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Showing posts from November, 2016

Ticket to Fly

It was another rainy day. There seemed to be an unending array of them. At the moment the rain had paused and a thin mist had filled the street in the early morning. Ranna Morrigen turned her collar up against the chill and waited by a streetlight. A black veil hid her upper face. Maybe the people set on her would see through it. MAybe they were coming for her right now. That'd be their mistake. She really hoped they were making that mistake. She wanted closure for Jorge. That would involve bloodletting. A familiar thrum filled the sky overhead. She looked up to see the flyvver approaching and dropping into to the street alongside her. Of course Jorge was not driving. Mayor Burns looked out over the side judging the room between two parked roadsters and began dropping down slowly. He doffed his bowler to her as he worked the controls. "Hey! You! Yeah you! You can't land there!" The bellow snapped her head around. P.O. Galen Twoomey stalked towards the

Dhampir Strikes Back

Vampires are the most human of the Undead, which is not saying much. Some old drives do survive though second to the primal need for a good drink. In any case through out history half-vampires or Dhampir have cropped up, borne of undead fathers and human women. As you may expect most dhampirs were outcasts and exiles from human society and led lives of banditry or worse or merely kept a step ahead of the mob with torches and pitchforks. Contrary to prejudice and legends dhampirs are a human subspecies, very much alive and not evil by nature. Recently a number of dhampirs have appeared to offer their services to the Allied cause, fearing the Third Reich will be even worse for them. Rumors hint at a special unit of vampire hunters run by the Rumanian army. The Italian Fascist are also developing werewolf operatives under Progetto Romulus e Remus as a counter. Dhampirs are almost always men. Due to their supernatural birth their red tinged eyes let them see in all but total darkness

Making Animal Encounters More Friendly

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I do not usually write a post on GM prepping but my last post veered into bitching without giving a solution. Specifically I found the section on generating animal or wilderness encounters in Cepheus engine to be difficult. To be truthful there is a lot of die rolling in some aspects of Tra  2d6 OGl games. To gear up for it I've found d66 cards very useful as well as a big load of dice preferably in at least three different colors. The d66 deck I use is available from Yaruki Zero Games on RPGNow. Each card has a picture of two dice (red or blue). the dice are totaled as well as broken into d66 notation (for the terminally lazy, looking in a mirror here) as well as a storyteller icon. It's good for when you want to keep the number you rolled in mind for further calculations. The different colored dice in large number and s perform the same function of recall, just set the dice you made that important roll with aside. As for which is easier to knock over YMMV. The cards ge

A Cepheus Engine That Knocks

Over all I love Cepheus Engine for 2d6 OGL. For my current project I have started writing up animal encounter tables. I still love it but the honeymoon phase is over. the animal encounter rules need a reorganization which I hope Mr. Flynn will consider for a second edition or update. I'm DM and table impaired (my players knew this but they went with my fudging because it seemed fair for the most part). Even so please list all the dm's with the table in question. Call them out with an attractive side bar or text box and don't dump mods for three different table in a long paragraph. After I did a cheat sheet for myself the encounter generation went much less painfully. I will say the SRD in Word was incredibly useful for compiling my cheat sheet but it shouldn't realy need a cheat sheet in the first place. Oh yeah, make revolvers and automatics do 3d6 damage again please. Over all still a good rules set.

Lifter Technology

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The day before Maneuver Drives Made Accountable "So how goes the Project?" Ranna asked. Her hand strayed to her eyepatch absently pulling her hair in front of it. "It goes," Jorge said lifting the taxi and flying towards her apartment. After a second he turned on the meter. "Really?" "We should make it look good," Jorge said looking apologetic. "Did you guys lick the resupply problem?" "Yeah. Without lifters." It was tough considering the derelict they were refabbing was in the middle of nowhere, stuck in the middle of an arid waste and broken terrain. He concentrated a moment on avoiding some power lines and continued, "We started using auto-gyros what you call Dynocopters ... they could carry supplies and land in 30 meters or less. Not quite lifter technology but pretty neat anyway." "I told you we build good vehicles here. It's all the chrome piping we stick on the sides. Makes our stuff go

M-Drives Made Accountable

"C'mon in back yer honor. I'll fix you a cup a' joe," Prigo said rubbing the mayor's shoulder. The Automat was closed for the night. "Awful decent of ya, Steen," Louie said relighting his cigar and entering. "No problem. Jorge was a good guy.  He will be missed. How's Miss Ranna doin'?" Prigo asked heading into the pantry for fixings. "Miss Ranna is on tranquilizers and antipsychotics. She laid the beat down on two squires wanting to stop her from shooting up the offworlder bank. About middling. Louie inspected his cigar and reached for the light switch as he entered the kitchen. The lights in the kitchen snapped on. A man with a crewcut in Tech Knight regalia stood there regarding Louie from behind a monocle. He held a plate with a slice of berry pie and a mug of tea. "Come in your honor. We have much to discuss," the man said gesturing to a couple of stools by a counter. Louie frowned a little and took a

2E or Not 2E?

Gate 2E  of the Zaonia Starport was a huge metal door on rollers set into a 30 foot high concrete and steel wall. The Elevated Man stood in front of it with his back to it as the police cars converged on him with their lights strobing and sirens blasting. Of in the sky he saw two police aeros on an intercept for him. He had a job to do. His programming had not been modified enough by his handler to allow him to kill humans. In fact that was usually unnecessary. EM casually uprooted a street lamp and hurled it at the lead police car. The metal lamp post smashed into the car's grill and it drove off the shoulder of the road and into a ditch. Bullets pinged off the wall behind him. The Elevated Man grabbed a sporty roadster parked there specially by one of his handler's humans. He held it insouciantly in the palm of his right hand, tail standing straight up, by the front bumper. You had to be careful with cars. Pick them up wrong and you could shred their outer sheet metal cas

Snake and No Eve

From the earliest days of the British rule in India the British and their allies faced a foe using the darkest of sorcery. It took many lives and years before the lamias and their followers were defeated and pushed back into the shadows. In recent years Axis agents from the Third Reich and the Empire of  Japan both reached out to the lamias leading theeking to cause revolution and unrest in the Jewel of the British crown. The lamians used their ability to assume the form of a great cobra to assassinate British officials and Indian sympathizers. The shapeshifters proved nearly impossible to capture until the seldom seen Royal Necromancer, the Agent Unseen and several Royal Cat-Girls were sent to deal with the threat. Most of the human followers perished in the bombing of their main fortress deep in the jungle but some escaped bearing their mistresses in woven baskets. It is unknown whether the lamias are snakes or humans in their natural form. One theory holds they are human with an

Trash ... From the Future!

Lemren climbed out of the cockpit and threw his spanner aside in disgust. "That damned one eyed pirate witch hit the oil pump. the whole coolant system is about to lock up. this aero's history!" Lenren spat. "Piece of crap. 'Make it look like someone local did the hit' they said. Let's gear up and get out of here," Ak-Gilvern ordered. He pulled off his outer uniform to reveal a formfitting suit of armor, it's exterior criss-crossed with synthetic musculature. He extended the shoulder stock on his laser pistol and saw Lemren was following suit. Sirens sounded above them and lights suddenly appeared illuminating the area around them. Lemren and Ak-Gilvren barely exchanged a look before leaping from the aero and running for the tree line a few hundred meters away. Lemren only paused to throw an incendiary into the aero. The primitive flyer went up in moments with a bang and a whoosh. He saw vehicles approaching up a cowpath near them. "We

Labor Relations

Personal Log of Korsa, Captain of the Wanton Courtesan Bridge Talnerassa: That is definitely a Zangid shuttle. The markings are scorched off the hull and the transponder is silent but ... it is a shuttle. there seem to be some modifications made to the fuel and life systems. Korsa: My father controls this sector. I have had no word from him. I want to know where this shuttle is from. Now. Talnerassa: Easy. Bizgit and Domo will be back shortly. Do you wish them to report now? Korsa: No! Maintain cloak. Teleport them back on schedule. Then we will decide how to proceed. Talnerassa: Aye Captain. Maintaining cloak. <<Beep-beep>> Talnerassa: Ah recall as scheduled. Korsa: Good. Kzvita: <<Kzzt! Captain, we got 'em. Fu ... hang on ... >> Korsa: Report! What happened? Kzvita: << ... I'm just having trouble working the teleporter with only two hands! We got all three of them ...>> <<Pffft>> Kzvita: <<Ssss

Sneak Peek

And now a sneak peek: The Zaonian System is more properly called the Portokali System after the primary single star (nIcknamed  ‘Kali or Orange in galactic standard). Portokali is approximately 5 billion years old and a stable star. Primary Portokali Type K0 Star Effective temperature 5300℃ Luminosity ..42 Mass .81. No unusual characteristics. The inner limit for Portokali is .16 AUs. Within this limit radiation and solar wind can cause equipment to malfunction and there are serious zerfs to limit EVA .16 AU PB Chovoli (Embers) The innermost orbit contains a planetoid belt. There is some evidence that these are the remains of a planet that was destroyed by a collision with another body. It is very poor in metallics though there are some exotic crystals that are rarely found. A very few belters ply their trade here. Generally speaking anyone here is on the run or some sort of exile not welcome at a more populous, richer belt. In the time before the Flame Out this belt h

Underwater Agent

The Man Fish Invasion of Florida ca. 1943 was undoubtedly organized by the Axis powers with German U-boats delivering the creatures to Florida and British possessions in the Caribbean. In the wake of the panic and destruction the War Department began research on several of the creatures that were captured or killed. They discovered that they were very similar to human beings and developed a series of treatments to give operatives the ability to breathe underwater and increase their physical power. These operatives were to become a unit of seagoing commandoes -The Undersea Task Force. The high point of the Undersea Task Force came in the winter/spring of 1944. Working jointly with a British invisible man , several American mystery men, and a trained dolphin, they uncovered an attempt by the Italians to destroy the English Fortress of Gibraltar using a giant underwater robot, a suicide sub and a number of blackmailed Atlanteans*.  Several aquatic men lost their lives and their dolphin

The Elevated Man

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I'm not an engineer or professional draftsman but, the Elevated Man was just crying for a rendering in my head. This is a work in progress. I need to remove the seams where I joined the two halves, and color it but feedback is welcome if there are any mad scientists out there give a holler. (Sorry no technical details. Like any proper mad scientist Professor Elevator does not keep lab notebooks around.)

Thank You

I started thinking about the stories I have written about the Tesla when I began writing this because the characters are in the Service for the most part and they aren't always shown as particularly heroic. But I try to make them shine in a pinch which sounds like what I've heard of military life. While I write about them in a humorous fashion I'd never disparage their contributions. If they sometimes don't seem to know what they're doing or get stupid orders that seems true to life too. I have the honor and pleasure of knowing a bunch of Veterans fortunately who'd call me on it for anything truly insulting. To all the Veterans and those in Service out there: thank you. If this country sleeps soundly at night it is because you are standing guard over us.

To Disinfect and Serve

"I'm very happy you decided to hear my proposal Mr. Xibalboa. Can I offer you anything?" Steen Prigo asked leading the tall Inerzan through the kitchen of his automat. Xibalboa held his face scarf closer as a ward against the food, handled by human hands, unclean by his standard. It annoyed him that the food smelled so good. "Thank you no, Mr. Prigo. Now as to your proposal?" Xibalboa asked. The short restauranteur led his guest to a back door and gestured for Xibalboa to precede him. the tall man complied. It was an alleyway. There was little light and the smell of garbage. Xibalboa stiffened. It was only the pursuit of more credits that steeled him against the germs, stenches, and darkness, though the laser pistol at his side helped a bit. Some forlorn creature rattled a trashcan further down in the alley's recesses. "This is what I wanted to show. This building next to the automat is empty and available for rent. I wanted to turn it into a true