After the ambush (last session), they gathered the stray camels and buried Jorn. Bandana insisted on saying a few words. The Man From The Stars was clearly heartbroken. They interrogate their prisoner (Kachkala is interested in their religious beliefs, and if there is any convenient messiah prophecy there to exploit…), but all they learn is that they belong to an extremist group of zealots that are opposed to all contact with offworlders and their technology. Eventually, Kachkala lets the prisoner go, giving him enough water to get back to the town below the Gate. Adap claimed dibs on the attackers’ laser bazooka.
The Man From The Stars revealed that his name was Gaxaue (a bushman name, one the PCs are bound to forget. Damn). He outlined the geography and politics of Jotun (the local planet) to the group – They are heading into an area that is bordered on one side by the sea (where there is a larger population) and on the other side by the Forbidden Zone, where "the ground moves".
Gaxaue tells them that he crash-landed his ship on the edge of the Forbidden Zone; He did this after being attacked by an unfamiliar hostile ship, one he suspects of being a "Dragon".
I inserted a footnote here, explaining that "Dragon" is a common term for alien robotic probes which search for life signs and exterminate them, and that these Dragons destroyed the Earth in the past, and that they are the reason that Radio communications are forbidden throughout the worlds of the Empire. Yes, I ripped this off from Greg Bear’s "Forge of God".
So, they decide to head to the crashed starship (Jack seems most keen on this – he’s sure that as a space pilot he can repair the ship). They also mount up on the camels to put some distance between themselves and any pursuit, and this emphasizes that they are a bit short on mounts.
Eventually, Gaxaue leads them to the next village, circling to the other side so as not to approach from the direction of the Gate. They announce their interest to trade for some camels, and are taken in by a local trader who offers them his hospitality, and then inquires what they have to offer. Bandana discovers that money is worthless, but his knife – good steel – is much admired. Jack is sure that the natives will admire his plastic stand of post-it notes (Oren – the player – travels too much in cabs…), but the locals are skeptical. Kachkala donates some needles and thread (she travels light), and Adap (another light traveler) get some assistance from Bandana, who sneaks him a hand-welder gadget (which will eventually run out of gas, but will be impressive until then).
Once they have their Camels, they travel the desert, a fairly uneventful trip, except that they run across some wild donkeys, and Adap insists on taming one. I let the player roll dice, and he succeeds, so a new member joins the team (however, briefly): Olaf, the ninja donkey.
Israel – Bandana’s player – had a suggestion here that perhaps Adap will use his consciousness-transfer power on the donkey and end up trapped there.
They skirt the edge of the Forbidden Zone – where the ground ends in a sheer cliff dropping down a few hundred meters to a vast sandy plain where the ground shifts and drifts, as if with an underground current – and reach Gaxaue’s ship: a black delta-wing, half buried in the sand. Gaxaue touches a dimple in the surface and an entrance ripples into existence. The inside compartment is empty and smooth-walled, but with an irregular surface, sculpted in smooth swells. Sections of wall glow with a soft light.
Gaxaue kicks off his shoes, revealing that his feet have long toes and opposable thumbs – essentially a second pair of hands, and crouches in a small depression in the floor. He slips his fingers into small foot and hand holds and the ship’s VR control interface flares into life in all its holographic splendor.
Gaxaue explains that he tried to land his ship on the planet to get to the Gate; unfortunately, he’d never done something like this – he’s part of the human cultures that live permanently off-planet, what Bandana’s player summarized as "Space Bedouins" – so he crashed while trying to land, probably because he failed to correctly modify his ship for atmospheric flight (The ship is made of some adaptive smart nano-material). Perhaps Jack, who said he was a space pilot, could help him?
Jack is eager to help, and instructs the ship on how to modify itself to fly in the atmosphere. He also instructs it to build him some familiar controls (Bo – Adap’s player – mimed a steering wheel here). He also makes sure that these modifications are military-level, not freight-hauler style.
Here I suggested that Kachkala would be invaluable in actually making Gaxaue and his ship understand Jack’s instructions – her super-social adeptness letting her bridge the considerable differences in the technical jargon between the two cultures. This, I’m sorry to say, was a sort of a GM push, that didn’t really engage the player; Ghoula – Kachkala’s player – was falling asleep at this stage.
So, Jack fixes the ship. It takes off dramatically, with Jack at the controls, once they have freed the Camels and bid a tearful farewell to Olaf the donkey, who will probably roam the dunes, dispensing justice as the planet’s only donkey master of the Gun Kata. (Mach, Bandana’s horse, travels with them, of course). They fly the ship directly back to the Gate, and it barely fits through. Bandana suggests that they head directly to the planet that is the Empire’s seat of government, which we dubbed (on the spot) Metropolis.
They all concentrate, roll dice, and transit the Gate.
The ship emerges in a sort of Jungle, huge trees – hundreds of meters tall – surround them, with jet-black leaves. As they maneuver through the jungle, they see that the jungle is inhabited – there are people on the trees, dwellings that look like wasps nests dangling from the huge branches, and a big central platform which is used by hover-rafts for landing and takeoff.
The ship identifies the planet as one of the Core worlds, the systems closest to the Imperial capital. They land on the central platform, and are greeted by a welcoming committee (who arrive on one of the hover-rafts). At the head of the welcoming committee is a dark haired woman called Orisha, who presents herself as the Consul of this jungle-city, which she calls Brazil. Bandana uses all his charm, presenting himself as a dashing frontiersman, a heroic provincial captain. He makes an appointment to debrief the Consul later in private, in her chambers. Bandana’s player envisions him as a sort of bastard son of Captain Stern – Bernie Wrightson’s character from the trail segment of the Heavy Metal movie – except with a less daunting chin. A young David Niven might also be a good analogy.
Before Orisha leads them away, Jack "locks" the spaceship and sets up some sort of communication channel with it. Since we made it clear to him that radio is forbidden – see the note about Dragons – we agreed that this is some sort of line-of-sight infra-red laser communication.
Orisha offers the visitors an opportunity to refresh, but before that she gives them a short tour of the city. It is big and populous, and the trees are both buildings, infrastructure and manufacturing plants – they see a hover-raft sprouting from a big dark seed, a grove of "fashion trees" which function as an open-air clothing bazaar, and other wonders. There are many people busy about the city, with lots of colorful uniforms – most notable are the paramilitary guards, armed with rifles of some sort, and the gardeners, specialists who tend the trees.
They retire to their rooms (apparently – and this comes from Bandana’s player, really, but it fits the pattern of scenes like this – there’s going to be a banquet later) and Bandana shows up at Orisha’s "office". There, on a low table surrounding by seating cushions, are arranged assorted flowers, the pollen or nectar of which has various intoxicating effects. Bandana proceeds to pollinate the consul (in a footnote here, I explained that sex with newly-arrived navigators – people who can traverse the Gates – is a common and old Imperial custom, since they were a sort of an Elite, and their abilities are hereditary. This, in fact, probably explains where the PCs came from…
Meanwhile, Adap goes for a stroll. The player (Boaz) asked if he could identify members of his order, and I told him they could be picked up on sight by him, since they are the ones that constantly calculate the lines of fire as they walk (Gun Kata again). As he walks along a balcony, one in fact picks him out. They exchange secret handshakes, and this person turns out to be of higher rank then Adap. "Your master has sent you to me," the man says. And we cut.
The players may or may not realize this, but the above scene runs in my head exactly like the brief dialog between the two Sith in Star Wars: Episode I – you know, Darth Maul’s only spoken line…
Overall, this was a good session, even though not much actually happened (i.e, no fight scenes). It opened up a lot of potential for future sessions, and gave us a better grasp of the game world. For example, the concept of "technology that doesn’t feel like technology" starts to come across: Mature technology has no user-serviceable parts…
Kachkala’s player expressed worries about her character before the session started, asking us for suggestions for a different concept. I’d hoped this session would allow her to get more comfortable with her character, but unfortunately nothing really interesting happened before she fell asleep. Also, the story still needs to gather some more momentum before it can engage all the players.