Rumblejumble

Sorry for the late reply guys, been busy IRL. Yeah, I went ahead and put an OC thread up, but I'll go ahead and answer questions now. Looking to start the game in the next couple days. It was meant to replace it entirely, but honestly not a big deal. In addition to anything you loot while playing, the Academy provides real basic gear for free. The Academy is entirely new to them. It's a very loose environment. You can sign up for any classes or clubs that you might want to join. If there's space most classes can be sat in without even signing up. Not really the kind of place that hands out multi answer test sheets.

Dean Monsar: If I were to describe Dean Monsar in one sentence, it would be giant floating tentacle head. Though he looks like a blinged out Cthulhu, Monsar is synonymous with the Starlancer Academy since he's been teaching their since its inception. A wise, if sometimes overly blunt, educator Dean Monsar is always ready to talk (though sometimes gets carried away telling stories). Due to the nature of his injuries and immense psychic power, the last remaining Arbal acts as a sort of psionic shield for the school. Vice Dean Sandra Kelper: There are few Starlancer's quite as accomplished as Kelper. She's only one of two that have held the position of both Starlancer and Keeper, campaigned extensively for the rights of AI citizens, and singlehandedly fought off an entire Hellion invasion fleet. She acts as the realistic and serious disciplinarian to Dean Monsar's freewheeling whatever goes style of teaching. An earthling herself, she might be willing to give your group extra help so they can get home. Weaponmaster Oswit: A member of the normally peaceful Golvax, Oswit was an incredibly feared mercenary obsessed with being the best for decades. It was only after he killed a Brigadine warlord and helped save the entire Regency that the position of Starlancer was offered to him. Though now getting on in years, with his trademarked braided beard half white, the jovial killing machine is still obsessed with weaponry and shares that enthusiasm with his students. If you help him out or impress the aging mercenary, Oswit can make some modifications to your gear. Infiltration Instructor Talm'ov: The most recent addition to the Starlancer teaching staff, Talm'ov is an entirely synthetic being. Created to replicate a high ranking member of the Regency, Talm'ov instead fought their programming and helped bring down the crime syndicate that first created them. They're eager to start teaching and is currently applying their manic obsessive nature to that task. Don't be surprised if they've already memorized everyone's name, family situation, and favorite flavor of ice cream. Piloting Instructor Crasgave: A Celinite, Crasgave is essentially a two foot high talking housecat with four arms, an appearance that clashes with being one of the most feared pilots in the system. Her seemingly intentional destruction of the Eternity Pillar, a ten thousand year old religious icon, is actually what landed her as a desk jockey. Currently Crasgave is hoping one of her students does something dangerous enough that stopping it will help clear her record and she can go back to escaping through incredibly dangerous asteroid fields. History Instructor Kilbert Halber: One of the few teachers that isn't some kind of cool space hero, Kilbert got this job by virtue of being the only intern of the previous instructor. While he does teach some lessons about galactic history, the real reason Kilbert is still around is that he acts as a point of contact for distressed students and no other teacher wants to deal with it. Turns out being mild mannered and knowing all the right numbers to call is valuable in a school that has Explosions 101, Advanced Explosions, and Demolitions as available courses. Science Department: While the current head is still waiting to phase back into the timeline, the Science Department is controlled by three different instructors. Mechanical engineering genius and former mad scientist bent on planetary domination, Arvelli Jaunt. Actually succeeded in her bid to take control of Arkon, found being in power incredibly boring, and willingly gave herself up if the Regency provided her with a fun job. Meltune Meerkone, despite being inside a complex suit to keep his body of constantly shifting elements stable, is still very much the fun professor that gets super excited over baking soda volcanoes. Finally there's the pudgy Kipper Biology Professor Veekers, who makes every class focused around helping him manage the incredible Undergrowth. Travel Instructor Galan: With several movies about her life already out and more in production, Galan is a famous explorer. As a Vesharak her once bright scales have dulled with age, but she remains an expert historian, navigator, and Starlancer. Her classroom is a wildly eclectic pile of cushions and chairs, with over a hundred various relics and trophies scattered about. Though being in the position for over two cycles now, there are still some that view her as just a celebrity professor, there to just garner attention and donations for the school. Ether Instructors Ji'Jiji'Jijo: Once members of the Obolite hive mind race, the triplets had their each of their minds infused with different types of raw Ether. While still in deep connection with one another, so much so that they sometimes refer to themselves as a singular being, the differing personalities make field work untenable. Ji instructs in Red Ether and encourages students to express themselves. Jiji instructs in Blue Ether and encourages students to meditate, maintaining control over their emotions. Jijo instructs in Green Ether and often speaks of it mathematically, encouraging students to think logically. Engineering Instructor Zamson: Friendly, gruff, and now over sixty percent cybernetic, the aquatic Albrine Vetch Zamson is the schools resident gearhead. Instead of Professor Jaunt's crazy theoretical technology, Zamson's instructions are all about practicality. She does this while maintaining the schools small fleet of vehicles and running Shop class, a place for students to construct or modify their own equipment. Doctor Haltick Kilbrren: Tall, condescending, and undeniably sinister, Kilbrren provides medical help and instruction for the school. Also, he's been attacked by no less than 35 different groups of Starlancers convinced that he was a villain that had infiltrated Starlancer Academy. To be fair, he is incredibly pale with red eyes, slicked back dark hair, and a piece of chitin in the shape of a goatee. His association with the student body sometimes feel adversarial.  

The Academy is three years long, but it's also the primary setting for the game going in. I'm currently updating the Lore page with more info. Edited to clarify some info.

Okay, so it's less living things and operates more like a mantle? That makes sense. Still there's a lot of cool storylines there and if the mysteries surrounding the Kyton is something you want to pursue we can work it into the game.  

To be honest, anything over a three page essay is too long.

Yeah, absolutely. Unlike the modern sabergauntlets Weaponmaster Oswit was showing off the other day, with it's thin grooves and retractable blade, your mother's is a beast. Made with interlocking ionized steel, it was clearly a heavy gauntlet and absolutely stunning work of art. Problem is, you seem to have trouble getting it to work! The large blade emerges from the grip with ease, but the heavy energy flow required keeps burning out crystals! (On an attack roll of a 1, the Sabergauntlet burns out its crystal that must the be replaced. This takes about a minute of work and I'll let you start with a spare crystal. ) Alongside this is a Construct, a specialized Ether crystal that can hold a facsimile of an individual. Larger crystals can hold more data, but the one your mother disguised as a simple pendant when you were a kid was small. No real interaction, just an introduction and a few exchange phrases. It's your mom, but younger and dressed in armor that looked like what a deathmetal version of Daft Punk would wear. "Hey there kiddo. Really hope you never see this , but the galaxy's a dangerous place. Yeah, I said galaxy. Yes, you're an alien. I'm recording this now because I don't know what the future brings and a may not be around to give you the talk. Actually speaking of the talk- Your mother then proceeds to talk at length about both your alien nature and about an hour's worth of incredibly embarrassing birds and the bees. With a sinking feeling you realize that due to how the Construct was made you were going to listen to your mother talk about alien stds every single time you wanted to activate it. - and nothing says "no means no" quite like a serrated dagger," your mother finished, seemingly proud of what she just accomplished. Wiping her hand on her face, you see the blood smeared there for the first time. "Anyways, I really wanted to tell ya that I love you kid. No matter what you hear about me or who you want to become, nothing in this whole damned galaxy will ever change that." Then Amelia Wight smiled, the toothy grin accentuated by a smear of blood, and you got to see a bit of Blue Moon Weaver. "Swing for the fences kid. It's where the skull is." You can converse a bit with the Construct and while you're sure there are some responses you haven't listened to, you don't know how to access them. Weaver set it up in a simple way, listening for a series of words spoken in succession by one of her offspring. So far you've gotten her list of favorite daytime gameshows, all the different things she wanted to name you before being talked out of it by Apollo, all the things she loved about Apollo, and a series of incredibly dangerous coordinates supposedly leading to incredible treasure. Since your mother explained this while winking half the time, you're not quite sure how reliable that really is.  

Really cool so far, a stern justice seeker with just enough angst as to be interesting instead of annoying. Eldridge is more like a secret society that has agents high up in various government circles, but they are definitely in charge of area 51. Yeah, your human dad can absolutely be a member of Eldrige. Honestly, It's whatever you feel best fits your character. If revenge is on the menu, I'll definitely be including more of your mother and sisters. Couple ideas spring up around that, depending on how villainous you want your mother to be. Just spitballin here. Maybe she has daughters that slowly morph into her and abandoned Kamille because she lacked the necessary genetic trait, maybe she decides to finally retire and starts a murder game between her daughters to decide who inherits her fortune, or maybe on her robotic copies gains sentience and decides to murder the real Iszbi's children, replacing them with her robotic offspring? Personally I think a connection between Iszbi and your father's murder is the most compelling storyline. Just how involved or responsible she is remains to be seen, at least that's how I would play it. I'm all for a heroically dramatic death scene (preferably with a pithy one liner) and can promise to steer towards one, but can't promise survival to the end.

Theater of the mind, maybe the occassional mock up for bigger fights. No real variant rules and if there are they wouldn't be big ones. Character death is something that happens sometimes and I think some consequences are necessary for tension. Cool, stage 3 is moderately high tech, but has yet to master space travel. Stage 2 is determined up to sky travel, stage 1 is functioning society and exploration, while a stage 0 is just now exploring the potential of speech. Yes, all the PCs are partly human. Yes, they're forcing you to make a saving throw so it would work with Concentration saves.

Basically it means you get advantage with the weapon damage die roll, rolling twice and taking the better result. Nope, you only get the background feat. In my experience with this game a lot of players/DMs still think of the starting feat as an optional rule and I just wanted to make sure they knew it was okay to take.

Trackerdroid is fine. Honestly, it wouldn't be a real space adventure without a weird little robot mascot. It all looks great and I do appreciate you showing your template for other applications. Just a couple different questions real quick, one of which I'll dm you about. It seems like you have a few "companions" along for the ride, the Krytons and Tracker. How sentient/powerful/connected/etc are the Krytons inside of her? Like, do you want them to have a personality, not come up at all, everything they say is vague, etc? Also, how much GM control do you want over these the characters? None at all is a perfectly fine answer, I just want to get an idea of what your expectations are for them. Definitely don't mind chiming in with the funny robot noises.

Oh yeah, but I like to keep it fair and fun, so go ahead and give me a d20 roll.

Well, yes and no. It is current tech level, but there's a men in black style organization called Eldridge that works with the Regency and helps monitor alien activity on earth.

He is the most wanted man in the entire galaxy with an entire armada of ships that followed him. Well, was. Disappearing for over two decades definitely weakened that position. There are absolutely all kinds of bad dudes that followed him, from generals of failed coups, serial killers with body counts in the thousands, and in one case the galactic equivalent a living locust swarm mixed with an HOA. As for how influence or powerful his main crew is, leader of a crime syndicate would fit right in.

Yeah, no problem. They were all members of the Vortex, flagship of Captain Tarsk. While staying on Earth without Regency approval is against the law, it's still a popular hideout due to Earth's large amounts of orbital debris that shields inhabitants from scanning devices, relatively civilized populace, and the public's general disbelief of aliens.

Yeah, absolutely. Been working on it a bit beforehand and will definitely go into a few more details about the Regency in general.