Thursday 20 April 2023

Wandering Star Supply Store

Wandering Star Supply Store

Purveyors of Fine Goods & Sundries / Duty-Free

Odai Starport West / 0-567-75

Complimentary Souvenir Patch with Every Purchase over 10cr

*

Incense, 1cr / Bootlaces, 1cr / Munsen’s Tinned Victuals, 1cr / Munsen’s Protein Jerky, 1cr / GooChew bubblegum, 1cr / Novelty switchblade comb, 2cr / Lucky Star cigarettes, 2cr / Gorilla Red cigarettes, 2cr / Gorilla Jr cigarettes, 2cr / Synthskin wax, 2cr / Souvenir playing cards, 2cr / Souvenir mug, 2cr / Sheriff Starr audio drama cassette, 5cr / Harvest Moons non-synthetic coffee beans, 5cr  / Soap, 10cr / Anti-glare pilot’s shades, 10cr / Souvenir lighter, 15cr / Souvenir logo hat, 15cr / Dunston’s brand vintage leather pilot’s jacket, 1AP, 20cr / Junkfisher’s overalls, 1AP, 20cr / Frontier Co. single-use Campfire-in-a-Can, 25cr / ForgeRite skillet engine attachment, 30cr / Frontier Co. climbing rope and piton, 30cr / Electromagnetic crampons, 50cr / Straight razor, 1d10dmg, 50cr / Leather saddle bag, 50cr / Shotgun shells 50cr / Frontier Co. single-use Tent-in-a-Can, 50cr / Electronic fishing game, 65cr / Electronic bagatelle game, 65cr / Freeze-dried steak, 100cr

Monday 17 April 2023

Mudhar’s Whimsies

 Mudhar’s Whimsies was once a small but stable independent manufacturer of novelty items, operating from a union-controlled satellite in the mid-rim. Their prank items were quickly added to a nearby marine chapter’s long list of contraband, which ensured their proliferation throughout the lower ranks.

This Streisand Effect (so named after a Mother Earth philosopher) was exacerbated when the company’s products were banned as flight risks by the Qilin Gate Company, following an incident involving an android pilot, a whoopee cushion and a shipment of imitation peanut butter.

Mrs Mudhar now enjoys a proliferation of trade across the outer rim. Some of the manufacturer’s most popular offerings include:

1. Exploding cigarettes. Sold in packaging closely resembling the popular brands Gorilla and Lucky Star, despite the copyright holders’ protestations. A single cigarette is a loud firecracker, while a 10-pack lit at once is similar in effect to a flashbang grenade.

2. The Super Pellet Popper (formerly Super Pellet Gun, renamed to comply with union trade regulation). Fires proprietary pellets in 5 harmless but nonetheless effective varieties: Sticky!, Spicy!, Slippery!, Smoky! and Sparky!. The latter is often hard to come by, as anarchist sects favour it for its utility in shutting down simple electronics.

3. Mudhar’s Fantastical Enjoyment Buzzer. An evolution of an ancient design, concealed in the palm and emitting a vibration similar in sensation to a mild electric shock when pressed against a surface, eg during a handshake. Popular for its presumably unintended utility as both a sex toy and a means of identifying disguised androids, who are unable to react to the buzz in an appropriately human manner.

4. Holochete. A fake boarding knife that can be used to feign injury.

5. Mudhar’s Abominable Itching Powder. Notoriously irritating and difficult to clean. The chemical reaction with human or synthetic skin won’t occur in cold temperatures, leading to the classic boot camp prank of lining a cryochamber or vaccsuit with the powder so that it transfers to the victim while in use, and waiting for the effect to start once they return to a temp-reg zone.


(also BREAK!! is live on KS baybeeeeeeeeee)

Wednesday 12 April 2023

Hush My Darling (a Mothership adventure)


 1.     Camp.

Last known whereabouts of Dr Mason and her android companion Faraday. Bivouac dome, ration packets, half pack of Lucky Star cigarettes.

Nearby, a mound of earth and stone opens into a dark, yawning cave. Atop the hill a gang of male raptors have nested birdlike around the top of the shaft, occasionally rising on warm updrafts from the opening. They are docile unless approached, with the largest taking charge and squabbling over food. [C: 60 Toothy beak 1d5; I:30; W:2(10)]

2.     Cave. Hung with stalactites, echoing drips in the dark. The stone floor slopes into a wide, shallow pool. Laying in the water is the body of Faraday, synthskin riddled with tiny holes, reaching back to the entrance and the camp with a face frozen in pain. Faraday carries a knife, flare gun and radio transmitter. No signal underground.

The pool is home to a swarm of leeches which bite and drain the fluids of any prey that disturbs the water, Body save vs 1 Wound per round while at least partially submerged.

Across the water the natural rock wall gives way to a green panel, smooth plastic-like stone. This alien tech opens like shrivelling skin with the application of both liquid water and light pressure such as when submerged, exposed to rain, or with a soft push from a wet hand.

A drip from a stalactite above causes this panel to partially open and close in steady sequence, releasing bursts of warm air from the shaft beyond.

3.     Shaft. Vertical, unnaturally smooth cylinder set deep into the ground, pumping warm air up to the top of the hill by the camp. A green panel in the wall partway up connects to the cave.

At the bottom, an alien engine thrums low, venting its heat straight up. Black tubes, cold to the touch, run from the engine along the walls and down into the tunnel.

4.     Tunnel. Narrow, dark, cold. The walls are thick with black pipes and frosted over, moisture permeating from above. Any water quickly becomes solid ice if exposed to the air here.

Partway down the tunnel, Dr Mason is crouched by a tube in the wall, knife in hand, corpse frozen solid by the icy air from the hole she’d made. In her lab coat are tools for xenobiological sample collection and a cheap plastic lighter.

The tunnel runs deep underground from the engine at the bottom of the shaft to a green panel at the other end which serves as the door to the chamber.

5.     Chamber. Spherical hollow, kept chill. A large, humanoid figure with smooth, amphibian skin rests in cryosleep on an altar.

While kept cold, it sleeps. If awakened before its time, the alien attacks in confusion and rage. [C:80 Unnatural strength 2d5; I:85; W:5(20)]

PacyGen Soft Drinks and Pharmaceuticals have a bounty on undiscovered life forms on the planet. While Dr Mason and her team have already registered most native fauna, evidence of intelligent life could be worth up to 1mcr.