Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Triton Core: Flowers McGee
One of my players in the Triton Core campaign asked me for some help. He usually plays the same type of character; a stubborn group leader who tends to throw murderous tantrums if he doesn't get his way. The trigger-happy spoiled son of a mob boss, if you will. He's bored of that, so he wanted help in breaking that mold.
I 'helped' by making him Flowers McGee, detailed below. He's going to try to play her. It should be interesting. :)
Flowers McGee
Flowers McGee is a kind, considerate, non-violent, and somewhat nosy woman who is addicted to helping those in need. She has a green thumb, loves animals, is very well traveled, and can squeeze out more raw power from an industrial fusion core repulsor system than most engineers in the Coalition Peacekeeping fleet. She goes no-where without her big, floppy hat and incense bag, hangs out with aliens, and is a permanent light-weight at a bar.
Flowers was born 32 years ago on the planet Beringia. Her parents were rangers at the Beringia Reserve, a Terran lifeform preserve located at the temperate equator of the mostly icy planet. Flowers grew up taking care of the mustang and other migratory herds at the Reserve, and tending the gardens located at each ranger station. She dreamed of becoming a Ranger, but needed to earn the equivalent of a Master's degree to do so.
While attending university at the capital, Pacem Urbem, Flowers discovered the Coalition Peace Corp, and joined for the summer to help the starving children and refugees from war-torn and poverty-stricken areas throughout the Coalition of Twelve Systems. Soon she found that for all her training, she was completely unprepared to help. The Corp put her to work on their fleet of relief ships doing menial work.
When the Relief Fleet arrived at the Constansia asteroid belt, the plight of the migrant miners and their families pulled at her heartstrings, and she worked diligently to feed them and teach them how to create hydroponic gardens. Flowers did not return to the university, instead hiring on full time with the Coalition Peace Corp Relief Fleet.
A decade later, in-fighting within the Coalition led to huge cut-backs in the Peace Corp funding. Out of a job, Flowers joined the Helping Hands, a group of ex-Peace Corp members attempting to do the same thing, though funded by direct donations. Flowers commanded her own relief ship for a while, but returned to planet-side work so she could be more fulfilled in hands-on activities.
A few years later, Helping Hands came into legal trouble when it was discovered that the Board members were not only siphoning profits, but that part of the Relief Fleet was being used for gun-running activities. Flowers found herself out of a job again.
After a period of mourning, Flowers got passage on a tramp steamer headed for the nearest military conflict with the intention of helping the victims of the violence there any way she knew how. That conflict was the invasion of the Gnade system by the militaristic Haifeng, which is where the campaign begins.
GURPS Character Sheet
Name: Flowers McGee
Race: Human
Attributes [80]
ST 10
DX 11 [20]
IQ 13 [60]
HT 10
HP 10
Will 13
Per 13
FP 10
Basic Speed 5.25
Social Background
TL: 10 [0]
Languages: Chinese (Broken/None) [1]; English (Native) [0]; German (Broken/None) [1].
Advantages [29]
Animal Friend (1) [5]
Green Thumb (1) [5]
Telecommunication (Radio) (Reduced Range (x1/10); Secure; Sensie) [17]
Wireless Neural Interface [17]
Disadvantages [-45]
Charitable (12 or less) [-15]
Impulsiveness (12 or less) [-10]
Pacifism (Self-Defense Only) [-15]
Selfless (12 or less) [-5]
Quirks [-5]
Alcohol Intolerance [-1]
Broad-Minded [-1]
Habit (wears a floppy hat) [-1]
Nosy [-1]
Trademark (leaves incense) [-1]
Skills [41]
Animal Handling (Equines) IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [1]
Area Knowledge (Beringia Preserve) IQ/E - IQ+0 13 [1]
Biology/TL10 (Earthlike) IQ/VH - IQ-2 11 [1]
Camouflage IQ/E - IQ+0 13 [1]
Climbing DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Cooking IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Diplomacy IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [2]
First Aid/TL10 (Human) IQ/E - IQ+0 13 [1]
Free Fall DX/A - DX-1 10 [1]
Gardening IQ/E - IQ+1 14 [1]
Hiking HT/A - HT-1 9 [1]
Judo DX/H - DX-2 9 [1]
Machinist/TL10 IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Mechanic/TL10 (Low-Performance Spacecraft) IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [2]
Musical Instrument (guitar) IQ/H - IQ-2 11 [1]
Naturalist (Garden Worlds) IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [1]
Navigation/TL10 (Land) IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Navigation/TL10 (Space) IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Pharmacy/TL10 (Herbal) IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [2]
Piloting/TL10 (Contragravity) DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Piloting/TL10 (Low-Performance Spacecraft) DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Public Speaking IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [2]
Riding (Equines) DX/A - DX+0 11 [1]
Running HT/A - HT-1 9 [1]
Scrounging Per/E - Per+0 13 [1]
Spacer/TL10 IQ/E - IQ+1 14 [2]
Survival (Woodlands) Per/A - Per-1 12 [1]
Swimming HT/E - HT+0 10 [1]
Teaching IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [2]
Vacc Suit/TL10 DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Veterinary/TL10 (genral practice) IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [1]
Stats [80] Ads [29] Disads [-45] Quirks [-5] Skills [41] = Total [100]
- Ark
I 'helped' by making him Flowers McGee, detailed below. He's going to try to play her. It should be interesting. :)
Flowers McGee
Flowers McGee is a kind, considerate, non-violent, and somewhat nosy woman who is addicted to helping those in need. She has a green thumb, loves animals, is very well traveled, and can squeeze out more raw power from an industrial fusion core repulsor system than most engineers in the Coalition Peacekeeping fleet. She goes no-where without her big, floppy hat and incense bag, hangs out with aliens, and is a permanent light-weight at a bar.
Flowers was born 32 years ago on the planet Beringia. Her parents were rangers at the Beringia Reserve, a Terran lifeform preserve located at the temperate equator of the mostly icy planet. Flowers grew up taking care of the mustang and other migratory herds at the Reserve, and tending the gardens located at each ranger station. She dreamed of becoming a Ranger, but needed to earn the equivalent of a Master's degree to do so.
While attending university at the capital, Pacem Urbem, Flowers discovered the Coalition Peace Corp, and joined for the summer to help the starving children and refugees from war-torn and poverty-stricken areas throughout the Coalition of Twelve Systems. Soon she found that for all her training, she was completely unprepared to help. The Corp put her to work on their fleet of relief ships doing menial work.
When the Relief Fleet arrived at the Constansia asteroid belt, the plight of the migrant miners and their families pulled at her heartstrings, and she worked diligently to feed them and teach them how to create hydroponic gardens. Flowers did not return to the university, instead hiring on full time with the Coalition Peace Corp Relief Fleet.
A decade later, in-fighting within the Coalition led to huge cut-backs in the Peace Corp funding. Out of a job, Flowers joined the Helping Hands, a group of ex-Peace Corp members attempting to do the same thing, though funded by direct donations. Flowers commanded her own relief ship for a while, but returned to planet-side work so she could be more fulfilled in hands-on activities.
A few years later, Helping Hands came into legal trouble when it was discovered that the Board members were not only siphoning profits, but that part of the Relief Fleet was being used for gun-running activities. Flowers found herself out of a job again.
After a period of mourning, Flowers got passage on a tramp steamer headed for the nearest military conflict with the intention of helping the victims of the violence there any way she knew how. That conflict was the invasion of the Gnade system by the militaristic Haifeng, which is where the campaign begins.
GURPS Character Sheet
Name: Flowers McGee
Race: Human
Attributes [80]
ST 10
DX 11 [20]
IQ 13 [60]
HT 10
HP 10
Will 13
Per 13
FP 10
Basic Speed 5.25
Social Background
TL: 10 [0]
Languages: Chinese (Broken/None) [1]; English (Native) [0]; German (Broken/None) [1].
Advantages [29]
Animal Friend (1) [5]
Green Thumb (1) [5]
Telecommunication (Radio) (Reduced Range (x1/10); Secure; Sensie) [17]
Wireless Neural Interface [17]
Disadvantages [-45]
Charitable (12 or less) [-15]
Impulsiveness (12 or less) [-10]
Pacifism (Self-Defense Only) [-15]
Selfless (12 or less) [-5]
Quirks [-5]
Alcohol Intolerance [-1]
Broad-Minded [-1]
Habit (wears a floppy hat) [-1]
Nosy [-1]
Trademark (leaves incense) [-1]
Skills [41]
Animal Handling (Equines) IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [1]
Area Knowledge (Beringia Preserve) IQ/E - IQ+0 13 [1]
Biology/TL10 (Earthlike) IQ/VH - IQ-2 11 [1]
Camouflage IQ/E - IQ+0 13 [1]
Climbing DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Cooking IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Diplomacy IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [2]
First Aid/TL10 (Human) IQ/E - IQ+0 13 [1]
Free Fall DX/A - DX-1 10 [1]
Gardening IQ/E - IQ+1 14 [1]
Hiking HT/A - HT-1 9 [1]
Judo DX/H - DX-2 9 [1]
Machinist/TL10 IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Mechanic/TL10 (Low-Performance Spacecraft) IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [2]
Musical Instrument (guitar) IQ/H - IQ-2 11 [1]
Naturalist (Garden Worlds) IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [1]
Navigation/TL10 (Land) IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Navigation/TL10 (Space) IQ/A - IQ-1 12 [1]
Pharmacy/TL10 (Herbal) IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [2]
Piloting/TL10 (Contragravity) DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Piloting/TL10 (Low-Performance Spacecraft) DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Public Speaking IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [2]
Riding (Equines) DX/A - DX+0 11 [1]
Running HT/A - HT-1 9 [1]
Scrounging Per/E - Per+0 13 [1]
Spacer/TL10 IQ/E - IQ+1 14 [2]
Survival (Woodlands) Per/A - Per-1 12 [1]
Swimming HT/E - HT+0 10 [1]
Teaching IQ/A - IQ+0 13 [2]
Vacc Suit/TL10 DX/A - DX+0 11 [2]
Veterinary/TL10 (genral practice) IQ/H - IQ-1 12 [1]
Stats [80] Ads [29] Disads [-45] Quirks [-5] Skills [41] = Total [100]
- Ark
Monday, May 18, 2015
Petty Gods (Revised & Expanded Edition)
A little book project that I contributed art and text to was published today. Well, 'little' is a misnomer. It's like a jagillion pages of awesome. Go learn about it over at Save vs. Dragon.
blurb:
"EXPANDED PETTY GODS COMPENDIUM provides Old School referees with a slew of new, weird minor deities and godlings, for use in rounding out their campaigns. This book includes over 325 petty gods, plus over 115 minions, knights & servitors. It also includes information for a dozen cults, over 60 divine items, and over 55 new spells, along with a host of other petty-god-related gaming material! This product is a work of the generosity of the Old-school Role-playing Community. All contributors to this work volunteered their time and effort without pay. This book is being sold at cost, and no profit will be made from it."
- Ark
blurb:
"EXPANDED PETTY GODS COMPENDIUM provides Old School referees with a slew of new, weird minor deities and godlings, for use in rounding out their campaigns. This book includes over 325 petty gods, plus over 115 minions, knights & servitors. It also includes information for a dozen cults, over 60 divine items, and over 55 new spells, along with a host of other petty-god-related gaming material! This product is a work of the generosity of the Old-school Role-playing Community. All contributors to this work volunteered their time and effort without pay. This book is being sold at cost, and no profit will be made from it."
- Ark
Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Disco Barbie
Recently, I've been getting tired of the limits with good old pencil and paper, and have been playing with digital again. This is a drawing of a Deviant Art member that I drew with Manga Studio, an art package that I'm testing out. It's pretty nifty.
Enjoy. :)
- Ark
Monday, May 11, 2015
Triton Core: Overview
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| The Coalition of Twelve Systems |
Centuries of infowar have corrupted mankind's racial memory irreparably. Only religious zealots can say with certainty how humanity spread amongst the stars. Researchers estimate that we stumbled onto the galactic wormhole network a least a thousand years ago. Most likely, humanity didn't invent the wormhole network, but quickly learned how to utilize it to colonize thousands of worlds. Then, some five centuries ago, the wormhole network shut down.
At that time, people did not own the cities they lived in. People did not own their transportation systems, power generators, construction equipment, or food growth vats. Our ancestors simply rented these things from far away superbrains that required constant payment. The equipment failed when the wormhole network shut down and the superbrains could not be paid. Power systems ceased to function. Antigrav devices fell from the sky. Entire cities melted back into the nanitic goo from which they had been formed.
Paranoid survivalists and religious cults, long afraid of the superbrains, used their horded retro-tech to survive the Nanocaust. Our current societies were built from this post-apocalyptic melting pot. Eventually we returned to the wormholes with the dream of reopening them.
Around each wormhole orbits a moon-sized API called a Triton Core. Eventually, it was learned that the control codes for each Triton Core had been encrypted. Decades were needed to crack the coding around each Triton Core, but it was feasible. Finally, we began to reconnect with our neighbors.
After 50 years, we had connected 12 inhabited systems. In a euphoric haze, the Coalition of Twelve Systems was created with the purpose of forging a permanent era of peace and prosperity. As we know, that dream failed rather quickly and has left us in the unstable political mess we live in today - but that is another story.
- Ark
Sunday, May 10, 2015
GURPS Space: Triton Core
On Saturday, we had the inaugural game of Triton Core, a science fiction campaign run with the GURPS ruleset and set in a Stars Without Number type universe with the serial numbers filed off. We've been playing two D&D games a week in the Forgotten Realms for almost a year and I felt it was time to scratch the space itch again. Currently Triton Core is an unscheduled pick-up game, but may evolve to have more scheduling structure.
The initial game went really well, with the players investigating the disappearance of a flighty cartographer deep within an icy moon on the edge of nowhere. Since the game will have less regularity than others we've played, I've decided to post game logs and other data to this blog for easy access. And I think I'll use this page in particular for a table of contents for game related posts. So look for those below at a later date.
Enjoy or ignore at your discretion. :)
Posts
- Ark
The initial game went really well, with the players investigating the disappearance of a flighty cartographer deep within an icy moon on the edge of nowhere. Since the game will have less regularity than others we've played, I've decided to post game logs and other data to this blog for easy access. And I think I'll use this page in particular for a table of contents for game related posts. So look for those below at a later date.
Enjoy or ignore at your discretion. :)
Posts
- Overview
- Vacant Stub . . .
- Ark
Tuesday, April 28, 2015
Mother of Dragons - No Really - Just Not The One You Are Thinking Of
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| A drawing of Lady Sarafina that I am not completely embarrassed about. |
I began playing Lady Sarafina some nine or ten months ago. Originally the noble fighter pregen in the D&D 5e Starter Set, she grew into an 11th level battle master and 4th level scion of Siamorphe, and probably my favorite pc to role play ever. Soon after the completion of the the Lost Mines of Phandelver adventure, she announced her claim on all lands within 50 miles of the town of Phandalin, and made those claims stick with the Lords Alliance. Sarafina is a 4' 11", loud, calculating, manipulative, elitist, murderous, racist, power hungry tyrant who always gets her way. Well, mostly. The DM - and other party members - throw wrenches into her plans whenever possible.
Take the whole marriage thing for example . . .
Sarafina poured all of her spare money into the town of Phandalin, making it the capital of her empire. As she was busy attracting human and dwarven settlers to work in her mines, Sir Kriev, her dragonborn adventuring companion and childhood friend, began his own crusade to attract settlers. But Sir Kriev, being a progressive, liberal sort of dragonborn cleric of Bahamut, brought in goblins, hobgoblins, and ogres into Sarafina's pristine town. Sarafina had a fit, and made them all move outside the city walls - such creatures being unfit to live near decent folk. In fact, he advertised to all sorts of 'sub-humans' as Lady Sarafina liked to refer to the denizens of the Monster Manual.
After a few more adventures, the town was a busy, successful place, and Sarafina's noble father began encouraging her to have children and continue the family line. Well, his method of encouragement involved threatening to disown her and strip her of all her noble titles and benefits. So she began a search for a suitable rich, powerful, noble husband to produce a litter of offspring with.
Saber from Fate Zero, but will do as a stand in for Lady Sarafina.
|
About that time, a mysterious nobleman arrived in town, bought a plot of land, and erected a handsome estate. Sarafina set her spies upon him, digging into his past. Eventually she verified that Earl Cassian Everet from Marsember was the real deal - a bonafide Cormyrian nobleman who had decided to retire peacefully many miles away from home.
Sarafina badgered him into wedded bliss.
Playing a grumpy pregnant woman with vericose veins dispatching subterranean monsters with her two-handed axe was great fun. But eventually, downtime became inevitable so she could give birth. I normally write vignettes involving all of the pcs during these downtimes, and send them to the group. But the DM asked me to stop writing just before Sarafina gave birth, as he had a surprise for me and the noblewoman.
It turned out that Earl Cassian Everet, Sarafina's much abused husband, was, in fact, a silver dragon. He was a victim of a family curse to appear in human form most of the time, and his lips were magically sealed, preventing him from discussing his affliction with non-dragons who didn't know already. The Earl had shown up in Phandalin because the dragonborn Sir Kriev had advertised the town as a safe place for non-humans - and had NOT shown up because Sarafina was looking for a husband. It had been just a horrible, horrible coincidence.
The DM and all of the other players had known the the Earl of was a dragon the moment Sarafina began 'courting' him - EXCEPT ME.
Sheesh.
The DM and I sat down to figure out what would happen with the pregnancy. Both the DM and I absolutely HATE the official version of the half-dragon - and the dragonborn, for that matter - thus I was given leeway to do something else.
So Sarafina, in a big surprise reveal, gave birth to two three-and-a-half foot tall dragon eggs, from which promptly sprang two female silver dragons.
How, you ask, might such a strange thing happen? How could Sarafina even survive such a thing? I have three words for you.
Vag of holding.
Sarafina was PISSED. Well, she was pissed until she realized that she had suddenly become a dragon producing machine and dreams of a dragon empire controlling the Sword Coast began swirling in her mind.
So yeah, little Rosanna and Maebelle popped out of Sarafina already stronger and smarter than their mother. They can take the human form, and are subject to the same curse as their father. But they are DRAGONS through and through.
Sarafina has already begun to amass a horde for her twin daughters, and even began to search for a suitable mountaintop lair for them.
Regretfully, the latest story arc involves Rosanna and Maebelle being kidnapped. So Sarafina and the Burning Mountain Adventuring Company are on a whirlwind slaughter-fest that makes Taken look like Driving Miss Daisy. The party has battled mind flayers, dragons, vampires, and an Old One as they seek out the twins, all while Sarafina is pregnant AGAIN with a triplet of boy dragons. Last session they even stared down a tarrasque.
Sarafaina is now the real Mother of Dragons - unlike that Khaleesi chick who just walks around in fire and has some dragons as pets.
:)
- Ark
Sarafina badgered him into wedded bliss.
Playing a grumpy pregnant woman with vericose veins dispatching subterranean monsters with her two-handed axe was great fun. But eventually, downtime became inevitable so she could give birth. I normally write vignettes involving all of the pcs during these downtimes, and send them to the group. But the DM asked me to stop writing just before Sarafina gave birth, as he had a surprise for me and the noblewoman.
It turned out that Earl Cassian Everet, Sarafina's much abused husband, was, in fact, a silver dragon. He was a victim of a family curse to appear in human form most of the time, and his lips were magically sealed, preventing him from discussing his affliction with non-dragons who didn't know already. The Earl had shown up in Phandalin because the dragonborn Sir Kriev had advertised the town as a safe place for non-humans - and had NOT shown up because Sarafina was looking for a husband. It had been just a horrible, horrible coincidence.
The DM and all of the other players had known the the Earl of was a dragon the moment Sarafina began 'courting' him - EXCEPT ME.
Sheesh.
The DM and I sat down to figure out what would happen with the pregnancy. Both the DM and I absolutely HATE the official version of the half-dragon - and the dragonborn, for that matter - thus I was given leeway to do something else.
![]() |
| Surprise! |
How, you ask, might such a strange thing happen? How could Sarafina even survive such a thing? I have three words for you.
Vag of holding.
Sarafina was PISSED. Well, she was pissed until she realized that she had suddenly become a dragon producing machine and dreams of a dragon empire controlling the Sword Coast began swirling in her mind.
So yeah, little Rosanna and Maebelle popped out of Sarafina already stronger and smarter than their mother. They can take the human form, and are subject to the same curse as their father. But they are DRAGONS through and through.
Sarafina has already begun to amass a horde for her twin daughters, and even began to search for a suitable mountaintop lair for them.
Regretfully, the latest story arc involves Rosanna and Maebelle being kidnapped. So Sarafina and the Burning Mountain Adventuring Company are on a whirlwind slaughter-fest that makes Taken look like Driving Miss Daisy. The party has battled mind flayers, dragons, vampires, and an Old One as they seek out the twins, all while Sarafina is pregnant AGAIN with a triplet of boy dragons. Last session they even stared down a tarrasque.
Sarafaina is now the real Mother of Dragons - unlike that Khaleesi chick who just walks around in fire and has some dragons as pets.
:)
- Ark
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