested by their players for the RPG!

My first SWAG requests for the year.

Denma Hawat

requested by "hiei252".

Lorin Dall

requested by IJ Thompson.

Wandrella - With Stats!

From the first ever Star Wars original novel, Splinter of the Mind's Eye by Alan Dean Foster, is the giant worm known as wandrella. It was visually defined by Chris Sprouse in the Dark Horse Comic adaptation mini-series. There is a link to the D6 stats below, and comparable (more or less) FFG stats are displayed beneath it.

Why would you not want your player characters face a giant slimy albino worm that couldburst out of the ground or a dark, dank cave during their adventures?

Night's Black Agents: A Sunny Day in Pripyat

Previously in Bucharest, Nikolai Kaidanovsky, Sami Härkönen, Shiina "Misha" Mikado and Zlatan Kljujic were joined by the cleaner only known as Brendan. Their recent recruit, the French thief Marcel Clouseau was lost to the bite of thousands of vampire puppies and a well-placed thermobaric warhead near Lake Titan.

Nikolai, who was about to extract their ally Vienna "Vin" Cesarescu, suddenly found things at the Sunrise Hotel to be chaotic. Face to face with the lethal R-Team, Inish Medical's operatives sent to East Europe for a job, Vin's quick thinking saved Nikolai telling the others that he was a member of Julian Dragani's police cadre on their pay. But he found himself in a car fleeing the hotel with the driver Gregor, Faris Barrar, Mr. Chow and other members of Inish Medical's R-Team operatives.

The agents' tacnet still active, they began planning.

Misha and Brendan were to go directly to their teammate Jacob Novazembla (because their players were absent) who was with the Romani criminal cartel lord King Valentin, awaiting the retrieval of his love, Vin.

Sami and the visibly shaken Zlatan (at 0 Stability Points) still wearing their puce jogging suits and helmets drove their Lada Niva pacing the R-Team's vehicle as they headed away from city centre.

Jegergryte's Cartol's Emporium is Live

Audun "Jegergryte" Lovlie has released his fan-made Star Wars RPG supplement to Edge of the Empire. You might have seen the cover he requested for it in an earlier blog post here.

Entitled CARTOL’S EMPORIUM OF USEFUL THINGS: THE CATALOGUE OF SHINIES the pdf details the mobile shadowport known as Cartol's Emporium, where a nest of fringe characters dwell, as well as stats for various weapons and ships that the characters might need or encounter in their adventures.

Click here to check out the blog post with links to the file on Dropbox and Google Drive.

Barri - With Stats!

Like the space slug, the barri is another beast that lives in vacuum. A barri breaks down asteroids using its acid secretions with its mouth and absorb its nutrients. It can also propel itself by expelling gaseous waste underneath its quadridactyl base. (Yes. It farts though space between asteroids.) Being semi-sapient, it can form telepathic bonds with spacers allowing them permission to hitch intersystem rides on the hull of starships. It can also bestow instinctive astrogation figures to their mind-bonded spacers, giving them faster, better routes through hyperspace.

The creature first appeared in West End Games's Creature of the Galaxy in 1994. Its write-up and D6 stats can be found at pages 12-14. I have converted them (more or less) to Fantasy Flight Games' Edge of the Empire RPG system here.

Because the central theme of Edge of the Empire is spacers making a living in the galaxy, the barri would be a good creature to encounter in asteroid fields or in a cometary fragment when the navicomputer of a players' ship is busted. What if the barri has its own agenda? What if the barri decides to jump to an accretion disc of a black hole.

Eclipse Phase: The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star...

Location: Sacajawea Patera caldera in Ishtar Terra, the surface of Venus.

Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: The infomorph DANAI in a q-morph, the other infomorph Wandering Ina in a Venusian flyer morph, Billy Cable Jr. paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut - neo-octopus artist in another q-morph.

Then

The Venusian chapter of Fastball Express, under the cover name of Gamera Security, had been commissioned by Morningstar Constellation security executive Kage Musha to investigate possible terrorist activity among the aerostats of Venus. They began operating on the orbital habitat Gerlach, then established a branch in a dirigible docked in the aerostat Aphrodite Prime. Their investigations brought to light that the orbital habitat Timothea Bush-Kennedy, also known as Timbuk3, had been attacked by TITANs during the Fall more than a decade ago, broke up and crashed into the surface of Venus, no one knows exactly where.

When the reclusive artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos farcasted to Aphrodite Prime to display the unique psycho-empathic sculptures he acquired from the aliens known as the Factors, GamSec discovered a terrorist organisation known as the Free Fall Network (FFN) were violently against the terraforming of the surface of Venus. The terraforming drive was headed by the Solid Ground Initiative (SGI), a patron of which was the Marquis himself.

Their investigations led them to the aerostat's Aviary where genengineered avian fauna were being developed for atmospheric terraforming. They discovered that the Aviary was being renovated and expanded by a hypercorp named Ikea-Tata Constructions. The construction site hid a flexbot combiner tank which GamSec and their allies neutralised before further damage was done.

Ikea-Tata Constructions, GamSec discovered, was created by a clique of Venusian thrill-seeking skydivers who was involved in a fatal crash to the surface, all cortical stacks lost. After their backups had been reinstated in new morphs they were compelled to form the hypercorp to vie for terraforming construction projects across Venus.

The Marquis security job also led them to the FFN terrorist agent Saladin Pelita who only appeared to them as an AR projection. After the Marquis returned home, Saladin was successful in somehow poisoning all the animals in the Aviary. Later, Kage identified him as Baron Julian Robbari, the heir to Soletta Corp. Robbari had instated a former employee of Timbuk3, Shelby Cobra, from storage and set him to work in city cybersecurity. Using remote surveillance, GamSec had discovered that Shelby had been bouncing line-of-sight signals off Gerlach's hull mirrors. The signals had been directed back to Venus, to a caldera on Ishtar Terra called Sacajawea Patera.

Under Kage's authority, GamSec travelled to the mining aerostat Lucifer where the ursomorph members of the Teddy Bear Roadside Picnic Company salvage hypercorp where their CEO himself Mr. Snuggles decided to fly them to Sacajawea Patera to  Shelby's signal was bounced, where according to Mr. Snuggles was an area claimed by a rival salvage hypercorp known as Ladyboys Salvage and Repo. They had claimed the area, but kept it dormant for months.

What were the Ladyboys protecting and what did it have to do with Shelby Cobra, Saladin Pelita, Free Fall Network, their anti-terraforming drive and attempts to keep the Marquis d'Homem-Christos away from Venus?

At the caldera, Mr. Snuggles and GamSec discovered a large fragment of a fallen orbital habitat that against the laws of physics had survived uncontrolled planetfall. It was being monitored by a Ladyboys domed encampment. A closer inspection identified the half-buried debris as Lake Okeechobee Research Facility, a compartment from Timbuk3! Its systems still active, it scanned and identified Billy Cable Junior's mesh ID as William Cable, confirming memories stolen from Shelby Cobra earlier that his father had been on the habitat before it crashed into Venus.

And despite Mr. Snuggles' protests, Cable was determined to get into the fallen fragment to discover its secrets.

Now

It took DANAI's persuasive skills to make Mr. Snuggles agree to the plan. (Persuasion success 43/60.) He only agreed when they informed him of a possible TITAN threat. The plan was for Mr. Snuggles to fly in with the lander, jam all comms as it approached allowing GamSec to attack the Ladyboys' q-morph guard. The universal airlock would then be used to board the fragment of Timbuk3 station for boarding from within the lander.

Eclipse Phase: At the Bottom of the Gravity Well

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star...

Location: Lucifer, Venus.

Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina the infomorphs, William Cable Jr. - paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut - neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph.

In Transit to Altitude 40km

The mining aerostat Lucifer was a bustle of activity. Miners. Support staff. Security. Tethered over Ishtar Terra close to the north polar region it was being assailed by gale force winds generated by a Venusian polar vortex. The aerostat appeared from a distance to be listing although tethers allowed it to maintain station keeping. But Lucifer was their destination, tracking a terrorist signal from the city aerostat of Aphrodite Prime that was bounced off a mirror assembly on the superstructure of the orbital habitat Gerlach.

GamSec descended upon Lucifer via an elevator from the floating high altitude docks. Their patron Kage Musha had his salvage contractors the Teddy Bear Roadside Picnic Company provide them whatever they needed to complete their investigations. The TBRPC representative who escorted them down was Mr. Goldie, sleeved in a sun bear-variant ursomorph.

Mr. Goldie explained to them that Lucifer mined minerals from Venus surface, and two security hypercorps were contracted to protect the operation. TBRPC and the Ladyboys Salvage and Repo hypercorp, who also had salvage operations on the surface. Teddy Bear and the Ladyboys had a well defined boundary of operations which they both adhered to. This caused a slight competitiveness to emerge between them.

EOTE: Return to Mos Shuuta

Edged by the Empire

Episode 04 Return to Mos Shuuta

The Star Wars RPG adventure continues from the previous session with Act 2 of The Long Arm of the Hutt free downloadable adventure (PDF download, low res version, 2.4MB). The story arc concludes with "Return to Mos Shuuta", but the module has been extensively modified to account for a lot of changes that took place in the course of several sessions.

Irfan rolls the Force Dice and gets 3 Dark Side Points.

Kaliklak Hive, Geonosis

As Teemo the Hutt's agent Zasvid the Brizzit was being taken away from Archduke Poggle the Irredeemable's audience chamber in Kaliklak Hive on Geonosis, Hondo Pash the captain of Lava Jaeger, the Twi'lek Numa of the Nabat Militia and the astromech droid R2-8B8 considered their next move. For his transgressions against Teemo's less-than-savoury enterprise on Ryloth and Geonosis, the Hutt planned to abduct Yuzy Pash, Hondo's sister at Mos Espa on Tatooine.

Because of his badly injured arm (Critical injury: Crippled Arm) Hondo spent the night in a bacta tank courtesy of Archduke Poggle. The next morning, after Hondo was decanted from the tank, Numa and he geared up for the mission to Tatooine.

Archduke Poggle gave permission for R2-8B8 to join their company and bade him farewell. Lava Jaeger took off and Hondo made a success jump to Tatooine. (Astrogation 1 success)

Night's Black Agents: Attack On Titan

Previously, Nikolai Kaidanovsky, Sami Härkönen, Shiina "Misha" Mikado and Zlatan Kljujic were joined by the French thief Marcel Clouseau in Bucharest who once dealt with Inish Medical before their exile fro Romania. (Clouseau has been relegated to a non-player character as his player had moved out of town.)

At midnight, the agents met up with the freelance cleaner Brendan, who had worked with Misha and MI6 before in Eastern European black ops. Plenty of codewords were exchanged at the cafe between Misha and Brendan before trustworthiness was established. In the end though no one could tell if a codeword was being used.

Brendan said, "Thank you, I'll leave now."

Misha paused for a second then asked, "Is that a code phrase or are you actually leaving?"

"Yes."

DAY 04 Sunday

Before Dawn

Sami and Zlatan prepared to support Clouseau's undercover dog-catching job at the Harmony Wings apartment building near Lake Titan. Zlatan bought them all a Toblerone bar each in case they need to defend themselves against evil, mind-controlling vampire doggies down in the park. Meanwhile Sami prepared their gear. Nothing out of the ordinary. Just some GoPro cameras, scooter helmets, jogging suits, firearms, quadrotor drones, remote listening devices, improvised explosive devices and one RPO-A Shmel rocket launcher with a thermobaric warhead.

Never know when one would come in handy against vampire dogs.

"This place looks worse than the first season of The Wire," Zlatan told Sami when they saw the condition of Harmony Wings. It was still dark when Clouseau and the other two hirelings Petru and Drago were met by Doctor Ana of Keller Training at the park. She led them through the trees by the decrepit 20-story building. It looked older than it was. It smelled worse than it looked. Other apartment blocks stood out among the trees of the park in the distance. Lake Titan was within eyeshot of the block. Connected to Harmony Wings by a pavement was an even worse looking building: the abandoned public swimming pool, its windows darkened by what appeared be extreme mildew.

Eclipse Phase: Thanks for the Memories

I missed two roleplaying sessions of Eclipse Phase since the last game.

Location: Aphrodite Prime, Venus.

Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina the infomorphs, William Cable Jr. - paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut - neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph.

Hokusai-free Session 01: Don't Play Koi With Me, Cable

A more detailed write up of this session can be found on Obsidian Portal.

After the Cumulus Hotel caper, Hokusai stayed on their dirigible while Cable, Ina and DANAI went out into the field.

As Cable was viewing the flying gasbags that they'd saved from destruction at the Aviary, the animals began falling and crashing onto the deck dead.

Kage Musha their patron in Morningstar Constellation called for GamSec to chew them out. How could have the Aviary animals be poisoned? There was a danger of Kage punishing GamSec by resleeving their egos in koi fish and displaying the koi in his aquarium in his office.

Cable confidently allayed Kage's doubt about GamSec by informing him that he had direct connection with Free Fall Network (FFN) and their contact, Saladin Pelita. Saladin had believed that Cable was a fellow anti-terraforming terrorist. Satisfied by Cable's information, Kage informed him that from his own surveillance and intelligence gathering, the individual named Saladin Pelita was sleeved in the morph resembling Baron Julian Robbari, the heir to Soletta Corp a known front for the Fa Jing criminal organisation.

Cable also informed Kage that they would next be investigating FFN's agent in Cumulus Hotel cybersecurity, the reinstated civil servant named Shelby Cobra.

Hokusai-free Session 02: This Time We Keep A Copy

A more detailed write up of this session can be found on Obsidian Portal. 

The speck bot they left in Shelby Cobra's apartment alerted them to suspicious activity. The laser communication system had been transmitted while being pointed at Gerlach station in orbit. To investigate, Cable, Ina and DANAI booked seats on a shuttle from Aphrodite Prime.

Meanwhile, Cable had fabricated a new tripod walker morph with installed weapons ranging from railguns to seeker weapons for DANAI to use. The walker was named "Paul".

The trio investigated the spot where the laser comms had been transmitted to on Gerlach and discovered that the mirror system there had been hacked and coopted to bounce line-of-sight beams back onto Venus: specifically somewhere in Ishtar Terra at the north polar region of Venus. The patch was rigged with an improvised explosive devise. Unable to defuse it, GamSec had to call station security to help neutralise the bomb.

Unable to determine where the signal was directed to exactly, the team returned to Aphrodite Prime to interrogate Shelby Cobra.

As management consultants, GamSec would invite Shelby for an interpersonal, live interview. In preparation, they rented an office space and fabricated two more Paul walkers mounted with non-lethal armament and EMP microseeker launchers to quickly prevent him from calling for help. Ultimately, foam spray, EMP and neural agoniser were deployed to take down Shelby... who was basically a regular unarmed civil servant.

In simspace, Shelby was confused but cooperative, confirming that he was an indentured ego who was reinstated and offered work in Aphrodite Prime by one Julian Robari. But he did not remember bouncing the secret communication laser off Gerlach.

DANAI and Ina performed psychosurgery to delete Shelby's memories of them and released him. Also, they pocketed a fork of Shelby -  a copy of his ego - for further interrogation.

BareBones Fantasy: Over The Hills and Far Away

Some time ago, I ran BareBones Fantasy RPG for Irfan. The campaign is set in the default setting: the Keranak Kingdoms! Late afternoon yesterday, we continued the game with him playing the halfling spellcaster-warrior Jake Hastur and I running the human scholar-scout Finn Riverwyld. We stopped by sundown and resumed the game this morning.

Last time, Jake and Finn were commissioned by Duchess Lyla Keranak of Kingsbridge to look for her missing brother Captain Kane Keranak, or at the very least return his signet ring back to her. The duo travelled to the Island of Netharak where he was last seen. After having rested in Mr. Bonewall's house at the fishing port of Dronak, Jake and Finn geared up and set out northwest to where Kane was last seen headed.

Not the real cover of this game, but a bear does appear later in the game.

Day One

The duo headed into the thick jungle.

By noon, Jake had almost wandered into a river with foul black water but Finn with his superior scouting skills stopped the faux pas. Then a large, slimy tentacle burst out of the water. They both hastily retreated toward separate directions, but the tentacle hunted after Finn, who promptly hid in thick bushes beside a fallen tree. Jake hid up a slope by tall trees and bushes. Before the tentacle found Finn, Jake cast a lightning bolt (29 from Offensive Strike 56%) that blew a hole midway down the tentacle, spilling its black blood.

Finn used the distraction to roll under the fallen tree trunk and scramble up the slope toward Jake. As the flailing tentacle smashed up nearby flora in pain looking for prey, Jake's second lightning bolt hit, severing it where the bolt struck. The tentacle withdrew rapidly into the river. Finn thanked Jake as they resumed their journey.

We never did find out where the tentacle came from.

They were halfway up a heavily-forested mountain when night fell. It was raining heavily. Jake cast a spell to push away the rainclouds away from the mountain. Finn set up their tent and a fire and began dinner.

The night passed by without incident.

Night's Black Agents: A Romanian Rendezvous

Previously, the Agents completed a week-long mission at Inish Medical, a multinational medical corporation that was using the haemocanis serum derived from blood of certain East European dog breeds to give vampiric abilities to their subjects. Inish appeared to have larger, more diabolical plans for the serum application. It was up to them to discover what. 

The Agents began a new mission: to gather intel on Romania. Inish took interest in criminal underworld in Bucharest, who helped them acquire special breeds of dogs in Romania before the Heimdall debacle.

They also had a secondary mission: to extract their ally Vienna "Vin" Cesarescu from Inish's task force - the R-Team - that had a job to do in Romania. Vin was a Romani woman who displayed vampiric symptoms and abilities even before Inish abducted her and forced her to work for them. R-Team would be arriving in Bucharest on Saturday.

DAY 01 Thursday

King Valentin's Lair

Jacob Novazembla, freshly bitten by Vin several days ago during the Inish mission, had arrived a day earlier at the sea port of Constanța on a solo assignment to King Valentin a.k.a The Devil's Husband, a leader of a Romanian criminal organisation. (Jacob's player was absent, so he was relegated to the role of an NPC.) King Valentin's distrust of Jacob was alleviated when he sniffed his odour. When Jacob refused his insistence, King Valentin's men grabbed him and pulled down his pants for a visual confirmation. Valentin dropped his own pants as well to show what they both had in common.

Vampiric bite mark at the nether regions, caused by Vin. "The smell is unmistakable," Valentin remarked.

Then, still pantless, he embraced Jacob with glee and growled happily, "WE ARE BROTHERS!"

Valentin agreed to help the Agents.

Jacob wished his pants were back on.

BU-77, Fugitive ARC Trooper

I once posted about BU-77 the ARC Trooper, my Star Wars D6 RPG character from the  Team: Sabredart campaign, complete with D6 stats.

Recently, I found a line art of BU-77 that I drew after became a fugitive from the Republic and wore a new costume he found aboard the Mandalorian Dungeon Ship Lost Hope. So I imported the drawing to GIMP and painted it up a bit.

Cartol's Emporium

Cartol's Emporium

Jegergryte did not wish to disturb me after I created artwork for his Edge of the Empire group, so he requested an artwork on SWAG. After a month or so without being picked up - and I had some free time to spare - I yoinked it

The drawing of the modified Kuat Drive Yards EF-76 Nebulon-B escort frigate would be used for the cover of his Edge of the Empire homebrewed supplement entitled Cartol's Emporium.

To make the Emporium seem busy with business, I also included other ships in the artwork. Ships from campaigns I ran or played in! Clockwise from lower left:

• Nova Coyote - a Corellian YT-1760 from WOTC's Star Wars Gamer from Team Sabredart the SWAG Clone Wars D6 campaign.
• A Bad Example - a SoroSuub Personal Luxury 3000 space yacht from A Bad Example in the Spacelanes our D6 campaign here a couple of years ago - originally used for Lando's Lady Luck and recently seen in The Clone Wars TV series.
• Lava Jaeger - Corellian YT-1300 from the ongoing Edge of the Empire campaign I'm running for my son titled Edged By The Empire.
• Firebird - a Mon Calamari MC4E jump freighter, the only original ship here from Strikeforce Enteague my very first campaign back in 1989. 

The supplement will be released December 2013. Watch this space for further announcements.

Jegergryte's Crew

Some months back, I drew some player characters for Jegergryte's Edge of the Empire RPG player characters. I pushed my digital painting abilities, exercising my skills so they would be closer to what they should be if I am to land better freelance art jobs.

Jace

Jace Maverick is a swashbuckler with a vibrorapier and a charming smile. I thought I'd give him a costume design resembling the Naboo Security Force's.

The Kraken

Thracken "The Kraken" Artox is a grimy Rodian gadgeteer with a cyborg eye and a MerrSonn Type-434 "DeathHammer" heavy blaster pistol which obviously has been through a lot.

Doc

Doc Ariela Mengalic a.k.a. Ghia Necil Zilar is a Colonist / Doctor. She has a Tenloss DXR-6 disruptor rifle, a medpac on her hip and a bandolier of ready-to-use stimpacks.

Blue

Walian "Blue" Mothma is a human Force sensitive assassin who wields a BlasTech A280 blaster rifle, with a underslung grenade launcher.

Che Rohn

Che Rohn is a Cathar thief who wields a Merr-Sonn Quick6 blaster pistol with a grappling hook launcher attachment and a wrist-mounted dart shooter.

Syris

SY-RS2003.12 is a unique pilot smuggler droid with a Thunderer T-6 blaster pistol.

These are awesome player character concepts. Wish I was in this campaign with these characters.