Starward

Starward
Episode X
"Mysterious Cargo"

It is a time of peace negotiations. The Automatrix Dominion and the Federation of Free and Willing Systems are meeting on  e Cascades—Binary planets that orbit so closely together, water falls from one to the other. Massive armadas on each side circle the planet.

The independent freighter Lazerhawk must avoid naval entanglements to pick up a mysterious cargo.

*
A starship hiding under an island in an interplanetary waterfall. Alana's piloting at Captain Will's command. Shadowing a Federation patrol ship by copying its standard operating protocols. STVe's knowledge showing the way. A figure in coral armor riding on a flying fish marshalling a starship to land. Ba2 distracted by Quantum anomoly, missing the danger to the hull seals, bursting under water pressure. Occasionally the power of the material world does NOT pale next to the power of the Quanta.

*
SIDEBAR: Enhanced datafile on native species Gamma native to The Cascades:
Eacy being is, in fact, an individual hive of quasi-independent organisms. The dorsal surface has a coral-like protective carapace. When facing outward, resembles coral armor. They are renown throughout space as warriors unparalleled in non-lethal combat. They can vary their internal density. They have no teeth, drinking nectar for sustenance. They can project stinging, paralyzing tendrils from their appendages.

*
On an island rotating, slowing becoming a cliff. The Lazerhawk grounded and surrounded by Federation troops. Waterfall in falling sunlight. Rainbows everywhere!

Laser drills brought to bear on stubborn hull. A shout! Blaster fire. Efficiency versus pluck. A mortar brought to bear. Too powerful its anchoring jets. The island rotating and Federation troopers drenched. Angelus, the fish-woman, paralyzing troops with stinging tendrils. Steam from blaster bolts enveloping the battlefield. Ba2 reflecting laser bolts off polished sword-a distraction. Captain will destroying the laser drills. "I just fixed that."

Off the troop transport, Brigadier Armstrong, in cavalry hat and breathing apparatus like moustaches and muttonchops. A fencing salute. Sword skills perfectly according to training. Ba2 drawing the battle closer to the Lazerhawk. A devastating deviation from standard protocol! Ba2's katana twisting through the weird gravity. How does a Federation officer understand Quantum flux? Magnet boots on outer hull of The Lazerhawk.

STVe thrown into the mysterious, precious cargo during liftoff. Brown, earthy, fragrant, spongy.

Water in the ship. Bailing out the engine room. Icicles of vented moisture on the outer hull. A flashing light on a robotic tracking unit, unseen on the outer hull. They're tracking us. You didn't think our escape would be so easy? Angelus screaming at Captain Will: "You said you could deliver it in time. The colony needs to leave when the wormhole opens. The next wormhole is in ten thousand centuries. I don't live that long!"

Angelus and Ba2 picking the mulch from STVe. The cold chill of fear in a robot’s central processor. Impossible Quantum energy packed into this mulch. The Nth-power Quantum mulch: The question isn't what it can do, but what it can't do! How can the Nth-power Quantum mulch be neutralized?

Days later, the prismatic drive too waterlogged to track. No FTL means our pursuers are looking in the wrong place. The ol' "too slow to follow" gambit. First mate Amara not at the controls. Angelus also missing. Ba2 uses a mote of mulch to search the Quantum field.

A cloaked ship secretly docked with the Lazerhawk! Alana and Angelus onboard. The cephalopodic ship launches into prismatic drive. Captain Will vents atmosphere and water all. A plume of prismatic ice crystals blooming from the ship’s hull. Prismatic drive restored! STVe skillfully navigates to match cephalopodic ship's course.

Powered by Nth-power Quantum mulch, Ba2 leaps the distance, but overpowered. Android body smashing through cephalopdic drive system, and tumbling out the otherside through void. Captain Will bringing The Lazerhawk to bear on the cephalopodic ship. Zoom out. The Automatrix Dominion surrounds both!

The wormhole opens.

A single Federation ship appears near the floating helpless Ba2. On bridge, a figure cavalry hat, bearing both saber and katana. "Gotcha!"

**********
Epidiah as the Overplayer
Stras as Captain Will and first mate Alana
Keith as STVe
Myself as Ba2

Our virtual tabletop: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Tl964iNFt2_YdVSiLaf2I24FZfm40uPoXVWnPJCOYP0/edit
The Lazerhawk: http://imgur.com/ztSKgBb

http://imgur.com/ztSKgBb

Captain Will Orden

Captain Will Orden
#Starward  Rogue

All that Deserves a Name
The Lazerhawk - Captain will’s well used, but still functional ship (http://imgur.com/ztSKgBb) (Tone: Rad)
Alana M’lari - The green-skinned and fire-haired first mate of the Lazerhawk.
Earth - The captain’s faraway home.

Feats heroic
Jovial - With wink and a grin, Will throws the first punch.
Glum - On the captains mark, the Lazerhawk evens the playing field with great precision.

Trick
Locus - On board the Lazerhawk, floating quietly through multi-colored, faintly glowing gas.
Compact - … we rely on the prowess of the Lazerhawk.

Sunday Morning Swords: 10 January 2016

Sunday Morning Swords: 10 January 2016

#StarwardEdition

Good morning!

Here's our organizational thread. Comment below if you're interested in playing this morning and mention if you're comfortable being an Overplayer and whether or not you have play Swords before.

When we get an Overplayer and three or four Rogue Players, those players will run off and start their hangout. For now, let's focus on getting everyone into a group. We'll probably wait until 9:30 EST to start the last group. If you can't make that, check back in a few hours. Another one will fire up at 9 AM PST for those who wake at a more civilized time.

Feel free to use the hashtag #SundayAMSwords should you desire to chat about your game on the social medias.

P.S. Got some tips on how to do this and links to useful files here: http://www.worldswithoutmaster.com/blog/2014/7/14/sunday-morning-swords
http://www.worldswithoutmaster.com/blog/2014/7/14/sunday-morning-swords

STVe

STVe

A #Starward  rogue (art by Wouter Gort)

Items Deserving Specific Designation
The Upgrade - The installation of Version 2.0 software the indicates an android's entrance to adulthood. The installation STVe and his ilk have fled.
The Transistors - STVe's gang of greasers. Literal greasers.
Tachyon Drift - Illegally modded space motorcycle. Dangerously fast, as well as just dangerous
Hybrid cables - The non-spec cords hanging from STVe's right hand. Can transmit information to sentient beings and electrical impulses to all.

Distinguishing Performances
Glum - Cold, blue light flickers from STVe's cathode ray display while the servos in his left hand crush the obstacle before him.
Jovial - STVe jumps on Tachyon Drift and flies circles around his competition.

Trick
Canny Cognition - STVe jacks into the Galactic Central Core system, jumping lines of code like an acrobat and chases down the 0s and 1s he seeks.

I'm sick again/still so I'm not sure how early I can get up tomorrow morning, but how awesome would it be to have ...

I'm sick again/still so I'm not sure how early I can get up tomorrow morning, but how awesome would it be to have #SundayAMStarward ? 

(Sooooo awesome)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4nYXSvbVX-AZ2JLTTFpN241MDg/view?usp=sharing

The galaxy is vast and starlit, peopled by multitudes on its myriad of strange and wondrous worlds.

The galaxy is vast and starlit, peopled by multitudes on its myriad of strange and wondrous worlds. There is darkness among the stars, where we can hide among the thousand-thousand secrets and seek our fortune between the grasping claws of tyranny. This is why the restless, the hungry, and the dispossessed turn ever #Starward…

Starward is a space-fantasy hack of Swords Without Master (www.swordswithoutmaster.com) set in the universe of Vast & Starlit (www.dig1000holes.com/vast-starlit).

INFLUENCES

Leigh Brackett's Skaith Trilogy & the Flash Gordon comic & serial
For wondrous aliens, worlds and cultures. For battles with swords and ray guns alike. For a healthy dose of sorcery with our high sciences. For the opening titles crawl from the Flash Gordon serial.

Kurosawa & Seven Samurai
For gathering a crew of masterless rogues. For tense and decisive sword fights. For something a bit more complex than powerful strangers coming to help.

WWII Aviation Films
For turbulent and nail-biting dogfights. For tense bombing runs. For a handful of crewmembers holding a stubborn craft together with elbow grease and a few prayers.

THE RITUAL OF THE OPENING CRAWL
Each session begins with the Overplaying reciting the opening crawl, a brief introduction to what has gone on before and what it about to happen. In the opening crawl, the Overplayer must answer at least two of the following:

• What is going on in the greater struggle?
• What has happened just before now?
• What machinations have lead to the beginning phase?

The opening crawl need not tightly knit previous adventures with the current one.

THE RITUAL OF STRANGE & WONDROUS ENCOUNTERS
(All but nine words taken verbatim from Vast & Starlit.)

Whenever you need an alien species, culture, or environment hold the action, step out of the game, and follow these steps:

Create Your Base
Alien species—One player selects 2 types of animals they are familiar with.

Alien culture—One player selects a culture or subculture they are a part of.

Alien environment—One player selects a location & a climate all are familiar with.

Deviate Aspects
The next player picks an aspect of the base, such as a cat’s aloofness, the pettiness of oˆce politics, or a half-frozen bog. Then the next player chooses to tweak, reverse, or exaggerate this. Repeat this step 3 to 5 times until it feels alien.

Combine & Synthesize
The next player makes a coherent whole from only the deviated aspects, not the base.

THE RITUAL OF DUELS & DOGFIGHTS
When you stand against a worthy foe with sword or pistol, or when you scream across the sky in frantic battle with enemy aces, it never ends as it begins. If your dogfight or duel ends up part of an element on a Motif, your struggle cannot be resolved in just one phase.

If the current phase is the first phase featuring this particular dogfight or duel, you must wait until this phase ends and the next one begins before ending it. Additionally, the Overplayer must attempt to follow the current phase with the next phase on the chart below (though this may be subverted by a Trick).

• Follow a Perilous Phase with a Rogues' Phase
• Follow a Rogues' Phase with a Discovery Phase
• Follow a Discovery Phase with a Perilous Phase

If the duel or dogfight has already lasted through more than one phase, you may resolve it whenever.

THE RITUAL OF THE WANDERING TONE
The base Overtones are Glum & Jovial. Planets, spacecraft housing three or more crew, and other significant environments may have one or more alternative tones, like below. 

The jungle planet of Ul-Gallaroon:
• Lush
• Cacophonous
• Claustrophobic
• Misty

The Golden Moon:
• Opulence
• Austerity

The Princess May, the star galleon of Captain Ceres and her stardogs:
• Brutal
• Treacherous
• Vibrant

A space freighter in chronic disrepair:
• Clunky

Such environments have their own die as well. When first you come upon a significant environment with alternative tones, the Overplayer chooses one of the tones already in play and swaps it for one of the environment's tones as they swap the tone's die for the environment's die. 

As the rogues wander through fanciful vistas, the tones will wander with them. Once swapped, the new die stays in play until swapped out by another. All who roll must now adhere to the new tone, though their Feats Heroic and certain Tricks may affect this. Unparalleled rogues ignore any new tone that replaces the tone they have already replaced, but must adhere to tones that replace the other. For example, Captain Ceres is Unparalleled—she is Raucous instead of Jovial—and if aboard The Princess May the Overplayer decides to swap Jovial with Vibrant, her tones remain Glum and Raucous; but if the Overplayer swaps Glum with Treacherous, her tones become Treacherous and Raucous. She will always have Raucous as one of her tones as long as she's Unparalleled. 

You will only ever have two tone dice in play and whenever you come upon an environment without its own tones, the Overplayer may swap Glum or Jovial back into play.

THAT WHICH IS DESERVING OF A NAME
Occasionally the story is as much about the ship or companions or gear of the rogues as it is of the rogues themselves. When you create your Feats Heroic, if one of your Feats features something named on your rogue's sheet, you may choose a second Trick for your rogue that also focuses on this named thing.

The stardogs are a group of rowdy space pirates that Captain Ceres holds to her command and has named on her rogue's sheet. Her Glum Feat Heroic is to "Commit a loyal stardog to a doomed course of action that just may save The Princess May." Because she features the stardogs in her Feat Heroic, she can have another Trick (in addition to the previously mentioned Unparalleled) as long as that Trick also features the stardogs. She chooses Ill Fate and writes the lesson "Never fully trust your second in command."

(PDF Version of this post: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4nYXSvbVX-AZ2JLTTFpN241MDg/view?usp=sharing)

Folks, if you haven't been following closely, I've been running a Choose Your Own Adventure style game on Twitter...

Originally shared by Epidiah Ravachol

Folks, if you haven't been following closely, I've been running a Choose Your Own Adventure style game on Twitter since November using Twitter's new poll system. By the third tweet, we fell into a flashback and last week we finally played through the entire flashback back to the present. To celebrate, I'm going to pay an artist to illustrate one of the tweets. But I need help deciding which.

Here are the three I'd most like to see illustrated:

• https://t.co/cD7iY08Ijk
• https://t.co/OOX7tG4lh6
• https://t.co/Z0gx1Kymmh

But I'm letting you decide. The tweet from the story with the most retweets by January 6th is the one I'm going to have illustrated.

Right now, the very first tweet in the story (https://twitter.com/Epidiah/status/661981894175793152) has the most retweets by virtue of being the oldest and the first, but not necessarily the most worthy. I have only until Jan. 6th to correct this! So go forth, my rogues, and retweet the worthiest tweet.
https://twitter.com/Epidiah/status/661981894175793152