Welcome to another month of Tuesdays at Quark’s! For December, I’m going to providing “one-off” aliens for your Star Trek Adventures game. Relying on some game aid generators around the internet I’ve come up with alien concepts and names to add to the Star Trek universe in a way that’s frequently seen in the series: as aliens that appear just for a single mission as an important part of the plot. Often these have strange quirks that make them interesting for just an episode (like the Bynars or J’naii) but other times these aliens prove popular enough to make them regulars (like the Trill or the Gorn). You can use the NPCs this month in the same way: use them for an interesting mission or keep them around if your players are interested!
The Eavarnians are a race of contrasts. They are fragile and vulnerable but also impressive resistant. They are careful and precise researchers but also driven by ego and personal quirks. Few of them enter Starfleet and when your Player Characters meet Dr. Kaedn they might see exactly why. He’s an itinerant researcher (mostly because no lab’s staff can work with him for long) and he’s ready to come aboard your players’ ship to finish his latest research into an Iconian relic.
There are plenty of plot hooks in the description but here are a few to get you started.
- The Iconian relic that Dr. Kaedn is working with does more than rejuvenate. It contains the psychic imprints of previous patients: specifically Iconian patients who lived millennia ago. On the edge of a breakthrough, Kaedn triggers these latent imprints and they begin connecting to members of the crew and “infecting” them with alien intelligences who want to redirect the ship to a hidden Iconian weapon. Dr. Kaedn himself is immune to the effects and angrily dismisses any suggestion that his experiments could have unintended effects.
- Dr. Kaedn’s research is impressive but his reputation proceeds him. When he begins pushing the medical staff to help him and gets into a shouting match with the ship’s chief medical officer, it’s not much of a surprise to anyone. When Erix comes to the medical officer’s quarters to apologize, though, this seems to put a new spin on things. Dr. Kaedn reveals that he’s dying and he’s desperate to complete his research before then to secure his legacy. What is the doctor dying of and can it be stopped? How can the crew manage that if he refuses to leave his research?
- While on an away mission to take readings to match up with his relic, the away team is trapped by a powerful lightning storm that blocks the transporters. Dr. Kaedn is injured by flying debris and his Eavarnian physiology makes the injury far worse than normal. Can the away team keep him alive until they get back to the ship? What about the secret he reveals to them as he fears succumbing to his wounds?
Click on the image below to get the PDF.
