No Sharper Spur

Ninevehn's Stars Without Number game.

WIP

Style and Posting

• Tell me your intention (what you want to accomplish) and your action (how you attempt to do something).
• Post with purpose. Posts should push the action forward, uncover information or reveal something about the character. Preferably two or more of those at once!
• Banter is fine as long as things are moving.
• Avoid getting caught in the politeness spiral. Pick a direction, post it, and if other characters want to do something else, then that's rp fodder!
• I am aiming for four to five purposeful posts from each player every week. More is fine, but 4-5 is a good ballpark.
• If you are planning on an absence, please let me know.
• If for some reason you fall behind on posting, don't fret, just jump back in. Everyone goes through lulls occasionally.
• If you are no longer interested or no longer have the time to play, please let me know you are withdrawing. There will be no hard feelings, and not only is it polite, it keeps The Wyzard from blacklisting you.

Dice Rolls

Dice rolls are in the rolz.org room No Sharper Spur. [1] I will be doing all the rolls save character creation (and I will roll chargen for you if you'd like), but it's all done and recorded there.

Character Creation

As per the core rulebook, with 3 exceptions. 1) Roll as normal for attributes, then assign them in any order you wish. 2) Choose one Background Package, and additionally the Adventurer Package. 3) Choose one Training Package, and additionally the Adventurer Package. You may choose the adventurer package twice in a stage if you wish.

Starting Money

Each character gets 1,000 credits to purchase starting gear with, up to TL3 for ranged weapons and TL4 for armor and melee. The setting is absolutely lousy with up-jumped TL2-3 gear, and there's a lot of military surplus on the market, so it's sort of a buyer's market.

One Cool Thing

Pick an item up to TL4. A weapon, armor, a Tech kit, etc. Something that you want to be a signature or vital gear for your character. You get it for free and it's reasonably plot-protected; don't do something foolish like chuck it out an airlock or into a volcano and you'll hang onto it.

One Plot Thing

Pick a plot-driving hook for your character. Maybe you know a secret jump route, or a military officer who needs work done off the books from time to time. Every character needs one connection or relationship that can be used to get information, create complications or hang an adventure off of in a pinch!

House Rules

Up-jumped Weapons

Much of Phoenician technology is transitional, and the common practice of up-jumping is part and parcel of that fact. Up-jumped weapons are simply TL 1-3 weapons platforms built using TL4 materials technology. The effect is that these items count as TL4 for the purposes of overcoming advanced armor or resisting effects. An up-jumped shotgun is not slowed by plate, while an up-jumped knife is capable of wounding even a warrior in powered armor.

Up-jumped weapons cost the corebook prices. TL 1-3 weapons that have not been improved in this manner cost 10% less.

Submersion

The innovators (and primary producers) of Phoenician spacecraft live in submerged cities off the eastern coast. This influence has led to all atmosphere-capable starships being designed for submersible operations as well. They are slow and clumsy when underwater, however, being reduced to speed 0 and using in-system travel times for oceanic ones, without the benefit of the spike drive enhancing speed. Most weapons cannot be fired effectively while submerged.

Advancement

Skills

Skill points gained per level are doubled. The skill caps remain the same.

HP

Roll one additional die when rolling HP, and drop the lowest die. If your new roll is the same or less than your old score, add 1 hp to your old score.

An example: A Warrior with 8 hp reaches level 2 and rolls his new hp. He would roll 3 d8, dropping the lowest die. If he rolled a 7, 5 and 4, he would keep the 7 and 5 for 12 hp. If the result was less than 8, he would add one to that score and have 9 hp as his new total.

Experience

Every 50 credits earned from adventuring translates to 1 xp for each character. Equipment or other loot kept by the characters is not counted. Experience will also be awarded for various milestones and on completion of certain actions and achievements. Milestone and achievement awards are received in full by each character.

Setting

History of Phoenicia

The colony at Phoenicia was set up for reasons lost to time and the Scream. What is known is that the world was successful and well-populated during the Mandate Era, and played a central role in the economy of the sector. The metadimensional event known as the Scream ended interstellar ties in Wyrm Sector, and the loss of sane psychics collapsed the planetary industries. The period following the collapse saw the population fall from an estimated 1.5 billion to roughly 200 million. These survivors formed loose, warring states around the remains of pretech cities.

After four centuries, these states were methodically conquered and absorbed by the nascent Phoenician Empire, then led by Emperor Harper, which succeeded over two generations of war and diplomacy in uniting the planet. Following the Conquest Period, technological and industrial development improved sharply as pooled resources fed a sustained effort to reinvent and deploy advanced technologies. In the same timeframe, power within the Empire was slowly being transferred from local rulers and nobility to the bureaucratic classes, partially to insulate Imperial power from rival nobles. Empress Hinata presided over a series of democratic reforms that ended when she abdicated the throne 50 years ago.

23 years ago, in-system spacecraft recovered the hull of the Naxos, a Mandate vessel left adrift in the mid solar system. Reverse engineering and study of its systems led to the development of the first postech spike drive. After several years of testing and analysis of its navigation maps, initial surveys of the sector began. Twelve years ago, Phoenicia launched its first colony in the neighboring Tyre system.

After two years, the strain of supporting a fledgling colony while developing new shipyards and related technologies left the government overstretched, a situation that hereditary nobles along the hilly regions in the north and northwest attempted to exploit. They rebelled, leading to a decade-long civil war that ended with the orbital bombardment and then nuclear bombing of Hill Prince military bases and urban centers. Broken, the surviving rebel princes fled the system, leaving an exhausted world to rebuild.

In the last year, the Phoenician Authority has mapped the routes along the arms of the sector, made the Tyrian colony self-sufficient, began initial colonization of the adjacent Sidon system and made contact with two human-inhabited worlds. Interstellar trade and diplomacy is slowly expanding, but the colony efforts and reconstruction on the homeworld have slowed efforts to build up the fleet.

Sector Map

Key

• Star= Star System
• Line= Publicly Known Route
• Purple= Phoenician Authority Space
• Orange= Trakkaran Territory
• Blue= Delann Space