Skills For Hire – Lab Crawl

So last week I wrote up the location of the GODCo bio-lab. This week we’re going to look at what my players found when they got there. First I’ll provide my game notes with the details of what had changed, and then so a short write-up of the players’ actions. “Lab Crawl” is the title I gave this scenario in my notes.

Background

GODCo has been operating the lab on Pale for about 20 years now. The lab is a location the GODCo scientists are studying the Pale flora and fauna and looking for ways to adapt various yazirian plant species to the environment as well as improving flora and fauna used by Frontiersmen to be more adaptable to the Pale climates.

A few days ago the quarterly supply delivery to the “secret” base left but the drivers and vehicles (two ground trucks) never returned. Yesterday an aircar flew out to the site and was shot at by the site’s defenses (heavy laser). The PCs are being sent in (on the ground) to investigate. Their objectives are:

Figure out what happened
Rescue any personnel trapped and still alive in the lab
Secure the site if possible.

What Happened

In my game, there are still sathar on Pale from the First Sathar War (referred to as the Great Sathar War on Pale as the second one is just now brewing). While a few of the sathar on the planet are holdovers from the war, many more have actually slipped to the surface over the intervening years. They have been working to subvert the society and develop new bio-weapons (e.g. lesser quickdeath, sathar poison squirrel). It is to do some work on the poison squirrel that they have capture the lab.

A few weeks ago, a team of sathar attacked and captured the base. They needed access to the equipment and facilities to complete some work that they had been doing in more makeshift labs elsewhere on the planet. The staff that survived the attack are being held as prisoners and used as test subjects (and food) for the creatures they brought with them.

Changes From Last Post

In my previous post, I described the lab during “normal” operations. Here is what changed when the PCs arrived

Staff

There are only 1d5+5 of the original 44 staff members still alive, all scientists. They are locked individually in the living quarters and isolated from one another. They are all malnourished and weak. They will not be able to assist the PCs in any fighting.

I put them in the rooms farthest from the elevator/stairs but you could put them anywhere. The sathar have changed the computer security system so that none of the staff ID cards work to open the living quarters doors.

Vehicles

There is a ground transport in the garage (area 3, ground level). It is only partially unloaded.

Robots

All of the security robots were destroyed in the original attack. The sathar have reprogrammed all the maintenance and service robots to have attack/destroy programs and will attack any non-sathar beings on sight. These robots are all level 3 and have only their mechanical hands as weapons. The security locks have all been removed by the sathar as they modified them. They have the following stats:

STA: 100 ATT: 60 IM: 6 DMG: 2d10 Move: 30 m/turn

The remaining robots are located in the following areas:

2 service robots – Ground Level in hallway (area 5)
4 maintenance robots – Level 1 area 30. There is a random 10% change per minute that one will emerge and go about some maintenance task. If attacked, it can summon the others.
4 maintenance robots – Level 2 area 11 (at the far end of the lab area). There is a random 10% change per minute that one will emerge and go about some maintenance task. If attacked, it can summon the others. They can also be called by the sathar on this level.

Sathar

There are 10 sathar at the facility.

Two are security officers and will be in the security office on that level (area 8). If the robots start fighting they will emerge and attack the intruders. These sathar have laser pistols with 3 power clips and a level 3 skill. Their stats are:

STA: 45 ATT: 50 IM: 5 DMG: 2d10 PS: 3 Move: 30 m/turn

The other eight are in the lab areas on level 2. Divide as desired among 3 labs. These are all scientists and will only have improvised melee weapons when attacked but do have a level 1 melee skill. Stats for these sathar are:

STA: 40 ATT: 30 IM: 4 DMG: 1d10 PS: 2 Move: 30 m/turn

In addition to the sathar on level 2, there are a number of sathar attack monsters with them in some of the labs. There are 2 cybernuks in one of the bio-labs, although only one has the cyber implant, and a caged juvenile quick death in another (use the Lesser Quickdeath stats). A third lab has a cage containing 10 tailless squirrels. If freed, any of these creatures will attack the PCs. If they can, the sathar scientists will release the creatures into the lab hall (area 14) to attack the PCs as part of their defense.

Place the sathar and creatures in the labs as desired. In my game, I had them all in labs on the right side of the map. The first lab had 3 sathar, the second had 2 sathar and the nuks, the third had 3 sathar and the squirrels, and the fourth lab had the quick-death.

Other Notes

The computer is level 4 with a level 3 computer security program. Lab doors have level 5 locks, bedrooms have level 1 locks.

Something got out and the power generator level is overgrown with a blue fungus/moss that is mildly toxic to the touch (S1/T20) toxin. This is currently growing on all the walls on level 3, part of the stairwell between level 2 and 3, and in the elevator shaft near level 3. It has not yet traveled to Level 1 or 2. Due to the fungus, the power occasionally will short out and brownouts occur occasionally around the lab. There is a 5% chance any minute that the power will temporarily go out or lights will dim in any given room.

Loose Ends

Some things I left open ended and which didn’t really come up when playing that you can flesh out as desired for your game:

Where’s the other ground truck? There were two in the convoy but only one is here. I honestly forgot about there being two when I was running it but it never came up directly. This is an opportunity to expand the scope of this encounter if you want your PCs to possibly pursue the sathar across the planet.
The fungus/moss on the generator level – Was this something the sathar brought with them? Was it something GODCo was working on?

Running the Adventure

This adventure played out over two game sessions.

The PCs had no idea there were sathar involved when they were hired. The job was simply to go to the lab, investigate what happened, rescuing any survivors, and secure the facility. GODCo offered a generous bonus of 500 cr. per staff member recovered alive.

After about six hours of travel, mostly in an explorer, the PCs arrived at the facility to find the gate closed. As they got close to the site, however, they noticed that no radio communications were working. The site appeared deserted. The humma decided to jump the fence and got shot at by the heavy laser for his trouble. Luckily, it missed him. He was able to open the main gate and the explorer entered the compound.

They gained access to the garage and discovered the partially emptied ground transport. Exiting into the hall, they were attacked by the robot stationed there. They took some damage but were able to quickly deactivate the robot. (Since the sathar removed the security lock, I only required a DEX roll – the robot was attacking them after all – to switch it off. Their roboticist has a high DEX but still missed a few of the rolls throughout the adventure.)

As they rounded the barracks (not knowing what they were) they encountered the other robot and after starting to engage that, the two sathar emerged and started firing at them. A well tossed tangler grenade captured both sathar (although one was killed by laser fire the same round). Realizing it was caught and the robot deactivated, the captured sathar committed suicide.

Clearing the rest of the level, they opted to take the stairs down and not alert anyone else by using the elevator. As they emerged into the hall on level 1 they experienced their first brownout of the power. They entered the security office and found a number of CCTV cameras looking at different parts of the lab including the hallways on level 1 and one into each lab on level 2. They saw the 8 sathar and the attack creature but didn’t know where in the complex those images were coming from.

Examing the hallways, they ran into two maintenance robots coming out of area 30 on the fall left hall way. A fight ensued with those robots and the other two that were called out of room 30 after the fight was engaged. They managed to deactivate two of the robots while the other two were destroyed.

The fighting was occurring at the end of the hall by area 30 and the prisoners in the rooms there heard them and tried to get their attention. They proceeded to open (via tech or brute force, depending on the player) each of the doors and discovered that 9 of the scientists were still alive, although is fairly poor shape.

From the scientists they got the information about the attack and current situation as they understood it. They also learned that the brownouts only started occurring after the sathar arrived. Speculation began on what the sathar were doing that needed that much power.

With the scientists found, they shepherded them up to the surface, planning on driving them out in the ground transport. At this point a discussion ensued on what was next. Fighting sathar is a job for Star Law and really above their pay grade and several PCs were all for bugging out with the scientists, reporting what they found, collecting their rewards and walking away. However, one of the PCs is a member of the Anti-Satharian League (ASL) and floated the idea that they might be able to get some reward from that group for the sathar if they took them out themselves.

In the end, they decided that the Anti-Satharian League PC would drive the scientists out and call in for medical pickup once he got out of the radio jamming. He would report the sathar presence and request instructions from Galactic Task Force (GTF). He’d also contact the ASL and see what he could negotiate. That discussion ended the first session.

Session 2 started with finalizing the plan. While the ASL PC headed out with the scientists, the other PCs set about exploring the rest of level 1. They realized part of the way through that they should have asked the scientists for a tour. Meanwhile, the PC with the scientists, after about 40 minutes of driving, got out of the jamming range. Calling in GTF immediately dispatched some flying transports to pick up the scientists and told him to stand by on the sathar situation. While he waited, he called ASL and got the same response. After a few minutes, GTF told him that if the team chose to go in after the sathar, they would be deputized by Star Law for the operation (Star Law couldn’t get anyone there for many hours and didn’t want the sathar to get away) and offered a bonus of 1500 cr. each. Just after that conversation, he was called by his ASL contact and offered a 250 cr. reward for each sathar killed plus and additional 500 cr for any sathar data collected from the computer systems.

With the offers in hand, he headed back to the compound once the medical team arrived to escort the scientists. Having been gone a couple of hours, the rest of the team was getting a bit antsy and debated exploring the generator level but decided to be patient and wait. They also reprogrammed the two maintenance robots to obey them and attack sathar while they were waiting. When the offers were presented, they decided to take on the sathar and collect the reward from both sources.

Not wanting to walk down 50 m of stairs, and figuring they had the drop on the sathar, they opted to take the elevator. They quickly examined the areas outside the decontamination airlocks on that level. Hoping to reduce the odds, they hacked into the life support and ventilation systems for the labs (all 10 individually) and dropped a doze grenade into each system to try to knock out the sathar. They had to do all 10 because they didn’t know which system went to which lab or even which labs the sathar were in. Luckily they had 11 doze grenades between the 5 PCs.

Doze grenades dropped and hoping they worked, they went through the cleaning rooms into the lab area. Upon entering and seeing into the labs, they found that the sathar in the lab with the cybernuks had been knocked out but the other were still up and about.

They rushed the robots over to the first lab and had them block the door preventing the sathar from exiting while the PCs headed down the the third lab where the three sathar were working with the tailless squirrels. As they were approaching, the sathar let the squirrels out and there were suddenly several critters attacking most of the PCs.

On the second round of the fight, the four robots emerged from the robot storage area and started to advance on the PCs as well. An on the next round they realized the flaw with having the robots block the sathar in the first lab as one of the sathar deactivated one of the two robots.

With enemy both in front of them and behind, they started to fall back and regroup trying to deactivate robots, kill sathar, and fight the squirrel critters. A well placed frag grenade managed to kill most of the squirrels as they fell back but not before a couple of the PCs were bitten and poisoned.

Just as they were starting to get the situation under control, one of the sathar in the nuk lab woke up (I had rolled for the time each were going to be out and rolled low for that one). After spending a round trying to rouse its comrade (with no success), it then headed to the doors to let the nuks out into the fight.

The sathar and squirrels turned out to be the easy targets with the nuks and robots providing the most challenge. They managed to take out the sathar that had freed the nuks before it could let the quickdeath out or things might have been really bad for the team. As it was, two of the team members, wounded and cornered, retreated into the lab that the squirrels had come out of pursued by one of the robots. They trapped one of the nuks in the entrance to another lab, and then finished off or deactivated the remaining robots and creatures.

When the fighting was over, they had deactivated two more robots, killed seven sathar, 10 squirrels and one nuk. The last sathar never woke up and they hit it with a StayDose to keep it sedated. They left the trapped quickdeath and nuk for StarLaw and GODCo to deal with. They decided to report that there were only 7 sathar (they had miscounted) and secret the live sathar away to turn over to the Anti-Satharian League for a 2000 cr. reward.

It was touch and go there in the middle of the battle with a couple of PCs getting down to single digit STA, but they pulled through in the end. Each PC ended up with 6 XP and 3600 cr. They also ended up with 7 damaged service and maintenance robots that they took with them as well.

Final Thoughts

It was a good adventure. It just took longer to finish than I had hoped due to scheduling conflicts (on my part) and not being able to get it all done in a single session (or I would have posted this sooner).

I actually completely forgot about the quickdeath in the heat of the battle which is why the sathar didn’t immediately make a bee-line for that lab to try to get it out. But that was probably just as well. Had the quickdeath came into the fray it might have been too much. As it is, the fight went well. They PCs were a little worried there for a bit, but managed to pull it out in the end. I actually thought the squirrel were going to do a bit more damage but the frag grenade really did a number on them, only three of the 10 survived the initial blast.

The activating and deactivating of the robots was a bit of humor (at least for me) during the big fight. There was a bit of a go around of the sathar turning their robots off, them trying to turn the sathar robots off and also trying to turn their back on, and fighting the robots that weren’t deactivated. And the moment when I said that the sathar turned their first robot off definitely seemed to catch them off guard and ratchet up the tension.

This will be the the last Skills for Hire post for a while. As I talked about in my “What I need is … more focus” post back in August, I have a lot of things going on and that was the main cause of the scheduling conflicts. As such, I’ve decided to put the game on hiatus for now. My players are going to take up the GM mantle and run games for each other in the meantime but I won’t be doing anything for a while.

Did you like the adventure? What might you have done differently? What changes or additions would you make? How could you use this in your game? Let me know your thoughts in the comments.

GODCo Bio-Lab

In the mountains, about five hours west of Navin’s Mill on Pale, the Greater Overall Development Corporation (GODCo) has a a semi-secret bio-lab. Everyone knows it there, or at least that it exists, if not its exact location, what is not known is exactly what type of research is done there.

And the truth isn’t all that exciting. As the Frontier’s preeminent terraforming company, GODCo has research labs all over the Frontier looking at adapting species, both flora and fauna, to the environments of the worlds inhabited by the Frontier races. And adapting the local flora and fauna for use by the Frontier races as well. This particular lab on Pale was looking at ways to better adapt some of the yaririan food crops to better live and thrive in Pale’s cooler climate with its yellower sun.

The secrecy around the bio-lab is institutional, not necessarily due to the work being done there. GODCo is always very secretive about its work as a way to avoid competition. Especially here on the Streel Corporation’s homeworld.

Location

The lab is located in the mountains west of Navin’s Mill on Pale. Access is by paved roads and then a rough ground track (for the last 100 km). The total travel time from Navin’s Mill is about about five hours. While it’s possible to land an aircar at the facility, this form of access is rarely used.

The lab is built underground in the side of a mountain. Only a small structure is visible on the surface. This was done partially to take advantage of a geothermal power source discovered there, partially to make it easier to regulate the temperature in the labs, and partially to help maintain the secrecy of the lab by not having everything out in the open. The lab has been in operation for over 20 years.

Lab Staff

As part of GODCo’s veil of secrecy, all of the staff currently working at the lab live on-site. The non-science staff rotate in and out regularly while the scientists typically stay longer for the duration of there experimental work. The lab’s staff consists of:

Lab admin and assistant admin
20 scientists
8 security personnel
2 power technicians
2 roboticists
2 computer technicians
4 general technicians
4 hospitality staff (cooks, recreation, etc)

In addition to the 44 staff members, there are 8 security, 12 maintenance, and 4 service robots at the facility.

Floor Plans

The lab itself consists of four levels. Except for the ground level, which is the only visible level on the surface, all of the levels are built into caverns that have been carved out of the mountain. The following sections give details on each level.

The various room descriptions are intentionally left fairly generic. Feel free to embellish or modify them to suit your game and campaign. Unless otherwise specified, all doors in the complex have level 1 locks that open to the staff ID badges.

Each of these maps are produce at 140 DPI, two squares to the inch with a scale of 1 meter per square. They should be able to be imported directly into your virtual table top of choice is you so desire.

Ground level

The only part of the complex visible on the surface, this level consists of the outer fence, a garage and storage facility, a security office, barracks for some of the security personnel, and an elevator and stairwell descending to the below-ground levels.

The contour lines on the following maps represent 1 meter elevation gains.

Exterior View

This is the exterior view of the facility. The labeled items are:

Access Road – This two meter wide access road is a gravel and pressed dirt road winding up the mountain.
Wall and Gate – The wall surrounding the compound is 3 meters tall. The gate stands a little taller at 4 meters and can be opened (inward) to allow vehicular access.
Garage – This garage is big enough to hold a ground truck for unloading when supplies are delivered (typically monthly). The roof here is 5 meters tall instead of the 4 meters of the rest of the building (the light gray area).
Roof Access – This is a taller portion of the roof (total height 6 meters) that provides access to the roof from the stairwell below.
Doors – Other than the garage, this is the only access into the building.
Elevator Roof and Heavy Laser Mount – This is the roof of the elevator shaft. It extends an additional 4 meters above the lower roof and has a ladder to allow access. On top of this part of the building is a heavy laser that is connected to the complex’s power supply and computer.

Interior View

This is the inside of the ground level of the complex. The labeled rooms and areas are described below:

Access Road – as described above
Wall and Gate – as described above
Garage – Large enough for a ground transport, there are some tools and a parabattery recharging station here.
Storage – This room is used as storage to unload arrive ground transport and hold supplies for which there isn’t room in the main underground facility. There will be a variety of lab and medical supplies, as well as food and housekeeping supplies in this room at any given time
Hallway – This is the main hall of this level.
Barracks – These are double bunk room for the four security personnel currently working on this level.
Stairwell – This is long helical stairwell that descends to the lower levels of the complex. The stairs also extend up to the roof access (#4 in the exterior view). There are small landings every 10 meters of decent going down. Primarily used only in emergencies.
Security Office – This is the security office for this level with a computer terminal as well as video feeds from external and internal cameras. This room has a level 2 lock.
Elevator – This large elevator is the main mode of travel between the various levels of the complex. It is capable of holding up to 16 beings at once or carrying large freight or pieces of equipment. It travels 10 meters every 6 seconds.

Level 1 – Housing and Recreation

This level is located 20 meters below the surface. It extends deep into the mountain and houses all the housing, recreation, and office space of the facility along with things like the computer, tech shop, medical bays, and life support system.

Level 1. Click for full sized version. There is also a version without labels

Elevator – This large elevator connects the various levels. It travels 10 meters every 6 seconds.
Stairs – This is the stairwell that connects the levels of the complex.
Security Office – This is the main security office for the entire complex. It has video feeds from security cameras on all levels of the complex as well as a computer terminal. This room has a level 2 lock.
Administrator’s Office – This office is plushly decorated and has a small conference table and chairs in addition to the working desk. The desk contains reports of the work from the various labs as well as other administrative reports. This office has a level 3 lock.
Tech/Robotics Shop – This is workshop for working on the complex’s computers, robots, and other mechanical items. It is well stocked and has high quality equipment. Any tech skill to work on machines, robots, or computers gains a +10% bonus when performed here.
Storage – This room contains supplies and equipment for use in the repair shop.
Main Computer – This room houses the main computer for the complex. There is an admin terminal here in the room. The room has a level 4 lock.
Life Support Systems – This room houses the machinery that runs the life support system for this level and level 3. It contains water and air filtration and circulation systems.
Garden – This room is filled with solar spectrum lamps and contains both hydroponic gardens growing food for the complex as well as just a relaxation garden with grass, flowers, and small shrubs.
Offices – These rooms are offices for some of the higher ranked scientists. Each is decorated (and cluttered) according to the whims of the owner.
Medical Bay Entrance – This small hallway provides access to the various rooms in the medical bay
Operating Room – This room is a full surgical room. Any surgery skills performed here get a +10% bonus.
Medical Office – This is the main office of the complex’s medical officer when they are not working down in the lab level.
Exam Room – Typical doctor’s office exam room
Sick Rooms – These two rooms are used to isolate sick members of the staff while they recover or away transport back to Navin’s Mill or Point True.
Medical Storage – This room contains all the supplies needed by the medic for the exam room, sick rooms, and operating rooms. It contains the equivalent of 10 medkits plus any other supplies needed.
Dining/Common Room – This room contains tables and chairs as well as a few couches and recliners There is a bay door/counter area between here and area 18 that can be opened for serving food in addition to the regular doors connecting the two areas.
Kitchen – This is where all the food preparation is done
Pantry – This is where most of the food for the complex is store. Part the room is a walk in freezer.
Library – This room houses a collection of books as well as a computer terminal with access to the complex’s information storage program.
Conference room – This room contains several tables and chairs. It also has a video screen for calls outside the facility as needed.
Theater – This room is a large theater/lecture hall where the staff can watch movies or listen to presentations. Used for staff meetings and relaxation, the entire off-duty staff can fit in this room at once.
Gym – This room contains a variety of mats and equipment for recreation.
Sauna – This is a large sauna for use by the staff. Controls are in the wall by the door.
Steam Room – Popular with the dralasite staff, this steam room allows for the addition of scents and other substances to be added to the steam system. Controls are by the door.
Weight Room – This room contains a number of weights, weight machines and other exercise equipment for use by the staff.
Restrooms/showers – Located throughout the facility, each of these rooms contains showers and lavatory facilities usable by the Frontier races.
Cave/Running Track – Outside of the actual building, the residents have access to a running track that runs the perimeter of the cavern that the complex in built into. the floor has been smoothed and a track laid down but the walls and ceiling are still rough-hewn stone, although obviously cut and not natural. There is lighting along the entire length of the track.
Living Quarters – These rooms are the living quarters for all of the staff. Each contains a bed, sofa, table and chairs. While the layout of each room is basically the same, each is decorated according to the taste of the tenant.
Robot Storage – This is where the robots that work on this level and the ground level in the facility are kept when they are not working. It contains small bays for each robot that contain the recharging stations.
Assistant Administrator Apartment – This is a luxury apartment for the assistant admin. It has it’s own private bathroom. This room has a level 2 lock.
Administrator’s Apartment – This very luxurious apartment belongs to the administrator of the facility. It has it’s own private bath as part of the suite. This room has a level 3 lock.

Level 2 – Labs

This level houses the labs where the actual work of the facility is done. It is located an additional 50 meters below level 1. There are a total of ten labs on the level. The entire lab area is accessed through a series of decontamination chambers and then each lab is accessed through a separate airlock.

Level 2. Click for full sized version. There is also a version without labels.

Elevator – This is the location of the elevator on this level.
Stairs – This is the location of the stairwell on this level.
Restrooms – These are the restrooms for this level.
Conference Room – A large conference room for this level so that those working don’t need to go up the upper level for meetings or as a second room if the first one is in use.
Life Support Systems – This room houses the life support systems and air filtration systems for this level. There are 11 systems here. Ten are independent systems that handle the cleaning and filtering of the air for each of the 10 labs. The other system handles all the other rooms.
Cleaning room – This room contains large fans and scrubbers to remove most loose dirt and other contaminants from those entering the lab area. The floor is covered with sticky tiles that pull dirt off the bottom of shoes as you walk through the room. The inner door will not open until a full cleaning cycle has been completed.
Changing Room – This room is where those going into the lab change into their lab suits and other gear.
Clean Room Suit Storage – These rooms contain the clean room suits, lab coats, and other gear to be worn in the labs.
Decontamination Room – This room does a final cleaning of any one or anything entering the lab area to remove any final contaminates. The inner door will not open until a full cleaning cycle has occured.
Storage – This room contains lab supplies and other equipment that has passed through the decontamination process for use in the various labs.
Robot Storage – These rooms are the storage area and charging stations for the robots that work on this level.
Lab Entrance – These rooms are mini airlocks that provide the final security lock to prevent material from traveling into or out of the labs. These rooms have transparent walls so that you can see those inside. These doors have level 5 locks and can only be opened by those scientists working in the specific lab.
Labs – Each lab is set up to work on an individual experiment. The walls facing the hall (area 14) are glass so that you can see into each lab area.
Lab Hall – This hallway is inside the clean area and allows access to each of the labs and to the robot storage areas.
Outer Hall – This hallway is outside the clean area and allows access to the elevator, stairs, life support systems, and conference room.

Level 3 – Power Generation

This level only houses the power generator. It is an additional 150 meters below the lab level. It’s quite a hike if you have to use the stairs.

Level 3. Click for full sized version. There is also a version without labels.

Elevator – The location of the elevator on this level
Stairs – The stair access on this level
Outer Hall – Hallway connecting elevator and stairs with the robot storage area (#4) and the airlock into the generator area (#5).
Robot Storage – This is the storage and charging area for robots working on this level.
Airlock – Separates the power system from the access area to prevent anything crossing the boundary into the main facility. The locks on this door are level 4 and only open to the power techs.
Inner Hall – Hallway connecting the airlock to the power generator
Parabattery Bank – This room is full of racks of Type IV parabatteries. This is the backup power system for the facility that kicks in when there is not enough power being generated by the main generator or it is off-line for service. These parabatteries are charged when the generator is running.
Control Room – A manual control room that allows for monitoring of the power generator in room 9 and the use of power throughout the facility.
Power Generator. This is a Type III generator that is hooked in to a geothermal vent discovered in mountain. This rooms houses all the machinery, pumps, and transformers needed to power the facility.

Using The Lab In Game

That’s the basic write-up for the facility. I’ve left it fairly adaptable so that you can have whatever research you want going on. In my game, I had them working on yazirian food crops and a small yazirian pet, but you can have it be as innocent or sinister as you want GODCo to be in your campaign. And of course, you don’t have to leave this facility on Pale, you could move (or clone) it anywhere you need this type of facility on your game.

Next week I’ll do the write-up of how I actually used this lab for my Skills For Hire game. This is the “normal” operation. It was anything but normal when the players arrived.

How do you like the lab? What did I forget to include or what would make it a better location? Let me know in the comments below.

Skills for Hire – Rescue

I always forget how long it takes me to get back into my regular routine after a big family vacation. Which is why this post is going up a little later in the day than normal.

Two weeks ago the players in my Skills for Hire game finished this adventure so it’s time to post up the adventure notes. This time around, I’m going to post them as is, exactly as I have them written down, so you can see what I was working off of. I’ll also provide a quick summary of the way it actually played out. Hopefully in the next few weeks I’ll get the audio of the session on-line as well.

Adventure Outline

What follows are my notes for the adventure, as I had them written down for me to use. As you’ll see, there isn’t a lot there, just some basic notes and names and general events that I wanted to happen. These are literally my crib notes.

The setup

The daughter (Brandi) of a prominent politician (Carter Albach, wife: Melody) has been kidnapped by organized crime bosses that the politician won’t bow to. The police, probably in the crime lord’s pay, are taking too long and not making progress. The mercenaries are being hired to get the young woman (22 years old) back.

Major segments

Finding the location
Surveillance
Springing her free
Getting safely home

Details

She’s being held in a manor house in Myra’s Beach. The manor is owned by a yazirian, Gornar Welnat, who owns several of the larger hotels/resorts in the city. He is also the head of a local organized crime operation, the Tristars.

Tristars are a known organization in the city but no one knows exactly the extent of their operations. Some members are known for generally bullying but there are other members that are more into more sophisticated endeavors including controlling some of the local police and businesses in town.

Brandi and her friend (Jula Keray) were visiting Myra’s Beach for the weekend and met up with a group of others their age. Heading back to their hotel from the beach with two young men (Karl, tall blond, & Christian, shorter, dark haired), they were accosted by a group of thugs who hit them with a doze grenade. Jula woke up alone a few minutes later in the small street where they were ambushed. Neither Bandi nor the two young men (who are part of the gang) were anywhere to be seen.

Jula can describe/identify the tattoo of the three stars the young men had (https://starfrontiers.info/pics/SkillsForHire/TriStarLogo0.png)
Showing that mark around will identify the Tristar group but people won’t say much about it beyond that it’s a local group/gang. They either don’t know anything or are afraid to talk.
After poking around, the team will get accosted by a group of young thugs from the Tristars
Capture of one of the members will point them to a bar where they hang out.
At the bar they can catch a middle level member of the gang (dralasite, Garzdan) that can point them to the manor.
Brandi is being held in the upper rooms of the left tower.

The manor

Level 2 locks on offices

Level 1 locks on bedrooms except on master bedroom – level 4 there

The door to the room where Brandi is being held is level 3

During the day, there are typically 15-20 beings in the manor. Mostly business men or staff with a five being security detail in the manor and five more about the grounds. There are 2 security robots, 4 maintenance robots, and 2 service robots.

At night, there are 8 people living at the manor, Brandi, and a 2 man security detail in the building and four on the grounds. Plus the 2 security robots.

Running the Adventure

That was everything. Combined with the work I had done on the city of Myha’s Beach, the Brekstoone Manor, and the Tristars, that was what I used to run the adventure.

When I was creating the adventure, I suspected that in this case, the challenge was going to require to sessions. I just didn’t see a way for them to get through it all in a single 4-hour block. And it turned out I was right.

I had my biggest group yet for the first session with 8 players. However, due to audio difficulties, one of the players had to drop out. The PCs got to their start point in Myha’s Beach, and after talking with Jula, investigated the location of the attack. They correctly surmised that the two young men were part of the organization that had captured Brandi.

A pair of characters then went looking for groups that were rivals of the Tristars (something I hadn’t anticipated and had to make up on the spot). However, their investigation rolls went so badly that they found a group of Tristars instead and a fight ensued (#3 from above). They wounded several of the thugs and drove three of the four off. The fourth had been knocked out so they took him back to their base of operations for questioning. Under Telol, he revealed the location of a couple places that the Tristars liked to hang out (#4) as well as some other information about the organization including his contact up the line.

They picked one of the locations (the closer one), a restaurant/bar near the old town and planned a raid. Three of the team members went in and got a table to scope out the establishment and try to identify the upper level member identified. The others took up positions around the building including Joey, the humma, watching the back door.

Only about 1/3 of the beings in restaurant were members of the Tristars but they were are clustered to a side of the dining area. With their target identified, the three PCs in the building all tossed doze grenades into the area where the Tristars were seated. At this point pandemonium ensued as the diners all tried to get out of what appeared to be a battle scene. Luckily for the PCs all but 3 of the gang members succumbed to the doze gas. Unfortunately, their target (a dralasite) was one that didn’t. They waded in with stunsticks and electrostunners while other PCs tried to get into the building through the outflow of panicked diners.

Despite several successful attacks on the target, he hadn’t be knocked out, although they had knocked out the other two gang members. At that point, one of the PCs who had gotten in from the outside, a vrusk, fired his laser rifle into the ceiling (set at 1 SEU) and bellowed “Stop!” A very successful (rolled a 1) Leadership check and everyone in the building froze, including their target as he was about to slip out the door into the kitchens. The other PCs hit him once again and he collapsed. Scooping the dralasite up, they slipped out through the kitchen and the back door. They made their way to a place they could be picked up by aircar and flew back to their base of operations.

Questioning the new prisoner with Telol, they learned that he was not involved in any way with, nor had any knowledge of, the kidnapping but that if it had happened, they would probably be holding the girl in Brekstoone Manor. They also gained a bit more information about the organization. That ended the first session.

The second session opened with them trying to decide how to best assault the Manor. Calling several different pizza parlors to schedule a delivery to the manor gates at the same time to create a diversion, they went around to the forested region of the grounds and used the trees, the yazirian gliding ability, and some rope to get them over the walls and onto the grounds. Slipping through the forest, they watched the house from the edge of the trees where they discovered two security robots making rounds around the manor and the occasional random patrol by a human guard as well.

Timing the robot patrol, the roboticist dashed across the open space and attempted to disable the lead robot. Failing to remove the security lock on his first attempt, the robot smacked him with it’s hands doing a good amount of damage. The roboticist got the security lock off on the next round and after taking some more damage, disabled the robot. They dragged it into the garage and everyone else joined them there. In the garage they found a nice sports car, and explorer, and two hoverbikes. I considered having the robot sound an alarm, but since they were doing so well, I decided to give them until the second robot came back around and would have it sound the alarm. But they got under cover before it spotted them.

When the second robot came around they jump it in the same manner. The only complication was that just as that was happening the human guard came walking around the manor from the opposite direction. Luckily, one of the PCs was waiting for this and hit him with anesthetic needler darts and knocked him out. Dragging him in the garage along with the other robot, they relieved the guard of his id card and keys and the roboticist went to work reprogramming the robots to go patrol the outer wall instead of around the manor (They didn’t have time to do anything more complicated and didn’t want the robots completely off-line.

Using the guard’s keys, they entered the manor from the back on both the main level and the first floor balcony. Carefully working through the rooms of the manor, they found someone in the library who they stunned and tied up. They heard noises coming from the stairs to the basement and posted a guard there. They also heard noises from one of the offices on the second floor. Tossing in a doze grenade, they knocked out the occupant there. That turned out to be the security offices and since the occupant didn’t have time to react, the computer was still logged in. They were able to turn off all the door locks and alarms.

Checking the rest of the rooms they discovered that this floor was just offices and took the elevator up to level 3. While one group covered the hallways, a couple of PCs opened on of the doors to discover a bedroom. The noise of the door opening woke the person sleeping and the first PC took a shot with his needler rifle and while he hit, it did not knock the occupant back out. Kneeling down so the person behind him could take a shot as well, he discovered that it was the humma who only had a laser rifle and no non-lethal weapons. The humma took a shot (3 SEU) and hit the occupant squarely in the chest who cried out from the injury. They asked th injured occupant where the girl was and he told them across the hall. The first PC then took another shot with the needler and this time knocked out the occupant. However, the occupant’s chronocom came to life asking if he was okay. They texted back that he was fine.

Quickly moving across they hall, they tried the door into the tower and found a small sitting room with stairs going up. Ascending the stairs they found Brandi sitting on her bed in the room at the top of the tower. First thinking that they were more Tristar goons, she gave them a bit of lip but after discovering who they were, she went with them.

While they were in the tower getting Brandi, Gornar, the owner of the Manor and head of the Tristars, came out of his suite, electrostunner in hand to investigate the noises come from the room right below his bedroom (and he didn’t believe the text). However, the group watching the hall were ready and got the drop on him. Hitting him with an electrostunner of their own and knocking him out.

They left him lying on the floor and made their way down to the ground floor of the manor. While they were searching the building, the roboticist had finished reprogramming the robots, parked the explorer blocking the front door with the explorer’s side door open, and then went into the building. They made their way to the front door and loaded Brandi and part of the team into the explorer. The others went out the back door to the garage and some took the sports car while one of them climbed on a hoverbike.

They they headed for the main gate of the grounds and back into the city. They were expecting to have to ram the gate with the explorer but the gate’s sensors recognized the vehicles and opened for them. They ducked into the the first public parking area near the grounds and the beach and called for their aircar pickup. Being the middle of the night, there was only one other car in the parking lot and no one to be seen nearby. They dumped the keys to the Tristar’s vehicles in the lone car, loaded into the aircars, and flew back to Point True.

Amazingly, they managed to do the entire adventure without actually killing anyone. It was a close thing in the manor and they definitely roughed up a few people but no one was actually killed. It was a fun adventure and I enjoyed seeing how they PCs handled the various situations.

Brekstoone Manor

In my post on Myha’s Beach back in June, I had this little snippet:

Front view of the manor (click for larger image)

The city’s growth northward was effectively halted in FY18 with the construction of Brekstoone Manor. The manor is simply referred to as Observatory Manor by the locals, due to the large observatory dome on the manor’s north tower. The Brekstoone family secured a large tract of land that ran from the sea several kilometers inland on which they built the manor. With no more room northward to grow, the town continued to grow southward.

This post is going to detail out that Manor.

I’ve had the maps done for a while, but I was waiting for the most recent adventure of my Skills for Hire game to finish as the Manor was where they had to go find the young lady they were rescuing. I didn’t want to give away the details of the manor to my players so it had to wait until the adventure was complete. They successfully rescued the prisoner and managed to do so without killing anyone. (Although that was a close thing as the humma in the group didn’t have a non-lethal weapon and almost blew someone’s chest out with his laser rifle. But now the adventure is done and I can post the details of the manor.

History

As mentioned above, the manor was built in FY18 by the Brekstoone family north of Myha’s beach. Their land included both beach-front property as well as some forested property back away from the beach.

Manor Grounds. The black lines are 5m high walls around the property, grey is road, and yellow is a footpath. This was drawn with Inkarta which doesn’t have good sci-fi tokens in it’s free version.

Back view of the Manor (click for larger image)

In FY 41, the Brekstoone family decided to move their operations off of Pale to New Pale and sold the manor to a local businessman, a yazirian by the name of Gornar Welnat who you might remember from my post about the Tristars organization. He runs his commercial (both legal and illegal) enterprises from the offices in the Manor.

While Gornar has upgraded some of the features in the manor, most of it still retains the original systems and structures from its construction. The telescope dome still houses an operating 1 meter telescope that Gornar lets the local schools use for projects and star parties.

Floor Plans

Including the observatory dome, the manor has five levels above ground and a full basement. Each level (with the exception of the dome which is a little larger) is 4 meters high. Ceilings in the manor are just over 3m high with nearly a meter of space between the levels for ductwork, piping. and other infrastructure.

We’ll look at each of the levels in turn from the basement up. In these descriptions, I’ll be presenting the manor as I used it in my game. Feel free to adjust it as needed for your game.

All of the maps are 1 meter per square and 70 pixels per square for use in VTTs. At the end of the post will be a zip file with both labeled and unlabeled versions of the maps. Also, all the maps are on the same grid so that they overlay each other to show relative positions between layers.

Basement

This level contains exercise and workout rooms, a small theater, a food storage area, and the robot storage area where they go to recharge when not working.

Ground Level

This is the main level of the Manor. Most of the space is taken up by a large open main hall that is also used as the dining room. The main doors are to the front of the house and there is a salon for discussions on this level. The bottom levels of the towers are used for storage of tables, chairs, and other furniture for the main hall. There is also a kitchen and pantry on this level. Stairs by the front door (behind a door) go down the basement, and a pair of stairwells on either side of the main hall ascend to the 1st floor.

1st Floor

This is the main working level of the manor. The center of this level is open to the level below with a small balcony running around the main hall. This is also where one accesses the outdoor balconies in both the front and back of the house.

This level also houses the manor’s library, several offices, and a small tech/robotics shop and the manor’s computer system. There are stairs going up to the 2nd floor along the back of the house.

2nd Floor

This is the level with most of the bedrooms. Each room has its own small bathroom with a shower and toilet. Additionally, the room in the observatory tower is a small study. The center back of this level is the beginning of the master suite; on this level is a sitting room.

The room in the left tower is a sitting room and bathroom for a small bedroom suite that takes up the top two levels of that tower. There is no stair access to the 3rd floor in the public areas of this level but there is a spiral staircase in the master suite that goes up.

3rd Floor

There are three offices on this level that are accessible by the right (north) elevator. This is also how one accesses the observatory control room which is also on this level. On the top level of the left (south) tower is the bedroom for the small tower suite reached via a small staircase within the suite. The rest of the master suite is also on this level with a private study above the sitting room, and then a master bedroom and master bathroom only accessible from within the suite. Finally, there is a small secret passage connecting the Master Study to the public hallway on this level and the elevator. In both the Master Study and the Hallway, these doors are concealed as part of the wall.

Observatory Level

The only thing on this level is the observatory dome itself and the telescope. This room (and level) is accessed by a stairwell in the observatory control room on the floor below.

Things I Left Out

I realized after I made these maps and was creating this post, that I left a couple of things off.

One is a garage. That was actually intentional. The garage is a detached building (to the right and a bit behind as you look at the front of the Manor) that can house three vehicles. It has three garage style doors and one regular access door.

The other bit I realized that I forgot was a mechanical room for the buildings water heaters, furnaces, air conditioners, and other systems. I left room between the floors for the duct work but forgot a room for the equipment. The other was a laundry room. However, that oversight is fairly easy to fix. All that is needed is to convert the food storage room in the basement into two or three different rooms. One for the mechanical equipment, one for the laundry, and if a bit of storage is desired, reserving some of the space for that as well. You could also covert the weight room, sauna, or robot room on this level if you wanted to exclude those from the manor.

Details, Details, Details

I’ve left the exact details of the individual rooms unspecified to allow those using the manor to add the details that they want based on how the manor fits into their world. I also didn’t specify things like security systems, locks, alarms, etc. Again to allow flexibility in use. Feel free to fill in those details as they best fit in your particular game.

I’ll be posting a write-up of the adventure I used this manor in, probably next week. In that post I’ll give the details I used for my game, which was geared toward early level characters.

Wrapping Up

That’s it for the Brekstoone Manor. Here’s a zip file with all the maps and the front and back view of the manor: ObservatoryManorMaps.zip. (It’s about 650 kB).

What do you think about the manor? What other features did I forget to include? I’m always trying to build better maps and can use suggestions. Share your thoughts in the comments below.

Organizations – Tristars

We were finally able to get another “Skills for Hire” gaming session, this time with 8! players last week. Which means I can post some of the content from that game without it being a spoiler for the players. If I post something here I didn’t give them in game, they can consider it something they learned from their investigations.

This week we’re going to look at another organzation, the Tristars, and organized crime group centered in Myha’s Beach on Pale in the Truane’s Str System.

Organization

The head of the organization is one Gornar Welnat, a yazirian. He owns Brekstoone Manor as well as several of the large resort hotels in Myha’ Beach. He is a well respected businessman in town and his connection the Tristars is guessed but not generally known.

The Tristars are divided into two different sub organizations. One is more white-collar and is concerned with political and business interests in the city. They have bought off local politicians, businessmen, and in some cases, police officers to help them further their business interests. Those that won’t cooperate are subject to other forms of persuasion, ranging from loss of business deals, stiffer competition, or even physical damage to property or persons.

Which is where the second half of the organization comes in. This branch of the Tristars is actually the larger segment and consists of beings willing to do the dirty work for the organization. It has members ranging from stilled tradesbeings to basic street thugs and the individuals that manage them.

All members of the organization have a tattoo that identifies them as members of the Tristars. In it’s simplest form, it consists of three open stars arranged in a triangle as seen at the right. This logo is the source of the organization’s name. The basic form is the version sported by all new recruits and the lowest echelons of the hierarchy. Some members wear the tattoo openly, while others have it more concealed. It is often found on wrists or shoulders.

As one moves up the ranks, the design gets more elaborate with second level members sporting divisions in the stars. And third level members sporting more divisions still.

Individual member might add color to the various designs but silver and gold colorations are reserved for upper echelon members in the more business and political oriented side of the business. It is rumored that Gornar has a gold version of the tattoo somewhere.

The various portions of the organization are fairly isolated. The street level teams know very little about the upper echelons. They might have a contact name or chronocom number but that may be the only contact that they have. Groups will know their superior and who they get “jobs” from but don’t know much about the organization beyond that.

At the third level in the hierarchy, members might know that the Tristars are operated out of Brekstoone Manor and probably suspect that Gornar is involved, but still may only have a single contact at the Manor itself if they have a contact there at all.

History

This is something that the player didn’t discover as it never came up but doesn’t affect the game in any way so I have no problem posting it now.

The Tristars started as just a low-level street gang in the city some thirty or forty years ago. They claimed a section of the older part of town as their own and exerted there dominance there. They remained a low level, minor organization until about twenty years ago.

By then Gornar had already built his first resort hotel and was constructing a second. Facing competition from some of the older, smaller hotels, as well as some other large hotel owners, he decided to employ some local muscle to “dampen the competition’s spirit” as he put it. His agents contacted the Tristars for some “jobs.” Pleased with the results, he came to rely on them more and more, always through intermediaries.

Over the next few years, with Gornar’s help and guidance, the Tristars began to grow and take over or take out other local gangs in the city until they were the largest group in town. While there are still other groups around, they don’t have the scope or support that the Tristars do. At the beginning of this growth, the early gang leaders tried to keep control of the growing organization but they were quickly disabused of that notion by Gornar’s agents. While there is still some resentment within the organization over the loss of control to “outsiders,” most realize that they would not be as successful or as safe as they are without that outside help.

Rivals

At the higher levels of operation, there aren’t really any major rivals to the Tristars in Myha’s Beach. They are the major player. While some businesses and organizations oppose them, they are individual operations or small alliances of individuals.

On the street level, there are still several other smaller gangs in town that operate and often oppose the Tristars when they can. These include, most notably, the Jade Vipers and Windsurfers. The former more active in the newer portions of town and the latter more active down by the shipyards.

None of these groups oppose the Tristars too hard, as they recognize that if the Tristars wanted to focus on them, the could eliminate them altogether. But they are not opposed to spiking the wheels of individual operations regularly to make things difficult. These rival groups could be recruited to assist anyone opposing the Tristars. If you can contact them.

General Knowledge

The Tristars are a known force in Myha’s Beach and even on the radar of people in Point True. That said, most of the inhabitants of Myha’s Beach know that the organization exists but little else. They mostly associate it with the street level gangs. Very few people know of Gornar’s connection to the operation.

If you asked a random citizen about the Tristars, they would probably know the name but little else. Or if they are more familiar with the organization, won’t say much as they are either part of the group and not sharing secrets, or have been intimidated or otherwise influence by the Tristars and don’t want to get into any more trouble.

Hangouts

The group has a couple of well-known hangouts around town where you can usually find members at almost any time of the day.

One is the Shining Star, a pub/restaurant just outside of the old town and a couple streets back from the beach. It’s a small restaurant, seating about 50 where members of the gang like to hang out and socialize.

Another is the Flaming Oar, a bar down by the shipyards. This is a larger establishment, with a capacity of about 150 beings, that lies just outside the territory claimed by the Windsurfers. There are often dust-ups between the two groups there.

Use in my Game

For my game, the Tristars are the major antagonist for the current adventure. The daughter of a senator was kidnapped while vacationing in Myha’s Beach in an attempt to influence his vote for an upcoming bill. The PCs have discovered the Tristars’ involvement in the kidnapping (they did the deed) and staged a raid on the Shining Stat to capture a third level member of the organization for information. They suspect that the Tristars are holding the daughter in Brekstoone Manor.

Final Thoughts

This is a basic outline of the organization. It is general so that you can adapt it as needed to your game. I’m sure if I run other adventures in Myha’s Beach, the Tristars will get fleshed out more.

I have a couple more posts coming related to this one. But they have to wait until the PCs finish their adventure. One will be a scenario write-up for the adventure and the other will be a more detailed description of Brekstoone Manor.

Share your thoughts and ideas about the Tristars in the comments below.

Myha’s Beach

I had originally planned to do a post on the HSS History’s Hope this week but I’m not quite ready for that. Instead, I’m giving you the outlines of a small town on Pale, Myha’s Beach. While I developed this as part of my Star Frontiers campaign, you could easily drop this town on to any world in any game.

Location

In my game, Myha’s Beach is located about 300-400km east of Point True on the sea coast. Here’s a map of the region around Point True.

I can’t seem to find where I recorded it, but I believe each of those grid boxes are either 300 or 350 km on a side.

History

Myha’s Beach started as a small fishing village founded shortly after the sathar were driven out of the Frontier. The village was built about five kilometers south of the crater left from the sathar’s destruction of a former costal city.

Not long after the basic city infrastructure was in place, the small town became a favorite beach destination for vacationers wanting to get away from Point True. The waters are warm and clear as the spur of land to the north keeps the cooler arctic waters from flowing into the bay. The city has embraced this role and now tourism employs a major portion of the city’s workforce.

About a decade after the city was founded, Streel decided to get into the shipbuilding industry and brokered a deal with the city to open a shipyard some 10 kilometers to the south of the city proper. This caused the city’s population to grow once again as the shipyard workers moved to Myha’ Beach and more services grew up to support the new citizens.

City Layout

Myha’s Beach is a long narrow city that sprawls out along the seacoast. The original village lies toward the northern end of the current town. The original marina is still in use. As the tpwn began to grow, it was originally small, 4-10 room hotels that were built both north and south of the original village, with almost everything built with access to the beach. This region of small hotels and private residences comprises the northern 3-4 kilometers of the town, centered on the now historic original village center and marina.

With the construction of the Streel shipyards to the south of the town, the town’s growth began to shift more in that direction with new residential and commercial districts being built southward with the residences on the beach and the commercial districts more inland. While growth continued to the north, it slowed considerably. At this same time, several large resort-style hotels were built on large swaths of the beach south of the existing city.

The city’s growth northward was effectively halted in FY18 with the construction of Brekstoone Manor. The manor is simply referred to as Observatory Manor by the locals, due to the large observatory dome on the manor’s north tower. The Brekstoone family secured a large tract of land that ran from the sea several kilometers inland on which they built the manor. With no more room northward to grow, the town continued to grow southward.

The 3-4 kilometers around the initial resort hotels was zoned for more of the same while the area between these large hotels and the Streel shipyards was reserved for the smaller hotels and residences. As this area filled in the city began to grow inland from the seashore with more commercial and residential areas to support the growing resident and tourist population.

In FY36 a small spaceport was built about 30 kilometers inland from the town to reduce the noise and air traffic impact on the town. This allows offworld visitors to come straight to Myha’s Beach instead of having to go to Point True first.

Current Population

The current resident population of Myha’s Beach is about 20,000. It is about 55% human, 20% yazirian, 15% vrusk, 9% dralasite and the remaining 1% made up of Rim and other races. In addition to the residents, the city supports between 20 to 40 thousand visitors, depending on the time of year.

About 5% of the resident population work at the Streel shipyards. Another 10% work in the town’s still thriving fishing industry supplying fresh seafood to both the local residents and tourists but also to Point True. A quarter of the resident population works directly in the tourist industry running shops, hotels, equipment rentals, and as guides both to the ocean and the inland areas. The remaining population works all of the support industries including city services, maintenance, restaurants, and stores that keep the city running.

Your thoughts?

That’s the city of Myha’s Beach. What other details would you like to see in a city write-up like this? Do you have any suggestions for other things that should be included or discussed? Let me know in the comments below.

Young Sathodragon

This is a young sathodragon, the creature that the sathar use to make cybodragons. This young specimen doesn’t have the cybernetic implants. These sathodragons stand around 1 meter at the shoulder and are 2-3 meters long.

These creatures are offspring of the cybodragons that were seeded on Pale during the sathar invasion. A female sathodragon will lay a clutch of 3-7 eggs (1d5+2) but the first one to hatch will eat the others so these creatures are typically found alone as they are fairly territorial without sathar influence.

As with all sathar bioconstructs on Pale, there is a bounty by the Pale government for the killing and/or capture of sathodragons. The bounty for a young cybodragon offspring is 1,000 cr.

Type:	Medium Omnivore
Number:	1
Move:	Fast (60 m/turn)
Stamina:	120
Attack:	70 claws / 55 bite
Damage	3d10 claws / 4d10 bite
Special Attack:	None
Special Defense:	None
Native World:	Unknown, found on Volturnus and Pale in the Frontier. Typically found in the mountains, plains, and forested area of a world.

Pale Mountain Lion

The Pale mountain lion is a large feline-like creature similar to mountain lions on Earth. Typically 1.4-1.8 meters in length, these creatures stand about 1 meter at the shoulder. Stealth hunters, they like to ambush their prey and can move quietly through their native terrain. They typically hunt either singly or in pairs.

Their claws are toxic to most creatures. A successful attack that does damage injects a venom that is S5/T10 in strength. Antitox will neutralize the poison with a successful Neutralize Toxins skill check. The venom effect lasts for the first four successful attacks of an encounter, after which the creature must wait several hours for the venom to build back up.

Type:	Medium Carnivore
Number:	1-2
Move:	Fast (70 m/turn)
IM/RS:	8/75
Stamina:	100
Attack:	70 claws / 60 bite
Damage:	2d10 claws / 1d10 bite
Special Attack:	venomous claws – S5/T10 poison if claw successfully attacks
Special Defense:	none
Native World:	Pale, mountain regions