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Category Archives: Worm Fire

Session 2A

The crew eagerly departs the ship to greet the friendly aliens. They are immediately yelled at in a different language. These aliens look like they have guns pointed at our crew! Quick thinking by Dr. Stone who tests to see if these aliens understand the language he has programmed. They do. They seem hostile and demand everyone get on their knees. The crew obliges and are soon manacled with restraints that cover their hands like metal mittens!

Suddenly the aliens are talking animatedly and Jack Shift realizes there are some other figures on a distant hill. The all hell breaks loose as the two alien groups begin a fire fight! Hitler quickly wild attacks his guard while Lars steals the keys with his mouth off of one of the dead aliens and frees himself and DeSanta who immediately attempts to shoot an alien rather than free his comrades. He does not kill the alien. The aliens decide to ignore the other group and all shoot at DeSanta…and they all miss.  :(

The new group finishes off the group they call “Raiders” who live out in the desert causing trouble. The new group is from the ARC Alliance and they are the ones our heroes originally contacted. Turns out their understanding of English was a bit less accurate than Dr. Simon’s understanding of their language!

The ARC team offers a deal, they will fix up the crews’ ship for galactic travel, if the crew will find the Raiders’ base and shut it down. The crew quickly agrees. They scavenge equipment from the dead Raiders and head off into the desert.

They identify the entrance to the underground base thanks so some great Battle rolls from Hitler. A quick plan is developed where DeSanta and Lars stealthily infiltrate and make a distraction, so the others can move in without attempting to stealth. The plan works…sort of. The distraction comes a little early as Lars critically fails and sets off a blade trap. Now with the Raider guards aware of their presence, another trap is triggered by the raider to collapse a wall on Dr. Stone. Stone weathers the rock fall and soon the crew have finished off the Raider guards…but did one slip away…?

Session 1 – Mission Possible

Our crew was assigned the ship “Khudkoshi”. During training, there were a few issues. This was not unexpected, since our “crimi-nauts” had never experienced modern space vessel technology, much less the physical demands of getting to and living in space. The crew was designated as backup to one of the three primary crews targeting the anomaly. After picking up the nuclear warhead at a space station, they move into position, but suddenly, the “Aatmaghaatee”, the sixth ship (targeted to go through the anomaly), careened out of control.

Our pilot “Wash” managed to avoid a direct impact from the Aatmaghatee, but unfortunately, the least useful “shooter” crew member wasn’t able to maintain his position and fell HARD into the pilot causing the Khudkoshi to swerve out of its path and they went through the anomaly! The spaghettification of the crew and ship was extremely painful and in at least one case (looking at you Jack Shift), it was life threatening!

After drifting out of control for awhile on the other side of the anomaly, they got healed up and then realized the ships on the “Sol” side of the anomaly, either did not get their warheads off, or it failed to break up the anomaly. The crew then decided to complete the mission of disrupting the anomaly from the back side. Again, the least useful “shooter” decided to not take his very best shot…just happy with close enough (probably why he was a terrible criminal). So, the crew does not know if their attempt was successful or not.

Now they are trapped on this side of the anomaly, and after the nuke went off they immediately started to pick up a signal from somewhere relatively close by. Being that they have no extra food, water, or fuel, they decided to get as close to where that signal came from as possible. They found a planet that seemed pretty low tech, even though there was evidence that the inhabitants had at least as much tech as Earth. They landed where indicated and then the crew saw their first aliens…

Crew Members

Jack ShiftDownload
Simon StoneDownload
Adam Hitler (Owen)Download
Lars SolariDownload
Wash Hoban WashburneDownload

Mission: Redemption

Background

In the near future, the countries of Earth have detected a strange phenomenon in space quickly approaching our solar system. This anomaly has spawned some strange areas of space at first considered space storms, but later was confirmed as small space time anomalies most likely, worm holes. The concern is that where these worm holes appear, whole solar systems are being destroyed. There are five basic factions of scientific theory on how to ensure the safety of our solar system, and since time is of the essence (worst case predictions are in the 10’s of years, best case less than 60 years), the general consensus is to try all of them. Most of the theories involve massive amounts of energy needed to essentially divert the phenomenon by 10 degrees. One of them is a more subtle approach. The world could not find enough expendable people to send on these missions (if you send your best, and if they can’t fix it, and if they can’t return…no second chances).

So, the idea was floated to look at criminals that have the necessary backgrounds and either life sentences or more than 60 years to go, to become the crews for these missions. All agreed that serial killers, rapists, and their ilk should not be used, but white collar criminals (your Barry Madoff’s, scammers who have multiple back to back sentences, political revolutionaries, manslaughter, etc.) would be the most effective force.

These “volunteers” would be offered a new life if they are able to complete the mission and return back to Earth safely. Better than rotting away in prison, right?!

Session Zero – Character Creation

I am running a Sci-Fi game using the core rules, the Horror Companion, the Science Fiction Companion and a book called Worm Fire. You won’t need to know anything about it during the first game, but you will for the rest of the campaign. I will have physical copies and will put the player section in DropBox for those who want to read it. The following Setting Rules are being used:

  • Conviction (Core)
  • Born a Hero (Core)
  • Difficult Healing (Science Fiction)
  • Extreme Environments (Science Fiction)
  • Energy Management (Science Fiction)
  • Logistics (Science Fiction)
  • Villainous Conviction (Science Fiction)
  • Expanded Fear Effects (Horror)
  • Signs and Portents (Horror)
  • Dynamic Backlash (Horror)
  • Playing to the Tropes (Horror)

Just make a character using the core rules, Horror Companion and Science Fiction Companion. There are some things you should consider. In order to be selected for this mission you will need to have one or more of the following:

  • Piloting (perhaps an amateur or professional pilot, or past experience in the military)
  • Research and/or Science (always good for someone working in space)
  • Repair (would be nice if you have some experience on planes or rockets)
  • Leadership Edges
  • Good physical condition (although a terminal illness that does not affect your ability to do the job might be a bonus for you!)
  • Shooting (specifically experience with artillery as their may be some manual effort needed to get the missiles on target)
  • Fighting….just kidding, they don’t care if you can fight…they actually don’t want anyone without some control over their actions – so hindrances like impulsive and mean may exclude you…unless you are just so good they can’t find a replacement.
  • Linguist, since this is a world wide effort, people with the Linguist edge would be highly sought after.
  • Healing, you never know what trouble might occur and healing would be needed.

Anything else you can think of that might be useful to a multi-national force attempting to save the Earth!!

I will need a digital version of your character, preferably in PDF format (just print to PDF if you have it in Word or Excel).

More details to come, and I’m hoping using Harrowed Halls posts will make this a little easier and more fun to keep track of the games!