Age of Warp: Expanding Age of Warp with LCARS Cards

Building your Age of Warp Expansion Deck

Right now the Startrek: Age of Warp board game uses dice rolls to determine what happens as your colony ship travels out into the Universe. But these systems can be replaced with card decks.

LCARS
The purpose of the Library Computer Archive Retreival System is a database of Federation History amongst other things. This means it tells the story of peoples and it means we can use an LCARS card deck as a source of random story events that can be drawn once a turn. And when the ship takes damage its must drop from Warp 2 down to Warp 1 meaning it now takes longer to journey between hexes (sectors or star systems).

The Ships Log- A Story Card Deck
So some of the story cards will need to be a kill-shot for your starship, others will reduce ship velocity from warp two to warp one. This can be expressed in game by having cards that instructs you to draw another. There will be a bunch of these because if you are not immediatly killed you should experience a shit load of bad things that happen to you because the longer you spend in travelling, the more things happen to your ship and crew. This will be our 'people cards' - jacks, queens, and kings.
There must also be cards that force you to colonize where you are because you can no longer go on, and cards that will provide you with discoveries that add to your ship, space station, or colony.
And once you get a card that says you have reached a potential colonization point you can colonize by converting your colony ship to a space station or planetary colony.

Card Deck Outline

• Your Journey Ends here forced space station Cards (2x Jokers)
• Alien Intruder on Board (4x Aces)
• Crew incidents (12x face cards)
• Location Specific/ Warp 2-10 (36x low cards)

Your Journey ends in Death

13 Spades cards gives us a 1 in 4-ish chance of being killed on the journey.

So the SS Platypus sets out with its passengers... unfortunately as it jumps to Warp 2 we draw a card (the only one at the moment but that will change once I get done creating my own Deck) and the warp field opens a wormhole and the ship is dumped in the Delta Quadrant where it is assimilated by the Borg. So the people on the SS Platypus loose straight out of spacedock... and centuries later the Crew of the Voyager discover the SS Platypus Black Box and watch your Assimilation on movie night with popcorn and laughter... the jaded bastards that they are.

This will be one of our Warp-10 cards (10 of Spades) that carries you ship out of the Quadrant and gameplay (only to kill you - spades).

Next Time... a full card deck.

Dungeon Mastery: 20 Exotic Magic Items

20 exotic magic items

1. Tattoo of Hands
2. Scar of the Sky
3. Scar of the Doll
4. Scar of the Sea
5. Bone of the Ancients
6. Bone of Order
7. Hide of the Wild
8. Powder of Time
9. Powder of Darkness
10. Door of Stone
11. Door of Hope
12. Canoe of Fate
13. Mound of Sand
14. Mound of the bound creator
15. Grave of the Saints
16. Eye of the Tiger
17. Pottery of Manipur
18. Wheel of Time
19. Rope of Sand
20. Rope of Pearls

Another twenty autocorrect magic items...

Star Trek: Thoughts on a better Prequel

Enterprise doesnt exist in the pre original series universe. It exists in a post nasa universe. My choice for a prequel would have been with warp two ships around Stardate 2080. Thats a year to travel to Vulcan, and not quonos at a 116 light years. Beta quadrant is the other side of a line that ran through earth. Its like they ignored that.

The first year would be on earth forming the political, corporate, criminal alliances necessary to get the ship built. Assassination and some spy stuff based on Bashirs holonovels. Make it so those characters are real and the stories are set in post first contact but a lot of it is wrong...but having foiled the genetic enhanced Madman Doctor Noah, The ship heads off to deliver an ambassador to Vulcan. This in itself would take a season at warp two and the ambassador would be Spock's human great grandfather whose family are political 'lifers'. A family who bought the ambassadorship in the year of dirty politics. They will live on Vulcan in an embassy. The trip with the Ambassador would be a living hell for Lilly who knows that Picard and the real Enterprise will emerge from all this human pollution in the centuries ahead. Season three would involve headding out around the Sector One sphere (sector one is a sphere with vulcan and earth at opposite poles). There are several potential colony worlds, a few with ancient alien ruins, telerite and andorian space (draylaxians with whom mayweather was familiar are on a homeworld in the same system as andor...assumedly closer to the sun).

So yes you could explore sector one and colonization. And the secret room hidden in the ship with a section 31 transporter, armoury, database, post voyager tech and operative. Once Lilly discovers  the room, and that Doctor Noah, having been a major backer of her Enterprise is planning to kill the human race. She abducts him with the transporter to her enterprise and exhiles him on a planet.

That should be good for a three to four season startrek.

Map of the Week: Higgurt's Fort

 You are hired to clear out the bandits hold up in the timber tower-fort known as Higgurts Fort.

Space Australis: Aussie up your Scifi Setting

Part 1: Vessel Classes

A descent Scifi requires vast fleets of ships: military and civilian.  government, corporate, and private. Here is a selection of ship classes for an Aussie dominated future in space.


Defence Force Vessels

Heavy
• Rockhampton Class Deep Space Cruiser
• Melbourne Class Gas Giant Operations Cruiser


Gas Giant Operations

Medium-Heavy
• Southport Class Gas Giant Mining Vessel

Heavy
• Freemantle Class Gas Giant Rescue Vessel


Deep Space Operations

Super-Heavy
• Maryborough Class Container Cargo Transport Vessel
• Brisbane Class Tanker
• Devonport Class Bulk Carrier

Medium-Heavy
• Mooloolaba Class Barge
• Port Adelaide Class Construction Vessel
• Townsville Class Research Vessel

Heavy
• Gladstone Class Survey Vessel
• Dampier Class Utility Vessel
• Darwin Class Supply Vessel

Orbital
• Sydney Class Orbital Tug
• Cairns Class Landing Vessel


Civilian Space Transport Vessels

Medium-Heavy
• Port Douglas Class Passenger Liner

Heavy
• Hobart Class Solar-Sail Mass Accelerator
• Launceston Class Freighter

Orbital
• Mackay Class Racing Yacht
• Geelong Class Pleasure Yacht



Vessel Weight Range
In there were a bunch of ship mass subcategories, but what do they mean?

Weight Range                       Mass (Ton)
Super-Heavy                         Trillion
Medium-Heavy                     Billion
Heavy                                      Million
Orbital                                     Thousand

Space Crazy: I claim these Worlds

 So you know that Proxima b is a high radiation hell hole around a nasty little star but what of the Alpha Centauri binary?

Hunting Exoplanets

An adjustment of brightness, contrast, and temperature using android's photo app and we get objects against both stars.

Alpha Centauri A
Objects a and b around alpha centauri a could be the same object depending on how the hubble imaged the photo.

Alpha Centauri B
Object c is substantial on scale with a brown dwarf close to alpha centauri b, colder than the star, yet not cold like a gas giant. so there is a potential 'fourth star' to the Centauri group.
Object d is more on the gas giant scale except its position which means a north pole is always facing Alpha Centauri A suggests an orbital path that may altering due to the presence of other stars. If that is the case it may be eating any habitable worlds or disrupting their orbits...which brings us to trans solar objects.


Trans solar objects
Object k has all the look of a planet sized comet. This is an unpleasant thought that your world just got flung out of one stellar orbit at the other. I name Object k Planet Connor...because I can.

Starship Voyager: a better map of their journey home

This LCARS image is the best we have of Voyagers Journey to Earth from the Delta Quadrant. So first off we flip the image and stretch it so it matches the Milky Way galaxy.
Next draw a line object over the flight path and move one end to earth on our far more significant NASA map of the Milky Way.

This means we have a better view of the Return Path of the Federation Starship Voyager from their encounter with the Caretaker near the Galactic edge on the Sagittarius arm...across five thousand light years of interspiral space to the Scutum-Centaurus Arm, then again across to the Norma Arm, and over to the Near 3kpc Arm skirting the Galactic Barrier, and then out through the Norma Arm, Scutum-Centaurus Arm,  and Sagittarius Arm to the Orion Local Spur.

Federation, Klingon, Romulans all appear to be in the Local Orion Spur by comparison.

Forgotten Past: something I noticed on a beach

A while back a kid pulled a small swivel cannon from the tidal mud at Dundee Beach. you dont throw those overboard but you do loose them in bad weather.

This odd shape on the same beach looks like a small wooden sailing ship hull on its side. Given it blocks a natural channel, it probably needs someone to look into it.


For the DM: a ship lies buried under the sand with its forgotten secrets.

Dungeon Mastery: Tech Level in D&D

Moak crushed the firebeetle antennae into the hollow in the stone, dipping the diamond in the paste, speaking the words, and scratching the marks on the rock face. A ritual he had undertaken continuously for eight days to the point where his belly no longer demanded to be fed, rather choosing death.
The boy approached with the food bowl and Moak fed.
"U..." Moak looked up in horror, his mouth full, as the boy stumbled with the word of magic but it was too late. "...uaugal?" 
The mis-spoken spell flashed through the cave newly claimed by the tribe illuminating it a distinct white light before it became again dark. Moak continued eating in the Dark.

Tech level is used to describe technological, and sociological advances of a culture but in D&D it is magic and its availability that must be measured to determine Tech level or Magic Level (M-L).

M-L      Description
A            Spells are unknown to any but Dragons. Unnatural creatures are
              avoided.
B            Some creatures that exhibit desired special abilities are kept for the
               purpose of exploiting their powers.
C            Shaman can pray to the gods for a first level cleric spell as desired.
D            Shaman can pray to the gods for a Second level cleric spell as desired.
E            Shaman can pray to the gods for a third level cleric spell as desired.
F            Shaman can pray to the gods for a fourth level cleric spell as desired.
G            Shaman can pray to the gods for a fifth level cleric spell as desired.
H            Shaman can pray to the gods for a sixth level cleric spell as desired.
I            Shaman can pray to the gods for a seventh level cleric spell as desired.
             The 7th level cleric spell wizardry is the discovery of wizard magic.
J           First level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of eight day-long rituals. Written magic spells.
K           second level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of nine day-long rituals.
L           third level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of ten day-long rituals.
M           fourth level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of eleven day-long rituals.
N           fifth level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of twelve day-long rituals. Magic Item Enchantment.
O           sixth level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of thirteen day-long rituals.
P           seventh level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of fourteen day-long rituals.
Q           eighth level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of fifteen day-long rituals.
R           nineth level Magic Spells are researched and enchanted for use at the
              end of sixteen day-long rituals. Large Magic enchantment.

As magical knowledge was developed, and spread it became everyday until empires valued the enchantment of flying castles and ships, teleportation and interdimensional mass transit gates.

*Why the word uaugal? Alu (a word marking magic) + aug (bright). alu-aug, u-aug-al, uaugal or eagle. There is probably some story about an eagle bringing bright magic (fire) somewhere in there.

Holy Kapow: The Batman is Dead

Bad news... Everyones favourite Corporate Vigilante and inheritor of his parent's money, Batman has died. Adam West kicked the Batcycle.

http://www.9news.com.au/entertainment/2017/06/11/04/26/adam-west-star-of-hit-tv-series-batman-dies-at-88

Linguistic Archaeology: The -uk phonetic people

The -uk phonetic appears in the Indonesian Language. As a phonetic subgroup it describes a people who suffered considerable sickness during their language development.

uk phonetic - meaning
Njamuk           mosquito
Patuk               to bite
Masuk             to partake              
Periuk             cooking pot
Pupuk             dung
Putjuk             sprout/offshoot
Rusuk              flame/side/rib
Serbuk            powder/dust
Tarduk            horn
Tjutuk              to pierce
Tubruk            to collide                  
Amburuk        collapse
Angguk           to nid-nod
Antuk              to be sleepy
Batuk               to cough
Beduk               big drum
Bungkuk          hump
Baruk               bad
Basuk               rotten/bad smell
Gelatuk            to tremble/shiver
Gemuk             Fat/stout
Idjuk                 fiber of arenga palm
Kutuk                to curse
Lapuk                mould
Mabuk               drunk
Mangkuk           bowl

We know these people had contact with the dj, and ng phonetic language groups which should be far more extensive if there is convergance.
The ng phonetic dominates languages in asia, arriving with humans fourty thousand years ago and two words are shared, hump, and to nid-nod suggesting sickness through or at the time of contact.
The dj is tied to the diminutive 'hobbit people' who go extinct eighteen thousand years ago. The island they appear on was part of a chain that skirts western Indonesia and with lower oceans would have been a land bridge or island chain from burma to new Guinea. Knowledge of fiber of the Arenga Palm is a shared knowledge (perhaps medicinal in nature, and a source of sugar). There is sharing of -uk subgroups (tuk, ruk).


Four Warriors who came by Canoe
The -uk phonetic appears in four Australian Aboriginal names:

• Jalnuk
• Manbuk
• Numeuk
• Kunduk

Kun- appears in inuit words refering to kissing.

These Warriors have come to Australia at a point in the past, and their names passed down through history as a consequence. Four warriors arriving in a canoe. I cannot tell you that this is a story known to Australian Indigenous peoples, because there are many other tales and I dont know them all.
What I can tell you is the -uk phonetic appears in the Inuit Language and culturally the shamanist tradition was shared by these people in Indonesia and the Inuit in North America. One day DNA may even prove this journey occured.

Coincidence is two bricks of plutonium slapped together.

For the DM
There is nothing more D&D-like in that Adventurers journey forth in parties exploring the unknown and never return home. These are journies covering thousands of miles.

Age of Supers: Strong Female Protagonist

Strong Female Protagonist is a distinctly gripping read as superhero comics go. I may not agree with the protagonist's actions but they are a consequence of the times. I also can see where those actions will take the story into the future and they are going to be bad (assuming the creaters of this work can see what happens when you piss off a super bastard with the sole power to make other supers more powerful). Yeah...that will end badly.

Written by: Brennan Lee Mulligan
Art by: Molly Ostertag

It has a mass empowering trope as its origin which takes the criticism of being lazy but it gives the super characters a connection that they all got dealt a different card from the same deck.

Source: http://strongfemaleprotagonist.com/issue-1/page-0/

I suggest giving it a read (and buying it).

Wallace and Gromit: Peter Salis has gone

Wallace has gone to the great cheese factory in the sky...no not the Moon.

Peter Salis voiced Wallace.

Gromit will take it hard.

Bigger Inside: Doctor Who is going Space 1889

I caught the upcomming episode of Doctor Who. Basically its Ice Warriors from Mars vs Victorian British troops...on Mars. 

These guys...

Vs. these guys.

You are probably thinking this is going to be interesting...why didnt they think of this sooner. Well... they did.

You can familiarize yourself with the appropriate Space 1889 tropes Here.

Space is an Ocean implies spacecraft that are more steam powered ships...

Enjoy.

Dungeon Mastery: Megadungeons

Mega means million, so conceivably it is a million dungeons. But the prospect of creating a million dungeon encounter areas is insane. you could spend a lifetime creating that dungeon. If on the otherhand megadungeon described the contents, then a million collective hit dice worth of monsters is what you are looking for.

Megadungeon: The Pit of Gnashing 

Overrun with Rats (undead rats), the Pit of Gnashing which is a significant cavern beneath the Valley of White stone, has been experiencing quakes. The rat skeletons are climbing up out of the pit and have attacked livestock and peasant alike. After battling a thousand rats that attack the village, the PCs learn they can make their way down into the pit and clear the megadungeon once and for all.

This means you can enjoy a few encounter points in the dungeon itself without putting a dent in the wildlife population.