Purgatory - The Prison World

[Steve]

At the frontier of explored space lies the prison planet known as Purgatory. Significant system defenses prevent landings by unauthorized vessels. Once you are there, you stay there.

 

Purgatory is a nominally-liveable world with an almost standard Oxygen-Nitrogen atmosphere and weather comparable to the various latitudes of Earth, partially terraformed only by the introduction of enough earth species sufficient to render it into a tough but survivable ecosystem. Essentially, it is a far future version of Australia.

 

There are no guards. Prisoners are given a parachute, supplies for a month and then shoved out at three thousand feet.

 

It is a one-way trip, and then the prisoners are allowed to forge their own destinies on this untamed world.

 

This is a seed idea for a kind of anti-heroes campaign. The PCs could be wrongfully-accused types, political dissidents, etc. They don't necessarily have to be the cutthroats and villains that make up much of the planetary population.

 

What suggestions would you make to flesh out this basic concept into a campaign?

[Burrito Boy]

I'd recommend reading the Four Lords of the Diamond books by Jack L. Chalker. It's a series about prison worlds that should give you plenty of ideas.

[Sundog]

The pre-existing culture would be a big determiner here, I think. Especially if purgatory has been in existence for more than a generation.

Are the prisoners sterilized first? Are women and men (and Herms and whatever else) dropped in separate areas? Life tends to find a way, and you'd likely end up with children sooner or later - could even make it a plot point: "Forty years ago Dr Obert got dropped for unethical experimentation. He set up a clinic and has been doing unsterilization procedures ever since."

Conflict between groups is likely - "settled" farmers/ranchers vs. "raiders", political types still fighting the battles that got both sides dropped in the first place, radical sects vs. everyone else, not to mention anyone who has a monopoly (like say, someone who klnows how to make gunpowder weapons) being willing to fight to keep it.

Not to mention, if there's any sort of graft in the outer universe, somebody's going to have smuggled in some galactic tech...

[Michael Hopcroft]

Blakes 7, the cult classic British sci-fi series, had a situation like that on the planet Cygnus Alpha. The evil Federation would take dissidents and criminals, ferry them to Cygnus Alpha on prison ships, and then turn around and leave them there. As long as they could continue to dump undesirables they didn't care what happened once they got there. There was no need for guards because, as one character mentioned, "it's a long walk" back to Earth.

 

A religious cult of sorts had emerged and was ruling the planet. They didn't want outside contact or anyone leaving. But Cygnus Alpha was the first stop of the Liberator after it had been seized by Blake because he wanted to find a crew there (in the end he only got two men). The cult objected, with the result that its leader found himself teleported into hard vacuum, which turned out to be rather unhealthy.

 

They never went back to Cygnus Alpha so we don't know what happened there next. It can't have been pleasant for the poor sods left behind.

 

 

[The Weapon]

Blakes 7, the cult classic British sci-fi series, had a situation like that on the planet Cygnus Alpha. The evil Federation would take dissidents and criminals, ferry them to Cygnus Alpha on prison ships, and then turn around and leave them there. As long as they could continue to dump undesirables they didn't care what happened once they got there. There was no need for guards because, as one character mentioned, "it's a long walk" back to Earth.

 

A religious cult of sorts had emerged and was ruling the planet. They didn't want outside contact or anyone leaving. But Cygnus Alpha was the first stop of the Liberator after it had been seized by Blake because he wanted to find a crew there (in the end he only got two men). The cult objected, with the result that its leader found himself teleported into hard vacuum, which turned out to be rather unhealthy.

 

They never went back to Cygnus Alpha so we don't know what happened there next. It can't have been pleasant for the poor sods left behind.

 

 

 

Cygnus Alpha had "never more than 500" people on it. Given how over a dozen of people were dumped there on Blake's flight alone and the colony was several generations old that means the death rate must have been horrific. Of course they didn't actually give the prisoners farming equipment so food was originally a bit of a problem.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

There are a couple of precedents I'm aware of that might be useful, both from novels.

 

 

One comes from Frank Herbert's Dune. The interstellar human empire maintains a large force of elite soldiers, called the Sardaukar, universally recognized as better trained, more disciplined, and tougher than any other military (sort of space-Spartans). Unknown to the general populace and even most of the elite, the Sardaukar originate from Selusa Secundus, the empire's harsh prison planet for worst offenders. The philosophy behind this is that criminals sent to the planet start out tougher and more aggressive than most people, and its rugged environment weeds out the unfit and undisciplined, producing a breeding population optimized for warfare.

 

 

The other precedent is a 1963 novel by James White called The Escape Orbit. During a long war between humanity and an alien race, the aliens dump captured human military on a relatively pleasant Earthlike planet with only basic technology, leaving them to fend for themselves, with a guard ship monitoring them from orbit. A factional rift has developed between those who have reluctantly accepted their situation and begun colonizing this world, and those who aspire to escape. A very high-ranking human officer sent to this world unites the factions by setting an escape plan in motion with a specific deadline of a few years. He mobilizes resources and creates hidden facilities to cobble together homemade space suits and the like, and train personnel to execute the escape.

 

 

 

[Nolgroth]

I don't know about suggestions, but I would love to run a game like this. I just see the vast majority of my previous players wanting to start out on the prison ship with some sort of escape plan so that they can avoid ever getting to the planet. The actual "Hey you've been dumped on a prison planet with no high tech" portion would face strong opposition from those same players. I can probably count three that would be intrigued by such an idea.

 

I am picturing conspiracies, plots and hidden agenda. Perhaps experimentation through subtle genetic retrovirus exposure. And there is the ever popular "forgotten, buried alien ruins" angle. As Lord Liaden suggested with the Sardaukar, the players could essentially be dropped in to weed out the weak and ill-suited before being recruited as some sort of special operations team.

 

Heck, as I type this a thought occurred to me; Zombie Prison Planet. What if the mechanism for dropping inmates is completely automated and sometime in the past, an experiment went completely wrong. A virus swept through the inmate population and the vast majority were turned into zombies. New inmates are dropped into the Night of the Living Dead. The goal of the campaign is to survive long enough to find out how the zombie apocalypse was started, gather proof of the illegal experiments, and secure a way off of the planet. What the players do from there might be interesting. Are they truly criminals? Blackmail. Are they political dissidents? Leverage (read blackmail). Are they social activists wrongly imprisoned? Public disclosure. The campaign can go so far beyond Zombie Prison Planet and yet still revolve around that central plot point. Gathering additional information, rescue missions, getting thrown back onto the planet, zombie extermination raids, the list goes on. If you want, Zombies can be substituted for Gamma World style mutations, Serenity-style Reavers (cannibals), or Alien Xenomorphs,

[Tasha]

I don't know about suggestions, but I would love to run a game like this. I just see the vast majority of my previous players wanting to start out on the prison ship with some sort of escape plan so that they can avoid ever getting to the planet. The actual "Hey you've been dumped on a prison planet with no high tech" portion would face strong opposition from those same players. I can probably count three that would be intrigued by such an idea.

 

I am picturing conspiracies, plots and hidden agenda. Perhaps experimentation through subtle genetic retrovirus exposure. And there is the ever popular "forgotten, buried alien ruins" angle. As Lord Liaden suggested with the Sardaukar, the players could essentially be dropped in to weed out the weak and ill-suited before being recruited as some sort of special operations team.

 

Heck, as I type this a thought occurred to me; Zombie Prison Planet. What if the mechanism for dropping inmates is completely automated and sometime in the past, an experiment went completely wrong. A virus swept through the inmate population and the vast majority were turned into zombies. New inmates are dropped into the Night of the Living Dead. The goal of the campaign is to survive long enough to find out how the zombie apocalypse was started, gather proof of the illegal experiments, and secure a way off of the planet. What the players do from there might be interesting. Are they truly criminals? Blackmail. Are they political dissidents? Leverage (read blackmail). Are they social activists wrongly imprisoned? Public disclosure. The campaign can go so far beyond Zombie Prison Planet and yet still revolve around that central plot point. Gathering additional information, rescue missions, getting thrown back onto the planet, zombie extermination raids, the list goes on. If you want, Zombies can be substituted for Gamma World style mutations, Serenity-style Reavers (cannibals), or Alien Xenomorphs,

It just occured to me that Firefly's Reavers are a form of SciFi Zombie. Not very virulent, but does change victims eventually (if the Victim isn't otherwise killed/eaten/etc not necessarally in that order)

[Nolgroth]

I don't know about suggestions, but I would love to run a game like this. I just see the vast majority of my previous players wanting to start out on the prison ship with some sort of escape plan so that they can avoid ever getting to the planet. The actual "Hey you've been dumped on a prison planet with no high tech" portion would face strong opposition from those same players. I can probably count three that would be intrigued by such an idea.

 

I am picturing conspiracies, plots and hidden agenda. Perhaps experimentation through subtle genetic retrovirus exposure. And there is the ever popular "forgotten, buried alien ruins" angle. As Lord Liaden suggested with the Sardaukar, the players could essentially be dropped in to weed out the weak and ill-suited before being recruited as some sort of special operations team.

 

Heck, as I type this a thought occurred to me; Zombie Prison Planet. What if the mechanism for dropping inmates is completely automated and sometime in the past, an experiment went completely wrong. A virus swept through the inmate population and the vast majority were turned into zombies. New inmates are dropped into the Night of the Living Dead. The goal of the campaign is to survive long enough to find out how the zombie apocalypse was started, gather proof of the illegal experiments, and secure a way off of the planet. What the players do from there might be interesting. Are they truly criminals? Blackmail. Are they political dissidents? Leverage (read blackmail). Are they social activists wrongly imprisoned? Public disclosure. The campaign can go so far beyond Zombie Prison Planet and yet still revolve around that central plot point. Gathering additional information, rescue missions, getting thrown back onto the planet, zombie extermination raids, the list goes on. If you want, Zombies can be substituted for Gamma World style mutations, Serenity-style Reavers (cannibals), or Alien Xenomorphs,

I actually offered the Reaver option as a "zombie-lite" possibility.

[Steve]

The idea of having alien xenomorphs from Hero's "Alien Wars" campaign sourcebook on the planet is an interesting idea. Take away the high tech toys, and it becomes a vicious battle of survival for the prisoners using whatever weapons they can scrounge. One thing I was considering was to have there be something on the planet valuable enough to invest the resources to ship people to the planet, but too dangerous to get to risk soldiers. By dropping the hardest of the hardcore types there to face the Xenos, it's a happy medium for the government. Having the prize be alien tech is an option. Retrieve something valuable or kill enough Xenos, and maybe you can leave. That way would definitely be an anti-hero setting, perhaps with a few villainous heroes in the mix. The whole group of PCs could be a bunch of dark heroes, hopefully pulling together to survive rather than stepping on each other to be the last person standing.

[Prometheus]

DC Comics had a the miniseries Salvation Run a few years back, which was all about a prison planet which the Suicide Squad/Task Force X boom-tubed villains onto. Riffing off the above, the big reveal...

 

 

...is that unknown to any of the prisoners or jailers, the planet is a training ground/survival course for troops from Apokolips.

 

 

Honestly, I'm not going to pretend that it's that great of a read. Still, beyond the standard tropes of the characters breaking up into factions, the charismatic leaders with their own agendas, the betrayals and reversals of loyalty, the setting seemed to be just lethal enough to feel really dangerous, but not so persistently lethal as to never allow the character to take their minds off just surviving. The alpha-types could plot out their schemes, but small groups or particularly capable individuals (like Flash's Rogues, or Catwoman) could make it, even uncovering major plot points in the story.

 

And there's also the Safe Zone, a hidden spot on the planet purportedly danger-free. Is it real? Only one prisoner makes a real go at it, and his plan is... interesting.