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Old Gods Sectors

vegascat

SOC-13
I am working on a background for a new game for a new group. Creating a new group of sectors over 500 light years rimward of the Sol Sector.

Here is the background.

The original denizens of the area were uplifts by one of Grandfather's sons using Homo-erectus of Sol 3 Terra, but modified on a larger scale with higher Psi abilities to quickly construct his new cities. These homo-gigantus were sent to populate sectors far to rimward outside of Grandfather’s domain. During Grandfather’s war, most of their colonies were destroyed completely. Those who settled in the area well past any other settlements suffered less devastation by Grandfather’s scouts. The surviving planets had learned the pleasures and perils of warfare. These survivors followed signals from their peaceful neighbors bringing terror and devastation to the peace lovers. Some family groups built long range jump ships to flee from their cruel neighbors, heading core-ward and rim-ward. A cluster of these ships found their way to the old home of Sol 3 known as Terra Alpha. There, they found a bunch of TL0 paleolithic Cro-Magnons living a hunter gatherer life.

Karma caught up to the more war loving planets in the form of a binary pair of blue giant stars. A battle in that system using experimental gravatic weapons would cause both stars to go nova together and became a powerful black hole they called the Eye of Loss. The nova destroyed their tech, cities, and destabilized more than a few of their home stars. The survivors were able to rebuild and reclaim some tech until they but were unable to regain jump travel. Many planets’ populations gained a fear of psionic abilities and technology resulting in strong taboos reinforced by many mutations over the generations.

The travellers who reached Terra Alpha started using genetic modifications and animal husbandry to ranch the paleolithic Cro-Magnons, trying to improve the species over tens of thousands of years uplifting them until they were usable intelligent slave homosapiens. They effectively became their slaves of their ruling gods. These benevolent gods were 50% larger, 10 times stronger and much more intelligent than their large flocks. It was easy to control them by telepathy and with the remains of their higher technology. Selected individuals were given power over their follows allowing telepathic contact to their gods. Those that displeased them or didn’t measure up were culled as human sacrifices to their gods. They were taught a variety of skills to be able to work for them better.

These superior beings lived very long lives with access to a few old failing high tech autodocs and advanced healing skills. They did procreate among themselves, with the women deciding when to allow themselves to get pregnant, taking two years to gestate. Not many new pure blood children were born. Often major concessions were given to the mother by the father. Raising these children were a trial for the parent as the kids had power over many servants. For fun they used their flocks of humans for war games. When they discovered a superior human female, they graced that human by breeding with them usually using their telepathy to modify their experience. Superior males were given a large harem to spread their seed.

The homo-gigantus became used to living as gods over their flocks of slaves. Strife arose when a few of these overlords began to believe that they deserved to rule over their brothers, treating them as slaves. Those who were treated poorly took the jump ships and left with their flocks to other hidden places, leaving the Nile valley behind. They grouped into different territories such as the peninsula of Greece, The Iberian Peninsula above the village of Rome, the islands of Britain, Australia, Scandinavia, China, Tibet, South and Central America, Central Africa, and India. They split off as couples to small families to try and live better than their neighbors without being subservient to those claiming to be Overlords. Everything was going wonderfully for most of them until one was killed by one of the Overlords causing his wife to angrily create a virus genetically targeting all of her fellow homo-gigantus. Birds as well as humans were used to carry and spread the deadly scourge virus worldwide within a year. Some were able to give warning to other groups before dying as they quickly decayed to ash. The few groups with warning quickly loaded back on their ships with some select followers and went back to their old home worlds. Not all ships departed before the infection reached them. The route followed was in the navigation banks of the ships allowing almost anyone to run the ships. Several ships continued on even as their gods died of the virulent disease leaving ships of humans to find the worlds of the old ones.

The travellers who were the decedents of the original travellers and humans returned to the home worlds hoping for a welcome home, but instead received scorn, hatred, and violence. The people of the old worlds had stagnated, fearing the hated technology. The ones returning with their chosen servants had exercised their skills, psionic abilities and remaining technologies becoming better at everything than those they found. The old worlds near the Eye of Loss were depopulated or scoured clean. The travellers found the many old ones easier to subjugate than their humans as they old ones had lost their psionic ability.

The ships visited many worlds throughout the sectors. The ships piloted by human only crews carried the scourge virus to all worlds they visited, depopulating the worlds they visited. A few systems with off planet old ones survived unable to give warning to other systems. Knowing that they would die if they returned to their world of origin. It took a few decades to destroy the race of the homo-gigantus more complete than Grandfather’s followers tried to do.

The humans quickly spread across the many worlds as the old ones disappeared. The humans found that they could eliminate their gods easily instead of going to their deaths. The remaining homo-gigantus are now loading up to leave before their own followers use the scourge kill them. They hope to find security beyond the Eye of Loss as they head out to colonize new worlds.

After a thousand years, the humans have spread and colonized many of the worlds and are running into each other. Ships have run back to Terra Prime designed to gain more breeding stock humans accelerating population growth. Treaties have been made and empires founded. Wars have spread across the sectors but tech limitations have limited empires to no more than 50 star systems. Emperors who have used methods to destructive find themselves permanently removed from power.

Governments of different worlds will be sending out diplomats to gain allies and scout as many worlds as they can. Some small empires will exist, and some rulers will be lusting after the resources and people of nearby worlds. There is no overarching imperium government to keep a lid on things out here beyond the frontier. Any world using too much violence during an attack on another world will draw the ire of many neighboring worlds who will join forces to eliminate the overzealous government. Small groups of determined people can make big differences. Empty worlds ready for colonization are nearby. Alien race merchants selling high tech visit occasionally.

The players will find these sectors near a hungry black hole where vulnerable gods are a recent memory and the slaves of the gods are reaching out on their own as they find new ways to self-govern. It is nowhere near a perfect universe with perfect people and the masters of old may return to gather new servants at any time. There is room for Scouts, Merchants, Mercenaries, Rouges and brave diplomats from any world.

Some of the intelligent creatures found here will be:

Centaurs and K’Kree

Harpies

Dolphins

Odd sea creatures

Vargr and Anubis hyena hybrids

Modified Aslan

Humans with random Psi skills

Deformed and or oversized humans

Satyrs

Nymphs

Animal hybrids

Droyne and Chirpers

And a few slightly confusing Hivers.

Other races exist, yet to be found.


Always remember, the ever-hungry Eye of Loss is always watching.



I wish to thank Zho Berka for his Random Subsector Generator that I have used over the last couple of decades. It has been very useful.
 
I am looking at starting with the old standard 80-year-old Far Trader crewed by a totally random crew covering skills and abilities to crew it effectively. They will discover by accident Sol-Sec ultra-secret knowledge of a race of Ancient God like imitators existing a few sectors rimward., burn before reading, electro-shock therapy after reading, drop the bodies and all evidence into a sun or black hole. Sol-Sec would be chasing them in a few Fast armed courier ships with the intention of capture, psi scan, determine extent of the leaks, gather all leaks and drop them down a very bright gravity well.

A tactic the players may try would be to allow capture by a fast armed courier, fake power difficulties, allow docking and boarding so they can do an end run to take the Sol-Sec ship while the troops are boarding their ship with the silent countdown to power plant detonation proceeds on schedule. A ship swap would increase the groups survival chances if they get lucky. They would have to take someone alive and convince them to give the proper codes to crew the ship. They had best have a strong trained telepath in the group.

As they travel, they would have to blind jump or get nav maps programs from systems they pass through. Deal with banana style tin pot dictators, religious extremists, festivals involving cannibalistic feasts with visitors being the guests of honor. Worlds on the way would be populations that are there for a reason. People hiding from their home worlds, persecuted minorities, anti Zhodani Psionic societies, Robot societies, strange diseases, genetic mutations, Mad Max worlds, hidden bases of K’Kree and/or Hivers. A breakaway empire of Aslan worlds should be entertaining to encounter. So many worlds, so little time.
 
Not to improperly dampen your Cheerios, but 500 light years is already appearing on the map. That's the row of sectors that includes Ruthless Veil, as each sector is ~140 light years across on the core/rim axis.
 
Here is the sector map of the area I am working on. Ruthless Veil is one of the sectors on the way. I have planted a large black hole near the middle of the Fantegor sector called The Eye of Loss. This black hole was created by a son of Grandfather who was hunting his brothers and found a large number of them and their decedents. He created the black hole by dropping large blue suns in pocket universes tansported to a sun close to his brothers. Drop the pinched off universes into a sun, popping the blue suns out at the same time to create a new large nasty black hole with a nova as a useful destructive side effect. To populate the sectors, I have been using the random subsector creator from ZhoBeRKA. Modifying where needed for logic and or to make things interesting to make the players work for their rewards.

Dark NebulaMagyarSolomani RimAlpha Crucis
Ustral QuadrantCanopusAldebaranNeworld
BannersHanstoneMalornHadji
AhrimanHolowonAmderstunRimreach
HelimanNelatherRuthless VeilSanditarn
DrytharLantharFeltercarbCivicel
TedimanKargerSalimadrilGourmeth
ArhghenWeathermoreRestalogHelfin
BellamyAusterlithAusterlithDoomfeld
LorevarusFantegorKriegfeldHussendorf
MiragoldBargeldFavorfeldSwartzhel
NobleshareFelnuliaArgentiaSharen
 
Here is a more detailed history as a background to torture my players.
Boboyaga is a grandson of Yaskoydray who answered the call to help his Grandfather remove his uncles from existence.

The Eye of Loss is a massive black hole sitting near the middle of the Old Gods Dominion. The glow of it’s corona can be seen in daylight on most planets of the sector. It was not naturally created, but instead is the product of Yaskoydray, Grandfather’s grandson Boboyaga. Grandfather sent this grandson to track down and eliminate his rebelling sons heading rimward and research everything about gravity. Boboyaga travels in a pinched off bubble universe connecting to the expanded universe with a mobile wormhole that surfs gravity waves to greatly exceed the speed of light. His connection to the universe appears as a dark rock asteroid very difficult to detect by design. Bobayaga’s research area was to study and exploit gravity waves and all it’s possible uses. To assist his study of gravity, he sired many children with his wives and created several new races to work in what would be dangerous conditions for him. He kept Grandfather informed on some of his activities, but not all of them. His discoveries in the area of gravity uses and the new races created were passed on to demonstrate his usefulness, but his progeny were hidden along with the clones of himself that became popup targets for Grandfather’s cleansing of Grandfather’s own progeny. Reports of Boboyagas demise were always false. When several reports of successful extermination of Boboyagas demise reached Grandfather, he knew something was wrong but was too distracted with other projects.

The biggest discoveries of Boboyaga included gravity-based shielding and weapons, movement and modification of stellar bodies, and warp speed travel. A side discovery stolen from one of his brothers was how to pinch off pocket universes and how to destroy them. Boboyaga found a way to take a sun, pinch off a pocket universe around the sun to use it for a power source shrunk down to briefcase size in a shielded bubble so it could be carried safely. He would send one of his kids into an enemy’s bubble universe to be left behind with a delay timer to drop the shielding letting the sun quickly consume everything in the doomed area. He found ways to manipulate gravity to increase or decrease the local gravity strength or even flip it on a planetary scale. Flipping the gravity in the core of a star would have a tendency to cause a stellar nova. That would devastate a subsector sized area similar the Darrian Maghriz.

To eliminate a powerful colony of Grandfather’s sons known as the Giants combine far rimward of Grandfathers home, he decided to create a large black hole that became the Eye of Loss. The Giants Combine centered around a research area where the Droyne created a three-meter-tall race of psychically sensitive servants to do the works needed. The creation the black hole in a system home to a yellow main sequence star home to dozens of Grandfather’s children would be difficult and dangerous on many levels. He found a few large blue giant stars he could drop into pinched off pocket universes then transported to the doomed star. The worst challenge would be to warp the blue stars into the heart of the yellow star all at the same time without being discovered. The disappearance of blue giant stars would be a signal that something was happening, but due to the speed of light, the missing stars should not be noticed until years after the black hole was created. Scouts from the Giants Combine discovered a missing blue giant star during a refueling stop. Boboyaga was still in the system after encasing the blue star. He flipped the scout ship into the newly created pocket universe filled with the blue star. A few years later, eight giant blue stars were released in the core of the yellow star and reacted to each other within their own cores. All of these stars within a minute combined into a massive nova before anyone could escape the doomed system. A few giants in the outer system already aboard several jump capable ships were able to escape doom by making emergency jumps within the jump shadow of the nova. The nova left behind a very hungry black hole. A ninth blue giant star appeared in an outer orbit path a few days later affecting the new black hole causing regular destructive gravity wave pulses for several thousand years decimating all systems within 50 parsecs. The gravity waves decreased in power as the orbiting blue star was consumed by the black hole. The planets and all other asteroids shattered as the black hole ate them.

The Eye of Loss dominates the night sky across the sector, appearing as a blue eye hungrily looking back at observers. Ships traveling anywhere near the Eye could be pulled out of jump when crossing the extra-large gravity shadow of the Eye. Navigators learned that the 100-diameter jump shadow of the Eye was actually about a full parsec, ten times larger than their computers were programmed to block out. The shadow zone also varied with the orbit of the blue giant reaching out to affect ships more than half a parsec more. Starships fell out of jump space far from any chance to refuel. A few survived by rigging solar power collectors to keep the low berths powered up and coasting away from the black hole for many years. Any who survived such a disaster would become media heroes for a few years, getting some free drinks in bars.

Star systems near the Eye of Loss were continually hit by damaging gravity waves squashing most attempts to raise the systems tech level. People that lived in those affected systems did learn to creatively overcome most difficulties. The destructive gravity waves hitting systems within 10 parsecs were strong enough to be used as a power source. This became a clean energy source across the systems most hurt by the Eye. These gravity wave engines were lighter than most power types. Problems caused by the gravity fluctuations could be deadly. Tsunamis and land-slides happened with regularity. Tunnels and tall buildings collapsed with no warning. Orbits of asteroids were changed causing devastating planetary impacts. The creative people inhabiting this area found ways to use and profit from the disasters. Miners would capture the approaching asteroids placing them in stable orbits to be used as cheap sources of manufacturing materials. Tsunamis would be caught in catch basins then used for fish farms, power sources, manufacturing materials and many other creative uses. The flexing of the planets as the gravity waves passed created volcanoes, hot springs and steam vents. Lava from the many volcanoes was directed into smelters to separate out components to collect minerals, metals, and rich soil for farms. As the lava was already molten, no energy was needed for smelter heating, but was used to power the material separating operations. Hot springs became resort areas known for healing properties that may be real or not. Steam vents were capped for energy and the warm fluids bottles as mineral water. The technology needed for jump drive were out of reach due to the gravity waves. Short range space boats were possible and produced on small numbers. Most were manufactured in small orbital shipyards using material from captured asteroids. Orbital habitats were a dangerous place to live as flexing from gravity waves would cause random breakage and atmosphere leaks, but the pay was excellent.
 
Colonies of many known races exist and prosper in the area. The Droyne and chirpers are noticeable absent. The Vargr and K’Kree have learned to live together on many planets based on mutual respect and tolerance. Aslan are well represented in small Aslan empires. Humans in many forms are wide spread. They know of the Aslan Hierate, The Villani empire and the Imperial government. The Hivers are represented in small numbers with a few planets called Hiver homes. Few of the giants remain and most of those are not known for psychic abilities. Two planets within five parsecs of the Eye are home to Chirpers that are not well known and are passed off as peaceful aboriginals low intelligence animals. The reports on the chirpers are not exactly true. The Droyne are present in large numbers on these worlds, but are not seen by visitors. All hunting safaris to these worlds are known to be cursed, only managing to capture a few deadly poisonous snakes and bats. Every expedition is accompanied by unnoticed Droyne Sports who are charged to prevent anyone on safari from causing problems forbidden on their safari contracts. The Safari groups are all directed to land only at the port for customs inspections and contract signing. The contracts are the main reason for the high law levels of these planets. The contracts limit weapons, hunting areas, and prohibited creatures. Inhabited areas, Chirpers and farm livestock are forbidden punished by immediate execution without trial. The escorting Droyne use neural weapons to kill violators. All smugglers will be met on the ground and immediately executed. These planets do have patrol boats armed with neural weapons. This allows the Droyne to capture violators and take their ships. These ships taken are modified for Droyne use allowing jump very close to the black hole and retrofitting ship systems to around tech level 18. The technology used to modify the ships comes from the still living Boboyaga. Several ships patrol near the Eye of Loss to rescue ships and survivors that drop out of jump from the jump shadow of the Eye of Loss. These rescued ships are closely inspected and may be taken for Droyne use with the crew quietly disposed of. When the ships are not suitable to be taken, then the crew survives with no idea how they were rescued. The Droyne carefully place the ship past the black hole leaving no evidence of their help on the ship or in the ship’s computer. This has caused the official gravity shadow of the Eye of Loss to be incorrect.


Boboyaga uses the Droyne in the area of the Eye of Loss for his needs whatever they may be. It is to his advantage to keep any knowledge of Droyne inhabiting the local sectors from discovery. He knows Grandfather Yaskoydray may still be hunting him. He did travel to Sol, Terra when the giants travelled there. His presence was known as Baba Yaga. He created an entrance to his pocket universe that appeared as a yurt on legs and he changed his appearance to that of an old human woman. The experiments with gravity are still ongoing. Two planetary systems have been modified into rosettes with 4 planets orbing a sun in the same orbits in stable Lagrange points. Ship systems include shields that bend light around the ship causing effective invisibility. That same field will cause any direct fire weapon to bend around the ship. The weapons he uses are neural based, that cause crew death without affecting the target ship. There is an asteroid belt around the Eye just outside the event horizon where many captured ships in good condition are modified to Boboyagas standards to be used by his children who masquerade as common droyne. All ship transponders are modified to cause the ships to appear on any scanners to appear electronically and visually similar to 100-ton scout ships or larger free merchants. Pity the pirate gang that tries to take one of those ships. It would be an interesting problem for a player character droyne crew on a 200-ton free trader to attempt manning an unfriendly light cruiser whose crew are suddenly found themselves dead. The one question would be the frozen watch. Would they be affected by a neural weapon while frozen? Could the thawed crew be convinced that the droyne were there to help? How many ways could that go wrong? “I’m from the government and I am here to help”.
 
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