What did you see in the 'Dark'?

[gchuck]

Most of us referee's have probably thrown the odd anomaly or six at the players in your respective groups.

Of course we do so only with the best intentions.

I'm fishing for some ideas on those unexplained phenomena/objects, not artifacts, that you all may have tossed at the players to further the story, or just to inject a little paranoia into the game.

 

[mike wightman]

Jump kraken and space whales have long been spacers' tales in my games.

A strange mishap due to a jump gone wrong - the universe looks the same but you and your shipmates know there is 'something' different...

Out beyond the frontier there is definitely a planet or two infected by a sentient microorganism that takes over your mind and body...

Doppelgangers definitely exist...

 

[Gray Lensman]

Check out the youtube sci fi shorts by Dust. plenty of inspiration for strange things in space ;-)

 

[Nathan Brazil]

Have a person suffer being 4th/5th dimensionally flipped like in the 2300 adventure Bayern. Higher dimenional beings...

 

[wellis]

Jump kraken and space whales have long been spacers' tales in my games.

A strange mishap due to a jump gone wrong - the universe looks the same but you and your shipmates know there is 'something' different...

Out beyond the frontier there is definitely a planet or two infected by a sentient microorganism that takes over your mind and body...

Doppelgangers definitely exist...

What did they find out was the "difference" in the "something" different idea?

 

[flykiller]

unexplained phenomena/objects

never had any players who expressed any interest. they don't get that far, or when they do they turn around and do something else. 'specially the d&d players - "it's weird? sell it. now."

what's the difference between an object and an artifact?

 

[gchuck]

what's the difference between an object and an artifact?

Not 'Ancients' is the short answer.
RoM ships show up from jump space, weird spacial occurrences, and maybe a
gas cloud or some-such that causes a ship to spontaneously jump.

The player in my campaign is so analytical, a 5000 year old human corpse floating in space might drive him insane trying to figure out who/what/where.

Just anything not having to do with the Ancients.

 

[flykiller]

RoM ships show up from jump space

well there's no limit to that, could be any-one/thing/other from any-where/when/other. proposed a game here along those lines once, no takers. doesn't have to be a ship either, was just reading "prison planet" before giving it away and they have a nice little mummified alien base.

seems psionic tools are popular as found objects, good for introducing new but limited psi powers into a game or for steering existing psi activities.

and "space whales" have all kinds of possibilities, no telling what they've picked up in their journeys.

also a newly-awakening artificial intelligence can introduce quite a bit of novelty - a "I'm sorry dave but I can't do that" moment can really turn things around.

 

[Grav_Moped]

Total Party Kill in a Petri Dish

Two thousand years old in the Golden Age (1105-ish) on the rimward edge of the Spinward Marches?

Sindalian Empire relics.

That means bioweapons, weird psi tech (pre-dating the Psionics Suppressions), and other miscellaneous weapons of mass destruction at a TL-13 baseline, plus prototypes and experimental stuff.

And they were a pretty fair approximation of evil.

Fun for everyone!

 

[BRJN]

The Mutara Nebula (Wrath of Khan) inspired a gas cloud that messed up sensors but had only an icy snowball of an asteroid at its gravitational center. I never decided what if anything was on the asteroid, but had in mind a very old starship frozen into the ice.

 

[BlackBat242]

also a newly-awakening artificial intelligence can introduce quite a bit of novelty - a "I'm sorry dave but I can't do that" moment can really turn things around.

Yeah, had to do that.