MTU Solo: Leaving Montca

We managed to get a few passengers. One we're trading cabin space for his brokering skills for Mont. For some reason Mr. Klytria thinks there is a market for his services on Mont. From what I've been reading in the ship's library, he won't have any competition at any rate. Our other mid-passenger is an Aslan, a Respected Scholar Kea Tesi. Apparently from some large clan and is spending some time touring the League. If we had a high passage cabin she would have gone for that as she apparently does not lack for funds. Unlike Mr. Klytria, she is travelling pertty lightly - her comp and a large trunk on wheels is all she has, unlike the collection of bags our other passenger carries. Paying off the warehouse fees and our port charges took all of Cr500. As we were at the pax boards finalizing the passenger list with the port authority. Bobbis Elber, our broker on Montca, waved us over. 

"I see you're taking Petria to Mont. Should be interesting - he had a good career with Mika and Daughters on Llamma but was struggling a bit here. I hope things will work out for him on Mont. Though I'd never want to step foot on that sauna!" We were seated at a small cafe in the concourse, drinking some excellent coffee while Ewo sipped her tea as we listened to Bobbis. "And Mont is not a well-protected as Montca, but with that piece of rock they call a starport, I don't think there is all that much to protect!" He ordered a small pot of coffee and another of tea. Always a business man, and he did make a fair anount of credits from us. I shared a glance with Ewo who merely raised an eyebrow, her tail twitching the only sign of her impatience at the interruption of our duties. 

"Petria, he's pretty good, and would probably be an asset to a trader such as yourselves. If I were hiring I'd probably see if he was interested. But then, more business for me as I don't deal with Mont all that much. Mostly just rocks from there, though I've heard they do have some hot waters that are supposed to be therapeutic.  And thanks, I'll cover the tab. Off to meet up with Sanford and his crew, see what sort of cargoes they are hauling in now. Good seeing you," and he got up, leaving a few credits on the table as he walked towards the tubes to head for the warehousing district. [my starport encounter was meeting a contact. He was the only contact I have on Montca. Plus throw in some little details about Mont that may or may not bear any fruit later]

Getting our exit coordinates and time was a simple matter and we were lifting off from Montca 4 hours later. Manning the comms, I signaled our final vector after verifying the course from Captain Laux and we headed for the jump point almost 5 hours away. As we were accellerating, a very fast shuttle was fast approaching our vector. Opening a comm channel, I alerted them to their proximity. It turns out they were part of the local Space Patrol. and while they did not require boarding us, they were escorting us out-system. Over the internal comms, Captain Laus told me not to worry. "Montca is pretty protective of their air space. I was surprised we did not get boarded on the way in last week. Unlike Mont which has nothing to even protect their air space! Don't fret, Malik, things are going as expected." And they did shadow us until we were almost at a standstill outside the 100 diameter limit. Gave me plenty of time to plot the course to Mont and recheck the figures against the computer a few times [rolled a 10 for his astrogation]. I signaled the ship that we were about to hit jump space, and dimmed the lights. I just like the old traditions. Got the okay from Lando and our new engineer Egg and closed all external ports and vid feeds as we made the gentle lurch into jump space.

The week was not made easy by Respected Scholar Tesi. Though she may have earned that honorific, she showed little respect to the crew, and by the crew, I mean mostly me. [rolled for an obnoxious passenger, and she is a haughty Aslan from a major clan; details below, The additional roll indicated soclal was the way to deal with the passenger]. Ewo tried to reason with her a bit, but from with her, but from what I could tell, Ewo's clan was not in the 29 major clans and the Respected Scholar seemed to not really respect Ewo's clan ranking. And though they both spoke different dialects, it still sounded as if harsh words were being spoken when they dropped back into Trokh. From what I gathered from Ewo, the scholar felt it beneath her to speak the common tongue or Galanglic. And, after hearing how she won two duels, I was not going to say anything! The week in jump was not entirely comfortable, so I spent a fair amount of time in the cargo holds, checking and rechecking the cargoes. It was with a sigh of relief when we were approaching the time to drop out of jump.

Okay, I've managed to move the story along. I've covered Petria Klytria's background. Let me cover our respected Scholar Kea Tesi. I used the Aslan module of RPGSuite to generate her, and it was interesting and pretty detailed. Except that now I can't get those details out: the PDF export seems to fail with her for some reason. And the Aslan character generation actually goes back 2 generations to cover land and clan status. So, I am going off of memory mostly as the history function (which lists everything they did) also appears to not work. I may have to put in a bug ticket. I did export her in JSON but that is a HUGE file that has the entire system in there it looks like!

Kea Tesi is the youngest, and apparently coddled, daughter of a major clan. Her social rank of 7 in the Aslan Hierate indicates some major family holdings. In fact, her grandfather managed to greatly expand their land holdings, and her father, though not as successful as his father, also increased their holdings. Kea is smart, and went into the sciences as an exploratory scientist. She roamed worlds and was promoted regularly. Twice in her career her findings were challenged. And twice she entered duels, winning both challenges, though barely. But they took a toll on her, and, suddenly more frail than she was expecting at the age of 36, she decided to explore on her own terms.

Respected Scholar Kea Tesi age 36, 5 terms Scholar: Explorer/Scientist

Computers-2, Navigation-2, Admin-1, Diplomat-1, Investigate-1, Pilot (Spacecraft-1), Recon-1, Science (Xenobiology-1, Biology-1), Survival-1, Tolerance-1.

Has clan shares in a major corporate holding, has about Cr350,000/year dividends. 

Career history pulled from the JSON file (5600+ lines of a lot of repetition):

1st term: Electronics, Investigate, Admin, Pilot, Tolerance, and has a contact with an alien (non-Aslan) scientist which is where the Tolerance skill came from. And she was promoted.

2nd term: Survival, Social + 1, but failed a survival roll. Fortunately, there was no damage. There was also the 1st duel, and at that time having a dexterity bonus, used that and won the dual. "You face the elder on the field of honor. A clan elder challenges your work as being flawed." Her work and her dual was not flawed! This is where the +1 social came from.

Term 3: picked up Xenology, Navigation, another social bump. She was teaching the cubs this term, got promoted. 

Term 4: Picked up recon, biology, admin-2 and diplomat. Another few years of teaching those cubs. 

Term 5: Navigation and Social +1 (hence the snooty Aslan!). Failed the survival roll so there was yet another challenge from another elder. She won this one as well, but failed horribly at the aging roll: it was -2 for each of the physical stats! As well as intelligence. Time to leave (and that was the worst aging roll I've ever had!)

Mustering out she picked up 2 intelligence, 2 clan shares that she converted to corporate holdings worth Cr350,000/year and her handy TL-C computer. 

"You are the youngest daughter your family. You own an operating corporation with 10MCr in assets that produces profits equal to 1D% of those assets per year. You will find this represented in your pension with the average amount you will receive each year. Kea also succeeded in 2 duals impugning her credentials and abilities. After the 2nd duel, she decided to strike out on her own."

And now she is on the No Refunds. Which interestingly enough is the name of the trader in the Cepheus Deluxe book. Wonder which came first - I've had the name in use for a few years now - will have to look to see when I first started using it. And more interestingly: I just bought the softback version, and a month later they now have the hardback. I usually get the hardback as they generally last longer. May still get it and if I do, will give this version so someone I play with in case they want to run the game.

And it is really hard to find an Alsan female character art. This is actually from Star Wars but could work:

Petria Klytria - Traveller Broker

Realizing that a broker may be a good addition to a merchant crew, or at least a contact, I used the RPG Suite to create a merchant broker. 4 terms and he only ended up with broker 2, and one of those was from getting a rank. And honestly, broker really bends the game far too much in the merchant's favor I think. And finally, not sure there is actually room on board the No Refunds for simply a broker. Ewo handles most of the ship's financial and administrative side of things, and I think there would be too much overlap in duties. He also overlaps Malik's area, which is steward and comms/sensors. So I think we'll just allow him to be a passenger who is trading his commission for passage. He'll help at Mont (though no idea what he is going to do there - we'll see as we get there I suppose).

Petria Klytria is a small, nervous looking man in his mid-30s. Early balding has given him a penchant to wearing hats. He carries a ceremonial dagger he received after more than a decade brokering and dealing with suppliers, brokerage houses and merchants in the League of Planets. 

His first term was with Micah and Daughters, a family-owned brokerage from Llamma, an agricultural world with an A port. His training included the minimum steward, vacc suit safety, basic electronics and administrative skills. Turns out Mr. Klytria is a very persuasive man, a boon to brokering good deals. He was promoted, and honed his computer and comms skills. Staying with Micah and Daughters, he continued to learn and make more deals, getting promoted and picking up some of legal background for dealing with various entities in the League. He also managed to get a huge tip, and came into some additional credits, but Micah & Daughters thought he was not paying enough attention to their family business, and it was a few years before he got promoted again. Leaving Micah & Daughters, he moved to Montca. Living briefly on the streets before landing a job, where he was rapidly promoted while working at Shuixen Limited Brokerage. Taking some on-line classes, he picked up a broader array of administrative skills. Deciding he had enough of working for others, he decided he would seek out his own opportunities. Realizing that Montca had a wide variety of brokerages, and looking at Mont without a single brokerage, Petria decides that perhaps his future is there. 

Making a deal with the crew of the No Refunds, he makes his working passage to Mont in trade for his trading skills. 

Petria Klytria, Merchant Broker 4 terms, age 34

666B84 (+1 INT DM, -2 SOC DM)

Persuade-3, Admin-2, Broker-2, Electronics (Comm-1, Computer-1), Advocate-1, Streetwise-1, Athletics-0, Wheels-0, Grav-0, Steward-0, Vacc-0

He'll show up on my next solo play, probably this weekend as it is a nice long weekend. 

For those of us in the US, I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

MTU: Mont in Depth

And I spent way too much time creating a pretty shiny gas giant. but I like it anyway. And I can make more with different colors, just wanted to try a purple/pink one. 

 I can make it less shiny but going with that for the moment.

Mont orbits a hot F5 IV star, meaning it is a bit larger than our Sun, and the habitable world is in the 5th orbit. It take over 2,523 days to orbit that bright star, and boasts a day of just over 13 hours. Mont is smaller than Earth as well, boasting about 0.7G. With the tech level of 7, this means no grav plates. And as the port itself is a class E port, there are no amenities there to help with gravity. With the lighter gravity, our adventurers can carry more but if using ballistic weapons that don't have computer aiming and can compensate for the change in gravity, I'd actually do a negative DM for firing. Of course, energy weapons would not be affected as they are always line of sight.

A very thin atmosphere (about 0.2 standard atmosphere) requires compressors to breath. However, Mont is barely in the Goldilocks zone, and has a peak temperature of almost the boiling point of water at the equator. Needless to say, there is very little in the way of native life, and human life here is in deep caves at the southern pole. About 37% water, the atmosphere, though thin, is pretty close to 100% humidity all the time. 

There are about 7000 people "living" on Mont, more aptly living in Mont. The vast cave systems they live in span hundreds of miles. These ancient lava tubes can be over a 100 meters in diameter. Buildings have been carved into the walls much like ancient cliff dwellings. Just with modern plumbing and elevators.

So, exactly why are 7000 people living in this hellish existence? Other than random world generation? A good question. Looking at some of the social notes Heaven & Earth generated, we have the entire population living in a single city. They are a stagnant, conservative society. Changing anything would mean death as, while not a starving population, they live precariously with a hostile environment. The do have solar lighting and vast underground farms. While the planet is only about 37% liquid oceans, there is always water available via aquifers. In fact, the water on Mont is some of the best water you will ever drink: despite the surface being almost uninhabitable, the deep caves provide a cool world of echoes and the constant drip of water. They are miners and farmers for the most part, living as their parents live, and as their parents lived. At one point there was a research station built into the cave system to research some interesting crystals. When that shut down more than a century ago, a small community of belters from Helfom bought the station and moved in. Tired of the endless night of living in a belt, they burrowed into Mont and created a living space in an environment both far different than what they had yet strangely similar. Still dangerous, and still using the some of the same techniques they have managed to at least hold their own, and perhaps even grow a bit. And still an endless night in the caves, though there is the option for sunlight and vistas from the planet's surface.

Being non-industrial, Mont imports a great deal. While they are self-sufficient for the most part, some things are produced significantly cheaper off-world. Crystals and minerals are the primary export for Mont, with few passengers coming or going. 

Mont is part of the League by default mostly: while Helfom is an independent belt outside League boundaries, the original research station was from Montca and was declared a part of the League at that time. The Council of Mont never changed their political allegiance as part of the "purchase" of Mont.

It will be an interesting trip for the No Refund: that class E port is some flat land outside the main cavern entrance. There are no terminal buildings above ground, and the warehouse is simple a blasted cave. Traders are responsible for their own goods. And getting into the underground city could be an adventure of their own. There will be some huge machines piping air down to the caves below, and multiple air-lock style doors as you get deeper towards the city of Chutaco. But that advanced machinery and the polymers may go for a good price here: old machine wear out and they can't make a lot on their own. And they are heavily dependent on the air machinery.

And there is some zooming in Fractal Worlds!

southern continent above, close up of that lake towards the bottom middle-ish

The class E port is at the edge of that lake of near boiling water. There main cave entrance is almost 100 yards away. With the heat and humidity, environmental suits are needed. A bit less than a full vacc suit yet will allow the user to survive. Looking at the rules from Cepheus Deluxe, a character would suffer 2D damage per hour at this temperature. T5 is a lot more realistic at 4 hits per round (9 at the boiling point). So one does not simply walk from the ship to the entrance apparently!

Hopefully I'll get the No Refund to Mont in the coming days. Though I do get a couple days off this week, my son is back in town, so spending some time with him. They grow up so fast! And sadly never could get him into gaming, though we do play an occasional board game. I did try, just not too hard.

Some other gaming news: my Apex game ended with a thud basically. I got tired, and had not really planned out what to do after the temple. But we basically got everyone back. Not enough to go up another level, but they were at level 2 once we got past the main adventure hook. We left it open: they may want to explore the center of the Earth or even other worlds if they can figure out the gates. We've switched to a game we we are playing more anthropomorphic creatures: my centaur that shape shifts to a sugar glider, a large gorilla, a 4 foot squirrel, and the gator man with the Cajun accent. The first session went well, though that gator is the only carnivorous one there: the rest of us are vegetarians. So we have some interesting group dynamics. 

MTU: Mont Image Preview

As my solo game is going to be headed for Mont next, I do need to work on those details a bit. I did get another world builder humble bundle, and this one came with another world fractal generator from the same people as Campaign Cartographer. Fractal Terrain is really powerful and gives me even more control than the fractal generator I was using before. Plus it is fully GUI versus the command line. Though I do like the command line tool as well. It also allow me to output a series of globe images, and from them I can make a gif!

 

And the big world map:

So there is some potential. I am supposed to be able to export that world into Campaign Cartographer, but so far the results have not been great. I just need to play around with the options a lot to figure that out.

And for Traveller at least, the map has some interesting interactivity. It gives all sorts of info where you have the cursor at:

I'll have a further update later this weekend hopefully, but I was excited by more mapping possibilities, and now the ability to make the gifs (which is via a website that I just upload the sequence of images to) I can have more interesting things as well. Though I'll still use GIMP to make larger globes. I need to re-read some stuff as there was a way to make it look like there was an atmosphere as well. And there was a series on how to make gas giants, so I need to work with that some more.

And happy week before Thanksgiving if you are in the United States!

And finally - I was in Florida last week for a small vacation. And I saw a mermaid!

The show was more impressive simply because, while they do use air tubes, they can still hold their breath a long time!

Traveller Solo: Searching for Cargo on Montca

 Montca is an interesting world to travel about in. Our League passports let us exit the port fairly easily as Ewo and I took  an underwater bus from the port to the False Cay. While there were tubeways and a much faster air transport, Ewo and I really wanted to experience the full experience of the more tourist-style of transport. The vehicle, while looking like an ancient submarine, was a fully fusion powered ship.

The sea-life on Montca was much more varied than the land-based creatures. Huge snake-like things slithered through the underwater currents, and once I swore I saw some leviathan out in the murk. There were a few dozen other passengers on the 3 hour trip. My face was plastered to the view ports while Ewo's tail I noticed had some interesting flicks as smaller fish flashed past.

The False Cay is an artificial reef: being both a high-tech and high-population world, Montca built cities wherever they liked. The orbital cities as well as the underwater ones ranged from a few thousand to millions of people. False Cay was a smaller city at just over 100,000 people and while sea farming was what all cities did, there was also an advanced machinery company there, Requiem Machinery. As Mont was our next destination, there is always a demand on non-industrial systems. While also being a bit more expensive on the high-tech world we're on, we were following up on a some rumors to see about a discounted lot. And polymers: there's a unique plant here, ipomoea acuminatus, that is used to make an industrial sealant. 

Leaving the submarine in the undersea city of False Cay (and I wondered, was there a Real Cay?) we joined the small crowd to exit the ports. Taking a slidewalk, we were carried several kilometers to Requiem Machinery. There we met a Mr. Ulf Mathiasen, a salesman for the company. 

"Greetings, greetings!" he said with a short bow in our direction as we were led to his office. "Glad you called, and how may we assist you today?" He sat his corpulent body into a sighing seat as Ewo placed her comp at the desk. She looked over the top of the holo at Mathiason and started the bargaining process. She managed to get him down to 50% of the cost, meaning Cr750,000. Of which we only had Cr400,000. However, he was willing to split the lot in half. A bit later we had made the arrangements to transport 10 tons of machinery parts to the No Refund, and we concluded our business there. 

Being late, we stayed at a hotel that had an interesting view.

It was a very peaceful night, and nice having a lot more space than my cabin back on the ship. Having only Cr25K, we did decide to see about the polymers - hoping we could catch a good deal. A breakfast of fish and some sort of fried sea kelp which was a lot better than I would have expected (and made a note to see about getting some for our ship larder!) we walked the city a bit before our meeting. All the buildings seemed to have their own sea locks in the event of emergencies, and the light through the domes was refracted from the waves. The air did have a salty tang to it and there was always a fresh breeze from the air systems.

Sugriwa bin Selamat of Kapus Lights was a tall man, his silver-flecked hair falling past his shoulders contrasting with his dark skin. He was vice president of extra-system sales and services apparently, and his demeanor to us was not quite as friendly as Mathiasen's. While we did get him down to Cr210,000 for the 40 ton lot and no lower, it was a battle to see about a smaller lot. But finally we got him down to 4 tons for Cr21,000. Arrangements were made to load the ship and we took our leave. Heading back to the port we took a similar sub. My face was still plastered to the ports looking for that leviathan without any luck on the return trip.

Back at the port, we verified that the cargos we had purchased were being transported in the next day or two. Searching for freight to carry, there ended up being 9 lots ranging from 1 to 6 tons, 16 minor lots from 5-30 tons, and 7 major cargos of 6-60 tons. So we managed to fill the cargo bay (which I really need to refigure the cargo: going with 240. See this post for that refit update). I managed our manifest:

• 10 tons advanced machinery (speculative trade; bought for Cr375K)
• 4 tons polymers (speculative trade; bought for Cr21K)
• 10 tons of exotic aromatics
• 10 tons of some odd spices
• 30 tons of specialized seeds as Mont has a similar atmosphere to Montca apparently
• 20 tons of minerals used for some manufacturing process
• 50 tons of insidiants that apparently the deeper part of the oceans here produce. I believe most of the cargo tonnage was based on the very secure looking containers. As with the previous radioactives I stuck a few extra sensors on those
• 60 tons of bulk precipitates
• 10 tons of polymers
• 40 tons of  counter-prions. 

230 tons, which apparently in the League get transported at Cr1,200 for the 2 parsec jump to Mont. The Cr276K will come in handy to pay all the ship expenses. We also picked up several passengers, more than our limited 2 guest rooms would handle. So we at least have a full ship to head off to Mont.

Well, at least I finally got back to this. And mixed and matched a few versions of Traveller. Had I been refereeing the game with players, there may have been some additional conversations with the 2 sales people we met, but as I already talk enough to myself, I felt I did not need to do so. Rolled for reactions and Mathiason had a 10 for very friendly, whereas bin Selamat had a 6, so not as friendly but no outright refusal. Cargo lots and tonnages were from Mongoose v1 as was the speculative trade items. The freight items came from the T5 big book which has some good random cargos, but not for all trade types sadly. And of course Montca was one of those missing any of its 2 trade types. So I used the Fl (fluid) which technically is fluidic worlds, not ocean worlds, but good enough for me. Some random name generators for the various company names, sales people names and the ipomoea acuminatus plant used for the polymer base. Thanks FantasyNameGenerators!

I also rolled in the Startown Liberty book, but rolled up a ship with 7 people in it. Both Ewo & I missed out intelligence rolls to notice, so another missed opportunity. 

In the meantime, what is Captain Laux doing? He, as always, disappears into the woodworks while Ewo & Malik roam around selling and getting cargos. This is me, rolling dice behind my referee screen....wait, just me and me alone. He is busy at the port warden's office, discussing things with the Space Patrol who do have a significant presence on Montca (see this post for a bit more detail). Just what they are discussing I've yet to figure out yet, maybe I'll try & think of something before I do my next solo Traveller post. But it does have to do with the Imperium and the League. Which I also need to see about maybe expanding out a bit, have some tensions. In case I ever get to play in MTU vs the OTU with real people. I may be swaying my Fantasy Trip group to at least try it...

Windemere Characters: Nomehi Wiridea Elf Pirate

 One may wonder why there is a pirate in Windemere, a trading post south of the Kalor Desert and north of the mountains that have many interesting ruins, towns and people. And no ocean for several weeks travel. I'm still working ever so slowly on expanding Windemere out, and the entry for her is:

half Elf, owner of the Silver Pirate.With a vicious scar down her face and disappearing into her high-necked shirt, Nomehi presides over the inn as she presided over her pirate ship: a stern taskmaster who rewards those who do well. Those who do not perform to her standards have the scars to prove she is not above a lash or two. She lives in the owners suite of the Inn, and few have seen the inside of that suite since she took over more than a year ago. She runs the town with the sheriff under her thumb, though most of the town do not know that. She would have sword, agility, toughness, throwing and recognize value skills, as well as perhaps a few magic spells. She always has a saber on her hip as well as a bandolier of daggers. The daggers are well balanced for throwing. Dagger marks on various walls attest to her short temper.

She was cursed before coming to Windmere to never see the seas again. Her crew stuck with her as she headed west, and ended up in Windmere. Seeing an opportunity here, she took over the inn, renamed it, and started her take over of the town. Cursed by the wild witch Angnes after killing her sister, Nomehi is always willing to pay for information as to Agnes’ whereabouts. She has offered rewards to track her down and get her to Windmere to remove the curse and then kill the witch.

We have a witch that has cursed her. Reading through the Wex's Drift Kickstarter 'zine, we do have witches there. So let me tell you a tale of a pirate that was cursed by the Witches of the Warzens of Wex's Drift.

It was a sunny day as Captain Wiridea and her back of scallywags sailed into the port near the City Center. After allowing the Rogue Wave to inspect their ship, they docked and paid handsome taxes for the barrels of pure water they had brought along. What they did not find were the notes about a crystal of power that was the entire reason for Wex's Drfit being what it was: a collection of ships that drafted far off the mainland, a great, dead beast's skeletal remains casting its shadow over the drifting city. Several days of exploration by various crewmembers, and they had pinpointed at least one of the crystal shards being at the Warzen's family compound. Not knowing that the family was, shall we say, not very accepting of visitors, their midnight foray led the captain and five of her crew to be captured, cursed, and via a gate powered by the same crystal she was wanting to capture, cast out into the Kalor Desert. The curse won't allow her to be on the water ever again: despite her skills, any boat she is on will sink, any attempt to cross water deeper than her knees causes her to fall face forward and possibly drown if she can't crawl back to safety.

Cursing the witches, she and her crew took over the small trading village, naming the tavern the Silver Pirate. She still plots a revenge, and wants to find a wizard that could remove her curse so she can get back to the Eastern Ocean to pursue those witches that caste her out.

The Silver Pirate is a fine location, offering a wide variety of beers, wines and foods that are constantly resupplied via the trading caravans. There is a strange bird kept behind the bar that seems to eat all sorts of scraps. The remaining crew call it a cacklemaw bird, and it somehow got caught up in the gate spell and came with the pirates when they got dumped in the desert.

Still need to figure out how to add more personality not only to these characters but to the town as well. I've yet another Kickstarter that may help as it evolves the towns over time, much like a character leveling up. Of course, it would really help if I could edit my thoughts better and perhaps not try to pull in everything from, well, everything.

You can search on the Kickstarter site for Wex's Drift for more details. It is currently out of stock according to what I think is the primary web site here. I've also decided I'll add actual character sheets to the back of my document, and this was the 1st one. Eventually I'll share the PDF but it is, like a lot of my life, sort of all over the place. All these ideas that I think, if wrangled, could be good and useful for other people as well.

Dangerous Destinations Preview

 Loresmyth sent out a preliminary PDF of their Dangerous Destinations book. I took it for a quick spin just to see how the basic mechanics work. So here are my die rolls and what they mean. The dice range from a d4 to a D20 depending on the table.

Theme

Rolled a 13, which is a grief theme, something with deep emotional pain.

Previous Presence

A 16 indicates this is a "creature territory", so that is perhaps the main part of the dangerous destination.

Continued Presence

A roll of 10 says this creature is still present, and co-exists with everything around it.

Destination Type

A 6 indicates this is an outpost, which then leads us to the outpost chapter to see just what sort of outpost this is.

Kind

A 5 says this is an observational outpost, watching the locals.

Importance

4 indicates this is not a particularly important outpost.

Size

A 1 indicates that this not particularly important outpost is also tiny, as in perhaps a single building or even smaller, such as a room in an inn.

Condition

A roll of 3 indicates that this tiny, unimportant outpost is also in poor condition

Equipment

Despite being tiny, unimportant and in bad shape, the equipment roll of 9 indicates at least they keep their equipment in good order!

Current Inhabitants

1 indicates that these are the original inhabitants, so our observers have been here a while. 

Disclipine

They are also well ordered with a roll of 6 - no slackers present.

Environment

Rolling an 11 we are in an urban environment. 

Danger

9 shows an intelligent monster, which means we then turn to the intelligent monster section.

Motivation

Our intelligent monster is waiting with a roll of a 7. Why is he / she / it paused? What is it waiting for?

Success

With a roll of 2 this monster is frustrated. Maybe because of all the waiting.

Kinship

A roll of 9 indicates that this particular monster is very divergent from the rest of their kind. They are a walking / crawling / slithering / flying / whatever antithesis of the rest of their species.

Age

A roll of 1 means we have a baby! A baby what though? And why by itself?

Size

A 2 indicates this divergent baby creature is also a runt - perhaps that is the primary divergence.

Local awareness

A 9 shows the locals are well aware of our baby runt creature.

Local Reaction

3 indicates out locals understood what the creature was trying to do. and they did whatever it was.

Local Coexistence

With a 6, there is some sort of symbiotic relationship: both the creature and the locals have benefited. Perhaps even the environment has also benefited.

Pulling it All Together

So what does all this mean? As I am working in Windemere (and apparently I have multiple spellings for this particular trading post on the Ocean Trade Route), let us stick this tiny outpost in one of the ancient buildings in the town directly. Our observers have taken over a small building near the north wall and gate. The building was already falling apart when they moved in, all 5 of them. Fortunately there are 6 bedrooms in what used to be an officers barracks back when Windemere was an outpost for Tavonu. They have been here a couple years now, and keep getting funding via a trade caravan that comes from the neighboring kingdom of Afguilla. As to what they are observing: there is a stunted baby gelatinous cube (yes, I wandered through a few monster books and while technically a gelatinous cube as no intelligence, this stunted smaller cube somehow is intelligent. We'll just go with that). This cube, whom one of the observers has nicknamed Geoffry Gelatin, moves through the caverns near the remains of the road that goes through the mountains. Normally cubes are about 10 feet on a side, this one is 1/4 the size. In The Fantasy Trip system it is a 1 hex creature (and how handy I have that size die). He actually cleans up the dungeons: the remains of animals who have died there no longer decay but are eaten. Some of the locals, noticing our observers have been going regularly to the caves, accompanied them and observed baby Geoffry going about his (her? its?) business, avoiding the people who crept into the caves. 

Now, we started with grief, and noted that Geoffry is frustrated with waiting, yet the locals seem to understand that it is somehow missing whatever parental unit it came from, and may be searching. But, as a rule gelatinous cubes are non-intelligent, this mutant off-spring is going to never be able to find his parent cube. Let the pathos spring forth.

So how do the locals benefit? Well, if there is a death sentence perhaps they could get Geoffry to eat the remains, and so there are no burial plots. Visitors to Windemere, should they wander by the graveyard will notice there are no prisoner plots. Of course, some places burn dead prisoners, so that is not so unusual. But those caverns are conspicuously clear of dead animals, so larger predators seem to stay clear as well.

To make this dangerous, some of the locals may not like having a gelatinous cube wandering about: think of the children if they should go play in the cave! Perhaps they want to send the adventurers up to kill Geoffry. Can our cube even communicate? Perhaps he is acidic enough and has been making etchings and can spell things out if they pay attention to their surroundings.

And why are there observers? Because the neighboring king wants to weaponize Geoffry: if it could be trained to attack the enemy at night, think of the terror, death and destruction a tamed gelatinous cube could cause!

Adventure hooks

1. there is a reward to clear out the caverns from the menacing gelatinous cube. Note that the observers are probably against this sort of thing, so may present some protection for Geoffry.
2. the observers hire the adventurers to protect Geoffry from a small mob that is going to hunt down and kill the monster
3. while exploring the caverns, the adventurers notice crude writing etched into the floors, along with images of a small cube and a large cube. Where are you? seems to be the common refrain
4. hired by the king to retrieve Geoffry and take him to the kingdom. What could go wrong transporting a 5 foot gelatinous cube, assuming they can even capture it (not that cubes move all that fast, but how do you hold on to it?)
5. the wizard that accidently created Geoffry finally realized that his spell really misfired and is searching for Geoffry and needs seasoned adventurers to help with the hunt. 
6. Geoffry somehow has a magical power stone inside (or some other magical artifact). Do you have to kill it to get it out? 

And we could always use the classic Star Trek Devil in the Dark episode to get a feel for how this could play out. Except now we have the child instead of the mother.