The Solar System in My Homebrew Setting

Lately, I've been working a lot with a character who is an astronomer--Niela from Of Gods and Dragons, specifically, a woman whose knowledge of the stars gave rise to the campaign in the first place. It struck me that I've carefully mapped my world, created an accurate globe for it, and written about it in detail here, and yet I've never looked beyond. The one thing I know is that the planet that is my homebrew setting is called Izar. That said, I should know more, especially given that I have a regularly featured character who specializes in astronomy--she knows what she's talking about, so I need to. 

When it comes to scientific knowledge in my setting, things are deliberately incomplete. I teased in both Listen Check and Lethanin's intro session in Of Gods and Dragons that there was more to the world than people know, and so this accurate information is known only by a few leading experts willing to delve into esoterica and theorize on their own. And since Niela is just such an expert, this will be information she has and can talk about. All of this said, here's a guide to the solar system Izar resides in. 

Time Loop Adventure: Distant Star Space Station

Over the last year and a half, I've developed a kind of format for time loop games, ttrpg one-shots that have mostly-scripted events occurring at a variety of locations and a sort of puzzle for players to work out in order to resolve conflicts in those locations. I started with a quiet seaside town called Standstill Cove, where players had to prevent a mysterious foe from exploiting the time loop to cause destruction. After that came Hourton City, a much darker adventure set in a large city; this one-shot centered around completing the necessary steps to break the time loop. To this developing tradition, I'd like to offer this, Distant Star Space Station, a one-shot where players must manipulate the time loop in order to escape the failing station and its dangers. 

As I've said of the previous time loop one-shots, there is a strange balance to strike with these adventures. On the one hand, there is a need for there to be a certain level of scriptedness (which I mostly provide in the notes below) in order to seem like a time loop at all. On the other, players will rarely have occasion to live out parts of the loop in exactly the same way for strategic reasons, and there's little reason to not simply say, "You successfully maneuvered this before, so there's no reason to make you repeat your success" once the players have figured out a section of the puzzle and don't want to change anything. This means that you will have to do some improvising with the notes below as more of a guide than a strict and complete script. I recommend reading through the entire adventure's notes below to familiarize yourself with the general aims and story moments that will be the most important and trusting your instincts as you try to help your players navigate this adventure. 

 

One key difference between the Standstill Cove/Hourton City time loop adventures and this one is that those games focus on interacting with people in the locations at various times, while this adventure has no NPCs in it at all. Instead, this game revolves around environmental storytelling, where all of the discoveries are made and the objectives completed based on observing the space station itself. This is a quite different mode of game which requires a great deal of investigation and puzzle-solving without the complication of social interactions. I hope you enjoy this experiment in environmental storytelling.

Please have fun with this adventure, and good luck! 

Con Space: The Sequel to the Con Air One-Shot

Perhaps you have completed the Con Air one-shot. Perhaps you haven't; in that case, you can still make a memorable gaming event of the wild 1997 movie by playing the linked adventure. But here you are, at the outset of a new adventure, one that begins in the stars. Last time, the players escaped from the dangerous flight of the Con Air at the site of Area 51, asked by a host of aliens to help free their people from the mysterious military base. Read on for the full instructions of the Con Space one-shot. 

If you're interested in creating your own one-shots from a movie, read this guide for how to create an adventure like this yourself. 

If you have played before, feel free to use your characters from the Con Air one-shot. If you are beginning here in space or your players want to make new characters, here's the guide from last time for creating characters: 

Introduction

Character Creation: Players must design their characters with 5 details in mind. (1) They'll need a character name. (2) They must have committed a crime to be included on the flight; even if they are innocent of the charge, they must have been found guilty. (3) They must select two traits from the below list of character bonuses. (4) Players can get access to an extra trait if they have a sufficiently tragic backstory. (5) Players can get access to another extra trait if they commit to using a bad character accent for the duration of the one-shot. 

The bonus traits: 

1. Firearm Proficiency - Without this trait, a character has a 25% chance of hitting an enemy with a firearm. With this trait, a character has a 50% chance of hitting an enemy. (Roll a d100--50 or below means a success)
2. Melee Proficiency - Without this trait, a melee weapon deals 25% damage to its victim. With this trait, a melee weapon deals 50% damage to its victim. 
3. Military Training - Without this trait, a character can deal 10% damage per turn without a weapon. With this trait, a character can deal 50% damage per turn without a weapon. 
4. Explosives Expert - Without this trait, explosives cannot be interacted with. With this trait, a character has a 75% chance of safely arming or disarming explosives. 
5. Criminal Reputation - Without this trait, a character can intimidate someone with a 25% success rate. With this trait, a character can intimidate someone with a 50% success rate. 
6. Dramatic Dashing - Without this trait, a character can leave the range of an attacker in two turns. With this trait, a character can leave the range of an attacker in one turn. 
7. Too Much Time in Isolation - With this trait, a character becomes volatile and can make two attacks in one turn once per combat. 
8. Death Wish - With this trait, a character may absorb an otherwise lethal blow as though they were never struck at all. Works once per one-shot. 
9. Astronaut Training - With this trait, a character knows how to survive in space and can even set traps for aliens. The traps are small explosives that deal half lethal damage to anyone nearby. They have three traps.
10. Inside Job - With this trait, a character can convince an alien to turn on their allies and fight until the end of combat, when they will try to run away. 

Now that you have characters to play with, continue for the adventure.