Rocketship Empires

[Maelstrom]

Starting a Rocketship Empires 1936 one-shot tomorrow, to see if my players like the concept. It's outer-space pulp, based on a roughly WWII technological facade over Martian biotechnology.

 

So, naturally, our characters will start out in a bar. However, they're pre-cooked and already know each other, being crew on a tramp "freighter" which is more like a light gunship. More to come.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

I am looking forward to it.

 

Keep us informed.

 

QM

 

P.S.: [Campaign] Rayguns & Rocketships Resources

http://www.herogames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=66603

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Would you like some references to net-handy source material for your game, in case you continue it in future?

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Sure would!

[Shadowsoul]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

You've given me an idea for a specialist Pulp Professional Skill.

 

Rogue Engineer.

 

Basically this is the ability to reconfigure, overload and generally misuse vehicles and machinery in a useful way. A rogue engineer may not always be able to fix your rocketship but he'll certainly manage to keep it together long enough for a decent crash landing.

 

Rogue engineers can be found in low prestige army units, pirate bands, mercenary units and even amongst low level traders who can't afford the real thing.

 

An example would be.

 

"Well captain we've run out of standard rocket fuel but I've cooked up a batch of the second-class stuff from a mixture of whiskey, hair gel and cigarrette ash. She seems to be holding together pretty well for the moment."

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Like the "Rogue Engineer" skill. I'd call it "Kit-bashing" but I'm pretty old.

 

So, the run just ended. Two of my regular players and one total newbie, and they all had fun, which was what was important. The newbie got a chance to say,

 

"Next time, buy a fireproof cat."

 

which was cringed at by all.

 

The party started in a bar. There was an old man at the far end of the bar, rambling about "There it was! There it was!" until the point when one table of spacers decided to shut him up. Our party, perhaps driven by a sense of plot, decided to intervene.

 

The party consisted of a Knight of the Air (pilot), a Grease Monkey (engineer) and a Strong Man (muscle/stevedore/fighter). The KotA grabbed the instigating spacer's drink and flung it in his face, where soon the Strong Man put his fist. The GMonkey grabbed a chair and half-rolled, knocking the second spacer for a loop without delay.

 

The third spacer cried pax, and they let him be, in order to liquor up the old man. With a couple of shots in him, he told them about the big shiny thing in space he'd seen. "An alien spaceship," he told them in a hushed whisper, and shuddered out coordinates about three days' jump away.

 

Our heroes decide to investigate. They popped out of jump space to see that the "alien space ship" was actually . . . a Soviet pocket battleship hulk. The SUVOROV, missing sixty days and now lifeless in American space. Salvage jackpot!

 

Unfortunately, the pirate loitering nearby thought the same thing. In the first round of space combat, KotA pulled both a split-S and an Immelman, to give both nose and tail guns a chance before pulling back onto the pirate's six.

 

After the ferocity of this first assault, the pirate only managed to hole the cargo hull before spouting plasma and going dark. Our Heroes get a tow on her and drag her into the Suvorov's hanger bay . . . whereupon they both nearly crashed, as the hanger was three-feet deep in snow and ice . . .

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Guns drawn, our heroes went to investigate the crashed pirate ship. The crew was dead, and the cargo bay was empty. The GMonkey (the newbie) said,

 

"If I was a pirate ship, I'd have a place to hide cargo from inspectors."

 

Not bad for a 14-year-old girl. Sure enough, the GOOD liquor, about $2k, half in American dollars and half in Chinese money (The Qin Syndicate being Chinese), and spare handguns and ammunition for all, were hidden in camoflauged spaces. Being PCs, they took not only the contraband, but the SPACES as well -- unbolting them from the pirate hull and installing them into their own hull.

 

That's when (the most experienced gamer) the KotA realized that the fact that the pirate was loitering with an empty hold meant they had probably dropped off men to salvage the Suvorov themselves. Searching carefully, they found footprints in the deep, deep snow and ice. The GMonkey did some calculations based on her SS: Material Science and realized the unthinkable truth -- Suvorov had been in this region of space for only a day, and had been in Jump Space for 59 days! The ice and snow was the exhalation of the crew, subjected to the unthinkable cold for nearly two months!

 

They tracked the four-man salvage party through door combings that had been iced over and physically bashed open. Their search took them to the Engineering Space, where the four techs were busy getting the engines running. Strong Man, seeing the tech's weapons on the floor, snuck between the techs and their weapons, leveled his twin Thompson Guns at the techs, and loudly announced his presence.

 

In English, of course. He spoke no Chinese. KotA said, "You speak lead (the metal). Go lecture them."

 

The techs understood a pointed muzzle and surrendered immediately, so no actual shooting was required after all. They were tied with their own denuded tool belts and then Our Heroes marched them towards where the brig would normally be on a pocket battleship, to find that the brig and about half of Officer Country was . . . just . . . GONE . . .

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

In place of the brig and about half of the Officer's Quarters, a large area had been cleared, with ten tubes on either side. Inside the tubes were ten men and ten women, blonde . . . tall . . . perfect. Obviously Russian super-soldiers, in stasis. And still alive.

 

Being heroes, Our Friends quickly opened the tubes and revived the twenty, finding one that was the obvious Leader, one that spoke English, and one that spoke Chinese. The Leader explained that they were part of a project to colonize a Hellworld, and bring it into the glorious Soviet (further propaganda statement here) and that they were more grateful than they could express to be rescued. The Qin techs were all shoved into one stasis tube, and locked down, while Our Heroes and their new friends went back to the Engine Space to see what more could be done.

 

The warming plates soon made short work of the ice, and they saw their first Russian Navy crewman exposed from the ice. Freeze-dried, he crumbled at their touch. Then, another crewman was exposed.

 

But this one, rather than crumbling to dust, stretched, creaked, and then glared at them with glowing red eyes . . .

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

The Russians, terrified, retreated to the bulkhead farthest away from this horrible spectre, gibbering about "Zombies of the Dark" -- that the evil found in jump space occasionally possessed humans . . .

[Lord Liaden]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Boy, this sounds exciting!

 

Sure would!

 

Cool.

 

First off, there's an excellent article in Digital Hero #5 on the subject of pulp-era "retro" sci-fi, "Rayguns And Rocketships" by Leah Watts. You'll find a sizeable free excerpt from that article here.

 

For an example of adventures in this subgenre, I'll direct you to that classic pulp campaign website, The Empire Club, based on the organisation introduced in Hero Games' legendary Justice, Incorporated game. The large archive of adventure logs on the site includes an extended Flash Gordon-esque story arc which may give you inspiration. You can read the log of that arc here.

 

Finally, our Online Store contains an inexpensive Hero Plus adventure/mini-setting, Solar Smith and the Sky Pirates of Arcturus. From the way you describe your opening game, it sounds like some of the elements from Solar Smith would fit the background and tone you're going for.

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

The first zombie was hell to kill. Bullet after bullet, just to take it down, and then one in the cranium as a coup-de-grace. To think that maybe 30% of the crew might have turned, meant ninety of the hellspawn left.

 

The Russian super-colonists turned out to be pacifists. "We are not aggressive like you Americans." So our intrepid Three got baseball bats and axes, hoping blunt-force trauma and cutting weapons would take down the zombies where bullets only fazed them. So, in radio contact with the Russians, they decided to warm up the ship section by section to limit their available targets to a manageable level. Everything was going fine in the Weapons Locker, when an emergency signal came in from the Russians . . .

 

"All the warming switches were thrown! The WHOLE SHIP IS DE-ICING!"

"How'd this happen?!" shouted KotA.

 

Then the zombies were upon them. They didn't engage, instead hauling a$$ back to the Engine Room, where there were only two entrances and they could bottleneck the impending horde. All seemed lost, and our three models of Horatius prepared to fend off the attack of 90+ Dark Zombies . . .

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

When one of the Russians offered their two portable de-icing units. "If you think they will help."

 

"Flamethrowers! Why didn't you tell us earlier?"

 

An epic battle ensued, truncated to a fortunate farce. The organic refuse of the zombies was swept up by the Russians to feed the Suvorov's engines. (Don't ask, it will only upset you.)

 

But now, what to do? The Qin were sure to show up in force. It was decided that a one-day jump in a random direction would buy them time to get the ship ready for the jump back to Sov-space. Because of the Dark, they could not jump for more than a week at a time, and the proposed colony world was sixty days away. The Corridor was a dead area two-weeks across between Ameri-space and Sov-space. First things first. They made a one-day jump.

 

When they came out of jumpspace, half the Damage Control board lit up with red lights, and a radio beacon went off. The ship was dead again, and screaming in radio . . .

 

"Shut off the beacon!" yelled KotA.

"It's NOT THE SHIP'S NORMAL BEACON!" replied the GMonkey. "IT'S IN CHINESE!"

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Everyone searched the Engine Room, since that's as far as the techs had gotten. No sign of the beacon.

 

To the stasis tubes they went. A Qin tech at gunpoint, a Russian interpreter. A denial, a threat. The tech used the communicators to pinpoint the ersatz beacon, still claiming that none of the techs had planted it. The beacon was found, inexpertly hidden, in an area one of the Russians was supposed to have searched.

 

The answer was obvious. One of the Soviet Super-colonists was . . . a traitor, working for the Qin Pirate Syndicate.

 

But which one?

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

GMonkey found the damage to the engines -- magnesium incendiaries, that melted through the fuel lines, causing them to split, leak, explode a bit, and then freeze. And with that, she knew how to find the traitor.

 

"Let's get them all into the galley," she said.

 

Once there, a huddle -- "Whoever did this would have magnesium residue on their hands, that would spark when heat or acid was applied."

"So we burn their hands?" asked the Strong Man, and then wilted under the withering looks of the two Heroes, feeling very much out of their august company for a moment.

"No," said the KotA. "We have them wipe their hands onto rags and burn the rags. We'll see who doesn't try to rub hard enough, and burn the rag to be sure."

 

The experiment went into effect with the agreement of the Leader of the Super-colonists. And Alexi, Super-colonist Six, reluctantly wiped his hands on a rag that burned almost explosively.

 

The Leader was morose. "How could you betray the Rodina (Mother Russia) and Party like this? Why?"

 

Alexi hung his head and said no more. He was led to the stasis tube next to the Qin techs and was stowed, like baggage.

 

GMonkey and the 19 remaining Super-colonists made short work of the repairs, and now a more important conversation among the PLAYERS ensued. What to do now? Give the Suvorov to the American Government? Get the colonists to the hellworld they wanted to colonize, and then return the Suvorov to the Soviets for a reward (risky)? Back into character:

 

Re-enter Alexi, who was asked the question more pointedly: "Why did you do this?"

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Alexi struck a deal: "If I tell you, will you turn me over to the American Authories? I do not wish to spend the rest of my life in a Gulag."

KotA: "Cooperate fully, and you will turned over to the American government. Screw us, and we'll give whatever pieces of you are left to the Russians."

"Da, punimiyo. The Suvorov was never the Qin's main target. It was just a bonus. A little win, but not the BIG win. Do you see?"

"What? What's bigger than a battleship?"

 

"The planet they would have colonized . . ."

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

GMonkey rigged timers for the party's stasis tubes, and a jump was planned. With a half-roll on her navigation, they'll be at the hellworld in only 45 days. Everyone went into stasis: Our Three Friends in timed tubes, the Leader and the Traitor each in their own tubes, and all four Qin shoved into one tube, while the rest doubled up as best they could.

 

45 days later, they come out of jump space, and out of their tubes, tendons creaking and joints complaining. Once the Suvorov was in a long eccentric orbit around the hellworld, to protect it from the prying eyes of pirates, the party in the Ace of Spades left the hanger bay and headed for the surface, two Russian jeeps in the cargo bay.

 

Ever try landing in the jungle? Still KotA did well, finding a clearing as close to the mountains as possible: the mountains Alexi had described as those in which a carved gate in the face of the mountain would lead to the Qin's ultimate goal.

 

KotA drove one jeep, with the Traitor riding shotgun(less) and Strong Man behind him, with a Thompson pointed at the Traitor's head. GMonkey took the other jeep.

By speeding through the jungle as quickly as possible, they avoided most of the dangerous plants and lethal animals. KotA also theorized that the animals wisely avoided the vehicles, since they sounded like they would sooner or later explode into rattling shrapnel.

 

They reached the treeline, and the jeeps could go no further due to the broken ground between the trees and the mountains.

 

"On foot," KotA grumbled. "My two least-favorite words."

 

Luckily, the heavy spacer clothes they wore to keep the Dark from freezing them to the marrow on long voyages kept them warm on the snow-and-ice covered mountains. After the first week, they missed the jeeps. Another three days, and they were on edge, looking at Alexi like he was a soccer player. (ALIVE! reference)

 

Then, the carved gate . . .

[Maelstrom]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

. . . and, of course, they won. What they actually found would take a lot of explanation, but they defeated the Qin, and won a prize that caused them to gasp, and they're actually eager to continue this as a campaign.

 

So I won too.

[Guest Admiral C]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

Sure would!

 

I hesistate to post this it all but if it helps with your Rocketship Empires campaign. The biggest problem I have finding source material and ideas is of course knowing what I'm looking for.

 

http://members.aol.com/munday6877/femalespacesuit.htm Was sent to me from a friend as a cute but I realized with a few wikipedia/google jumps I could have dozens of Pulp Sci-Fi adventures quickly.

[austenandrews]

Re: Rocketship Empires

 

I hesistate to post this it all but if it helps with your Rocketship Empires campaign. The biggest problem I have finding source material and ideas is of course knowing what I'm looking for.

 

http://members.aol.com/munday6877/femalespacesuit.htm Was sent to me from a friend as a cute but I realized with a few wikipedia/google jumps I could have dozens of Pulp Sci-Fi adventures quickly.

That right there is what the internet is all about!