Discoveries in the Void

Now that you have a working void ship and taken to the stars, what will you discover in the void?

d6 Discoveries among the Fast Stars

1 Void Gate
2 Abandoned Space Station
3 Asteroid
4 Abandoned Spaceship
5 Anomaly
6 Oddity

1 Void Gates

1 Mouth of a Dead Vile God (rotting). Obstacle: Filed teeth

2 Crystal Gate reflecting the Sun (radiant). Obstacle: Blinded by light

3 Ceramic Ring with Neon-Runes (non-Euclidian). Obstacle: Unholy Fire

4 Swarm of Von Neuman Probes (inquisitive). Obstacle: Cracking the entry code

5 Ivory Portal (lewd) covered in ivy and obscene carvings. Obstacle: Grabbed by creepers

6 Circle of Prismatic Fire quickly rotating (dazzling). Obstacle: Hard light piercing the hull

Destination of the Void Gate

1 Crashed through a random gate in the UVG 10.000 years in the past (roll a d32 for Destination and set the gate near a Discovery). Roll for the name of the historic period you landed in (p. 182).

2 Crashed on the surface of the Moon. A brutalist abandoned moon station and a ruined temple of the Moon Witches (L5, obscure) are close by.

3 A Void Ship graveyard circling around a black hole. Loot: Roll on Abandoned Spaceship and Crashed Void Ship table. Obstacle: Sucked into the hole

4 An ancient battlefield in empty space. Loot: Ship weapon

5 A quasi-stellar lighthouse guarded by Star People (L3, cryptic). Loot: Star metal

6 Surface of a matryoshka world, spheres within spheres illuminated by artificial suns. Towers leading inside. Every level has a different biosphere.

2 Space Stations

1 Void Ship Refueling Station (fully automated)

Encounter: Service Robots (L2, confused)
Hazard: Gas leak
Loot: Fuel

2 Conglomerate of Brutalist Compartments: Primitive Science Station (byzantine)
Encounter: Thawed genetically modified Super Soldiers (L4, soviet)
Hazard: Radiation
Loot: Power Armor

3 Alien Observatory (non-Euclidean)
Encounter: Flying brains (L3, tentacled)
Hazard: Weightlessness
Loot: Optical instruments

4 Tomb of the Vile (sinister)
Encounter: Doom Druids (L5, drumming)
Hazard: Cursed Wards
Loot: Vile part

5 Alien Terraforming Dyson Sphere (musky)
Encounter: Fungoids
Hazard: Alien Atmosphere
Loot: Seed bombs

6 Rotating Wheel: Von Braun Space Station (cramped)
Encounter: Rogue AI (L8, soft voiced)
Hazard: Laser Traps
Loot: Processed Space Food

3 Asteroids

1 Endless pits (rocky) with giant worms (L6, cavernous)

2 Trash Asteroid (oppressive heat). Between mountain of junk Ur-Ling villages (L4, polite) are at war over etiquette.

3 Ice Asteroid (deceiving). Underground Supercomputer (L12, Apollonian) runs simulated world as soon as someone enters the caves.

4 Pirate Shanty Town (Dionysian) inside Volcano. Loot: Treasure Map (roll Oddity for location of the treasure and Anomaly for obstacle)

5 Sentient Meat Asteroid (apocalyptic). Encounter: Butcher Priests (L3, laconic)

6 Lumpy Felt Asteroid (cross-stitched). Encounter: Glass bats (L2, vampiric)

4 Abandoned Spaceship

1 Generation Ship with Biomes. Ruination: Contagious disease

2 Hollowed out Asteroid. Ruination: Hull breach.

3 Massive Freighter. Ruination: Acid spitting aliens (L8, stealthy)

4 Pilgrim Ship. Ruination: Ritualistic suicide. Encounter: Ghosts (L2, frantic)

5 Battleship. Ruination: Mutiny

6 Bioship. Ruination: Sentient Parasites (L1, genteel)

5 Anomaly 

1    Null Space Sink Holes

2    Time Loop Bubbles

3    Void Ghost Apparitions

4    Micro-Fungal Asteroid Storm

5    Radiant Fog Field

6    Solar Gale Turbulence

6 Oddity 

1    Inverse Void Monolith (anti-geometrical)

2    Fractal Flesh Pyramid (cancerous)

3    Tentacled Black Hole (eldritch)

4    Populated Air Sphere (Cambrian)

5    Space Whale Mass Migration (sublime)

6    Eyeball Planet around a Red Dwarf (unblinking)

 

The Endless Houses

The Quarter-Ling avatar looks up from the ground ready to cut the fishing line, but Kozue manages to calm the confused creature down. He can’t remember his name or how he had acquired the runes on his body. Kozue takes him in, feeds him and starts to study the strange symbols. There is a map tattooed on his back and words scratched into his skin: “Find Soba” on his shoulder and “Mother Silicon” next to a building on the map. She identifies one of the symbols, a triangle marked “Sky”, that signifies a portal to the fast stars.

Beyond the Dead Bridge lays endless ruinland, a mind-numbing grid of abandoned houses strangles by slow-ivy. Glowing figures lurk in the shadows. They make camp in a surprisingly well preserved high rise. Naida scouts the surroundings and spots a group of silk veiled nomads with their velblood camels. Sherman befriends them with the rest of his rabbit monkey stew. Naida buys a batch of their spider silk.

Kozue prepares a ritual to help the Quarter-Ling avatar recalling his name and trace back his memories. She carves a network of grooves into the ground leading to a placeholder of the avatar's name. She then cuts into a vein on his arm. When the blood finds its way through the maze the mechanical eyes of the avatar light up and Teredo mutters: “I need to go to the Dark Hospital”. Drained from the power of the reversed augury Kozue falls to the ground, lifeless and without a heartbeat only to be revived by Naida. However Teredo turns around and flees when Sami Zivani, the Ultra, steps forward and asks him to take her to the Dark Hospital.

They travel for a week and finally reach the Fools Wall, a radiation blast berm of earth, sand and dead dryland coral that marks the edge of the Last Camp. Inside of the Dwarven autowagon N’Keth hears the warning sound of a hidden meter reading: “Electro-magnificent Radiation”

Dead Bridge II: The Totem of the Sky

The next morning N’Keth returns to his task of locating the power source of the bridge projector. He concludes that the machine is missing a radiant stone and his mind immediately turns to building a converter who would transfer the energy of the Bio-Diesel engine of the Dwarven autowagon to the bridge projector.

Meanwhile at base camp Kozue and Sherman prepare to cross the Dead Bridge. Kozue conjures a fire elemental from a pyre she built and Sherman fishes a lizard cologne out of the otherworld. Boldened by their preparation they decide to abandon the plan of reactivating the projector and start to cross the bridge. N'Keth who had returned to work on the engine abides.

Repelled by the lizard stench the biomechanical spiders refrain from engaging with the party. After two days they arrive at a huge skeletal tower, miles high and buffeted by the winds that rises from the center of the bridge. When they pass through they find warning signs in several languages and synthetic veins pumping pink and red saps up the tower. Kozue is reminded of the pink goo that was feeding the mother vome back at the Garnet Ford.

Before they start the ascend N’Keth cobbles together a makeshift harness from fishing line and various bits and pieces to safeguard the climbers against being blown off by the wind. After hours of climbing they find a platform to rest for a while and enjoy the spectacular view. To the West lie the Endless Houses, the ruins of a city that must have been destroyed by an apocalyptical event. On the platform they find the carcass of an Androform Husk gruesomely killed by a large predator, which N’Keth concludes must have been the Vile he is chasing. They continue until night falls and huddle together on a barely wind protected platform high above the bridge. The next morning after hours of climbing the air gets so thin that they finally decide to turn around.

Two days later N’Keth who is working on the biofuel fermenter notices a figure from the rear of the caravan approaching fast: A Quarter-Ling covered in apocalyptic runes and wielding an ancient spear. Kozue quickly draws protective symbols on the dirt and elevates them into the air such that the runes when viewed through the dust loses its terrifying effect. Sherman unable to hear N’Keth shouting for support from the turrets (over the loud country music Vigo is listening to) spots the attacker through the rea-view mirror and convinces Vigo to turn the Truck so that he can get a nice shot – with his camera!  

Without slowing his advance the Quarter-Ling strikes at Kozue who parries the blow. N’Keth runs to the truck and mans the turret but stricken by fear he misses the attacker. The Quarter-Ling vaults over the truck dealing another blow but missing N’Keth. With a flick of his wrist Sherman shoots the fishing line at the tattooed creature trapping his legs. Unable to keep his balance the Quarter-Ling falls to the ground.

 

Dead Bridge

Characters in Season 13

Naida: A Deft Yellowlander Climate Refugee and Scope (member of the Legion of the Far Sight). The Legion is a semi-secret society that tries to fight crime on the roads of the Grasslands and around the Circular Sea. Bone grenade aficionada. She is accompanied by Ajax, a grumpy exiled Cat Lord with a serpent tail and Bounty, the animatronic bear.

Saffron: A Wise Black Gold Industrialist Machine Human whose personality was uploaded to a cybernetic prairie dog after being killed by Johnny-7's auto immune system. Outfitted with positronic double brain, extendable limbs and laser eyes. Accompanied by a furry animate kite. Seeking a prosthetic body for mother.

Kozue: An Wise Elven Moon Mountain Witch, a soothsayer from the Sister of the Near Moon. Her singing spirit (appearing as a wingless, serpentine creature to those who can see it) in a pink bottle aids her in her auguries. She has dreams of the world ending and seeks hidden messages about the looming apocalypse.

N’Keth: A Strong Volkan Diesel Dwarf, bat eared, hyena snouted and with furry skin, who is tracking a Vile intruder from the Void. Armed with a fierce Warhammer and protected by his Holy Symbol, an unageing plastic spork.

Sherman: A Wise Tumult Fisher Wizard, Zoologist for the Tumult University Press and enthusiastic photographer, studying magic creatures for scientific journals. Skilled with his fishing rod and able to hook up objects from other dimensions. Equipped with a dwarven designed camera and a thermos of blood wine.

They leave the Ivory Plain and reach the end of the world - or so it seems. As far as they can see there is a bottomless chasm filled with noxious fog. Ruined towers file the rim. A single archaic bridge of crumbling livingstone and dryland corals disappears into the distance. Warned by Kozue's vision of interdimensional monsters and biomechanical spiders they approach the bridge carefully - with the notable exception of Sherman, who runs to the rim eager to explore the strange fauna of the area. He takes photo's of the spider webs under the bridge and spots three short and squat figures with mechanical eyes hanging in the nets and wielding tools. Sherman identifies them as Quarter-Lings.

Saffron discovers a perilous climbing route down the chasm but decides to not further investigate. Instead they try to communicate with the prisoners using Ostens as a translator. The Quarter-Lings proclaim that they are forced into maintaining the bridge by the spider queen.

N'Keth investigates the towers and concludes that their purpose is to establish a force bridge over the abyss. Unfortunately the mechanism is destroyed beyond repair. However he notices a less damaged tower to the North. While Sherman tries to catch one of the monkey rabbits that the Quarter-Lings mentioned as being the favorite food of the spiders, the rest of the party takes the Redlander truck to the tower.
They arrive at a great plaza carved into the rim with seven great ironstone helices around a projector aimed at the other side of the chasm. When N'keth approaches the towers he spots a glowing radiation ghost stuck in a loop but ignores them. However, despite all efforts he fails to understand the complex mechanism that activates the force bridge and they decide to make camp on the plaza.

Back at the Bridge Sherman manages to take a stunning photo of the flower encrusted spider queen drumming her orders through the vibrations in the web.