Uncharted Worlds - The Cluster

Alun_R · December 7, 2021, 1:42pm

This is a playtest of the 2nd Edition of the game
8 sessions on Sundays at 2pm (GMT) across February and March 2022.
**ONE SEAT IS RESERVED FOR 24 HOURS FOR SOMEONE WHO HAS NOT PLAYED IN A SERIES OF MINE IN 2021. **
**IF THAT’S YOU, THEN MESSAGE ME TO RESERVE IT. **
IF NO ONE TAKES UP THE OFFER WITHIN 24 HOURS THEN I WILL DRAW FROM ANY WAITLIST.

Alun_R · February 14, 2022, 8:37am

Uncharted Worlds - the Cluster (1/8)
We meet the crew: Harper ‘Sureshot’ Wilkerson, the Clandestine/Scoundrel from the Advanced system Iota B7; Riley Perihelion the Academic/Personality from the Galactic system Deo Thesmophoros; and Gema, the Military/Vanguard from the Isolated Narsus system. We also meet their current passenger Sara Carpenter, of the Zandoran Carpenters, on her gap year exploring the eponymous Cluster.
There’s a robbery in progress, a bold entrance, and then a clinical response, while civilians are comforted and everything is recorded, just in case . Then, sloppy use of advance tech leads to a risk of de-pressurisation, a guest recognises someone who’d rather stay under the radar, and Sureshot’s image gets broadcast to people who will not like what just happened …

Alun_R · February 14, 2022, 8:38am

Uncharted Worlds - The Cluster (2/8)
Taking time out for some shore leave on the desert planet, Oasis, the team find the possibility of a local job, complicated relationships to negotiate, adn debts to pay. Then there’s a moth-balled factory in the desert, a racing track owned by the local mob, and a heist … before honour has to be defended …

Alun_R · February 21, 2022, 11:41am

Uncharted Worlds - the Cluster (3/8)
As the crew take the Ace of Spades through the slipgate to Helicon we learn of the rumours of ‘Slip Ghosts’. We also learn something of Gema and Riley’s early lives during the week they spend in slipspace and the cramped quarters of the Ace force them together.

On arrival Hub City holds many opportunities and one of them is nearly taken from the crew in the neon washed alleys of the under city, but deft skills and reckless driving get them safely back to the Ace. The job is carrying live cargo to Zandora, in the FERTILITY system, so it’s a long trip to the outer system and the Zandoran slipgate … a trip during which the ship’s scanner pick up a strange anomaly that Riley simply can’t resist …

Alun_R · February 26, 2022, 10:09pm

Uncharted Worlds - The Cluster (4/8)
We discover what Harper was doing while Gema and Riley were fighting off a gang in the neon washed alleys of Hub City before fast forwarding to the surface of Zandora. This is the principle world of the Fertility system, with its implausibly large number of garden worlds. Riley’s star power fails, Gema’s silent menace speaks eloquently, and Harper remembers the Zandoran cowboy tri-dees of his childhood. A local vet helps with an increasingly wakeful problem before there’s a chance to experience local culture. Then … rumours of a hollow planet, a train, and a robbery … and a ‘dinosaur’ on the loose.

Alun_R · March 6, 2022, 8:49pm

Uncharted Worlds - The Cluster (5/8)
After getting paid, Sureshot has a couple of weeks on a dude ranch where he picks up a lead on a risky, but potentially very well paid, job (that’s even legal!). It’s an expedition to the planet’s south pole where explorers kept disappearing until the Zandorans decided they weren’t sufficiently interested to keep sending people down there. Meanwhile, Gema and Riley have a less productive couple of weeks recovering from their injuries.
There’s an automated interdiction broadcast, energy cannon fire, and some fancy flying. Then, a beam of anomalous energy, a disorientating transition, and a sky with no stars … before we learn much more of history of Gema’s people (and their real name).

Alun_R · March 30, 2022, 10:18am

Uncharted Worlds - the Cluster (6/8)
Despite discovering a ‘city ship’ in the anomalous space they find themselves in, the crew opt to make contact with one of the centuries old cruisers dating from the Narsan Civil War. There’s automated defences, stacks of sleep pods, and data that takes so long to download that some of the sleep pods wake up. Then, Gema faces off against the Narsan marines, while Sureshot considers ambushing them, before Riley works their ‘personality’ magic … and the city ship is almost organic in construction …

Alun_R · March 30, 2022, 10:22am

Uncharted Worlds - The Cluster (7/7 - Finale as we lost We lost a session to real life).
The crew explore the enormous city ship that also seems to have been trapped in the space they believe lies within the planet Zandora. It’s clear that the city ship has many organic, rather than technological components and is incredibly rich in Slip Particles. There’s a paradigm shift in human understanding of Slip Space, an encounter with the janitorial staff that forces the crew into scaling the outside of one of the ship’s structures, and a ‘close encounter of the third kind’ is avoided. Then desperate time critical calculations on slip thresholds, an unexpected arrival and missiles in flight … a great finale that saw some arcs completed and new arcs hinted at …