Friday, December 20, 2019

Secret Santicorn: TROIKA Space Combat + d66 Ships

HO HO HO

SANTICORN HAS DEVOURED MANY GINGERBREADS AND BOAR'S HEADS

IT IS NOW TIME FOR GIFTS

ANCALAGON THE BLACK HAS REQUESTED

"Spaceship combat rules suitable for the Troika! system (think star wars)"

SANTICORN LIVES TO DELIVER

Troika Space Combat


The Easy Way: Ship weapon systems are just ordinary Attacks as Beast, representing the entirety of the ship's weapon systems and divided by size of the vessel.

I prefer this method, because looking back at my previous attempts at this sort of thing they were entirely too complex.

The Complex Way: Rename weapons, arrange them in short / medium / long range clusters and arrange stages of combat according to distance, add skills such as Tricky Maneuvering, Raw Speed, Weapon Systems, Hyperspace Navigation, Shipboard Computer, Cargo Space, etc. I won't go into this because I would like to deliver this on time, and it's not actually a new system.

d66 Ships


11) Damnable Piece of Junk
No one is sure how this thing is still moving. The previous owner swears up and down that the ship's computer turned on one morning, declared it had a soul, and immediately began selling it to the highest bidder.

12) Dark Matter Skimmer
You can do some funky things with physics when you get close to a good flow of dark matter. Don't go too deep, though, the locals don't like it.

13) Postal Relay Picket Ship
The sticker above your engine reads SPEEDY DELIVERY. The mail only travels as fast as your fastest ship, after all.

14) Classic Thundersaucer
All shiny and chrome and big spoilers and death rays. Very retro. Have to shell out extra for the classic spaceship insurance

15) Fiery Ophanim
A literal angel. You're just going in the same direction so it lets you tag along. A wheels-within-wheels of wings, eyeballs, and nuclear fire inherited from the very beginning.

16) Solar-Sailed Shoggoth
Building-sized mass of protoplasmic matter. Eats fissile materials and sunlight, gets you where you need to go. Still really gross biotech everywhere.

21) Astrobathysphere
A cramped iron sphere with a single porthole.Found abandoned in a pile of refuse. Pilot in a brass-and rubber diving suit lies dead in the chair. Not much cargo space.

22) Comet-Pusher
Little more than engines and a crew capsule that can be attached to an iceteroid, to push it along the years-long orbit to the inner worlds.

23) Jewel-Encrusted Pleasure Barge
Stolen from some crime lord or another. Goodness knows they're like ants this far from the core worlds. Drop a few crumbs and suddenly they're coming out of the goddamn walls.

24) Golem-Ship
A mass of clay, animated by the engraved Word of God. The fire in its belly will, so long as the word of life remains intact, never go out.

25) Coffin-Hauler
A long-term transport. Puts the passengers on ice for the trip, and not all of them were thawed out when you inherited it.

26) Goblin Ship One
The ship is infested with goblins. No way to get rid of them, previous owners tried. They will demand you acquiesce to their Laws of the High Stars and swear loyalty to their leader, Captain Garbagebeard.

31) God Corpse
Even while dead, it dreams and moves. Its enemies are still abroad Its disciples are scattered to the cosmic winds. Be wary. Great power attracts attention.

32) Space Barnacles
Whatever this used to be, the make and model can no longer be made out under the infestation. Careful, they like flesh.

33) Dyson Tree
Why stop at a treehouse? Staffed by polite sloth attendants.

34) Rustbucket
She's done the Tau Ceti run for four and a half centuries and its beginning to show. But she's a reliable ship, could easily do a few more runs with some love and attention.

35) Inexplicable Hard Science Ship
How did this get here? Rotational gravity, dust shields, decks oriented perpendicular to the thrust, heat radiators...

36) Nightgaunt Longboat
A proper Vinlander longboat crewed by a half-dozen silent nightgaunts. They'll obey orders, but its obvious that the ship is theirs, not yours.

41) Death Sphere
A slick black ball of hot plasma. Still has the plas5tic on the seats. The military it was stolen from very much would like it back.

42) The Yamato
A mundane ocean-going battleship retrofitted for space. Art project? A joke? History buffs gone horribly wrong? Who can say?

43) Skeleton Crew
An ordinary gas freighter crewed entirely by skeletons. Just normal bones souped up with some cybernetics and a mind upload. Cheerful guys, game nights on Tuesdays.

44) The Trashfire
It's not even held together with duct tape and a prayer at this point. Very leaky reactor.

45) The Leviathan
A space whale with a gondola slung underneath it. Not really a whale but it is absolutely gigantic and mostly organic.

46) Abandoned Colony Ship
It's legitimate salvage, I swear!

51) Oozeship
A few mechanical components suspended in an oxygenated liquid inside a metapermeable membrane. Alive, temperament of a clumsy, over-affectionate puppy.

52) Anomalocaris
A gigantic robotic anomalocaris. Rad.

53) War-Scarred Space Trireme
Bought on a discount after the peace accords were signed. Probably not haunted. Has been refit so many times that the original model number has been lost.

54) Crystal Memory Palace
A single filigreed piece of diamond, imbued with nine generations of memories from the same noble family. They were kinda fucked up.

55) Vintage Shuttle
A black and white relic of an older age. Bears the marks and tokens of generations of religious reverence.

56) The Carrier
Comes with its own platoon of drop-ready mechs. Now if you could just find pilots for the damn things...

61) Decommissioned Blacksite Stealth Cruiser
Abandoned by the government when they figured out that there's no such thing as stealth in space. Matte black, lots of angles, not suitable for its intended function.

62) Lunch Bar
A restaurant with engines attached. Cheap, greasy, good for hangovers, decent coffee, excellent pie.

63) Weekend Loaner
Barry is not going to be happy when he sees the scrape you put in the front bulkhead.

64) The Century Ibis
Second fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy. Listen to the pilot, he is definitely not talking out his ass when he tells you how fast it can go!

65) The Prototype
So fresh off the assembly line they haven't settled on a name. It smells new. It looks fancy. It's never yet been tested.

66) The Committee Design
You've seen some garbage in your time but this one takes the cake. Lowest bidder, worst materials, and they burned through four separate project managers.

SANTICORN LEAVES NOW, TAKING WITH HIM THE OFFERINGS OF CURED MEAT PRODUCTS AND FINE GRAIN ALCOHOLS.

5 comments:

  1. A few days early to beat the rush. Though, it is still technically Saturnalia...

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  2. Gooooooood. 35, 15 and 24 are my favourites. New game: you play as the ships, not as the pilots.

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  3. This is very good. Muckle thumbs up.

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