We have finished up our Superhero High School campaign, and at last week’s USS Kelly role-playing game session, we created characters for a new game loosely-based on Robotech… very loosely. Today, we started the game session. We also welcomed some new players. (Note: you don’t need to be a member of the USS Kelly to join with our RPG sessions. You also don’t need to be crazy to play with us… but it helps.)
As always, we are using the Fantasy Grounds Unity program. The nice thing is that all players are able to use the demo (free) version of the program as our GM has a paid copy that allows all his players to use the free one while connected to him. We are allowing both in-person gaming at the GM’s house as well as remote connection through both Fantasy Grounds and a chat channel on Discord.
This Robotech-esque campaign is based on the new Robotech: Macross Saga RPG released through Strange Machine Games. However, we are beta-testing the second book, and our GM had to create the game rules for Fantasy Grounds (with lots and lots of input from the Robotech RPG/SMG community on Discord). In fact, our GM was working on the ruleset today just before the game.
Now for the actual storyline…
It’s been about four years since the Reign of Fire when a Zendrati zealot destroyed Macross City in a suicide attack, killing off eighty percent of the population and lots of the plant life. However, since they mainly fired at cities, the jungles survived. Several people hightailed it to the jungles of South America and built a community in a bunch of crashed Zendrati ships. Our community of Home is … militaristically pacifist. Basically, our leaders decided that all the problems we’ve been having are because of people living in cities. Now, we live in the jungle. While we have plenty of wood, plant, and animal life to sustain us, we have to scrounge for spare parts and medical supplies. Unfortunately, gangs of bikers tend to raid us, and our leaders do nothing about it.
Our party has been put together to go scrounging for supplies. Since everything within about five days of Home has been cleaned out, we need to find somewhere else to scrounge. We ran into a wolf pack and, after a short fight, we were able to gain some meat and pelts. We preserved the pelts as good as we could and placed them in an area that we could find again (so we didn’t have to carry them).
On day ten, we came across a clearing that had both a henge (i.e. a stone circle) and a Mesoamerican pyramid. Strangely, it appears that the two were designed to be together. While the henge and pyramid appear ancient, we also found asphalt underneath the huge plateau we were on. We determined there had been an archaeological dig (a preliminary one) that was surveying the pyramid… and that someone had opened the pyramid’s door after the scientists left. So, we decided to go in.
In the first chamber, we found seven skeletons – five were ancient, two were more recent. There are several doors that are still sealed. We decided to open one, but had to wait 48 hours for the pressure to equalize. By this time, it was dark, so we decided to camp for the night. What’s odd is that we all fell asleep, including the watch. When we woke up, we were all rested, none of us were hungry, and there were no animal or inset noises.
We checked out the road, and found the plateau pitted as if someone had attacked it. The only way out appeared to be by air, so we decided to check for supplies. It turned out that we had run across an old United Earth base that had been set up in the ancient corridors. Part of what we found was a reflex engine that has been running for about 35,000 years.
We found all sorts of technology, including battle pods. We determined that if we tell our Home about this area, the artifacts will be destroyed. We found the base’s database, which showed drone logs. Those drone logs showed footage of us fighting wolves three days ago… and footage from Home.
With this information, we decided to keep perusing the logs… and end the game for the night.