Star Trek Ranger: The Obelisk

Player Characters: The Crew of the USS Ranger, Federation scout ship:
Aaron as Lt., j.g. Cayson Randolph, Operations Officer
Andrea as Capt. Ada Greer
Billy as Lt. Cmdt. Sobek, Ship's Counselor
Dennis as Lt. Osvaldo Marquez, Medical Officer
Paul as Cmdr. D.K. Mohan, Chief Helmsman

Synposis: Still searching for the lost Burnell, the Ranger away team has encountered survivors of a Romulan scout vessel crash, and discovered a mysterious signal emanating from alien ruins. Searching for those, they encounter non-Federation mining camp.

Commentary: This was the second session of Star Trek Adventures with the Ranger crew, playing through "Signals" from the Quickstart rules, tailored for the Original Series era. This session was mostly taken up by a firefight (then fist fight) with some Romulans. I modified the adventure to encourage a fist fight, as that's more TOS as opposed to a lot phaser blasting--though we still had a lot of lot.

The party is conspicuously light on security heavy personnel--they probably should have some supporting characters for something like this. I'll have to member that for later adventures. Still, everybody got to do their "thing" which is good.

I described the miners here as dressed like the ones in the episode "Devil in the Dark."

Wednesday Comics: Comics Kickstarters

Two recent comics Kickstarters I backed have at least partially delivered.

Dan Brereton's Giantkiller Monster edition arrived yesterday and it is pretty sweet. It reprints the 90s limited series with supplemental material in a larger format. It's really pretty. 

I don't this version is available, but looks like the original collection is still available on Amazon.

Warlock 5 was an a black and white fantasy comic in the 80s by Den Beauvais and Gordon Derry. He wasn't completed at the time but the new omnibus promises to do just that. This one you can pre-order.

TSR Settings as 70s Paperbacks

For no good reason, I decided to reimagine two classic D&D settings as 70s mass market trade paperbacks.

Art by Ken Kelly

Art by Sanjulin

The World of Valerian and Laureline

I'm a sucker for "universe" books, particularly lavishly illustrated ones. Valerian: The Illustrated Treasury  by Pierre Christin and Jean-Claude Mézières hits all the right notes. It's a guide to the world of the long-lived French comic series.  It's only flaw is that it's a bit thin. Check out these pages:

Wild Wild West Wednesday Reviews

Again, I'll mention that my friend Jim and I have embarked on a review of the tv series Wild Wild West to be published on Jim's blog Flashback Universe. As of today, there are 3 posts in the serious under this tag.

Endeavour: The Savage Syndrome [Star Trek]

Episode 1: "SAVAGE SYNDROME"

Player Characters: 

The Crew of the USS Endeavour, NCC-1895, Constitution Class Starship (refit):
Andrea as Lt. Ona Greer, Ops Officer
Bob as Capt. Robert Locke
Gina as Cmdr. Isabella Hale, Helm Chief
Jason as Lt. Francisco Otomo, Chief Security Officer
Tug as Dr. Azala Vex, Trill Chief Medical Officer

Synposis: Returning in a shuttle craft, the senior officers of Endeavour respond to a distress call from research facility on an otherwise uninhabited world and find themselves attacked by evolutionary atavisms.

Commentary: My second session of Star Trek Adventures and my second group! This adventure is a modified version of the introductory adventure "The Rescue At Xerxes IV," with an episode name borrowed from a story synopsis submitted for the aborted Star Trek Phase II series with a similar conceit.

This series, in fact, will borrow a lot from Star Trek Phase II, included a similar upgrade of the Constitution class.

The dice weren't necessarily with the players tonight. A number of complications hurt them: Greer sprained an ankle, Dr. Vex lost her medical equipment, and Hale dropped a phaser. We'll see how those come into play in the second half.

The Endeavour crew had been returning from a conference at Starbase 134 on Rigel VI. The distress call was from L-373-IV an extrapolation of system nomenclature in that sector introduced in "The Doomsday Machine."

Spelljammer Reimagined

I've been thinking a bit lately about how I might revise Spelljammer (not that I haven't done Spelljammerish riffs before) and so this serves as a bit of a companion to my Dark Sun and Ravenloft pieces. Here are my notes:

Greater Economy of Space. While it's certainly an aesthetic choice, how I would want to run a game of ships sailing between worlds isn't enhanced by a lot of crystal spheres. The detailed one's only seem to connect D&D IP and made up ones would tend to be like systems in Star Trek or Star Wars--generally only with one place of interest. I think a denser packed, smaller setting is better--though of course smaller is relative. We're still talking a system that encompasses numerous worlds. I'm think one very overstuffed primary system (cosmos or cosm), and perhaps a couple of other, more mysterious ones. There might be other cosms out there, but they aren't as closely linked.

No Spelljamming Helms. Space travel should be due to a specific technology, but I have something more like the alternate physics of Garfinkle's Celestial Matters, maybe. Some special material like Cavorite or lift wood will likely be necessary.

No Elves. Well, maybe there might be something somewhere named elves, but what I mean is, I think I would avoid standard D&D species/races in favor of more science fiction ones, maybe just reskinned from stuff in D&D. The Star Frontiers borrowings in Spelljammer might well show up.

More fantastic. There's just air in space, or at least the in-cosm space ships typically travel through, no need for all the rules about ships and air envelopes. Rock or earth generates gravity (maybe it's a property of elemental earth?), but ships themselves or other objects.

Psionic/Psychic Powers Over Spells. I'm not completely sure of this one, but I feel like framing magic more as psionics without out and out trad wizard rare and notable would enhance the sort of planetary romance feel.

Inspirations:

Flash Gordon, Alex Raymond

Storm "The Pandarve Cycle," by Don Lawrence and others.

Celestial Matters. Richard Garfinkle

Iron Wolf and Cody Starbuck both by Howard Chaykin

Brass Sun: The Wheel of Worlds, Edington and Culbard.

The Rediscovery of Man stories by Cordwainer Smith

The Airtight Garage, Moebius

Treasure Planet (2002)