Farewell to workshoppers

I just want everyone in the creative writing capstone class to know that it's been great working with you. I've discovered myself as a writer and done my best work with your example and guidance. I hope we all have phenomenal success in the years to come.

Species Showcase #3: continued

The prophecy of the end of the world was understandably damaging to the Tol's orderly society, and there was nearly a civil war before neural groups of scientists were able to confirm that changes in the suns activity over the last century would actually be explained by the prediction. Some groups wished to escape their doomed planet, but others saw it as their destiny to remain on the world that had spawned them, and to die with it.

A massive effort was put together to build a fleet of ships that would carry them away from Basar, and out of the radius of the supernova that their sun would become. Over five hundred ships were built, dubbed Sunriders, for the solar sails that would use the massive energy discharge of the supernova chasing them to propel them faster through the wormholes they opened before them to exceed the light barrier. They would ride the shockwave of their dying sun to their new home.

The project was completed mere weeks before the predicted date of destruction, and the sun had grown noticeably in the sky. Even the night side of the world was bathed in twilight from it's glory. Every night ships launched, until the final few set off for a new world. Three days after the last refugees fled, Basar fell into it's expanding sun, the Tol raising a planetwide symphony to greet it.

The sunrider fleet struck out among the stars, fire lapping at their heels, in search of a new home.

Species Showcase #3: The Tol

The Tol are an amphibious species, rising from the swamps and lakes of Basar, the seventh world of a red giant star. They have two arms, two legs, clawed feet and webbed hands, and a short tail with a rather unusual organ that allowed them to sense and discharge electricity. As they began life as herbivores and pray animals, the ability to deliver a paralyzing shock to anything that got too close was very useful.

As they developed sentience, towns and cities began springing up next to the swamps, lakes, and rivers. With the development of plumbing and watertight tubs, Tol civilizations were able to expand farther, though most Tol are uncomfortable in dry climates.

During their middle ages, two civilization, each backed by a powerful religion, were able to seize control of nearly the whole of Basar. The Temple of the Oracles, on one side, was obsessed with prophecies handed down by a chosen group of "Oracles", who bathed in a neurotoxin that short circuited their nervous systems, making them ill and delirious, but giving them an odd insight and instinctual understanding of patterns, allowing them to often make startlingly accurate predictions. The Contemplation of the Depths, on the other, was essentially an organization of scholars who followed around "Great mediators", wise elders whose every statement or action was taken as profound. The species was united in a renaissance and a golden age when the two religions were reconciled, becoming two halves of the same temple, and in the same bold move seizing control of the government.

At their technological and cultural height, the Prophet of the heavens, who had the now relatively unimportant role of predicting the movements of the stars and other celestial bodies, came forth with a prophecy that threw her world into turmoil. She predicted that their sun would explode in a supernova that would "devour our world, and eat our neighbors among the stars." She'd predicted the end of the world.

GM Diaries #4: An interstellar scheme

The aliens open fire on the heroes, who are barely able to stand against the first barrage of fire, the heavy plasma cannon each squad has nearly breaking their armor and resolve. Luckily, the artillerymen are taken out quickly, ending the effective threat. At the same time, the black hole alien tangles with the AI of the alien ship, using his control of energy pulses to manipulate the AI's programming. Managing to force the ship's door open, he destroys the computer core that houses the AI.

From his connection with the ship, he realizes that the aliens are being controlled by the nanobot upgrades they've been providing, their brains literally tied into the network that the AI ran on. The genie turns into Doctor who, configuring his sonic screwdriver to attack the nanobots directly, forcing them to shut down and disintegrate.

By interrogating the aliens, along with the two humans who had been doing the upgrade procedures, they found out that the aliens had been controlled by an entity called The Resonance, a sentient computer virus that had seized control of their world after "nano-upgrades" became popular. The humans revealed that the aliens had found earth and set up this whole infiltration plan after coming into contact with Kruger, the man who stole humanity's first starship. The man who sold the world.

GM Diaries #3: The Plot Unveiled

The Heroes tangle with the gang of thugs at the mall, only to find many of them surprisingly resilient. It gets stranger when they start throwing blasts of lightning around, leaping twenty feet up, and growing metallic claws. The heroes manage to defeat or chase off all of the gangsters, and are left with the puzzle of where these powers came from. It seems apparent that they are somehow technological, but it's technology like nothing that's been seen before on earth.

One of the heroes tracks one of the runaways down, and interrogates him. He finds out that a lot of the local gangs have recently been buying "upgrades" from a shady clinic run out of a warehouse.

When they approach the warehouse, it appears to simply be a normal, if sparsely stocked, warehouse. A little investigation, however, reveals that the boxes and crates are holograms, and as soon as someone walks into the middle of the room, they are attacked, the illusion disappearing, revealing two squads of alien shock troops with advanced weaponry and a desire to keep their secrets.

GM Diaries #2: The Characters

The first session of the game went fairly well. The players each made superhero-style characters, each coming up with an origin, an idea of what their powers would be, and then using the HERO rules system to model those powers so that the outcomes of their efforts could be determined. The HERO system does this by providing an array of generic abilities and the means to limit or expand them. I have four players, one playing an incorporeal alien from a black hole, one playing a wonder-woman inspired daughter of zeus with a sword and shield, one playing a government agent with the power to grow into a massive, super strong, flying hero, and one playing a Genie trapped in a child's form who transforms himself into the characters he likes from TV and comic books.

There's a lot of wrangling at this point over the exact makeup of these characters powers, to make sure every character is basically what they were envisioned as and has the ability to be a badass at least once or twice a session, with no one character outshining the rest, and without them having the ability to solve every problem with a simple application of those powers. Also, each character is given weaknesses for me to exploit, to keep the obstacles I throw at them from seeming trivial.

I explain to them the background of the setting, and ensure that their characters will fit the setting and atmosphere of the game. (generally this involves making sure they at least generally care about saving people's lives and aren't completely ruthless about it.)

With all this done, I introduce the characters to their first encounter: They're all at the mall, for one reason or anther, when a gang of criminals with guns holds the place up...

Another new Segment: GM Diaries

I've recently begun Gamemastering a role playing game using the Hero system, which is designed to simulate role playing games based around superhero comics and similar inspirations. I asked the players to make original superhero characters for a near futuristic setting, while designing a series of opponents and challenges for them, as well as a consistent setting and at least a general way in which you want the story to go.

I know my players are far too independent to try to lead them by the nose, so I'm using a much more "sandbox" method of plot direction, where I write what's going on in the background universe, determine who knows about it and let the players stumble across sources of information, and then find out what they plan to do next before the night's session ends so I can have a head start in my thinking next week. I try to end each session with the heroes having accomplished something, and gauging a general direction for their next actions.