Dicey Stories is going on a mid-winter hiatus. New episodes resume at the start of February.

Tric’s contingency plans regarding Thrandolil do not go over well with Heppa.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve get unexpected help reaching the main Morgan dome.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve negotiate for the right to recover data from their cryobeds.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Ulf guides Tric and Heppa through the Grey Woods.

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When preparing for this arc, I scoured the mainline campaigns of the Battle for Wesnoth for any mention of the Grey Woods. There are battles there in both Liberty and Secrets of the Ancients. We’ve already seen ideas from Scenario 6 of Liberty in all the clues that have been dropped about the Society of Shadow. Secrets of the Ancients is set much farther back in Wesnoth history, but I was able to bring in a witness to those events because woses are so long-lived. The elf Isthiniel that Dolmathengalin speaks of comes from the introduction to Scenario 12 of that campaign. The main character of Secrets of the Ancients goes by Ardonna and Ardryn-Na; we mention her a few times, too.

This arc contains spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaigns Liberty and Secrets of the Ancients. There are also references to Eastern Invasion, and I took inspiration from A War of Life and Death, a User-Made Content campaign by Mystical_Warlord.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Morgan Prospecting’s activities at the crash site do not go unnoticed.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

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At the pottery market on the outskirts of Dan’Tonk, Tric and Heppa bump into an old acquaintance who is able to help them with the next stage of their journey through Wesnoth.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah, Cleve, and Takuto head out on a recovery job for Data Haven.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa learn about a previous Manu expedition to the Sandy Wastes. Then they round out their Dunefolk education by attending a morning of Dune School.

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The Dune School scene in this episode is based on the experiences of some of my childhood friends. I’m not close enough to my forebears' cultural heritage to have attended any myself, being a fourth generation American. But I had friends who spent weekend mornings at Polish school or Hebrew school or Chinese school, learning the associated languages and traditions. I drew on stories of those experiences to design the Dune School scene, and I populated it with bits and pieces of lore discussed on the Battle for Wesnoth forums.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Takuto makes his case for going on the next trip out of Data Haven.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa spend time in Dan’Tonk’s Dunefolk quarter meeting with the glassmaker, the weaver, and the falconer/scribe.

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The Luminary Council and Paragon Council, as presented in this episode, had their origins in a discussion of potential Dunefolk politics on the Battle for Wesnoth forums (https://forums.wesnoth.org/viewtopic.php?f=32&t=52367). I took some of those ideas and spun them out into what you see in our campaign. This session was played in July of 2021. In the time since, the Luminary became an actual unit with the release of Battle for Wesnoth version 1.16. It’s a level 3 unit, the pinnacle of the Herbalist line and the strongest Dunefolk healing unit. In our game world, however, a Luminary is a sufficiently advanced artisan, a leader in one of the scientific disciplines. Similarly, the Paragon is now an actual unit—a powerful level 4 fighting unit separate from any of the other unit lines.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Roze shares information gleaned from the network node job.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

A travel montage gets Tric and Heppa from the Wesnoth capital Weldyn to its largest city, Dan’Tonk.

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If you listen to as much folk music as I do, you may recognize the name Lily the Pink. I heard it on an album from the Irish Rovers. I don’t consider it a fabulous song, but it was the perfect source for a spur-of-the-moment charlatan NPC. I thought it was particularly apt because two major streams of magic in Wesnoth are white and red, and pink is a combination of those two.

This arc contains spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaign Liberty. There are also references to Eastern Invasion and to Crin of Crenlyn, a User-Made Content campaign.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa return to the Foul Fen.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah spends time in the medical center while Cleve helps Tenoch with expedition equipment.

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Tenoch’s rover is a direct copy of the Alpha Centauri video game rover. It does look something like a futuristic, more aerodynamic jeep that’s fully sealed. For Mariah and Cleve it means faster and safer transportation through the wilderness. As anyone who’s owned a car can relate, however, a vehicle can come with its own set of troubles.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa enjoy a spooky nighttime ghost tour of the battlefields around Weldyn.

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The Battle for Wesnoth mainline campaign Eastern Invasion can end one of two ways: a giant battlefield or a private duel. I decided to make both versions of Scenario 17 true as far as the history of our tabletop campaign is concerned. I use details from those in the ghost tour. Many of the units from the video game also fed into those descriptions, such as Paladin, Mage of the Light, Shadow, and Nightgaunt—the latter two are the scarecrow-like members of the Ghost line.

Note: The audio for this episode also includes events that really belong with the start of the next arc, so their write-up will be released with that.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve return to Data Haven along with Corazon, Dr. Citali, and their prizes.

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The discussion of what’s edible and how to process different foods is lightly inspired by the Alpha Centauri video game. In that, xenofungus tiles only produce food and other benefits after extensive research—except for the faction that inspired our Stepdaughters of Chiron. In our game, the characters have to work out what changes to the environment (or to themselves) they need to make. Finding that balance and blending is an ongoing theme of the campaign.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa share a meal with Alric’s parents and learn more about the Manu clan.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

After Mariah and Cleve get rid of the repo squad, they encounter another familiar face out in the wilds of Chiron.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

For the first time in their lives, Tric and Heppa meet an elf not of Estbryn Forest.

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Sir Deoran is the primary protagonist of the South Guard mainline campaign of the Battle for Wesnoth video game. In Scenario 5, he is given the choice to ally with human bandits or with the elf Ethiliel, who has already lent him aid. For the purposes of our story, he made the latter choice. In the video game, she’s a Shyde unit, but given what she’s experienced in the years since, I have her as a Sylph here, more an attacking unit than a defending one. If you ally with Ethiliel in the South Guard, the campaign ends with Scenario 8a, which has her in conflict with the Elvish Outrider Eltenmir, while the Elvish Marshal Ithelden is supportive of her. In my imaginings, Ithelden was the leader of the Aethenwood council, and once he was taken out of the picture, Eltenmir seized power and exiled Ethiliel for her “betrayal” in siding with the humans against an elf. After that point, there was on-and-off open conflict with the humans, which included the battles Knots and the Beard participated in.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

As they prepare to head back to Data Haven with their prizes, Mariah, Cleve, and Corazon share some pieces of their pasts.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa meet Alric’s parents, a papermaker and a falconer.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

The team deals with Mariah’s sudden collapse.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa arrive in Weldyn, the capital of Wesnoth, but not without a minor magical mishap first.

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The Battle for Wesnoth video game is a tactical turn-based strategy game that also involves some resource management. Each unit needs to be paid its level in gold every turn. The standard day/night cycle has six parts: dawn, morning, afternoon, dusk, first watch, and second watch. This is the source of my payment schedule for mercenaries in Rhodri’s caravan. The day/night cycle also provides bonuses or penalties to units based on their alignment. The four alignments are chaotic, neutral, lawful, and liminal. Most elvish units are neutral (getting no bonuses), and most Dunefolk units are liminal (getting bonuses at dawn and dusk). So you may sometimes hear us reference those things. I don’t hew closely to it in my adversary stat blocks, but sometimes it results in a setback here or a boost there.

This arc contains major spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaign The South Guard, and of course spoilers for Eastern Invasion. There are also references to the Rise of Wesnoth and Heir to the Throne.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Pastor Thara shows off the wreckage of the colony pod.

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This is the first we hear of Pravin Lal, who you might know as another faction leader from the Alpha Centauri video game. There, he leads the Peacekeepers, a democratic group devoted to the original Unity ideals. In our game, it remains to be seen what kind of society he heads.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah, Cleve, and Corazon assault Morgan’s network node and encounter some unexpected phenomena.

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Network Nodes are an adaptation from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. In the video game, it’s the first building which boosts science output. In our setting, with miasma cutting off long range communications, cable must be physically laid. Similar to old telegraph repeater stations, our Network Node is a data relay, ensuring communication can flow over a physical cable.

The Morgan Autonomous Security-Trons, however, aren’t from anything in particular. Because of the miasma, there wouldn’t be human guards, nor remote operation. So the robots have to manage a variety of situations with limited artificial intelligence. And yet, somehow Morgan Robotics still found enough power to compute debt on the fly.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Following the ambush, Tric and Heppa get to know Knots and the Beard a bit better.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Cleve guides Mariah and Corazon through the wilderness to Morgan’s network node.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa deal with ambush clean-up.

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Once again, units from the video game informed NPCs in this arc. Tomos was a perfect vehicle for leaking more information on Kachen. He is very much based on the basic human Mage. The nagas at the ambush were based on the basic Naga Fighter, except for Zlek, the Naga Myrmidon. Even the environmental hazard of the Mudcrawler was from a video game unit. The fun part of Knots and the Beard for me was getting to show off Genesys talents that my players would never take. However, they are the rare characters in this campaign not drawn from a Wesnoth unit. As far as I know, there are no dual-sword wielders or axe-and-shield fighters among the human units.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah, Cleve, and Corazon spend some time in Data Haven resting and preparing for their data recovery job.

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Data Haven is an original location, heavily inspired by my experiences in hackerspaces and machine shops in the United States. I adapted that kind of freewheeling creative culture into a contained environment. They’ve got basic needs like food and housing covered (for now), so what do they get up to?

Roze develops perhaps the most unique voice of the contingent. They embody the “information wants to be free” ethos of Data Haven. Yet they are tempered with the years of living underground, cut off from the world.

Dr. Marina Citali also starts to develop. I wasn’t ready to directly introduce Deirdre Skye yet, but Marina offers us insight into the Stepdaughters of Chiron. And like Corazon (or rather, “Hypercor”), she was born on Chiron, so she sometimes challenges the PCs’ “planetfaller” expectations.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

With some help from their new friends, Tric and Heppa ambush the ambushers.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Roze offers Cleve, Mariah, and Corazon a job, but Dr. Citali has her own ideas on what it should include.

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In this arc, we see several characters and creatures adapted from the video games. From Civilization: Beyond Earth, we have the Wolf Beetle, the Siege Worm, and the ever present Miasma. From the original Alpha Centauri, I also lifted Xenofungus (which is perhaps related to Miasma).

I only took character inspiration from Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. During our Session Zero, I asked the players for ideas on NPCs aboard Unity that their PCs knew. For most of those, I matched player NPC descriptions with existing leader profiles from the game. Cleve’s NPCs are Sinder Roze and the Santiago family, represented by Corazon. Mariah’s are Dr. Deirdre Skye and the “killer HR” of Nwabudike Morgan. You also heard mention of Professor Prokhor Zakharov from The University and Captain John Garland, who led the Unity expedition.

Aside: In this episode, we make a reference to an upside down battlestation. That was the setting of several arcs of our StarCraft: FRAWD Investigators campaign, starting with A Very Special Mission.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

When a collapsed bridge halts the caravan’s progress, Tric and Heppa conduct an investigation.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah, Cleve, and Corazon reach Data Haven.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa make the acquaintance of some veteran mercenaries also serving as guards on the caravan.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric begins training in preparation for his future as an elvish lord.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve have their first close-up encounter with Chiron’s atmospheric miasma.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

As the caravan heads down the bank of the River Weldyn, Tric and Heppa search for a missing child.

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This episode’s description of Falcon Sight was inspired by information from What It’s Like to Be a Bird by David Allen Sibley. In case you hadn’t guessed it yet, we really like birds. Also, this episode also introduces several new NPCs. Prior to starting this arc, I asked the players what types of characters they were interested in encountering on this journey. They gave me the basics: another spin on human mage, a precocious child, grizzled veterans, and so on. This whole arc was mainly conceived as vignettes centered around those ideas.

This arc contains spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaigns Eastern Invasion, The South Guard, Descent into Darkness, Secrets of the Ancients, and Liberty, with references to Delfador's Memoirs.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve protect Corazon Santiago from the Morgan Repossession Team.

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The Stepdaughters of Chiron is an adaptation of the video game faction, Gaia’s Stepdaughters. It remains to be seen if they are as peaceful as their video-game equivalent (which itself takes inspiration from real-world organizations like Greenpeace), or if they truly are “ecoterrorists”.

Why change the name? “Gaia” is sometimes a name for Earth, but this campaign takes place on the planet Chiron. The stepdaughters are trying to adapt to their new home, not remake their old one.

Note: In this episode, you’ll hear us using social material and maneuver mechanics that come from a Genesys supplement called I Declare! Adjudicated Social Encounters for Genesys by Micah-Shalom “FatCrab” Kesselman. You can find it on the Genesys Foundry at DriveThruRPG here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/349232/I-Declare. 

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa take care of their business with Damal and Heledd in South Tower.

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Tracking currency is not something I particularly enjoy in RPGs. And yet, here I saddled my players with debt, which had the potential to push them away from story-oriented playing to money-grabbing. Why did I do this? Well, the simple reason was to continue giving them reasons to return to the Parting Glass to interact with the NPCs there. The players really liked the Parting Glass and its cast of characters, but I didn’t want them to have to bend over backwards trying to justify time in South Tower when there was a whole country of Wesnoth to explore. This way, they’re free to follow the story wherever it leads, confident that I’ll provide space for them to return to their secondary homebase at some point in the future.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve meet another human and learn some of the current situation on Chiron.

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Corazon is perhaps the NPC most loosely inspired by the original video game character of the same name. Rather than have her focus be militarization as in the source game, I reinterpreted that at a more personal level as someone who is a bit reckless. Plus, early on, I wanted an NPC who was born on Chiron, not a “planetfaller.” Someone who would have a different perspective on society. Both because they don’t have Earth to compare to, and because they didn’t get a choice in coming to this planet.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa reconnect with Heledd and Alric at the Parting Glass.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

The first extraterrestrial lifeforms that Mariah and Cleve encounter are less than happy to see them.

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During our Session Zero, our group made a list of things we either really wanted to have or really wanted to avoid in the campaign. Both players were interested in something supernatural to fit into the sci-fi setting. For Cleve, this translated to an ethereal animal companion. For Mariah, it was magic-like powers tied to the new planet. Neither PC had the experience necessary for those talents right away, but because we knew they wanted them, we began laying the groundwork for that early. The items that Cleve keeps finding and the purple glow to Mariah’s eyes are the first hints of what’s to come.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa meet with Thrandolil about their next project for him and then head back to South Tower.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Mariah and Cleve leave Earth aboard Unity, seeking a new life on the planet Chiron in the Alpha Centauri system. But something goes wrong on the way there.

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You might be wondering why I set this campaign 30 years after planetfall rather than coincident with it. By setting it later, the world has already had some chance to develop into factions that the PCs have to deal with. This also ensures that there’s a mix of built-up regions and wild regions. A campaign starting right at landing would have involved a lot more exploration and “human vs nature” conflicts than we wanted.

I also wanted to see how the named NPCs changed over those 30 years. This gave the players something fresh to experience even with an NPC they “made.”

I did talk about the extra 30 years of cryosleep with my players before launching the campaign, however. As always, it is important to obtain consent. After all, this is a cooperative story among players and GM. I encourage groups to bounce ideas off each other (and separate player from character knowledge).

In this episode, we also hear about our first planetside faction, Morgan Industries. One of Mariah’s NPCs took inspiration from CEO Nwabudike Morgan from the Alpha Centauri video game. It was straightforward to project what 30 years of unchecked capitalism might look like on a pristine planet.

Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

High Lord Volas commissions Tric and Heppa to undertake a task for him on their upcoming journey.

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High Lord Volas is a character from the Battle for Wesnoth mainline campaign, Eastern Invasion. The assassination attempt we refer to is from Scenario 4a of that campaign. He does not have much dialogue in that, so his personality is mainly my invention here. His physical description is that of the Elvish High Lord unit from the video game.

This arc contains spoilers for the Battle for Wesnoth campaigns Eastern Invasion and Northern Rebirth, with references to The South Guard.

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

The current inhabitants of Cliff Island are not thrilled to have visitors.

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Our music is from Purple Planet Music. Visit them at purple-planet.com.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

Tric and Heppa exchange information with Kachen before he leaves on his own job for Thrandolil.

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Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!

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Open Datalinks. Subject: Honest Assessment of Earth in 2100. Result:

The few billion people and perhaps half as many kind souls don't agree on much, but they do agree that Earth is ruined. The environment. The politics. The war. The Mistake. Sure, there are pockets where things are mostly okay, if you've got the credits. But you know it's gotten real bad when even the rich people want to leave. Of course, with everything so fractured, no one person or state was rich enough nor smart enough to figure out how to get away on their own. So despite all of humanity's failures, we came together for one last job.

Mars is a fool's errand; we shoot for the stars! FTL is a myth. We designed cryosleep pods to last us the 100 year journey at 5% the speed of light. We took what readings we could remotely. The new planet seems to be habitable, but we're bringing extra resource pods to be safe. Who knows, maybe one day the colonists will be able to come back and fix Earth. Or heck, maybe we can learn from this project to fix our own house rather than ruining someone else's. What’s more likely, though, is that humans never change, and they ruin the new planet before too long.

Open Datalinks. Subject: Informational Brochure on Habitable Alpha Centauri Planet. Result:

Earth is the past, but Alpha Centauri holds the future! Be one of the select 100,000 colonists to a new world! Relax in our patented Peaceful Cryosleep™ pods and wake up to a planet of limitless possibilities! But it's a one-way trip, and cellular service is limited! Remote lifescans, however, show a pristine planet brimming with flora, fauna, fungi, and fun! Perhaps you'd like to generously help fund the project, and thereby secure your place as a founding colonist. Or are you a driven scientist? Then there may be room for you in the Academy or Biogenetics modules. We want the best in many disciplines. There are many ways to join and contribute to Humanity's greatest achievement! Competitive positions are limited, so act now!

Welcome to the newest campaign by Dicey Stories! Alpha Centauri: Chronicles of Chiron takes place in a sci-fi setting exploring humanity’s attempt to escape Earth’s problems on a new planet. While the focus is on our two PCs, the overall story is also at times political. Where my StarCraft campaign was more on the sillier side, I’m trying to grow as a GM by running a more narratively-driven dramatic campaign. Some concepts we address head-on are finding a place to belong, duty versus obligation, the environmental impact of human expansion, cycles of wealth inequality, and revenge.

Alpha Centauri: Chronicles of Chiron is played using the Genesys roleplaying system now published by Edge Studio. We also occasionally reference the Mythic Game Master Emulator’s event meaning tables for inspiration. The release of each episode’s audio will be accompanied by a serialized, narrative write-up of the adventure. This time, they will primarily be written first-person from the point of view of one of the PCs.

Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri and its expansion, Alien Crossfire, are the most direct inspirations for this campaign, but we also draw on elements of the more recent Civilization: Beyond Earth. If you know nothing about these, that’s fine! Neither did the players prior to starting this campaign. I enjoyed both video games, the story more in the former and the gamepla

The Estbryn Forest council decides Kachen’s fate.

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I really enjoy the social components of the Genesys system. I like learning characters’ motivations and leaning on them when I can. I like the way social combat helps flesh out an exchange and gives players an opportunity to both gain and lose ground simultaneously. I was excited to have the chance to try out this different kind of social scene, an adjudicated encounter. Although we don’t have many more opportunities to use I Declare this way in the rest of the campaign, we really liked some of the concepts in it. Social weapons (in the form of material) and additional social maneuvers fit quite easily into Genesys and provide some additional spice for social-heavy campaigns. For that reason, even if you don’t see yourself running an adjudicated encounter ever, I still recommend this supplement to expand your social encounter toolkit. At the low, low price of pay-what-you-want, it’s definitely worth the investment. You can find it in the Genesys Foundry at DriveThruRPG here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/349232/I-Declare

Our character art by Del Borovic and the map we refer to (by me!) can be found here.

Our music is sampled from Return to Wesnoth by Matthias Westlund (aka West), licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0, part of The Battle for Wesnoth Project. Visit them at wesnoth.org.

Need context? Jump to the start of the series!