Here is a complete mission for gamemasters to use with their players. I would love to hear feedback from anyone who plays it!
Synopsis
The characters are mapping a trinary star system deep within the Shackleton Expanse when they detect an alien spaceship listing in space. The pre-warp vessel, a ceremonial yacht of some sorts, is found to contain two unconscious and one dead alien. Also, the ship’s nuclear-powered engine is about to fail. The crew is forced to evacuate the aliens before the ship explodes.
Upon bringing the aliens to consciousness, the crew learns that the two survivors, a male and female, are engaged to be married. They were on their way to becoming ceremonially bonded when their space yacht’s engine failed. They are both members of the Roord race, though they hail from two different planets located in the trinary star system. They are members of their respective royal family. Tradition dictates that they must make the journey to exact spatial coordinates to perform the ceremony since their marriage can only be satisfied by planetary and solar alignment. Another problem surfaces when the crew learns that the third deceased alien was the only person capable of performing the ceremony. The ceremony requires the master of a vessel to consecrate the betrothal.
The crew comes to appreciate that the Roord must adhere to strict rules to solemnize their marriage. Otherwise, they must wait another twenty years to wed. In addition, their marriage is needed to prevent a war from continuing on their homeworld, a conflict that has been going on for one hundred and twenty years. With a ready starship and able captain, the crew surmises that they could help make this wedding happen. It would not be a violation of the Prime Directive since the Roord are aware that there are other space-faring species (even though they have not achieved warp travel yet) nor is it unheard of that a non-Roord performs the peacekeeping ceremony.
Wedding bells start to ring. However, rival Roord factions are eager to continue the war. They arrive to disrupt the ceremony. Can the crew hold off the wedding crashers, perform a solemn ceremony, and bring peace to this star system?
Great synopsis, downloaded and will run as soon as possible; Thanks!
Cool
Get a chance to play it yet?
Hi,
Sorry for my english, I’am just speaking the native Picard’s language… 😆
First, I discover Continuing Mission recently and it’s really amazing to read all these good things. Thx and respect to all contributors ! Fabulous jobs guys !!!
I like the Roords and I want use them for more that a single adventure.
Is it possible to have more informations concerning their home, their civilisation, life mode, problems… ?
A Federation mediation and a the establishment of a embassy can be a good story plot line.
Thx again and dif tor heh smusma !
Hello. I wrote that mission as a one shot. I didn’t create anything more about the Roords. I’m glad you liked them so much. And thanks for loving our site. Let me know how the first adventure goes with he Roord.
In fact, I have not yet play this scenario.
I would like to make it a narrative segment of my future TOS campaign.
your scenario is not really a first contact but it’s new for the crew and interresting for the Federation. May be futurs allies or neutral friends in the Shackleton Expanse ?
After your adventure, the crew will experience other adventures and then receive a distress call: the Roord government is under massive terrorism attacks. A faction has weapons given by mysterious stellar opponents (Romulans ?).
The Federation can not officially act. But a little group, officially in protocolar visit, can may be helping to unmask the traitors who inform the terrorists.
That’s why I would like more informations about your creation.
I’m sure this synopsis can be better with a brainstorm but I’m ashamed of my english in public. if you want to discuss it with me in private (you can see my mail address I suppose) it would be cool…
You’re English is just fine. I understand you clearly. I like your follow up idea. Please let me know how it goes.
That was nearly a very short adventure for us. The crew discovered the ship, the captain said “Well, that’s a prime directive thing, sad for the 2 aliens, but we can’t do anything.”
Took me a while to convince hm, that prime directive does not apply. Even after rescueing them sedated and after gathering info from their ship’s computer, that they are aware of other species, he did not want to let them get awake. He said “No, they don’t have a warp drive, prime directive applies. Ba’ku are not a valid example, as they already had the warp drive, but decided not to use it, the roord decided to never build one”.
Finally he asked the admiral at Narendra station, who gave him a go..
hahahaha. Wow.
Did you write up the story for me to read?
in about 3 hours we play the second half of the module, I will write it up then. We have recorded our play on yourube, but you would have to be able to understand german to understand it ^^
I still want to watch it. I have a friend who speaks German. I could ask him to translate or just turn on my google translate.
I might put a warp-capable sensor probe onboard when I run this. That way there’s proof that they know of the tech, but do not use it to explore, themselves.
On the other hand this makes the prime directive question very clear and the whole dilemma and discussion would be missing
Exactly.
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dq5HjWYZbcs (Roord module starts at about1:12:00, until then is the rest of Convoy SE-119)
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kjlj_xfwls
Automatic subtitles are crap 😀
Especially for our heavy berlin dialect speaking engineer 😀
Short version:
The U.S.S. Venture received the distress signal from the roord ship, they changed course to intercept.
Theyfound the ship, scanned it, found out about the reactor damage, the imminent destruction, and about the 2 life signs.
After said discussion whether this would be a prime directive case (but without contacting starfleet), I said, that reactor explosion can happen any time now, no time to ask the admiral. So they beamed over to the ship’s bridge. They used secondary characters for that. They accessed the computer and got access codes for all the doors and security hatches and some info about the roord. Then they rushed to the enigne room and brought the 3 roord back to the bridge and to the ship.
The engineer tried to stop the reactor from exploding, but without success. They beamed back in the last second.
With shields down the explosion fried the weapon systems and sensors of the Venture.
The doctor stabilized the roord, but kept them sedated, the prime directive question was still not answered. They contacted admiral Hebert and she said, due to the fact that they are aware of other species prime directive does not apply.
However they decided to keep the roord sedated. The doctor did some research about the physiology of the roord to assist the security chief in assigning proper precautionary measures, should the roord be aggressive. Simultaneously the engineer and conn officer started directing the repairs on the sensors. In the meantime a shuttle was started with the security chief as pilot and the science officer, to offer some sensors for the Venture and scan the system.
They asked whether there is something like television or radio/subspace signals they can receive, and whether they could receive some kind of news broadcast on the planets. I liked the idea, and I already knew they would at all costs keep the roord sedated, so I told them, that they indeed receive some of the television and radio signals, and the most important news topic is the upcoming wedding of the two royal family members. For 2 additional momentum they also received a subspace call “Job done, that will keep us in business for at least the next 20 years.”
That gave them the important clue,, that maybe the two roord in their medbay are said family members and that the reactor damage was no accident.
With the sensor repairs still taking a few hours and nothing more to do they finally decided to wake up both roord.
They told the roord where they are, that they have been rescued..and so on.. Yiif, after asking what time it is, and realizing that the wedding can still be done, asked the captain to do the ceremony. She told him about the requirements of the ceremony and also that they need 2 more persons as j’leel. Because the players were quick with saying that any crewman (noname NPC) could do this, I said that a requirement is, that the j’leel have to be persons with at least some rank and reputation, or in other words, should be bridge officers. Our female andorian security chief and human male science officer volunteered for that job. Of course the captain (soong android) would lead the ceremony.
Of course I waited until this point to tell them, that they have to be naked (funny quote from the security chief: “Do I get this correctly? Everyone has to be naked, the only one who may wear at least some kind of cloth is – excuse me – THE ROBOT???” 😀 )
The chief engineer came up with a nice plan, because sensor repairs take so long he wanted to try to launch some shuttles and couple their sensors to the Venture’s weapons, soin the case of a fight the shuttles could paint the targets for the Venture. I liked that idea (because it also reflected a value of the engineer) and made it a quite hard check. He failed, but I decided, that his plan works, but it takes a bit longer, effectively just a bit shorter that repairing the sensors.
Under guidance of the shuttles the Venture moved to the coordinates provided by the roord and they started the ceremony. The captain improvised a (very) short speech, then the warships attacked. Note: I found the warships far too weak for a galaxy class ship, I liked the idea that the battle should be ended by finishing the ceremony rather that destroying/disabling the attackers. So I swapped them with 2 reskinned Galor class ships from the core rulebook. With their tech being roughly at federation level, minus the warp drive, but with generations of war as their background I found that appropriate. And it created some real tension.
I did not play out a real space combat, but more or less handwaved it, focusing more on the ceremony. After each task (candle, vow, dance), or should I say attempted task, I let the warships fire on the Venture and let the Venture fire back.
The candle task was successful on the first try, the vow made by Uzren too, Yiif needed a second try because a torpedo explosion disturbed it. The hardest part was the dance. The security chief made it on the first try, the captain on.. I think it was the second try, and the science officer needed. oh, I think it was 4 tries and a looot of good will from me (letting the other 2 support him, let him buy more dice by adding threat although threat limit was already reached..), he just got no lucky roll (needed a 9 or lower to succeed).
But in the end they made it. They managed to shoot one of the warships to nearly structural collapse (causing him to run for it) and were able to convince the mcommander of the second one to seize fire, because the ceremony is completed.
We had a lot of fun, with the module, especially the fact that they had to be nude lead to funny moments (“of course we have to record that, we will have to prove that the ceremony was held correctly” – “oh, hope we will not roll complications” – “oops, I thought I sent it just to the government, seems I broadcast it planetwide.. ” – “no..Federation-wide..” – “Alliance-wide..” 😀
Seems I had very cautious players. The discussion about the prime directive nearly led to a situation, where I had to cancel the session, because I had to prepare the next mission.. and I had to change some things in the questioning of the roord, because the players wanted to keep them sedated.Without knowing about the wedding and the conspiracy I think they would have repaired their sensors and then just beamed the sedated roord down on one of the planets..
And I have to say, coming from d20-Systems (Pathfinder / Starfinder and old D&D) we are not the greatest roleplayers, more the “tell me what to roll and I will roll” type of players. Which I would like to improve a bit..
I started a vote now in our whatsapp group about what we will do next, next mission or play out the first contact with the roord a little bit more (beam down, ateend to the peace negotiations, the festivities, ..). They voted for the latter 🙂
Now I have to come up with some roleplaying content, maybe a Gala, attending to the peace negotiations spiced up with some corrupt politicians and a last try to assassinate Yiif and Uzren to thwart the negotiations..
It sounds like overall you had a blast. I laughed just reading your write up on it. I gotta see that YouTube video.
This sounded hilarious!!!! I really love hearing people’s write up on this story. I laugh all the time.
Aw. I wish I could understand everything. I’m sending it to my friend who speaks German to translate the highlights for me.
I just mailed you a first draft for a follow up, would be happy to know what you think about it
This is great!