Session 1: Space Elevator to Hell


The players have chosen Silva, Iona, Mason, and Zmijewski (another player chose Chaplain, but then had to drop before the first session). We begin with the four of them being pulled from their units and taking the elevator to the surface colony.

On the way down the elevator jerks to a sudden halt, and the lights dim and flicker. The characters pick up some stress, but then the elevator resumes. 

In the fort, they are greeted by Lance Corporal Francine - a leathery old marine with missing teeth. She's there to show the sorry state of the remaining marines but will take on a bigger role in future sessions. 

The characters are joined by Dante and Hammer for Major Hatfield's briefing and they spy Mallory Eckford mysteriously watching over them. 

After the briefing, they have some time before they are meant to head out. Each character can do a thing. This gives the players a minute to explore their character, try rolling dice for something, and try and get some additional gear or information. 

While Iona is trying (and failing) to get additional gear from the quartermaster, he sees Dante and Hammer loaded up and they tell him they are heading out and will see them outside. They then disappear out into the colony and will remain out of contact. 

Without learning or finding much of anything, the characters meet at the APC to head out into the colony. Francine warns them about the broken heater on APC. It's always stuck on full-blast. The heat and their failure to get around to fixing it will be a recurring source of commentary. It also means they can't de-stress in the APC (unless I want them to). 

Right outside the walls of the fort they are greeted by protesters who crowd the APC, beat on it, toss crude oil over the windshield, and bash the oil barrels against the side of the vehicle. Iona is driving and he both fails the pilot roll and freezes up in panic. This immediately brings on a panic cascade as Iona crashes the vehicle and fails and flails a bit before getting them out of there. 

They realize that an ATV has followed them from the fort. They pull over and ambush it. One of the colonists in the ATV runs off, but they capture the other, a woman named Liv Esposito. Silva has her own moments of panic trying to interrogate Liv. But they learn that, if they want info, they should talk to Ivan Stolls at the Eye of Oblivion Bar. 

We're already 2 1/2 hours into the session and most of the characters are on the edge of a nervous breakdown from the stress, so we end the session there. 


Initially, I was a little disappointed with the first session. That's 1 of 6 down and we haven't even gotten to the scenes I was anticipating, much less gotten through them. But, in retrospect, I like how it played out. We've established character and setting pretty well. The players have gotten a taste of the system (particularly the stress mechanic). The events that are freaking out the characters are pretty mundane by RPG standards but would be very stressful for normal people. Their reaction really establishes the "average joe" starting place for the characters and will be a nice foundation for the events that follow.


Session 1 played on 4/8/2021

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