'Nathan Burgoine's Blog, page 3

Tabletop Tuesday — Nyberrite Alliance Mission Brief: “A Classified Incident of Diplomatic Sensitivity”

Happy Canada Day! If you’re like me, you’re melting rather than celebrating, but as this isn’t just a holiday but a Tuesday, I’m here with my sixth of eight planned Nyberrite Alliance briefs. These Mission Briefs follow the typical format for Star Trek Adventures game from Modiphius, across a decade or so with the intention of revisiting the people of the Nyberrite Alliance and adding their influence on Alpha and Beta Quadrant space. This one takes place after the Dominion War, brings the crew back to the Balduk system, which they originally visited in “Caught Red Bladed.”

This episode is intended to give the crew a moral quandry alongside a chase and hide-and-seek mission as the crew try to catch a vessel that got a head start on them, but should start to question why they’re on this mission, and who they’re working for the more they look into it. Do they disobey orders when the orders are of a morally compromised nature?

A Classified Incident of Diplomatic Sensitivity

Suggested Era of Play: The Next Generation era, late 2370s

Pilot’s log: “We’ve been diverted for our scheduled mission and have laid in a course to the nearby Balduk Sector at best speed. Admiral th’Thyran has asked us to aid Federation Ambassador Simon Markham with a classified situation unfolding there. 

I’ve been sent a full briefing packet on the capabilities of Nyberrite Alliance scout vessels, which contain complete details about their systems and capabilities. I’m not sure what’s ahead of us, but no doubt the crew will be up to the Ambassador’s task—wherever I need to take us first.”  

Suggested Spotlight Role: Conn officer, Ship’s Counsellor

Synopsis
Diverted from their regular missions to the Balduk sector, the crew’s vessel is placed somewhat at the disposal of Ambassador Simon Markham, the ambassador currently posted to the Balduk homeworld and the primary Ambassador between the Federation and the Nyberrite Alliance. A talented diplomat, negotiator, and—though not widely known, a talented esper for a human being—the Ambassador’s importance to the relationship between the Nyberrite Alliance and the Federation shouldn’t be understated. 

By this point in their interactions with the Nyberrite Alliance, the crew are aware of the Nyberrite Alliance tendency to neutrality, and should also have had some experience with the Balduk, or at least their Warriors, who are considered some of the most honourable—and skilled—individuals alive. As such, when the Ambassador explains their mission is to recover his kidnapped son Kit Markham from the Balduk pilot, Jomin Thakett who delivered him to and from school every day, it should take everyone involved by surprise. Thakett has full Balduk Warrior status and trained with a full unit of honourable warriors, was in part assigned to Kit because he could double as protection, and has apparently kidnapped Kit and stolen a Nyberrite scout vessel for locations unknown. Ambassador Markham wants his son found and returned, but quietly. If news of these events were to leak to the newsfeeds or other public awareness, it would cause a major diplomatic incident, one the Ambassador is keen to avoid.

The crew must chase down a talented Balduk warrior through some red-herrings and false-leads, all while uncovering enough clues to cast doubt on the details they’ve been given: there’s more going on here than appears to be on the surface, and while the Ambassador is definitely keen to recover his son, the reasoning isn’t what it at first appears to be. Kit Markham has taken after his father, and his own esper talents, while just coming to full bear, unintentionally picked up on his father’s back-room dealings with more militant members of the Nyberrite Alliance—and a movement the Ambassador is attempting to put into increase the active relationship between the Nyberrite Alliance and Federation, which has involved the Ambassador using his telepathic abilities to undermine more traditionally neutral voices. When Kit realized the full extent of what his father was undertaking, he tried to speak to his father, and Ambassador Markham attempted instead to telepathically erase his son’s memories of what he’d learned. Managing to break free, Kit asked Thakett to protect him and get him off-world, and Thakett held true to his vows to protect the boy. 

Directives
Recover the ambassador’s kidnapped son without causing a diplomatic incident.

Major Beats
Tag, You’re It—The crew are diverted to the Balduk Sector by Admiral th’Thyran, where they meet with Ambassador Simon Markham, who beams aboard and explains their reason for being summoned: his son has been kidnapped by the Balduk pilot Thakett who took him to and from school. No demands have been made, but the Ambassador doesn’t intend to wait for any—he wants the crew to get on the trail immediately, as they are quite sure Thakett took Kit away on a Nyberrite Alliance scout ship. Both the Admiral (via subspace) and the Ambassador make it clear this is to be dealt with quietly and carefully; the last thing the Federation needs is to cause a diplomatic incident with the Nyberrite Alliance. As for a motive, the Ambassador is unsure, but he is involved with many negotiations at any given time—someone aligned with an opposing point of view could have hired Thakett to do this. Telepaths and empaths will quickly realize that the ambassador is himself telepathic—a rarity among humans—and certainly capable of keeping his thoughts to himself. Those with familiarity of the Balduk will find it surprising the ambassador believes a Balduk warrior like Thakett could be enticed to act this way for someone in his care. Still, there’s not much time to waste on discussion given the scout vessel has a head start.

Hide and Seek—Use a series of gated tasks. First the crew need to pick up and reconstruct the trail from the planetside port on Balduk where the scout ship left—what scant data they have access to without requesting formal access to records to uncover the scout’s heading to the nearby G’Ria star system, where a Nyberrite colony was founded over a century ago. Arriving at G’Ria, however, suddenly the warp trail becomes warp trails, in multiple directions. Tracking down the closest reveals a scout ship of same design with a single Balduk pilot on board, Ovah Khovath—a member of the same warrior training unit that Thakett took part in, making Thakett and Khovath something like siblings. It’s clear multiple Balduk warriors have adjusted their individual scout vessel warp signatures to match. Khovath will only say Thakett invoked their shared warrior vows, and she did not see Kit at any point—in fact, Khovath had no idea Thakett wasn’t alone, only that he needed help for an honourable mission. When the crew are done, Ambassador will question Khovath in private (the crew might object, but Markham has the authority to do so), and if the crew try to question her again thereafter, they’ll learn Khovath now has no memory of any of her interactions with Thakett at all. Looking at the adjustments to Khovath’s warp geometry, the crew can work backwards to screen out the effect of the adjustment to once again find the correct warp signature and learn the vessel is on its way to Narendra Station. If someone notes Thakett could have passed off Kit to one of the other Balduk, the Ambassador notes that would break his code of honour. Regardless, the arrival of the Ambassador’s son on as high-profile a station as Narendra would definitely be noticed, and this upsets the Ambassador’s already thinning patience—he orders full pursuit. Digging into records on Thakett and Khovath should only further denote two honourable warriors who never stepped so much of a toe out of line in their years of service—even the Ambassador seems to be relying on Thakett’s honour. Attempting to learn more about the Ambassador, on the other hand, leads the crew into snarls of red-tape, confidential and classified files, and little else, but keen investigators might notice that since the Ambassador was assigned to Balduk, the overall motion of the Nyberrite Alliance has spun more in the Federation’s favour than not, and the Balduk in particular have committed more resources to the area, including in areas that normally the Nyberrite Alliance’s tendencies to neutrality would have precluded, such as supplying ore to the Federation’s shipyards in the Archer system.

Simon Says—The crew catch up to the scout ship before it can make it to Narendra Station, and the scout ship chooses to drop out of warp and attempt to hide and outmaneuver the crew at impulse by weaving in and out of a plasma flow. The crew can risk following the vessel in, adjusting their tractor beam to compensate for the plasma, attempt to take the scout’s shields down and beam off the two lifesigns, or any other technobabble solution they can come up with. Ultimately, they should come face-to-face with Kit and Thakett, with Thakett attempting to stay between Kit and anyone else, the Ambassador demanding no one else speak to them—and calling it a matter of classified Federation security—and the crew having to make some tough choices. Thakett only turns to violence as an absolute last resort, likely ending up stunned if he refuses to allow the crew to take Kit away. Kit will attempt to telepathically contact any telepaths present—he believes they’re the only people his father can’t coerce/affect/erase, but his father the Ambassador will telepathically oppose this effort, which you can roll as a multi-person opposed Task. The crew’s orders are clear, but will they follow them or allow their conscience or sense of honour or simple refusal to act without all the facts to guide their ultimate decision?

Minor Beats
Bringing back any of the Balduk individuals the crew may have interacted with in “Caught Red Bladed” and underline to the crew how Thakett is known to be an honourable warrior. Other contacts from “Neutrality Helps the Oppressor” might also reach out to the crew or be contacted by the crew calling in favours, offering them some of the crumbs they need to put together a picture of the Ambassador as hiding more than he’s telling. Telepths, Empaths, and Espers might look into the family history of the Markham bloodline, and learn there’s an ongoing familial tendency to telepathic abilities, and that the Ambassador trained for a time on Vulcan and Betazed, as well as with Trill guardians who oversee zhian’tara rites—a clue Markham’s telepathy can affect memories. Friends on Narendra Station could also help co-ordinate tracking down where the scout vessel went.

Key Non-Player Characters
Admiral th’Thyran is in the core rulebook. For Ambassador Markham, use Captain T’Mek, but swap his reason and Presence, make him Human, add the Special Rule of Telepathy as well as swapping his Focus in Starship Tactics to Telepathy and his Focus in Astrophysics to Psychology. His Values become “Strengthening the Federation is my Highest Goal,” and “Gifted—and Morally Flexible—Telepath.” Thakett can be represented by a Klingon Veteran, adjusting his Value to “Above All Else, Honour My Vows,” and swapping his Security and Conn, and adding a Focuses in Helm Operations to make him a more talented pilot. Kit is still a young man, can can be represented by the Starfleet Science Officer, but with the added Special Rule of Telepathy—though leaving it unlikely he can best his father in a protracted telepathic battle without luck or help from another telepath. 

Conclusion
Ultimately, this could end in many different ways, including with the crew none the wiser to what the Ambassador has been doing on Balduk if they simply follow orders. The Ambassador himself believes he is doing the right thing in positioning the Nyberrite Alliance as a stronger ally given the losses of the Dominion War, and that those ends of Federation security justify the means of telepathic manipulation. Kit believes he has to stop his father from “hurting the minds” or others. Thakett is holding to his vows to protect the Ambassador’s son, and when Kit told him what his father had tried to do, his honour demanded he protect the young man at all costs—but Kit also swore him to secrecy, not knowing who they might be able to trust in the Federation—Kit knows this goes deeper than just his father, perhaps as far as Starfleet Intelligence and some of the Admiralty. If the crew do keep Kit away from his father—at least long enough to learn the truth—they’ve got something of a no-win scenario at hand: exposing the truth and owning up to the influence (and damage and telepathic assault) of Ambassador Markham will definitely anger the Nyberrite Alliance, though their unwillingness to hide the truth might mitigate the damage somewhat, especially if they’ve already got strong ties with Nyberrite Alliance leaders from previous episodes. Admiral th’Thyran’s response to their choice will depend on whether or not you decide the admiral was in on the Ambassador’s approach or not—if he was, they’ve made an enemy; if he wasn’t, they’ve perhaps earned a deep respect alongside adding a lot of diplomatic and political issues to his plate. 

This Mission Brief was another one spawned by pulling out my Story Engine deck. If you’re curious as to how it came about, this was the spread that gave me the core idea for the plot.

Tabletop Tuesday — Nyberrite Alliance Mission Brief: “Red in Tooth and Claw”

Another Tuesday has arrived, so here’s the fifth of eight planned Nyberrite Alliance briefs. These Mission Briefs follow the typical format for Star Trek Adventures game from Modiphius, across a decade or so with the intention of revisiting the people of the Nyberrite Alliance and adding their influence on Alpha and Beta Quadrant space. This one takes place after the Dominion War, when the Federation is trying to rebuilt much of what was broken during the war, and shows the Nyberrite Alliance as allied in those efforts—and brings the crew back to the Halee System, which they originally visited in “Tradition.”

Last week was a diplomatic episode, but this week it’s all about surviving a dangerous jungle and trying to recover supplies while a clock ticks down for those in need on two fronts: the war-ravaged worlds in need of what’s in the cargo hold, and the people trapped in the jungle in a downed craft.

Red in Tooth and Claw

Suggested Era of Play: The Next Generation era, 2376

Tactical Officer’s Log: “The Halee government has reported a Wallenberg-class transport towing full cargo containers of relief supplies needed for war recovery efforts has been forced to land in one of their predator-filled jungles. A group of Halee rangers reached the site, reported survivors and that the ship was mostly intact, and then went radio silent. 

We’ve been diverted to assist in search and recovery efforts, both of which will be made all the more difficult not only by the limited efficacy of sensors on Halee II, but by the network of shielded pathways the Halee Rangers use to navigate the interior territories of their world. 

These supplies are desperately needed on the former Dominion warfront; we can’t afford to waste any time.”

Suggested Spotlight Role: Security Officer, Engineering Officer

Synopsis
Recovery efforts after the Dominion War required drawing on resources from places left relatively (or entirely) untouched in the conflict, and the Nyberrite Alliance contributes to these efforts with important non-replicatable minerals from their various mining operations, as well as foodstuffs, medicine, and other immediately high-need perishables that allow the Starfleet Corps of Engineers to focus on larger infrastructure recovery projects. When one of these shipments crashes on the surface of Halee II, the Halee government sent out rangers—individuals trained to handle the difficult and predator-filled jungles of the planet’s interior—to the crash site and found both survivors and reported the vessel should be capable of being returning to operation. 

Then their signal went silent. The Halee rangers are an organization of tough volunteers (including criminals, off-world or otherwise, who choose to serve out duty on the rangers rather than incarceration for crimes on Nyberrite Alliance worlds), so while Starfleet isn’t ruling there still being survivors, they’re going to function on the assumption the predators of the jungle may have gotten to the crew and rangers.

The crew arrive and learn that one of the reasons the jungles of Halee II require these rangers is how dangerous they are to navigate, and how the local flora and soil refracts and distorts sensor readings—this won’t be a simple case of beaming in and out, and the density of the flora also makes shuttles too risky a venture, what with no functional landing sites. The Halee maintain routes in and out of the interior jungles with  forcefield-enclosed pathways used to get materials in and out from mining or other production facilities, shielded rest areas, and for the most part, only those working in those environments go much past the edges of the jungles or the coasts or grasslands beside the jungles, where the modern-day Halee maintain their settlements. 

The crew must join their ranger guides, who lead them to the point on the forcefield pathways closest to the crash site and then take them off the path and through the jungle to where Wallenberg 130/22 and its crew of six made their emergency landing. The journey itself is challenging, with Halee II’s predators both foreign and domestic making things harder for the crew, and upon arrival at the downed vessel, they’ll need to make some ethical decisions—because the ship and its valuable supplies can be restored, but there’s also signs an old enemy has taken advantage of the opportunity Wallenberg 130/22 provided.

Directives
Discover the fate of Wallenberg 130/22 and her crew and cargo. If possible, restore Wallenberg 130/22 so she can deliver her necessary cargo; failing that, recover the cargo. 

Major Beats
Mayday Briefing—The crew learn one of the many Wallenberg-class tugs being used to bring necessary cargo to post-war relief effort sites had EPS trouble near Halee II and needed to make an emergency landing before their power system destabilized completely. They succeeded in doing so in the dense jungles of Halee II, and the Halee government sent volunteer rangers (given the danger involved), but those rangers, after reporting that the ship could be repaired and the crew had some injuries but were mostly stable, went radio silent. The supplies are greatly needed, and include refined gallicite intended to fuel power-cells needed at multiple relief stations—without it, multiple refugee medical sites will go dark. There’s also foodstuffs and other supplies that would take significant stress off the limited replicator access on various worlds ravaged by the Dominion War. Wallenberg 130/22 had six crew, was captained by Lieutenant Jeanette Dupuis. The crew are also briefed on the interior jungles of Halee II, which is full of predators, is transport and sensor resistant thanks to soil particulates (which the towering rainforest trees absorb into their bark and branches) and the Engineering Team will have to lug tools and supplies on-foot from one of the force-field pathways the Halee maintain. The group of rangers will guide the group to the landing site. Prep time for the players should involve them considering repair-work based on the initial report from the rangers, and figuring out what they’ll need, as well as reading up on such beasts as the Halee grass leopard, jungle pythons, and Halee divebeak falcons. Upon arrival at Halee II, they beam down to a dedicated transporter pad at the community closest to their destination, and are joined by two Halee Rangers, Mako Naroshan and Arn Khenoya, both with a great deal of experience, who don’t waste time and paint a grim picture of the inexperienced alone in the jungles, noting that they’re both the only two left of their training group of ten “rehabilitants” (both Mako and Arn are former criminals, though they’ve long served out their sentence and find the life of rangering suits them). If the crew think to inquire as to who the Halee rangers were, they’ll be told they were the closest volunteers available, but included two Halee as well as two rangers who were part of the rehabilitant program (which allows those committing major crimes in Nyberrite Alliance space to work in trade against their sentence—many disgraced Klingons, for example, consider this a much better option than simply being arrested and incarcerated, as it offers the chance of an honourable death in battle with the predators of Halee II). 

Off the Beaten Track—The rail journey takes the crew a great deal of the way into the interior of the jungles beneath force-field protected tracks, but the crew should also witness, multiple times, the various avian predators (especially dive beaks) attempting to find weak spots in the cover of the forcefield. The guides note that they’re very good at sensing when forcefields go down, and when divebeaks dive, it can be lethal. The other guide notes that’s only the start of it, as both the pythons and the leopards keep an eye on what the divebeaks are doing, and when they see the birds diving, they know dinner might be served. The railcars stop, and the crew disembark, and then the rangers lower the forcefield only long enough for everyone to get through before putting it back up again. They almost immediately have to stun some divebeaks, and the crew set off on their journey. This should involve extended tasks around navigation, and you can use threat a time or two to introduce some of the local wildlife to challenge the group, and while the trip is challenging, it shouldn’t prove lethal to crew unless they’re foolish. It should, however, highlight that this isn’t a starship or even a Federation colony, where a certain level of safety is taken for granted. It’s hot, miserable, and tiring, but eventually, the crew make it to where Wallenberg 130/22 managed to land—and find it wasn’t the Halee beasts who preyed on the crew after all.

Voluntary Exile—Wallenberg 130/22 appears intact, though it took some minor damage to the landing struts given its harsh trip through the jungle canopy, and the cargo pods are all still attached and in good shape—but her communications, thrusters, and impulse systems are strangely offline—in fact, they’ve been sabotaged, though prioritizing thrusters and impulse, the crew could get the ship back to orbit after making the other repairs necessary to restore the unstable EPS grid that caused the need for an emergency landing in the first place. The crew of six are found sealed inside one of the cargo pods, however, where they’d borderline dehydrated and overheated and have other minor injuries from the original rough landing, but will recover with some medical aid. They can tell the crew what happened—after landing, they managed to get the shields up to keep predators at bay, and since they knew their signal had been received by the Halee II network, they patched themselves up as best they could and waited it out. Four Halee rangers arrived—a Klingon, a Romulan, and two Halee—and initially were helpful, especially the two Halee, but after they reported in, things went south. First, the comm system went offline—which the Wallenberg’s ops technician only realized was sabotage after the fact—and then the shields dropped and a divebeak attack happened so suddenly while they were outside working on the landing struts the rangers told them to take shelter in the cargo pod, the Klingon ranger drawing the attention of the divebeaks to give them time to get to safety. The last thing most of the crew saw was the Romulan turning her stun pistol on the rest of the rangers and then the sound of the cargo pod being sealed from the outside. A quick survey finds the two Halee were fed upon by divebeaks, but also a blood trail leading to a natural hollow formed by multiple tree roots and very injured Klingon, D’Krek. One of his legs is badly mangled by divebeak attacks, but he’s still alive (and will remain so if he gets proper medical attention on the crew’s ship within the next few hours). It’s clear he didn’t just manage to hold his own against the divebeaks, but grappled with at least two hand-to-hand, given they’re dead on the ground beside him (and one partially eaten before he lost consciousness). From him, they can learn the Romulan ranger was none other than Talina (who the crew may have crossed paths with as far back as “Tradition” and “Caught Red Bladed” though if she was caught in “Tradition,” use the Romulan responsible from “Caught Red Bladed” instead). Talina left in the Wallenberg’s sole shuttle, skimming the tree-tops of the jungle (which would be enough to hide it from sensors until it chose to break cover, which she could have at any point later). D’kek managed to recover from the stun soon enough to fight off the divebeaks and drag himself to his hollow beneath the tree-roots. 

Minor Beats
If the players maintained positive relationships with the Halee Neo-Créchists from “Tradition,” noting that the foodstuffs were grown on Halee III could be a quick nod to continuity and the positive results of earlier diplomacy. Mako Naroshan and Arn Khenoya, as well as D’Krek, are all chances to introduce characters who worked (or, in D’Krek’s case, working) their a debt to Nyberrite Alliance society, which Starfleet officers may have multiple philosophical or moral issues with. 

Key Non-Player Characters
Mako Naroshan, Arn Khenoya, and D’Krek can all be represented by Klingon Veteran Notable NPCs, with addition of adding Jungle Survival to their Focuses, and adjusting their Value to “Repaying my debt through service to Halee.” For Halee Divebeaks, use Talarian Hook Spiders, but remove their hooks, treat the “bite” as their impaling “beak” attack, remove the Web special rule, and give them the special rule of “Dive” which allows them to make their beak melee attacks from as far as medium range when done from anywhere above their target, representing their sudden and deadly strikes from above. 

Conclusion
It technically might not be too late to attempt to recapture Talina, but the mission is clear: Wallenberg 130/22 and its supplies are the priority (and Lieutenant Dupuis and her crew will remind the players of that, if they have to). So while the crew could prioritize getting communications back online to try and capture the Romulan woman, in that same amount of time, they could undo the sabotage Talina did to the thruster assembly and impulse guidance systems, which would get the ship back into orbit and—more importantly—back underway with the needed supplies. Also, if they don’t prioritize getting the ship into orbit, they won’t be able to beam D’Krek to their ship’s sickbay in time.

Once out of the jungle’s interference, Starfleet combadges would be capable of reaching their ship; this delay of their report on Talina’s actions means she’ll be gone by then—she’s a trained Romulan agent, and the shuttle is recovered in a Halee shipyard, with another, faster warp vessel now missing instead. Justice for her actions will have to wait. 

 

Tabletop Tuesday — Nyberrite Alliance Mission Brief: “Neutrality Helps the Oppressor.”

Happy Tuesday! Time to get nerdy, and drop the fourth of eight planned Nyberrite Alliance briefs. These Mission Briefs follow the typical layout for Star Trek Adventures game from Modiphius, across a decade or so with the intention of revisiting the people of the Nyberrite Alliance and adding their influence on Alpha and Beta Quadrant space. This one takes place during the Dominion War, and involves visiting the mostly-ocean world of the Nyberrites themselves.

Last week was a murder mystery, and this week is a diplomatic focused event in the grand tradition of Star Trek, including high stakes, and—of course—devious motivations not readily apparent on the surface.

Neutrality Helps the Oppressor

Suggested Era of Play: The Next Generation era, 2374 or 2375 

Counselor’s Log: “After multiple Federation and Alliance ships have been damaged or destroyed by Dominion vessels passing through Nyberrite Alliance space, Starfleet has arranged a diplomatic meeting with some of their officials to discuss what might be done to ensure the Nyberrite Alliance stops allowing the Dominion to take advantage of their non-aggression pact.

I expect an uphill climb. The Nyberrite Alliance prides itself on remaining staunchly neutral in galactic politics, but I need to help the Captain make the Nyberrite Alliance ambassadors aware of an age-old truth: neutrality helps the oppressor.”

Suggested Spotlight Role: Command Officer, Ship’s Counsellor

Synopsis
The most important thing to the Nyberrites—and the Nyberrite Alliance as a whole—is the neutrality they maintain, which has led to generations of peace even when wars strike those aligned with the Klingons, Federation, or Romulan people. The Nyberrite Alliance’s neutrality originally came in part from the Balduk having mutual respect from the Klingons, the R’ongovians having ongoing diplomatic relationship with the Federation, and the Nyberrites themselves having a trade relationship with the Romulans. None of the involved governments wanted to risk the access and relationships they had by upsetting any of the others, but now that the Dominion War has united the Romulans, Klingons, and Federation in a way never seen before, the neutrality of the Nyberrite Alliance has become a wedge issue among the three governments as multiple attacks from the Dominion have only been possible because they were sniping from within Nyberrite Alliance space.

The player crew are one of three ships sent to discourse with the Nyberrite Alliance, alongside Captain L’Qek of the Klingon Empire, and Subcommander Viness of the Romulan Empire, both of whom arrive in ships of their own. At the start, it appears the Nyberrite Alliance is at least open to discussion, but a few other independent voices shake things up, and then the arrival of a Vorta from the Dominion makes the situation even more of a diplomatic struggle. 

Ultimately, it turns out that there’s even more at risk than the passage of Dominion Ships through Nyberrite Alliance space, but instead the potential for the Dominion to outright prosper with new options for waging war, which neither the Federation—nor its Klingon and Romulan allies—can afford to allow to happen.

Directives
Convince the Nyberrite Alliance to hold the Dominion to the letter of the law of the nonaggression pact. Maintain positive diplomatic relations with the Nyberrite Alliance. Ensure the Dominion does not gain an advantage in its war with the allied Federation, Romulan and Klingon governments.

Major Beats

Hidden Depths—Arriving at the Nyberrite homeworld of Nyber, the crew are greeted by a full-on social event from the Nyberrite Alliance: a dinner, music, and discussion on the coast of Nyber in facility that offers a gorgeous panoramic view of the oceans of the world as the sun sets. With an ambassador from each of the four major powers of the Nyberrite Alliance present (the Balduk, the Nyberrites, the Halee, and the R’Ongovians), as well as representatives from some of the other independent powers associated with the Nyberrite Alliance, including Dohn Ratu, an Illyrian speaker from Freecloud, and the green-skinned Troyian Doctor Ré Hillam, a representative from Noble Isle (neither of which want much of anything to do with the Starfleet crew), or worlds currently considering Nyberrite Alliance membership, such as the Kriosians and the Valtese, it becomes clear there are multiple evolving relationships present. The event is not the official start of the actual Diplomatic talks, but a chance for the crew to have time to get to know the key players who are be new to them, reconnect with old friends they may have made in earlier interactions with the Nyberrite Alliance, and take stock of the general situation they’re walking into on the Class-O world.

The Art of Diplomacy—Once the actual talks begin, Captain L’Qek’s main approach seems to be to point out that the Dominion are acting dishonourably, which she mostly only finds effective when speaking to the Balduk ambassador, while Subcommander Viness takes a more blunt approach and notes that the Dominion used Romulan space the same way to attack Federation and Klingon ships while the Romulans had a nonaggression pact with the Dominion—all while the Dominion was secretly planning to attack the Romulans, which the Romulans only discovered due to their incredible intelligence skills and proud tradition of due diligence. The Romulan does not even pretend to believe that the Dominion won’t also attack the Nyberrite Alliance, and while this has some sway with the Halee Ambassador, the Nyberrites and the R’Ongovians don’t find it convincing so much as an attempt to threaten or bully them into taking a pro-Romulan stance. The crew should have a chance to speak with each of the four ambassadors using the social conflict rules to adjust the Nyberrite Alliance’s officially neutral stance on the actions of the Dominion. Mid-way through the talks, another ambassador arrives to join the discussion—Sushea, a Vorta representative of the Dominion—who specifically attempts to counter and undo any progress already made toward the crew’s goal. 

Now It’s a Party—If the crew have telepaths among them, it’s soon clear Sushea has received the rare treatments from the Dominion that allow her telepathic and telekinetic ability, and she won’t be easily read nor manipulated. Sushea notes that the current treaties between the Federation, Romulans, and Klingons and the Nyberrite Alliance is—in fact—far more permissive than the nonaggression pact the Nyberrite Alliance signed with the Dominion, and it’s they who are in the weaker position. Empaths, Telepaths, and the diplomatically astute, however, may sense that this isn’t actually a major concern to the Vorta, who seems to only truly care that the Dominion retain the nonaggression pact with the Nyberrite Alliance—something else has their real attention. In fact, that something else is the representative from Noble Isle. The geneticists of Noble Isle and the Dominion are using this diplomatic situation to broker a deal: Doctor Ré Hillam, the Noble Isle representative, believes her team can aid the Dominion with key components necessary for its production of Ketracel White here in the Alpha and Beta Quadrants—in exchange for some Dominion genetic know-how—and given Noble Isle exists in the Romulan Neutral Zone, access through Nyberrite Alliance space would be necessary to keep those supplies in motion, if the deal is signed. Discovery and exposure of this deal would go a long way to convincing both the Halee and the Balduk that allowing the Dominion movement through their space does not actually construe an act of nonaggression on the part of the Dominion, given they’re using said movement not only to attack the Federation and it’s allies, but to bolster their own production of Jem’Hadar soldiers—the creation and addiction thereof of particular concern to the Balduk, who find such an abuse of genetic engineering and borderline-enslavement completely antithetical to their warrior code.

Minor Beats 
Ensure the players have the option to bring to bear all the positive relationships they’ve already created in previous missions involving the Nyberrite Alliance—this is also a great moment to utilize favours purchased previously with Acclaim from among the Nyberrite Alliance. Don’t be shy with returning any key NPCs from “Tradition,” “A Plague of Forgetting” or “Caught Red Bladed” the player crew impressed—or wronged—in prior interactions. For added frustration, Dohn Ratu is very willing to loudly discuss the Federation’s near-total rejection of the Illyrian people over the centuries, which the R’Ongovians definitely consider a point not in the Federation’s favour. Including the Kriosian and Valtese diplomats being present and considering stronger ties with the Nyberrite Alliance is also an opportunity to paint the damage to the Federation reputation for peace the war is creating: these species were both fairly close to the Federation over the last decade, but now they’re looking elsewhere for relationships.

Key Non-Player Characters
Captain L’Qek can be represented by Moq’var, son of Koloth, but adding a Focus of Debate, and Subcommander Viness can be represented by Major Verokh, swapping the Focuses from Infiltration and Interrogation to Negotiation and Diplomacy. Sushea can be represented by Taris, Vorta Overseer, but add the Telepath Talent as well as a Focus in Telepathic Abilities. For the Nyberrite Ambassadors, you can adjust Rear Admiral Thurman four times over—for the Balduk leave him as is but add a Focus in Diplomacy; for the Halee, alter a Value to “The next generation is in my care and not to be risked,” and swap out the more militant focuses to Diplomacy and Observation; for the Nyberrite ambassador, adjust the Value to “Caution makes the best company in all decisions,” and adjust Focuses to Patience, Political History, and Diplomacy; and finally for the R’Ongovian ambassador, adjust the Focuses to Radical Empathy, History, and Diplomacy, and add a Value of “The highest calling is to understand and recognize another.” Doctor Ré Hillam can be represented by the Ferengi Salesman, only raise her Medicine and Science to 3, while leaving Engineering, Security, and Conn at 1, and grant her the Focus of Genetic Engineering, and give her the Value of “My expertise should make me famous galaxy-wise, not force me into hiding.”

Conclusion
The resolution of the talks will depend on how many—and which—of the various Ambassadors the crew manage to sway to a firmer stance. The simplest measure of success is whether or not the crew can manage to convince the majority—three out of the four ambassadors—though reaching even half of them may also suit Starfleet’s needs. 

If they’re not successful but the crew do sway the Balduk, the warrior-protector society is willing to pass on information to them about any Dominion movement through Nyberrite Alliance territory with potentially nefarious intent—with the understanding they would do the same with information about Federation, Klingon, or Romulan vessels as well, should they do the same. Similarly, if the R’Ongovian ambassador is successfully swayed, they realize the Dominion have been preying on the R’Ongovian propensity for empathy, taking advantage of their own tendency to wish to travel freely. 

If playing the Dominion War using the Tactical Rules from The Federation-Klingon War Tactical Campaign book, success in this mission should grant the players access to resources for future use from the Nyberrite Alliance, such as “Balduk Warrior Blockade” or “Nyberrite Oceanographic Science Team” depending on which ambassador(s) you feel the group affected most.

 

Tabletop Tuesday — Nyberrite Alliance Mission Brief: “Caught Red Bladed”

It’s Tuesday, which means I’m here to get nerdy, and I’m delivering a third of eight planned Nyberrite Alliance briefs. These Mission Briefs are for the wonderful Star Trek Adventures game from Modiphius, and I hope you find them of use. This one focuses on the Balduk, who I fleshed out a while back (you can see that post here). A warrior-people, the Balduk are invoked by Worf as a species he wouldn’t want to mess with, so I thought why not throw them into the middle of a murder mystery? (Also, it’s pride month, so I tucked in a pair of star-crossed Balduk Warrior dudes in love because I can.)

This sort of adventure has a lot of NPC-centric motivations, and so if you’ve got empaths or telepaths, it’s their time to shine, though knowing someone is innocent or lying is one thing, proving it within the confines of an alien legal system is another. If relying on more traditional detective work, be sure to add liberal use of Social Conflict to give the players opportunities to spend Momentum to Obtain Information on the mental and emotional states of those involved to aim them in the right direction.

Caught Red Bladed

Suggested Era of Play: The Next Generation era, 2373 or 2374 (prior to the Romulans joining the alliance)

Captain’s Log, supplemental: “While passing through the Balduk sector on patrol, the night shift picked up what appeared to be a fragment of a distress signal coming out of the Zirat system. The partial match of comm signal codes were enough for Ops to trace to a Runabout—the USS Rideau—currently in use by three Vulcan Starfleet officers from Starbase 173 scheduled to take shore leave on Balduk III.

The Zirat system is a well known “starship graveyard.” I can’t imagine a legitimate reason for Rideau to be out there—our best guess is something went very wrong on the runabout, and they were forced to make a break for the closest Class M world they might be able to reach—but regardless, we’re en route, at best speed. We’re hoping this isn’t a sign of increased Dominion activity in the area.”

Suggested Spotlight Role: Security Officer, Command Officer, Telepaths and Empaths

Synopsis
Responding to a distress call, the crew find instead a crime scene: a murder, with a fragment of a blade pointing to an individual Balduk warrior. Tracking down that warrior in the Balduk system is a short investigation that ties up the situation a little too easily—something about the situation doesn’t add up, most especially a confession from the warrior in question, who seems to have no motive to speak of.

Untangling the warrior’s motives leads the crew to discover there’s a lot more going on on Balduk III than it appears, including Balduk honour codes, hidden declarations of love, Starfleet Intelligence, and an attempt to destabilize the relationship between the Federation and the Nyberrite Alliance. The crew must track down the true perpetrator of the crime, and hopefully prove an honourable man’s innocence without destroying his life—or the life of his most treasured loved one—in the process.

Directives
Respond to all distress calls. Later: Investigate the murder of Lieutenant T’Met, and Work within the confines of the Balduk legal system.

Major Beats

Open and Shut—After arriving at the Zirat system and locating the downed runabout, the crew discover they are too late for two of the three crew—both officers on board the runabout, Lieutenant T’Met and Ensign Kitak have perished, but not from the crash or any mechanical failure: they were attacked and murdered, likely shortly after their crash-landing. There’s no sign of the third crewmember, Ensign V’Mirra. Their assailants are unknown, though autopsy reveals a fragment of a bladed weapon in the body of one of the dead officers—specifically, an ellem fragment, which leads the crew to the Balduk—ellem being a keratinous growth some Balduk fashion into traditionally ornamental weapons. A request made of the Nyberrite Alliance—and the Balduk in particular—traces a DNA match of the weapon in question of having come from a Balduk Warrior, Zuron Jahsten, currently assigned to the Nyberrite Alliance Security on Balduk III with access to a smaller Nyberrite Security Vessel, the navigational logs of which clearly denote having interacted with the runabout. When the crew state their intent to investigate Jahsten the commander of the unit agrees. When called to be interviewed, Jahsten denies the accusation at first—until the fragment of blade is mentioned, at which point he immediately does a full reversal, surrenders, and confesses to the crime—but provides no motive or details at all, which isn’t required in a confession under Balduk law (or even Federation law), but telepaths, empaths, and keen observers can’t help but notice there’s no sense of guilt at play, only determination. Jahsten is lying. But why confess to a murder? More, it’s hard to find a connection between the two dead Starfleet Officers (or the missing Ensign V’Mirra) and Jahsten, though they did all spend time at a large memorial and museum facility devoted to the history of elite guard units of the Balduk Warriors.

And Then There Were Two—While the week-long period leading up to the trial begins its countdown, the player crew should have several questions. Why the confession? Where is the third missing officer? And most importantly, who actually committed the crime? At a diplomatic function designed to ensure the Starfleet and Federation crew know the Balduk are taking this very seriously. Both Romulan and Klingon diplomats are in attendance as well, both of which take time to speak with the crew and express their “sincere” condolences over the terrible incident. The Romulan group noting their own ties with the Minister are stronger than ever, but that’s likely due to the Balduk valuing strength and dedication to security (with the inference that the Federation has neither). The Klingon group are more worried this will mean even less aid from the Nyberrite Alliance during the war with the Dominion, which isn’t going well for the Federation and Klingon Alliance. The crew will then have the opportunity to meet the head of one of the largest, most influential Balduk families, Minister of Intelligence Daron Khesh, and meet the Minister’s husband, Noran Fayn-Khesh, and their impressive honour guard—made up of warriors belonging to the same elite training group as the museum Lieutenant T’Met was seen at. The guard are some of the most elite Balduk warriors, and linguists and cultural specialists may notice symbology in common with what Jahsten bore. Discrete questioning will reveal Jahsten went through all the same elite training as their group—a great honour as he was from a poor, rather unstoried family with little to offer beyond a dishonourable criminal figure two generations past—and graduated first in their group, but was not chosen to be a part of the guard (which is normally a foregone conclusion). While some in the guard believe this was due to his family history (and a few of those also believe this murder is also the sign of his “bad blood”), the general consensus among the elite-of-the-elite they represent is that Jahsten showed himself to be equal to the warrior training, honour code, and was a paragon of all the Balduk stand for. Telepaths, empaths, and the more astute at reading body language may notice Noran Fayn-Khesh is putting on a near-perfect act of diplomatic charm and coolness, but is in truth deeply affected by the news of Jahsten’s confession, and upon learning about the knife being key evidence (a conversation the players can have, or a NPC can bring up if the players do not), becomes instead disturbed and afraid—which if mentioned, he passes off as it being a truly heinous crime to use such a knife, one meant to represent their oath and honour, as a vile murder weapon. His anger over this is real, but he’s also afraid. Getting him to speak more will require finesse—Minister Khesh doesn’t seem to stray far from his husband’s side, and the elite guard keep both in sight—but if done, Noran Fayn-Khesh will square his shoulders and as though walking to the gallows himself, will tell the crew to search Jahsten’s quarters. In the warriors quarters, they find another iconic Balduk blade from the Elite Guard, in Jahsten’s scabbard—which is impossible, as the warriors each only craft one during their training—but the DNA test of the blade reveals the ellem didn’t come from Jahsten, it came from the Minister’s husband, Noran Fayn-Khesh. When this is brought forward, Fayn-Khesh confesses to the crime, presenting his own empty scabbard, and admitting the two men traded blades after crafting them, which sends a ripple of shock through all gathered, as it the highest declaration of love a warrior of the guard can make. Fayn-Khesh provides further proof of his “guilt” by revealing the comatose Ensign V’Mirra, which he has had locked away in a sealed chamber of his private Fayn estate house, behind sensor-scattering fields, badly wounded, but still clinging to life thanks to the aid of Fayn family medics.

House of Cards—With two confessions, neither of which seem likely, and each of the two confessing Balduk clearly trying to protect the other, the crew have a larger knot to untangle. Minister Khesh is horrified—but empaths, telepaths, or the astute will note he is not surprised by the revelation of the feelings Fayn-Khesh and Jahsten have for each other, only that they traded weapons and take such a meaningful oath—and as the window for actual justice appears to be closing, the crew can learn more from the two men in custody of their relationship, which they never allowed to become improper. They met and fell in love during their training; declared their love; took the oath to always honour and love each other; and then Fayn-Khesh fulfilled his duties as the arranged marriage to the Minister’s family was already in place, and when Jahsten wasn’t chosen by Minister Khesh to be a part of the honour guard, they allowed themself only rare correspondence thereafter. But both refuse to recant their confession to the murder, as each is willing to die for the other—neither knows whether or not the other actually committed the crime, however. Similarly, Fayn-Khesh appears to be hoping Ensign V’Mirra doesn’t wake up, not out of maliciousness or ill will, but some other concern he won’t name. The Minister and the rest of the guard’s whereabouts all provide alibis, though the Minister is a very well connected man. The truth lies with Ensign V’Mirra, and medical crew, if they can restore her to consciousness via delicate surgery—something the Balduk couldn’t accomplish. Ensign V’Mirra, realizing the only logical thing to do in this situation is to break her cover, speaks to how she, Lieutenant T’Met, and Ensign Kitak are undercover with Starfleet Intelligence, and were here on a mission to make contact with someone who believed there were efforts being made to destabilize the relationship between the Federation and the Balduk. Their meeting place—the museum—was compromised and they were attacked, but she clearly recalls the arrival of Fayn-Khesh, who was their contact, and his managing to beam her out. Ensign V’Mirra, an expert of Suus Mahna, managed to disarm her first attacker and turn their blade back on them before being stabbed; there are traces of her attacker’s blood on her clothing. The blood is Romulan. Upon bringing this evidence to the Romulan Ambassador’s group, the Ambassador calls in his aide Merelle, who is revealed to be the Romulan Tal’Shiar agent Talina (assuming she escaped during the events of “Tradition”). Realizing she’s been caught, Talina attempts another daring escape, which this time should end in her capture (if she wasn’t already captured in “Tradition”). If Talina was already captured in “Tradition,” another Romulan Tal’Shiar agent is still responsible, and they attempt to flee. Once at least one of the real killers is in hand—the blood is a match and the cracked ellem blade is found in their possession—both Fayn-Khesh and Jahsten are released, and the final revelations can be made: Fayn-Khesh was working with Starfleet Intelligence after he became convinced his husband, Minister Khesh, was working to ensure Romulan relations with the Nyberrite Alliance strengthened, and Federation ties weakened, for his own personal gains. Khesh worked with the Romulans and specifically attempted to frame Jahsten for the murder because he’d become aware of the love between his husband and the “low born” Jahsten, information Talina made sure crossed his path. None knew the two men had traded daggers, so when the blade fragment turned up, Jahsten believed he was protecting Fayn-Khesh. Once again, the Romulans underline the “rogue actions” of Talina, though the excuse has worn thin with the Nyberrite Alliance, who request the Federation allow her trial to take place within the Nyberrite Alliance system itself.

Minor Beats
Any crew from warrior-based societies like the Klingons or Andorians should find interacting with the Balduk pleasing, and it can be a great time to illustrate different warrior culture philosophies—especially the Balduk version of honour and strength being about protecting those more vulnerable than yourself. Jahsten and Fayn-Khesh could easily form a more trusting relationship with such an character, even if they’re not normally the ones involved in investigations or diplomatic interactions, nudging the crew to rely on them in these more unusual circumstances more than they otherwise might. Any crew who may have suffered personal losses during the war with the Klingons in 2372-2373 might find it difficult to remain civil with the Klingons during the diplomatic moments.

Key Non-Player Characters
The various Balduk characters can all be represented by Klingon NPCs—for Zuron Jahsten, using any Notable Klingon NPC should suffice, but give him the Value of “Above all else, my oath to Noran Fayn-Khesh,” and vice-versa for Fayn-Khesh. Minister Khesh should similarly be a Notable Klingon NPC with Focuses in Subterfuge and Intelligence. Telina (or the other Romulan Tal’Shiar agent if Telina was captured in “Tradition”) can be represented by Major NPC Major Verohk, Tal Shiar Agent, with the addition of a Sabotage Focus.

Conclusion
The crew have a lot to uncover here: a clandestine (but honourable and chaste) relationship, a Balduk minister with Romulan allegiances, and a Starfleet Intelligence mission. The best-case scenario is uncovering the truth, exposing and disgracing the Minister and the Romulan Agent, and ensuring Talina’s arrest and processing via the Nyberrite Alliance legal system, something the rest of the Nyberrite Alliance, and the Balduk Government request specifically of the crew given the attack and motive of the crime was local in nature, even if they were Federation Citizens, and for diplomatic reasons, Starfleet crew should agree—if they keep track of Talina thereafter, they’ll learn she was found guilty, and chose to be assigned to the Halee Rangers as her punishment; she will spend the next twenty years of her life guarding the paths in the dangerous jungles of Halee II.

The motivation of the Romulans here should be clear: if the Dominion defeats the Klingons and the Federation, it’s all good for the Romulans who have (at this point in time) signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion. Of note, the Nyberrite Alliance is also officially neutral and has signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion, which won’t change now, but astute diplomats might note to the Balduk how the Romulans were manipulating the Nyberrite Alliance preference for neutrality for their own gains.
 

Tabletop Tuesday — Nyberrite Alliance Mission Brief: “A Plague of Forgetting”

Hey all! It’s Tuesday, which means I’m here to get nerdy, and I’m delivering a second of eight planned Nyberrite Alliance briefs, as I mentioned last week. These Mission Briefs are for the wonderful Star Trek Adventures game from Modiphius, and I hope you find them of use. This one leans pretty heavily on the R’Ongovians—a species we saw once on Star Trek: Strange New Worlds—which I detailed earlier (you can see that here). Also? Happy Pride! I know I normally do a host of posts during Pride Month, but this year things got a little overwhelming, so I’m going to be a quieter source of rainbows this time around.

I should also note the inspiration for this one came from a mix of a game session I played with my own group on the USS Curzon, and some wonderful drawn magic from the Deck of Worlds tool. You can see the draw below.

A Plague of Forgetting

Suggested Era of Play: The Next Generation era, early 2370s

Chief Medical Officer’s Log: “We’ve been called to the R’ongovian Protectorate, an area of space that forms a rough tetrahedron of borders with the Federation, the Romulans, and the Klingons, in a request to provide aid with what appears to be a particularly virulent outbreak of Ankaran Flu. 

While the R’ongovians have been friendly with the Federation for over a century, they most often keep to themselves or rely on their Nyberrite Alliance cohorts in times of crisis—the Alliance tends to remain neutral in most things—making this both a rare opportunity to aid the sick, and to build greater trust in these uncertain times.”

Suggested Spotlight Role: Medical Officer, Security Officer

The Deck of Worlds draw I did.

Synopsis
Ambassador Rano K’Nella, a R’Ongovian Ambassador, has reached out to Starfleet for medical aid because of an outbreak of a particularly virulent Ankaran Flu hit the homeworld and major lunar station of her people. Ankaran Flu is a treatable illness, is rarely lethal in the 24th Century, but tends to spread quickly without strict isolation protocols, transmitting through contact via sweat or shared surfaces, tools, or other implements used by an infected individual. The greatest danger comes from one of the potential side-effects: memory inhibition. A low percentage of infected can lose access to long- and/or short- term memories, leading to mistakes and accidents that can prove to be devastating if coincidence aligns in an infected individual.

Arriving at the system, it soon becomes clear this outbreak is worse than usual, has an even more deleterious effect on the memories of those infected, and that multiple governments—including the Romulans, Klingons, Orions, and Ferengi—have also arrived to ensure this outbreak doesn’t spread further; or, at least that’s how it seems on the surface. It’s soon discovered this outbreak is neither natural, though it may be accidental. Either way, tracking down the source becomes all the more difficult thanks to the infected losing their memories, key personnel struggling to maintain function, and the threat of containing this outbreak a more violent way all loom on the horizon. 

A cure arrives just in time to stop the spread of the disease—but might also allow whoever was behind the outbreak to escape. It’s up to the crew to handle crises on multiple fronts, manage due diligence and investigation, and track down the origin of this outbreak. 

Directives
Assist the R’Ongovian medical personnel on both the lunar station and the planet in containing and treating the outbreak of Ankaran flu. Later, attempt to track down the source of the (unnatural) outbreak. 

Major Beats

Forgetful—The player’s ship arrives at R’Ongovia to find the Ankaran Flu is well and truly spreading across the planet, the major Nyberrite Alliance-run lunar facility, and on multiple ships that have come and gone from the station, all of which have (for now) been corralled back within the borders of the area. This likely means a new strain of the flu has developed, as normally seasonal vaccination efforts prevent outbreaks. This particular strain seems to have a much greater rate of the memory-inhibition symptom, and the crew will need to act quickly to put out several brush fire situations: isolation protocols need to be set-up, ships that may have been exposed need to be recalled, sick pilots might not remember how to maintain basic orbits, and the R’Ongovian medical systems on the lunar base and planet are buckling under the pressure of both the numbers of sick and infected staff beginning to functionally lose access to their own knowledge of how to treat the disease. There’s a not-insignificant Klingon population on the planet as well, owing to the R’Ongovians having taking in refugees during the Praxis crisis of the late 2200s, and many Klingons setting down roots on the planet thereafter—this has led to Klingon ships having arrived in orbit during the start of the crisis, and increasing tensions throughout the system.

Contact Tracing—Once the immediate issues are dealt with, science and medical officers will realize something is off about this outbreak—which seems to have been sparked on the R’Ongovian Lunar station, a large starbase-like facility with a variety of storefronts on a massive multi-species colonnade, including Ferengi owners of a casino, an Orion perfumery, Klingon sisters who run a very popular restaurant, and even a Romulan sculptor on the station—and has meant people coming and going have potentially spread this outbreak far and wide, though as yet this seems to be under control. Samples and study reveal this particular strain seems well adapted not only to infect the R’Ongovians, but to easily hop to other core species of the Nyberrite Alliance: the Halee, the Nyberrites, and the Balduk, as well as having adapted to some of the other species on the station. This feels less and less like a coincidence, and is making dealing with the disease all the more difficult: it resists the usual traditional treatments and will require creating a new vaccine to halt further spread. Worse, the virus has also adapted to airborne transmission, specifically via infected R’Ongovian individuals—with the virus hitching a ride on R’Ongovian exhalations, which among the infected smell sweet and floral—almost perfume-like. Command and security officers must move to attempt to track down the organizers of this outbreak—delicately and without causing diplomatic incidents—because an original sample of the modified flu is the best hope for a cure. With not only Nyberrite Alliance vessels but also Klingon, Orion, Ferengi, and Romulan, and other independent vessels in the vicinity forming a blockade to stop the spread of the illness, the crew have no shortage of potential instigators—but who’d benefit the most?

We Can Cure This For You, Wholesale—The arrival of an Ferengi ship claiming to have a broadly-effective cure is timely. It could be necessary to stopping this situation from spreading out of control depending on how much headway the crew have made; it’s also deeply suspect. Medical and Science officers who obtain a sample of the cure can attempt to unravel its formulation and learn the cure was synthesized with a methodology utilized by Orion biologists, and ultimately uncover that this outbreak seems to be an odd interaction between a regular strain of Ankaran Flu and a modified, perfume-based enhancer of Orion pheromones—the flu virus attached itself to the enhancer, and the combination created this particularly virulent and memory-affecting strain. Tracking the perfume’s source down to the Orion perfumers on the Colonnade (once the Ferengi admit they were given a great deal on being the suppliers of the cure) becomes a chase, as the perfumers have been ready to bolt the moment the all-clear is sounded. Ultimately, it’s determined this outbreak was accidental, but the Orion perfume really only has one goal: to increase the influence some Orions have over other humanoids beyond what the Federation and other organizations can counter.

Minor Beats
The crew must prioritize their own senses of empathy for others when dealing with R’ongovians, who react best to those who are willing to see things from their point of view—in every crisis situation, any attempt made by the players to empathize with the R’ongovians should be the most effective path. If they’re not exceedingly careful, players or other crew on the players’ ship may catch the flu, which could cause trouble if it spreads on their starship and people start forgetting how to do their jobs. Klingon and Romulan vessels are far, far more ruthless in enforcing blockades than their Federation and Nyberrite Alliance counterparts—keeping tempers in check and stopping Klingon or Romulans from simply destroying ships attempting to leave the area can put even more stress on the crew, while adding more weight to the ticking clock of coming up with a new treatment. 

Key Non-Player Characters
If you’re playing the Shackleton Expanse Campaign, an Orion perfume-based sub-plot is mentioned in passing as the goal of Octavia Garr [Notable], and you can easily have this be another front of her attempts. Any Ferengi NPCs can be used for the cure providers. If you’ve got Klingon, Romulan, or Ferengi characters who’ve butted heads with the crew in the past, now is a great time to bring them back for a cameo appearance during the outbreak crisis. Infected should be handled as Minor NPCs with the trait “Ankaran Flu Carrier,” a trait players may end up gaining as well if they’re not careful—as the flu progresses, increase the Complication range on all tests, using Complications to spark moments of memory lapse during whatever it is they’re attempting. 

Conclusion
The most important thing is to stop the outbreak and minimize the chaos and damage among the R’Ongovian system; catching the Orions who (accidentally) initiated the outbreak is secondary to that, but also an important goal. Of note, if it comes down to simply paying the Ferengi price for the cure, that’s something the R’Ongovians (and the Federation) are willing to do to stop the outbreak, so success might come at an actual high price. 

Doing all this while the Klingons and Romulans are ready to simply burn it all down to stop the spread of the outbreak adds a further ticking clock, but also diplomatic opportunities in an area of space where all three major political entities have been made welcome. 

Ultimately, if the players comport themselves well and the outbreak is stopped, the R’Ongovians will likely be pleased with the Federation and Starfleet and the crew in particular. If they also track down the source, they’ll make some enemies among the Orions, but that friendship with the R’Ongovians will go much deeper.

 

Tabletop Tuesday — Nyberrite Alliance Mission Brief: “Tradition”

Hey folks! It’s Tuesday, so as always I’m here to get nerdy. A while back, I shared some posts about my version of the Nyberrite Alliance for my ongoing Star Trek Adventures game. I’d wanted to flesh out the politics of Beta Quadrant Federation space prior to the hostilities with the Klingon Empire, and it occurred to me something that could be key to that was the Nyberrite Alliance, which was barely mentioned in canon, so I could do whatever I wanted with it. I decided it was made up of the Nyberrites, the Balduk, the R’Ongovians, and the Halee.

It’s been a week around these parts, so I took my usual route of destressing via some TTRPG planning, and thus I present the first of what is likely to be eight Mission Briefs in total that you can drop into your own campaigns in the Beta Quadrant if you’d like. I’ve put together Mission Briefs twice before, “Thrown Stones” and “Intermix,” which you can find on the Continuing Missions website.

Tradition

Suggested Era of Play: The Next Generation era, in the late 2360s or pre-war 2370s.

Science Officer’s Log: “We’ve entered the Halee System, on the request of the Nyberrite Alliance, of which the Halee are a member. We’re delivering a variety of cross-bred crops from across the Federation for their terraforming project on Halee III, and will be transporting some of their scientists and engineers from their homeworld on Halee II to the colony site. We’re tasked with aiding them in their ongoing project to colonize the L-Class planet.

The Halee—and the Nyberrite Alliance as a whole—tend to be insular, rarely asking for outside help, so I’ve reminded my people this is also a rare opportunity to strengthen relations between the the Federation and Halee, and show the Nyberrite Alliance that the Federation is an ally that respects their neutrality.”

Suggested Spotlight Role: Science Officer, Security Officer

Synopsis
Called to the Halee System where Halee “Neo-Crèchists” native to Halee II are working to make a new home on Halee III, the crew initially expect nothing more than a mission based around botany, agronomy, and diplomacy. The Halee are part of the Nyberrite Alliance, a coalition that remains neutral in most galactic issues, but strengthening their relationship with the Federation—and Starfleet—can only be a good thing. However, it’s not long before the crew learn the Halee are somewhat divided on the Halee III project: the “Traditionalists” believe moving any significant number of their people to the new world is disrespectful to their ancestors who worked—and often died—to protect them over the generations on the harsh, predator-filled jungle world of Halee II. 

Arriving at Halee III, another complication appears: the colonists have also invited Romulan scientists to assist them, who’ve brought plant specimens and procedures from the Romulan Empire that may suit Halee III’s needs. The colonists are pleased for any and all help—and make a further request for engineering aid when it becomes clear the Traditionalist liaison doesn’t intend to even mention the problem the colony has been having with its geothermal power system. 

An explosion leads to damage, death, and injury, and the crew deal with both the immediate fallout and track down the source of the destruction—sabotage—and despite most signs pointing to Traditionalist efforts, the real culprit must be revealed and brought to Halee justice before the whole mission ends up doing the opposite of its intention, and showing that having the Federation or Starfleet involved only increases the chances of pain and suffering. 

Directives
Deliver the crops to Halee III; Aid the Halee colonists with their greenhouse efforts, seeding of wild plants, and other challenges as requested. Make all efforts to maintain a positive diplomatic relationship with the Halee and the Nyberrite Alliance.

Major Beats

Planting the Future—The crew arrive at Halee II, where they get only an orbital glimpse of the jungle-heavy planet with its dangerous predators before the terraformers and botanists beam aboard. A diplomatic welcome function allows the players to get to know the Halee, including their head botanist, Oya Khateth from whom they’ll learn the team is made up almost entirely of “Neo-Crèchists,” a movement gaining momentum on Halee II who believe Halee III offers the safest option for future generations of their people, given the lack of predators on Halee III, unlike Halee II. Whether at the party or during inspection of the various seeds and samples, the political advisor, Moto Notharin is less enthusiastic about the colony project, but sees the potential food production value of Halee III as worthwhile. Those approaching him with delicacy have the opportunity to learn he’s a “Traditionalist,” who believes moving his people en masse from Halee II would be disrespectful to the ancestors and rangers who lived and died making the safe havens and paths the Halee use now—and Moto Notharin’s admission of such causes an argument between him and Oya Khateth. Diffusing this argument is the first sign the players have of some political and spiritual tension involved in the terraforming project. Another surprise awaits: upon arriving at Halee III, they find a small Romulan vessel in orbit as well—a science vessel with Romulan botanists who have also come, with botanical offerings from within the Romulan Empire. They were invited by the Halee, just as the Federation was, and all are invited to a welcome dinner hosted by Moto Notharin and Oya Khateth in the colony’s largest building.

Tending the Earth—After a diplomatic meal on Halee III, the crew can explore the world of lakes, grasslands, and cool wind—a world very different from Halee II—and start their work. At the central agronomy facility, they can deliver the various seeds, meet more of the technicians and biologists involved in the project—alongside the Romulan scientists who’ve arrived performing similar work. They also meet more the nascent colony’s population here, currently only numbering in the hundreds. The next major population growth is scheduled for after the completion of this agronomy and wild seeding project, with habitats currently under construction, as well as the creation of a dedicated medical centre. During a quiet moment, a Halee technician politely and privately requests aid from the crew. Their geothermal power grid requires attention. Their technicians are having some trouble with an odd variance in the energy output—which Moto Notharin doesn’t see as a priority and didn’t agree to discuss with the Away Team. The crew can agree to help whole-heartedly with or a bit more reserve—it’s technically within the range of their mission guidelines, but let them discuss the internal political tensions involved in the project, with Moto Notharin noting this isn’t precisely what aid the Federation was asked for, but Oya Khateth, as the local Colony Lead, is more than willing to make official requests themself. Everything appears to be otherwise on track—until the planned medical centre site explodes. 

Reaping the Sown—After dealing with the immediate fallout of the disaster, investigation reveals the power issues previously being experienced at the colony site are directly linked to the explosion. Worse, the instability seems to have been caused by unnatural contaminants interacting with the previously unknown presence of gallicite in the geothermal vents—which points to sabotage. The crew have their hands full trying to keep tempers from flaring between the two factions of Halee on the colony. While Moto Notharin may seem like an obvious suspect—and the Neo-Crèchists are quick to jump to that conclusion—he is honestly dismayed at the destruction, injury, and death the accident has caused, though he does feel it another example of why his people should limit their migration from Halee, and why getting more involved with the Federation is not necessarily a good idea. Some of the more cynical Traditionalists wonder if this could even have been arranged by Neo-Crèchists to give them a reason to ask Starfleet to become more involved in the colony project. Ultimately, Moto Notharin and those who believe as he does serve only as red herrings. Instead, the answer lies in the contaminants, which would have simply slowed down the progress of the colony due to creating unstable power flow had the gallicite not been there. Once studied by Away Team specialists, those contaminants are revealed to be Romulan in origin. One of the Romulans, an “assistant botanist” named Telina, is thereafter discovered to be missing, as is a cloak-capable Romulan warp shuttle from the science vessel. 

Minor Beats
Something of a rivalry—and potentially even grudging respect—might pop up between the Romulan team and the Starfleet team, with the two attempting to offer the most useful and compatible strains of flora for Halee III. Perhaps one of the Starfleet Crew realize that the best long-term option on the table would in fact be one of the Romulan crops, discovering this on their own and having to decide what to do with the information: which is more important, the truth, or having the Federation be the one to give the most aid to the Halee. More spiritual crew might instead connect with some of the Traditionalists, learning more about their ancestor-centric faith and how it informs Halee society.

Key Non-Player Characters
Telina, who should interact with the crew once or twice in earlier scenes can be represented by Major NPC Major Verohk, Tal Shiar Agent, with the addition of a Sabotage focus—telepaths should only pick up a desire to “get her job done” and zero desire to interact with Starfleet crew. Moto Notharin can use any Notable NPC, with a focus in Colony Administration, and using the Value “Tradition most often has greater value than innovation.” Oya Khateth should also be a Notable NPC, with a Value of “We don’t disrespect the past by looking to the future.” Other botanists can be represented by Minor NPC Starfleet Science Officers.

Conclusion
Ultimately, with the resources of a Federation Starship to work with, the crew should be successful in aiding the colonists with both their terraforming project and the rescue and recovery efforts in the aftermath of the explosion. Fixing the underlying issues and determining the cause is similarly possible—but with a head-start, Tal Shiar training, and a cloak-capable shuttle, recovering Telina will have to wait for another day.

While Telina’s motivations are unknown and unstated, it doesn’t take a keen political mind to note the Neo-Crèchists and their project were the victims, and Neo-Crèchists have been the loudest voice on Halee II in wanting to be more actively involved with the Federation. The neutrality of the Nyberrite Alliance has long been a very good thing for the Romulan Empire, and it’s possible the Tal Shiar felt forward motion between the Nyberrite Alliance and the Federation could only be to the detriment of the Romulan Empire. Telina’s actions are completely disavowed by the Romulan Government as rogue.

Ultimately, if the the crew show they respect Halee culture by not overstepping at any point, the ship and her crew end up in the good books of the Neo-Crèchists, and perhaps even some of the Traditionalists.

Tabletop Tuesday — The Hi-Lo YA of K.A. Mielke

Hey all! It’s Tuesday, which means I’m here talking things geekily tabletop and wonderful, but today I’m also here to cheer on K.A. Mielke’s newest Hi-Lo as today is finally the Canadian release date: Lonely in Happy Town!

(I’m also going to remind you that if you’ve not picked up Losing Hit Points for the gaming queerling in your life, now is always a good time to do so.)

Like my Dogs Don’t Break Hearts, Lonely in Happy Town had a bumpy road to its Canadian release day given all the stuff going on in the world with tarrifs and the like, but for my fellow Canucks—and eveyrone else, frankly, but fair warning that the worldwide release won’t be ’til August—here’s why you should check K.A. and all their books out…

Lonely in Happy Town

A cozy mobile and console game offers the backdrop to this budding romance where queer teen Quentin—who finds life easier to live on the other end of a keyboard—crushes on two women, but only knows one of them digitally. Real life is hard for Quentin, and escaping into his game world with its cute animals, seemingly endless puns (note: prepare to adore the puns in this book), and cheerful music and colours. For anyone who started Animal Crossing: New Horizons at the start of the Pandemic, the vibes are immediately relatable here.

In the real world? Well. Social anxiety, finding his own bravery, and fighting his own self-worth all become personal quests Quentin needs to master—if he can face them. Because it’s always a great deal more tempting to just take another shift in the game at virtual coffee shop run by a rooster.

It’s called Starbocks. 

(See what I mean about the puns?)

Mielke’s deft touch with Quentin’s stressors—home, financial, social, mental—combined into a catastrophizing character I rooted for, even when Quentin repeats his pattern of retreating away into his comfort zone of cozy gaming. Of note, I truly appreciated Quentin’s tipping point with his father, and his journey with co-worker (and crush) Celeste, a trans girl whose openness about her own mental homework lays down a great deal of the foundation for Quentin’s forward motion.

In fact the repeating motif I enjoyed the most was how often Quentin realized the way forward was to risk being himself, and to speak what he’d been holding back. That’s a terrifying truth to face down, and when he makes those steps forward, I cheered every time.

Losing Hit Points

But wait, there’s more! In case you’ve not already heard me cheer on Mielke’s Losing Hit Points, allow me to repeat myself.

I often talk about how writing YA is like time-travel for me—that I’m writing back in time to what my younger self would have loved to read. In this case, Kristopher Mielke did that for me, and they served up not only queer kids (re)connecting over D&D, but one of the singular most authentic “gaming is like this” vibes I’ve ever read. 

All that to preface that I’m not sure I can pin down a singular favourite thing about this book, but loved all its moving parts: the excellently crafted “I know I’ve done wrong / But I’m still angry and embarrassed” spiral, the game narrative happening alongside the relationship(s), and even having to deal with the “Nathan”s of gaming (note: this was before K.A. and I had ever spoken so I’m 100% sure the naming of this character is not personal—heh). 

Ultimately, Journey and Rumour had me rooting for them pretty much from step one, and I appreciated how much emotional work they had to do to get there, especially the realization that things you can feel so strongly in one moment might be things you need to change your point of view of later, once you’ve had some time to settle with them. 

Also, if you’ve not played D&D in a while, prepare to have the itch to roll up a character.

Anyway! Happy (Canadian) Book Birthday Kris! And as I always try to end these posts with a quick question, today I’ll ask this one: what books have you read that include gaming as part of their narratives have you enjoyed? Also, because it bears repeating: Hi-Lo means high-narrative-interest, low-reading-complexity, ie: books for kids with reading disabilities, ESL, or other accessibility issues of any kind that might stop them from reading books more aimed at the “typical” reading level. More discussion on that topic here.

Tabletop Tuesday — Escape from Dino Island

Happy Tuesday! As is usually the case round these parts, I’m talking about gaming today, and over the last two weeks I got to be a player in the TTRPG Escape from Dino Island, a tightly-constructed, intended to be a one-shot by design game of… well, at the most basic, simplified version? It’s the film/book Jurassic Park. But that’s maybe over-simplifying, since while the premise is that of the movie—”What if island full of dinosaurs and something goes wrong and everyone needs to escape?”—which dinosaurs, what goes wrong, and who everyone is can be different every time, and honestly?

It was a blast.

Pick a Character, Tell a Story

When I say Escape from Dino Island is designed as a one-shot, I mean it. The DinoMaster (DM, heh) gets a sheet with a pretty clear path and progression to wind the characters through, whereas the players choose characters from pre-generated sheets: The Doctor, The Engineer, The Hunter, The Kid, The Palaeontologist, The Soldier, or The Survivor—there’s also The Smuggler as a bonus character, released later. The characters each have a “special move” or two, as well as a choice of one of two abilities they can unlock later when they “advance.” You also get to assign three stats: Clever (how smart your character is), Fit (how physically fit your character is), and Steady (how good your character is at anything while under stress): for everyone but the Kid, you assign a +2, a +1, and a -1. The Kid gets two +1s and a -1. Whenever you do a move that requires a roll, you’ll be rolling 2d6 and adjusting that roll with Clever, Fit, or Steady.

Then you add a name, pronouns, and pick a few descriptors to give yourself a baseline idea of what sort of person your character is—as well as getting one “rumour” from the DinoMaster each, which might come into play later.

In our playthrough, I went with a Canadian engineer, Zachary Douglas, or “Zed” to most, who was hired to set up solar power systems throughout the island on the various rooftops. He was still somewhat young, but highly competent (Clever +2), in good shape—but only from time in the gym, never outdoorsy stuff (Fit +1), and kind of used to things going as planned (Steady -1).

Once everyone has picked their character, things get passed to the DinoMaster for you all to craft the opening scenes, which involves how you arrived, what you know about the island, and how the hell you intend to get out of this place.

So, What Brings You Here?

As a group, with the DM, you’ll answer questions, broken into categories. The Mainland—why you’re coming to the island, who you are, and what you might know about the island before you arrive (this is where the DM gives you a rumour)—gives you the backstory of your group; The Arrival—literally you arrive, see your first dinosaur, and then of course something goes very wrong; and then dropping the characters into Right Now—Where you are, what ways off this island are you aware of, what’s the problem with getting to that exit, and a mystery that needs solving in the meanwhile. For each of these major questions, there are six options if you just want to roll it out, but you can choose them instead.

The rumour Zed heard was the CEO of Dino Island was a bit “off.” Like, not so much a genius as lucky and right-place-right-time with the actual brains of the process, but believed himself to be better than he actually was. My group arrived, saw some dinos, and then while we were riding the monorail (the only way around, really) the power cut out. We were stuck, above the trees, on a busted monorail with no idea what was going on—and the extra mystery? Compasses suddenly couldn’t decide which way was north, and our phones and radios seemed to be picking up random noises.

Just Add Moves (and Stories) and Go!

The game mechanics are super-simplified. You’ve got Peril Moves (rolls you make while things are dangerous: Run!, HIde!, Just Do It!, Hold Onto Your Butt!, Look Over There!, Take My Hand!, and Fight!) and Safety Moves (rolls you make while things aren’t immediately dangerous: Lay of the Land, Instruct, Scavenge), and of course, your character-specific options. When things aren’t dicey, you can just do anything your character is supposed to be competent at. Otherwise, it’s a 2d6 roll, adjusted by the relevant stat of Clever, Fit, or Steady, and the results of 6 or less are bad, 7 to 9 are a mixed success with a downside, and 10 or more is a flat-out success.

A fun mechanic for those of us who like improv and roleplaying off-the-cuff is the inclusion of “Telling a Story” as part of some of the rolls. For the Safety Moves, when you’re doing a thing—like getting the lay of the land—you answer one of the questions on the bottom left of your character sheet, telling a story to the other players that further sketches out your character.

Throughout the game, we learned why Zed is annoyed at over-designed technology, his love of vinyl, and how he wished his company had allowed him to keep working on his solar-powered jacket design (because it would have come in handy a couple of times). There are specific questions there for those who might need a prompt, and crossing out those stories as you tell them is one of the ways you find out how much of a denouement happy-ever-after your character might get (you add the number of stories to a 2d6 roll, with the usual 6-or-less bad; 7 to 9 is okay, but; 10+ is good.

The DM has moves of their own, and a remarkably streamlined “from here, to here, to here” system to work with for a very short game booklet—I won’t give the details away on this front, but the short version is even a fairly novice DM should find running a one-shot of Escape from Dino Island none-too-stressful, as there’s a very clear roadmap you can choose to follow, and the mechanics are pretty straightforward. The moves the DM can use are clear, and the “Acts” of the story are laid out in a clear order, and in every case, there are examples the DM can mix-and-match to work with.

In our case, it quickly became clear that whatever had gone wrong on the island was creating weird temporal anomalies. Things we found seemed to get older and older, the labs had CRTs and older computers in them than they had when we’d first arrived, and the power systems went from being solar to hydro to gas…

Though we did find an eight-track BeeGees cartridge, and so we had a sing-along to “How Deep is Your Love” while we booked it away from the lab that seemed to be filling up with anachronisms, as well as dinosaurs who seemed to maybe be wearing shreds of human clothing like the humans were devolving/transforming into dinosaurs, which really motivated us to get the hell out of here.

Every Time I Hear That Song, I’ll Think of Irwin…

Lovers of math-rocks may have noticed the dice are not particularly forgiving on your worst attribute of Clever, Fit, or Steady. On a 2d6, needing at least a 7 to partially succeed, you’re looking at a base 58% chance of succeeding in some measure, but you don’t roll flat, you roll with a +2, +1 or -1: so 83% success when it’s your +2 stat, 72% with your +1 stat, and… 42% if it’s your -1 stat. But dice will dice, right?

And boy did they in our game. We were the kings of rolling 4s and 3s. Soon we were all injured, and doing our panicky best to come up with a solution for the pack of dinosaurs chasing us in our jury-rigged four-wheeler and ultimately, thanks to the Palaeontologist’s awareness that these dinosaurs were after the noise, my slightly-concussed engineer dug out his high-tech, heavy-duty tablet, set it up to blare “Baby Shark” and tossed it off into the trees, which—partial success roll—got most of the dinos off us, but then one jumped onto the car and was snapping at my face (not a fan of “Baby Shark” I guess) and our Hunter, Irwin, tried the most dangerous move of all—fighting—and, well. The good news is Zed didn’t get eaten by a dinosaur. The bad news was Irwin only managed to take the dinosaur off the back of our car with him, landing by the tablet, and he got eaten to the tune of “Baby Shark.”

Doo doo do doo do doo.

Who Are You?

The cool thing about this is you just grab a new character sheet and join the group as another character, so Irwin the Hunter was replaced by Alex the Soldier sent in to figure out what the hell was happening on this island (his team was not very nice, and quickly abandoned us because we’d slow them down, but he stuck by us), and with his help we made it to a hangar with a plane, found more survivors there but not enough seats, made the executive decision that the CEO did not deserve a seat (listen, I’d been listening to my audiobook of Careless People, but also the CEO was a jackass), and while the soldier heroically stayed behind with the unlucky folk who didn’t draw a good straw, the rest of us flew off the island to go get help.

I think the death of Irwin was a moment we realized how the game was set-up. Once you make peace with the idea that you might be here for a good time—not a long time—Escape from Dino Island has a lot more joy to be had in it. Adjusting our expectations from “we’ll survive this!” to “maybe I can get a really cool death scene that helps the others make it off the island!” added a fun wrinkle. Especially for characters like The Soldier, The Hunter, and The Survivor.

Denouement

I mentioned earlier the thing about telling stories during safety moves, and how it adjusts a final sort of “when you do get off the island, then what?” mechanic. In our case, the dice weren’t particuarly kind, giving two of us partial successes, and the Soldier we left behind… well. Even when you do your best, sometimes you roll snake eyes.

His denouement scene, his player decided, was just a dinosaur passing by the camera, wearing Alex’s watch. No other survivors, especially not the CEO.

For Zed and Dr. Longfellow (our Palaeontologist), we got partial successes, so we decided as we finally escaped the weird anti-radio, anti-compass effect in our little pontoon plane, and Zed finally got the radio working, the first thing he picked up was the final moments of the 1972 Russia-Canada hockey game.

Temporal anomalies. What you gonna do? We couldn’t send help back because the island wasn’t even inhabited yet. Sometime later, maybe. But Dr. Longfellow realized he could go make all his important discoveries all over again—this time with tenure and actual funding!—and Zed realized he was very, very ahead of the curve in the world of tech, and even had some of it on him, like his phone. Their futures—now decades in the past—were going to be bright.

(We couldn’t stop ourselves there, however, we decided on some end-credit scenes: Dr. Longfellow sought out his future mentor, who was currently still a student, and taught her the thing she’d taught him that saved his life earlier; then we had a brief glimpse of Zed listening to some dudes pitch a company to him, saying they needed start-up capital and that they were sure it would be a big thing, and him asking them to tell him what they were thinking of calling their company, again, and when they said “Apple” he said, “I’m in.”)

Do you have a favourite one-shot system? I’ve only ever really played one-shots for systems designed to also function with campaigns, so this was my first real brush with a game intended to last one (or two) sessions in total.

Tabletop Tuesday — The Search for Planet X

A while back, my husband got me a copy of Mansions of Madness and… I played it once. It was not a good experience, in part because it requires using an app, and also in part because—like many games based on Lovecraft—it’s super hopeless, very difficult to win, and in this particular case, the app included doing a sliding-puzzle thing and the character I’d chosen for my first play-through was only allowed to do a tiny bit of work on said sliding-puzzle each turn and I just died.

While trying to do a sliding puzzle.

It had taken so long to set the game up and get through the rules, the “…and now you’re dead and all you got to do was walk into a room and try to solve a sliding puzzle” was definitely not the introduction I wanted to the game, and the thought of trying again left me utterly cold. Maybe someday.

(Also, I can’t help but wonder if the app will end up out of date or not supported and then I’ve just got a box full of junk.)

All that to say, when our friends brought over a copy of The Search for Planet X—and said we’d all want to download the app before we started playing—I had a moment of oh no.

And then I had a great time playing a logic puzzle.

Sorry, Did You Say Logic? That’s a pretty active night sky on the box, no?

Remember those logic puzzles where you had to figure out which person’s first name went with which person’s surname, their pet, and what they did on vacation? The pet owner who went to the beach has a four-legged pet. All the woman have surnames with less letters than their given names. Logic games. Eventually your string of clues gives you what you need to puzzle your way through it and before you know it, Meredith White and her puppy were at the beach!

Now imagine you’re an astronomer. You’ve got access to a ground-based telescope, and as the year progresses, you’ve got different parts of the sky to look at and what you’re doing is a similar thing, only you’ve divided the sky into slices and your trying to figure out which sections of the sky have gas clouds, which have comets, which have asteroids, which have dwarf planets, and—most elusive of all—where exactly is Planet X: the potential tenth planet that might explain some of the odd orbits of things in the outer solar system.

At the start, you might only know that asteroids always clump in at least pairs—so if there’s an asteroid in section 3 of the sky, there’s going to be at least one asteroid in section 2 or section 4. But you’re trying to research, scan, and otherwise put together the clues you need to find Planet X, by figuring out the “rules” of this particular night sky and following the logic until you can say, “I know where Planet X is.”

That’s the game. And it’s way more fun than I thought it would be.

Turning, Turning…

The physical board game itself is a big ol’ wheel, with about half of the sky visible at one time (because the Earth rotates and night is only half that time) and that adds the first wrinkle to the game. You can do a search of the sky for one particular object (scan a number of sections of the sky saying ‘how many of these have gas clouds?’ for example), or you can do some research (learn a new logic rule of the game, like “no asteroid is opposite a comet”).

The various options take more or less time, which is cleverly represented on the board by moving your little observatory ahead a number of slices of the night sky, with whoever is the furthest behind getting the next turn (so it’s possible to have less turns than other players because they’re choosing options that take less time than you did), and then the night sky shifts (this is a big ol’ wheel, and it’s really clever) which means new sections of the sky are now available to be scanned—and previous sections aren’t—as what portion of the night sky is visible rotates throughout the game.

Those two simple mechanics—moving your piece forward more or less depending on what action you’ve chosen, and the rotating night sky chasing after the players—add another level of consideration: you can only scan parts of the sky that are visible, and your actions move your token, which means you can place yourself somewhere strategically on one turn specifically to ensure that when it’s your turn again, the right portion of the sky is available for your next scan. Meanwhile, everyone else is scanning, making notes on their sheets, and trying to track down that wee little planet for themselves.

The App

Where The Search for Planet X succeeded where I found Mansions of Madness fell flat for me was the simplicity. The App is entirely about delivering those clues I mentioned. That’s it. It doesn’t have mini-games or much complexity, it just spits out the answers to “how many comets are there in sections 8 through 12?” or “Tell me a piece of research involving gas clouds and asteroids.” It’s text on a screen, and while you’re using it each turn, it’s quick enough, and you take that information and use your night-sky worksheet, crossing out things you’ve learned don’t make sense, and narrowing down where Planet X might be.

(The only caveat I have for the app is at the end, when I put in where I thought Planet X was, the app asked me to tell it where Planet X was, and what was to either side of it, and something about the way it was worded left me confused and I entered it wrong even though I was correct, which was a small hiccough, but still derailed us a bit in figuring out the final score.)

There’s more to it than this: there are particular points around the cycle of the night sky where you can each place tokens in a particular part of the sky where you’re willing to gamble “this is where I believe there’s a comet/this slice of the sky is empty/pretty sure this is a gas cloud” for extra points at the end of the game, as well as the ability to simply ask the game “what is in this one particular section of the sky” (which you can do twice in the game each, with the caveat that it will report the sky as a false negative “empty” if Planet X is there).

Ultimately, I was pleasantly surprised to enjoy a board game with an app component for the first time. Every time I’ve tried board games that required a digital component, it hasn’t felt like a positive, so it was really nice to find out it’s not a problem of the format for me so much as the implementation. Do you have any games that involve a mix of physical and digital you’ve enjoyed?

Tabletop Tuesday — A Tale of Traitors (Part Three)

It’s Tuesday again and I’m back with my series of traitorous garbage characters discussion. When I first thought of this as a topic it occurred to me that I had two stories—or maybe a semi-third—from a TTRPG point of view about weaving traitorous characters—and now I’m at the end of the trio (semi trio?)

Why is it semi? 

Because this time, though I’m heading back to Star Trek Adventures again, the traitor in question has only been hinted at, and might not even exist yet.

Because time travel.

Paradox Get it? “Ashes”? Because it’s the Phoenix Cluster?

In the second episode of my USS Curzon group, I threw the characters into a “Temporal Heptahelix.” What’s a temporal heptahelix? Well, it’s Treknobabble, but here’s the basics: they entered the Phoenix Cluster, an area of space overdue a survey ever since the Enterprise-D didn’t get around to it on account of Will Riker picking up an STI (Star Trek Infection) on Risa, and bringing it back to the ship where it spread among the crew, all of whom got brainwashed except for Wesley Crusher and Data but it all worked out in the end.

But that survey never happened, what with all the discs dropping into hungry tubes.

So, I sent the USS Curzon there, and when they arrived they found signs of former occupancy on a planet that was evolutionarily speaking way ahead of when humanoids should be there, and so the Captain, Security Officer (both NPCs) and some cadets (who were due a “survival skills” training session) went down to survey the site where there were apparently odd and old structures. This let me do two things: one, show off the Supporting Cast rules (which I’ve waxed poetic about before) by asking all the players to create some cadets and/or take on the role of the Security Officer; and two, underline that the Captain was a former A&A Officer, and greatly interested in cultural and anthropological sites.

Meanwhile, the starship warped off to the next star, leaving the cadets, Captain, and Lieutenant behind to survey these strange ruins, with the notion they’d be “right back” to pick them up within a couple of days, while the cadets learned how to “rough it” (albeit with multiple two shuttles worth of supplies).

Unfortunately, things went wrong immediately. First, the ship found itself lurching from the oort cloud of the system into another one immediately—that made no sense—and also multiple system failures went off, and the short version is this: it turns out the Phoenix Cluster wasn’t a collection of stars, a proto-star nebula, and something else, it was actually the same star at seven different points in its lifetime, and the ship was stuck in a helix that moved it from one time period to another whenever it tried to go past the borders of the system.

When daylight broke on the planet with the Captain, Lieutenant, and cadets? A stone appeared in the centre of the structures they were exploring, as if conjured by sunlight. One of the cadets—Brinner Kol, a botany cadet created by the wonderful Evan May—touched it. This was bad for him. But it sent off a wave of energy through all seven timelines and the Curzon started to realize they needed to (a) figure out how to realign all these seven distinct timelines, and (b) likely needed to do so after recovering the captain, in order not to strand them millions of years in the past.

Oh, and then people started slipping through time.

And you get a Vision, and you get a Vision!

While the crew were desperately trying to figure out what was going on (including cracking a language on what was apparently an abandoned M-class planet who’d used that stone to somehow buy themselves more time to escape the star’s rush-towards-expansion by jumping into the past to create sleeper ships to get the hell out of Dodge), they started “slipping” into their pasts or futures at random, reliving moments (if it was the past) or being along for the ride of glimpses of potential futures if it went in the other direction.

For one of the those characters, Ensign Miari Grix (the ship’s Operations officer, who likes machines way more than she likes people, has an odd relationship with her symbiont where she doesn’t experience the emotionality of her past hosts, only the factual side of memories, and is generally just as prickly on the outside as she appears; played to perfection by Hudson Lin), this side-trip to the future was particularly bad.

Because she was being interviewed by two JAG officers who were asking her exactly when she became first aware of the traitor on the Curzon.

So, Wait, Is There a Traitor or Not?

Maybe. At first, Grix threw herself into trying to figure it out, but then, over time, as she needed to involve more of the crew (read: the other players), it became clear there was a potential for the traitor to not be there yet. Part of the interview Grix saw included mention of a stardate, and that stardate was between two and three years later than the current time. Also, she and the JAG officers were in a different uniform—a grey one, rather than the black jumpsuit with yellow, blue, or red shoulders—which was another checkmark in the “this might happen later” column.

The players realized they very well could have ruled someone out already who would later decide to betray the ship. Or maybe it was someone they hadn’t met yet. Also? Through their own actions in looking into the potentially suspicious activities of one crew person, they uncovered something else that was against the regulations—and changed that crew person’s view of the future, preventing it from happening.

So the futures they saw? They can change.

Eventually, Grix included the rest of the senior staff, theorizing that even if it was one of them, they’d be in a position to hide it from her anyway, so better to have all the senior staff aware of what was going on—or might go on in the future—and the Captain eventually settled things with, “we stay aware, but we can’t be paranoid about this.” They can’t second-guess everyone and everything—but they know it’s a possibility, and to keep their eyes open.

Yeah, but ‘Nathan, is there a traitor?

You bet your spotted Trill buttocks there will be. But is that person already a traitor? Is that person already plotting? Is that person already on board?

They’ll have to wait to find that out. The whole reason I did the glimpses of the future in the first place was to cement some “potentials” for the players, underline some relationships for their characters that might develop, and to drop some sense of long-term continuity into the game right out of the gate, but I wont lie: “the Traitor” plot is the one I’ve worked on the most. Eventually, all will be revealed, but this is why I considered this story kind of a “half” of a Traitor story.

We’re not there yet.

What about your games? Ever included any glimpses of the future for your players? I was nervous to do it, but they all jumped in with both feet and it’s been fun as those events get closer. Any time I want to ratchet up the tension for the ship’s counsellor, I just mention a certain crewman’s length of hair (she’s growing it out, and his vision included talking to her when her hair was of a certain length, and they were talking about something bad having just happened). The first officer has a really rough conversation in his future with his former brother-in-law. The science officer already wrestled with “was this free will or did I just let myself kiss that guy because I already knew I’d wake up with him at some point in the future”? Oh, and the chief engineer totally saw the ship falling to pieces.

It’s been fun.