Dicey Stories

Tric and Heppa meet with Thrandolil about their next project for him and then head back to South Tower.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

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Mariah and Cleve leave Earth aboard Unity, seeking a new life on the planet Chiron in the Alpha Centauri system. But something goes wrong on the way there.

You might be wondering why I set this campaign 30 years after planetfall rather than coincident with it. By setting it later, the world has already had some chance to develop into factions that the PCs have to deal with. This also ensures that there’s a mix of built-up regions and wild regions. A campaign starting right at landing would have involved a lot more exploration and “human vs nature” conflicts than we wanted.

I also wanted to see how the named NPCs changed over those 30 years. This gave the players something fresh to experience even with an NPC they “made.”

I did talk about the extra 30 years of cryosleep with my players before launching the campaign, however. As always, it is important to obtain consent. After all, this is a cooperative story among players and GM. I encourage groups to bounce ideas off each other (and separate player from character knowledge).

In this episode, we also hear about our first planetside faction, Morgan Industries. One of Mariah’s NPCs took inspiration from CEO Nwabudike Morgan from the Alpha Centauri video game. It was straightforward to project what 30 years of unchecked capitalism might look like on a pristine planet.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

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High Lord Volas commissions Tric and Heppa to undertake a task for him on their upcoming journey.

High Lord Volas is a character from the Battle for Wesnoth mainline campaign, Eastern Invasion. The assassination attempt we refer to is from Scenario 4a of that campaign. He does not have much dialogue in that, so his personality is mainly my invention here. His physical description is that of the Elvish High Lord unit from the video game.

This arc contains spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaigns Eastern Invasion and Northern Rebirth, with references to The South Guard.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa exchange information with Kachen before he leaves on his own job for Thrandolil.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Jump to Arcs | Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Addendum

Open Datalinks. Subject: Honest Assessment of Earth in 2100. Result:

The few billion people and perhaps half as many kind souls don't agree on much, but they do agree that Earth is ruined. The environment. The politics. The war. The Mistake. Sure, there are pockets where things are mostly okay, if you've got the credits. But you know it's gotten real bad when even the rich people want to leave. Of course, with everything so fractured, no one person or state was rich enough nor smart enough to figure out how to get away on their own. So despite all of humanity's failures, we came together for one last job.

Mars is a fool's errand; we shoot for the stars! FTL is a myth. We designed cryosleep pods to last us the 100 year journey at 5% the speed of light. We took what readings we could remotely. The new planet seems to be habitable, but we're bringing extra resource pods to be safe. Who knows, maybe one day the colonists will be able to come back and fix Earth. Or heck, maybe we can learn from this project to fix our own house rather than ruining someone else's. What’s more likely, though, is that humans never change, and they ruin the new planet before too long.

Open Datalinks. Subject: Informational Brochure on Habitable Alpha Centauri Planet. Result:

Earth is the past, but Alpha Centauri holds the future! Be one of the select 100,000 colonists to a new world! Relax in our patented Peaceful Cryosleep™ pods and wake up to a planet of limitless possibilities! But it's a one-way trip, and cellular service is limited! Remote lifescans, however, show a pristine planet brimming with flora, fauna, fungi, and fun! Perhaps you'd like to generously help fund the project, and thereby secure your place as a founding colonist. Or are you a driven scientist? Then there may be room for you in the Academy or Biogenetics modules. We want the best in many disciplines. There are many ways to join and contribute to Humanity's greatest achievement! Competitive positions are limited, so act now!

Welcome to the newest campaign by Dicey Stories! Alpha Centauri: Chronicles of Chiron takes place in a sci-fi setting exploring humanity’s attempt to escape Earth’s problems on a new planet. While the focus is on our two PCs, the overall story is also at times political. Where my StarCraft campaign was more on the sillier side, I’m trying to grow as a GM by running a more narratively-driven dramatic campaign. Some concepts we address head-on are finding a place to belong, duty versus obligation, the environmental impact of human expansion, cycles of wealth inequality, and revenge.

Alpha Centauri: Chronicles of Chiron is played using the Genesys roleplaying system now published by Edge Studio. We also occasionally reference the Mythic Game Master Emulator’s event meaning tables for inspiration. The release of each episode’s audio will be accompanied by a serialized, narrative write-up of the adventure. This time, they will primarily be written first-person from the point of view of one of the PCs.

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and its expansion, Alien Crossfire, are the most direct inspirations

The Estbryn Forest council decides Kachen’s fate.

I really enjoy the social components of the Genesys system. I like learning characters’ motivations and leaning on them when I can. I like the way social combat helps flesh out an exchange and gives players an opportunity to both gain and lose ground simultaneously. I was excited to have the chance to try out this different kind of social scene, an adjudicated encounter. Although we don’t have many more opportunities to use I Declare this way in the rest of the campaign, we really liked some of the concepts in it. Social weapons (in the form of material) and additional social maneuvers fit quite easily into Genesys and provide some additional spice for social-heavy campaigns. For that reason, even if you don’t see yourself running an adjudicated encounter ever, I still recommend this supplement to expand your social encounter toolkit. At the low, low price of pay-what-you-want, it’s definitely worth the investment. You can find it in the Genesys Foundry at DriveThruRPG here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/349232/I-Declare

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa take a stab at defending Kachen before High Lord Volas and the council.

This arc contains spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaigns Eastern Invasion and Northern Rebirth.

This arc uses a Genesys supplement called I Declare! Adjudicated Social Encounters for Genesys by Micah-Shalom “FatCrab” Kesselman. I do my best to explain its mechanics to my players at the start of this episode, but any mistakes in that are my own. If you’re interested in reading it for yourself, it’s available as pay-what-you-want in the Genesys Foundry at DriveThruRPG here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/349232/I-Declare. I’ll talk more about my impressions of it at the end of the next episode.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Heppa and Tric continue their fighting retreat as the undead menace approaches the population center of Estbryn Forest.

In this arc, we see a few new units from the Battle for Wesnoth video game. The Revenant is one of those units. The Wolves, too. In the video game’s campaign Secrets of the Ancients, you can raise Wolves into Walking Corpses, so that was what inspired me here.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

The Battle for Estbryn Forest begins with a skirmish between elves and undead in a wooded gully.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

The elves of Estbryn Forest prepare to face a new threat.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!