Mediums and Messages

Captain's GLoG - Session 9

My micro-campaign group continues to run roughshod through Desert Moon of Karth by Joel Hines. We're using a homebrewed scifi GLoGhack. You can find our previous session here. As ever, steer clear if you want to stay perfectly spoiler free on the source material.

Where to?

We rejoined the crew of the Condor as they fled Larstown, having successfully stolen the Governor's orbital access badge. The crew consisted of:

They also had Dr. Fayed, the android physician, on board as a passenger. They mostly concerned themselves with repairing their gunshot wounds.

They debated next steps and reviewed their leads, eventually deciding to head for Fort Vee Cee. Suparint Kirzen, leader of the Valley Rangers, had offered a salvaged engine in exchange for any information about living wigoy. They decided to circumnavigate Karth again, heading west.

Paranormal Activity

A few hours into their journey, as they passed by a familiar row of stony pillars, June and Belee saw something on the horizon - a flashlight turning away followed by a flash of gunfire. Lambro climbed up onto the roof with some night vision binoculars to check it out.

Some hundreds of yards ahead, 15 Valley Rangers were fighting (and fleeing from) a lady in a white dress. As Lambro watched, she grabbed one. Her touch seemed to incinerate the unfortunate ranger instantly. Lambro relayed that and Hora and Belee recognized this as the ghost they had seen before and that Lisa Krieg had hired them to "kill."

The crew decided to intervene. Belee pulled the Condor to a stop a safe distance away while Hora, Lambro, and June road out in their stolen dune buggy to get a closer look.

The away team passed a group of eight rangers, who continued to flee towards the Condor. They arrived at the top of a pillar studded dune to find the lady in white, howling into the night sky. One panicked ranger remained here, begging the crew to drive him away before fleeing into the desert when they refused.

Lambro unfurled the rug he had bought from Desperado and tried to tackle the apparition, getting little more than lightly singed for his efforts. Hora tried to focus her newfound psionic powers to get a read on the apparition, finding it so intensely sad that it maxed out her ability to detect strong emotions and appeared as a point of solid light.

Thinking on his training as a bureaucratic anthropologist, June tried to determine if the lady in white was a recognizable historical figure. He decided that she wasn't, but she was wearing clothes recognizably from his former employer, Governor Tanaka's, wardrobe. Assuming she was a former governor, he hailed her by that title and called out that they were there to help.

At the sound of the word "governor," the ghost seemed to come to a sudden realization and wailed "Tanaka!" She then turned and began walking deliberately towards Larstown.

To Fort Vee Cee

The crew decided not to press the issue. They figured that at her current pace, it would take her about 18 hours to walk the distance they had covered in a few hours in the Condor. They decided to complete their trip to Fort Vee Cee, then circle back to see what havoc the spirit might cause in town.

Back at the ship, Captain Vanda allowed the remaining Valley Rangers to board, offering them a ride to Fort Vee Cee as long as they didn't touch anything. When the rest of the crew re-embarked, they set off again, sailing the rest of the way without incident.

When they arrived at the former visitor center, they found it surrounded by a host of rangers - some 400 plus. They were drilling with weapons, marshaling supplies, and generally preparing for a largescale combat. They were challenged by a guard, but when the rescued rangers hopped out, the locals greeted the Condor amicably. Belee asked the guard where Suparint Kirzen was and they were gestured into the Vee Cee proper.

The former visitor center had been converted into a basilica. In a large central atrium, the windows had been replaced with stained glass and the ground floor had been lined with glass vitrines. Each contained the intact remains of a wigoy (perhaps millions of credits worth!). To the left and right, were annexes - former food courts and gift shops now converted into desk space and archives.

Suparint Kirzen descended from a higher floor and greeted the crew warmly. Vanda asked to meet in private, so she led them back through the food court and into a walk-in freezer. It was functioning and blessedly cool compared to the desert outside.

The crew told Kirzen about their encounter with the wigoy. She was excited by the news, but disappointed that they had given the corpse to Dr. Fayed to dissect rather than bringing it to her. She followed through on their initial bargain, providing the Condor with a salvaged engine, but only because Belee reminded her that they had just rescued some of her people as well.

The crew asked what the Valley Rangers were up to. Kirzen said she couldn't share specific details, but that they were preparing to take the fight to the Silver Spire. She also shared a bit about the Dawn Guard's social structure - apparently they were led by three ancient aristocrats who had been abusing wigoy powder's longevity enhancing powers for so long that their bodies had adapted in strange ways. They needed a constantly supply of organs in order to survive and maintained a camp of donor-serfs to harvest from.

A Brief Respite

Their meeting concluded, the crew spent a few hours resting, loading the Condor, and reflecting on their journey so far.

The Valley Rangers produced a serviceable engine - not a perfect match for the Condor's intact one, but close enough that an expert could calibrate them to allow for extra-atmospheric flight. The crew considered spending the time to attach the engine now, but figured it would take too long.

June explored the visitor center and learned about the Valley Rangers beliefs. They thought of living beings as temporary individuals that would return to a central monad spirit on death. They considered the wigoy "Teachers" and the current plight of Karth to be the result of a fall from grace. June found some intriguing details that referred to a cataclysm where Karth's orbital defense systems had misfired, scourging the entire moon in a single shower of light.

The crew sold their dune buggy to make room for the new engine in their cargo hold. They netted a clean 13kcr - enough to pay Lisa Krieg at Krieg Ranch to complete the repairs!

(This score was enough for the crew to level:

Back to Larstown

With the new engine in tow, the crew's curiosity got the better of them. They decided not to get it mounted just yet, but instead to head to Larstown and see if they could make use of the distraction caused by the lady in white's arrival.

This was another six hour return voyage. The crew mostly spent the time resting, but June worked with Dr. Fayed to analyze the "sand squid juice" the crew had looted from Valley Ranger raiders a few days back. They conducted some basic tests and found that it produced an eye-watering stench when heated. This could probably be used as a chemical weapon, but they hypothesized these were actually pheromones and could maybe be used to attract a sand squid.

Thanks to Captain Vanda's unerring tracking ability, they caught up with the specter shortly before it arrived in town. They trailed from a distance and stopped a safe distance from Larstown's auto-turret defense system. They watched as the turrets detected the ghost and fired a blast of pulse rounds that seemed only to temporarily disrupt here. She continued on and stepped through the exterior walls and into town.

The crew decided to split up: Lambro and Belee would head to the manor to see if they could use the distraction to kill Reverend Oboku once and for all. June and Hora would make for Dr. Fayed's clinic to see if they could recover the wigoy corpse, medical supplies, and some leftover wigoy powder the doctor had been hording.

GM Notes

A lot happened this session for effectively a random encounter and a rendezvous to complete a quest. I skipped over some details here and there for brevity (unlikely as that may seem!), but we spent a lot of time investigating the ghost, figuring out what was up with the Valley Rangers, and digging into the characters some.

We're really out at the extreme of what Desert Moon of Karth can support. The book provides a useful framework and great characters, but isn't really detailed in some critical ways that might be helpful. Does Suparint Kirzen trade in credits? If so, how many does she have on hand? The answer might always be "enough," but I do find myself wishing I had a little more baseline information about the factions, their resources, and specifically goods they might be able to share with the players.

I do appreciate the players angling towards trouble. I have prep should they decide to just get their engine repaired and leave Karth, but I'm also excited for next session and the inevitable hijinks sneaking through town.

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