I’m running FASA’s 1982 Traveller adventure Fate of the Sky Raiders, and this is my report of our second session (which is also session #13 of our overall Sky Raiders campaign).
I am now deviating from the text a fair bit, so I’m not sure how spoilery this is.
The Travellers
Our players and their characters are Terry (playing ex-space pirate Sir Sidderon Dubois), Thomas (playing drifter Felix "Dusty" Pygrin) and Tom (playing Zhodani prole Mustafa Lama Doka).
I started the session by asking the players to also play one of the NPCs, as I was struggling to juggle everything, and they were being forgotten. So Terry took alien technologies expert Dr Heinrich Chandragora, Tom played Vargr geologist Dr Goezghae, and Thomas played linguistic archaeology specialist Dr Viedistart Mirost. I love how those names just trip off the tongue…
With that sorted, we did a brief recap, and the PCs resumed their push to the main bridge. Next module: an industrial complex.
ChatGPT preparation
Between this session and the last, I had done a little prep. I’d decided that it and the agricultural module behind it would be inhabited by the same group: the Gardeners of Continuance, a conservative faction who didn’t like change. However, their plants were suffering from a nutritional deficiency caused by an unknown defect in their fertiliser production process. They were also slavers and used slaves (from the Pilgrimage of the Silent Vector faction) to operate the machinery in the industrial complex. The PCs would encounter the slaves first.
I had spent a fair bit of time with ChatGPT trying to work out what was going on in the asteroid ship. I decided I didn’t want the ship to be failing – it made it a bit too convenient for the PCs to arrive just in time to save the inhabitants.
So instead, the ship (they call it Elan, or home) is in a delicate balance. Everything is recycled, nothing goes to waste. There are signs of repairs everywhere. However, this also meant that anyone who couldn’t contribute (the old and injured) would be ruthlessly recycled. Elan isn’t Utopia.
Of course, this also meant that the inhabitants would have guns – easily repaired or printed using the 3D printers.
I’m now well off-script as far as Fate of the Sky Raiders is concerned.
First contact
I had a list of slave characters the PCs could meet, and I decided that the first two they would encounter were Virel (who thinks the Travellers are rescuers) and Orren (who wants to escape slavery).
First though, I had to decide what to do about the language. Not wanting to force the players to spend half the game tediously learning the language, I decided that the language was a highly corrupted form of old Vilani and that the scientists (especially the linguists) would quickly be able to translate. So once we had a couple of successful rolls under our belts, I dropped any further rolls, and we roleplayed normally. (I may force occasional rolls in critical situations, however.)
So Virel and Orren met the PCs and found them a hiding place away from the guards. Over the next couple of days, the slaves would pop back when they could and explain what was going on. (So Virel and Orren explained much of the situation described above, including the problem with the fertiliser production process.)
Player discussions
That prompted an interesting discussion among the players about whether they should interfere in the ship’s society. (Particularly over things like slavery and recycling the old.) Of course, one of them noted that when Kalamanaru arrives, the society will be interfered with anyway…
We also discussed the Travellers’ big-picture goal, and they decided they still wanted to reach the main bridge and determine what was actually working to prepare for Kalamanaru’s arrival.
The agricultural complex
To reach the main bridge, they needed to pass through the agricultural complex. And that meant meeting the Gardeners. (Perhaps there was a way around, but the Travellers didn’t have a map, and who knows what they would have encountered had they tried that…)
However, they asked their friendly slaves if there were any overlooked access tunnels they could use, and sure enough, there were. That brought the PCs to a maintenance hatch looking out onto one of the huge dodecahedral farming voids, filled with plants, vertical farms, livestock, more slaves working the fields, and armed guards.
The PCs need to get to the other side of the farming void, so they decide to bluff it out and march across the farms as if they belong.
It works for a bit, but soon they draw a crowd, stopping their progress. As the crowd pulled at their spacesuits and unfamiliar gear, Nysa, the habita governor, approached. She brought them to a central room, which was much more lavish than the Travellers had seen previously, with Sky Raider art and valuables. There, the PCs asked for Nysa’s help in leading them to the ship’s main bridge. In return, Nysa asked for help in fixing the problem with the crops.
So that allowed us to create a skill chain (we like skill chains) to identify the problem, source an appropriate mineral supplement and fix the fertiliser production machines.
Of course, it was going to take time for all this to have any observable effect, but it becomes apparent that it has worked. Hurrah!
We are now on day 14. Kalamanaru might arrive any day now (but I reckon the Travellers have a few more days yet).
Sandbox problems
Tom mentioned that he was having trouble parsing the game because there was no map of the asteroid ship. (And there is no overall map in Fate of the Sky Raiders – just some fairly useless deck plans.)
And it’s a fair point. I don’t actually know where they are in the ship right now. I hope it doesn’t matter…
But my main issue is the scale of the ship, the vast cast of NPCs (both the scientists and the inhabitants) and how little support the GM is given. Frankly, I’m finding Fate of the Sky Raiders itself almost unusable, as I’m finding I need to invent so much. That’s not why I run published adventures! If Mongoose ever get around to their rewrite of the Sky Raiders trilogy, this final third needs a thorough rethink as it is by far the weakest.
Next time
With the machinery fixed and the plants returning to health, the PCs plan to continue on to the main bridge. Assuming that Nysa lets them, that is…
But first, given that they’ve just spent over a week in the company of the Gardeners, I might get them to narrate some scenes showing what they’ve been up to.
Coming soon: Session #3: To the bridge!
Previously: Session #1: The asteroid ship, or start right back at the beginning with my review of Legend of the Sky Raiders.
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