#but like. i was fighting a different lizard near a cluster of tunnels and a pop-bug crawled over

[nexus-nebulae]

I'm trying to do a gourmand playthrough in rain world and i keep accidentally killing shit 😭

[caterpillar-and-canvasari]

Elder Scrolls IV x Pathfinder, Part 1

So... I got burnt out on my Pathfinder game a few months ago, and I started running a game based on TES IV: Oblivion, which was the first Elder Scrolls game I ever played. I'm not gonna put too many details that I haven't revealed to the group yet, because they're avid theorycrafters and they're digging through UESP and the internet in general trying to figure out my cryptic hints, but I will share what's happened so far, because frankly, I'm having a wonderful time.

In this version of Oblivion, the game starts with three prisoners in a cell: Skadi Nagania, an Imperial spellsword with Nord heritage, whose family motto is "I have learned nothing"; Flees-From-Water, an Argonian Blade novice with a crippling fear of slaughterfish and a strong dedication to law and order; and Theaval Oakvale, a Bosmer alchemist and the most True Neutral character you'll ever meet. The three of them are taunted by a certain Dunmer as they languish in their cell.

(Yes I am including my Valen Dreth dialogue, I spent a lot of time writing and rehearsing it!) "Well, well, well, what a sorry little party we have here! A filthy human, a midget, and a lizard. A pity you three won't have long to get to know one another. Do you know what happens to the people they place in that cell? I've heard the guards talking, something about 'extraction.' What are they extracting, I wonder? Your blood? Your life force? Your very souls? Well, it won't be long until you find out. Heeheeheehee!"

At this point, the party hears horrible screaming echoing from further down in the dungeons, and they all remember what they were doing before they were in the prison- there was a deafening crack, louder than any thunder, the sky seemed to split open, and a brilliant white light erupted from the heavens before they were knocked unawares.

Fortunately, they have a way out; after poking around the cell, they realize that a slab of the wall seems to be loose, and after more examination, they realize it can be pulled to the side using a pulley disguised as a shackle. They make their way through decrepit ruins and twisting tunnels, fighting off rats, and then skeletons, and then goblins, gathering supplies as they go (mysteriously, the loot they find is exactly what they had on their character sheets before they were arrested XD). Finally, they reach an area they expect to be full of Mythic Dawn agents (three of my four players have played Oblivion before), but instead they find clockwork spiders, crafted from mirror-polished silvery metal and powered by strange, grey clusters of crystal. The party continues on, and they find scattered bodies, both Blades and Mythic Dawn, with the occasional smashed spider. Finally, they reach a room with several doors, and the party goes to different doors to try and force a way open. It's then that Flees walks into a room and finds the body of Uriel Septim VII.

Now, something to know about Flees' player: when he first joined my group, he was extremely self-conscious. He deliberately chose to play a near-silent masked edgelord to avoid too much interaction. But as Flees fell to his kness, his player broke down into an incredibly dramatic combination of crying, yelling, muttering to himself, and, once the other players tried to comfort him, playing off their responses beautifully. I was so proud of him. Then Skadi's player really got into things, too, pushing Flees to focus on the task at hand with an uncharacteristic, authoritative coldness that was quite imperial and almost... dragonlike. Yeah, uh, everyone knows what the eventual plot twist with Skadi is.

When the three of them step out of the sewers at last, they are greeted by a terrifying sight: the Imperial City is burning, the White-Gold Tower encased in grey crystals that descend from a rift in the now-grey sky, and in the heavens hangs what looks like ornate metal latticework, encasing all of the world beyond that celestial schism.

That's where I left the first session.

[theexaltedbride]

Starship Troopers: Strange Aeons.

[Just to say it off the bat, this is an idea that I got from a conversation with a friend. It is a crossover between Starship Troopers (an amalgamation of the movie, book, and TV series,) and the works of HP Lovecraft. I don't know what roleplay system or setting could properly be adjusted to run this, but maybe someone will make use of it. I’m thinking Eldritch Skies but I don't really know. ]

The Federation has been at war with the Bugs, also known scientifically as "Pseudo Arachnids", for close to five years now. Thousands have died, and many have felt the strain of war in some part of their lives.

Humanities' very first encounter with the bugs was after the formation of the Strategically Integrated Coalition Of Nations (S.I.C.O.N.). Our research outposts on Pluto were slaughtered by the bugs, who had been on Pluto for longer than we knew, digging tunnels all around it and digging deep for valuable minerals. SICON responded with a military assault named “Pest Control” that chased the bugs off. After that we had 25 years of peace as SICON became the Federation, and led the human race into an expansionary rush with new FTL technology and led to the colonization of the final frontier. 

But this Golden Age of peace and expansion was not meant to last. 30 years after Pluto, we started seeing more signs of the bugs. Operation Pest Control on Pluto was not as successful as many had hoped, and another conflict on that cold world the bugs called “Yuggoth” was the start of the Federation, Arachnid war.

Since then we have fought them tooth and talon for every world near the Arachnid Quarantine Zone. We have even come into conflict with a client race we call “The Skinnies”. They too fought the bugs, but surrendered, deciding that it was best to submit than to be destroyed.

The Bugs have ships and organic technology that puts the best steel and computers of the Federation to the test. Their numbers cannot be counted. For every one human soldier there seem to be thousands of Arachnids, spread out all across space. Every soldier must be turned into a super soldier of enhancements, training, and the best technology and weapons we can create.

Seven Federation worlds have been lost to the Pseudo Arachnids. The best power suited marauders are tested to the limit against millions of bugs. It seems that for every hive the Federation destroyed, more are found, or the bugs drop another egg fall on a Fed world. 

After the complete failure of the Bug homeworld on Klendathu, many were ready to surrender. But then we had a success on Planet P. By a stroke of luck, we managed to capture a Brain Bug. Not a giant insect as many had suspected, but a real organic computer, powered by the brains of many different species.  There were even human brain cylinders present. Prisoners of the bugs had their brains sucked out by a creature which then put the brain in a cylinder and hooked it up to the computer, forcing it to reveal all of its secrets and to help power the computer, working as a Command and Control system for all of the bugs in the region. 

Once the Brain on P was captured, the Federation Mobile Infantry and Fleet units had a much easier time fighting against the local Pseudo Arachnids, as they had little to no proper cohesion and were even fighting amongst themselves.

We used this advantage to take Planet P, and then study the Brain bug we had managed to capture. The knowledge we took from it caused many to commit suicide, or be driven mad at the realization of what we were truly fighting against. 

The Arachnids called themselves “Mi-Go’. And they had an empire that reached from one part of the galaxy to the next, almost unchallenged by any other race, and even those that challenged them were their enemies would not be kind to the Human Race. 

Klendathu was not the Bug homeworld, as we had hoped, it was in fact just a regional capitol that the Mi-Go thought suitable enough to wipe out the upstart humans. If the Human will not bend the knee as the Skinnies did, then they will be wiped out and their brains harvested for computing power, just like all the others.

Federation high command is trying to figure out what their next steps would be. Planet P is ours, and raids against the Skinnies have been successful as well, to the point the Skinnies have begun feeding us information against the Mi-Go. 

Even now we are planning more operations against the Mi-Go, and decoding more and more information from the captured Brain Bug. If we can capture more, we might just learn more secrets to use against our enemies.  Things might look tough now, but if we keep fighting, we have a real hope of winning.

Possible plot events:

-The Federation keeps fighting with the Mi-go Empire, engaging in planet hoping operations to help keep an advantage on the bugs while still trying to rebuild what they had lost just fighting off the Klendathu swarm. They don't know how long it will be before the larger part of the Migou Empire takes action against the Federation. They need to claim as many important planets as possible. They need worlds that are strategically well placed, good to defend, grow crops, or have valuable minerals that can allow the Federaton to keep building up its military machine, so it can outfight the more numerous Mi-go. But as the Federation scouting operations go further and further from Earth, they find clues that the universe has gone through many cycles of extinction before.

There are countless relics and ruins on many of the dead worlds they visit, and its becoming harder and harder to find habitable worlds that can support Human life. It almost looks like every other incarnation of life aside from Humanity, the Skinnies, the Yig, and the Mi-go has been wiped out, either by the Mi-Go them selves or something else that is out there, and we’re next on the chopping block. 

Federation internal security has been cataloguing these worlds and studying the relics, hoping for anything to help us in our war with the Mi-go, and they keep finding rather interesting information that points back to Earth, about some lost city. Your characters will be part of the scouting teams, either trying to keep the bugs from destroying or capturing a relic world, or trying to find worlds suitable for Human use. They could even be part of an expedition within our own Solar System, looking for anything that we might have missed with new clues from other worlds. What happens then is up to the GM. -It seems first contact has been made yet again. This time with a species that not only hates the Mi-go, but might prove a powerful ally, more so than the Skinnies, in fighting against the Mi-Go Empire.

The Federation first discovered them when a fleet was chasing down a small bug invasion fleet, hoping to get the drop on them, and came a cross a lush jungle world, with signs of civilization upon it. The dominant species of this world call themselves “The Yig“ in honor of their God of the same name. They are a species of bipedal, humanoid, reptilians, with attributes similar to earth snakes, lizards and reptiles. Some regrow lost limbs, some carry venom glands, and more. They were holding their own against he Migou, butchering the bugs in close combat and even sacrificing captured bugs to their God. Despite not having orbital superiority or weapons that would match what the Federation had, the Yig were more than capable of fighting against the Mi-go alone. The timely arrival of the human Federation just made their victory come quicker.

They don't like the Mi-go anymore than the Federation does, and some of them are willing to humor the idea of an alliance with the Federation against the bugs.. They aren't as technologically advanced as Humanity, no means of FTL, or even off world travel. But they have other devices older than human civilization. Stone tablets that read out words and hieroglyphs, working in a manner similar to our electronic tablets. They have weapons such as spears and swords or clubs with teeth on them, that they use alongside very old energy weapons that spit out lightning or fire. They even have airships and other more advanced means of travel that defy convention. When pressed about it, they simply say that they are gifts of their God and have been with the Yig people since the stars were first born. The Yig might prove to be insidious infiltrators, using humanity for their own needs, or the greatest allies that the human race could ever hope for. Only time will tell.

-The Psychic troopers of the Psi-Corps have been always very important to the Federation war effort. Even those who flunk out of the corps have a place among the cyberdog units. Their powers have helped in interrogating captured Mi-go, helping soldiers in combat, stealing information from the ‘Brain Bug’ computers. But now they feel something on the horizon. Some of them are acting odd, and the former head of the agency died in his office, after screaming.  “The Pharaoh! The Pharaoh is coming!”  Many fear that ‘The Pharaoh” might be some kind of new Mi-Go psychic bug, but some aren't convinced, and are afraid that the Psi-Corps has been infiltrated. Who could be assigned to investigate psychics capable of reading minds?

-The Federation is planning a raid on a Mi-Go held world where the bugs are dug in deep. The plan is to hit the hive clusters, destroy infrastructure and ships. (Similar to the first chapter of the book, but with the Federation hitting the Mi-go instead of the skinnies. GM should study up on the power suits and the tactics used in the book. The players may be able to capture a Brain Bug, or fail in the raid, or find out its all a trap. Its up to the GM what the players can really do and roll with their own creativity.) *Notable things: Power suits exist. Mark 1 is the type of sealed suit from the Roughnecks tv series. But Mark 2 is the jetpack and rocket launcher equipped one described in the book. I recommend watching the anime OVA to see what that one is capable of. The armor and weapons you see in the movie works better for light infantry and Planetary Defense Forces (think like a national guard or militia forces).

-The Mi-Go and the Arachnids are one and the same. The many different bugs we see are just different castes bred for different purposes. So feel free to use them in whatever iterations you feel like or invent new ones.  -There was also a Starship Troopers RTS game “Terran Ascendancy” That had some good missions and new types of bugs that could work well for you to come up with new things to combine with what little we know of the Mi-Go from lovecraftian lore. 

-The Yig can smell out those with Deep One corruption in their DNA, and they really don't like them.  -Arkham exists as a college back on Earth but there isn't much else special about it at this point. -The Innsmouth Raid is actually on file within the Federation archives.