Behind The Sathar Wall or Playing the other guys

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
September 15, 2017 - 11:06am
This is an idea and discussion thread for playing the "badies" from their point of view. No doubt this will develop into project threads too. So this is about developing play opportunities for Sathar and friends of Sathar. Also races who might not get along with anyone. A race  can be an enemy to the Sathar and the Core 4. TSR took a nuetral PC species made them evil so to speak in a non alignment based game. Sathar as PCs allows for alternate adventuring within a set timeline or complete reboots of settings even. 
The idea I am toying with is an adventure on a world not in "frontier" space in which gradually over time these races come into conflict with the Core 4, thus flipping the scenerio so the Core 4 become the dangerous races. 

Get started ideas... A research colony studying the remains of an ancient warship discover that a very aggressive race had conquered and destroyed many civilizations and almost wiped out all life in the gallaxy at one point... Naturally if this mysterious race is still around they could pose a threat... Solving the mysteries of the crashed ship would be hazardous of course. Research station could have even sent a distress call... Thus allied species would investigate or offer assitance.

I sm thinking to the Sathar must have a reason for fearing the reptile races... That might be fun to address as well.

Anyhow spitball away... Which badies, cultural, tech ideas, governments and so on... 

I think the Sathar like order and highly structured societies... Heck they might not be capitalists at all and view society more important than individuality despite their status leanings. Just contimplating what Sathar civilians might be like. 

What sort of things would appeal to you guys if you played the other guys? 
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."
Comments:

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 15, 2017 - 1:16pm
Well one thing I've noticed in actual table top play is that new players gravitate towards human because they figure the understand how to play them better than some alien they just heard of.

So this could be a tough sell.

Edit: Sathar project could be the place for potential project based work up. 
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 15, 2017 - 3:42pm
So if you're the Sathar would your mission be to find agents and send them on missions?
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 15, 2017 - 4:58pm
Build the power of your clan, build the power base of yourself as a upper caste sathar within the power structure of your clan, dominate lesser life forms for the good of the galaxy.

ooh i like that: for the good fo the galaxy

for the greater galactic good

A sathar creedo?
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 16, 2017 - 7:02am
I think for starters their hypnotism ability should be increased with XP just like the Core Four special abilities (battle rage, lie detection, & comprehension).

Looking at the Zuraqqor file in the back of the Ref Screen adventure, PC Zuraqqor would have the following average stats:

> low PER across the board, with varying modifiers offsetting each class for balance
> Worker class (sexless) - above average STR/STA (say +5/5)
> Warrior class (sexless) - above average STR/STA (+10/10) and above average DEX/RS (+5/5)
> Technician class (gender/sterile) - above average INT/LOG (+10/10)
> Queen class - above average STR/STA (+5/5) and LDR (+10) w/no PER hit
> King class - above average STR/STA  (+10/10), above average DEX/RS (+5/5), and LDR+10 w/no PER hit
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
September 16, 2017 - 9:12am
I am not worried about the sell to the folks I play with as they like the baddies in sci fi and tend to play off pcs anyway... orcs, dragon spawn, kobolds, spirit folk, and so on. Always want to be the baddy empires in 
tactical games.

Like the Sathar motto. "For the greater galactic good" from their perspective that is exactly what they are doing. 

Like  the idea of improving the race based skills and the Zuraqqor will be nice to work with too... thinking maybe the research outpost colony could have started as something else until the ship was found. I am thinking not the most pleasant environment planet probably originally was investigated for resources first.

So I am thinking background of the original civilian colony was probably started for mining reasons and probably had lower caste Sathar workers with low status upper caste overseers and minimum support staff low status, probably the Zuraqqor involved are either part of a hive located else where collecting resources or members of a very new hive with new Young queen establishing her status. So just like in human centeric sci fi movies we got a group of folks on the remote world only people chasing dreams, running from something, or forced there live and work... then the Ship is found... options PCs are from this original colonization terraforming mining operation, PCs are from latter military/governments that arrive to help investigate the ship or rescue colony. 

Thought on the what if people want to play humans... Snowballers. 

Snowballers as bad guys, in backing the timeline back this is a possibility too and a chance to flesh their culture out too... the Sathar did not destroy them in fact they may have been helping them all things considered, they have the same DNA as standard humans, but are genetically unique enough to be their own race... something not well addressed in the material so I think they are a mutated offshoot that became stable but unique. I suspect one of the bad humans in one of the novels was not Core 4 human but possibly a Snowballer or another human race allied with the Sathar as the description was odd... making that one human seem alien... I remember large violet eyes and something else that made me think alien... and specifically snowballer for some reason. I can't remember which novel though. I suspect Snowballers would have a very structured society too out of shear survival.  There could easily be Snowballers working and going to school in Sathar and Zuraqqor space and even small colonies or outposts. When the timeline catches up to Snowball being "liberated" by the Core 4, not all Snowballers may have liked the change... it could easily be seen and presented as "occupied" by the Core 4 and represent a destruction of their civilization. 

So since I am thinking preSWI we need not even worry about the Core 4 unless we want to address some other possibilities... Pirates the possibility of hostile Pirates from the Frontier killing small alien operations taking what they want and not reporting first contact could have consequences latter when the Sathar come charging in in SWI. Or the Sathar or Zuraqqor or even Snowballers could start working with the Pirates from the Frontier in an effort to destabilize the Frontier colonies. Or some combination of this. So the first real Core 4 race contact could be dodgy Pirate interactions between the various groups or worse what if someone with a huge population landed on an outpost and committed genocide of creepy aliens, kept it secret from the majority of colonists and has continued to pretend they were their first and had no idea other races existed until latter when it became obvious Space was more crowded than they thought, just tossing out an idea out...

Territory dispute... I think we all sort of get the Sathar we're monitoring Volturnus. There is also the possibility that a larger section of Frontier space was Sathar territory. 

So this could allow for a big backup in the timeline to preFrontier time if a Ref wants.


 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 16, 2017 - 1:17pm
jedion357 wrote:


ooh i like that: for the good fo the galaxy
for the greater galactic good
A sathar creedo?

Careful Games Workshop might sue you over that one
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

Shadow Shack's picture
Shadow Shack
September 16, 2017 - 1:18pm
Since I mentioned a reverse Volturnus trilogy int eh other thread, why not apply it in the same manner?

The Sathar Artifact was set off when the Star Devils landed and began their operation. Players would be Sathar scouts assigned to a ship that is sent to Volturnus to ascertain the situation. Upon arrival in the Zebulon system they witness the attack on the Serena Dawn (via their masked-from-radar ion driven scout ship), makes planet fall (the ship also has a lander or if it's a small ship, a secondary chemical drive thruster system), and the players are entrusted with scouting the area.

Not only do they find Outpost One and Slave City One, they come across the various "native" races up to and including the Eorna & Mechanons. Having reported this they alert their homeworlds and the battle fleet is dispatched. The final module can be portrayed by hypnotizing members of each race that the surviving Sernea Dawn characters recruit and then using them to usurp the big battle. Players can even participate in each battle of the final module and then hunt down suriving Volturnians/UPF refugees if they win.
I'm not overly fond of Zeb's Guide...nor do I have any qualms stating why. Tongue out

My SF website

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 16, 2017 - 1:19pm
Shadow Shack wrote:

Looking at the Zuraqqor file in the back of the Ref Screen adventure, PC Zuraqqor would have the following average stats:

> low PER across the board, with varying modifiers offsetting each class for balance
> Worker class (sexless) - above average STR/STA (say +5/5)
> Warrior class (sexless) - above average STR/STA (+10/10) and above average DEX/RS (+5/5)
> Technician class (gender/sterile) - above average INT/LOG (+10/10)
> Queen class - above average STR/STA (+5/5) and LDR (+10) w/no PER hit
> King class - above average STR/STA  (+10/10), above average DEX/RS (+5/5), and LDR+10 w/no PER hit

Look at the Star Frontiersman mag, there was a couple of articles on the Zuraqqor with stats and society about them.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?

Tchklinxa's picture
Tchklinxa
September 16, 2017 - 2:10pm
The reverse module idea is a good one and probably several printed modules can be modified in such a way. Volturnus is a natural great choice and I like it. 

FASA when they were doing Star Trek had at least one module that was written for both the Federation and the Klingon Empire for objectives. I had one of those modules and it was interesting I think it was played as Klingon PCs versus NPC Federation when we played it. I have been thinking along those role reversal lines and thinking of that old module. 



 
 "Never fire a laser at a mirror."

jedion357's picture
jedion357
September 16, 2017 - 2:13pm
rattraveller wrote:
jedion357 wrote:


ooh i like that: for the good fo the galaxy
for the greater galactic good
A sathar creedo?

Careful Games Workshop might sue you over that one


Seriously Greed Workshop trade marked that?????
I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers!

rattraveller's picture
rattraveller
September 16, 2017 - 7:25pm
Semi joking but they have had to change the name of several troop types since the names were traded marked by others, they are a little sensitive. For personal use it would be fine but for publishing you have to check out everything these days.
Sounds like a great job but where did you say we had to go?