Arthene is the seventh consort discovered and brought before Shaedan. You actually first met her in the Dragon’s Fang, but her existence was uncovered some time before that. It was Marcus who first saw her Dragonmark when he passed through Tenouire during one of his many exploratory journeys to Aduria. Marcus detected her mark with his Second Sight, and as soon as the situation warranted it he brought her with him to the Fang.

Arthene exemplifies the archetypical Anuirean noble beauty with all the classic traits of one of pure Andu blood; pale skin, hair of beaten gold and fire, and eyes the colour of stormclouds. She is tall and graceful, strong without being muscular, slender without being thin, sensual without being promiscuous. Arthene dresses in accordance to her station, and never above, but since the Empress prefers to dress modestly, Arthene is easily the most well dressed woman in the Holds. Her clothing and jewellery always enhance her already not inconsiderable physical beauty, but it is her bearing and unavailability that really add spice to the mix. In short, she is the woman every sane man dreams about, but never can have.

Arthene behaves as the situation warrants, persuading, tricking seducing or threatening as required, but she is always the noble. She never loses her composition or fails to live up to her image, nor does she open up (even to the other Consorts). Only in the throes of passion does she finally let go and throw restraint to the winds; something reserved for the Servant alone.

Of all the Dragontouched, Arthene is the one who is the most bitter. Once she was a beloved daughter of one of Tenouire’s wealthiest and greatest noble houses. When her mark appeared she tried to hide it, at first using makeup and concealing clothing, and when that failed she even tried petty magic charms. Eventually her secret was discovered and she was brought before Lord Corwin, her father. He called her traitor and heretic, for the folk of Tenouire has no love for the Dragon and continues to worship the Old Gods as they have since before the battle of Deismaar. She was dispossessed and divested of her divine birthright, then cast into prison awaiting her execution at the hands of the Tenouirean priesthood. Had not Marcus passed through Kratas that day, she would have been drowned and burned; death by water and flame is the customary punishment for high treason and heresy in Tenouire. But the Dragon had other plans, and Marcus interceded and secured her freedom.

Arthene has lost a lot, but nothing compares to the loss of her divine blood. Only those who have once been scions and then lost their divinity can really say they know what loss and longing are. It is said that man’s longing for his young wife or the loss felt by a mother at the death of a child, is as noting when compared to divestiture. Indeed, many ex-scions go mad or waste away and die not long afterwards, but this fate has not befallen Arthene yet

Her bitterness and resentment at commoner status sometimes makes her difficult to get along with. For some reason she also seems to have something of a personal vendetta with Grand Keeper Marcus. Shaedan is fairly sure she is angry with the Dragon for marking her in the first place, and at Marcus for being too late to save her bloodline and then for rescuing her when it was too late. That she is haughty, manipulative and arrogant has not endeared her to the other women either.

It took quite some time before Arthene finally accepted her new position as one of the Consorts, and even that reluctantly. Once in Dracropolis she simply buried herself in administrative work and quit thinking, existing only to serve. After she was named Chancellor the situation improved somewhat, for the work agrees with her and allows her to prove her worth even as a commoner. Yet sometimes the dark moods come upon her, and then her newfound position only reminds her of what she has lost, and how great she could have been had she been a scion still.

Arthene manages the day-to-day affairs of the nascent Empire of the Dragon, and acts as regent in the absence of the Servant. This easily makes her the most powerful woman in the Dragonhold, and only Allandra can really hold her own against Arthene when there are disputes among the consorts. But since the other seven consorts usually agree about important matters, it is very hard for Arthene to do things without their consent (it has been tried, and it always ends up with quarrelling and unrest, so it is to be avoided). Shaedan could probably not have managed without her, even if he had tried, for the workings of the Empire have become ever more complex, and only one truly gifted in the arts of management and administration could succeed in making it work.

Becoming Head of House and having her blood restored does not really change her outlook or her behaviour; she is already too set in her ways. But any lingering resentment towards the Dragon and the Servant disappears.

Capabilities: Arthene was noble through and through before meeting the dragon, and continues along this path. She is a masterful leader, diplomat, manipulator and administrator, gaining in skill as the years passes by; even Allandra cannot match her in her chosen field. As a warrior she can of course hold her own, but is not really a fighter-type. But that rarely matters, because there is always more than enough men that would willingly die to protect her.

The Shadow is returning to Aebrynis at last and this time Evil will not be denied. A great darkness will blanket the world, heralding the beginning of an age of hopeless suffering.  There is naught that can be done to prevent this, for this final doom has been foreseen by all the great prophets of ages past. And so the Champions of Light must ready their defenses for the Last War against the Shadow  - and hope, against all hope, that they can somehow emerge victorious! Yet as all would-be heroes know - in the deep dark corners of their minds - they will eventually fail, no matter what victories they bring about. And when they do fail, as they must, then all that is pure and good will be forever lost and the world plunged into eternal darkness...but still they toil and struggle, sacrificing everything and more, if only to buy one more day in the sun for a world of ungrateful strangers. Such is the courage of true heroes that they dare defy even the inevitable - their names and deeds will be remembered in song and legend, until the last shred of light has been extinguished and all things come to an end...

Transhuman Space: 2300AD is hard sci-fi setting placed in a rough, but not entirely grim, readily recognizable near future where Man has reached out to the stars using faster-than-light starships and established colonies on distant worlds. Man's road to the stars, however, has not been an easy one; strife is plentiful, between Earth's nations and peoples, between states and corporations, between the rich and the poor, between the young and the old. Although technology does not offer easy fixes for everything it does hold three promises – increased prosperity for all, access to the endless reaches of space, and the ability to remake mankind. All this even as humanity faces an indomitable alien species bent on its utter destruction! Can mankind put aside it differences long enough to weather this threat or is this the last war that will ever be fought? And even if man endures – one wonders what other dangers and wonders await in the vastness of space...

Leaving Omar behind the Light of Reason heads towards Rigelia, which is the closest civilized Republic system from Omar. Still damaged, but now more or less functional, the ship still has a defective primary hyperdrive and the subspace communicator array is also offline. Reaching Rigelia is key if word of the Separatist plans and Sith involvement is to be sent back to the Jedi Order and the Republic Senate.

While underway Padawan Janna Deshler has several Force visions of Oona Dio. The Master is alive, but in captivity. With the Force as her guide Janna is able to point out the world of Consovor as the place where the Master is held. Consovor is a surveyed world, but no records exist of it ever having been settled. Not of any official settlements anyway.

As the Light lands on Consovor E’tan embarks on a little adventure of his own – taking the Oracle with him he departs with one of the utility speeders. He finds the perfect spot to settle down and hide – unfortunately the Separatists have also found this the perfect spot for their hidden base. The speeder is shot to pieces with the Oracle still aboard and E’tan is captured and taken down into the mountain…

Leaving a skeleton force to defend the Light (with orders to flee if things go badly) the remaining Jedi and Clone Troopers follow Janna’s lead and infiltrate the Separatist base. E Leet encounters the Oracle. She got of the speeder before it blew up. She conveniently points out a hidden entrance. E Leet leads a team into the mountain base and manages to free both Master Dio and E’tan – and the missing Force-Sensitive children. Together they make good their escape – only to find that Darth Tempos has counterattacked and driven away the rest of the Republican forces!

Fearing the worst Master Dio and her team race back to the Light. Fortunately the ship is safe – either the Sith does not know its location or she doesn’t have the resources to mount an attack. Taking stock of the situation it becomes clear that things are grim – another all-out attack on the base is out of the question. With only a platoon of Troopers there is no way such an attack can succeed. And more importantly – word must be brought back to the Republic, and the children and the Orcale must be taken to Coruscant.

Dio can sense that her Padawan is alive and in pain; realizing full well that it is likely a trap she nevertheless decides to try and save her. Acting on sage advice from E’tan Master Dio dispatches the ship to go to Rigelian – while she and her two apprentices, E’tan and E Leet, remain behind. Perhaps sending the ship away will even distract Darth Tempos from their true intent…or maybe not.

Heading back towards the Separatist base they find signs of battle. Several dead clones – and the dead body of Navik Nix. From now on E’tan will carry his lightsaber (his own now being in the possession of Darth Tempos). They also find Tito Jax, badly injured but alive. After resting the night and receiving such Force healing as can be mustered they small group continues the next day.

After ascending the mountain Tito reveals himself to draw the defenders out. The rest of the Jedi quickly deal with the gun turrets and the droids sent up to face them. Then they quickly take the turbolift down to the main hall and stage a surprise assault on disorganized droid forces. Now they must find Darth Tempos and free Janna!

The Jedi now (more or less involuntary) pursue a different path – the wounded Jax guards the exit, E’tan goes looking for the droid control center, E Leet searches for Janna, while Oona heads towards a disturbance in the force – Darth Tempos. With the Sith out of the equation Oona figures her apprentices will be capable of both dealing with droids and freeing Janna.

E Leet’s rescue goes rather poorly; he isn’t able to locate Janna. E’tan has no luck either, getting entangled in a mass of droids, including one very big and nasty spider droid. But he is determined if nothing else, eventually forcing his way into the control center. Unfortunately disabling the droids isn’t quite that easy and E’tan is forced to go look for another solution to the problem. He descends by turbolift down to the magma lake that provides the base with power, then proceeds to sabotage the shielding protecting the power generating equipment.

Oona finally manages to confront Darth Tempos; in cavern with a view to the lave lake far below. She is given a choice – see her apprentice fall to a fiery death, or give herself up. Oona need not make up her mind; her other apprentices – E leet, E’tan and Jax – snatch Janna away. Next is an epic clash of sabers. The apprentices are way out of their league, but working with their master they finally overwhelm Tempos – SHE is the one that eventually fall into the fiery lake below.

Getting out quickly now has top priority. E’tan’s sabotage has overloaded the base generators and it’s about ready to blow. They get out in the nick of time – the Light of Reason is waiting for them and they blast away just as the hidden base goes up in flames behind them. With their cargo of force-sensitive children and an Oracle they continue towards Rigelia.

After escaping the Separatist forces at Arcuuna the Light of Reason heads along a little-explored hyperspace route to the fringe world of Omar. Since the navicomputer is inoperable it is up to Master Oona Dio’s Force sense to guide the ship safely to its destination. The damaged databanks aboard hold very little information, but E’tan is able to recall a few details – that it is an out-of-the-way place that’s not aligned with either the Republic or the Separatists, and that the locals follow a religion that forbids droids and other advanced technology. Still the place does have a spaceport, however meager, so the Light must land and seek assistance.

They are greeted by High Hierophant Aldermaan and the Church Elders. They are not wanted here – Omar is a neutral world. But Master Dio turns out to be quite persuasive. The Light will be allowed to stay for emergency repairs. They will have supplies brought and medical aid will be given to the wounded. But they must stay aboard the ship and not attempt to leave or interact with anyone. Meanwhile another ship, a largish transport named the Sixth Star, lands and starts disembarking its cargo – refugees from the war who have come to Omar to start new lives. The Durois crew seems to be well known to the locals and not subject to the same restrictions as the Light of Reason.

Meanwhile E’tan has snuck away from the ship. Catching a cab, driven by one Dirk Strider, he heads to the city – Orlist, the capital of Omar. The place turns out to be a sad affair, a very affluent and well-kept city center, great estates in the old sea-cliffs and surrounding hills, and massive slums as far as the eye can see. He arranges for accommodations and takes trip to see the Temple Hill, the seat of religious power. Seeing the great robed statues that line the way to the Great Cathedral he gets this nagging feeling that he should know who they are (they are the likenesses of the Jedi Founding Fathers).

That very night Master Dio has a Force vision alerting her to a great evil. She decides to send her apprentices undercover into the city. All save Jax who will remain with her aboard the Light. E’tan and E Leet go with Dirk Strider to see a local religious leader, while Janna and Navik decides to look into the priesthood, the church and the history of Omar’s founding.

Dirk takes the two Jedi to see Josh'ah Dest, a local Durosi religious leader. He fills in a lot of gaps – telling them that all is not well on Omar. That the current regime is quite oppressive and not very pious. That Omar was settled by war-weary refugees led by equally war-weary Jedi, leading to the world’s peculiar pacifist religion. While they are speaking to him Omarite Templars move in to arrest Josh’ah – his vocal opposition to the regime will no longer be tolerated, and definitely no talking to outsiders. The Jedi flee while Josh’ah is arrested. But his captivity is short-lived as E’tan and E Leet join with Dirk to liberate him before he can reach Temple Hill.

Returning to the hotel they find a handful of Durosi mercenaries waiting for them in the main hall. Wasting no time the Jedi draw sabers and go on the offensive. Soon the villains all lie dead. This prompts the Jedi to go looking for Hedja Mooh and his cronies. They find his Seacliff apartment and break in there. Another fight ensures, in which the Jedi capture Mooh’s lieutenant Rara Nimpo. Unfortunately she doesn’t know when to quit and is killed before she can reveal anything. A starfighter attack on the apartment puts an end to that line of investigation.

Meanwhile Janna and Navik have snuck onto Temple Hill and recorded a most revealing meeting between Hedja Mooh and High Hierophant Aldermaan. The High Hierophant is demanding that something be done with the Oracle. Her visions are turning increasingly hostile to Aldermaan’s rule and he wants her replaced with someone more docile. Only he cannot act openly against her, or he would lose all legitimacy. So Mooh must go there and seize her. Janna sends word to Master Dio, who takes an airspeeder and heads downtown to pick up her Jedi. Then they set course of the mountain monastery of the Oracle.

The airspeeder is intercepted halfway by two Durosi starfighters dispatched from the Sixth Star. After some near-death acrobatics by E’tan he manages to seize control of one fighter and shoot the other one down. The rest of the trip is rather less eventful, until they spot the Sixth Star parked on the platform outside the Monastery. Shrouded by the Force they lands safely and quickly take out the guards Mooh has left outside. Quickly they make their way inside and start looking for the Oracle.

Inside the situation is chaotic. Encouraged by the words of the Oracle the monks have put up a spirited resistance against Hedja Mooh’s crew. And the monastery itself is a warren of old passages and hallways. The Jedi and their troopers make their way to the Oracle and secure her. Then the situation changes for the worse – contact is lost with the Clone sentries outside, and Oona can feel the Dark Side approaching. Ordering her apprentices to carry the oracle to safety Master Dio confronts the Sith. E’tan, headstrong as ever, does not listen and joins the fight. But he is not yet a Padawan, much less a true Jedi, and his feeble skills are no match of the Sith. Finally E’tan heeds his master, hobbling after the others, injured, but alive.

While Master Dio keeps the Sith occupied E Leet and E’tan escort the Oracle out of the temple. And about time – in the skies above Separatist Vulture droids are getting ready for a bombing run. E Leet jumps into the cockpit of the captured Durosi starfighter and takes off to confront the enemy while the injured E’tan leads the Oracle and the remaining clones board the air speeder. E Leet buys enough time for the airspeeder to get away, but he cannot prevent the Separatists from blowing up both the temple and the Sixth Star – presumably with both the Sith and Master Dio still inside! Later turns out the Sith defeated Master Dio, then spirited her away by way of another exit before the bombs fell.

Due to Separatist air supremacy the Jedi are forced to dump their vehicles and hide. They hide in the bush while the Separatist land their droid legions and seize control over Orlist. Making their way down-river they finally manage to contact the Light of Reason. It has not been destroyed at all. It fled the spaceport as soon as the Separatist ship appeared, and then hid beneath the surface of the ocean.

A period of healing and waiting follows, but eventually the Separatist warships move on. But they have badly miscalculated the fighting spirit of the Omarites. Learning that the Oracle is safe and that Aldermaan is a villain they rise in rebellion and defeat both the droid garrison and the Templar forces. Josh'ah Dest becomes the new High Hierophant and Dirk Strider leader of the Omarite Militia. The Omarites ask that the oracle accompany the Jedi to Coruscant, where she can be tested and taught – and petition for Omar to join the Republic.

Arcuuna is a massive brownish gas-giant in the Mid-Rim region, located along a remote finger of a sub-branch of the Corellian Run. Although uninhabited as such, the planet is orbited by a massive space station called Arcuuna Station. The station operates a fleet of large automated scoops that dive through the gas giant's atmosphere, extracting and compressing the atmosphere, before delivering it to the station for Tri-Helium (used in many commercial power generators) processing. The system is otherwise uninhabited; consisting of only some icy asteroids and comets, as well as an extensive array of inhospitable moons and moonlets around Arcuuna.

Arcuuna Station is run by Arakyd Industries, which is supposedly aligned with the Techno Union, and thus technically part of the Separatist Alliance. Chief Executive Dermov, the leader of the Arcuuna facility, had divergent ideological views, and sent a petition to the Republic asking for help to defend the station in return for supplying the Republic with Tri-Helium. Republic Intelligence promptly sent a team to investigate, but they failed to report back (they were murdered by the assassin droid IEEI-901, a Separatist covert agent). In an act of desperation the chief Executive sent a new and more urgent call for aid, this time using an open channel.

A Jedi Knight called Aslar To'ung picked up the call and set course for the station, intending to pose as a freelance prospector in search of work. With the help of his Cerean Padawan, E Leet, he soon found clues pointing towards IEEI-901 (masquerading as a worker droid), but as they prepared to confront the droid Aslar was killed by a sudden explosion. Then the station came under attack by Techno Union warships carrying not only battle droids, but a group of Trandoshan mercs in Separatist employ. Their leader, Colonel Boroosh (an old Trandoshan bounty-hunter turned Separatist), had been sent by General Grievous to claim the station for the Separatist cause. Not only is the Tri-Helium production valuable, but the station once had a much greater resident population manning massive foundries; if these could be re-activated, it would be a great boon to the Separatist plans for this area of space. There was some surprisingly heavy fighting during the assault; it turned out that Executive Dermov had re-activated some old foundries and re-equipped his droids as a makeshift droid army to oppose the Separatist droids! The station also boasted some old, but potent, space-weaponry, enough to blow up one frigate right away and force the other five to back off.

The Jedi Council also got the distress call, and being unaware of Aslar’s intentions, decided to send a Jedi Master to investigate and negotiate with Chief Executive Dermov (enter the Light of Reason and Jedi Master Oona Dio). Expecting some trouble, they sent with her some promising young Jedi warriors, carried aboard a fairly powerful warship backed by a full company of veteran clone troopers. Unfortunately the Jedi ship was ambushed by a Union warship as it approached the station in hyperspace. After a fierce space battle that included droid boarders getting onto the Light, the Jedi were able to disengage and make it to the station.

Spotting a light freighter sitting in a docking bay Master Dio led a team of Jedi and Clones over. Another battle soon ensued – droid forces were aboard the station and had orders to keep the bay clean of enemies. Padawan E Leet and his band of workers and droids raced came to the rescue, falling upon the droids from the rear. Victory was swift and complete. After assessing the situation the Jedi made their way to the Command Sphere – retreat is not an option, the Separatists cannot be allowed to gain control over the station. That would allow them to expand their influence from the Elrood sector and into the Erberus sector, which would again allow them to threaten the Corellian Run (key to the Republic war effort in this region of the galaxy).

Finding the command sphere devastated they hook up with Chief Executive Dermov – in the form of a protocol droid. More machine than man anyway Dermov downloaded his consciousness into a droid body before the destruction of the command sphere. This explains why the station is still making it hard for the Separatist force to reach their objectives. Given the overwhelming number of Separatists there is only one solution – the stations must be destroyed. Dermov knows how – destroy the primary and backup power regulators on the power core, then jam open the power feeds to their maximum setting. That will cause a massive energy buildup in the core that will eventually cascade out of control and take with it the entire station.

Master Oona Dio leads Navik, Jax and the majority of the troopers to deal with the main objective. Meanwhile Janna takes E’tan, E Leet and a couple of clones to the detention area where the Separatists are holding the surviving station crew. After an interesting train ride and a fight with some Trandoshans (who turn out to have swords capable of withstanding lightsaber strikes) the rescue team is captured by the droids. Fortunately they are freed by a militia counterstrike – workers and modified labor droids that refuse to give up. Soon the prisoners have been freed and are herded aboard a train. Destination: the docking bay. Oona and her team have, despite an ambush set by IEEI-901, managed to complete her assignment and the station is set to blow. Unfortunately she was not able to catch the assassin droid and it escapes.

Dermov the droid comes to the rescue again; he’s tracking old IEEI-901 on the station’s internal scanners – the villain is headed for the command sphere. Dermov is certain that he’ll be able to access the station’s main communications array and use it to alert the Separatist warships outside. E’tan and E Leet divert to stop IEEI-901 (and deliver some Republic justice to it). Oona and her team cannot be reached due to interference from the now-unstable core, so the two apprentices must do this on their own. The final showdown takes place in the wrecked command sphere. After surviving a sniper attack and an ambush IEEI-901 makes a critical mistake – he engages the Jedi with Aslar’s stolen lightsaber. Despite his speed, strength and combat training he is no match for the Force.

Well back on the Light of Reason – all the Jedi make it, most of the clones and a fair number of workers and labor droids – there is a complication. With the fall of the command sphere Dermov’s control over the station’s defenses were much reduced, and by now the separatist fleet is surrounding the station. The Light makes a desperate dash for freedom, pursued by no less than three frigates it plunges towards then massive gas giant below. Guided by the Force the little corvette just grazes the top clouds, then slingshots out on the other side. The Separatists are not so fortunate – at least one frigate is sucked down towards the planet’s core even as Arcuuna station blows up, taking with it several more warships and all the Separatist forces aboard. The Light of Reason limps into hyperspace on backups, guided by nothing more than Master Dio’s faith in the Force…

It's been too long since last we played...definitely need to get a new session in soon. But every time we try something comes up! And with the heroes stranded in the wilderness of a distant world, just as its alien slave population rises in rebellion. And what on Rigelian are all those Jedi doing out in the woods? There aren't supposed to be ANY Jedi out there (save the PC of course).

And is Darth Tempos realy really dead?

And will E'Tan manage to get another dark side point?

Yeah, definitely need to play again!

Tonight is Star Wars:  Clone Wars RPG night!

What will E'tan and E Leet screw up today?

Looking forward to it :)

Update to follow...

We did another session of Star Wars the other day. It was great fun. The sensible Cerean E Leet did his best to follow the master's wishes while the impetuous E'tan did all he could to screw up things. Like bringing Clone Troopers to what was to be a peaceful mission. Jumping out of an airspeeder, Anakin style, to attack a pursuing starfighter (good thing he had some Force Points to spend). Charging this Sith warrior, against the direct order of his master, only to botch the attack...go on to be hit twice for lots of damage...try throwing a grenade at her...only to have it returned by a little force push.  Time to run away!

So lookingforward to the continuation...

I'm pretty old-fashioned when it comes to the games I like to play. I do a lot of Birthright, which was published by TSR in the later part of the 90s. I do Warhammer 40K - admittedly Dark Heresy is fairly new, but the setting and the system are both old as hell (meaning I got into them in the early 90s). But it's not like I still play all the games I tried 'back then'. They simply have not stood the test of time.

The hard sci-fi setting 2300AD 'Man's Battle for the Stars' is one game that has - sort of - passed that test. Here is a brief summary in the words of the all-knowing wikipedia:

2300 AD is a hard science fiction role-playing game created by Game Designers Workshop, originally offered as an alternative to the space opera portrayed by the company's leading science fiction role-playing game, Traveller. In fact it was originally titled Traveller: 2300, but this caused confusion as the game used neither the rules system nor the setting of the original Traveller. The game was therefore renamed in its 2nd edition.

Original (revised) 2300AD boxed set

It's an excellent setting that doesn't take too many liberties with physics (no artificial gravity for example), except in the department of translight travel of course. System wasn't too shabby either, except that the combat hart had a few flaws (but those were easily ironed out). What I really liked about it was that it took our own world and history and moved it 300 years into the future, a future that actually seemed plausible (I have some issues with parts of it, but mostly minor issues).

The game, along with GDW, was discontinued many years ago, and the game languished in silence. Hard-core fans kept going, but there was no new material. In 2007 a new edition of the game was released - 2320AD. It's not a reboot of the franchise, because it stays largely true to the old game's background history, technological outlook and so on. It does, however, move the story 20 years forward (no shocker given the game's title) and switches to a D20 system.

The new 2320AD ebook contains 'everything needed to play'.

I'm not sure if I feel that the switch to this D20 system is a good thing. Especially since it's based on the Traveller T20 system , requiring you to buy another game to use 2320AD! And for all it's fortes (I'm a big D20 fan myself) the T20 system isn't even remotely 'hard', but decidedly cinematic and heroic. I do not feel that this is right for a game setting that prides itself on being hard sci-fi.

Traveler T20 - not exactly hard sci-fi!

The thing I didn't like about 2300AD was the lack of action and excitement. I guess that was partially due to my immaturity back then - the 2300AD setting and accessories were probably too much sandbox for me. I had trouble turning this wonderful setting into good adventures. But that isn't the entire story - several of the adventures and accessories were completely devoid of anything remotely resembling action. It was so 'hard' that there wasn't any room for 'adventure'.

Luckily there was another major hard space setting for me to play with - the Alien franchise. Leading Edge Games  (now defunct, but they made several good games back then) developed an Aliens RPG - the Aliens Adventure Game - which was pretty nice. Based on their completely unwieldy Phoenix Command system the Aliens RPG used a much-simplified version of the same system that was actually quite good at combing in 'hard', 'action' and 'adventure'. I actually found my copy during my basement clean-up this spring. Brought mack good memories.

Aliens Adventure Game - Good times!

Developed after Aliens, but before Alien 3, the game went into considerable detail regarding the Colonial Marines, the Aliens, and the worlds occupies by humanity. Much of it completely contrary to what was later revealed to be canon...but some of it was still useable. Since Alien 3 was a crap movie we largely ignored it, but paid rather more attention to the Colonial Marines Tchnical Manual.  It really made sense of the stuff you see in the Aliens universe. Makes it kind of 'hard'. Besides the equipment, organization, and background share striking similarities with that of the 2300AD RPG. So lo and behold, in 1996 it all came together - a mesh of Aliens and 2300AD. Now THERE was finally a setting that made hard sci-fi exiting!

Colonial Marines Technical Manual - Best supplement I ever bought.

It's been a while though. 10+ years. And over the course of those years to world and gaming both moved on. So tht when 2320AD was fianlly released in 2007 it felt very aged. Like a tribute to something old and forgotten, but not a game that I'd like to play. The new T20 system and some of the 20 years that had passes had jazzed it up a bit, making it more adventuresome...but not enough. Not enough for a 2320AD meets Aliens kind of thing.

Yet there is one game that I feel has taken the legacy of hard sci-fi and ported it over to our own time and the memes now prevalent - the Transhuman Space setting by SJG.To me its what 2300AD would be like if it was designed now, rather than back in the 80s. There are other games - and novels - that also adds to the genre, but Transhuman Space is to me by far the most significant.

Transhuman Space - Man's Battle for his Humanity

Which brings me around to my real point. 2300AD was a great setting, but it had it's limitations even back then, and now it feels old and irrelevant. Time to re-imagine the series...which is all the rage these days anyway. Do they come up with anything that's not a remake, re-imagining, follow-up, etc.?

So that's my newest project - re-imagining 2300AD. Well, it's not that new really, it's been on the back-burner for 2-3 years (and will likely stay there for quite some time). That re-imagining will take the good stuff from 2300AD, Aliens, 2320AD, and Transhuman space - something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. The end result will be fabulous :-P

Making interesting NPCs is one of the most rewarding, yet difficult jobs the DM has. IMO the biggest difference between a good and bad campaign is in the characters that populate it – fail to produce and properly play good NPCs and no amount of skill in other departments will help make your sessions into successes. Stand-alone adventure are perhaps less reliant on good NPCs, but only to a certain degree.

I'm sure there are lots of different ways to make good NPCs. I use several techniques myself, but there are always a couple of ground rules that I use.

The first is that the character needs to be different and instantly recognizable, has to project some sort of image, bordering on caricature. Why? Because most NPCs only get to shine very briefly – they don't even get fifteen minutes. If you want your players to take them seriously, even remember them for years afterward, you only got one good shot at making them stick. So I always try to make up such an unique 'image' for all my NPCs. Or at least the major ones – I tend to cheat with lesser characters, reusing older characters with only a slight twist or using NPCs from other games anew (but please don't tell).

The second is visualization. A picture is worth a lot of words and all that. It's true. So I usually try to find a fitting picture for the character on the net (there is a lot out there these days, so I'm usually only limited by the time I have available for searching). But visualization doesn't need to be just a picture – internal visualization is just as effective. Describe a character so that the players will immediately associate it with some well-known movie or other character.

The third one is; lay down a foundation, but don't build the entire house in one day. You need to develop at last a rudimentary background, personality and motivation to properly play a character, but you should not fill in all the holes. Firstly it's a waste of time if the NPC doesn't feature much after all (he might be ignored or killed or whatever – and you don't want to 'force' an NPC on the players in an unnatural fashion). Secondly you cannot predict how the character evolves once you start playing him. Once he starts 'living' in the game world things will come naturally to you. One final thing – it's OK to change stuff once you've started playing, as long as you don't do it in obvious ways! Maybe his motivations turned out not to fit – just change them, except if that would interfere with how you've played him so far or what the PCs know.

There are more rules, but they are more like guidelines anyway, so we can take them later...

Instead I'll do a few example from my Dark Heresy game. WH 40K lends itself well to ripping off stuff and caricature. So I decided to play with that a little. Take Ignace the gunslinger for example. He's based on the main character of the movie 'Equilibrium', which contains a lot of neat close-up pistol work, tweaked by giving him a some psychic powers thematically tied to the Equilibrium imagery (he can twist time and space for some really amazing gun and movement stunts).

Two guns, just like Ignace

For imagery I went with a 'bald Asian guy with Asian ninja chick girlfriend' and then added a mutation on top that makes his hair come out, only his 'hair' is actually more like razor-sharp porcupine needles. Should not be too hard to visualize.

I'm Asian too!

For background I went with 'fell in love with Asian ninja chick, ran away from evil ninja clan, and kept running until recruited into the Inquisition' – a type of background which is actually possible to create using my EXCELLENT new character path system for Dark Heresy :-P Once again easy to communicate to players and one that will be remembered – even if it's really bollocks!

We want out hot ninja chick back! No one does f1tish stiletto boots like her!

His personality was initially based upon a combination of cocky Han Solo and a grim Eastwood from some nameless spaghetti, but as it turned out he ended up rather more the former and less the later.

Don't Get Cocky, Chaos Scum!

This might sound a little cartoonish – but it actually works pretty well in play. And he does of course have his daemons to add to his personality...all my NPC have, but that's another story folks!

…it’s been too long since my last post, but life has been hectic. Over at Ruins of Empire we’ve just concluded a major public adventure, which ended with victory over the nasty olde vampire – hooray hooray hooray! Add to that some Dark Heresy blog activity – and another session of Star Wars Clone Wars RPG. Plus RL stuff too boring to mention…

Which brings me around to the theme for this post. It’s about choosing a game system that fits the setting. As opposed to the other way around. IMO there is a big difference there. It will take a while for me to get to the point, but please bear with me…

I started playing Star Wars back when West End’s D6 line first started coming out. For the time it was a very good system that had the advantage of being easy to learn and play. Take a bunch of D6s, roll them and add everything together. The higher the better. End of story. It scaled wonderfully – the more bad-ass you were, the more dice you got to roll. And you could do multiple stuff simply by rolling fewer dice for each action. There were a couple of weak areas, but nothing that couldn’t be tweaked. Except one thing. The bean-counting.  4D6+2. 5D6+1. 7D6. Again and again and again. It gets really tedious really quickly. In conclusion it was an easy and playable system that suited the setting very well. But all those dice…goodbye West End Games!

Next was the WotC D20 version. I never played the original edition; I only got into it after the Revised edition came out. It’s basically the D20 system from DnD with a few tweaks, such as a Wound Point system (like the one found in Unearthed Arcana) and stuff for using the Force, piloting starships etc. I found the system to my liking, although there were some weak spots – the Force was badly done I think, using hit points to fuel you attempts at using it. Made it completely unplayable IMO. Other stuff like vehicles and starship I also think was sub-par. We had a short campaign back when the Revised edition came out, but it eventually fizzled into nothing. All in all was a good system that fit the setting well – a relatively non-heroic campaign set in the Rise of the Empire/Rebellion era.

Then last year my interest in Star Wars rose again as I started watching The Clone Wars animated series and felt a need to cut droids in two…and I also ended up re-playing Knight of the Old Republic and so had an equal need to battle the Sith. By now there was a new edition the Sage Edition – but I didn’t have any of the books and I didn’t know the system, so we started playing with Revised. But years had passed since last time we played and I found the mechanics in Revised really didn’t allow for the swift and heroicaction I wanted – like the one seen in the series.

So we decided to have a go at the Saga Edition instead. Turned out it was more or less what we were looking for. Far simpler and more streamlined. Another take on the Force. Overall much more suited to our style of play. It was also fun to see how Saga edition foreshadowed several developments found in DnD 4E (SW Saga came out between v.3.5 and 4E). But some of the good 4E stuff (yes, it actually exists) wasn’t in there. Which gave me an idea – I’ve never like 4E, not primarily because it’s not neat and logical (just look at the 4E level progression table…let’s see, I get to swap a power…a utility power, oh great now I have to look through that dammed power list…4E is not neat, end of discussion!), but because it is a development in the wrong direction as with regards to the type of games I want to play.

So I had this idea…what if I took Revised edition and Saga edition and elements from DnD 4E and meshed it all together? Mix and match of the best elements? Power cards for Force Powers seemed a good idea…30 levels seemed swell…the Tiers turned into Jedi Apprentice, Jedi Knight and Jedi Master…lots of cool stuff. And you know what? This DnD 4E turned Star Wars hybrid was exactly what I was looking for. It allows us to play fast and furious action with a minimum of fuss, exactly what I was looking for.

Which is my conclusion – if you are to enjoy a game and its setting, then the system used MUST support the kind of stories you want to tell. Star Wars Clone Wars and its heroic lightsaber-wielding Jedi fighting hordes of minions and battling vile Sith champions…it’s quite a different setting that the dark and dismal future of Dark heresy…or the bleak mortality and political backstabbing of Birthright. So from now on I’ll pay more attention to the systems I use than I have in the past.

And I’d like to thank you Lucasfilm, for making something useful come of out of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition!

Earlier this week I finally had the opportunity to sit down and do some PnP roleplaying. That doesn't happen often enough. At any rate it's an old game that I started last year, but we haven't played that many sessions. I think only six so far, and two of those were pretty short and the first one we spent mostly making characters.

For once it's not grim and dark or fantasy. It's Star Wars. Clone Wars. Influenced rather more by the animated series than the (crapcrapcrap) prequels. We started playing using the Revised d20 rules. I think they are pretty good. Very DnD v.3.5. A few tweaks though, but largely the same.

We considering a switch to the Saga edition instead. Saga is something of a cross between DnD v.3.5 and DnD 4E. You can see some of the features from 4E in there, but not all. The result is a much simpler game than the Revised edition, which is mostly a good thing since we want to focus on story and action for our brave Jedi rather than bean counting. So we are presently considering making a transition to this edition. Probably will, but with some tweaks.

The two PCs are Jedi Apprentices. The human Jedi Guardian E'tan is to young, too brash and too quick to fight. His companion is the much more stable Cerean Jedi Guadian E Leet. Together with their Master, her Padawan and two other apprentices they adventure across the galaxy and get into trouble - usually involving Separatists. I'll write more about them later - the point of this post is to attach the first scenario we played: Mission to Arcuuna.

Yesterday I cleaned out a room in the basement. Part of that included going through some old boxes that haven't been opened in YEARS. It turned out the be a veritable dragon's hoard. Old game stuff forgotten for a decade or more. I'm sure that some of them will feature here eventually. But first things first - literally.

Warlock of Firetop Mountain was the very first 'roleplaying-game' I ever played. In the mid-80s or so. It was in Norwegian, but the cover and the contents were the same (only it didn't say '25th Anniversary Edition' - obviously). Me and my brother must have played through it a gazillion times (we also had The Citadel of Chaos and the Forest of Doom). Me, I even tried to draw a map out of it, going down ever possible route to learn ALL the secrets of Firetop Mountain (already you can see why I became a DM).

But that's not all folks! I also found a 3rd party DnD 3E adventure based upon the Warlock of Firetop Mountain. I'm so going to find some old-time Fighting Fantasy Fans and actually play the game. Using the Pathfinder RPG (more about that later). And here I had completely forgotten about you...welcome back Warlock!

Adeptus Astartes. Space Marines. Angels of Death. They have many names, but you know you've always wanted to play one (if you're into role-playing that is). Now Fantasy Flight Games is putting out the Deathwatch RPG that enables you to play as a Space Marine using the same rules (more or less) as Dark Heresy/Rogue Trader (which could be a good or bad thing depending on your relationship with said system).

I'll certainly pick up a copy. Always loved those Marines. Not sure I think the Deathwatch makes a lot of sense though. If you didn't know the DW is a group of Marines under Inquisition command and control, hailing from a variety of Chapters out there. It's not hard to understand why GW made up the Deathwatch in the first place - to let gamers field their favorite Marines from several different Chapters within the same squad-sized units. Makes sense from a wargaming/painting point of view, but I have a hard time making it fit within the rest of the 40K universe. So I've done a little retconing in my games - the Deathwatch is just a term for any Marine unit attached to the Inquisition (any part, not just the Ordo Xenos) as auxiliaries.

At any rate; to celebrate this occasion, let us join in prayer (and you can substitute anything you don't like for 'Xenos'):

To be Unclean
That is the Mark of the Xenos
To be Impure
That is the Mark of the Xenos
To be abhorred
That is the Mark of the Xenos
To be Reviled
That is the Mark of the Xenos
To be Hunted
That is the Mark of the Xenos
To be Purged
That is the fate of the Xenos
To be Cleansed
For that is the fate of all Xenos