Playtest: The Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt

I've wanted to explore the Action Vehicular combat rules for awhile, and there's no better way to do that than to use the actual rules that we've built up and run a game with them.  Furthermore, actually running a game helps me focus on what I actually need, and what actually matters.  A great deal of material comes from run games.  Finally, I've not put enough time into running games of late, as my family and work have been eating into what time I have, but with luck, I'll manage to schedule enough time to do this.

The Tall Tales of the Orochi Belt will be a (roughly) episodic mini-campaign.  I have three to five arcs planned, all episodic.  They follow in an obvious sequence, more or less, but it should be relatively easy to have players drop in and out as necessary.  The premise will be the liberation of a star system, the Orochi Belt, that features no planets to speak of, and thus all "space" action, ideal for testing out space combat rules.

The first session will be January 4th, and we already have 5 players.  As I get more details (such as who the characters are, other than one Kainian Space Knight and one Asrathi Witch-Cat Pirate), I'll tell more.  In the meantime, enjoy this introductory snippet:

The Orochi Prelude

Lady Thalia Sabine, knight of the Three-Fold Order, raced through the halls of the Atrium Senate building. The heels of her fitted, thigh-high boots rang out on the marble floors. Her carefully selected, fashionable shoulder cape flapped artfully behind her. The elegant hilt of her dueling force saber bounced on her thigh. Ahead of her, shut behind a closed door, a man’s voice reached its angry crescendo, and then fell silent. She skidded to a halt, gulped air, and slammed the door controls with her hand. The door obediently opened with a quiet shuff.

Three figures occupied the center of the room, silhouetted a grand vista with the smog-swathed homeworld, Maradon in a great window. An old woman hunched on her chair. Long, silver-white hair hid her face and her tapered fingers tested on a cane. A silken white garment flowed over her body, which managed to retain enough of its curves to hint at what beauty she must have held in her youth. Behind her, a silver Nightingale-pattern medical robot fretted, its sculpted, metallic features doing their best to express manufactured concern. Before the old woman, with his back to the Lady Thalia, a gentleman stood with a stiff spine.

Thalia’s voice cut through the tense silence with a harsh whisper.

“Get away from my grandmother, Quietus.”

The gentleman turned, then, his cloak whirling. His face bore the tell-tale, rugged, Mediterranean features of House Korenno. His gloved hand paused dangerously close to his own force sword hilt, and the two members of the Three-Fold Order glared at one another as the threat of violence hung in the air.

Then Baron Quietus Korenno tugged his cape back into place, hiding the hilt of his dangerous weapon. He lifted his chin and stepped beside Thalia.

“I was just saying farewell to the Grand Dame before she goes into her exile.”

Then he left and the door closed behind him. The medical robot visibly de-escalated, its metallic shell contracting slightly as its parts fell into a more peaceful configuration with a quiet click.

“Greetings, Lady Thalia Sabine!” the robot cheerfully chirped. “Would you like a piece of candy? Or perhaps a cup of tea?”

Both humans in the room ignored the robot.

“What did he say to you?” Thalia whispered to her grandmother.

The Grand Dame lifted her head so that the curtain of pale hair fell away to reveal her face. Dark eyes looked up at her grand daughter from a surprisingly smooth face for a woman of her years, her features a grudging compromise beauty made with maturity. Then she rolled her eyes.

“Ever since House Korenno realized no Korenno blood flowed through your veins, they’ve held a grudge. They’ve finally succeeded in limiting my options, and he wanted to gloat. That’s all.”
Thalia paused and then blinked, processing the information. “Wait, grandma, a moment. Of course grandfather was of House Korenno. How can you say that...”

The Grand Dame fixed her granddaughter with a flat stare and, after enough time had passed that Thalia surely grasped her meaning, raised her aged hand. “Help me up. These old bones aren’t as spry as they once were. I need to take command of my… what did he call it? My exile in proper fashion. We need to make sure it’s useful and I’m late already.”

That snapped Thalia from her speculative reverie and she reached out to help her grandmother rise to her feet. After her grandmother collected herself, Thalia stole a moment to study at her reflection and pondered her features, from her silken locks the color of the night sky to her raven eyes. Her features bore all the beauty one might expect from a Sabine, but she reflected on all the times people had tried to incorrectly guess the other half of her lineage, or where her unusually pure genetics came from, and wondered how much she really knew of her own heritage.

“Thalia.” Her grandmother snapped, standing near the door. “The duchess, the senate, are waiting on us.”

“Yes, Dame.”

---

The great, vaulted chamber of the Atrium Senate chamber bustled with murmuring voices. Today’s proceedings risked controversy, and thus every member of the noble houses, plebian planets and wealthy corporations wanted front row seats when the fireworks began.

The booming voice of Archbaron Kento Kain cut through the speculative chatter. He stood from his seat in the forum, gleaming in full battle regalia, his white hair pulled back into a warriors queue. Proper senatorial procedure demanded that senatorial debates occur sequentially, and that only the person with the floor, standing at the podium, could speak, but nobody dared remind the Archbaron of protocol.

“How dare you suggest that the Alliance has failed in its obligations. We fight the war as hard as we can.”

Standing at the podium, his hands grasping the edges of the lectern, the Senator-in-Exile, Sawyer Septum, gave his patented, roguish grin and asked “Did I say the Alliance failed? I said the Alliance has an opportunity!”

He gestured dramatically, as though seizing a fleeting moment. “Hyperstorms have cut the imperial occupation forces in the Orochi belt from the 137^th Imperial fleet!”

He paused, lifting a finger and glancing around the room. Thin and dressed in a brown suit and string-tie, he oozed the charisma of used starship salesman making an offer the Senate would be foolish to refuse. “With a cunning strike from your knightly fleets, we could slip in unnoticed and seize the initiative, destroy their forces and liberate the Orochi Belt from Imperial oppression. Why, imagine it! It’d be like that time when the united fleets of your august houses drove the Slaver fleets from the Hydrus Constellation! Oh, the celebrations, the feasts, the...”

“Enough, sycophant.” The Lord of Caliban growled, his hand tightening around the belted hilt of his force sword, as though he wished it was Sawyer Septum’s neck. “The warships we’d need to liberate it must remain in Caliban to prevent an attack from the 137^th. Your forces bungled the defenses of the Belt, and now you want us to sacrifice our ships to secure your seat of power.”

Thalia and her grandmother slipped quietly into their seats behind the podium, waiting their turn to speak and listening as the Orochi Senator did his best to convince the Senate of the pressing need for military aid for his beleaguered star system. When the Senator mentioned the Hydrus constellation, Thalia’s eyes darted to the Elegans delegation and she couldn’t help but find the words a calculated ploy to pique their interest.

Thalia then glanced at the other person with them waiting in the wings: the Senator’s wife, the First Lady of the Orochi Belt, Rayna Septum, and her eyes fairly popped out. The quiet, demure Rayna often appeared in holograms of Sawyer and Thalia had simply assumed they had been taken from the most flattering angle possible, but no, even in real life, Rayna had that exaggerated, sculpted perfection one rarely found outside of pornographic holograms soldiers often passed around. Her candy-red hair fell against porcelain white features and her every breath must have drawn the attention of every man in the room. She bore a bar-code tattoo on her cheek, readily identifying her as of Shinjurai lineage.

As they sat, Rayna politely leaned over and said “It’s good of you to lend support to the cause.” Her tone reminded Thalia of the manufactured politeness of her grandmother’s medical robot, and she simply smiled in response and then turned back to the Grand Dame.
“You don’t have to do this.” She murmured.

“Oh, I think I do.” Her grandmother rattled back quietly. “My position on Persphone grows more tenuous with every passing day. Soon, I shall become too controversial, too unpalatable for polite society to suffer my presence. Better to die a hero than to live as a scandal.”

“Die?” Thalia’s eyes narrowed in confusion.

“Oh, my blood is not as pure as yours, Thalia, but I still have dreams. I know I’ll die in the Orochi Belt.”

Before they could continue, the Speaker of the House, the Duchess Nova Sabine smartly rapped her gavel, ending the increasingly passionate discourse between Swayer Septum and the Archbaron. The Archbaron sat with a harrumph, and Senator Septum let his retort die on his lips, and flashed the Duchess an irreverent grin, and then exited the podium.

As he passed them, pulling out a holographic communicator attached to his vest by a gold chain, he gave his devoted wife a quick peck on the cheek and winked at Thalia “Hey, thanks for doin’ this. Every little bit helps the cause!”

Nova Sabine rose, her silken gown emphasizing the Sabine sway of her body. She lifted her chin and spoke in the crystal clear tones.

“The Senate recognized the honorable Styliana Sabine, Contessa of Delphinus, Grand Dame of House Sabine.”

The title, of course, rang hollow. House Sabine hadn’t ruled any world in the Galactic Core for a generation. Like many nobles in the Alliance, the Grand Dame bore a “dead” title, a fact that people didn’t discuss in polite society, but nonetheless hovered over her entire career like a black mark.
Lady Styliana Sabine patted her grand-daughters hand. “It will be worth it, I promise.”

She rose and approached the lectern. As she stood, setting aside her cane, she rose to her full height, and the years seemed to fall away from her, making Thalia yearn to find an old hologram and see what her grandmother must have looked like in her prime. She spoke, with the same clarity of tone that Nova Sabine had just spoken with.

“Honorable Senators of the GalacticAlliance, for too long have we hidden behind the durable shield of the Hammer of Caliban. We have surrendered initiative to the vile forces of the usurper. We allow him to rage across the galaxy and await our eventual demise. No more! No more. At last, we must bring the fight to the false Emperor. We must prove to those under our protection that membership to the Alliance means something. We must restore to the galaxy what the False Emperor took away from it: Hope.”

---

Thalia slammed the datapad to the table in frustration and then stalked to the window overlooking the hangar bay of the Heirophant, the Grand Dame’s personal carrier.

“Did another House withdraw support?” her grandmother asked quietly from where she sat while her medical robot scanned her carefully, to check for any deterioration of her health.

“Daijin.” Thalia muttered angrily.

“They had hoped to win you over to their marriage proposal. Once it was clear you intended to come with me, they withdrew.”

“And the rest?” Thalia demanded “Sabine?”

“House Korenno’s doing. They want to make sure my humiliation is as complete as theirs.”

“The Denjuku ships?”

“Where Grimshaw goes, so too goes Denjuku. They wanted to offer support to make sure the measure passed, and then claim some pressing matter to ensure they didn’t lose anything in an actual battle. Perhaps we should focus on what we have left.”

“An Elegans medical cruiser and three Kainian lancers.” She snorted.

“Ah, yes. Quite a commitment from House Elegans, but I suppose anything that gets them closer to retaking Zaine is worth any sacrifice. And Kain, of course, wants to make sure that this all isn’t a Sabine ploy to undermine their monopoly on traffic through the Maelstrom. We have some forces from the Orochi Belt as well, don’t we? Raiders, if I recall correctly, and a Kodiak?”

Thalia shifted then, her attention focused away from her grandmother and towards the hangar bay. A wildcat landed, and then another. Strange figures climbed out of craft decorated with a caricature of a female clown or jester whose face bore a striking resemblance to Thalia’s own. Thalia realized with a start that all the fighters in front of her had the same iconography.

“What’s all this?” she asked.

“Hmm?” Her grandmother asked, and then struggled to her feet. Her cane tapped the ground as she approached her grand daughter to see what she saw, and then she smiled. “Oh yes, that.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“Mine, my dear. It’s your first command.”

Thalia’s long eyelashes fluttered. “My what?”

“We need to forge a bond between our Maradonian forces and those of the Orochi Belt. It’s a new Squadron, the Oh-Twenty-Second, Harlequin squadron. You’re going to be their squadron leader. Congratulations on the promotion! I understood you have quite some training as a pilot, and it’s about time you learned to lead in battle.”

Thalia’s mouth gaped and her eyes danced in excitement, but before she could respond, her grandmother added “Are you sure you want to join us on this fool crusade? Look at those pilots.” She pointed her twig-like finger towards the window. Thalia looked again, noticing how strange they looked: one drank what looked suspiciously like green beer while prepping a game of chance with another, younger, more gullible and idealistic partner, barely more than a kid, and… was that an Asrathi? The felinoid looked strange in a piloting jumpsuit.

“They’re desperate. Perhaps they are Orochi natives who hope to liberate their system. Or perhaps they’re members of the Alliance with something to prove. Many of them are going to die. I am going to die. You might die.”

Thalia shook her head “My fortunes are forever tied to yours. You are the last of my family.”

The Contessa Styliana Sabine fell silent for a moment and then murmured “I know.”