Hello everyone, welcome. You may remember that I recently posted that I had started playing in a game of Starfinder, my character being a Lashunta Solarian named Saross. What that roughly translates into is a spacefaring mystic that looks like he is of the same race as Mantis from Guardians of the Galaxy, who has the weird ability to summon gauntlets of cosmic power and the ability to detonate once every three turns if he so chooses. In the first game, I was partnered with Chris’s character, Hugh. In game 2, the group evolved to a much much larger size, so I will include Dramatis Personae. I would not recommend the group size to any player or GM, as it was unwieldy but the game was a lot of fun anyway so I carried on. Enjoy.
Dramatis Personae
Saross – A Damiya Lashunta Solarian, Male, played by me
Hugh – Human (Or Half Human, Half Prosthetic depending on perspective) Technomancer, Male, played by Chris
Bert – Human Mutant Soldier (looks a bit like a banana and grew up in the sesame street ghetto planet), Male, played by George. Bert was the example character the GM made to aid players, and George was interested in joining in
Zeus Bonejaw – Half Orc Mystic, Male, played by Peter
Krattark – A Shirren Envoy, Male, played by Connor
Lilo – A Korasha Lashunta Mechanic, Female, played by Simona
Twitch – A Ysoki Renegade Soldier, Male, played by Amalie
Connor – An Android Envoy, Male, played by Alexander (the youngest at the Table)
Skritt – A Kasathas Soldier, Male, Played by Simon (Alexander’s Dad).
So, a pretty big group. On with the game. It will now and henceforth be a first person account (unless I happen to GM a session and Saross is not present). Or at least that is the intent.
The Game
In the aftermath of two successful Jobs, Hugh and I returned to Chaval’s Place. He attempted that ritualistic enlightenment that others so often do by attaining advanced states of inebriation. I had a milk. Within about 30 standard minutes, Hugh was unconscious on the bar, and I was on my second drink when a mismatched group of individuals entered the bar. There was a heavily jaundiced looking human thing (Bert), a Half Orc, a Shirren, one of those squat Korasha Lashunta types (She had a third eye – it looked technological), one of those Ysoki Rat People, an android and a Kasathas. The Shirren was extolling the virtues of following some quasi-religious belief he referred to as “The Great Distortion”. Only the android seemed to be remotely interested.
This motley crew looked and smelled completely disheveled. I introduced myself and their Android, Connor, greeted me back. He was pleasant enough. The others tended to mingle among themselves which suited me fine as they were rather ripe. I now understand that they spent a few days drifting in an escape pod before being put to work on a salvage scow, and being dumped onto this station. It seems they had been duped into crewing a rebel ship that bit off more than it could chew in engaging an Imperial Patrol and found themselves on hard times. They were told to speak to Captain Dod, the station security chief as he would be able to sort out fake identification.
I was unable to speak to the rest of the group as Chaval, the older Ysoki owner of the place told us that he had received word from Captain Dod. He wanted to see the newcomers about some business. For reasons that were never quite clear to me, he also wanted to speak to Hugh and myself. We ventured to station security and met with Captain Dod. The man was human, and had suffered some form of injury on his face. I suspect plasma burn, as it was a scarred mess. As we approached his office, we were able to catch snippets of his shouted conversation over a comline. I was able to discern the words “…thousand credits worth of damage”, “…The Mayor” and “…up my Ass!” It is gratifying to see an individual in a position of power to express themselves honestly. Dishonesty of self breeds discordant notes among the symphony…
We were invited in and after a gruff greeting, Dod explained his purpose in inviting us. Tekris Station has a delicate balance of power. There are citizens and workers, three main organised crime gangs, station security and a small Imperial Office. The Organised Crime groups keep their business behind closed doors, and so long as people do not end up dead and their business does not over spill into the streets, Station Security doesn’t crack down. The three crime bosses Dod mentioned were
Noals, a gunrunner (the person who contracted Hugh and I previously)
Dr Haon, a purveyor of black market prosthetics
and the mysterious and nearly unknown
El Rata, an information broker
However, as Hugh and I had discovered, there was a new player in town and they were being supplied with Imperial Weapons that would shift the balance of power. This was unacceptable and Dod informed us that we would operate as a special task force directly under him, (Hmm we could have a TV series called Tekris Five 0…) and we were to investigate the source of the weapons, and put a stop to it if possible. Dod suggested that contacting one of the crime bosses would be a good start. He offered clean identities for the group that had just arrived. I noted that he did not offer Hugh nor myself any remuneration. I will take this into consideration when our assignment is done and deal with it according to how he treats us.
I suggested we seek out Noals as we had an in with him. Having previously worked for him, I figured he might be more willing to talk. His base of operations was a a Club called “The Furry Shirren”
We entered and found a stage where an Elven lady was dancing. She was mostly naked and caught the attention of the Korasha Lashunta whose name I learned to be Lilo. Our group spread out through the bar and determined that Noals was in back in a card game with a group of Gnomes. To be respectful we waited for the game to finish and then approached.
Noals looked at us and greeted us with a level of hostility that I suspect he needs to maintain his reputation of being a murderous sociopath. “What the hell is all this? You guys look like you are looking for someone. I’m gonna tell you you haven’t found him and you should move on.”
Our Anroid Connor replied, “We are looking for Noals, we have business with him.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m Noals and I got no business with any of you, so if you know who I am and what is good for you, you’ll move on.”
That was when I stepped in. “I beg your pardon but I suspect you will want to listen to us, as we are not simply random trash wandered in from the street. In fact we share a goal with you, and have already worked as your allies once.”
It’s hard to say whether it was my words or brazenness that got his attention, but something did. “Explain.”
I took that as an invitation and sat down. “My comrade, Hugh and I were responsible for sabotaging a shipment today. A Job contracted out of Chaval’s place, one that was previously failed by a group of Shirren. The job with the imperial arms. The Imperial arms being shipped to another gang.”
He looked interested at last. “That was you, was it?”
I nodded. “My colleagues and I have been tasked by Dod to investigate the flow of illegal imperial weapons and if possible, stop them. I hoped that as you would wish to maintain your power base as is, that you and we could be allies dealing with a common threat.”
Our verbal joust continued however, it ended up with an amicable deal where he supplied us with the details of another shipment arriving that night. He needed us to sabotage it as before. He then invited us to play cards with him. Hugh and I agreed and we played a round. I was compelled by common sense to fold when Krattark, our Shirren, told me telepathically that Noals was holding a weak hand. Not wishing to be accused of cheating or have either of us wind up dead, I telepathically rebuked Krattark and folded. As it happens, Hugh won the hand. We left to attend to details of the job. I apologised to Krattark for my harshness and then explained the dim view they take of cheaters on this station. And how dangerous Noals was.
As we left the club Lilo came up to us a bit flustered. She showed us comm message she had received when the Gnomes had left.
“Follow your Gnose. This one is free.”
Lilo had followed the gnomes for a short while and tracked them to their home but was unsure what it meant. We inspected the message, determined we couldn’t trace and then decided it was probably from El Rata, the Information Broker. I surmised that he was offerring us a freebie to help us but also build his client base. Help us as he benefits from our success dealing with the new gang and building clients because if we were successful we’d be able to afford him. That was our assumption.
We decided to deal with the Gnomes later as the Docking Bay was more time sensitive. We approached, and discerned 4 guards outside the locked docking bay with a corridor partially obstructed by junk vendors and the like. We decided that a distraction to deal with the guards would allow an infiltration by service corridor.
I won’t go into all of the details (as keeping track of the actions of all the players is a nightmare…), suffice it to say that Krattark created a huge distraction with a smoke grenade, whilst Connor tackled two of the guards into the ground. I used my mind powers to cause junk to fly off a stall and create a distraction in one direction whilst Bert ineffectively fought another guard. Twitch, our Ysoki, managed to crawl into a service hatch whilst Lilo was successful in hacking the doors open. Whilst chaos reigned in the hall outside, Zeus Bonejaw entered the docking bay and convinced the personnel present he was part of the crew and to hurry up their unloading. Bad timing, or poor judgement led to Twitch firing a sniper rifle through the grate from the crawlspace. It hit no one, and I was able to use it as a pretext to get the ship’s crew onboard the ship for their own safety. They took a few potshots at the grate Twitch was behind but did no damage to him. I got the crew onboard “for their safety” and once they were in an enclosed space and I was able to determine they were carrying no manifests or anything of use. That was when I used my stored up stellar power to detonate, incinerating the crew. (The players knew I could do this, they were aware of the ability, but I suspect some of them may still have been taken aback by how easily my character shifted from friendly, amiable and reasonable, to cold blooded murder.)
Hugh sabotaged the cargo, which proved to be more imperial weapons, mining charges and industrial scale mining lasers. I summoned a hacker and we were able to decipher the ship’s navigation records. As we were leaving, the docking bay a comm activated and a shadowy figure asked what was going on. He saw we were strangers and he said he would find out who we were. We cut the transmission, but not before we overheard the figure being called “Commander” which confirmed my earlier supposition that the new player in town was the empire, and they were simply trying to control the station without appearing to control it. We returned to Noals to report our findings, including a piece of cargo that I had grabbed, marked “Do not open” on the manifest. He was pleased and we returned to Chaval’s Place, to find payment from Noals.
I wondered what we would unearth next.
