Gladiator Manager Wargame, Ludus: A game of gladiators and lanistas

I purchased the fresh (released March 10^th) new wargame Ludus: A game of gladiators and lanistas by Michael Bergen Henegouwen on Wargamevault. I’ve read through it, and I like what it has to offer. Ludus takes skirmish games to the extreme. You are usually fighting one vs one, with your choice of a gladiator from one of 7 classes. Each gladiator class has a different roster of 10 cards they can choose from in a match, and you reveal one card as your opponent does, per turn. This card determines your move score, your combat action and your AFTER combat move score.  With the exception of a special action card that defines your class, you can choose the same action card turn after turn as long as you have fatigue to pay for it.

The gladiator classes consist of the following: Arbelas who wields a fixed blade in their main hand and a gladius in their off hand; Dimachaerus who dual wields a pair of gladii; Hoplomachus who represents a Greek Hoplite by wielding a spear, a small shield and a dagger; Murmillo, probably the most famous type of gladiator, who holds a large shield (the scutum) a gladius and a helmet; Retiarius the lightly armored trident wielder and net thrower; Thraex, inspired by the Thracians, who wielded the curved sword the sica and a medium shield the parmula; and the Veles, based on the light skirmish troops of the Roman army, wielding a long spear called a veruta and a gladius.

Combat usually involves a 2d10 contested roll unless your gladiator is wounded. Movement is carried out on a hex map where relative facing and position give bonuses and penalties. Gladiators also gain levels from arena experience and accrue traits and can choose individual skills to help them in combat.

Beyond the combat engine, there are nine types of arena scenarios to combine with six types of arena terrain. Arena scenarios consist of traditional variations of one vs one and two vs two, but also include more exotic scenarios. For instance, a Sagittarius match consists of two gladiators pitted against each other, but with the added wrinkle of an archer (the Sagittarius) on a pillar in the middle of the arena shooting each turn at the gladiator that is furthest away from him.  Additional arena scenarios include matches against beasts, and one where the gladiators are chained to a condemned man and have to protect him from the other gladiator.  To complicate these matches there is a table to roll for different arena terrain, including a circle of fire, a swampy arena and the hazard of chained animals.

Finally in chapter four we get to the lanista campaign section of Ludus. The rules are clear and even just reading them gives me a sense of excitement at the prospect of growing and managing one’s own gladiator school.  Lanista compete with each other using gladiators to gain glory points, and the winner is the lanista who has accumulated the most after a set number of campaign turns.  Each lanista chooses four gladiators with which to compete from the 7 classes and can have no more than two gladiators of a given class.

There are additional rules to add to gladiatorial combat to spice up encounters.  Gladiators can now gain Favour, which allows a combat action reroll, through lanista action or by playing to the crowd.  In addition, assuming they are of a sufficient level, gladiators gain the option to intimidate their opponent which reduces their opponent’s vital statistics and thus combat capability. 

Lanista also get the opportunity to carry out an action once per turn in between the gladiatorial combats. This action can range from upgrading one’s ludus which strengthens one’s gladiators, to hiring specialist for an additional roll on certain challenges like rolling on the injury table or rerolling initiative.     

Overall, the book is filled to the brim with clear rules, combat examples, interesting tables, summary sheets and several pages of action cards. I can’t wait to engage in gladiatorial competition with a game group or even attempt some of the scenarios solo.  The designer mentions that he chose to not include gambling, and I think the lack of a money and prices system actually enhances the flow of the game, particularly the lanista campaign.  All you have to be concerned with is what action a lanista will take per turn, not how much such an action would cost.  So lanista actions are more easily balanced with each other. Having said that I also can see that there is room for expansion with Ludus.  More classes, perhaps actions gladiators could take outside the arena, and maybe a limited betting system where glory is wagered over gladiatorial results, would be welcome additions. For $8, the pdf is 62 pages with 81 action cards to print out in the back.

Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant!

Base Building, Domain Management or Organization Building RPG Resources

 I am a big fan of base building and domain management type games. I assembled a list with help from the Something Awful traditional games board, of all the RPGs we could think of that had elements or full on rules of management types of games.  

This list will be updated as needed.  If a game line is listed (like Ars Magica) then these organizational rules are in the core book.  Most of the others are supplements to major game lines, as these topics do not always get a central focus.

11/1/22 Edit: I've updated this list with additions from a Reddit thread on base building rpgs, here. Where possible, I have verified that these additional rpgs have base building rules.

4/20/23 Edit: Updated the list again thanks to another Reddit base building in rpgs thread, here.  In addition I am using the excellent Realm-management wiki page from the Tabletop RPGs subreddit as a source for some of entries for this list.

   

D&D

Birthright (AD&D)

Stronghold Builder’s Guidebook (3.5 D&D)

Dragon 395 (4ed D&D) – strongholds and upgrades

Adventurer’s Vault 2; Dragon 383 – lair magic items

Dragon 412 (4ed D&D) – boats

Mordenkainen's Magnificent Emporium – hireling rules

Admiral o' the High Seas (4ed D&D; Pathfinder) aka Seas of Zeitgeist – building ships, naval combat

DMGR2 - Castle Guide for 2e AD&D

Strongholds & Followers (5e D&D)

OSR/D&D related

Ultimate Campaign (Pathfinder) – has updated Kingmaker rules

Hell’s Rebels Campaign (Pathfinder) – build a rebellion

Way of the Wicked Book 2 (Pathfinder) – Henchmen management rules

Way of the Wicked Book 6-7 (Pathfinder) – Kingdom management rules

The Nightmares Underneath - establishing ties to and influence over local businesses and organizations

Fields of Blood- The Book of War (d20) 

Empire (d20) 

Kingdoms: A Zine of Generational Proportions (OSR) 

Sine Nomine (Kevin Crawford)

An Echo Resounding

Godbound

Stars Without Number

Other Dust

Silent Legions

HarnMaster

HarnManor – manage noble estate, growing motherfucking turnips

Pilot’s Almanac – sailing ships, trading cargo

White Wolf

Gilded Cage (V:tM)

Damnation City (V:tR)

Exalted 2e Storyteller's Companion – Mandate of Heaven rules.

Exalted 2e Masters of Jade

Traveller (Mongoose)

Traveller: Core – build planets

Merchant Prince - trading companies

Dynasty – manage dynasties over generations

Mercenary – military bases.

GURPS

GURPS Boardroom and Curia

GURPS Low-Tech Companions 1-3

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Taverns

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Guilds

GURPS City Stats

Forged in the Dark

Blades in the Dark

Wicked Ones (Free Edition)

Mountain Home

Powered by the Apocalypse

Apocalypse World - hardholder has to manage their settlement, the hocus has to manage their cult, the chopper manages their gang.

Stonetop

No Country for Old Kobolds

Solo

Penciltown

DELVE: A Solo Map Drawing Game

UMBRA: A Solo Game of Final Frontiers

Other

Base Raiders (Strange FATE) - p.187

Sagas of the Icelanders - Icelandic Homestead Management minigame

Mutant: Year Zero

Conspiracy X

Reign

Ars Magica

Pendragon

Gods and Monsters (Fate)

Mystic Empyrean

Legacy: Life Among the Ruins 

Weapons of the Gods Companion

Green Law of Varkith (Dungeon World) – build guild

Spellbound Kingdoms

Savage Worlds Super Hero Companion – build superhero bases

Champions (all versions) – build superhero bases

Rogue Trader: Stars of Inequity – build planets and manage colonies

A Song of Ice and Fire (Green Ronin) – run game of thrones house and holdings

Dune: Chronicle of the Imperium – manage a House Minor

Dune (2d20): The Great Game: Houses of the Landsraad

Underground – changing society to be more or less crime-ridden rules

Conan the King (Modiphius) - see mostly chapter 8 about kingdom management and faction power struggles

Vaesen

Forbidden Lands

Twilight 2000 4th edition

After the War

Death in Space – spacecraft and space station rules

Shadows Over Sol: Siren's Call - systems for colony building, societal planning, advancement and mass combat.

Seeds of Wars - fantasy system agnostic rules for realm management and tactical warfare. Supposedly inspired by AD&D Birthright rules (above). 

Sorcerers of Ur-Turuk – similar to Ars Magica, this rpg has rules for constructing a Vahnam, the home base for sorcerers and their staff. 

Do Not Let Us Die In The Dark Night Of This Cold Winter – obtain and manage supplies for a doomed village

Lord Flataroys Guide to Keeps and Fortifications (Hackmaster 4e)

The Ultimate Base (Hero System)

The Quiet Year 

HELLPIERCERS

Sanctum (Heart: The City Beneath) - focuses on supporting a base

Flatpack: Fix the Future 

Numenera: Destiny – has rules for GMing Communities

Wrath of the Autarch

Fragged Kingdom 

Blood and Honor 

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 2nd Edition, Renegade Crowns – not a resource management game, but it provides background charts and tables for developing petty kingdoms and a simple system for resolving Internal and External problems for a realm. 

Further Delta Green Scenario Thoughts

More news articles that could have ramifications for Delta Green have crawled out of the woodwork.

First up, the chemical hexadecanal (HEX) emitted by babies can make men more docile and women more aggressive.

The story is that HEX, an odorless compound emitted by humans from their skin, saliva and feces; had a relaxing effect on mice when isolated and piped into their cages.  Interestingly, HEX is among the most abundant molecules emitted from human babies’ heads.

To test the effects of HEX on people, researchers first created a computer game designed to generate frustration and measure it in players.  The game was designed to be a little sneaky.  First of all, participants were informed they were playing a two-person game with an unseen partner. They were not; their “partner” was really a computer.  Secondly, the participant was instructed to split up a sum of virtual money with their “partner”.  However, the computer partner was hard coded to reject any proposal other than 90% of the whole amount.  The rejected came in a bright red “NO!” and the participant was given the impression that neither they nor their partner earned any money.

Then comes revenge, and frustration measurement. The participant was then allowed to subject their “partner” to gradations of noise, and each gradation had an emoji expressing increasing levels of pain, as presumably payback for refusing the participant’s previous rejected offer of virtual money.  Naturally there was no effect on the computer “partner”, but this served as a quantitative measure of aggression in the participant.

 Now comes the test of HEX on human aggression. The participants were either exposed to a HEX-infused adhesive strip on their upper lip or an identical strip which did not contain the chemical.  The results were interesting.  Exposure to HEX calmed men down (made them 18.5% less aggressive) but women were found to be more aggressive in the noise-blast task (19%).  In a separate experiment involving monitoring brain activity in an MRI, similar aggression increase (women) or blunting of aggression (men) was observed.  Apparently, HEX modulates aggression in humans in sex-specific manner.

What role would this discovery take in the universe of Delta Green?  First of all lets assume that there is a fictional version of HEX called “CONTROL” that has a much more demonstrative effect on men and women’s aggression levels. Since CONTROL would blunt aggression in men, it is not out of the realm of possibility that March Technologies would be manufacturing a gas bomb to deploy over combat zones to weaken soldier’s (usually men) capabilities and make them easy targets for a force with gas protection.  Perhaps Delta Green agents are subjected to CONTROL gas upon invading a March Technologies shell company and they get penalties to combat skills, to account for their reduced aggression. Perhaps CONTROL is piped into a room before March Tech’s Spec Ops team engage Delta Green agents.  Or perhaps CONTROL even has an effect on Deep One Hybrids or Ghouls and is aerosolized in a Mythos monster cell block.

Then there is also the thought of how March Technologies would harvest the chemical CONTROL for industrial purposes.  This is best left as an exercise for the dark thoughts of a Handler late at night.

For women’s reaction to CONTROL, let us first take a look at the myths of Ancient Greece. Maenads were female followers of Dionysus in Greek mythology.  They have been portrayed as extremely aggressive, working themselves into a state of ecstatic frenzy through drinking and dance and then ripping the unlucky limb from limb.  Perhaps CONTROL is the key to unlocking the Maenad state in women. Imagine half the population of a small town becoming homicidal mad-women while the men of the population sit dumbly unable to raise resistance or even escape because their natural aggression (perhaps even adrenaline?) is drained from them.  The carnage would be extreme.  Naturally this would draw the attention of Delta Green. Even better, have the Delta Green agents embedded in the soon-to-be-gassed town looking to eliminate some vector before the howling and mass violence begins.

Another thought is that CONTROL might be replicating the effects of an Ancient Greek drug sacred to Dionysus.  Dionysus is associated with the Great God Pan (Arthur Machen) so perhaps He or one of his Servitors manifests during the mass madness, causing a full-blown Mythos outbreak.

As an aside, I could also see the computer program designed to incite frustration in the HEX experiment used by Delta Green as part of their screening (hazing) processes.

The second news story is about a Peruvian pre-Inca civilization that spiked their beer with hallucinogenics and threw ravers for diplomatic purposes.

The Wari civilization, in the highlands of Peru between 500 and 1100 C.E. may have added hallucinogenic vilca seed powder to mole berry beer.  The trick is that when consumed alone, likely by snorting the powder, vilca seeds bring on very intense, private hallucinations. Diluting the powder in beer makes the high last longer, yet not as intense, and something you can enjoy with other people; according to the archeologist who led the excavation. Thus, the Wari had developed the perfect party drug with which to wine and dine fellow elites and build diplomatic ties with other tribes.  Supposedly this is how the Wari built their empire without grand public ceremonies or military invasions.

How could this ever go wrong? Enter the Mythos and Delta Green.

Hallucinogenics can be dangerous in the Mythos. Sometimes they can break down barriers and reveal What Man Was Not Meant To Know.  Consider, the Tillinghast resonator stimulates the pineal gland of the observer electronically and allows them to see into the dimensions beyond.  Perhaps the vilca seed powder does the same thing to humans chemically, but just has a lesser effect when imbibed as a spiked drink.  Maybe instead of just partying, the Wari diplomatic ceremonies had a darker purpose.  Perhaps the Wari ruled through the mystic might of their sorcerers and the diplomatic ceremonies where vilca was imbibed was really done to expose those psychically sensitive of the opposing tribe.  Unwilling to have nascent psychically sensitive competitors, the Wari sorcerers could make the exposed psychically sensitive “disappear” as Tillinghast’s servants did when they were under the influence of vilca and could see and attract the Horrors from Beyond that would then eat them alive.  

What about the modern age? Perhaps an enterprising archeobotanist decided to throw a vilca-fueled party at a college for an exclusive meeting of grad students.  Horror begins, as thanks to an accidental overdose of vilca, the carousers see Beyond and are then stalked throughout the campus by invisible creatures intent on disintegrating their flesh.  Perhaps vilca spiked beverages are distributed to a party of elite bureaucrats and politicians at a G8 summit with the intent to make the partygoers see Beyond and disappear in a very dramatic and untraceable fashion.  After all, the only thing left of the victims would be empty clothes.   

Some More Delta Green Scenario Thoughts

 Science continues to trundle onwards, and this week I've found two news articles on scientific discoveries that may have implications for Delta Green.

478 Mesoamerican monuments revealed in Southern Mexico by lidar

Some of the structures date as far back as 3000 years ago, and many are still buried under foliage. The structures include artificial plateaus that may have been used for ceremonial or religious purposes. 

And if you look at the methods, more details of some of these structures may be yet to be revealed. The researchers utilized survey data by the Mexican government that covered approximately 84,500 square kilometers at a lidar resolution of a 5-meter scale.  Typically in archeological surveys, the resolution of lidar surveys is preferred to be at the 1-meter or 50-centimeter scale.  So now archeological teams in the future have their pick of new sites to uncover and there maybe more architectural details to be revealed at the 1-meter scale.

So this means the Handler has a plethora of new potential Mythos sites to play with in an area from roughly San Lorenzo to Aguada Fenix. Some of these sites are presumed to be Mayan and others Olmec. 

Naturally Mythos aficionados will recognize this as Yig country and perhaps a few others will nod towards The Transition of  Juan Romero (Lovecraft) for ideas, but there are other possibilities as well.  Mi-go have been known to mine strange and rare metals from Earth in South America. It's possible that earlier Mesoamerican cultures may have come under their sway.  Also the terrible caverns where the monstrous K'n-yanians dwell span as far south as the South Pole so it's possible there are fissures in the Earth nearby the ceremonial artificial plateaus that could have received worship. 

4,000-year-old Chinese mummies from the Tarim Basin

So there has been some molecular archeology done on 13 remarkably preserved Chinese mummies from the Tarim Basin.

A statement from the article says:

"Starting in the early twentieth century, the mummies were found in cemeteries belonging to the so-called Xiaohe culture, which are scattered across the Taklamakan Desert in the Xinjiang region of China. The desert “is one of the most hostile places on Earth." says Alison Betts, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney in Australia."

Handlers and Keepers know that the Plateau of Leng haunts the area (as the Tibetan Plateau is right south of the Tarim Basin). What if the Plateau of Leng is a dimensional anomaly that is carnivorous and wants to expand, but has been thwarted in it's expansion by human peoples in the area with mystic knowledge?  What if a "Plateau of Leng pacifying" ritual has to be done once a millennia by someone with genetic heritage from the Tarim Basin mummies like their ancestors did? Imagine a possibly international search by Delta Green agents aided or confounded by GRU-SV8 agents to find people with the genetic heritage of the mummies and a last frantic run away from Communist Chinese agents in the Tarim Basin as a last desperate ritual against the Plateau of Leng is enacted. 

Or maybe these ancient residents of China knew the danger of the Tcho-tchos and their resting places contain hypergeometric relics that are being trafficked to America (or GRU-SV8) where they are being studied? Perhaps the players are instead smugglers who are trying to profit off of artifacts to be destroyed by the Chinese government. 

After reading parts of the academic paper on the mummies (which is here) I found another interesting wrinkle about the Tarim Basin society that created the mummies. There is evidence for ritual use of something called Ephedra there and in surrounding cultures. 

According to Wikipedia at least, Ephedra is a botanical from which I think one extracted Soma, which is talked about in the Vedas as a "a holy substance to an actual personified god and is considered a teacher, doctor, medicine, a bringer of insight and a vector of inspiration."

Ultimately Soma could get you high to the point where you communed with the gods. Maybe Soma and thus Ephedra could be another component for Space Mead?

5 Parsecs from Home After Action Report 1

 This is a after action report of a wargame skirmish of a 5 Parsecs from Home game with the previous posts' randomly generated characters.  I have taken the most interesting events of each round and narrated them. Only some actions (like characters stunning other characters) that were not of tactical consequence were omitted. 

*****

The ornithopter’s frame shook violently as the craft juked and swerved over the belching smokestacks and humming power wires of the industrial center below. Captain Bjorn Ivannox swayed in his harness webbing, affixed to a hook in the ceiling, as he reviewed the battlefield data with his crew through his VR implant. Brilliant goldenrod arrows shimmered against an oldtech background of phosphorescent green lines, denoting the industrial battlespace his crew was about to engage in.

“How many contacts?” asked the soldier Anriel, not looking up from adjusting his tracking sight on the lean and smooth infantry laser. “Should be six at most,” Leomes Gallo chimed in, the technician studiously checking the social media presence of the Black Dragons, the asteroid pirate faction they were about to ambush. “Six. A match to the crew’s numbers,” Bjorn thought.

Bjorn leaned back in the webbing and ran through his memory of the past 24 hours. At a speakeasy, The Thirsty Engine, a corpo drenched in sweat had barged in and openly offered a bounty on the Black Dragons. Something involving a deal gone bad and a gene-locked suitcase full of data on the site. Sensing a good opportunity when he smelled it, Bjorn immediately riled up his crew and got them transport to the industrial zone on a creaky Shrike Mark II ornithopter. Flying low to the horizon, this dubious transport would cloak their approach from spaceship-seeking sensors and afford them a fast evac if things went wrong.

Bjorn waved away the VR display and took a steady look at his other companions. Fallox Encia was leaning down in her webbing-hammock, one hand tapping out a beat on her music synthesizer while the other was carefully locking the thermal clip into her well-worn scrap pistol. Levian Nuende was running his fingers over his shaved head as he studied the VR map of the battlespace, his blast pistol locked and loaded on his hip. Piklov Demir was polishing the blade of his brutal buster sword and nodding absently with his headphones on. Bjorn knew from experience that Piklov was listening to some commentator or another describing the fluctuations of planetary commodities and intersystem cryptocurrency. Always rooting after fat stacks of credits, that one.

“Five minutes until drop!” Bjorn yelled over the comms as his crew made last minute preparations to their various implements of murder and mayhem. Bjorn’s VR display crackled into life again with golden triangles and red lines warning of atmospheric disturbances. A storm front was mixing with the localized industrial pollution to a dense heady smog and gloom over the battlespace. “Expect smog as thick as tar!” Bjorn announced, “Visibility limited.” Piklov glanced up at Fallox with a savage grin and both crewmembers clanged their respective melee weapons together in excitement. “Should be good for some up close and personal action!” Piklov exclaimed.

The ornithopter buzzed up and down over the dropzone. Six filamentous ropes sprang from the bottom of the transport and the crew slid down as one unit, Bjorn touching earth first.

(First Round)

A couple of quick finger gestures, and Bjorn had ordered the squad to form out in a battle line in the midst of the industrial smog, each member securing themselves in cover behind a fabbed piece of concrete or a reinforced steel fence.

Bjorn peered out over the edge of his barricade, the green image enhancement of his VR clarifying murky shadows and formless obstructions as towering concrete pillars and a mess of industrial robots parked in stiff silence.

There, the entire squad heard it; radio crackles of men chuckling, at leisure. Coming from the forest of concrete pillars to the north. Just then, Piklov made a move.

Clutching, then parkouring over the chain linked fence, Pikov was already in motion as he saw it. A shiny suitcase propped up, forgotten, against an automated forklift; the gene-lock signature on it glowing steady phosphorescent and green. Payday.

Pikov’s heavy bootsteps echoed on the hard surface of the industrial park. The radio chatter cutoff abruptly and curt orders were barked over the enemy intercoms as Pilkov slid next to the forklift, slamming hard into its frame, his buster sword on his back bouncing in its sheath.

Bjorn could see a rare ray of sunlight shine off of Pilkov’s gold tooth as he grabbed the suitcase in triumph, then immediately hit the deck to avoid a spray of gunfire from what could only be the Black Dragon pirates saturating the area with military rifles on full rock-and-roll.

(Second Round)

“Contact! Contact!,” Bjorn yelled, sprinting towards the reinforced fence previously vacated by Pilkov as his sight filled with glimmering red crosshairs now moving in formation to the north. “Six! Count them, six contacts! Lets do this!” Bjorn roared as he ducked his head from a burst of fire that narrowly missed his camo beret.

Far to his right, Anriel coolly took aim and breathed out slow. The was the bark of pain from the Black Dragon’s side as Anriel’s infantry laser cooked one of the armor plates on the man that was shouting orders over the radio comms. Damn. Solid miss.

Levian Nuende sped over to the fence next to Bjorn and immediately spun his blast pistol up in a snap shot. “FUCK FUCK” came the response from the Black Dragons as the radio commands cut off abruptly and the man in Anriel’s sights crumpled to the floor. “Game over, Game OVER,” one of the pirates screamed upon seeing his commander bleeding on the floor. He turned tail and fled. Four contacts left.

(Third Round)

Breathing raggedly, Piklov Demir sprinted back towards Bjorn’s firing line, adrenaline and residual chems pumping in time with his heartbeat. As Piklov broke cover, one of the Black Dragons, the left part of his face ripped and replaced with targeting optics, casually spun up an oversized revolver and fired two incendiary red bolts downrange at Piklov. One bolt clanged against the gene-locked suitcase and ricocheted down the industrial park to explode into a mass of burning sticky chems. “Oh shit, that’s clingfire,” Piklov managed to think as the second bolt slammed into his back and turned him into an unfortunate inferno.

(Fourth Round)

“Piklov’s down!” Levian Nuende shouted to Bjorn who was adjacent to him behind the fence. “Then do something about it, goddamn it!” Bjorn roared back, spittle flying as he surveyed the incoming red-crosshairs encroaching on their position. Sweat apparent on his shaved head, Levian took a heartbeat to aim and then pulled the trigger on a Black Dragon to his right. The Dragon’s faceplate crumpled and the man shivered visibly, but he continued to rush forwards after a moment.

But that moment was all that Leomes Gallo needed. In an impromptu sniper’s crouch, his hand cradling a well-worn colony rifle, Gallo fired and the encroaching pirate who had paused fell to the ground, senseless.

The Black Dragons continued their advance. With the suitcase in sight, they were out for blood.

Meanwhile on the right flank, soldier Anriel was busy. Adjusting his position and toggling his range finder, he targeted the profile of the Black Dragon with the devastating clingfire revolver. A beam fired away. Miss. Not to be outdone, the Black Dragon fired his revolver back, missing twice.

(Fifth Round)

Eyes narrowed, Anriel fired off an angry last shot and leapt over the barricade back to safety. To his surprise, the laser connected, drawing a cry of pain as a cauterized line nearly bisected the revolver man’s shoulder. Unsurprisingly, the bark of a command was followed by the sounds of full auto military rifles firing against Anriel’s barricade. He was pinned down, but luckily unharmed and he knew it; he hunched over into a crouch and waited for a break in the action.

On the left flank, Fallox Encia kept up a steady flow of covering fire. Annoyed, a Black Dragon took aim and fired at Fallox’s exposed wrist on rock-and-roll. Struck, Fallox howled and slammed into the ground, her body quickly going into shock. Bjorn hissed through his teeth and mentally subtracted one on his side from the fight. The Black Dragons’ odds had just narrowed and he need to do something and do it fast.

One of the pirates had advanced out of position to get a good angle on Anriel. Leomes Gallo took advantage of this mistake by leaning out from behind cover and shooting the man center of mass. The Black Dragon whipped his rifle around at Leomes, bullets spraying a deadly rain in the area, as Captain Bjorn Ivannox seized the initiative, climbing over a reinforced fence and leaping, swinging his glowing glare sword down in a powerful arc that cleaved through the Black Dragon’s rifle and into his groin.

(Sixth Round)

His opponent finished, Bjorn scrambled toward the frozen forklift for cover, but it was too late. Bjorn had managed to cut down the Black Dragons to two men, but he left himself exposed and the man with the clingfire revolver shot two bolts, both impacting his lower body, starting an instant inferno. Bjorn was down, insensate as fire whorled around him. The Black Dragon laughed as his facial optics whirred and pulsed, searching for another victim.

The one remaining pirate with the military rifle fired upon Leomes Gallow, seeking an easy kill. “Fuck it,” spat Leomes, leaning out of cover again and exchanging fire with the pirate. Both men cried out as they were wounded, but the Black Dragon screamed louder; there was a hole in his midsection from Anriel’s laser beam coming from the right flank.

(Seventh Round)

With a speed that suggested chemical augmentation and desperation, the revolver wielding Black Dragon all by his lonesome, sprinted over to the wounded Leomes and giggled as he raised his gun and fired.

“Damn you!” Levian Nuende shouted and fired his blast pistol wildly downrange. But it was the soldier’s well developed cold focus that ended the engagement. Anriel’s sights coalesced at the base of the laughing Black Dragon’s spine. He pulled the trigger. There was no recoil. There was no sound as the target simply vaporized into a fine red mist.

***

Bjorn tossed and turned, groaning at the bright light piercing through his eyelids and the incessant beeping slowly reaching his ears. His nose filled with the scents of antiseptic and sterile gauze. He was thirsty, so thirsty. He coughed and nearly gagged at his dry throat. “Report” he managed to croak out.

“You’re in Med Bay” came Anriel’s gruff voice. “I can tell,” Bjorn rasped, bright lights and colored sensors assaulting his vision as his eyes fluttered open. “What happened?”

Anriel just laughed and slid his fingers into his beltloops. “All crew accounted for. Two have more serious wounds than you, old timer.” The old soldier nodded to the table in front of him, “And we secured this.” The green light of the gene-lock glimmered tranquilly on its indestructible steel suitcase.

Payday, Captain Bjron Ivannox thought as the warm inviting blackness crept up behind his eyes then gently engulfed him.

5 Parsecs from Home Review

 5 Parsecs from Home is a Sci-fi Solo Wargaming system (called an Adventure Wargame) where you assemble or generate a crew from random tables and then skirmish with procedurally generated enemies. The hefty element to the game is the Campaign system where your crew can develop their skills, pay off the loan for their spaceship, get into trouble, and buy and trade weapons and gear between battles. It also includes robust Patron, Job, Rival and Quest subsystems.

The combat is punchy and quickly resolved. One battle will take about an hour and there are a large variety of enemy types.

The combination of solo skirmish wargame and campaign system creates a rich environment for writing prompts which can easily be turned into a narrative. That is what I have done here. Below is the 5 Parsecs from Home squad creation session. The actual wargame skirmish will come in another post.

5 Parsecs from Home is $20 for the pdf on DriveThru or $35 for the physical hardback plus pdf at Modiphius.


Squad Creation

I decided to let the random tables whip up a crew for me. Since I am terrible at making up names, I also turned to an online randomizer for scifi names. The results surprised me at how much they made up a cohesive and interesting back story. Randomized elements from Five Parsecs are in bold.

I picked my first randomly generated crew member to be the leader, sight unseen.

Bjorn Ivannox is the captain’s name. He grew up in a wealthy merchant family, but for him a safe and comfortable life was not in the cards. His family was brought low and raided by a criminal element, that he has vowed revenge on. To prosecute his personal war against the criminal enterprise he has become a spacefaring nomad, bouncing around the galaxy from planet to planet in his retired troop transport ship; taking on all sorts of work to fund his mission. During his travels, Bjorn has acquired a Nano-Doc which he uses to keep himself in fighting shape and ahead of his addictions as he quests among the stars.

Anriel, just Anriel is a taciturn soldier. Leading the life of a drifter from spaceport to spaceport Anriel picked up a smattering of survival skills and experience in odd jobs before he eventually wandered towards the military. Discipline and brutality became his daily bread as he was shipped off to planet after planet in the Guard, part of one Company’s Dirtkicker’s Dozen or another’s. He doesn’t say much about his previous billets, all he does is polish his standard issue steel boots carefully and keep his infantry laser well maintained. Anriel bonded with Bjorn over their shared desire for revenge over those criminal elements who disrupted their lives. Anriel however will not talk about his personal grudge; he just serves as Bjorn’s enforcer and first mate on the ship, and he kills on command.

Fallox Encia. You may have heard of her from the resident spacers’ youth, talking about how her melodious cello over dubstep and screamcore tones is just electric man, electric! An irrepressible and unfatigable artist, this music-mixer and instrumentalist par excellence, nearly never made it to the top 1000 space-billboard charts. Armed with only a scrap pistol the plucky Fallox escaped from a subjugated colony on an alien world that Bjorn and company had decided to land on for refueling. Bartering the use of her personal repair bot (stolen of course) as collateral for oxygen and food on the spaceship, Fallox now peruses her desire for Galactic fame along with carrying out any mercenary work the captain finds for the crew.

Levian Nuende wasn’t worth a dram of good air on his old home. Always a scavenger, a schemer and when necessary, a thief in the slums of the space station that raised him; Levian learned to survive to adulthood with a little help from his genius counterfeiting abilities (Fake IDs) and a shadowy private organization that stepped in from time to time to keep Levian on the right side of an airlock. Armed with a potent blast pistol, Levian now seeks order in the universe. For Levian that order is made manifest by carrying out sometimes inscrutable instructions from his shadow patrons.

Lemoes Gallo. Holy man of the ship. He jokes that the only reason that Bjorn and Anriel keep him on is for luck, and the fact that he knows a Firebird 1200 engine backwards and forwards in his sleep. Born on a backwater isolationist enclave, faith was an omnipresent presence for Gallo. Every moment in life and star in the sky was a gift from the Universal; and the Universal was present in all things, even technology, Gallo drones on and on to the crew. The ship’s technician, most crew-mates put up with him since he is responsible for the life-support and mess hall auto-chef. Gallo’s only heirloom of home is a dusty bipod, and a careworn colony rifle which he tinkers with in his off time, humming psalms to himself.

Piklov Demir. The scourge of the orphan utility program he was born into. Supposed to be raised into upstanding citizens of planetary administration and the military alike, Piklov turned his back on all that and began a life of petty criminality. If there was something you wanted, Piklov could acquire it by means fair or foul, all for a price. Constantly on the outs in his orphanage, Piklov was voted most likely to be spaced in his class until the influence of a wealthy individual took a shine to Piklov’s machinations and bailed him out of jail occasionally. Worshiping on the altar of Wealth, Piklov repays his patron by taking on increasingly more dangerous missions that reap progressively more lucrative rewards.

Some Delta Green Scenario Thoughts

 To be brief, Delta Green (DG) is a modern scenario setting for Call of Cthulhu-like investigations by government agents in an illegal government conspiracy.  Think X-files but with more dead-eyed alcoholics that are shoot first and cover up later. 

I quite like the setting and the people on the unofficial discord. These are some of the ideas I have had while chatting with likeminded DG aficionados. 

Digging plague?

I wonder if our modern preppers actually are the equivalent of catacomb diggers who dug for the sake of digging. See the manmade caves in Cappadocia. Maybe there is a human inclination genetically to dig deep into the earth? Or you could say those human diggers hear the siren's call of Chthonians? Or if you wanted to go Laird Barron's direction, hearing the call of Children of the Old Leech.  

Scandal at Miskatonic University?

There's been yet another scandal at USC, this time where a politician channeled funds to USC (one way through campaign committees) in exchange for a Dean to put the politician's son into a fast track Ph.D. in the school of Social Work. Also said politician's son was going to be hired as staff after his "graduate work".  As tangled as this is, it got me thinking about universities and DG. 

What if the economy was bad and Miskatonic U needed cash? I could see an unethical librarian lending out mundane books that had been hollowed out and instead, mythos tomes were inserted inside for interlibrary loans or to wealthy benefactors. Maybe that's personal greed though as the motive. 

What if instead of the USC situation where a politician was the giver of funds, there was a Church of Starry Wisdom cult situation where they had blackmailed or simply bribed a corrupt Miskatonic dean to give their cultists access to mythos tomes under the auspices of fake graduate programs. After all, got to get that out of state tuition upgrade!  Are you a bad enough agent in DG to go clean Academia's house for them, yet not use fire to burn down all the assets around the vector?

Einstein's Brain and the Mythos

I'm reading about the odd history of Einstein's brain. Check out this quote: "Among those who tried to take it from him was the US Army. "They felt that having it would put them on a par with the Russians, who were collecting their own brains at that time," says Abraham. "People were collecting brains - it was a thing.""

Additional quotes: 

"But taking possession the brain set in motion a painful chain of events for Harvey.

"This was supposed to have been his great good luck charm but in fact it was much more like a relic cursed," says Abraham. "He lost everything after he took that brain. He lost his job, he lost his marriage, he lost his career at Princeton. After the controversy over having taking the brain, he never regained his footing at the hospital.""

And, "She believes there are probably slivers of Einstein in attics across America - the samples distributed by Harvey to scientists who then kept them as interesting curios."

Ghouls and Warlocks at Odds

Neil Gaiman had a neat "you are what you eat" thing with mythos ghouls in The Graveyard Book. Some ghouls called each other "President-Emperor" or something similar based on who they ate of high status.

I had a grisly thought about ghouls with particular tastes. Wouldn't you look up to a ghoul who had eaten Marilyn Monroe and JFK? And as we know, degenerate though they are, ghouls were once human (most of them I think) so one could imagine some have that collector need to "catch-em-all".  There are only so many Presidents to go around.

Given the propensity for warlocks to raise famous dead people from the grave via alchemy and "essential salts" (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward) I could see warlocks battling with these fame-hungry ghouls for bodies for their terrible eldritch experiments.