Hired to fly a rescue ship in a remote Red Sector, the Travellers answer a strange distress call that reveals a deadly conspiracy. The adventure appears in The Marches Adventures 1-5 from Mongoose Publishing. Here are my Game Master tips and criticisms.
You can find the adventure on the Mongoose Publishing site: https://www.mongoosepublishing.com/products/the-marches-adventures-1-5
And as PDF on DriveThru RPG: https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/428908/the-marches-adventures-1-5?affiliate_id=1017650
Game Masters wanting my Contract handout and Notes can find them here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1a_WsWUoOawshsOAEMQvARJVP9WfDjXZp?usp=sharing
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Thanks for another one for the Traveller!
Should we expect more videos about the Kult?
Being unfamiliar with Traveller, my first thought on seeing that model ship was how much it reminds me of Flash Gorden styles.
"We're like a family here!" 😂 Oh Lord I have been there.
Yay Traveller!
Dear Seth, as my 1 mortal wish please do a video on how Dark Matter is the greatest inspiration for any space RPG ever. Thx 🦾
Hello Seth Skorkowsky, Lime, and today I'm going to continue March Toward Mortalicassionè
Part 4: How did we get here?
The Players: 'Bill', 'Kathrine', 'Chief Jeef' and 'Jemma'
Their Characters: Melvin Maiyelvin the Human Bladesinger-Wizard, Mariana Evecanth the Icthioid Barbarian, Kaldroth Soulcleanser the Judiadrine Sorcerer and Vendrika Stormwind the Dragonborn Paladin.
The DM: Me.
Last Time: Sorakiel's group narrowly avoided blowing the whole scheme, but Ivrakoth's group have just gone 'Indomitus' because at this Divine Funeral the main speaker is VIGOVEK.
So they're in serious trouble.
Since the wedding is pretty much over, Sorakiel decides it's time to pick up Ivrakoth and try to set off on the path to stopping Mortalicassionè. Vendrika and Kaldroth are brought along with him, in awkward silence since Kaldroth doesn't want to push into what happened with her flashback, and Vendrika is mortified that she just had it.
By the time they get to the funeral it's already more 'ballroom blitz' than 'black parade'.
Melvin and Mariana have sewn utter chaos in an attempt to get Vigovek re-killed in the crossfire; including insulting the culinary skills of the Dwarven god of bounty; as well as the fashion sense of 'The Silken Mistress', a Lovecraftian Horror obsessed with her own undying majesty.
They did that while disguised as other gods; of course, but it definitely did the job of causing a brawl to break out.
Once they're all together the Players, as well as Ivrakoth & Sorakiel, lock eyes with Vigovek like it's that one scene in Kill Bill.
The Players know Vigovek will obliterate them in a straight fight, but through the complicated web of lies and false associations they've made Him just about the least popular being here.
So they're all amped up on the blessings of countless deities, and are clearing their way through to him.
They are beating the breaks off of every undead god from here to the distant realms, and are well and truly stuck in the rumble they've caused, and because they're in so deep, Vigovek is able to grab Vendrika, and is about to use his 'Hel Talon' to rip her lifeforce out, when Kaldroth casts lightning bolt-
Now, Kaldroth had not only been blessed by both of the Twin Tzai-Ral Storm Godesses, but had also rolled maximum damage, and Vigovek's unholy luck finally ran out, his save was a natural 1.
So Kaldroth, eyes gleaming, hurls a gleaming spear-like bolt of lightning directly into the Lichegod's Skull, blowing out the back of his head behind his left eye socket, all while screaming
"Don't YOU dare Touch HER! "
With a certain Personal fury that not even he can explain. (No points for you guys guessing why; Zack gave it away last time.)
Of course Vigovek's still not dead, but it was a hell of a blast.
Vendrika slips out of his grasp and slashes him with a smite, blowing him backwards and into the open casket, knocking it over and dumping Psyrocles (like Heracles)'s Corpse on the floor.
Vigovek then swings back with the Hel talon and tears her soul out, and swallows it.
Titanaris, High King & 'Starfather' of the Haihanri Pantheon (from which Psyrocles was their god of war) finally breaks up the brawl; and for a second my players are all cringing, waiting for him to damn us all to whatever hell the HaiHanRi have, when he starts to clap and laugh.
"A Mad Brawl, not even his own body left undisturbed! Exactly as he would want!
My only complaint is that it took MORTALS to do it!"
There's a general grumbling from the divine crowd, then Tianaris tells Vigovek to make up with Sorakiel over the Mortal soul he ate.
With the players help distracting Titanaris and the crowd, Sorakiel, while pulling Vigovek in for a handshake punches him in the stomach with his other hand, so hard that his pocket dimension for devoured souls splits open, and out of his mouth came Vendrika's soul, returning to her body like it never left.
"Sorry, my arm slipped."
Sorakiel lied through his teeth.
Vigovek knew better than to try to take on Sorakiel, especially with Ivrakoth backing him up, so he just had to suck it up and skulk off somewhere to fix his dimensional binding.
My players were laughing hysterically. They stuck it to Vigovek and got away with it.
Though they knew it was definitely going to come back and bite them later, it was still always a high to knock that smug look off his skull even for a minute.
But the story of what they did now that the Wedding and Funeral were done, will have to be for next time.
Until then Seth, You have a Great Day.
Zack The NCP: Y'know, Sorakiel and Ivrakoth are Gods so strong that smashing dimensions can be convincingly written off as an accident, what do they need a gang of mortals like the players for?
There's a whole lot that we've not seen yet. They absolutely need the players. Stopping Mortalicassionè needs a whole lot more than two Gods, no matter how strong.
Zack: Alright, but how long until Kaldroth realises He's Tyrivanne? How long until Vendrika knows?
Not telling.
Wait… the "Gorram" system? When was this written, again?
Buying physical objects for roleplaying, the art of playing games with the imagination, is such a scam. Don't spend money on lumps of plastic.
As corrupt as Derisson sounds and with how he always has a scapegoat and is seemingly untouchable in regards to facing consequences for his negligence, you could totally run a variant of Murder on Arcturus Station here and say his negligence has started resulting in a few deaths here and there. Never alot at one time, always in a manner that can be blamed on accident or the "incompetence" of one of his scapegoats. Eventually, someone's had enough and Derisson pays the ultimate price.
Edit: You could even have his negligence cause issues with the PCs, maybe the engineer is injured when a faulty pipe that wasn't replaced lets off hit steam right in their face, giving that PC motive to kill him. Well, na6be not motive to kill, but they nay demand reparations when they figure out why thexpipe wasn't fixed abd things escalate from there.
Additional note, now we see how long it is before Seth does new reviews for High And Dry and Mission To Mithril.
Prefer a ships boat or a slow boat
I love your traveller reviews. They have convinced me to do a traveller campaign, set in the islands of Reft. Is there any chance mongoose would give you a discount code, if not for physical books maybe digital modules?
Lol could have called it rescue 2 and then 'don't ask what happened to rescue one' or perhaps rescue 13
This could be a cool start of a game with the characters on the ship. It would be wild for the players to start play as servants to the rich folks. Heck, if one were a former agent, this might be their last gig. Maybe even a player who is a noble or crew of the ship. Maybe even a hijacker. Then things happen and go wrong and the story unfolds that way. Players see each other and that is when we do connection skills. A hijacker PC could even get protected by his or her old friend. The rescue crew then are NPCs, with their badass Tech Level 14 suits. Of course, they might be under orders to clear out everyone in order to cover up for their boss. That would be a hard fight and maybe the PCs band together over that!
I cut myself shaving at the pinnace bit. Not joking – I’m bleeding here. Luckily I wasn’t shaving my pinnace. Or balls.
I have not played Traveller since the blackbook days (wish I still had those), but I enjoy living vicariously through your content.
Hey Seth! I wanted to ask if you're ever going to release the other cinematic campaign reviews for Alien TTRPG
A shotgun loaded with a sci-fi armour piercing gyrojet HEAT round may explain shy shotguns are still used by space pirates.
(I may have played with a "Gavin" in in my early Traveller years.)
berdodododod
I like the touch that Sir Paul despite being part of the reason the people are in trouble to begin with, was trying to get them out of danger. Which is something the party might not know until after he has already died. Meaning that they could leave him to die thinking he's just a rich asshole who got what he deserved, and then discover later, that's not entirely the case.
Though in my experiences it's always the rich boy who is actually a decent person who dies, "because he's just a rich asshole" and the rich assholes who live because "well we don't know if he's an asshole, I mean come on can anyone with that facial hair (points to curtly mustache and goatee) be evil." Cause my players are literally the WORST judges of character (which worries me about why they like me so much…) Just goes to show you though, Noblesse Oblige is rarely appreciated.
I might contribute to this issue by basically flipping a coin anytime a trope comes up as to whether or not I want to subvert it… So they can't really know if Stabby Mckillface or Dolly Dogood are exactly what they look like, or anything but.
That is a nice pinnace.
LMAO! I haven't heard a good Pinnace joke since Sie Meyer's Pirates!
All these pinnace jokes are the pinnacle of humor.
I have High and Dry and Mission to Mithral that I obtained individually but you say they are updated in the compilation. Are they very different?
3:30 Is the name an intentional joke? I mean, I can't be the only one to find the shape a little…questionable…right?
"necessary codes to arrive at this planet undetected." just skipped right past that one. It makes no sense. If you are transmitting a code, you are by definition detected.
this is my favorite TTRPG I have found, me and my buddy made characters and it was laugh out the most fun we ever had making characters, he ended up some mad pirate and I was a disgraced doctor forced it to the military, when we ended our careers we were beat up in debt and had more enemies than we know what to do with. sadly we have not played a session yet but that character creation alone won me over
Would’ve been neat if the consequence of being spotted by the locals affected the rescue mission itself, rather than just the epilogue.
Introducing some approaching locals as a new factor for the players to deal with would be a good tensioner. The video didn’t mention this, but was the crashed ship just left on the planet or did the players have to sink/destroy it?
You always go above and beyond! THanks as usual for letting us see behind the curtain in this excellent review & guide!
So it's a Prime Directive scenario?
When I was looking at my 1E Spinward Marches map and noticed the Gorram system, I thought it was an intriguing bit of evidence for the theory that Joss Whedon played Traveller at some point before writing Firefly.
Ooh… I want that Modular Cutter…
I have a question about Univerity:
If you finished you term in university your EDU is increased by+1
If you graduated, in Graduation Benefits you have information that EDU is increased by +2 (an additional)
So, that means, in total you gained EDU +3? Or just +1 for finishing and +1 for Graduation with total of 2?
That's a really nice pinnace you have there, decent length and girth. Looks a bit grey though. Have you considered painting it? I heard it helps to raise crew morale.
Really nice, thorough overview and review. Well done.
I don't NEED more stl files that I only have fantasies of using in a real game. But fine, I'll do it for you… and those folding wings. It's a beautiful pinnace
If I was to play with you guys my character would be named: Whelp Wingit
That some nice Pinnace
The contract handout is a great idea!
Give Suwa slugs (no pellet double armor penalty) in his shotgun.
Flechette rounds for the shotgun?
My players have no idea that I use Traveller's adventures as a base for our sessions. Or Cthulhu. Or Kult… But they love it all the same.
The dog people is a dumb concept. Traveller really needs to dump that crap.
If you need to tweak weapons to be more dangerous to player PC's, you can always use discarding sabot rounds that give a serious armor piercing capability, and this is already built intot the rules so no home brewing required. Some weapons like gauss rifles already have some inherent AP capability.
Maby it's because I just watched this before going to "the code" from call of cthulhu but if you reflavor the bouts of madness and sanity loss as psychic attacks, you could easily combine call of cthulhu and traveller.
A library of GM game prep materials for commercially produced adventure material would be an awesome resource. I'm a lazy b@st@rd of a GM, but I'm pretty sure that even my minimal notes might amuse or assist a GM who needs a boost. I guess that the risk of copyright issues will make something like that too difficult to manage, though.
That’s a pretty big pinnace.