Trail of the Sky Raiders session #4: Island hunting on Qarant

I’m running FASA’s 1982 Trail of the Sky Raiders, and this is my report of session #4 of Trail, or session #10 of our overall Sky Raiders campaign.

Click here to read my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders. (Or if you want to start from the very beginning, here’s my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.)

Oh yes, spoilers ahoy!

Oops…

As I prepared for this session, I realised I had forgotten something rather fundamental. In Trail, shortly after Lorain is kidnapped, the bad guys ambush the PCs and try to take the plate from them. The idea is that with Lorain and the plate, the bad guys can find the treasure they think is hidden in the city on Qarant.

Without the plate, though, there isn’t much point in kidnapping Lorain. (And arguably, kidnapping Lorain is an illogical thing to do – there are other people who can translate the plate, and kidnapping a high-profile academic is so much more suspicious than simply paying a scholar. But anyway.)

But while the PCs were having fun in Alzenei City, I forgot all about the bad guy’s plan and didn’t try to take the plate from them. (Which is actually a shame, as the PCs made 3D copies just in case.)

So I need to reframe Qarant. I think the bad guys’ plan is that by kidnapping Lorain, they hope to lure the PCs (and the plate) to Qarant to rescue her. They have spies in the League team who will report as soon as they see the PCs – and will also keep their eyes open for the plate.

So we’ll see what happens.

The Travellers

Our players and their characters are Jon (playing ex-Scout Timo Sosak), Terry (playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois), Thomas (playing drifter Felix "Dusty" Pygrin) and Tom (playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka).

Jon can’t make it this week, so it’s just the four of us.

Island hunting

Before arriving at Qarant, the Travellers studied the inscription on the plate and realised they needed to find an island in a river. As Qarant has one significant river, the Zanatar, they focused on that and decided to conduct a survey along its entire length.

This is not in Trail of the Sky Raiders, so I rolled 2D and told them they had identified seven potential islands of interest (ignoring lots of tiny river islands obviously not worth looking at). Five of these are in the League of Suns-controlled area, with the final two being in Hegemon territory.

So they flew their Type S Scout to each location, then used drones and the air/raft to study each island in detail (a task chain involving Electronics (remote ops), Recon and Archaeology). While they planned that, I typed “Give me seven different descriptions for a large island in the middle of a large river (on an alien world)” into ChatGPT and used those descriptions.

Despite some excellent rolls, the Travellers failed to find anything of significance (because they were looking in the wrong place). For one island, I told them there were signs that the river had shifted in the 5,000 years since the ruins were built. (That was a hint.)

For the two islands in Hegemony territory, I created a countdown clock with five markers. I told them that each time they failed a roll in the task chains, I would mark the clock and apply the negative modifier to the next roll. The first island went smoothly, and I made only one mark. But then bad rolls on the last island meant that I filled the rest of the clock (despite succeeding overall on the task, thanks to a heroic last roll) – and a Hegemony air/raft appeared, causing the PCs to flee.

Once they had come up blank, I suggested (via Drew) that they might look at the ruins, as wasn’t that where the artefacts were found?

A couple of minutes later, Terry said, “I’ve found it.” He had spotted the hidden island on the map Dumaer’s girlfriend gave them several sessions ago. (It’s nicely done – it’s really obvious if you know what you’re looking for, yet hard to see if you don’t.)

The temple

Back at the League starport, Drew arranged a G-carrier for the PCs and their equipment. They then headed off to the Hegemon dig and the temple on the island. (Drew asked, “Aren’t we rescuing Lorain?” “Not yet,” was the reply.)

The PCs evaded any patrols and made it to the temple on the island, where they worked their way through it to find the treasure (a Sky Raiders ship) at the bottom. I didn’t worry about the event rolls or anything like that – there was no time pressure because the Hegemony troops had no idea they were there.

Once they had taken anything of value (lots of photographs, computer memory crystals, some trinkets and old bones), the Travellers headed back to the League starport to plan their next move.

Next week

Trail of the Sky Raiders is pretty much done. There’s only the loose end of Lorain to tie up, and the players plan to rescue her next time.

However, I am going to throw them a few curveballs:

• When they arrive at the starport, they find the Hegemon Navy’s cutter there. The Hegemon want to arrest the PCs for violating Hegemon airspace. (They really want the plate, though.)
• Gant Sprech, the starport’s General Manager (and the League’s head honcho on Qarant) will require evidence that Lorain is present on Qarant and is being held against her will before they can act.
• And finally, should the PCs ever return to Alzenei, they discover that Felix’s house has been burgled (Kalamanaru’s goons broke in to look for the plate).

So we’ll see how all that pans out. And I’d better read Fate of the Sky Raiders and work out how to run that.

Coming soon: Session #5: Rescuing Lorain

Previously: Session #3: Not breaking in, or start right back at the beginning with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders (or my review of Trail of the Sky Raiders).