Uqbar Formerly military, currently militant History Uqbar’s lifeless – for the most part. Some of the planet’s spectacular ravines have been roofed over and pressurised, creating a few habitable zones. The planet’s atmosphere is thin and unbreathable – it’s mostly argon – and lights up with astounding flares and aurorae as radiation from the collapsed […]
Tag Archives: Station Duty
Themis Prime Heavily Populated, Bitterly Divided History Many worlds can support life; few allow it to thrive. Themis Prime was one of the rare eden of the Bleed, a world with a biosphere requiring only minor tweaks compatible with most of the major Combine species. Humans, Balla and Tavak all settled on this world, united […]
Goliath Gas giant with many secrets Sullen, mighty Goliath dominates the outer reaches of the Themis System. The gas giant’s many moons are uninhabited apart from a few research, refuelling or prospecting outposts, although there are likely secret weapons dumps left by General Gatar’s forces hidden here too, concealed by the electromagnetic flux. Only Goliath-C […]
The Campaign The key to any Station Duty campaign: layers. Everything – every character, every faction, every location – should have a surface layer that’s immediately obvious, and hidden depths that must be uncovered. These don’t all have to be dark secrets or criminal schemes – it’s fine, say, to have the Lasers discover that […]
Ashen Stars uses the episodic ‘planet-of-the-week’ or ‘case-of-the-week’ approach to adventures – the Lasers get an assignment, show up, solve the mystery, and move on to some other part of the Bleed. It’s Have Starship, Will Travel.In a Station Duty campaign, the Lasers are on permanent assignment to a particularly troubled system or sector, a […]
A previous article outlined an alternate campaign frame for Ashen Stars. Here’s a worked example. (The inspiration for this example, by the way, came from an episode of 99% Invisible about the Great Bitter Lake Association.) In the Ashen Stars setting, ships travel fast-than-light along translight corridors. The largest starships – massive industrial supercarriers, mobile refineries, and […]
The 2nd edition of the Esoterrorists includes the Station Duty campaign frame, in which a Esoterrorist team is placed on long-term assignment to a particular small town for an ongoing investigation instead of the usual mystery-of-the-week. That approach also works in Ashen Stars. (The obvious worked example: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine swapped out the […]