Seven Plot Hooks involving the Khatun-in-Dreams and the Dreamlands

Because all that lore around the Khatun-in-Dreams doesn't mean anything if the players never interact with it.

1. A bunch of radical beat poets who worship the Khatun want to rediscover one of the Lost Forms of Abstract Thought. The players' crew is hired to escort the sheltered, rich bohemians across the seediest space stations in this sector in search of a psychoactive drug intense enough to help them rediscover the forbidden poetic technique.

2. After a mixup in the universe's collective unconscious, the crew wakes up in the Dreamlands in a blimp powered by gaseous hope, taking the place of a newly-recruited gang of revolutionary sky-pirates planning to bomb the Khatun's palace and free her dreamers to imagine their own dreams instead.

3. Cultists of the King in Yellow, who orchestrated the attack on the Khatun-in-Symbols out of jealousy all those aeons ago, have started a war of aesthetics that's sweeping the planet's music scene. The King in Yellow cultists favor traditional forms and exquisite craftsmanship, and the Dreamer cultists champion DIY aesthetics, surrealism, and free-association. It's all coming to a head at the upcoming planet-wide Battle of the Bands, and if the crew doesn't intervene, it'll boil over into a riot to make Altamont seem tame. Maybe they could start their own band to win the contest instead...?

4. Every member of the crew has seen the same face in their dreams for three nights straight. A man with bushy eyebrows, rambling an advertisement for some new brand of soda- and reclining on the Khatun's own throne (which is actually the abstract idea of a throne, and also a cloud)! Has the power balance in the Empire of Repose shifted? Has the Khatun accepted a sponsorship deal with this huckster? And will anyone in the crew get a good night's sleep until they figure it out?

5. When the crew stops at one of their hometowns for a quick resupply, they find every single person there has recently fallen into a coma- and that the longer they spend there, the more they start to feel oddly drowsy. Can they break the local Khatunic cult's spell before the entire town wastes away?

6. The macguffin that the crew so deperately needed got disintigrated or something. They're no cultists, but they've got drugs that'll send them straight into a Dreamland haze. They'll have to brave the ever-shifting landscape to find the macguffin and bring it to the waking world. It's lost in the depths of a dream-dungeon, which just so happens to be the GM's favorite fantasy dungeon that they wouldn't get to use in Starsailor otherwise.

7. A scientist's bold new theory- that the Dreamlands are the 'real world' and this world is the one that isn't real- has led to a diplomatic/scientific expedition into the heart of the Khatun's palace to recover the crystal ball she uses to scry her lands... only thing is, she doesn't accept non-worshippers into her courts. Time for a dream-heist!

The Seven Sovereigns and the Khatun-in-Dreams

There are those who are older and more essential to the nature of reality than humankind. We call Them the Seven Sovereigns, and They are embodied in concepts, cognitohazards, and the soft voice in your head that makes very bad decisions seem reasonable. They intrigue against each other endlessly via the bursting of supernovas and the revision of the laws of physics, and They hate the Holy Primes, for binding even Them. 

The Seven Sovereigns will never understand you, in much the same way that you will never understand the microdramas unfolding among the bacteria in your gut. Humankind exists on a scale so inferior to Theirs that we are nearly beneath Their concern, even as we are scattered and tormented by the aftershocks of Their cosmic maneuvering. If you completely abandon common sense and sacrifice all you have gained in recognition of Their superiority, you may gain even the merest iota of one of Their titanic awarenesses, and inevitably you will be crushed like a gnat in the great engines of Their workings. But until then, how glorious Their attention will be....

Stolen By Bats: The Pentecost Ape!

Locheil made a few posts about Stolen by Bats, an in-progress GLOG hack based on the Fallen London/Sunless Sea/Sunless Skies games. The Fallen London games absolutely kick ass, so of course I'm getting in on that action with a Pentecost Ape class. Embrace the social-climber lifestyle and Return to Monke.

you're this guy, you have soul magic, and everybody hates you

Pentecost Ape

+1 Mirrors and +1 Hearts per template

Starting Equipment: Ancient artifact (which was created just last year), elaborate headdress that doesn’t fit, and see below

Skills: See below

You are an ape- but oh, what an ape you are! Your soul coruscates merrily, as though it had always belonged to you. It isn’t enough, though. You yearn for more.

To gain a template, you must acquire another soul. The process of extraction takes about an hour and is about as pleasant for the soon-to-be-soulless as you’d expect. When you get somebody’s soul, you learn some of their specialized knowledge and gain one skill they had (your choice).

A- Ape, Fairly Bartered Soul

B- Twice-Souled

C- Thrice-Souled

D- Four-Souled

Ape

You are, indeed, an ape. An unscrupulous talking ape with a human soul, but an ape nonetheless. You are exceptionally good at climbing, monkeying around, and otherwise committing acts suitable for an ape, but you cannot understand particularly advanced human logic. Ape logic has gotten you this far, after all. Furthermore, you are unwelcome in polite society. You know what you did.

Fairly Bartered Soul

You have a human’s soul granting you speech, slightly uplifted intellect, and a few handy pieces of their knowledge. Now, whose soul did you take, exactly?

1- A man of the cloth, who cast away his soul during a crisis of faith that turned out to be short-lived. If word got out that he’s soulless, he would be ruined. Not that you’d ever stoop to blackmail, of course. You have the Neath Christianity skill (quite different from surface-dwellers’ Christianity!), an effective command of fire-and-brimstone rhetoric, and 7d100 extra starting Echoes that you’ve already exacted from him.

2- A player of chess, in all its variations. You have slightly-outdated knowledge of the structure, cryptology, and activities of a well-placed network of spies that spans from Fallen London across the Unterzee, but you’re an ape who doesn’t care about politics, so whatever. You have a copper ring with a code-breaking wheel of letters inside and +1d4+1 Veils. You’re also quite skilled at actual chess.

3- A ‘blemmigan biological enthusiast’, obsessed with the propagation and perseverance of blemmigans- a sort of walking purple mushroom with razor-fangs. You have a blemmigan butler of your own, sworn to aid you; it has 2 HD, it’s as big as you are and far more intelligent, it’s witheringly sarcastic but ultimately devoted, and it cannot talk but its fronds are delicate enough to allow it to write. You also have the Blemmiganology skill, for all the good that does you.

4- A delightful adventuress, who came to your island to plunder your temples and steal your loot. Truly, it was a delight to con the fool out of her soul. Whenever you visit parts unknown or encounter an ancient artifact, 2-in-6 chance that you already know a little about it. You have the Academia skill.

5- A madman with seven scars and a red hunger gleaming in his eyes. The soul he foisted upon you is a rancid, stained thing, and the nightmares are best left unmentioned. When you lock eyes with somebody, they must Save or be paralyzed by terror. You have the Esotericism skill and some sort of dreadful candle.

6 - A shipwrecked zailor, last of their crew and out of hope. You have their good-luck charm (a white bat finely carved from ivory, admired by any other zailor) and expertise in zee-faring (unimpressive, considering their ship sank), as well as the skills of a (1d4) 1. doctor 2. engineer 3. gunner 4. cook. 

Twice-Souled

You’re getting better at this soul-extraction thing. From now on, if you get a soul from someone with a special ability of some sort, you gain that ability (subject, of course, to all the same limitations). Only one ability per soul. You are marginally less detestable by upright Londoners now.

Thrice-Souled

Three surrendered souls chatter within. Once a day, when you need an answer to an esoteric question, there’s a (# of templates)-in-6 chance one of your souls knows it. You may come and go as you please in Fallen London without suspicion, too.

Four-Souled

You are debonair, impeccably mannered, and the envy of all other apes you meet. Your accumulated charms are more than enough to overcome the little question of your humble origins; in fact, figures of high society fall over themselves to invite you as the guest of honor to their soirees. Once a day, you can talk your way out of any legal or social predicament.

20x20 Space Adventures

 A few months ago, the Mothership discord server started using this tool called Playscii (http://vectorpoem.com/playscii/) to make 20x20 graphics that could be used to run a game. It was a fun challenge in information density and minimalism. I made a ton that I posted there, but here are my best ones.

Another Space Station

 I did this one in an hour.

Jumpgate Hyperspace Cults

Jumpgate Hyperspace Cults, who you can read about here and here, are religious groups who worship hyperspace, and their highest-ranking members expose themselves to hyperspace travel fully conscious to achieve enlightenment (it also drives them insane and sometimes gives them limited psychic powers). They operate the jumpgates that make large-scale interstellar travel possible, they employ a lot of non-believers to run upkeep on the space stations that host the gates, and they’re in a constant power struggle with everyone else in the galaxy. Each gate is run by a different cult and there is no central authority; generally members of different cults will get along, but the rare conflicts are bloody and awful.

Using all these tables will quickly develop a unique cult- I’d recommend supplementing the space station with the tables from A Pound of Flesh. Although these cults are a major thing in my setting, you could drop a single, solitary cult into your own setting without much trouble.

Also, if you have Skerples’ Kidnap the Archpriest module, try reskinning it as a cultist space station with security androids, laser hallways, etc. I did, and my players really enjoyed it!

What’s this specific cult called?

1. Apostles’ Gate Church

2. Sisterhood of Void Exultation 

3. The Lack

4. Empty Communion

5. Prismatic Temple of the Boundless Rainbow

6. Freedom Through Infinity

7. The Most Holy Abbey of the Kelvion-C54 Jumpgate

8. Peace Beyond All

9. Arcturus’ Saviors

10. Gorged Church of the End Times

What’s an identifying feature of their believers?

1. Constantly humming a low drone

2. Sacred geometry tattooed all over their faces

3. Vow of silence

4. Intricate robes and shawls, all in one specific color; nonbelievers on the jumpgate’s station are forbidden to wear clothes of the same color

5. Blindfolds and visors prevent them from gazing upon this unworthy realm

6. Ritual self-scarification leaves their skin a knotted, roiling mass of lumps

7. They smile, always, just a bit too widely

8. Reek of formaldehyde and soil

9. Brains uploaded into simple robotic bodies, leaving the prime self free for round-the-clock meditation

10. Speak to each other in a babbling, fractured conlang

What are their fringe beliefs apart from basic hyperspace worship?

1. It’s not enough just to go through hyperspace conscious, you’ve also got to be on psychedelics to get fully enlightened

2. Attempts to impose human rule over outer space (ie interplanetary governments) are sinful

3. Random civilians should be forcibly sent through hyperspace while conscious, to give them the gift of enlightenment

4. An embodiment of pure evil that can only be fought and killed in hyperspace is going to destroy humanity unless we can destroy it first

5. Hyperspace must be colonized

6. Each time you jump through hyperspace you’re actually traveling to a branching parallel dimension with subtle differences; you can never return to the original

7. The strange phenomena that occur during a failed jump are clues as to the true nature of the universe, and should be studied extensively

8. The only way to go to heaven is to die ritualistically in hyperspace

9. Hyperspace IS heaven

10. Meditation is a perfectly fine replacement for a cryopod

What are their aesthetics like?

1. Gothic cathedrals, stained glass

2. Poured-concrete brutalism

3. Geometric mosaic tiling and gold everywhere

4. Spare and ascetic, translucent plastic and plain white walls

5. Ultra-primitive; high-level technology cleverly concealed in rough-hewn hallways and handwoven tapestries

6. Infinite mirrors (Yayoi Kusama-style) in every room

7. Too hardscrabble to scrape together an aesthetic- just industrial grit

8. Neoclassical; glowy crystals and Jack Kirby geometries proliferate

9. Neo-midcentury modern Tomorrowland raygun gothic

10. Art Nouveau revival, floral scrollwork on every surface, some of the ultra-organic looking mechanical stuff starts to look a bit less Alphonse Mucha and a bit more H.R. Giger

What problem will they hire spacers to solve?

1. A ship recently docked to hand off some cargo that turned out to be a bloodthirsty alien organism- it escaped and it’s eating everybody

2. The nonbelievers have unionized and they’ve got a list of demands a lightyear long

3. The usual cargo supply ships are all arriving empty, with their entire crews slaughtered and the ships running on autopilot

4. A hijacked prison transport ship docked here and the convicts escaped, blending in with the other nonbelievers and biding their time before their escape (after which they’ll be truly impossible to recapture)

5. Cult members are being killed off and the only suspects are also cultists

6. There’s a charismatic cultist attempting to start a splinter faction and engage the original cult in a holy war

7. They need a ship outfitted with ultra-delicate sensors to make a dangerous hyperspace jump to settle a theological debate, and none of their ships are sturdy enough for the jump

8. All communications from the place their jumpgate leads to have ceased, following a single message: “THE ANDROIDS WON, BE VERY AFRAID”

9. Some cultists are trying to leave the group but they know valuable corporate secrets that could get everybody into big trouble if leaked

10. Hyperspace has begun rejecting their ships- upon trying to jump, the jump drive just fizzles out

What’s the deal with the nonbelievers they employ?

1. The entire jumpgate station is segregated into believer and nonbeliever spaces

2. Plotting to overthrow the cult and seize control of the gate

3. Prisoners working for no pay as an alternative to life on an deadly irradiated prison world 

4. Persuasive cultists have turned them into believers too, now they want full cultists status and benefits

5. All of them are androids… and they’re hiding the fact that they’re defective (or Cloudbank Infiltrators?)

6. Involved with organized crime (arms dealing? sycorax smuggling? identity laundering?)

7. Operate a popular interstellar casino on the jumpgate station

8. Hardened Marines and mercenaries; they won’t explain why this specific jumpgate needs the extra security

9. Apathetic and underpaid enough that the jumpgate frequently breaks down

10. Totally cheerful, polite and hardworking; secretly infected by an alien hive mind planning a hostile takeover

What does their jumpgate lead to?

1. Dense city-planet whose skyscrapers reach miles into the atmosphere

2. Lunar headquarters of an illegal salvage operation servicing a nearby derelict graveyard

3. Asteroid at the boundary of a black hole’s event horizon, used as a research site

4. Overworked, over-exploited farming colony responsible for growing most of the fresh produce in the sector

5. Maximum-security Interplanetary League prison

6. Active planetary warzone

7. Tropical lunar resort

8. Barely-explored, resource-rich planet with insanely dangerous wildlife

9. Military training basecamp surrounded by planetary mining facilities and geodome farms

10. The Dead Planet- the jumpgate itself was sucked into its orbit and the cultists now worship the Gaunt

What else is on the jumpgate space station?

1. Digital library of obsolete media contains knowledge long thought to be lost

2. Top-secret Corporation laboratory that the cultists were blackmailed into defending

3. Safe house for embattled members of a brutal organized crime syndicate. The password is a few lines quoted from “Kubla Khan”

4. Magnificent aviary where real, live birds swoop and soar. Beautiful enough to bring a tear to the most grizzled spacer’s eye. The birds of prey feast on the bodies of the cult’s enemies

5. Massive, completely-clear hull panels, overlooking the vast field of space

6. Well-kept, often-used self-mortification chambers full of flagellants

7. Bustling nonbeliever bazaar stalls in the central hub where all your contraband can be discreetly passed off to creepy buyers

8. Makeshift shanty town housing refugees from a recent cataclysm

9. Choral hall whose acoustics cleverly ensure that the atonal song of the Voidnuns can be heard everywhere in the space station

10. Rickety space elevator to the celestial object below

Andromeda Playtest pt 2

Second report on my Mothership module playtest. The crew:

@Volkovy, playing "Dog" Fairbanks, an ex-construction teamster.

@Burrbank playing Lana Zephyr, Marine. Top of their class but new to field work.

@Face_Fisted playing Dent, a vat-grown droid with strange eyes like Riddick. Sadly could not be present at this game so I played Dent as an NPC.

We start back up with Dog, Lana and Dent hiding out in Security, scanning nightmarish security footage of the Resort’s android staff hunting down strange blob-creatures. Lana notices that when the cam isn’t actually focused on a blob, though, they seem to look a lot more human-like, and in fact one of them in the resort lobby looks a lot like one of the gangsters they’re here to rescue. 

Heading out to go find their target, the crew carefully creep down a hallway out of the Staffing building. Along the way they notice a nearby commotion- an android, who looks more like an ordinary person than the other ones, attacking a group of android staff. Although they’re curious about what’s going on, they all decide to take advantage of the distraction to cover their escape. After leaving quietly, they decide to return to their ship and have the autopilot fly it to the Guest Landing pad to wait for them, since that’s closer to their target and they don’t want to backtrack.

They’ll have to cross the pool area to get into the lobby, and to even get there, they’ll have to reckon with a locked gate. Luckily, a trellis along the wall and palm trees providing cover allow the group to sneak in safely. The pool area has lots of suspicious bloodstains on the ground and weirdly bubbly pools- but there’s also a pool bar, to our heroes’ delight.

Dog peeks inside the little thatch-roof stall, sees some very fancy alcohol and exotic fruits, and jumps over the bar to start making himself a delicious drink. Unfortunately, when he leaps in, he lands right on top of a corpse (presumably that of the bartender) with its eyes torn out. Eeewwww. Not to be deterred, he mixes an extremely fancy piña colada.Downing it relieves some of the Stress he’s been racking up but also gets him a bit tipsier than he’d expected.

Lana decides to scavenge for materials with which to create molotov cocktails, but in doing so, knocks a bottle off the shelf- which smashes right on top of the corpse. Which groans, gets up, and begins clawing at Dog. Whoops.

After a brief scuffle in the cramped stall, Dog makes a plan. He and Lana run outside, Dent grabs a fancy fruit (gotta have some snacks for the road!), and before the shambling corpse can follow them, Dog fires a flare right into the bar. The alcohol ignites just as planned, engulfing the bar in flames. 

https://uncannyspheres.blogspot.com/

As the bar explodes, the flaming corpse comes stumbling out and lunges towards the crew… before flopping harmlessly onto the ground, burnt to a crisp. However, the explosion caught the attention of the security androids (which Lana confirms with a quick check of their HUD), so the crew figure they’d better hide for a bit until they can safely make it across the pool area and reach the main Resort lobby.

Looking around, they see a bandstand that could offer them some cover. They can hear low sobbing and the sound of jazz music from within, but lacking better options, they decide to make a break for it. Running at top speed, Dog slips and falls into one of the pools, finding it to be boiling hot, but luckily Lana hauls him out before he gets hurt too badly. The crew arrive at the bandstand just as androids begin to close in around them. Flipping through the security cameras, Lana realizes that the security androids see themself and Dog as weird blobby creatures as well (Dent just looks normal). 

Diving into the dark, shadowy bandshell, the crew discover the source of the music- an awful jumbled mass of limbs, faces, and musical instruments, playing some lovely bossa nova. It doesn’t seem to care that they’ve entered the bandshell, but the security androids give the place a wide berth, apparently unwilling to approach. Dog tosses his flashlight into the blob’s saxophone, making it look as though the crew are still moving around in there with the light, and the crew escape through the back.

An android lies face-down on the ground behind the bandshell, its memory cores apparently removed. The crew decide to ignore it and just get out of here, and they sneak into the lobby safely thanks to their effective decoy. 

Once there, they’re greeted by a grisly scene. With Lana guarding their hiding spot behind a spiral staircase, Dog climbs up to get a better vantage point. The place is swarming with more shambling, grotesque people, the target is nowhere to be found and the lobby looks like the scene of a fight, with sprays of blood along the walls leading to the Moonwalk Cocktail Bar (where the crew previously saw the corpses of a few of the Syndicate bosses).

Carefully making their way into the bar, the crew find the corpses they expected, but also a few more people. The bartender (who, upon closer examination, is definitely also a dead guy) is just standing behind the bar while an injured young man sits at the bar, drunkenly sobbing. Dog decides to sit down with the young man and see what his deal is. He decides to get another drink to avoid raising suspicion and orders the most touristy-looking drink available, a bright-green martini, but the bartender makes a gin fizz with blue curacao instead. It’s tasty and makes him feel at ease, which is good because Dog had been racking up the Stress lately.

Meanwhile, Lana scans the security cameras and manages to spot their target again. Now they’re fleeing down the hallway of the 2nd floor of the Resort’s rooms. Striking up a conversation with the young man, Dog realizes that he’s another Syndicate-affiliated target of theirs; however, the man refuses to come along with the crew, insistent that he’ll be killed once the Syndicate finds out what he’s done (the exact nature of his transgression is not apparent). Dog reassures him that they’ll bring him somewhere safe while making a ‘we’re getting paid’ gesture towards Lana behind his back. So with the young man in tow, the crew prepare to rescue their next target from horrors unknown….