PL9 and Higher
PL9 and Higher (To infinity and beyond) posted in Rules & Errata forum comment posted by Shadow Hello Uncle Jimbo!
To be honest, the concept of having a species act as raiders coming through Superspace is something I've borrowed from a 90s cartoon (Saber Rider), that had another species (as it turned out a subspecies of humanity's ancestors in the plot) attack human settlements and convoys. I found the concept interesting when trying to flesh out the Scornge in a way that would differentiate them from the Glassmakers, the Stoneburners, the League of Nine and the Ghardh (which's tech I've fleshed out considerably when a player requested to play Ghardhyi, which he pulled off admirably). Superspace came up as a technology that wasn't shown as tech from the others so far (though the Stoneburners have been shown in my second Star*Drive campaign (in the Santa Romero-Sector that I put next to the Kendai-Sector in Concord Taurus) to have a great ease travelling between universes, it wasn't clearly shown to be Superspace (the group used some FX to duplicate this (with risks to their sanity) in the later stages of the campaign after reaching an understanding with a remnant of the Stoneburners).
Another subplot I put into was, when the same player asked me, during the first S*D campaign (Verge) to put into something roughly Jedi-like. I pulled a few pages from the artifacts rules and Neil's adventure 'Just a few Baubles', where there was mention of a 'Shard of Illumination', I made further up further shards, with the Shard of Destruction being a dark matter blade and the Shard of Protection being a protective tattoo-like implant (more were added later) and added to the history of the Glassmaker-I'krl wars as I had framed them in my campaign (the I'krl were, in my campaign, the most promising result of the Stoneburner's evolution experiments (the nanites as observed on Nanates in the Alien Compendium 2), who stabbed their masters in the back, though, when they were weakened by the war with the Glassmakers, with humanity, Mechalus, Fraal and so on also being results of the same programm that intended to form a species intelligent and ambitious enough to make it into space and triumph over rivals, but also social and wise enough to not destroy themselves).
I had a story of two Glassmaker-I'krl wars, the first, when the I'krl encroached on younger species under the protection of the Glassmakers, that the I'krl lost decisively, also because of the other protectorate species coming to the aid of the attacked alongside the Glassmakers and a second, when the I'krl had hoped to benefit by taking some species from their former master's evolution programm to aid them, but those that were ready at the time (humanity wasn't) were not enough for a decisive victory and the remaining Glassmakers, Evrem, Falkri and Starweavers decided the war with their deperate superweapon. In this second war, I included the founding of an order that should allow members of younger species to meaningfully aid the Glassmakers and the other more advanced species in the war against the I'krl, by providing them with the Shards, giving them the ability to withstand the I'krl's psionics (Shard of Protection, Shard of Illumination) and to strike them and their minions down (Shard of Destruction) and surround it by an idiology of an order. The player's character was later the first in millenia to become a 'Gua'na'var' (Defender of the Alliance, the name has been ripped from the Perry Rhoden magazine series) and follow the three basic rules 'A defender protects the members of the Alliance' (Alliance being recoined as the current species against the I'krl), 'A defender does not fear' and 'A defender never initiates conflict, but always ends it'.
The order expanded during the few years before the exeat war (which began in 2505 in my setting) and became an important part of the Verge Federation after the war (which went quite differently from the books, engulfing the entire Stellar Ring as well). The epilogue had its high-point with the Glassmakers paying attention to the mainline universe again and bestowing some FX-powers to the Gua'na'var.
The order popped up in the second S*D campaign as well, with the group becoming Gua'na'var in about the mid-point of the campaign and later using these abilities (including the Shard of Subterfuge) to survive a Stoneburner defense system that wiped out several other archeological teams (and a skybus), which pleased a Stoneburner enitity used to guard their facility during their absense (called Majordomus by the group), who gave them an insight into the Stoneburner's evolution programm and a 'blessing of the Stoneburners', which gave them some (darker themed) FX-powers to protect the younger races against the I'krl, which the Stoneburners consider a danger to their on-going evolution program.
The group makes good use of the abilities and manages to preserve their sanity while helping to banish the I'krl. They later obtain a (statted) Stoneburner artifact ship and are vital in operations on the Verge (Operation Tempus to preserve the timeline of the I'rkl being banished to the prison dimension, which Stoneburner tech the allies didn't originally possess, and Operation Ragnarok, which saw the refurbished Warhulk fitted with a Glassmaker/Stoneburner-tech bomb recovered from High Mojave (left there after Operation Tempus) that took up most of the available space, and a new AI (Athena) and sent to Atlas in the Tendril-system to use the Stardrive settings from the T'sa ship 'Twelve Clutch' (Threats from Beyond) to reach the I'rkl prison dimension and collapse it with the bomb).
The Gua'na'var from Santa Romero would later join the Gua'na'var from the Verge, though a certain schism (light Gua'na'var with the blessing of the Glassmakers, dark Gua'na'var with the blessing of the Stoneburners and grey Gua'na'var with the blessings of both or neither) would develop. When the Santa Romero-Sector secedes from the Concord and joins with the Verge (a story-decision of the players) to form the Taurus-Federation, with lots of empty space between them, the Gua'na'var would take the function taken by Concord Administrators in the sector so far.
I'm not sure yet, how the Scornge from the third S*D campaign will weave into this, but it could be that they'll trade with the Taurus-Federation and some of the humans who sought refuge in Sanctuary when the Orion Frontier was overrun by the Exeat years before the Exeat War, would bring some of their tech with them to humanity (the Santa Romero Federation already has some tech by having captured two active Medurr portal ships and having liberated the Dhamrin onboard).
I'll see how the rest plays out.
With best regards
Shadow
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