Star Trek Adventures Session Report 0+1

We finished our amazing Genesys RPG campaign set in the exciting and evocative Salvage world setting. Don’t worry — I’m still working on translating the final two session report to English and they will be up on the site soon.

Meanwhile, our group has switched up a little and started playing the Star Trek Adventures RPG using the Star Trek Adventures Starter Set module. This time, Daniel, which has about the same long lasting obsession with board and role playing games as I do, is the Gamemaster, with me as a player. I haven’t been a player that often in my RPG career (last time was 4+ years ago) and it’s a real nice change. Even if it only means I don’t have to log around a pile of books to each session 😉

Below is the log of our first session, where we finalized our characters (basing them on ready made characters from the Starter Set with some tweaks) and then started playing in the Starter Set module: A Star Beyond the Stars, set in The Next Generation era.

Spoiler Warning: The session log below reveals events presented in the Star Trek Adventures Starter Set module. Be aware if you’re planning to play in this module.

Session 0 – The Cast

Chief Science Officer – Lt. Commander Marco Chang

Played by Ohad, Lt. Commander Marco Chang is a human veteran Star Fleet officer with many years of experience under his belt — he has seen it all and reacts to most emergencies with stoic resolution. Proficient and captivated by everything alien – cultures, history, genetics, xenobiology and Ferengi.

Chief of Security – Lt. Commander Cuellas Zharath

Played by David, Cuellas is a proud daughter of Andoria, and has recently lost her promotion opportunity to the captain’s chair because of her temper and recklessness. She’s an extremely competent chief of security officer and tactician, and indulges in quite a lot of Klingon Opera.

Chief Medical Officer – Lt. Commander Te’drall

Played by Roy (Me), Dr. Te’drall is the quintessential Vulcan. Although he has undergone the Kolinahr ritual to cleanse emotions only once, some of his subordinates believe Dr. Te’drall is doing it every weekend on a regular basis as well. He is dedicated to his job and his ship and nothing else. Zero Empathy. He is basically the worst person ever – and he doesn’t care. With a lot of experience in away teams and a cool head – Dr. Te’drall is usually the first to be sent down to an uncertain mission.

The USS Magellan

The cast of Player Characters are serving aboard the Galaxy Class starship USS Magellan under Captain Lennaris Los of Bajor (NPC).

Session 1

“These are the tales…”

Captain Log, Star date 47515.4: “…we are investigating the disappearance of the Oberath class USS Alcubierre, lost while testing a new type of warp engine. After three days of of scouting the Elicona sector, we have finally found the science vessel a drift, surrounded by a strange anomaly…”

The crew of the Magellan, including the Player Characters, rushes to their posts and start scrutinizing the derelict ship. All initial scans fail due to heavy sub-space interference surrounding the USS Alcubierre. There are no visual signs of damage or any life signs what-so-ever. The exact source of the disturbance is undetectable but it envelopes the entire ship.

Captain Los orders Lt. Commander Marco Chang and Lt. Commander Cuellas Zharath to assemble an away team to board the Alcubierre and proceed with the investigation. Cuellas picks three of her best security officers (NPCs) to accompany them. Before the captain can continue, Dr. Te’drall suggests that he should accompany the away team. The captain of course agrees.

Armed and fully equipped, the away team board a shuttle, Marco sitted at the Conn. With the help of Cuellas (but not Dr. Te’drall), Marco successfully manages to plot a course and pilot the small shuttle, carefully approaching the suspiciously wide open shuttle bay doors of the Alcubierre. However, as they make their approach, the sub-space interference proves stronger than anticipated and causes one of the shuttle’s engines to explode! Marco struggles with the controls and manages to land the shuttle inside of the Alcubierre, the shuttle bay doors uncannily closing behind them. Dr. Te’drall mumbles that once they get back to the Magellan, he will reprimand the chief engineer responsible for preparing the shuttle for the team.

The shuttle bay doors completely close behind them and the room becomes completely pressurized. The away team observes the bay through the shuttle’s windows. It seems that the Alcubierre is powered by emergency power only. Marco tries to hail the Magellan from the shuttle’s communicator. After several quite moments only a strange static noise is heard for a few seconds. Dr. Te’drall tries to scan for life signs but the sub-space interference again proves too strong. Only a faint signal is detected which Dr. Te’drall surprisingly assesses as two Vulcan life-signs on the ship! One of his eyebrows shoots up in puzzlement.

They disembark the shuttle, slowly walking through the dimly lit shuttle bay. A continuous beeping noise draws their attention to one of the ship’s consoles. Marco clicks on the console a few times and determines that the ship’s controls were hacked and been routed from the bridge to main engineering, locking out the rest of the ship. Suddenly, a message appears on screen: “Meet me at Stellar Cartography”. The message quickly disappears.

They continue to approach the doorway leading to the rest of the ship and notice the door is fused shut and has clear burn marks on it. Cuellas orders her security officers to help her force the door open. They finally manage to pry the door open when Jonathan, a human security officer, gets electrocuted from the malfunctioning door and falls to floor. Dr. Te’drall rushes to him and quickly stabilizes him. Cuellas orders Rica to get Jonathan back to the shuttle, leaving the Player Characters with only Joseph, a Ferengi security officer NPC, accompanying them.

The door opens to reveal a shocking scene. Seven Star Fleet officers’ bodies are scattered in the corridor and scorch marks are covering the walls. Clearly a last stand battle. Dr. Te’drall rushes and scans the bodies. It seems they died less than a week ago by Romulan disruptors! Marco correctly deduces that the Vulcan life signs detected earlier might have been actually Romulans!

The away team decides to cautiously make their way to Stellar Cartography, to learn perhaps who has contacted them. Making their way across the dark ship, they turn a corner and suddenly encounter a small group of Romulans walking in the corridor ahead of them! Marco yells at them to surrender ineffectively and both groups duck for cover as a battle ensues. Cuellas quickly manages to close distance and fire her phaser, set to stun, at one of the Romulans. The Romulan falls to the floor, incapacitated. Marco advances and successfully shoots a second Romulan, renders him stunned as well. The last Romulan, which seems to be of higher rank, smartly decides to simply and successfully run away.

The away team captures the two other Romulans. They have hatred in their eyes, especially for Dr. Te’drall. The Dr. concocts some kind of relaxing sedative, a truth serum if you will, and starts to interrogate them. The Romulans reluctantly divulge that their ship was also caught in this strange anomaly and they managed to seize the Alcubierre. There are twelve of them aboard right now. They are positive their brave leader will come back for them. Cuellas quickly quips: “You mean the one that ran away?”

The team locks the two Romulans inside a small vat and continue their way to Stellar Cartography, furthering the distance between themselves and main engineering. When they finally enter Stellar Cartography, a young star fleet ensign suddenly jumps at them, dirty and famished, thanking them profusely for coming to save him. He regales them with the tale of how the Alcubierre reached warp 5.2 when the anomaly started. They have been dead in space for some time when the Romulans attacked. He explains he hid here from the Romulans, trying to contact someone for help. Dr. Te’drall surprisingly starts to berate the young ensign for wasting their time and calling them here to simply save him. They have a mission of higher consequences! The ensign should have done something to help them or his crew instead of just hiding here.

The young ensign starts to mumble and rushes to a console. He stutters that he did detect a communication signal between the Romulans and an Unknown origin. Using Marco’s help, they pin-point the signal’s source. To their astonishment, the signal seems to be coming from Kortarr, a space-station located inside Klingon Empire space! Dr. Te’drall is not impressed, and continues scolding the ensign for a while. The away team eventually decide to make their way to the main bridge of the ship.

The bridge is a scene of a past battle as well, evidently where the Romulans took over the ship. Scorch marks everywhere. The team checks the console at the Captain’s ready room, managing to access his logs, which corroborates the young ensign’s story. The captain points out something is strange about one of the attacking Romulans. The team suspects that it might be actually a Klingon in disguise, but hold off any conclusions for until new information has come to light.

Continue the adventures of Marco, Cuellas and Dr. Te’drall at Session Log #2