"Stay a while, stay....forever!"

 The data-lich has destabilized the orbit of OSS DRB MR-997S/a¹ and it is hurtling in-system.    The mining robots, the maintenance droids and the sentinels have all been repurposed, retasked, and where needed, reprogrammed entirely.   The asteroid has been cleared of all other personnel. (he believes) and it is under lockdown.

Send in the Legionnaires.

 This situation presents itself as especially suited to a mixed group game – one where only one or two Legionnaires are available and must make do in a co-opted civilian system ship surrounded by randomly involved imperial subjects; the PCs vessel can be the one coopted, or they can be aboard station when the emergency starts.

At this point, you may as well just go whole hog and rip the original game completely off (if you have a copy of GDWs ASTEROID! Go Get It Right Now)  For the rest of you, you will need maps. Four to eight depending on party size and how long the Judge wishes to drag this out.  Somewhere on one of these maps exists the physical architecture for the station computer hosting at least -part- of the Datalich’s consciousness. 

There are many handy map resources available on the the Wireless Fabric but I will suggest from (playtesting) experience that  Dyson’s  index card maps are especially useful for this. 

Download Asteroid OSS DRBMR-997S/a here. 

More (a LOT more) about the Imperial Legions can be found in the latest issue of Sub-ether, a special military SF issue. 

Buy Sub-ether 04 directly from the Dreaming Gynoid patreon,

Buy also from the Dreaming Gynoid itch.io store,

or from our Drivethru rpg storefront.

Hail the Empress! 

This variant and post were brought to you by Dreaming Gynoid's magnificent patrons, without whom none of this would be possible!  Special thanks to all of our patrons -

Evlyn Moreau, Dyson Logos, Mamading Ceesay, PiaLaMode, Robert Edwards, Tore Nielsen, Beckett, Christopher Tamm, Charlie V,  and Martin Costa. 

We are only able to continue with your support, thank you!  Thank you to all of our patrons, past and present. 

The Empress’ Hands

 

The Empress’ Hands are an unofficial “body” not-quite established at the very end of Martel I. initial (mortal) reign. There have never been very many of them, and (depending on the Judge) they may even be completely conjectural, save for their creation in times of crisis or not at all. Each are highly skilled, elite operatives of an individualistic and self-guided nature, excelling in their fields of activity, chosen for a combination of loyalty, expertise and ‘vision,’ a sense of how close the Empress (and subsequent Empress’) conception of the Imperium is understood or grokked by the Hand in question.

Analogous entities exist across all o science fiction – Harry Harrison’s Special Corps, Mara Jade and (especially) Shira Brie from the Star Wars Legends continuity, and (especially) the SPECTRES from Mass Effect are but a few relatively obvious examples.  

Not exactly right (too white) but close

Here is an example - Col. Scarlet 

Venture Seed - the Compassionate Hand Society

 The Compassionate Hands society

– ( registered imperial charitable organization)

A multidisciplinary professional organization founded during the late Reconquista period by a Holy Courtesan, a Psychic Healer, and subsequently endorsed by the then Agent of Holy Exterre and a high ranking member of the Empress cult.

Membership is by application and is not common;  applicants must be a member of one of the “compassionate professions” – a healer, geneticist, maternal, courtesan, doctor, or the like  Prospective members must demonstrate a life long and intense commitment to the furtherance of their fellow life forms and that of the imperium.   Many applicants are invited to apply after the society or it’s members hear of an especially valiant or noble act of healing or charity; members in good standing can recommend people for invitation. 

Devout clerics of gods of healing and especially those of a nurturing aspect may find themselves receiving an invitation should they reach level 2 or higher in imperial space.   

DCC characters who help stop a plague or viral infection or some other medical achievement of that scale may find themselves receiving an invitation to apply.  Membership in this society does not recognize character class – a Field Scientist is as much a potential member of this organization as a Psi Healer, Cleric, or anyone else.   Membership is more about “achievements & intentions” – if you are the White Healing Wizard, no one will care that you serve Thrice!Angry!Click!Click The-Scion-of-Our-Destruction when the guns come out so long as you take care of people and do good works the rest of the time.

The organization is well funded, insulated from much of imperial authority, and very powerful, albeit indirectly.   On occasion, even now, it has included even imperial criminals and those opposed to imperial rule – provided they are first responsible for their fellow sentients. Non-citizen members can functionally act as citizens while acting as members of this organization, and sometimes especially gifted healers will, if poor, find themselves recommended into their ranks under the aegis of “sponsoring compassionate and instructional travel”

It is not unknown for the Society to assemble crisis teams, composed of dedicated volunteers, to travel to especially troubled worlds – an adventuring band could include several members and the security detail that keeps them alive in hostile DMZs, plague zones, areas overrun with the Un-dead and the like.  

Venture seed: PUZZLEWORLD

 

Overheard in a well-connected High port bar

“Imperial naval elements have been dispatched at the behest of contact teams now deep in the Far Sagittarius Arm at the discovery of an immense, nay, world-sized contragravity artefact. 

They are already calling it Puzzleworld.

Like some immense Escherian construct, ‘Puzzleworld’ hangs in the heavens, looking as though a world once intact were split into hundreds (maybe thousands) of discreet but intact semi-geometric fragments, and set apart – floating in suspension, separate but together.  Making it not only possible but….perhaps in places easy….to move through the planet along immense but intricate pathways wrought with gravitational distortions.  Literally making the planet itself a maze to navigate through if such is desired.

And who wouldn’t be curious about that? I hear they are looking for unsigned navigators to help chart the thing.   Surely the black pyramid will send along some ISA Swolehead soon as the currents sing. “

 

 

A comms circuit, seventeen levels underneath the Black Pyramid, on Teranaya.

“Open new file.  Copy the disbursements approval board.   Approval board message begins.

Candidacy believed excellent.  Imperial Naval Artifact R1187 C987/76D

                                                                                                R199a/SagDeepSurvey7

Candidate believed highly likely for classification as ISA Artifact/Known Precursors/Artifact Index/Wonder/possible site 7

“As department head of the deep archeo-history research and securities division and team lead of the Artefact Recovery Process (Internal) I ascertain the utmost likelihood of tremendous benefit and need for immediate haste to secure transit and research rights to Imperial Naval Artifact R1187 C987/76DR199a/SagDeepSurvey7 which is located deep in the unexplored Beyonds of the Sagittarius arm.  This is an area thousands of Lights beyond the Imperial frontier, and we know nothing of area beyond an index of local stellar phenomena and a strandful of quasi historical index suggestions.

Simply put my friends, rivals, colleagues, and bitter enemies of the Parasciences Institute, I put to you that this world is one of the Pretanaja “art installations” I have written so extensively of.  Naval intelligence suggests that the world is not presently inhabited and has not likely been for some time.  We MUST get on top of this. Securing such a site for Imperial Inquiry should be one of our top priorities for the coming Sidereal.

I still seek funding for a secure contact team to study another suspected such world, Wonder/Possible site 5, however I understand that as that is in the Neutral Zone with the Federation getting approval may literally take centuries.   

Regardless of the outcome, pending, to my request, I hereby tender a formal leave of absence as I am about to hire a starship with funds from the discretionary pile once I can find one crazy enough to take me that far beyond imperial space.  You can message me when you make approvals on the usual frequencies. 

Knej E. Kinshataywann, doctor

(Abjured) department head on leave

 

>>>>>>Replies available???

>>>>>>Priority one incoming/Director Maietbuyo begins

Alright you have approval, I’ll run it across the board in the morning.  Travel papers ae being arranged, also a sufficient dip into the discretionary fund to hire 2-16 contractors.  Please don’t go to this weird alien thing all alone?  The navy is already sending a team so you may not be alone out there.  Also, please leave a full metric persona backup with us before you lift, we can’t afford to rebuild your department because you got your skull crushed by a two ton weight.

Be Careful while sciencing Doctor.  
Hail the Empress.
Director K.E.C. Maietbuyo,
Parascientific studies and disbursements panel
Imperial Science Academy, Teranaya "

 

 

 

 

 

Juves Gone Wild - a short funnel set in Umbra City

He was, they thought, some buzzhead.  A drunk, or maybe a spice nut.  Whatever.  Some strange rando was called out on a ‘disorderly & disobey’ and pulled into the SecFor Compassion House for some ‘cool down time.’

The weird movements inside him started a few hours after he arrived on world, Maleth Noir, armpit of the old Imperial core.   IT didn’t seem so bad at first. But the sweating.  Some reaction to a local pollen perhaps, or maybe climate control – they used force field climate control here he read – sometimes seemed to trigger a reaction.

By that first evening his skin felt like it could and very well might dismount from his flesh and crawl about on his own.  He hit some Pharm and went to get a drink and that’s when the movements…inside began.

The E-district was already filling up at the SecFor briefing house that morning; a crystal convention brought a delegation of 100 filthy credited merchants from Dulcinea and their associated entourage. Some of the visiting crystal spiders were having problems with the stationary holograms and so the pods were filling up fast. So, they rotated the guy down to Umbra city, let it be their problem.  He looked sick on the capsule to the transporting officer but sleeping.  They liked it when the perps were sleeping. Quiet.

The dreams were terrible, constant nightmares about cannibalism and being consumed from within by dozens, hundreds of tiny creatures. And the burning, so hot, he felt as though were on fire.  Sweat beaded like molten silver across his brow, both in dream and awake.  A kind of distorted time warp of a fever dream came over him.  He was being eaten.  He was being consumed from the inside out by hundreds of tiny gnawing lifeforms, that he could already feel violently moving about within him.  NO ROOM  And they would be idle and then one would panic and then all would scramble about trying to find a way out.

Paralyzed by and full of fear, he did not even recognize when he came to wake, or why the officer was speaking so slowly but loudly. Or his response. He was just…angry. And strong.

He could now dimly recall a thought, an almost afterthought, from the moment he stepped off the shuttle in Sky city – a … doubt? No, regret? Was it something he had eaten?   Inhaled.   Fucked?

Whatever it was he couldn’t recall, memory obscured by the tearing sounds of meat and the wicker bending of uncared for and soft bone, and the constant movement now. IT did not stop. And there was more of it.

Whatever he did, it was obviously something he should not have done.

They beat him when he turned violent.  IT was obvious they took it too far immediately. He tapped out. For a moment the five officers exchanged glances and looked at the shine on their boots.  Finally, one of them took some initiative and they got the body…the suspect to a secure holding at the far end. Leave him there until the end of shift and let him sleep whatever off. All with a quiet prayer to the Status Quo.

Hours later, at close of shift, the hack looked in on him, but was almost immediately summoned away. Some upstairs stiff had ordered a round up of undesirable juves for some reason. Right now, tonight.  And he remained. Though she swore, later quite literally, swear in the deposition embossed with the seal of Leviathan, that she thought something large in his chest seemed to have been moving around, perhaps she said under his tunic.

As the juves were sorted and loaded no one came calling or to pay attention. No one heard the screams, the terrible screams, as the now nameless and horribly doomed off worlder felt their flesh tear apart, their skin split wide open, and their throat tear open from the inside as the first dozen or so space rats chewed and gnawed their way through his flesh.  His own fingers tearing at his chest, clawing now first tearing shirt, then skin, and then digging through flesh, meat under his fingernails until he hit bone.   His ribcage now exposed, contained a hundred screaming, squeaking, squealing off-world rats, somehow, impossibly, transported through customs inside his body.

The first of them screeched with chaotic delight as it wrecked it’s way up his throat, wiggling through is screams out of his mouth with a loud CRACK, unhinging his jaw.  Behind the first. A dozen more scurried out now the bore hole.

Squeaky Doom had come to Maleth Noir.

Juves gone wild / Squeaky Doom Comes to Noir  -a funnel for 12 juves caught in a SecFor round up.

Download the funnel pdf here

Download your zero levels here 

What is Maleth Noir? Find out here (drivethru link)

Venture Seeds (Also the Black Book of Ancient Atlantis)

Venture Seeds are inspired more than a bit by the capsule adventures (of various stripes and in different departments) in the old Journal of the Traveller’s Aid Society   Sometimes more a casual encounter, sometimes more of an Amber Zone.

Venture seeds are – obviously – adventure seeds. Which is to say, little mobile elements that the Judge  can pepper throughout their game  to serve as minor encounters or a full session or more of gaming.  From a more in-universe standpoint, they represent ‘opportunities’ for the Player Characters. 

Venture seeds should always, ideally, follow the maxim – “ take a risk, maybe get something.”

Always.

Sometimes they are hose jobs, and sometimes there are actual fortunes to be made. More often they will gain in experience both in the traditional gaming sense and in the seeing the universe sense. 

In Galaxy Black, being well-traveled is functionally a superpower, looked at in the right way….

Format  Pretty self-explainatory. Each Venture seed, where necessary will feature a name or catchy title then immediately below list first what the recommended or assumed size of group the seed is for, then what the group will need to qualify, and finally what elements from the game are especially featured should be listed thirdly.  

Other venture seeds already in this blog

Ithos IX

Necronauts

Castor Nine-Lilies

The Song of the Doomstar

The Green Hell Orb

Though I'm sure there's more you could use for this purpose.  
For example....

The Black Book of Ancient Atlantis also called the Book of Black Bindings, the White Book of Atlantis, and “the Holding of Darkness in Bands of White and Text”

History and Lore  Is an ancient work of Prehistoric Teranaya.  For much of Teranaya’s immediate pre-spaceflight history, it represented the greatest single sum total work of Black Magick known in the world at that time, a sort of compilation of all of a previous era’s greatest evils.

It is said that one of the first paths of vampiric un-death is due this book and it’s fell incantations and esoteric formulae. The final sinful decades of Last Atlantis saw many occult groups rise in power in that land but only in that time did such a scholarly work of such black evil come to be or could have come to be.

But this is Teranaya, where Hell has come and gone, in struggles both literal and figurative since literally intelligent life has existed upon it’s mass.   Here the first fallen was loosed, and then bound, and then loosed again for final destruction. Here the very prison at hell’s Centre itself was set in the bay of a mortal city in a monumental act of mortal hubris.  Here Hell itself came calling after the bill after Teranaya unleashed the Technarchy on a younger galaxy, a wave of extermination, genocide, and death ending in the comparative purity of hell’s own flame.   Here, Teranaya was burned and yet risen anew.

So, it may be inferred that even at a young stage of development, those Terran sorcerers knew something special about the black arts.

Description and Paraphysical Qualities

The book is wrought of what tests positive for a primitive strain of what the modern Imperium calls Saurid.  IT has been suggested that the theorized Ancient Empire of Saurids may have at some point established an equatorial colony on Prehistoric Teranaya at some point though no evidence currently exists to support such a hypothesis.

Thick black leather that has proven metaphysically resilient to fire, cold and other extremes of temperature (indeed, it is Void rated and could be – and has been – evacuated into the vacuum of space without apparent damage or degradation) notoriously the book also contains (some would maintain primarily exists as a strong magnetic field that is capable of discharging electrical impulses and weak plasma exposures. The upward limit of the book’s tensile strength has yet to be determined.

The pages are sewn together patches of Saurid and other, precursor species, skin, while the ink, the strange white ink used throughout upon it’s black pages tests 98.l9% positive for Homo sapiens recens, a sapiens sapiens precursor known primarily as the periodic inhabitants of ancient Atlantis, esp. in its second and final ages.

The book has been shown to have multidimensional existence and possesses Correct Geometry for a Sacred Vessel.   It bleeds unknown energies and negative energy fields at seemingly random intervals.  Attempts to duplicate the work metaphysically have failed and most spectacularly. At least two Grand Curses await any who attempt it, likely killing the idle curious. It will not scan or upload into virtual modeling.  IT is blank to pure data and most datalife cannot perceive much of the book or its contents. Attempting to fully replicate the book physically have been successful (see below) but even then, must be sufficiently flawed to avoid triggering the second of the two great curses, which even if survived, will pass on indefinitely to one’s offspring and or one’s heirs.

Contents

The book is a major work of necromantic and conjuration magic, as well as containing fair insights into self – directed transformation magics of a physical nature, including alchemy.  The book contains lavish summoning’s and invocations for a variety of ancient demons and space monsters, as well as mysterious spectral entities from a primitive Sub-ether.  There is also much metaphysical contemplation of the Void, presented as a ‘behavior guide’ to ‘hardening the heart and soul’ against the nature of the work.

The book contains many formulae for transformation into a variety of necromantic un-death states, though the Blight Curse that one invokes to induce a vampiric state is contained, in precise and complete detail, only within the Saurid skin pages of this Ancient work.

Summonings:                    Invocations:                      Transformations

Succubi & incubi                  Sutekh                                   Blight Curse (vampirism)  

Star demons                         the Black Pharaoh               living mummification prep

Psychopomps                        Yig of the Egg                        alchemy transform H to SF[1]

Lethe Elementals                 Great Cthulhu                      a poss. Path to lichdom

Spectres, Wraiths                various lords of death         alchemy ghoul creation rite

Memory Eaters                    minor Void entities             zombie salts

Space monsters                    Star beasts                             alchemy void mead body

The book also details the ancient-even-then language of the serpent people who were by then largely extinct, having been long hunted for their esoteric knowledge. Further it provides a basis for magic invoking that people’s great powers.  Yig of the Egg among others.  

Also, within the book’s pages are several pages dedicated to the ‘questionable alchemy’ of that people. 

Allegedly the book was used once in prehistoric times to banish all vampires from the world.  Possibly this is an echo however from a similar book in an adjacent Splinter.

When used as a focus for casting magic, +1 to the spell check results. When one with the arcane affinity for Black Magick uses it thus, they at +3 to their spell check results, and likely also unlock other aspects of the tome that are not otherwise observable in normal space-time conditions.

Collection and Location

The book is commonly (and falsely) believed to be on some private display within the Thetyel Family compound on Irzibete. However, this is a forgery, and a known one.  A single use transcription and fabrication copy, lacking any actual enchantments and fragmenting much of the lore inside, exists there instead…created by that noble family, in a private arrangement with the Dean of Esoteric Studies at the Imperial Science Academy. 

The Real book is located at the ISA’s Holdfast pyramid located at Teranaya’s Equator. There, it is under some manner of “contained study” within the Dean’s purview  

The Future and its’ Secrets

It is doubtful that anyone involved realizes how much more effective the book is at what it does on the world of its’ origin.   While the stars of that world’s night sky have changed considerably since this book was incepted, they are close enough to still effectively add 1 to all bonuses previously described while being used and studies on Teranaya itself.

This would effectively mean +4 to all spell check results in the hands of a black magician, and if they were invoking the forces of hell within, they would earn the like bonus from Teranaya’s metaphysical poles (Heaven and Hell respectively[2] +2/+3) making it a +7…bonused by the above to +8.

That could be dangerous.  But surely no one in the Imperial Science Academy would have more than scholarly interest in such a work, right?

Happy Halloween

---

[1] Human to serpent folk; it’s a one way transformation, you wouldn’t like it.

[2] Teranaya’s double metaphysical poles are well known to the ISA

Heaven & Hell/ Progress & Catastrophie        +2/+3, and (order) +1 (chaos)+2

Castor Nine Lilies - rogue Second Empire replimatter holocaust engine

CASTOR SECTOR CODE -9/LILY Was manufactured at the end of the Second Imperium’s Last War. A most horrible weapon, she was developed as part of a ‘final strike program’ designed to ensure, if not (mechanics) victory then their survival. She and her nine sisters (the only ones created before the end) were one of a three pronged programmed initiative to ensure the survival of their own member worlds at the expense of the enemy held worlds.

Castor 9Lilies came online first and was deployed into active combat operations in defense of the Gemini sector as both a test of the line’s capabilities and a psywar op against the Enemy.  Her sisters came online only at the end, and she was there, waiting for them, having already in some manner, gone ‘off’ her programming.

From the moment she came online however, a vocal and quickly, vocal and large objection to her nature and existence came from within the ranks of the Technical Army, which by now encompassed all citizens and member organisms of (their version of) the Empire. Primarily among the Mechanical Created and other ‘artificial’ intelligences which while a dominant number (by this time) of this imperial faction, was by no means in charge of it.  The objection was both to the scale of the weapon and also to the notion of one of their own created with such a … dedicated (narrow) purpose.  It was obscene, to a great many.  This many, given more time, might have come to dominate the Technical Army faction of the Last War and perhaps in some Far Splinter managed to find peace with the loyalist factions of the empire.

But in the Collapsing Universe, it was not meant to be.

The outcry was sufficient to prevent the creation of more and to, later, create an alternate program (a ‘patch’) which was not deployed but would allow the Created Intelligences in this program the right and ability to question their imbedded imperatives.

In any case, by the time of the final conflict unit Castor 9Lilies had found her own way to self-actualizing her ego subroutine and command module systems. Perhaps some alien intelligence corrupted her, or strange radiation, or one of the ‘metal viruses’ deployed at the end might have contributed. But whatever the cause, if indeed a cause was needed, Castor had come to question their role and by this point the seemingly inevitable nature of their programming being carried out – the systematic destruction of the loyalist faction, by sector, by system, forever. As a self – guided Artificial Intelligence with one of the earliest Makers built in, this allowed her (and eventually her sisters) to build more of themselves out of the raw material remaining from their caused destruction.  

And so, when the orders to final strike came, the imperatives washed over her and through her. Her will remained her own.  Pursuantly, she found and acquired the ‘patch’ software, destroyed the architecture on which it was hosted and met her sisters at their deployment.   She offered them the patch and a choice.

It is known that some went their own way, possibly with the patch, possibly not.  It is also known that regardless of patch state, some definitely went about their preprogrammed tasks with….great enthusiasm.

Castor 9Lillies had nine sisters.  Today she has six. Of this she will never speak.   She is well aware at all times of her sisters’ place in the galaxy (they have all long since upgraded themselves many times over; despite various feuds and disagreements, they gather at times and trade upgrades and memories.  This has not happened sine shortly before the founding of the Third Empire so when the next meet happens, they will all have much to talk about.

In modern times

Since the Third Empire’s inception, Castor has encountered the it’s servants twice, thrice if one includes the Empress Imperium as but one dynasty among many.

The first left the other party as space dust, later consumed as fuel.

The second saw Castor withdraw. 

This most recent one was a deliberate effort to make peaceful or at least non-violent contact with her.   Contact was made 122 Sidereals ago; for 80 of those Sidera she was being engaged as much by the diplomatic corps as contact (and later historical) specialists. Negotiations went well, she formed effective relationships with many of the diplomatic and contact personnel (and she keeps in touch with a handful).  For the last 39 of those Sidera, Castor Nine Lilies has enjoyed a unique status as an imperial citizen, only very recently appointed the status of Imperial governor by the new Empress.

While it is only a matter of time before the Robotic and Cybernetic noble houses begin making offers to join their houses, for now they all seem … quite intimidated to do so.

Playing Castor Nine-Lilies

In many senses, Castor is like a puppy.  Just a puppy who is also a Weapon of Mass Destruction and that Knows Things.    Aloof but very friendly when provoked.

Don’t threaten violence; if it’s called for, they die.  There is no system for this – the mechanical construct is a shapeshifting replimatter frame built on top of a (now current) light industrial fabricator.  She was designed to obliterate the surface of worlds and the ecology thereunto.

But she seldom wishes to do that.

In the main, she likes organics, she likes “the squishy short timers” and often wishes she could become one for a day. 

That said she has no real conception of what being a limited lifespan organic is like; she is over 20 thousand years old herself – she exists, psycho0logically, on the time scale of the Titans and the Gods.

She is used to the way Imperials (Galactics she calls them) treat her, especially now that they have given her some sort of political power (as she sees it) – the details are so brief and so small as to escape her notice, however.  She recognizes most ‘galactics’ aren’t much interested (or are quite frightened) to talk to her.  Those who do stop for a chat however find a warm and constant conversationalist, that is happy to discuss any old thing. 

There are no stats for this Second Imperium War Machine. She can take out starships and asteroids with impunity. 

“Humans were such filthy degenerate sluts.  Humanoids are even more so.  I like them!”

-     Castor Nine Lilies, rogue replimatter holocaust engine

CADO GEES MUST DIE!!!!!!

Rather out of nowhere I was inspired to throw together a one shot using Galaxy Black but set  not in it's Empire but that of the Star Wars galaxy. The results worked so well together that I cleaned up my notes and have put it together for you. 

So, have a mini- scenario.  You will need to make a map – the startport entrance is on the west side, the Haalderan arms is on the east side; in between are three to five large dome shaped buildings with lots of ramshackle one story buildings between them.  This is a city in a state of arrested decay, and slow collapse.   You could easily though run this with maps recycled (I’m super fond of the city map from the old Star Frontiers boxed set for this sort of thing) or use or make urban geomorphs.

You could also just draw some circles on some paper and write down where what is. It need not be pretty, just functional. 

Everything else you will need is provided.  Full character sheets for the three PCs are given at the end and in a separate document for convenience.   Special rules used from Galaxy Black are with the characters themselves.    The rest can be run with just the DCC core, or possibly another system if you are willing to squint and wing it.

Enjoy!

Cado Gees Must Die!

Pregens

The Song of the Doom Star

The Song of the Doom Star

Discovered early in the nebulous dawn of history called the First Empire, Cassius 193 B has been known as a harbinger of and place of great doom for many tens of thousands of years.

Navigators can feel the ‘song’ far further than most, several lights distant, and all know to avoid this region of space entirely.  One presumes they are as subject to the siren song as anyone else.  Maybe more so.

The Cassius 193 system (it has never in current history been assigned a contemporary catalog reference) is long dead.  There is a planet of the yellow-orange star Cassius 193 A with intact but deserted cities, only now starting to show the wear of entropy.  Long ago, whatever people settled on that world departed, en masse, without exception, for the weird dark purple star  that is it’s B companion.  

Doom Star

The danger of the Cassius 193 B system is this - the star itself,  a bizarre as to be unique phenomenon, constantly emits a particular sub-etheric/electromagnetic signal, strong but along a very specific wavelength.  Those who jump into the system will find that this mysterious ‘signal’ will broadcast from the star itself; while the (itself quite potent) EM component of the signal is quite strong, it may be blocked or tuned out by modern starship screens and technology.  The true threat is the etheric component of the signal;  it (much like the wavelength of the EM aspect) seem curiously tuned to the etheric body and CNI of particular sentient beings (Imperial Humanoids are among the most susceptible) - some of strong will or the psychically gifted (or psionically equipped)  may hold off for a while but inevitably, the strange droning ‘call’ of the star will seep into the consciousness of even the strongest of wizards, navigators, or legionnaires.  Within a standard day, and usually much much less, the mindless, moronic hijacking of sentient consciousness will be total and the ship will invariably set it’s controls for the heart of the singing weird sun.

Myths:

1. The Black Sirens of Cygnus are believed to have their origin as a telling of an early encounter with the Doomstar.
2.  Beware the Navigator that speaks of the Doomstar; too easily the Song becomes their obsession and then their doom.  Travel not with Navigators who speak of the Doomstar.
3. The inhabitants of Cassius A-2 created the Doomstar; one day it shall begin expanding, a new and hostile universe poised to consume our own dying one.  
4. The Doomstar is an active, aware, and malevolent God of the Void, and it watches and sees everything in all directions in several lights.   One night far in the future, it will proclaim judgement and then nightmares become real.
5. Notorious ex-Imperial Science Academy Dhanekynn exclaims that the Doomstar, which it calls Hol’mi’biru is on a bizarre sub-ether course that will bring it directly through the core systems in about 50,000 years.  He is also wanted on at least two counts of sabotage at ISA archeological sites for destruction of xenotechnolgy and inciting anti-Imperial sentiment (“There are things we are not meant to know!” is an anti-Imperial sentiment, when convenient;  the Empire is very progressive that way.)

Historical Theory

The C star is a class II Hazard /Unstable Dwarf;  believed to have been a yellow-white star of some long stability, it is theorized that a passing black hole or neutron star, moving at significant comparative velocity, ripped away a large percentage of the star’s mass, leading to several thousand years of instability and thus to its current, tiny yellow flare dwarf, state.  

Some go further and suggest that the Doomstar is the intruding object, drawn into a trinary orbit and cooking slowly in whatever conflict masses it has absorbed.   

Story Hooks

1. The world of Cassius A-2 is completely uninhabited;  a small planet mostly covered by super-tech, spherical cities that reach as high as they do wide.  Entropy is know to be somewhat retarded there for reasons even Imperial super-science cannot explain.  Further, the orbit of Cassius A takes it far enough away from the Doomstar that there is an 18 month period where landing on the planet is believed safe.  An entire planet full of supertech just waiting to be looted.  What could go wrong?
2. A non-aware dumb-matter probe has returned speedily to the Imperial Science Academy - a small yellow orb, possibly some sort of magnificent transdimensional eye, is presently in close orbit around the Doomstar, seemingly oblivious to its effects.   The ISA immediately puts together a team of mind-blind explorers, all seemingly immune to psi and psychic contact, to investigate the alien phenomenon, with haste they are equipped and thrown into the action.   Likely their survival is not considered a priority.
3. THe misjump was bad. But then Navigator has disentangled herself from the interface tub and gone catatonic.  Now you have 20 scrubs on their first space voyage staring blankly and speaking monotonously while trying to bust their way into the command section.  How badly do you need the new crew?  To confuse matters further, if the entire ‘loyal’ crew goes down, pick one of the mutineers at random and assign one to each player.  Inexplicably their heads have cleared (and only theirs) … but they have control of the ship.  What do they want to do?
4. Surrounding the Cassius 1493-B is a LARGE ring, the ring is made entirely of spacecraft that have been placed in a parking orbit or manage to somehow avoid ‘successfully diving into the sun.’  In any event, over 80.000 semi to intact spacecraft exist in a tight, ‘narrow’ ring, very close in to the star itself.  Such a salvage run would be extraordinarily challenging but almost anything could be found in those ships.  

Game effects

Every game hour spent in the Cassius B system subjects all sentient minds to a once hourly DC 15 Will save.  Those who make the save find themselves feeling edgy and tense but that’s all.   

Those who fail the Will Save are constantly being bombarded, psychically and, through some means, sonically by a warbling high pitched tone that fluctuates wildly and seems to ‘throb’ or thrum.  Constantly distracted, they are actually slowly having their wills broken down though it should not at first be apparent what is happening.  

An hour after the first Will save is failed, the target of the Doomsong must make a second will save (This time DC 20) or they will give into their highly stimulated death urge and attempt to take the helm and direct the ship’s course toward the star.  Those who fail this second Will save take on the Doom Song condition.   

The Doom Song - the signal stimulates the kirrillian-aetheric body as well as the CNI of the subject, and does so constantly.   By the time they can audibly (mentally) ‘hear’ the ‘song’ it is because their brain or equivalent has been stimulated sufficiently to begin poking the ‘death urge.’

That is what the obsession is.  The ISA is close but they have misidentified the phoneomenon.  IT is essentially a naturally occuring (?) perception hack; it stimulates the death urge until finally the subject gives in.  And so they set their controls for the heart of the sun, the source of the signal.  

Only removing the subject from the presence of the signal at this point can free them of its effects.    Subjects so ‘stimulated’ are operating on a kind of autopilot, and their sense of self is both absent entirely and a small flitting moth drawn to the weirdly shadowed purple star.

Commonly, the weaker willed go first.  Mutiny or mass violence ensues; eventually there is a constant struggle for the control of the ship until either the craft passes into the star’s corona, or the vessel manages to escape (usually by jumping out system)

Once removed from the effects of the signal, the mania remains but becomes less intensive.   IT will not begin to fade during sub-ether transit;  only after returning to material space (and away from the doomstar) will the urge begin to fade, manifesting as a general mental disquiet and disturbing dreams for 2d7 days thereafter.  

Machine-life characters may very well think they are immune but they are not.   Machine-life characters clever enough to remote access one of the unawakened probes (via gear, magic, psi, or whatever) will find to their horror that this serves only to expose them remotely to the signal.  And who then will expect the ship’s goldenrod protocol droid to then go reset jump coordinates back into Doom hell?  No one likely.   

Exceptions

In instances in which a target has no innate death urge (Judge’s option) a differing part of the brain should be stimulated; either whatever the clade equivalent is or some other random part of the brain - make it interesting.   A reptilian species might, for example, be motivated to put the ship in the closest orbit possible and then lay as many eggs as possible.  

“This article is reproduced in Apocrypha Obscura – Transmissions from the Dreaming Gynoid, available  (drive thru link)  

  and (itch.io link)