Mystaran Campaign: Fletcher Reef

Situated South of Shireton marking a sea border between the Five Shires and the Kingdom of Ierendi.

Land Ho!
There are two significant Islands in Fletcher Reef.
The one that sits within reach is Little Tinkle named after the Halfling who walked across the reef on long stilts from the wreck of Survey Six and mapped it while the remaining crew prepared to row home in lifeboats. Rumor has it he hoisted a flag consisting of ladies pink bloomers with a brass button carrying the Seal of Shireton.
The second, larger Island appears to be two miles long and was named Longwayoff. Gimbal Tinkle was unable to reach the larger Island and a further expedition attempted to send a flying Magicuser who signalled that he was unable to return due to some aspect of the Island generating a magic drain.

Shipwrecks Galore
There are several wrecked vessels on Fletcher Reef. Most are at the edge.
Survey Six is a small sailing ship from the Five Shires. It has been stripped of its more valuable supplies but has three barrels of brandywine (300gp) from the captain's private reserve. He was crying as the crew rowed for home.
Azores Lady was a Privateer owned by a Glantrian Wizard. Its has been observed to be sitting on a rock well above the highest tide and there is a rumor it is or was a flying ship so how it came to be on the rocks it of interest to those who know of its story. There is also a rumor that 'the lady marks the entrance' to the maze.
Black Dog belonged to a Pirate who thought he might claim the fabled treasure that is said to be aboard the Heart-of-the-maze. Unfortunately the apparent channel he found ended barely a half mile in and the reef gutted the Black Dog.
Milicent was a merchantman out of Tenobar. The vessel's captain was hired to chart the reef. Unfortunately he was too close.
Valen's Prize was in the employ of the Karameikian Prince. Valen sent his ship to inspect the Azores Lady for possible salvage of the flying vessel. It had considerable reserves of salvage equipment when the crew abandoned her.
Heart-of-the-maze is supposed to be a treasure ship though no one can get near her without falling from the sky when their magic fails or having their ship ripped up by reef.

DM Map
Not every secret is available to players. The reason the Heart-of-the-maze is so far within the reef is because its captain discovered a maze of channels that lead deep into Flecher Reef as far as the Island of Longwayoff.

The Rumor that Azores Lady marks the entrance to the maze is false. It is infact Milicent that marks the entrance to the maze.
Both the rock on which Azores Lady and the Island of Longwayoff are rock debris from some ancient volcanic erruption that spewed anti-magic material from deep beneath Mystara that leaches magical power. While these are two large chunks the entire reef is seeded with fragments. The most powerful enchantment will begin to fail in the presence of this stone.
Azores Lady is indeed a flying ship and could be pulled from the rock by a large sailing ship.
Heart-of-the-maze is filled with treasure and is home to an Aquatic Dragon.

Short Fiction: The Elven Lady

The Elven Lady

Captain Lhars looked at the soldiers crowded on the deck of his Transport ship. The Elven Lady sailed past Razaks Rock, her sails swallowing the good wind as she made the turn. "So many young faces." He could see in them the same look of destiny he had chosen as a young man. "By the Immortals when will we stop sending children to die on battlefields?"
"Perhaps when the old stop looking for a fight that devours the young."
Thomic Ironhammer straightened the tiller. "The Rock is clear."
The forces of the Desert Nomads had pulled out of Darokin and would be pulling back to Akesoli. These young men would land on the docks in old harbour and cut off their retreat.
The Elven Lady had sat, an invisibility spell concealing the vessel, anchored off the northern shore of Lake Amsorak for much of the War in view of fair Bronsdale. Even as the community was sacked and burned by an army of humanoid raiders that had pushed around the north side of the lake raiding deep into Darokin's Agricultural heartland. Lhars hated to keep her out of the war but many ships had been seized or burned to the waterline to stop one side or the other from getting them. Now she was one of the few not in the hands of the Desert Nomads or sunk. Now she could make a difference. Now she could carry these young men to their destinies.
"Next up," Thomic Ironhammer lowered the tiller into its well worn notch in the wood and tied it securely into place. "the Navigation turn at the Island." No need to speak its name now and invite doom.

The Elven Lady slid past the deathly dark and crumbling keep that dominated the island and made the turn taking the vessel away from the grey and unseen horror that enveloped the ruins in its aura. Thomic Ironhammer roused captain Lhars from his thoughts.
"Copper for um." Lhars struggled to his feet from the old wooden throne he kept lashed to the railing. "Ey? Just thinking of family."
"Ah...yes...family." It had been a while since Thomic had seen his family as well. Thomic thought of something from his past and wiped at his eyes. "arn't we all?"
"How I long to see," Thomic raised his voice.
"a distant Summer meadow." Lhars placed a hand on the old Dwarf's shoulder.
"Where she waits for me," The old Dwarf's voice carried over the soldiers standing at ready. "high up in the Stahl."
"Oh my beautiful flower," Thomic straighted the tiller to end the turn. "how I long to hold you."
"A memory I will cherish," Lhars tied off the timber tiller. "more than any radiant Jewel."
"Oh my beloved elven lady," Lhars smiled at the dwarf's love of an elf in Rockhome that had enticed him to sign on as crew because of the ship's name. "with your lips of brandywine."
"Know that I dream of you," Lhars looked up as the odd glow growing in the northern sky drew his attention from the dwarf's love song. "though you will never be mine."
"What in the hel is that thing?" A burning pebble as large as any mountain, dropped behind the Silver Sierras and exploded in a fire ball that consumed the northern sky. The brightness of this new Sun became so painful that Lhars wanted to scream, the heat igniting the timbers and sails of the Elven Lady in a burning torrent that reached down the throats of every soldier stricken with terror as it cooked them in their armour.
Lhars didnt even speak as he dragged Thomic Ironhammer over the railing and into the water that was now boiling around them.
The bodies of young men trapped in a scream sank through the water around them. Lhars could see there was nothing to be done to save them.
The cold and murky darkness of the deep of the lake became instantly bright and began to feel like a distinctly warm bath. Lhars dragged his dying friend further down until they hit mud.
The Ring of waterbreathing slipped off Lhars's finger and he slipped it over the smallest of Thomic's substantial sausages and held it on him until he opened his eyes and breathed.
Deep breath and breathe out. Lhars swapped the ring to his own hand and took a deep breath in then out before swapping the ring back to Thomic's hand.

They maintained the tactic for a while and then a large boulder perhaps fifty feet in diameter crashed through the burning ship above them and descended the lake bottom. Lhars looked up as large rocks continued to rain around them striking the water only to sink and both could see there was nowhere they could go.
The wreckage of the elven lady seemed to vanish from overhead in less than a heart beat. Their panic settled back into a rythm in the shadow of their new boulder. Deep breath in and out. And then the ring would swap fingers.

Thomic broke the rythm when the water again grew murky and dark and he signalled to surface. Lhars followed the dwarf up the side of the boulder that sat  high enough that even Thomic Ironhammer was a half dwarf above the waterline.
Lhars could not even see the stars, the world now plunged into darkness.
"By the immortals I cannot even see the hand in front of my face." Lhars felt about for Thomic. "What of you Thomic?"
"I'm so sorry my friend." Lhars felt the Dwarf's caloused hand touch his face. "The fire in the sky has robbed you of your sight."

Mystaran Campaign: The Master of the Hule

Background
The Master, initially a scary black clad dude you might chance glimpse through a communication mirror used by one of his Agents as they plot the occupation of the Sind, and we eventually discover he is some 'Priest' to a Religion where Lies are holy. He is also surrounded by Diviners. That should be a big clue as to what is realy going on.

Something PIE
The Mystaran Setting is Drowning in Protoindoeuropean links. Hule is Protoindoeuropean for Forest. So the black clad one is also 'Master of the Forest'.

The Master of the Forest
We know he is at the centre of an information network because he uses information to make his lies believable. If you are going to lie to the populace then your lies will need to be backed up with outcomes. We are told his immortal patron is Loki but there is another Immortal trickster (probably Loki as well...he's that kind of Immortal). This particular immortal is patron of the Araena civilization in forests in western region of the Savage Coast. A shape-changing Spider race whose greatest sat at the heart of a forest and an information network. Information is an incredible thing. With a communication network which thanks to a few Mirrors of sending allow strategic manipulation of assets in the field means the Master can pretty much inform one orc chieftan that he controls many by telling chief Boak to converge on the village of Pramyama where he will be met by other forces and then directing others to act together they can capture the Village. Employing diviners (any handful of apprentice magicusers with crystal balls) the Master can control, manipulate, and direct assets as desired.
Chief Boak refusing your orders? Instruct chief Thonk of the Hill Giants to converge on Boak's orcs and kill him for his betrayal and lead them into the village of Pramyama to capture it. The Master is mighty indeed.

The Biggest Lies Pay Big
As some low powered Araena backed up by a bunch of Araena Diviners with crystal balls passing himself off as a BBEG boogeyman the Power of the Master is based on the number of people who believe his lies then convincing everyone that you are responsible for the Asteroid that smashed its way through the skyshield when it is simply an event in motion for thousands, hundreds of thousands, or millions of years.
'The Diviners' or rather the Araena at the centre of a Web has been watching this one coming for a while and informing everyone that you have summoned up a meteor to smite them for failing to stay invaded, while laughed at by everyone as the ramblings of that mad dog at the head of an army of Desert Nomads is soon believed to be a scary dude when a meteor comes through the sky shield and lays waste to two nations.
At the end of the day even the Emperor of Thyatis will be thinking 'Why don't we have one of those Meteor things?'

The Master of the Desert Nomads
The Master of the Hule is a black clad dude with an Information Network...yet the Master of the Desert Nomads is just some crazy Priest guided by the voice of his Immortal. He could very well be some 'Actor' being used by Araenas in control of the Hule to direct their efforts in the Sind.

Other Trickster BBEGs
You dont think this works? Exhibit A: The Mandarin in the Ironman 3 film is responsible for a campaign of Bombings across the USA...but what if these explosions are coincidence?
What if the Mandarin is just some Actor employed to instill fear in the populace and draw the efforts of Authorities away from the real Mandarin?

Extracurricular
Its recommended you take a good look at the D&D adventures X4, X5, X10, and the Wrath of the Immortals boxed

Mystaran Campaign: The Total destruction of the known world

POOR  WIZARDS  ALMANAC  AC1012
Though  this  Crater  is  further  west,  and  56  miles wide  by  64  miles  long.  We  can  hand-wavy  the length  and  just  focus  on  the  fifty  six  miles  as ‘diameter’.   The   Asteroid  to  achieve  this  is  a meteorite  of  iron  17,000  feet  in  diameter.

THE  TRANSIENT  CRATER
Initial  impact  vaporises  a  colossal  volume  some 32.9  miles  in  diameter  and  11.6  miles  deep.

THE  QUAKE
A  truly  destructive  quake  of  9.4  is  unleashed. Stone   Structures   are   destroyed   out   to   one hundred  miles  and  damaged  out  to  a  thousand miles.   It   would   most   certainly   subside   the subterranean  realms  of  the  Shadow  Elves  and  the Lower  Broken  Lands  and  break  the  Pillar  of Kaygar  destroying  Upper  and  Lower  Dengar.

THE  FIREBALL
Generating  a  49.4  mile  radius  fireball.  Thermal Radiation   generated   by   this   event   expands outward  igniting  Trees,  clothing,  grass,  inflicting third  degree  burns  to  most  of  the  body  of  every living  thing  out  beyond  five  hundred  and  sixty  five miles  dropping  off  to  full  body  second  degree burns  out  to  five  hundred  and  ninety  five  miles where  it  drops  off  to  full  body  first  degree  burns. At  this  level  of  thermal  radiation  Lake  Amsorak which  falls  into  the  one  hundred  to  two  hundred miles  range  will  flash  boil  or  even  convert  fully  to steam.
At  seven  hundred  miles  the  fireball  is  below  the horizon.  But  the  damage  is  done  as  it  pretty much  kills  every  living  thing  in  the  Known  World east  to  the  Thyatian  Empire  and  probably  as  far west  as  the  borders  of  the  Masters  realm  in  the Savage  Coast.

EJECTA
At  the  Crater  Rim  ejecta  is  over  two  thousand five   hundred  feet  in  diameter.  At  one  hundred miles  it  is  down  to  over  fifty  feet  in  diameter  and can  be  considered  boulder  strewn  out  to  three hundred  miles  where  three  feet  diameter  boulders are  dropping  from  the  sky.  Large  rocks  out  to  six hundred  miles  and  gravel  beyond  eight  hundred miles.

THE  WIND  BLAST
At  the  Crater  Rim  the  Pressure  wave  is  travelling outward  at  11,500  mph.  Catastrophic  winds  out beyond   two   hundred   miles   destroying   all structures   and  just  stone  towers  and  wooden structures   at  four  hundred  miles  as  the  wind drops  below  423  mph.  Destructive  winds  knock down  90%  of  trees  out  to  nine  hundred  miles pretty  much  demolishing  every  wooden  structure in  the  Northern  Reaches,  Emirates  of  Ylaruam, Thyatian  Empire,  Minrothad  Guilds  and  remnant Ierendi  isles  where  the  number  drops  to  30%  of trees  knocked  down.  Wind  gusts  drop  to  116 mph  out  at  a  thousand  miles  from  the  centre.

THE  FINAL  CRATER
The  final  Crater  is  fifty  six  miles  wide  and  0.71 miles  (3,748  feet)  deep  even  though  the  melting went  over  eleven  and  a  half  miles  deep.

A  BAD DAY FOR THE KNOWN WORLD
This   Asteroid  pretty  much  takes  out  Glantri, Sind,  Wendar,  Ethengar,  Broken  Lands,  Darokin, Five  Shires,  Alfhiem,  Atruagin  Clans  and  most  of the  Ierendi  Isles  and  Rockhome  leaving  other nations  beyond  damaged  by  cyclonic  winds.

The Hobbit: The Lonely Mountain is probably real

The Lonely Mountain Would be al-one or the protoindoeuropean form: ul (to howl)- oino (one). This is rather specific because Ulwun is a name that dates back to when humans interbred with neanderthals in Australia because the name is adopted by modern humans with the addition of the Ng phonetic as Ngulwun. Ul-oino is 'one -to howl' inversed phonetic form associated with an asian origin. The 'lonely mountain' part of the story of the hobbit predates humans from Africa and pushes the origins of the Hobbit back past fourty thousand years.

Short fiction: The Job

title: the job

It begins with a dizziness. An odd sensation since I have not fallen ill in over a decade with anything more entertaining than bad back, but I choose to rest because old age is a bitch even at fourty-five. I drink water simply to wet my dry throat. And then...I sleep.
I awakened to a loud noise like traffic and yet there is no traffic. I smell the scent of meats and vegetables cooking, spices and herbs, the smells of takeaways blowing their cooked meals out into the sky. This time I find myself in a city, pressed in on by an impossible crowd.
I think of my bed and I am there. It is ridiculous. The very thought that the crowded street drowning in humanity was real and yet as I think of it the distance between the bed and the dream closes and again I am there. I sit on a bed in an alley way watching a nauseating wave of humanity wash by and with a thought I return home. I sit and contemplate the prospect I am insane. It would seem an odd sort of insanity that would leave me to stare at a fragment of some foreign newspaper stuck to the leg of my bed like toilet paper clinging to the sole of a shoe.
Its time to try this again.
I focus on a location I know and I am standing on a beach not more than a half mile from my home. The sand is wet from the tide now headed out. Half a mile. I return home with a thought.
Its time to test the limits.
Up.
I fall through the air. The distant city below me appears as I clear the cloud and see the lights of streets and a few houses. I focus on home and my descent ceases.
I know I can move things with me and I can travel but now I need to go further and move large masses. I know what I want to do.
I find myself on an Ice shelf in a rather brutal winter. This should be Antartica. nearby the abandoned Haley Six Science Station and I grab hold. It burns to grapple the cold metal even through leather work gloves but what I am wearing is not designed for this environment. First I move it to the Desert. The entire facility now sits on the sands on edge of the Simpson Desert.
Its amazing. I had not been able to get a good look at it in the snow storm but I can see its quite impressive. I didnt even exert myself. Lets put It back, but this time lets move it from the inside. I climb a stairs to a door with a window and look inside. I dont even bother trying to open the door. I simply am there beyond the barrier.
I turn to look out. This time I will take it to the south pole. And the desert is replaced by Antarctic snow. I look out at a distant base located at the South Pole. Now they realy have something to discuss.

At home I pour milk into cereal and enjoy breakfast for the last time. This is the last time I will ever come home.
I change my clothes.
I am on the Space station. Zero gravity is not something I have experienced so my stomach objects to not having a down. The Astronaut at the far end of the module seems paralyzed by my presence.
"I can assure you I am real." He nods in fearful agreement. "You might want to hold on. We are going to Mars."
Mars. Not orbiting so kind of screwed, but the view of the red planet from the Window of the International Space Station is kind of cool.
"Sorry." I smile. "I have yet to work out how to put us in Orbit." I am thinking to myself: at least he hasnt pulled a gun in panic.
"Fond of getting places in rocket ships were you?" For a guy trapped on a space station near Mars he is strangely quiet as he looks out the window at the closeness of a little uninhabitable ball of reddish frozen rock. "We can go someplace else if you like."
I focus on a distant star and make it as close to us as our star seemed to be from Earth.
"And this would be some other Star." I wasnt realy thinking about a particular place. "Not realy sure which one."
The Astronaut seems to be in some distress now. He's looking at me as though I ran his dog over.
"Are you are okay?" I move the station back to somewhere between the earth and the Moon. The poor fellow seems unwell. "You are obviously not taking this well so perhaps I should take you home."
I park the space station on the beach a half mile from my house. I figure we can get out here. The sudden sensation of gravity puts it all at an akward angle on the sand.

"Now," If it works out I'll have a good paying job moving space stations so I need to put this delicately. "About the Job."

Planet of the Apes: An Orangutan learns by doing

An Orangutan is caught on camera working out how to use a Saw. The narrator is certain it hasnt been shown beforehand which makes it smarter than humans.

Source: http://pickle.nine.com.au/2017/01/19/12/27/wild-orangutan-somehow-knows-how-to-use-a-saw-will-eventually-enslave-humanity

Popularity Contest: a sudden rush of interest

I suddenly took a hit of over six hundred views on the Starship Liberty isometric map when usual view interest of this blog is low. I guess it hit the bell curve of what is popular in gaming. A unique scifi space ship your pcs can adventure in.
The Liberty Class Transport will be a popular seller at any orbital shipyards...

Mystaran Campaign: A smaller Great Crater

The previous post covered the devastation unleashed by the Asteroid impact that created the Great Crater. This time I'm looking at a much smaller impactor that covers the rather inferior destruction seamingly unleashed by the Asteroid yet described as a larger crater.

The Asteroid

1. 1000 ft diameter iron meteorite.
2. 45 degree impact angle.

This is significantly smaller than the previous offering.

The Crater

The crater is four and a half miles in diameter and 1,770 feet deep. This means it still punches through into the caverns beneath it (lower broken lands and shadow elf caverns) and creates multiple layers of terraces overhanging the magma in the shadow elf cavern splashing magma up out of the crater.

The Quake

There is is a 7.0 Quake and stone buildings are destroyed out to thirty six mile and damaged out to 52 miles from epicentre.

Thermal Radiation

The Fireball is 1.92 miles in radius giving out thermal radiation. Every living thing out past 36 miles radius takes third degree burns (3d6 thermal radiation damage). You can put that down as as 100 percent livestock and population kill.

The Radiation drops off beyond this point with people in the town of Eridana (44 miles) and Erewan Keep taking second degree burns (2d6). Lets call this a significant loss 50 percent of livestock and population. 

Radiation drops away further with livestock and people in the Village of Volnay (60 miles from centre) taking first degree burns (1d6). You can call this 25 percent loss of livestock and population.

The Wind Blast

4120 mph at four miles radius, dropping off to over one thousand mph as it reaches Silverston Keep blowing what is left away. The Quake damaged Stone Towers at the adjacent baronies of Soth-kabre, Nathrat are toppled by winds that are now around 537 mph. Timber structures along with the village of Huledain is blown away.

The Tower at Weylon is further damaged by 210 mph winds and wooden structures destroyed.

At Eridana and Erewan Keep have timber structures destroyed and tile roof tops removed.

At Volnay the winds have dropped enough that timber roofing is torn off by 94 mph winds. 

90 percent of trees are toppled across the region out to that patch of heavy forest in Erewan where 30 percent of the trees are toppled.

Crater Debris

Large chunks of rock from 215 feet in diametre near the rim out to 11.7 feet in diametre at 12 miles from  centre. Out to twenty miles the rocks dropping from the sky are around three feet in diametre. From here out to sixty eight miles is a heavy gravel before the size drops away to dust.

What is the crater like? 

Now the magma sits in the lowest level and all remaining moisture in that lowest cavern exits out the new crater. Fungi and even trees will grow here on the terraces overlooking a big caldera of magma. Beyond the rim a broken lands of hill sized boulders out to rocks big enough to be turned into crude walls of stone.

Anyway that should give you an interesting alternative great crater. Not as destructive to the setting.

Mystaran Campaign: The Great Crater

The Wrath of the Immortals sees the formation of the Great Crater. You might finger wavey those events as 'hey its good because the immortals fixed it' but in the real world those events would have been truely destructive.

What do we Know?
The description in AC1010 Poor Wizards Almanac indicates that the crater is over twenty miles in diameter bordering the Principality of Blackhill. It is on the border between Glantri and Darokin and is considered close enough to the Broken Lands to be an extension of them.
The Asteroid Impactor itself is described as a Meteorite so we can call it as Iron.

Data
1. Crater over twenty miles in diameter.
2. Iron Meteorite.

The Asteroid
To create this twenty mile diameter crater a meteorite of iron would be 6000' in diameter impacting at an angle of 38 degrees, the immortals having knocked it off course from Darokin into Southern Glantri.

The Crater
The final crater is twenty one miles in diameter and two thousand eight hundred feet deep.

Crater Debris
While the crater might be over twenty miles in diameter (an area encompassing seven 8-mile hexes) the impact throws up twenty cubic miles of rock burying the keeps at Silverston, Soth-Kabree, and Nathrat. The structures are most certainly destroyed but the deep, bunker like dungeons might survive.
There are boulders in this crater rim material that are a thousand feet in diameter to two hundred and twenty feet in diameter out to the twenty eight mile boundary.

The Quake
The quake is 8.6 in magnitude. At three hundred miles it shakes buildings without damage. It shakes buildings in Shireton waking the residents.

The Fireball
The Fireball is nineteen miles in diameter.
The Thermal Radiation causes third degree burns (3d6 damage) out past two hundred and fifty miles radius and first degree burns (1d6 damage) out at three hundred miles radius to people and animals. The western edge of Alfhiem forest ignites and begins burning. The Grass and crops of Darokin burns as do the grasslands in western edge of the Khanate.

The Wind Blast
At the crater's edge there is a wind blast headed outward. Here it is over five thousand miles an hour.

At sixty miles where the boulders falling from the sky are now eight feet in diameter an airblast of one thousand three hundred and ninety miles an hour hits a few minutes after the asteroid impact blowing away even stone buildings.
At a hundred miles the debris is two feet in diameter and the Air blast is just over seven hundred miles an hour.
At two hundred miles the debris is a mix of two and a half inch gravel and sand. The Air blast has reduced to a cyclonic wind gust of around two hundred and fourty four miles an hour. Wooden buildings are blown away and ninety percent of the trees are blown down.
At two hundred and fifty miles the ejecta material is gravel and fine sand. Wooden buildings have collapsed as a one hundred and seventy mile an hour wind gust hits.
At three hundred miles ejecta is a fine gravel and dusty sand and thirty percent of trees are downed as a hundred and twenty seven mile an hour wind blast reaches the mountains above the Five Shires.

Aftermath
The Five Shires are spared. Those halflings exposed suffered sunburn.
The fire in western Alfhiem has spred to ignite the whole forest fed by cyclonic winds.
Those humanoids not deep in lower broken lands are dead and the landscape has been blown away.
The timber buildings, wizard spellbooks, trees in the City of Glantri caught fire only to be blown away by wind gusts. The populace not in stone fortresses as far north as Fort Nordling are blown away.
While most of Boldavia takes minimum damage from the wind gust with gravel raining from the sky it's Vampire population at Igorov take an unexpected dose of heavy sunburn and cyclonic winds with a clear view of the fireball.
The grasslands of the Taijits in the western khanate ignite and burn totally along with herds and people only to be blown away by cyclonic winds.
Huge boulders and debris come over the silver sierras impacting in lake Amsorak. Ships on the lake ignite and burn. The cities of Akesoli, Akorros, and Darokin begin burning only to be blown away by the wind gust. Selenica, Tenobar, and Athenos survive with little or no damage. The city of Sind likely survived with some damage.

What survivors exist in northern Glantri emerge from their fortresses to find their peasant population, crops and herds gone.
The humanoids of the lower broken lands eventually emerge to find a greatly altered landscape. The broken lands now occupy a vast area of southern Glantri. The surface is scoured of people, soil, plants, animals, and buildings.

Glantri, Alfhiem, Broken Lands, Darokin (and the Cavern of Perpetual Rain in western shadow elf lands is breached by the crater so yeah... These places are gone after the formation of the Great Crater. Given the destructive nature the shadow elf realms and lower broken lands would have subsided.

So...yay the Immortals fixed it.

Source: http://impact.ese.ic.ac.uk/ImpactEffects/

Blakes Seven: Scorpion Interceptor

The prototype produced by Outer Planets, the Scorpion Interceptor prototype is stolen by a band of criminals on the run from the Terran Federation. Its Time Distort 20 Darkmatter Drive dominates the craft which features an AI called Slave and the latest in Teleport technology.

Short Fiction: Starwars - Shadows of the Past

Title: Starwars - Shadow of the Past


PHASMA ETANNI
Alderaan. The Past. Bes Erinda hugged her daughter as she strapped her into the Transport seat. The parents around her were frantic and their children sensed the fear of an unknown future. The terrible and desperate haste as children were bundled into transports with little more than the farewell tears of their parents to comfort them ended as the Transports launched for space, some chancing hyperspace from inside the atmosphere.
Bes Etanni looked out the window of the Transport as it breached atmosphere for free space.
"Phasma!" She pointed out the window at the intense plasma bolt flash in the moment the transport ship jumped to hyperspace and looked around desperatly for someone to tell. "Phasma!"
Aldaraan Civilian Emergency Transport One Six Five Five stalled and dropped out of Hyperspace, the Gravitational shock of Alderaan's destruction changing the equation.
The ship drifted in the dark for what seemed like hours until the familiar sound of a tractor beam flexing the hull with its audible subharmonics. The children cheered as they were rescued from whatever had gone wrong with the hyperspace jump.
A huge ship, bigger even than a Star Destroyer loomed before them filling the view of every window. The Transport was pulled into a docking bay where it landed.
Bes Etanni watched as the terrified attendant came and calmed the children while the pilot opened the outer hatch before the pair departed through the Exit. Etanni saw the flash of plasma for a moment but could not see where it had come from.
An Imperial Officer came aboard and surveyed the children.
"Hello Children!" The Officer looked about, counting their number. "I am Lieutenant Piet."
"We will be departing shortly to visit a Star Destroyer." A helmeted imperial pilot in black slipped past him into the cockpit of the transport and the outer hatch sealed. "Who here knows what a Star Destroyer looks like?"
Several children made a spear point with their hands touching at the fingers and Lieutenant Piet nodded as the sound of the Transport engines became audible.
"Very Good."
"All right," The engines roared to life and the transport slowly departed the Death Star for its destination. "Everyone strap in."
"Any questions?" Bes Etanni raised her hand to catch his attention. "Yes...you have a question...and your name is?"
"Phasma." An unfamiliar family name. Piet scanned her image and tagged it with the name. "And your first name is?"
"Etanni." Bes Etanni forgot her question. Phasma Etanni. Lieutenant Piet notted the name and moved to the next child.

Phasma Etanni woke from the memory to the sound of the alarm claxon. The Rebel fleet had reached Coruscant.


KYLO REN
"Sir!" The Bridge officer appeared from nowhere as Kylo Ren struggled to stand. For some reason he felt pain. "Sensors indicate a handful of small Rebel Alliance vessels emerging from hyperspace."
"And?" The Officer understood the request fot further information. "The Millenium Falcon is amongst them."
"Good." The Interdiction had prevented the arrival of Rebel Alliance Capital Ships. "Launch TIE fighters and begin targeting their remaining vessels."
Kylo Ren headed for the launch bay. He would personally destroy the Millenium Faclon.


CHEWBACCA
Chewbacca disengaged the hyperdrive of the Millenium Falcon appearing above Coruscant in a turbulent storm of Ion Cannons as First Order Star Destroyers unloaded the full force of their power into the Rebel Alliance vessels still emerging from Hyperspace.
Something was very wrong.
"Where are the Capital Ships?" General Calrissian surveyed the Battlefield. The Capital Ships had failed to materialize from hyperspace. Overwhelming fear made all the more terrifying by the realization that the loss of half the fleet included General Organa Solo and her damn gold protocol droid that seemed to shadow her like a rarely silent guardian. Lando brought up the fleet communications.
"Large Mass Interdiction has just taken out our Capital ships." The Rebel Alliance had lost.  "All remaining vessels begin withdrawal from the system."
An Ion Blast burned through the Millenium Falcon hyperdrive and Chewbacca howled in fear as they were reduced to sublight engines only. They would not be going anywhere.
"I know. I Know." Lando Calrissian looked for an exit. "There!"
"Chewbacca..." Lando pointed at a medical frigate far beyond the edge of the battlefield. "Get us docked with that medical Frigate before they make the jump to Hyperspace." Another ion blast ripped through the sublight engines tossing the burning wreckage of the Millenium Falcon into a tumble. Chewbacca grabbed Lando who suddenly found himself thrown from his seat against the bulkhead, the pain overwhelming his senses and rendering him unconcious.


LUKE
Its going to be all right Chewie. Luke focussed on steadying the Millenium Falcon, pulling the small Corellian vessel out of the debris field toward the Medical Frigate. Luke looked at R2-D2. "Inform the Frigate Crew that the Millenium Falcon has been disabled and General Calrissian is injured." The blue and white Astromech quickly manouvered out of the Patient Recovery Suite and headed for the medical ward computer occupied by the nearest ranking officer.
Jyn Sybo looked up from the medical ward database at the R2 unit that had for so long loitered by the Injured Luke Skywalker and now communicated directly with the ship.

The Millenium Falcon drifted into range of the Medical Frigate and shuddered as a tractor beam grabbed the dead vessel pulling it to the docking hatch.
Chewbacca carried the unconcious and injured Lando Calrissian through the wreckage of the Millenium Falcon and upward through the access hatch into the airlock of the medical frigate to the awaiting Medical team.
Chewbacca growled at a medical droid that they could cut the Millenium Falcon loose and he growled again with some great regret as the shudder of the Millenium Falcon being cut loose from the Medical Frigate to die in space like garbage cast adrift before the jump to hyperspace vibrated up through the airlock. She was gone.
She was gone. Luke swept the battlefield for any trace that Leia had somehow miraculously survived the Large Mass Interdiction and turned away as the Medical Frigate jumped to hyperspace. The grief and loss burned at him as he struggled to steady himself against R2-D2. Another member of his family was gone.

Chewbacca entered the medical ward and growled at the sight of Luke Skywalker struggling to stand.
"I'm all right Chewbacca." Luke looked up at the grieving Wookie. "I'm sorry about the Millenium Falcon."
"I know how much it meant to you, and Han, and Lando." Luke smiled at a memory. "Even Leia." Chewbacca embraced the withered old man before him and growled at the true loss they shared.


REI
Rei watched the A-Wing carry Finn away from her and she felt an odd sensation as though she not see him again. Rei focused on a stray TIE fighter that had lined up on her and Fired. It flashed with an explosion fed by the pod atmosphere.

"Red Six closing on the Super Star Destroyer."

Finn's designation. Rei hoped he had a plan. The loss of the Capital Ships had just tipped the balance in this conflict. The plasma cannons of a TIE fighter glanced off her shielding.
"That was close." Rei turned toward the Super Star Destroyer evading the intense laser fire coming directly at her.
Rei made the A-wing dance. A nudge with her A-wing and a TIE fighter she now raced side by side was knocked directly into the Plasma Cannon Fire coming from the Super Star Destroyer.
Rei's A-wing slipped between laser fire leaving a trail of dead TIE fighters in her wake, the Super Star Destroyer swelling to an enormous size as she closed the distance.
"Red Seven closing on Target." Rei swung the A-wing through a three hundred and sixty degree tumble and flopped on to the landing deck of a shuttle bay with landing gear out.
"Lets see them beat that one." Rei was out and moving fast. The Instruction holocron had described the technique.
Stormtroopers opened fire on Rei as she ran past them and vanished down a corridor becoming a blur.


FINN
"Red Six closing on the Super Star Destroyer!" The A-Wing approached the great vessel from behind. Its colossal engines, lit with the nuclear inferno that pushed the vessel forward, and TIE fighters screamed, the sound of them audible across the void of space, as they pursued. He had heard the order to retreat. And he had ignored it. There needed to be someone to stay and fight. Finn flew into the very structure of the vessel. He knew the secrets and weaknesses of every Imperial vessel. And deep in the infrastructure of the Super Star Destroyer, between the engines, there was a landing bay. Small, isolated, and unoccupied by anything other than a Technician Inspection Environment: A TIE. In the true sense of the anacronism, It was the weaponless origin of every TIE fighter design that followed.
The A-Wing touched down on the landing deck and the fighter canopy slid open. Despite the obscurity of this landing deck there was always a chance of discovery.
Finn alighted the fighter, dropping onto the deck.
The Technician Inspection Environment looked up to the task. A simple catch and the TIE opened ready for a pilot. Finn was lifted into the small vessel and the pressure hatch sealed. The TIE lifted from the deck and manouvered in the crowded space until it aligned with an open access conduit that led deeper into the infrastructute. Slowly Finn moved forward down the inspection conduit toward the Reactors.

The Reactor was huge. It loomed ahead of Finn like an unborn Death Star in its womb. There was no destroying it but it was held in place by restraints to prevent the reactor from being pushed forward through the ship ahead of the Drive. They were strong where they needed to be strong. Finn operated the exterior arm and placed the charge.

The TIE settled on the Technical Operations deck. Finn contemplated returning to his A-Wing but he knew the Technical Inspection Environment could sit in the Main Drive with the engine burning hot and it would survive. The drive shuddered and tore loose, surging forward through the superstructure sending a quake through the entire ship.
Finn powered up the TIE and flew out into space in a straight line acted on only by the planet's gravity. What this TIE didnt do well was manouver in space. In the infrastructure of a star destroyer its micro tractor beams could grab at the surrounding superstructure and move the TIE in relation to that environment. Out here there would be the occasionable chunk of ship debris and the gravity well of Coruscant dragging him down from orbit.
"Rei!" Finn hoped very much that she would hear him through the storm of ship to ship communications in this chaotic battlefield. "Any time!"
Finn monitored the conflict zone from the safety of the Technician Inspection Environment until the shadow of a small vessel manouvered above the TIE and clamped on. It wasn't any of the Imperial designs he had seen.
"Rei?" The vessel and its cargo manouvered until they were lined up with the Super Star Destroyer currently ripped in half by a reactor and drive section propelling itself forward toward the planet Coruscant. "Can you get me to it before it hits the Atmosphere?" The death-toll would be substantial.

The TIE surged forward. The second thing the Technician Inspection Environment wasnt designed to was protect its technician from substantial acceleration. Finn took a six gee hit, blacking out.

Finn woke to the disturbing sensation of being shaken awake.
"I'm okay." The TIE was being shaken side to side by the vessel clamped on above it. "Sorry! Must have blacked out." They were over the reactor and its drive and starting to take atmospheric friction. Finn activated the TIE tractor propulsion systems.
"I suggest you release my TIE." The vessel cut the TIE loose and Finn manouvered forward across the Reactor surface. "Every drive and reactor section is designed to be manouvered through the Star Destroyer superstructure under its own power during assembly."
"The Technician simply needs to interface the TIE to the drive," Finn found the connection point. "And you effectivly have a giant spaceship engine attatched to a tiny little pilot pod."
"Interface is good." The drive revealed the manouvering thrusters that it had not used in years and began its slow climb back out of the Atmosphere. "Its working." The engine was still descending but slowly it began to resist the Innevitable. The drive slowly leveling out until it seemed to skim just above the City that occupied the Planet. They still were a long way from climbing out of the gravity well.
Finn watched his companion manouver the small craft that rescued him to match his slow ascent. It landed on the reactor and clamped down. The canopy slid back to release the pilot.

Kylo Ren climbed down from his fighter and pulled his lightsaber, igniting its red energy corona.
"This is a long time coming." Finn watched as a madman somehow struggled against the atmospheric disturbance created by the colossal starship engine to stay on his feet and walk toward the Technician Inspection Environment that Protected Finn from certain death in the same situation.
"You know you cant get at me in here." Finn hoped it were true. The Lightsaber was an unusual weapon. It created a field that distorted the field of its target, using its own energy against it. It was entirely possible the Lightsaber would be the weapon that would slice through the hull of the TIE.
"This is where you die Traitor." Kylo Ren was barely audible over the chaos around them as he proceeded to push the point of his lightsaber into the surface of the TIE and smiled as the blade's collision with an otherwise indestructible object erupted with energy release. It would happen. Soon.
Finn contemplated his options. The engine would continue its rise out of the atmosphere for a while.
Finn considered detatching the Technician Inspection Environment and manouvering as best he could. It instantly put distance between the TIE and Kylo Ren.
"Not to bright Solo." He hated that name and Finn knew it.
"My name is" Rage filled Finn's opponent. "...Kylo Ren! "A second option came to mind. Finn activated a tractor beam and it grabbed a hold of Kylo Ren like a parent restraining an angry child.
"I have you now Solo!" Finn laughed and Kylo Ren suddenly became calm. Finn needed to break Kylo Ren's focus now.
"I hear the Millenium Falcon was destroyed. Do you think Chewbacca Survived?" Ren ignored it. Not enough. "Pity about your Mother. That interdiction took out her Capital Ship." Ren opened his eyes.

LANDO

The pitch black airlock was quickly illuminated by the red glow of an old light saber revealing to Lando Calrissian the full extent of his situation. Lando pushed the point of it into the hull until it was half the red glowing blade length into the wall, a stream of molten metal eliciting an equal measure of sweat from the man weilding the weapon.

To be continued...

Early Maniac: what do you see as the Architectural Style of the Future?

Right now spacecraft and habitats are being designed, not out of any particular architectural style, but rather based on efficiency of task. For the forseeable future Mars colonists and tourists can look forward to efficient sardine tins that do little more than define an architectural style of rocketship payload designed to keep the occupants alive.
This isnt always going to be the case. One day, if the human race lives long enough, its going to define an architecture for Mars that will be distinctly Martian. We cant say what that will look like with any certainty. Given the propensity of people to name boats boatymcboatface we are just as likely to see the emergence of fun if not offensive public designed architecture in that future. Woe the day a Mars city looks like an asparagus field of giant erect penises. Yeah...what that looks like suddenly appeared in your mind and you winced or giggled.