Character: Iona Giuletta

Character: Iona Giuletta

Homeworld: Mortrion

Height: 5’ 6”

Profession: Healer

Description:

            A beautiful woman by most standards, Iona has soft features mixed with the hard lines of a difficult life and a heavy burden. She is graceful and lithe as well as very deliberate in her movements and mannerisms. She has shoulder-length blonde hair that she typically wears in a tight knot. She does not wear makeup, but her features are fair enough that it is not required.

Bio:

            Born to a doctor and a priestess on the world known as Mortrion, Iona led a privileged life for most of her childhood. Her childhood was filled with safety and joy. Early in her life, there was no sign of the hard life she would come to lead. Upon entering into adolescence, the first hints at her psychic capability began to manifest.

            These signs were minor and easy to overlook at the beginning, as they were not overtly obvious. Iona herself began to notice them as she entered womanhood, as she could sense another’s pain emphatically. This talent made her very well suited to work as a medical physician, and she diligently studied the medical sciences under her father’s tutelage.

            Near the end of her apprenticeship, civil war broke out upon Mortrion. A portion of the populace had decided that the Cataclysm had happened for a reason and that psychics were a Sin against God. These extremists turned to acts of terrorism and fear-mongering to achieve their goal of eradicating the presence of psychics from the planet.

            Due to the massive number of civilian casualties, the planetary government enlisted every available doctor or healer to triage those affected by the terrorist attacks. Iona and her father were called upon and they did not hesitate, administering aid during a particularly brutal attack on a civilian province.

            As the casualties mounted, Iona’s disposition darkened. Surrounded by the pain of so many innocents, she began to slowly lose her mind. She worsened each day, until she could bear it no longer. Secretly, she began to release the terminal or fatally injured into oblivion, performing mercy-killings on those she was bound by law to keep alive in pain and agony. This went unnoticed for a time, but word of it spread quickly once it was discovered. She earned herself the moniker “Mercy’s Judge” by popular media before her identity was discovered, and it was only a matter of time before she was apprehended.

            During the trial, it came to light that she was a psychic. Due to the extreme civil unrest on the topic of psychics, there was a substantial following of those who called for her execution. Her own parents testified against her, aghast that she had hidden her abilities from them her entire life. It was only because of an exorbitant bribe to the judge from an unknown party that she escaped the planet with her life.

            Sentenced to life in prison and exiled, she left aboard the next prisoner transport. She was taken to a labor-intensive penal colony, where she was pressed into service as a physician for the criminals. She was selected to accompany the laborers traveling to a distant planet in the outer systems, where a source of Thorinium had been discovered.

The Future of Miniatures

Playing Around with SketchUp, this image is (C) Matt Darnell

New technology is spreading, at it will change humanity forever. Or at least us miniature gamers.

Surely you have heard of 3d printing technology... I firmly believe that with refinement and proliferation, this technology will replace the need for us to shell out our hard earned money to buy somebody else's idea of toys. It'll be like art, or books... you'll buy the examples you like, but you could always write your own if you want, or paint your own picture.

In the future, we'll be making our own miniatures.  Printing them will be as easy as printing a page.

I figured I'd get a head start on the 3d modelling software so I could start making the kind of models I always wanted. Today I took my first steps, learning how to use SketchUp 8 (which is free). The program is very easy to use, but difficult to master. The model I made above doesn't hold up to a 3d printer's needs, but it taught me a lot about the program itself.

Soon I hope to be moving on to models that can match a 3d printer's limitations. The sky's the limit, and I feel it calling.

Homecooked: House Rules for use with Stars Without Number

I've been busy the last couple days hammering out some custom starship rules for the RPG Stars Without Number, (c) Sine Nomine Productions

I love the simplicity of the basic rules, but I wanted the ships to be a bit more tough to kill, and a bit less flighty. Running away from every encounter seemed a bit wrong for a space-faring RPG, so I added some new components, changed some mechanics, and got my game design on!

I'm still testing out the balance of all the new systems, but I tried to temper the really good components with things like high cost or high power/mass requirements. I'd love some other people to run their opinions by me and let me know how it looks!

First off, if you haven't looked at Stars Without Number, you should! The basic rules are free, and the author has a myriad of free supplements to boot!

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/86467/Stars-Without-Number%3A-Free-Edition

Get the rules from the link above. If you want to look at my highly modified house-rules portion pertaining to starship components and starship combat, download my PDF file from the link below:

http://www.filefactory.com/file/29l0phql24g3/n/FP135_Stars_Without_Number_-8_pdf

Let me know what you think! I am particularly looking for opinions on the balance of the new components.

Character: Hale Lassetter

Character: Hale Lassetter

Homeworld: Thunakis

Height: 6’ 2”

Profession: Soldier

Description:

                A well-built man, Hale is clean of limb and athletic. He appears older than he truly is, mostly due to his tough and wizened visage mixed with his salt-and-pepper hair color. He keeps little-to-no hair on his scalp, preferring rough stubble, as he believes it could be used against him as leverage in an unarmed fight. His torso is maimed, crisscrossed with the scars of lacerations long since healed.

Bio:

                On his home planet of Thunakis, many of the youth are conscripted into the military at an early age. Trained in combat of various forms, they are then used as mercenaries when they have completed their training, with all contracts withholding a tax paid to the planetary government of Thunakis when the contract is complete. This system is effective in providing Thunakis with substantial revenue to purchase the expensive imports it needs to survive and prosper, as well as garnering them the reputation of being the best mercenaries in the known galaxy.

                Hale was no different, and he was conscripted into the Thunakis Mercenary Enlistment program at the age of 16 Terran-years. He performed admirably, earning high marks in creative thinking and unconventional tactics. He graduated quickly, moving into his first mercenary unit at the age of 17.

                His promising career was cut short at the age of 19, when he was captured during a contracted mission to liberate a world from a tyrannical dictatorship. His employers denied his existence, and his unit had a strict policy against negotiating for release of hostages. Hale was abandoned to his captors, who demonstrated themselves to be cruel as well as profiteering.

                Hale was used as a demonstration on interrogation methods. His captors held weekly instructional courses in interrogation and torture methods, in which the instructor would brutally inflict pain on the young mercenary while would-be-interrogators took notes.  This continued for a number of years. When it appeared that Hale was becoming desensitized to the torture, they sold him into slavery. His military conditioning made him an ideal laborer, and he fetched a hefty price for a slave.

                After serving a number of years as a laborer, Hale was purchased by a petty politician in the hopes that Hale would serve as a bodyguard. Hale slew the politician while he slept after observing the corrupt bureaucrat performing illicit sex acts with an under-age girl. He attempted to escape, only to be caught by the local authorities. Hale was sent to a labor-intensive penal colony where he spent the next year. News came to the colony of a new source of Thortinium discovered on an arid planet beset by civil war. Not wanting to risk civilian contractors, the penal colony was contracted to provide labor for the mining expedition to this planet. Hale was selected and he left on the first prisoner transport vessel.

Planet: Telamon

Picture generated by Terragen, (c) Planetside Software

Nav Designation: Fareeda VIII

Atmosphere:	Breathable mix
Temperature:	Temperate
Biosphere:	Human-miscible biosphere
Population:	Hundreds of thousands of inhabitants
Tech Level:	Tech level 2. 19th-century technology.

Summary:

          Telamon is an arid, but temperate, planet that orbits a star named Fareeda that closely resembles Sol. The planet’s surface is prone to brief Sandstorms that can disrupt sensitive equipment. The surface contains high iron content, lending much of the planet a rust-like hue as the iron oxidizes, similar to Mars. Water is present but scarce, most of it being contained in polar ice caps or deep in underground cisterns.The average temperature around most habitations varies between 0-10 degrees Celsius (32-50 degrees Fahrenheit) for the majority of the planet's cycle, but the intensity of ultraviolet radiation from Fareeda gives most inhabitants the illusion of a hot climate during the day. Offworlders are especially sensitive to this impression.

Globally, the planet is currently is undergoing a civil war between the ruling Royal Alliance faction consisting of the communist monarchy, and the socialist secessionists North Union, that has continued for the previous solar-decade. The longevity of the conflict has severely reduced the planet’s population, as well as set back any technological recoveries that could have been made since the collapse.  Since the start of the war technology on the planet has suffered drastically and reverted back to primitive technology that was widely available during the 19^th century on Terra. The scarcity of water on the planet makes oases and lowlands primary locations of conflict. Wells and moisture extractors also serve as high-priority targets for both sides, as the technology to create such facilities has since been lost.

The conflict has caused a great deal of polarization in Telamon’s populace, but there are those who see the war as an opportunity, and cater to neither side. Bandits, raiders, and deserters seize water and supplies when they can, using them to ransom portions of the population for power, or to barter their way off-world into a better life.

Adding fuel to the fire, a recent discovery by a geological surveyor discovered that Telamon’s mountain range contains a rare material used in the construction of FTL drives. This discovery brought all manners of profiteers and prospectors to the planet. It is not uncommon to see prisoner transports shuttling fresh laborers to the planet’s surface to extract the material. Some of them are criminals, others are slaves bought legitimately, and others still were pressganged into service unlawfully. These hapless laborers work in mines without hope of escape or rescue. The remoteness of the planet and its arid environment makes either outcome highly unlikely.