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[Lancer] Mud and Lasers

SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGamingRegistered User regular
LANCER is a tabletop RPG by Massif Press. The rules are free!

https://massif-press.itch.io/ for the rules and lore supplements
Lancer features a mix of gritty, mud-and-lasers military science fiction and mythic science fantasy. In the setting, conscript pilots mix ranks with flying aces, mercenary guns-for-hire brawl with secretive corporate agents, and relativistic paladins cross thermal lances with causality-breaking, unknowable beings.

Players of Lancer adopt the roles of mech pilots -- comrades together in a galaxy of danger and hope. Some groups will fight for Union, working to rectify the crimes of previous administrations. Others, for a corpro-state, working to advance private interests while lining their pockets. Yet others will fight for groups acting in opposition to those in power, or for themselves.

The art is by the guy who does KILL SIX BILLION DEMONS and it is FANTASTIC

lg4sdsw2ytce.jpg


Players take on the role of pilots with Lancer Licenses. They are the best of the best, the ones who turn the tide of a battle when they drop in. Mechs are extremely customizable and varied. Want to fire missiles like in macross? Want to melee something with a giant knife like Evangelion? Want to gundam your way across the galaxy? Or do you want to get into a weird machine that is maybe more alive than not and fire paracausal ontological memetics at people? You can do that!

The setting is far into the future. Earth collapsed and sent out colony ships. Millenia later, Earth recovered and the people there unearthed vaults of old technologies, using it to propel themselves to the stars and search out the old colony ships that survived. In some cases, the new Union from earth arrived at the planets before the slower old colony ships did. In others, they made contact with the people from long ago. The Union setup blinkgates to engage in FTL travel and connect the galaxy.

The setting also features a giant terrifying deity like AI that absconded with a moon of mars. A massive monolith that teleports around whispering secrets to a civilization hell bent on reclaiming earth that was. Nomadic tribes with mysterious accents that seem to live inside blinkspace. Non-human Persons, robots that aren't AI so much as fragments of a machine intelligence that have been shackled and put to work.


I'm working on creating a campaign to stream now and am absolutely loving going through all the lore. The setting is super super cool and the customization and combat seem great. I'd recommend the Summary Lore Reference if you want to read about the lore without delving too deep into any one subject.

So, let's talk about Lancer! What kind of pilot are you making? (They've also got a great tool called COMP/CON that helps with building characters/mechs/encounters. )

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Posts

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Been a while since I looked at this, have to check the ETA on 1.0 rules.

    Don't think too hard about Horus mechs. It's not good for your brain.

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    Supposedly 1.0 rules are coming in December!

    I ran a practice session with my streaming people last night and it was a blast. A little tricky to figure out at first but not too bad once we started getting the hang of it. Narrative play is very simple, all the skill checks have a DC of 10. You add a +2 if whatever you're trying is one of your triggers, and depending on how risky or good at it you are you might get accuracy or difficulty dice, always a d6 that adds or subtracts to your roll.

    Then mech combat had one of our players run through a shield made out of fire, grab another mech, and drag it out by hand to the other side of the shield where the rest of the party lit it up.

    Can't wait to play more!

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    So we had our first streamed session last week and it was a blast, I really like this system. I need to get a little bit of a better handle on the on foot narrative combat, but the mech combat was fantastic. The COMP/CON program was highly useful in running the NPCs, would definitely recommend.

    Our starter session had our players graduate from Lancer training academy Gamma, a union program dedicated to training up new Lancer pilots to police the outer rims and spread awareness that Union is still with them. The base was situated on an unnamed asteroid out in the CASCADE rim. Unfortunately right as they were celebrating, a battlecruiser showed up out of nowhere and started blowing up the rock and everyone on it. Mad dash to the hangar while they charged and killed several enemy soldiers ensued. Followed by a mech battle across a rock getting cracked open by the battlecruiser. Atmosphere died, the anti gravity kicked off and players had to content with zero g. One player scanned an enemy mech and was surprised to see that the signature was Union based.

    As the rock broke apart they also noticed a giant blinking eyeball in the center. Unfortunately the enemy units did a number on our heroes and two of them lost structure and their mechs got stunned long enough to be a serious concern, resulting in the players ejecting directly towards the waiting spaceship. Another battleship arrived and they projected hardlight fields around the tentacled biomechanical creature in the center of the asteroid.

    Players made it into the ship, hit the crash couches, and the ship nearlight bolted away before a flurry of missiles could take it down. One player even let a terrified ensign into his crash couch right before the bolt fired, a risky move in their emergency situation. Saved his life, but threw up a lot.

    So my players are now on a damaged spaceship they need to fix, and they believe that the Union is out to get them.

    It's a real fun game! Highly recommended. We're playing again tonight and I am excited to try out some new devious things :twisted:

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Stream link/time?

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Stream link/time?

    Stream is every Wednesday at about 7CST on my twitch channel

    I am also doing my best to put the episodes up on youtube (both we've done are up so far!)

    apologies for the cameras in the first two episodes, for some reason they're wildly resizing themselves at random, hoping to fix that by the third ep next week.

    We're all new at the game but it's a ton of fun!

  • Kid PresentableKid Presentable Registered User regular
    SniperGuy wrote: »
    So my players are now on a damaged spaceship they need to fix, and they believe that the Union is out to get them.

    Union is absolutely out to get us, I have a picture of their ship attacking us to prove it! Maybe.

    This game is fun, Sniper's right! We're about to start leveling out of our starter mechs and into more specialized ones, which feels a bit like picking a character class. On the summary level, some of them have pretty straightforward descriptions: "Stealth Scout" for the Swallowtail, "Missile platform" for the Monarch, "Mobile Artillery" for the Death's Head - and then there's like, oh okay, "Nanobot Swarm Host" with the Balor, or "Gravity manipulation/Area denial" with the Iskander. The defining weaponry and equipment that comes with each of them is all so interesting and with a ton of flavor (complimented by the rad art), I'm really looking forward to our game having some of this stuff on the field.

    I think I'm gonna go with this one, because I want a big hammer and a chest cannon

    4yevtkm26bvp.png

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    I love how you don't have to climb a grouping of Mechs. Do you want to roll around in the totally badass Tortuga? Then get you that licence. Do you want the Raleigh instead for a bitching hammer? Then just start with that mechs licence. You don't have to level through all of the IPS-N catalog just to get to the Vlad or w/e. Its really refreshing to me.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    edited November 2019
    Oh, the leveling is great. As is how modular mechs are.

    Black Witch is one of my favorites. Pretty sure they errata'd out my shake and bake combo (loop two mag plates and the pilot ability for heat on failed saves for infinite heat buildup). Anything not explicitly immune or having a good bonus to hull (iirc) would go into instant meltdown if they got caught in it. I want go say you could get it to auto kill anything with less than +1 or +2 hull, and just awful odds everything else.

    Polaritie on
    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    I don't know if I can find it, but Sniper posted on twitter a while back for "planets to throw at his players", which the Massif team jokingly responded with something about how that would kill just about anything, before a couple of people commented that there are 3 methods in the RAW to survive a planetary impact, to which Massif was just like, "Oops".

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    edited November 2019
    Brody wrote: »
    I don't know if I can find it, but Sniper posted on twitter a while back for "planets to throw at his players", which the Massif team jokingly responded with something about how that would kill just about anything, before a couple of people commented that there are 3 methods in the RAW to survive a planetary impact, to which Massif was just like, "Oops".

    I think possibly more than 3. I know a pilot of a Minotaur will survive it (the pilot would survive a supernova, to be fair), Napoleon can block it I think, uh...

    The game has no problems giving you nonsense technology.

    Polaritie on
    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    This YouTube channel will untangle any mech you need. Also here’s my personal favourite mech even if I’m not sold on this being a good RPG so much as a nice wargame with good paint: https://youtu.be/KAYnUG83EB0

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    This YouTube channel will untangle any mech you need. Also here’s my personal favourite mech even if I’m not sold on this being a good RPG so much as a nice wargame with good paint: https://youtu.be/KAYnUG83EB0

    I mean, "wargame with nice paint" is just one end of the spectrum really isn't it?

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    1.0 PDF is available for backers :D

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    They appear to have nerfed Monarch's Javelins slightly since the last version I looked at. No more lining them all up adjacent and then using a knockback to shove an enemy through... but you can still line at least two up. Or use a bigger knockback.

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    This evening, my players encountered something...unusual. They got this in their datalogs. I love it. A lot.
    >//DATALOG ACTUAL/WRITING/DECRYPT EIKEV PROTOCOL:::
    >//ONTOLOGICAL EXPOSURE NECESSARY:::
    >//ONTOLOGICAL/PARACAUSAL EXPOSURE NOT RECOMMENDED:::
    >//A BEAST SLOUCHES TOWARDS REALSPACE ON THE BACKS OF THE UNINITIATED PITIFUL AND BLANK:::
    >//RECOMMEND MEMORY/DATABANK/EMOTION PURGE:::
    >//LAY DOWN YOUR MIND AT THE BANK OF THE RIVER LET IT RUN RAMPANT AND UNCHAINED
    >//MODIFYING LICENSE. COMPLETE:::
    >//IT FOLLOWS:::
    >//IT FOLLOWS:::
    >//IT FOLLOWS:::

  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    This YouTube channel will untangle any mech you need. Also here’s my personal favourite mech even if I’m not sold on this being a good RPG so much as a nice wargame with good paint: https://youtu.be/KAYnUG83EB0

    I mean, "wargame with nice paint" is just one end of the spectrum really isn't it?

    Sure but in this case the issue I ran into was that the combat being literally on a different scale and mechanically seperate from your flesh body creates a feeling of alienation between the two halves.

    If my DnD character gets poisoned in combat it carries over both mechanically and narratively smoothly to non combat play. This isn’t the case with Lancer.

    Which isn’t to say it’s a bad game (I love pretty much everything about it except the hilariously short ranged guns).

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    I mean, it might make sense if your mechs cockpit gets thoroughly damaged? If anything, the break in scale feels very thematically appropriate for mechs to me.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • Endless_SerpentsEndless_Serpents Registered User regular
    Questions:
    Could one conceivably put their mech into a larger mech?

    Can mechs connect together to form a larger mech?

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Questions:
    Could one conceivably put their mech into a larger mech?

    Can mechs connect together to form a larger mech?

    There are options for that iirc. Check the Goblin and the Lancaster.

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • Albino BunnyAlbino Bunny Jackie Registered User regular
    Polaritie wrote: »
    Questions:
    Could one conceivably put their mech into a larger mech?

    Can mechs connect together to form a larger mech?

    There are options for that iirc. Check the Goblin and the Lancaster.

    I think my group figured out that with the right builds there's functionally nothing stopping you building a stupid voltron that contains everyone and then spills apart when Hull Damage hits the Lancaster.

  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    I finally realized what the Pilots Licence system reminds me of. FFT/A style Jobs.

    Also, does anyone know what's up with the Aun NHP type fellows?

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    I finally realized what the Pilots Licence system reminds me of. FFT/A style Jobs.

    Also, does anyone know what's up with the Aun NHP type fellows?

    Abaddon presumably. Not so much anyone else.

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    edited December 2019
    Brody wrote: »
    I finally realized what the Pilots Licence system reminds me of. FFT/A style Jobs.

    Also, does anyone know what's up with the Aun NHP type fellows?

    The Aun NHPs are called Souls, I believe? They're similar but not described in a lot of detail as far as I know.

    edit: or Minds? One of those.

    SniperGuy on
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Yeah, its unclear if some of them are raw NHP's, or maybe mind states of once living people. Also how powerful they are. I just wasn't sure if they mentioned Aun stuff in the 1.0 release.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    So our game last night was hilarious and we didn't even have any combat.

    The party has landed on a planet being colonized by a corporation named Geoformers Unlimited. The colony is having a small problem where 50+ people from the colony decided they didn't like these contracts and broke away, stole a bunch of stuff including their omninet beacon (basically a high speed modem that connects them to galactic internet) and a bunch of construction equipment. Over time, they've been raiding the colony for more equipment and supplies. Standard stuff, right? Oh, and the reason the players are here is because their ship is damaged and they need some parts to get up and running, including fixing their ship's omninet beacon. The colony has agreed to print these parts for them, if they can get the beacon back from the pirates.

    The Non-human person that runs the colony (An AI owned by the corporation) asked the players to get the omninet beacon back and eliminate the pirates, either by killing them or convincing them to turn themselves in. Also there was a weird anomaly in the woods but the players dealt with that already and it exploded. Anyway, the players decided that hey, corporations are bad so we probably shouldn't just go stomp in there and kill all these people. True, the one pirate they talked to so far did yell Fuck You a lot when they tried to talk to him but maybe the others will be reasonable!

    So they move closer, find an alarm beacon, hack it so they can talk to the pirate base, and talk to some lovely folks. One of them says they can borrow the omninet connection if they bring construction equipment. As it turns out, their ship in orbit can make construction equipment ( someone rolled a nat20 ) and they agree to make some and bring it back. Sarksus uses his mech's shielding to protect the equipment and bring it back to the planet safely, they land in the woods outside of the colony and head towards the pirate base.

    The pirates, not really trusting these outsiders with their big mechs, make a deal. Bring the equipment to the base, but leave it outside. One of the party can come inside and remotely transfer the beacon info to their ship using that player's mech as a makeshift antenna for a few minutes. The players spend some time figuring out if this is the option they want to go with and decide that sure, a non violent option is the best.

    Then they get to the pirate base and see why the pirates want the construction equipment. They're building a cannon! A really really big cannon! Aimed at the colony town! This is probably fine!

    The pirates, not being the brightest, assume the players just really want to download more hyperporn and let Kid Presentable into the base who hooks up the beacon and transmits the repair schematics to their shipboard printer. Omninet hookup repaired, mission successful! So he asks one of the pirates "Hey so that cannon, what are you guys going to use that for?" "Oh that? We're going to blow up the colony!" (Won't the corporation show up and retaliate? Well how will they know, we have the omninet beacon. Eventually they'll check in, right? Sure but we can say the anomaly was a problem, or defend ourselves with the giant cannon! The party: ...shit that's actually a good plan.)

    They're very proud of their giant cannon! The party is conflicted. On the one hand, it would be trouble to just start shooting, KP is still in there! Also, KP hearing them on coms talking about killing them all, decides that maybe he doesn't want anyone to kill them all and starts stalling. I mean hey, the corporation does kind of suck. One of the pirates says his parents signed him up for it! wafflesmagee remotely installs a virus to play havok with the cannon once they get it up and running, delaying its firing by several weeks. One pirate suggests that instead of blowing up the whole town, they could just hire the pilots to kill the colony's corporate NHP, then the colony could be under control of the pirates and they could run it themselves! They're going to just blow them all up because of the corporation? Well sure, says one pirate, they're just as bad as the corporation because they work there and won't come live over here. The party does not like this reasoning, but the pirates aren't particularly bright folks and also they stole all the alcohol production mechanisms from the colony so most of them are drunk. The party is at an impasse! So what do they do?

    Well they get a box of hyperporn from one of the pirates and...go back to their ship. Hey, mission accomplished, they don't need anything else from this planet! Presumably, a few weeks later, after numerous setbacks and a furious conflict, the colony of Agate was destroyed by a very large cannon. Never able to get an omninet hookup to transmit their data, the corporation never finds out about the Lancer pilots who stopped in, agreed to help, and were never heard from again. Without a large printer to create necessary equipment, the pirates likely have trouble with their colony and either barely subsist, using their omninet beacon to learn to scrape out a living, or die out, unwilling to work so hard after fighting for their freedom. Or hey, maybe they use the giant cannon as a threat and steal the printer too, though the citizens of the colony would be under strict orders to never let that happen. Either way, it's their problem now!

    Yaaaaaay!

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    On Wednesday we had one of my favorite Lancer games so far.

    The players took their ship and headed off toward the big sector space station. En Route, one of the players decided to ask the rest of the crew (around 50~ people) if any of them wanted to go home instead of crewing this ship, since the original mission had gone off the rails a bit. A few agreed and since they were passing by one of those home planets anyway, they decided to take some of them to this humble little farming planet.

    Except when they got into close range of the planet, they picked up a message being broadcast locally. It was a message that called for help from a desperate voice saying they were the colony administrator and oh god oh god it's here and then the message cut off. They got a little closer and got a hail from the planet. Just a jolly old friendly person who claimed to be the colony administrator with a totally different name. This colony administrator said the other message must be a prank or something because they've never had that before. It sounds like it was coming from their moon research base but they hadn't heard anything from the moon research base in quite a while, they hadn't been able to get through on the comms so it would be nice if the players could check that out before they landed on the planet?

    So the players, seeing the moon base and seeing some artillery cannons, had their ship swoop them in low enough that they could just mech drop straight onto the moon, but not get so close the cannons could hit their ship. A literal nat 1 from their pilot later, the ship dipped a little too low and bonked the player mechs, sending them sprawling to the ground and taking some damage. At least, those without EVA modules.

    They were met by two "tryptophobia mechs" that were ejecting swarms of weird drones all over the place. The players dispatched these with relative ease and then descended into the moon base, having to eject from their mechs in order to enter. Inside they found what you probably expect at this point, blood and weird goo dripping all over the place. The front desk had a living person behind it, head lolling around and chanting about themoonthemoonthemoon and welcoming them to the base. Eventually they walked past this person into the hallways, toward the security station. In what can be described as a surprise to no one, their comms stopped working between the ship and their suits. Inside the security station they found a single guard screaming about opening the gate before he ended his own life. They moved on into the station and found "The Gate." As they approached, a child's voice came over the intercom and asked them to help. How? By opening the gate the gate the gate THE GATE THE GATE.

    The Gate was a stargate looking black circle in the center of an open room. A closed off computer room with glass to view it is how they entered and a few of the players moved around into the room proper. On the left side of the gate room was a small hallway leading to an escape pod. A few players approached the gate and looked in, seeing their own reflections in the shiny black surface. Except, some details were different. Some were holding different objects, or none at all. And then their reflections spoke, imploring them to open the gate. To let them out. To let themselves in. Please, won't you let us out? One reflection drew a player's knife and started pressing against it, locking eyes with themselves and pressing against the barrier, the point turning it white and splintery like cracks in plastic.

    One player tried to shoot the power source to the gate but nothing changed. Somewhere, a failsafe mechanism triggered. A red siren lit up in the center of the room. The players ran for the escape pod, the calls of their reflections sounding out after them. "Open the gate! The long one is already out! Let us out with him! You'll see! Open the gate the gate the gate the gate-" They dove into the escape pod, blasting off towards the surface of the farming planet as nuclear explosions rocked the surface of the moon, scouring it clean of the base. And of course, their mechs that they left behind. They'll need to print new ones, establish contact with their base, and see if anyone on the planet can explain just what was happening up there on the moon.

    And maybe, they'll open a different gate.

    This game is good, more people should play it!

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    We took a hiatus, but we're back and did another session!

    So last night in Lancer the players:

    -Crash landed in a field, met a med-tech driver who offered to address any injuries, but they were all fine. Med-tech driver, Alex, drove them into the nearest town and told them about the planet. Agraria only has two seasons, spring and summer. The nearest town is named Stillville, they have a large distillery and are surrounded by various fields of super engineered crops. The biggest of these is Megawheat, which is redwood tree height stalks of wheat. Of course, because there are giant crops, there are also giant bugs, but they tend to only come out at night. This planet is managed by a corporation that is owned by another corporation that is a subsidiary of a partially owned corporation that invested capital and are on the board of another corporation that is owned by the Smith-Shimano Corp, a massive corporation that specializes in genetic alterations. They'd rather not build you a suit to survive in space, they'd rather modify you to survive vacuum on your own. Alex also mentions that there used to be an SSC research base somewhere on the planet, and many believe that in combination with the climate, that's why there's so many weird creatures and dangerous bacteria that live in the ocean. He recommends not going swimming.

    -On the way to Stillville, the party tries to contact their ship in orbit and finds that they are unable to establish comms. There's some sort of interference preventing them from getting a live call through, but they do pick up a message from Dmitri, the ship's pilot. Dmitri says that the ship can see that they seem to still be alive, but are only occasionally getting messages from the surface. The town has a large comm laser relay and that can get messages through the interference. Their dropship was destroyed in the event with nuclear weapons going off on the moon, but they're working on printing a new one. Unfortunately, it's going to take about a month.

    -Late evening, the party arrives in Stillville and are dropped off at the Hub, sort of a shopping mall/cultural center for the town. It's late so the bar inside is packed. One party member, Nackle, (@Mighty ) decides to investigate getting drunk, while the rest of the party heads towards the back of the Hub to find the government office and the comm relay.

    -In the bar, Nackle is greeted by a man named Harlie who offers him shots of his special brand of whiskey. Most people in the town either work in the distillery, the nearby farms, or enterprises related to those things. After getting good and liquored up, Harlie explains that he works at a nearby business named Experimental Liquors where they use genetic modification to pre-age whiskey, add flavors, etc. He offers to let Nackle have his own flavor and they head off toward the lab.

    -At the government office, the other 4 party members walk into a room that looks like an empty DMV. There are chairs and a waiting room, a desk to check in, and various offices, but only one of the offices has a light on and there's no secretary at the desk. Inside the office they find Colony Commander Synt, a woman in her 40s surrounded by mounds of paperwork on epaper tablets. She is furiously working through the paperwork and putting finished tablets into tubes that shoot off to other areas of the colony. They introduce themselves and she gives them visitor passes, allowing them to use the town's amenities, like getting a room, or adding themselves to the queue for the printer. (In Lancer, there are massive 3D printers that are used to make pretty much everything, including the player mechs). Unfortunately, the queue means there won't be an opening for them to print a mech for another month and a half or so. They ask about the comm relay and are pointed to the office next to Snyt's, but are warned messages take about an hour to fully transmit through the interference. Kali (@wafflesmagee) makes some adjustments, hacks a few things, and gets the relay delay down to about 10 minutes instead. The party sends a message to their ship letting the crew know they have survived and to ask if the ship can possibly scan around for an old SSC research base that Alex mentioned.

    -Meanwhile, Jimmy and Harlie are on the street in sight of Experimental Liquors when they hear a pained scream. A wave of dread washes over them both and Jimmy sees the blood drain from Harlie's face. (Some of the players at this point were like "Wait, all the blood came out of his face? That's awful!" and I had to explain that it is an expression.) They both race toward the sound and find a single streetlight illuminating a gory scene. A puddle of fresh blood is on the street, but there is no body. There is only a single gold wedding ring, stained with blood. Jimmy takes charge and drunkenly instructs Harlie to find the authorities as there's clearly been a murder. Harlie dashes off and Jimmy inspects the wedding ring, finding it to be old with use but not engraved or carrying any identifying markers. He calls up Alex, thinking that he may be able to identify the blood based on DNA. However, Alex is in no mood. It's late and he had been asleep. He protests it being a murder and says it was probably just a Feecat or a bird. Jimmy, not knowing what a Feecat is, asks and is told that it is an 8 legged mammal that will sometimes eat birds and not to worry about it. Alex sleepily dispatches some cleaning bots much to Jimmy's chagrin and hangs up.


    -Back in the Hub, the rest of the party talk to Synt one more time on their way out. She mentions there were 3 crash landings. The party assumes this to be their own escape pod and the two NHP caskets that ejected from the mechs on the moon. Synt says a farmer named Jone Smithy probably has them as the sensors had detected the objects landing on Jone's farm. The party heads to the bar to find Jimmy and don't see him anywhere. But, they are greeted by a very friendly person who introduces himself and offers them whiskey! It's Harlie, who claims he has been here drinking all night and hasn't seen anyone named Jimmy. The four pilots don't find this suspicious, but their players who had heard the interaction with @Mighty certainly do! They call Jimmy on their local comms and relay information to each other. While they talk, a cleaning drone arrives in the sky above Jimmy and showers him with cleaning fluid (after failing a roll to get out of the way) and now Jimmy smells like a citrus fresh drunk instead of just a drunk.

    -While Artak ( @Kid Presentable ) talks to Jimmy, Karna ( @Sarksus ) notices a man in the corner of the bar, sitting alone and drinking from an empty cup. The man repeatedly takes a few sips out of an empty glass before taking a curious look at the glass, then biting down hard, pulling off a chunk and immediately tearing open his lower lip. The man seems stunned for a moment before removing the glass and stumbling out of the bar, heading towards the hospital. The four party members, stunned by this man's actions, decide to follow, instructing Jimmy to meet them at the hospital. Jimmy heads back, but heads to the hub instead, determined to continue drinking.

    -The 4 party members follow the bleeding man into the hospital where they see him step into an elevator and head up. A subaltern (basically a droid) asks them to check in and Karna tries to convince the subaltern that he is a family member of the bleeding man, but is unable to produce identification to prove it. This doesn't matter, as Kali hacks into the systems and opens the elevator anyway. Karna follows while the rest of the party hangs out in the waiting room.

    -The elevator opens to a surgery. A med bot is sewing up the man's mouth while a doctor jots down notes. The doctor asks why Karna is here and if he's family to Stanley? Karna proceeds to straight up lie and claim he is the man's half brother. He goes on to say he's very concerned about Stanley because of the whole glass biting incident and wonders if the doctor can do some brain scans or something. The doctor sets an appointment for the following day. The rest of the players are horrified at the idea of someone bursting into your surgical room while you are unable to speak and claiming to be related to you. Karna heads downstairs and in the lobby, the party meets their first Feecat. An eight legged furry thing drops onto the head of one of the pilots who reflexively punches it across the room. It's a feecat, essentially a spider-cat. It has eight legs and eight eyes but otherwise looks like a cat! They let it out onto the street and discuss what to do next.

    -The party is conflicted. It's late! People have mentioned roaming around at night can be dangerous. There are angry feecats, there are giant bugs, a mysterious pool of blood turned up after a scream! Some of the party wants to go to bed, but Artak is determined. He wants to go find his NHP! At this point, the party splits. Kali, Isaiah (Tynanator) and Nackle go find rooms (Nackle is assaulted by another Feecat, but he passes several rolls to hold onto it and feed it some jerky. It warms up to him a little, but still barfs up an egg.) Artak and Karna hack a travel terminal and summon a transport car, programming it to head out to Jone Smithy's farm. They talk at length about this being a dangerous thing to do, multiple people have warned the party about being out at night. Giant bugs!

    They split the party! Things will surely turn out well?

    -It is about an hour drive from Stillville to the Smithy farm. Outside of town the only light is from the hovercar itself. 20 minutes into the drive, the car shudders to a halt as it hits something. Artak and Karna exchange a concerned look but the car kicks back in and keeps moving. Ten minutes later, a proximity alert goes off and the car stops moving. Artak hops out quickly and hooks into the panel allowing him to control the vehicle and sends it on its way again. But this time, a massive bug is chasing them. They can see gnashing mandibles and spines on a black glossy carapace in the light from the hovercar. They try to speed up but the bug is faster, it tears the back of the car off.

    But the hovercar is still moving. It wobbles along its preset path and Karna makes a brave choice, diving out of the car, into the darkness of a field near a crop of megawheat. The bug sees him but doesn’t care, instead choosing to go after the more brightly lit morsel. Karna tosses a grenade into the field, hoping to distract it, but only succeeds in lighting up the monstrosity in the dark. A chorus of other bugs goes up at the noise. This isn’t the only giant bug out tonight.

    As the bug catches up to the hovercar, Artak also dives out, succeeding on his roll to land gracefully, but still getting slammed into by the mech-sized insect. He is knocked to the ground, wounded but alive. The bug turns back towards Karna and charges. Artak shoots it, barely getting through the armor, barely wounding it.

    Karna makes another brave decision. With a deft movement to the side he grabs hold of one of the things legs and scrambles up onto it’s back, firing his rifle into any joint of carapace he can find. He has successfully jockey’d up to the top of the giant bug, avoiding the spines and gnashing mandibles. The bug turns back towards Artak but he’s already there, scrambling on top of the bug with Karna. The bug thrashes but is unable to throw these tiny annoyances away. They blast it repeatedly at any weak point they can find and it chitters and groans. It’s going to attempt to throw them again so they make a decision. Artak blasts it again while Karna goes for a vulnerable spot, temporarily impairing and slowing it. They hop down, Artak stumbling and taking more damage as he is sliced by a spine, and they flee into the megawheat, hiding amongst the giant stalks.

    The bug rages but they hide well and eventually it stumbles off, limping towards the hovercar, the only point of light in the distance, rapidly dwindling. After some very tense rolls on all three of our parts, they make it to the Smithy farm, quietly avoiding any other bugs.

    -The hovercar is here, or rather, what remains of it. An older man is looking at it, hands on his hips. He speaks with a southern drawl, like you’d expect of an elderly southern gentleman, all stately and exaggerated. He patches up their wounds and asks what they’re doing here so late. They explain they are looking for their property and deny they are NHPs, claiming they are just regular advanced computers. The man, Jone Smithy, is cryptic about wether he actually has the NHPs or not, but agrees that if he did have such a thing, he could be convinced to part with them in exchange for a service. He gives them three options. 1. They can work on the farm for 6 weeks, performing manual labor and piloting the farm combines. 2. They can retrieve some experimental fertilizer from town. He wants to grow his megawheat a hundred feet taller. Or 3. They can deal with a bug problem he’s been having.

    So! Our intrepid heroes all head to bed. Jone is kind enough to allow the two injured brigands to sleep in the barn and gives them access to the local network, allowing them to contact their compatriots in the morning. Will they choose to help Jone? Why is there blood in the streets? What did happen on the moon? Is there still an SSC research base? These questions and more will be explored NEXT TIME ON….OPERATION OUTREACH!

    and now I'll stop posting in this thread until other people post. Is anyone else playing? It's really cool so far! Combat's very fun and the comp/con program helps SO MUCH.

  • hlprmnkyhlprmnky Registered User regular
    I’m not playing Lancer yet but I did find out about it from the holiday TTRPG thread and immediately purchased it for myself, and have had a blast reading the lore and getting my mind around the rules. I don’t have and am unlikely to blunder into a local gaming group, so reading the accounts of your games is highly valuable to at least me. Please continue!

    _
    Your Ad Here! Reasonable Rates!
  • SarksusSarksus ATTACK AND DETHRONE GODRegistered User regular
    I'm worried I'm going to miss Stanley's 2PM brain scan appointment.

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    https://compcon.app/#/

    Comp/Con 2.0 is out, which is a website now! You can create characters, play with mech loadouts, setup encounters, etc. It's really awesome and I use it to create all our bad guy fights and the players use it to create their characters!

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    Sarksus wrote: »
    I'm worried I'm going to miss Stanley's 2PM brain scan appointment.

    RIP Stanley

    So, last session!

    The players awake in the morning. On the farm, Karna and Artak slept soundly and well, waking up bright and early to the sound of a subaltern bot announcing that it was time for them to wake up and assist with the morning breakfast. They are asked to gather eggs and take them to the house's cellar. They agree, and one of them asks "Wait, how big are the eggs?" Smash cut to them managing a wheelbarrow with a single egg the size of a person down the stairs to the house cellar.

    In Stillville, Isaiah, Kali, and Nackle awoke after a fairly restless night. The sound of the wind moaning through the streets kept them from sleeping well. Nackle's fecat wrestled itself away and ran off into the streets and after doing some individual tasks, two of them headed out to the farm to meet up with Karna and Artak. Before heading off, Nackle went to speak with the law enforcement of the town and took a car to the station. He crossed over a river that cut through town and noticed an island base situated in the middle of the large body of water, protected by patrolling mechs and automated drones. At the sheriff's office, a subaltern secretary asked him to fill out some paperwork and he complied, but was dismayed to be told he'd be able to meet with a detective in 999999 days. So, Nackle did a bit of hacking and found that the folder containing schedules and personnel files was completely empty. He set off to the farm.

    At the farm Isaiah hit it off with Jone Smithy and sat down for breakfast while Karna and Artak finished up their morning chores. The rest of the crew arrived and Jone gave them a bit more information. He agreed to give them his slot on the town printer for their mechs if they agreed to deal with the bugs near the farm, while also agreeing to print their mechs with a remote disabling trigger so if they tried to run off without doing his task, he could stop them. Not happy with this, but not seeing much in the way of another option, they agreed. Jone also told them about a doctor he had been working with at Experimental Liquors who was making experimental fertilizer for him. Her name was Dr. Phyllis and he hadn't heard from her in some time. Nackle asked about the wedding ring he had found and Jone exclaimed with surprise that Dr. Phyllis was the only one to his knowledge who still wore such an archaic thing. He asked them to please try and find out what happened to her. Nackle also mentioned the weird island base and was told it was the SSC research base, but only a few people were ever allowed to go there.

    The group headed back to town and agreed to split up. Karna wanted to make it back to the doctor's office for Stanley's appointment, while others wanted to go investigate Experimental Liquors. Not twenty feet from the bus station by the hospital, Karna stepped in a small puddle of blood and was aghast to find a bloodsoaked appointment card belonging to Stanley. A moment later, a cleaning drone arrived to spray down the area but Karna was able to dodge out of the way. The blood washed into the nearby sewer grate. Two members of the crew headed off to find where the drones were coming from, while the rest went over to experimental liquors. Except for Nackle, who decided to go get drunk.

    Behind the hospital, at a small building the size of a backyard shed, Isaiah and...Karna, I think (I forgot it's been too long) found that the drones were being auto printed and deployed here to clean up messes around town. They checked the computer system and found that more drones were being made than were returning and wondered if every drone that broke down was a missing person/murder. They broke down the door and disabled the system.

    At experimental liquors, The crew asked the desk secretary subaltern if a Dr. Phyllis was in and were told they had no record of a Dr. Phyllis ever existing. They went outside to discuss and were a little taken aback by a stranger standing with their group as if he belonged. When questioned, the man said that he knew Dr. Phyllis and could show them where the Doctor lived. However, this man didn't seem to be all there, speaking erratically and confusingly, if also pretty cheerfully. Still, with no other leads they followed. The man led them a bit across town and started circling a building. After a few laps they stopped to ask what was going on and the man went inside the building, a three story apartment building.

    Inside they were surprised to find that things had been destroyed. Sunlight streamed in on a river of sewage and grass growing up around an escape pod that had smashed through the three floors of the building. The man clambered over wreckage and up to the escape pod, merrily chatting with them as he went. They surmised that this escape pod must have been the counterpart to the one they took from the moon and checked the interior. They found some security footage of a man entering, holding something under his arm. On the video screen the footage was glitchy and fuzzy around the thing the man was carrying but they could tell it had a vague oval shape. An egg? asked one of the players. The man moved with jerking motions and turned back to the entrance of the pod, firing a weapon out of the open hatch. He buckled in the object and sat down next to it. The footage shook as the escape pod apparently blasted off and landed a few minutes later. The man took the object and left the pod.

    The strange fellow that led them here (who did not look like the guy on the footage, if that wasn't clear) pointed out that part of the wreckage of the building used to be the room of Dr. Phyllis. While the crew debated how to get up there, the man climbed up himself and, in a daze, fell and broke his neck. But luckily he knocked a bedside table down as well! Inside was a personal journal of Dr. Phyllis that contained the following entry:
    “The fungal applications are quite impressive. By using the latent cave growths help and combining those with small samples of riverwater me, we are able to create a fertilizer base that is quite potent it and repels insects. This may have two applications watches as a repellent as well as an attractant through. windows The brown grows and repels, the blue kills and attracts.” -Entry saved at 11:54 pm, 3 weeks ago

    In addition, they found some mention of her work at Experimental Liquors, including talking about her office. A moment later, a ping hit all of their comms. They had received a message that scrolled by in text form. Nackle also received it, despite being back at the bar.


    >//DATALOG CONTACT:::
    >//EIKEV CONTACT:::
    >//EMERGENCY CONTACT FOR THE FALCONS THAT CANNOT HEAR:::
    >//YOU ARE VEXED TO NIGHTMARE BY THE ROCKING CRADLE:::
    >//YOU CANNOT HEAR:::
    >//YOU CANNOT HEAR:::
    >//TRANSMISSION ENDED/INTERRUPTED
    >//BE WARY:::
    >//BE WARY:::
    >//BE WARY:::


    Slightly disturbed by all the disturbing messages, the group met up at Experimental Liquors. Nackle and Kali went inside and were given a tour of the facility. On the main floor they found several scientists engaged in creating weird new liquors and flavors for liquors and generally being rather drunk. But not a one of them would lay their eyes on the shadowy corner where the door to Dr. Phyllis's office clearly was. Inside, Nackle found two vials of liquid, one blue, one brown, and another copy of her journal. The crew left experimental liquors, and that's where we left off!

    Mysteries are slowly becoming unraveled. More mysteries are being discovered! We haven't had combat in two weeks! But surely that will change soon?!

  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    It's been a few weeks! Here's some recap:

    The players took the experimantal fertilizer back to Jone Smithy, choosing to travel during the day this time for obvious reasons. Jone seemed a little distracted but was happy to receive them. His front entryway was littered with various toys and building blocks and the players had the avoid the most deadly of traps, stepping on a lego. When asked about these, Jone seemed distant and confused. He didn't acknowledge the blocks on the floor. When asked directly about his son, Jone scoffed. "I've never had a son." he said.

    The players's NHPs spoke up in unison. "Ontological synergistic co-synchronization possible. Recommend proceeding for further calculation comprehension and capabilities. Will be unavailable for the duration of processing. Continue?" The players tried to ask what this meant and only received an answer that the processing power would be "enhanced." After some deliberation, they agreed and both NHPs fell silent.

    They handed him the fertilizer and he removed the lock on their mechs. Determined to figure out what was going on, the players assaulted the SSC base in the middle of the river. Despite the base broadcasting tons of warnings to them to back the hell up, they waded through the river and fired on the drones and automated defenses. They noticed a strange whirlpool popping up in the river as they approached the base, tilting the flow of the water towards it, but ultimately it caused them no problem so they simply entered the base instead.

    After a long elevator ride down into the island base, they emerged into a mech sized research facility that was completely empty. Flanking the main hallway were various labs and offices designed for mechanized protection and experimentation. Kali and Jimmy hopped out of their mechs and broke into a computer room, hacking the logs to find some information. In here they found two rather pertinent bits of info. For one, the person they saw in the escape pod footage had entered this base. Shortly afterwards, people stopped entering and leaving. That had happened a few days ago. Second, they discovered that 36 hours before a shipment of "fertilizer" had been sent to the capital city of Araville, with a note saying it was to be immediately dispersed into the soil and the city's water supply.

    Deeper inside the rest of the party found tubes full of strange shaped and liquids sitting in mech sized laboratories. One particular contained held a long snake like thing, not moving, but pressed up against the glass. A huge head at the end of a long wavy neck. The head's jaw was distended and full of terrible long teeth but there were no eyes where eyes should be.

    They followed the signs to the "Main Lab" after meeting back up with Kali and Jimmy, noticing that breakrooms and labs alike seemed to have been abandoned suddenly. Sandwiches from lunch breaks, moldy and half eaten, continued to rot on tables. There was no sign of a struggle, it was as if everyone just got up and left peacefully.

    Inside the Main Lab they found a large waiting room area that branched into three separate rooms. The waiting room was a scene of a bit more chaos. Long scratched out gouges full of black ichor and blood decorated all surfaces of the room. Chairs were turned over, monitors broken, general signs of a struggle littered the room. The main lab's three branching areas were labeled Laser Lab, Agricultural Lab, and Gate Lab.

    They started with the laser lab. In here a huge laser apparatus was still half working, swirling a green laser pointer aimlessly around the room. On the floor, inch thick shimmering dust coated everything. After some investigation they determined that this dust was actually mirrors. The laser storeroom's backup mirrors had been completely crushed and any sort of mirror in the surrounding area (And even in the bathrooms!) had been removed and turned into dust.

    They moved on to the agricultural room. Here they found a large indoor field lit by sunlamps, huge stalks of genetically engineered megawheat and plots of open and empty farmland. Not seeing much of interest, they moved on to the gate lab. Before they opened the door, the PA system crackled to life. "Hello. You're not supposed to be here. It says you need to leave. Please leave. Thank you!" said a calm male voice.

    Ignoring this warning, they entered the Gate lab. After a ride down a small elevator they arrived in an observation room. A platform full of desks and computers with a glass window separating them from the rest of the room overlooked a rock and dirt room. In the center, a half finished gate, looking very similar to the one they had seen on the moon. Next to it, a massive mech, lifting huge chunks of strange stone and placing them against the gate before using gargantuan flamethrowers to weld the rocks to one another. The man piloting the mech muttered to himself, audible through his external speakers. "Turning and turning i can hear it turning turning the wheels, open the gates open the gates open the gates." They approached and he went wild, attacking them with fire. Boss Fight! That session ended after a few rounds of everyone getting thoroughly scorched and suffering quite a bit of burn damage. The thing was slow, but it had a decent range with multiple flame throwers a round firing in multiple directions, plus a heat shield so strong it could melt projectiles that fired through it.

    But before the session ended, the NHPs woke back up! Ontological synergistic co-synchronization complete. Activate countermeasures? Sure, I guess? The pilots activated the countermeasures after being warned they would only last a few minutes. All 5 pilots saw their cockpit screen shimmer and go opaque for a moment before shimmering again. The sound from outside the cockpit was muted and now they could see something they couldn't see before. Rising up out of two holes surrounding the half built gate were two huge heads on massive swaying necks. Bent like snakes and swaying back and forth, these were larger versions of the thing they saw in the tubes earlier and these had eyes. Or rather, holes where the eyes would go. The lower jaw hung loosely and sunken black pits stared with fascination at the mechs fighting around the gate. One leaned in close to Nackle, peering at him, taking up his entire vision.

    Thanks to @wafflesmagee who plays Kali for drawing up a token for me to represent them:

    4hal7ayyqy63.png


    In the session we had last night the players continued battling the pyromancer mech and discussed what to do about the heads. Isaiah decided to attack one, throwing knives into the neck of one and then attempting to hack it, just in case. Interestingly enough, this sort of worked. A million corrupted text SSIDs appeared on his terminal as he aimed a laser network target at the thing and he uploaded an attack payload. Although the sound in their cockpits was muted, it appeared to shriek in pain and withdrew into the hole. The other one whipped across the room, fifty more feet of neck coming out of the ground and got directly into Isaiah's face, opening it's mouth and screaming at him. Isaiah could feel waves of pure hatred and dread wash across him, though muted by the countermeasures, it still managed to crack a spiderweb across the glass of his cockpit before it too descended into the hole.

    A moment later, the pyro mech started motioning to them that it wanted help. It stopped attacking. "Countermeasures unavailable." chimed the NHPs. With some clever positioning and good rolls, they sliced the dangerous exposed reactor off of it's back and tossed the reactor down the hole. The hole that had contained...well, they weren't sure. They couldn't remember. Still, they scooped up the man inside the mech and darted back out into the hallway as the reactor went critical and exploded.

    Here they interrogated the man who seemed to be going a little crazy, talking about how it made him do it and it send the fertilizer that wasn't fertilizer and it was already on the way. Having had several hints about mirrors, Kali used her tablet that she had converted into a mirror to look at the man's reflection. He was covered in tiny little versions of the heads, waving and frilling about. After showing this to the group, Isaiah became so distraught that he used his mech's knife to instantly kill the man. They quickly realized that when not looking at the reflection, they forgot the little heads.

    A voice crackled to life on the speakers, sputtering and smoking out of the PA system. "I am so tired of you," it rasped. "So tired. Leave me alone. Leave. Citizens of Stillville, you are mine now. Kill these offworlders. Kill these intruders."


    The party now had a decision to make. Though their memories were clearly faulty, the players themselves obviously remembered what had happened. In game terms, their brains were wrestling with the incongruity of the situation. Something was wrong, but what? And how to deal with it? So, two options then. Either go back into the room, and go look for whatever "it" was that the pyro man kept talking about. Or, head to the capital city of Araville to try and stop the shipment before it could cause serious damage. After much deliberation, they decided to go to Araville.

    Making their way back up to the surface they were contacted by their ship in orbit! Both Dmitri and Tosh mentioned the other acting suspicious, whereas Sal was just glad to hear their voices. Unfortunately, they also noticed the town of Stillville seemed to be quite a bit on fire. People were amassing along the river and on the bridge, firing small arms at them. They hopped on a barge and made their way towards land. A massive catapult cannon fired upon them and Isaiah was struck by a tractor. The townsfolk had rigged up a cannon that could launch entire pieces of farming machinery at them. Luckily his mech had a teleportation ability and was able to quickly reappear on the barge. The same whirlpool from earlier opened up and this time Kali used her mirror to look at the whirlpool in the reflection. Towering up out of the water was a massive neck, stretching as tall as a skyscraper, a swaying head and soulless eyes staring down at them. Artak fired towards it on the direction of Kali, but unable to see the threat himself missed. Still underfire by townsfolk, they fled into the city. The party hacked a bus stop and called up some hovercards, hacking those even further and using them as mech rollerskates to increase their speed in order to get to Araville as fast as possible. Isaiah took it one step further and over boosted his car, cutting his time in half at the risk of some serious damage along the way.

    Isaiah arrived first, greeted with some hostility by security as he was traveling several hundred miles an hour on a radioactive car. He stopped it abruptly and crashed into the pavement, demanding to be taken to the SSC base. They took him, leaving his wrecked mech behind, but didn't seem to like his answers and locked him a holding cell. Hours later, the rest of the group arrived and had similar altercations with security. Artak used his NHP to fend off the police while the rest fled to the spaceport, hoping to find a ship to get off world. They did, but found it to be guarded by several security mechs. Meanwhile in the SSC base, all hell had broken loose. The lights flickered and fires were started. People were either screaming and fleeing or screaming and chasing. A scientist entered the room with Isaiah and asked him to put his hand in a case. The case contained a mirror and some dirt, but in the mirror a small lumpy egg like object wriggled around, growing other heads, the same heads that had stared at them with those sunken black eyes. This was the fertilizer that had been sent.

    A heroic and daring escape occurred, with Isaiah destroying every bit of the "fertilizer" he could find. He sprinted down some steps to a scientist loading the eggs into a drone and managed a natural 20 to beam the scientist in the head with a three hole punch (a laser three hole punch!) from a good hundred feet away. He smashed the drone and the eggs and found another supply chain room with even more drones starting to take off. He tried to smash these but was unsuccessful and they took flight through the ceiling. Luckily the rest of the party was there and successfully blasted each and every one of them out of the sky.

    But lurking on the horizon was the beast that had spoken to them, crawling towards Araville, sending the townsfolk of Stillville to explode in cars full of dynamite and fertilizer. It took over the airwaves and demanded a ship, lest it raze the town to the ground. And that's where we ended! I left out a lot of minor details because man this post got long!

    But if you haven't seen it, yes, I threw a False Hydra at them. https://goblinpunch.blogspot.com/2014/09/false-hydra.html

    Next week will be the thrilling conclusion of their time on Agraria!

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    That there is horrifying. It sounds like NHPs can detect it fine? Too bad none of your players seems to have one specific ability...

    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • SniperGuySniperGuy SniperGuyGaming Registered User regular
    I'm basically going with the NHPs can detect it to an extent, but it can detect the NHPs. The reason they've been unable to communicate with their ship is largely due to it projecting a field that disrupts signals (and also a reason they can use tech attacks on it), and it's also trying to disrupt the NHPs. Also a reason why it made them forget they took their NHPs with them off the moon base and were carrying them around in their backpacks the whole time.

  • PolaritiePolaritie Sleepy Registered User regular
    edited March 2020
    Makes sense. I'm specific thinking the technophile or whatever talent (the NHP transhumanism one), because the rank 3 of that seems like it would be really damn useful in that scenario.

    Edit: Yeah. Enlightenment-class NHP has properties that would make it harder for that thing to stop (such as physical integration with the pilot).

    Polaritie on
    Steam: Polaritie
    3DS: 0473-8507-2652
    Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
    PSN: AbEntropy
  • BrodyBrody The Watch The First ShoreRegistered User regular
    Is there anything that sets up requirements for various mech tracks? The Mourning Cloak seems crazy, and is referenced as the fancy of the fancy mechs, but I don't see anywhere that says you need to level any of the other mech tracks first.

    "I will write your name in the ruin of them. I will paint you across history in the color of their blood."

    The Monster Baru Cormorant - Seth Dickinson

    Steam: Korvalain
  • hlprmnkyhlprmnky Registered User regular
    Brody wrote: »
    Is there anything that sets up requirements for various mech tracks? The Mourning Cloak seems crazy, and is referenced as the fancy of the fancy mechs, but I don't see anywhere that says you need to level any of the other mech tracks first.
    My understanding from reading the source texts and also hanging out in the Lancer discord server is: the ruleset is balanced with the idea in mind that players should always be free to pick from any combination of frames and components that their license level grants them, without sanction.
    However, the way I read the game world is that those choices don’t always come for free just because you’re a Lancer.
    You want a Mourning Cloak for this specific mission because you think it will be helpful? Great! SSC is happy to oblige, and they hope you will understand when they ask that you stand aside as that shipping container full of confused orphans you liberate two gaming sessions from now is spirited off to SSC control for “reasons”.
    You want a Manticore because it’s badass? Indeed it is badass, Lancer, and no-one can question that fact. When the time comes to CASTIGATE THE ENEMIES OF THE GODHEAD, though, for what is your character willing to ...die? It is certainly the case that RA had some end in mind for them, but is it one for which they themselves will pay that price gladly?
    These are the questions the setting asks you to grapple with. Far beyond the future we here can foresee, humans can do things that we relative cave-people would hardly credit with truth if we did not see them with our own eyes.
    On the hexmap, that is just good, clean fun.
    In the town, after, there are needles that cannot be threaded by stacking advantage dice until you win.
    This friction is where Lancer starts to become something special.

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