2 hours of face to face play, Stars Without Number, with old friends, Jason and Witt.

Knowing that Deiter and Arkady were looking for some hired muscle, I suggested that Witt make up a Warrior and e-mailed him some good planets to build a warrior from. He chose a Gudridim Hunter, Strachan Natana, whose tribe liked to get in close and kill up close. He’s got a compound bow and SWAT armor and lots of mono-blade knives.

Guevaran Hegemony’s ‘Most Holy Navy’ enters the Mante Wheel

Led by their flagship, Manifestation of Faith, Guevaran’s fleet of capital ships have entered the Fatimah System, with gunships orbiting Jurre while the flagship orbits a nearby gas giant for easy refueling. This is the beginning of the coming war. The Mante Wheel Council must decide now, are its enlisted planetary governments all part of this theocratic hegemony or are we in charge of our own destinies with…

A full Areci Times Subscription allows a data download of this complete article and related educational materials about the following topics:

• Guevaran Navy
• Gudridim Hunters
• Most Holy Navy
• Guevaran Aggression
• Jurre
• Mante Wheel Council

Deiter took the news in stride, kind of wishing he had never left Jurre but also kind of glad he had left. He and his mother were looking up information on the Guevaran Navy and were watching a holographic documentary about Gudridim Space Marines when Wolfgang walked in with Strachan Natana.

“Do you eat people?”

“Yes.”

“Deiter, you can’t just ask people that.”

“Has anyone ever asked you that before?”

“No.”

The skinny science geek with bad hair and the cannibal hunter with facial tattoos were getting along just fine.

I wrote down the details from the data packet from the Melite Exchange on index-card-shaped pieces of scrap paper and tossed them on the paper so folk could pick them up and pass them around a bit. I’ll have to figure out how to do that in a good way when we’re back online.

• Ship: Free Frigate Exceptional Object
• Purchased by the Witch Hunter LLC
• Tairanni Kush, last known person to draw funds from LLC
• Captain Desmond Al-Karenni (last known captain)

Some successful Culture: Spacer, Culture: Criminal rolls led to

• Laert Ku, recent Witch Hunter LLC hire
• Salem, a shuttle piloted by Captain Desmond’s known cohort

Then it became a glorious mess in the way only players can bring to the table.

Laert’s apartment was wide open because he was selling all of his shit, telling everyone that he was going to Polyxena to see the archives. Deiter and Strachan had a talk with him and when he tried to play dumb, Strachan grabbed him and put a knife on him. Turns out Laert had been hired by Witch Hunter LLC to do exciting work with making an A.I. somewhere out in space. He was going to catch the Shuttle Salem to start his new life.

The Plan: go with Laert to his shuttle, kill the muscle who usually guards the ship, make damned sure the pilot didn’t de-couple the ship from the low orbit platform and bounce. Strachan and Wolfgang, being bad-asses, would hit the guard and Deiter would float to the ship in his vac suit that he has named Bentley in hopes that some day it will be a full-on battle-suit that looks like an Astral Dragon.

What could go wrong?

The conclusion: Laert didn’t help hack the ship’s outside airlock like he promised but changed his mind once Strachan put his knife on his again. The pilot had a slice of flesh cut off him and was thrown in the airlock with the dead guard. The pilot told them the safe-word and they had a few days before the rendezvous.

The cargo is filled with computer gear, coolant and scuba gear.

Next session, they meet up with the frigate.

Like tears in rain…

I love Deiter’s wide-eyed wonder. At one point when everyone was grim and hard-jawed in the planning for the hijacking he said, “This is going to be fun! Why are you guys so serious! Hi-fives!” He brings a genuine curiosity to the table that I really like, not because he’s greedy but because he’s a scientist at heart.

We need more scientists in games, more scientific curiosity, more wanting to find out so that we just know more…

There was also a nice moment where cyber-ninja Wolfgang described his brother, Deiter, “He is obsessive and doesn’t give up on anything. He’s good with details and noticing patterns but we could use some help on the ground.”

Deiter replied, “It is so cool that you noticed that. I’m so touched, bro!”

It was a nice moment.

Strachan brings in a much needed violence-engine and a cool alien culture that Witt and I are constructing/learning about as we go. Witt’s passion for bringing in lists of names and Gudridim vocab is amazing.

Pete was dearly missed. Feel better, Pete!

Comet Dogs take Arecilaos

Arecilaos is now formally governed by the trading syndicate, the Comet Dogs. The Comet Dogs are known as the only merchants, some would call them pirates, who have had any success navigating the comet swarms that plague the Abida System.

The Comet Dogs’ V.P. of Public Relations, Herta Puntz, said in her first press conference in the capital building of Arecil, “We are taking control of the system in action, rather than just in whispers. The Comet Dogs do not want to make any violent changes to our beautiful domed cities other than preparing in a very aggressive manner so that the Guevaran Hegemony will not take the Mante Wheel into is theocracy. The city government of Laos has formally surrendered now that Arecil’s city government is entirely under our control. Make no mistake; don’t get it twisted. Our fleet is not a pirate fleet nor is it a merchant fleet; our fleet is the Arecilaos Planetary Defense Navy.”

A data download of this complete article and related educational materials about the following topics are available to all citizens courtesy of the Comet Dogs: 

• Comet Dogs
• Piracy
• Abida Comet Swarms
• Areciloatian Planetary Government
• Dog Revolution
• Guevaran Aggression
• Mante Wheel Council