Campaign Idea: Uranus's Children

[dccarles]

The player's hook:
Your father was a scientist, once. He raised you, taught you a love of the sublime mysteries of the universe. With his wealth and power, he gave you everything you could want - whole worlds, even. And like him, you became a scientist. Together, you did wonderful things, things you thought would never be forgotten.

But you and your siblings and your children gradually became aware that he was changing. His studies in psionics had led him to enhance his brain, and he cast away both personality and conscience as frivolities a scientist could not afford. Once he wanted students; now he wanted slaves. When your ideas conflicted with his, he had no time to listen, only more demands for your data and your servitude.

Some of your siblings resisted. Resistance was tantamount to rebellion, so they were killed. And when that happened, you fought.

And you lost. Almost two hundred children and grandchildren were killed, and trillions of intelligent beings with them. The only reason you are alive is because the war was so destructive and so chaotic that you could fake your death convincingly.

Only very recently - past thousand years or so - have you learned that some of your other siblings may have survived by similar means. One fled for the galactic core, and only recently returned; another found a small star and hid herself inside. But Grandfather still has his agents in the worlds colonized by his former chattels. He is gradually becoming aware of the possibility of your existence.

You are the second most powerful being in the galaxy. The first is coming to kill you.

 

[dccarles]

How The Campaign Works

Scope:
This is not an ordinary Traveller campaign by any means.

The players will control both individual characters and the many resources under their covert control - corporations, armies, governments. If at any point secrecy is compromised (or discarded) the galaxy could see another General War, or the whole campaign could take place without the vast majority of intelligent beings ever knowing what happened.

The individual characters will have capabilities that make most common tasks trivial. Time scales will vary wildly - a psionic duel between demigods with artificially enhanced neural pathways might take microseconds, while a conversation between characters that takes less play time could take decades in game, if they are at opposite ends of the Imperium.

Rules:
The characters are immortal storehouses of information. If a piece of Traveller lore is listed in a sourcebook, no matter how obscure, the referee can assume the characters would know it unless Yaskodray has concealed it.

Because the players are not all-seeing geniuses, at any time an unforeseen contingency arises they can just declare 'I didn't think of that', and game time can be reverted. The exceptions are
(1) they can't revert to a time before the last roll of the dice,
(2) they can't revert in a situation involving another player character, Grandfather, or his agents,
(3) they can't revert back before they learned a piece of information important to the plot (unless the referee is willing to change it on the second run through.)

Character generation will not follow standard Traveller rules. Assume the characters stats (and psionic strength) are all (in classic Traveller terms) at least 20(L), and likely much higher. The characters will understand and have the skills to build technology at a level the referee chooses (TL 18-25.)

Instead, they will receive a point allotment they can use to to purchase resources:
(1) Increased psionic potential and unique psionic abilities,
(2) Secret control of a significant sentient organization (like a sector-wide corporation, large planetary institution, or a squadron worth about a trillion credits)
(3) Access and understanding of technology above the default player level,
(4) Understanding of some significant secret (like a certain neutron star's gravity conceals a wormhole, an idea of how to create a pocket universe, or a clue as to what Yaskodray might be doing at game start)
(5) An robotic ally of significant capability (like Ihdren-Gzal, Grandfather's self-aware self-replicating agent among the Vargr.)

 

[dccarles]

Conflict Drives The Story

Because the characters are at such a higher level than anything the mass of spacegoing sophonts around them can muster, they're not much of a challenge (though even a TL 8 nuclear missile salvo is a significant threat if you're caught in a free trader.) That's not the point. Here are some questions the players should ask:

Can the player characters trust each other? Maybe one's made a deal....or is himself one of Grandfather's psionically-aware robot servants.

How important is the life and safety of the masses around them to their character? Are there any NPCs they care about?

How much of Droyne culture and psychology do they retain? With their vastly expanded awareness, the last draysaskin will have perspectives far beyond the comprehension the Droyne. Maybe retaining even their original physiology is of little consequence to them.

Finally, what are they doing to do? You can run, you can fight, or you can hide. But not indefinitely.

Here are some questions for the referee:

What kind of campaign do you expect? One where the Second General War starts almost immediately would be very different in theme than one where all the important action takes place in the shadows.

Are their character's perceptions of the events leading to the General War accurate? Communication isn't instant, even at their tech level, and Grandfather's view of what happened might turn out to be less distorted than what they thought they saw.

What have sophont NPCs guessed about the Ancients? Some of them might know more than the sourcebooks imply.

What does Grandfather really want? He might not even bear a grudge, and be content to stay in his pocket universe. He may choose to plant misinformation about the player character's loyalties and let them destroy each other.

How much about Grandfather's current disposition do the players know, and how did they find out? They didn't pluck the information from a vacuum, and neither did he.

 

[dccarles]

Sources and Inspirations

(1) Vilani and Vargr: The Coreward Races
Ihdren-Gzal, Grandfather's secret observer of the Vargr, gave me the idea of a hidden conflict between surviving draysaskin and their progenitor.

(2) Amber Diceless Role Playing Game
A game unique in that the PCs are assumed to be in conflict with one another, and in which the vast majority of NPCs aren't a challenge.

(3) Vampire: the Masquerade
The need for secrecy, and the possibility of destruction at the hands of their sleeping ancient elders, are both major themes of this game.

(4) Adventure 12: Secret of the Ancients
It occurred to me you couldn't really have the Ancients in a regular Traveller campaign without the campaign being all about the Ancients, who really have no need to interact with the PCs. (Once you've met God, it's hard to find making the payments on your free trader very compelling.) So why not go the whole jump-6 and make a campaign where interaction with the Ancients is the defining feature?

 

[McPerth]

It seems a Jihad card game match...

I see it more adequate for a strategic (probably PBM) game tan a true Travelelr adventure, but it could be interesting...

 

[mike wightman]

I would recommend you download the MgT re-imaging of Secret of the Ancients.

It is much better than the original, dovetails with some of your ideas nicely, and offers rules for metagaming resource use by PCs.

 

[Murphy]

You may want to look at the free Secrets of the Ancients campaign, more specifically, part 6. Mongoose introduced a mechanic and skill list for epic adventuring there, which may well be used for your campaign.

EDIT: Ninja'd.

 

[dccarles]

It seems a Jihad card game match...

Jyhad/Vampire: the Eternal Struggle must have been in the back of my mind when I wrote this; it certainly touches on some similar themes. I don't think everything that happens/happened in the galaxy should be the result of some invisible puppetmaster, but if a PC, say, decides to inspire an ambitious warlord to reforge a long-gone galactic empire so he'll have a huge fleet to draw on should Grandfather return, great. And if another paranoid PC sees that empire and interprets it as one of Grandfather's attempts to control everything, and knows this ambitious archduke who can take it down...

I see it more adequate for a strategic (probably PBM) game tan a true Travelelr adventure, but it could be interesting...

In my mind, it might be a mix of both. I can see the PCs both interacting with NPCs as individuals (though mortal NPCs might be too short lived to stick around very long), and through abstracted mechanics dealing with large scale actions.

 

[dccarles]

I would recommend you download the MgT re-imaging of Secret of the Ancients.

It is much better tun the original, overalls with some of your ideas nicely, and offers rules for metagaming resource use by PCs.

Shall do!