Will You Be My Valentine?

Est. Read Time: 30min

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!

Generated by Bitmoji

It's been a touch longer since my last post than I had intended. It's still very much February though, so I'm still sticking with my goal of at least one blog post per month. Can't be mad about that. It is Valentine's Day though, and how could I miss the opportunity to make my February post also a love letter to my fine readers.

So, may I ask for each and every one of you to collectively be my platonic valentines today? Because I want to share with you all of the love you've shown me over the years.

Generated by Bitmoji

You are all such amazing people, and I am always so pleasantly overwhelmed by the love my writing gets. I know I whine a lot about how my readership isn't as vast or active as the fanfic authors I idolize, or I lament my stories not getting spin-off fanfics or fanart or fan theories like big-name fanfics get. I do tend to be ungrateful as I fall into my self-doubt spirals. I am so sorry for that and for guilt-tripping any of you about how you love my stories. How you do so shouldn't matter. What should matter is that you DO love them and read them and support me. So, thank you. I love you. You make my writing worthwhile. Your likes and kudos and faves and bookmarks and comments and reblogs all bring huge smiles to my face. I recognize the repeat readers, and you remind me that my writing is good enough for someone to want to read more from me. I see the new names, and you remind me that my writing isn't as invisible as I believe. You are all beautiful people, and I wouldn't be as far along in my skill if it weren't for you.

I know that the adage (and the healthier option for participating in a hobby) is to do it for me; no one else. However, I used to write for me. I used to tell myself stories. I was content keeping them in my head (maybe take some physical notes to keep the details straight). It was rare that I would actually follow through with writing anything down for years and years and years. If no one else was reading it, why bother putting in the effort to write it when I could just create the stories in my head?

Then I got into fanfiction writing. I still wrote for myself; just to get the ideas out of my head. I never edited, though. First draft was final draft. Throw it up online. If people see it they see it, if not... well... I wrote it for me. Not the greatest mindset for trying to hone or improve one's skills though. And, without trying to improve and sharpen my skills, my desire to become a published author was little more than a pipe dream and wishful thinking living off the scraps of being told most of my life that I was a gifted writer.

Then I started writing for my readers. No, I wasn't writing stories simply because I thought it's what you want to read. In that regards I still write for me. I still tell stories I want to tell and stories I wish I could read myself; so I create them. The part about writing for you, my readers, is more about my motivation. See, my desire and drive to improve my writing stems from my want to put out better stories for my readers. I started editing, revising, and - gasp - PRE-PLANNING my stories so the end results are better for my readers. I feel guilty about not being as prolific a writer as others I follow within the fandom because I want to have more things for my readers to enjoy. I have this blog so I can connect with you and give you a heads up on how I am and where I am with my writing; so you're not wondering where I vanished to. I get excited about parts of my stories because I imagine how my readers will react once they reach those scenes. I refuse to delete anything (I instead cut it and paste it into a "scraps" file) because I imagine some of my readers being fellow authors, and being able to show them where the polished story started and how much I had to revise might be encouraging for them. I started posting those cut bits to Tumblr because I thought my readers would get a kick out of them. I want to tell you all about my Scum and Villainy campaign (which is coming later) because my stories don't feel alive unless others know about them; unless my readers can experience them as well. My stories have all become extroverted divas that need that spotlight to feel real and complete, and you fine folks are all that spotlight.

So, thank you, yet again, for considering what I write worth your (most likely) precious little time available. It means the world to me. You are all such beautiful people. I'm going to explode with love.

Generated by Bitmoji

Generated by Bitmoji

Speaking of my writing, you probably noticed that I didn't update this blog to promote my latest Plagg Appreciation Day story. I also haven't promoted it yet within this post. You may have also noticed - if you follow me on Twitter, Tumblr, AO3, FFN, or DA - that you didn't get a notification alerting you about the latest Plagg Appreciation story.

Yep. You guessed it. That's because there wasn't one. I tried. I spent three days plotting and pondering and playing with ideas. The closest I got to a fleshed-out idea was something akin to The Adventures of Brainy where Plagg daydreams that, instead of absorbing into the Miraculous jewels in order to power up a human superhero, he and Tikki transform into human superheroes themselves. I couldn't quite get the concept ironed out in time for Friday, January 13 though. Maybe I'll get it sorted by the next Friday 13th in October. Maybe I'll think of something completely different.

If you have any plot bunny ideas for a Plagg-centric story, feel free to pitch them my way.

Anyway, as it crept closer and closer to January 13th, I, of course, got more and more anxious about my story. I was doing what I always do and beat myself up over the fact that I didn't have this story done. This was MY holiday that I created. How could *I* not meet my own deadline and participate in my own created fandom holiday????

Then the 13th hit, and I realized how much pressure I was piling onto myself. It was FANFICTION. It was something people would read FOR FREE. It was a MADE UP holiday. I was seemingly the only one who even celebrated it, seeing as how I have never seen anyone else post anything Plagg-centric specifically on a Friday 13th or tag anything Plagg Appreciation Day or tag me on any Plagg Appreciation Day posts (exception being LivreVer once or twice). It DIDN'T MATTER if I posted a story or not.

Ah, the dark side of "I write for my readers": I pressure myself to hit arbitrary deadlines and feel guilty when I don't hit them. As if I'm disappointing you guys. I know I'm not disappointing you all. I KNOW! I have to retrain myself to let that feeling go. I have to remind myself that my readers are all lovely and patient and are excited to read my writing, regardless of when or how frequently I publish.

So, on January 13th, when I still had no idea what even to write, I battled with myself for a bit, and then let it go. I waved the white flag and marked a second missed Plagg Appreciation Day.

Generated by Bitmoji (cropped)

Most of January was spent dealing with headaches at work anyway. Headaches I'm STILL dealing with, actually, but I won't get into that. Point being the few times I wasn't dealing with work stuff I was recovering from said work stuff. My brain was fairly fried, and I didn't even think about fanfiction. The fact that I hadn't seen a new Miraculous Ladybug episode since November probably didn't help motivate me to write anything. Not having the energy to go on Tumblr and interact with the fandom didn't help much either.

Instead, I focused on Scum and Villainy. We were racing towards our grand return to the campaign on the 30th. I needed to be prepared for that.

And I was not prepared for that....

Generated by Bitmoji

I didn't have time to break away and listen back to the recorded sessions while I was home, and I had slacked off; waiting until January to even start listening back to them and taking down GM notes. I tried to listen to the sessions like podcasts, but I had to stop too many times to take notes, so it wasn't good background noise for doing house work or getting ready for work. I tried listening while at work, and I got the farthest in doing that, but... work headache stuff... I didn't have the down time I needed to go through everything.

Soooooo.... the last time I ran a RIP race that all of the players could participate in was August! Seemed like a good way to ease everyone (including myself) back into the campaign, as well as introduce new characters! Plus, no real plot-line needed since the plot-line would be introducing the new NPCs. Hubby was off that day, so he created the new RIP race machines and rolled up the NPC start positions for me. Then, when we played, everyone else rolled their start positions. I finished the last-minute set-up. We did some soft roleplay - which is the limited improv I can handle - and the race itself is mostly just me keeping track of where everyone is. I didn't even bother coming up with a cool track design. It wasn't needed. The track wasn't the point of the race that session. The new rivalries were.

The session was fun. It felt like a nice way to ease all of us back in. The following Monday - being the 1st Monday of the month - we had another session. This time I had most of a job sorted out for the group. Not as much as I would have liked (I like preparing for the weird off-beat things they tend to do so I'm less likely to have to think of things on the fly), but enough to fake my way through it.

Aaaaaand then Hubby came up with something during soft roleplay that ended up becoming a job all on its own. The whole session was basically unplanned, soft roleplay... and all improv on my part.

Generated by Bitmoji

It was all good. We finished up the impromptu side mission around 10:15pm. We try to finish by 11pm. Definitely not enough time to actually get to the job I had planned. I began to panic a little on what we'd do for the next 45min. Do we just call it early? Am I going to have to scramble to come up with another "short" mission for the crew to go on?

And then the characters Demarcus and Quinton had a long debate about power struggles and setting up allies and what is the best strategy for the group. I didn't really need to do much of anything for the better part of an hour. I just got to enjoy them debate each other. Eventually I interjected to let everyone know how late it was and we should sort out experience for the game. So... aside from the adlibbing I had to do for about two hours during that side mission - which was mostly character driven; I can do that easily enough - it was a fairly lowkey session for me.

I'm going to be spoiled by the time we do our next session on the 20th and I ACTUALLY run that job I had planned out.

Speaking of, let's do some "mini" recaps of what's been going on with the Stardancer crew to catch everyone up!

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Color by LycoRogue)

Tada! Yeah, I realized that I never actually shared my edit of the Stardancer artwork to showcase how the crew had their ship painted! I was going to show the playgroup first and then you guys... except I never came back to update this blog. Whoops. Anyway, I'm back now. This is the chrome-black with neon-green accent lights paint job they picked out for the Stardancer. How does it look? I wish I could have added a bit more dimension to the black paint job to give it more of a chrome look as opposed to just a matte black, but I wasn't as happy with my other two attempts.

As far as the campaign "plot" for the Stardancer crew (who still hasn't come up with a crew name outside of that), they have started up some trouble while also somehow going under the Hegemony's radar. They've added crewmates and collected quite a few pets. They've made enemies and powerful allies. It feels like we just started our campaign, but, at the same time, they've already outgrown their ship! It's been a bit crazy.

When I last caught you folks up, it was the third session. They had a mandatory mission from the Borniko Syndicate to air an advertisement for the Echo Wave Riders as a way to patch up the rift the crew caused between the two factions. In the process of airing said message for the EWR, the crew caught the attention of infamous wizard-class hacker Vorex. Their ship was spotted by a patrolling 51st Legion spaceship, and that lead to the crew picking the above paint job for their ship to try to disguise it. They finished up with a RIP race on one of Warren's sister moons. Since then, the main "plot beats" have been:

• Session 4 - Unfortunately, this was the first game where all three players couldn't attend. So I just sort of piloted tI'kæl so she was still there as the crew FINALLY delivered Ishi to The Cove. There they met Ishi's good friend Hunter Black, 4th in command of the Maelstrom Pirates. Hunter instantly took a liking to Demarcus, and I started the running gag of Hunter enthusiastically asking Demarcus and the Stardancer crew to join his crew/fleet. Demarcus always turns him down and counters that Hunter could join the Stardancers instead.
      Itching to fight someone, Demarcus signed up for a big open-call cage match on The Cove against famed Cove MMA fighter "The Prodigy". None of the 14 fighters that went before Demarcus lasted one round, and barely even winded the Prodigy, who was amped up with a bunch of mechanic limbs (a la the anime Megalobox, except they're actual artificial limbs as opposed to exoskeletons). Quinton was able to hack into the Prodigy's limbs (after Demarcus got pretty roughed up - including a sword through the left shoulder), and locked him into place so Demarcus could knock him out. Despite Quinton purposefully only freezing up the limbs for a few seconds at a time, people still suspected foul play. Thankfully, Quinton had called Hunter down to see if he wanted to place any bets on the fight, so he was fairly untouchable as Hunter escorted him over to the betting booth to collect their winnings.... which promptly broke the game economy since I wanted to showcase how intimidatingly tough The Prodigy was by making it something like 50 to 1 odds against Demarcus. Even with the players allowing me to retcon that down to about 10-1 odds, they walked away with an INSANE amount of money. Whoops!
• Session 5 - Hunter's last pet Razor passed away 3 years ago and he's ready for a new one. He sends the crew to fetch him a leaguin; a leopard-penguin hybrid with four wings that lives on the beaches along the equator of the jungle planet Amerath.
      I was kind of thinking of the Otter-Penguins from Avatar: the Last Airbender, except leopard-spotted, with a leopard's head and fangs, and with leopard-claws at the end of their webbed feet.
  
  
      The crew rounded up about half of a leaguin colony, kept one each for themselves as pets, and sold the rest to Hunter, who kept two as his own pets (they are social animals, after all). Hunter has been breeding and selling the rest on the black market. The crew then started up a campaign to legalize domesticating leaguins and keeping them as pets, even without an exotic pet license.
      Leaguins are docile unless provoked, and then they become EXTREMELY aggressive. While trying to fend off the attacking leaguins and corral the rest to take to Hunter, Demarcus broke out his flame thrower. Only one leaguin - who was particularly aggressive - got burned. Demarcus was like, "I like this guy. He's as reckless as me," and decided to nurse and adopt that one. For obvious reasons, it was still aggressive towards him; biting him frequently. So that leaguin's name is now Nippy. Seeing as how Memish are basically "seafood" as far as leaguins are concerned, tI'kæl's pet also kept trying to bite her (as did most of the others, to be fair), so she named hers PIMA. Quinton named his pet Languin, in honor of his mentor. I never came up with names for Hunter's pair; I should do that....
• Session 6 - Chaos Theory had another RIP race. This time through the gas planet of Vet. This is one of the first races I felt comfortable really letting the sport live up to its name. I had described the track as being windy, having a loop-the-loop, and having a gap the machines had to jump over. One of the racers ended up getting bumped off the track at that jump, and was lost in the debris making up the rings of the planet.
      Because the track seemed more suited for speed than brute force, Demarcus sat out. One of the team's rivals - Ice Heart from the Gravity Blades - had also stayed in the team bay because Demarcus had blown up his Machine - the Gremlin - the last race they did (the one after airing the EWR message; I forgot to come back to write about that last time). Quinton (as Poet) and tI'kæl (as Sanic) dominated the field, and was even humiliating Ice Heart's teammates AirJack and Bolt. Ice Heart was pissed and screaming at the screen projecting the race. Demarcus decided it would be a fun time to try to antagonize Ice Heart, and when that escalated into a scuffle, he slammed Ice Heart head-first into that screen, bending it around the guy's head and busting up his face pretty badly. As the race continued, AirJack's Machine The Victory blew up, and his escape pod was brought to the team bay. He got out of the pod right after Demarcus took out Ice Heart. AirJack tried to retaliate, managed to stab Demarcus in the side with a piece of busted plasma screen, and then Demarcus promptly shoved him head-first into his own escape pod; breaking his nose and taking out some teeth. With both main rivals now unconscious and bleeding in their team bay, Demarcus casually walked back to Chaos Theory's bay to finish watching the race. The third member of Gravity Blades made it to 3rd place, behind Sanic and Poet. The crew was impressed with Bolt's driving, her overall better (re: less cocky) attitude, and her attempts to keep the peace between her teammates and Chaos Theory. They offered her a spot on their team, but, after seeing her bloodied teammates and Demarcus proudly stating that it was his handiwork, she growled for Chaos Theory to walk away before things got ugly.
      Quinton made sure to save the plasma screen shard Demarcus took out of his side. Never know when they'll need something with AirJack's fingerprints on it.
• Session 7 - Another session that Rozsavaria had to miss. Which meant, canonically, tI'kæl had something else to attend to, so she left the guys alone. This was also right around Christmas 2021, so I decided to go with something holiday themed: A Christmas Carol. (Technically, I also had a job that was very How The Grinch Stole Christmas, but the guys decided to save that for a session all players could attend). The money lender Benser Cee Grooze (of Grooze and Jybac Moneylending) is also a bail bondsman and bookie on Quinton's home "planet" (it's a colonized moon) of Warren, and Grooze decided it's "harvest time". He placed bounties on all who have defaulted on his loans (bounty was 5% of debt owed), and had forced his workers into mandatory overtime without additional pay. The workers - rallied behind their boss Bob Kranket - had gone on strike. Grooze had put bounties on his striking workers and Bob as well. The crew was asked by a third party to help stop Grooze any way they could. Quinton and Demarcus needed to take down one of the major bounty hunters going after Bob before getting more info on what was going on. They opted to create a massive bounty for Demarcus in order to get the hunter's attention. Interrogation went array, resulting in the hunter and something like 32 civilians dying in a fire??? They promptly took the bounty off of Demarcus, and then went to Grooze with an offer to sell his business to Quinton's friend and mentor Lucian Lang. Negotiations took a bit longer (and a bit more narcotics) than expected, but they got Grooze loopy enough to sign away his company under the guise of becoming a partner in a retirement cruise spaceship. Fearing that Grooze will fight the legality of the acquisition as soon as he's sober, Demarcus sniped him from his own building and planted the rifle and ammo on one of the scabs working during the strike. Bob was then made CEO of the company (with Lang as the silent owner), and he removed all of the bounties Grooze put out.
• Session 8 - Back from her religious retreat, tI'kæl was mildly appalled by what the guys got up to without her, but at least it was for the greater-good in the long run (no more bounties on defaulted loans or striking employees; or a need to strike, for that matter). Having started up a strong acquaintanceship with Vorex since their meeting in session 3, Quinton received a job from her; a favor. She had discovered that the Counters Guild keeps extremely detailed records of all of their assets, but keeps a separate - but just as detailed - ledger of all their LIVING assets (such as Vorex's kidnapped sister). The ledger is closely guarded and constantly on the move to prevent people from getting to it. Vorex was able to figure out that the Guild was trying to move the ledger two star systems over (to Brekk) to a planet called Nightfall (so named because its 13 moons cause constant solar eclipses, casting the planet in "night" more frequently than "day"). The crew offered their services as "discreet couriers" to the shell company the Counters Guild used to move the ledger without people suspecting what the product actually was. They were given a caged Way Beast that resembled a blue, semi-translucent, ethereal tiger with twin tails wearing a collar. They were also informed that they had a strict timeframe to get the beast to Nightfall, and that they will be hunted down as thieves if they didn't reach their checkpoints in time for other members of this shell company to scan the beast's collar at the designated point. The crew quickly deduced that the collar contained the ledger, and - through Vorex's help - managed to create a way to clone the file from the collar so they could get that to her without stopping the ship (largely thanks to tI'kæl managing to Attune with the beast well enough that Demarcus could get the cloning device against its collar without being mauled). TI'kæl actually got so attached to the creature during her attunement that she wanted to keep it. Quinton had to remind her that the Counters Guild couldn't suspect any foul play, or all of the assets would be instantly moved, and the ledger would be scrubbed; failing their mission for Vorex. Despite some in-fighting among the crew, the actual smuggling job - both of the Way Beast to Nightfall and of the Ledger to Vorex - went off without a hitch. In fact, due to Hubby constantly rolling critical successes while piloting the Stardancer, they hit each checkpoint early.
      TI'kæl is now determined to track down where on Nightfall that Way tiger is so she could kidnap it and keep it as her pet.
• Session 9 - Another RIP race session, this time on one of the 13 moons that orbit Nightfall. Demarcus got a wrist slap over his attack against the Gravity Blades. His punishment wasn't more severe mostly because the cameras did show that - while excessively aggressive - Demarcus WAS only defending himself. He's allowed to still participate in League races, but he is no longer allowed to remain in the team bays unsupervised; indefinitely. Alternatively, the entirety of the Gravity Blades was banned from that race as punishment (ignore that both AirJack and Ice Heart were still recovering and Bolt didn't do anything against Demarcus or Chaos Theory), and are also not allowed in the team bay AT ALL while a race is going on. If they wish to watch instead of participate, they must do so from the stands or via video off-site.
      Despite the reprimand over the fighting in the bay, Demarcus was also offered a new League opportunity. The RIP League has a club for pilots called The Basher Bonus Club. Invited members to the club are given a "punch card"; their membership card on which black dots, or "punches" shows up for successful slams, forced retirements, or caused explosions. Forced retirements/caused explosions count as two punches vs the one punch for a successful slam. When five punches accumulate on the card, a Volt (a race-specific form of currency used to repair or upgrade the RIP Machines) is added to the pilot's race earnings and the punches reset. Members must at least ATTEMPT a slam in each race, or they are removed from the club until they are invited back.
      Other than that, the race went off without much of a hitch. Some more explosions. Poet and Sanic again podiumed, but this time they were joined by Demarcus (as Doc).
• Session 10 - This session I attempted to do something similar to the Fable games, and offer the same job, but on opposing sides. The mission centered around the Turner Society (the drug traffickers and drug den providers the Stardancers smuggled Vosian Crystals for in the first session) trying to take down their biggest competitor: high-end drug dealer Yon Lirak. He's actually a named NPC in the rulebook. His entry reads: "Runs a factory in Rost [on the planet Amerath] that never shuts down, producing synthetic narcotics for several major species. [He is] experienced, ruthless, [and] unforgiving" [pg 309 in the rule book]. The crew was given the option to either help the Turner Society take down Lirak's factory (run by slave labor) or help Lirak protect his factory from the sabotage.
      They still had that Grinch-themed job that was also on Amerath. That one had a researcher up on a mountain of Amerath requesting that someone stop the Dance of the Fairies festival that happens annually and disrupts the researcher's work for a solid month as the festival goes on in the valley below him. When the crew decided they'd prefer to help the Turner Society (in part because they were already friendly with them, in part because of the slave labor, and in part because Hubby decided Lirak was also a rival to Lang's drug empire), Quinton plotted that they could somehow frame the residents of the hamlet Hovayle who host the Dance of the Fairies festival, and the ruthless and unforgiving Lirak would come after them; affectively ending the festival.
      Quinton hacked the servers of Lirak's massive 30-story building and sent out a memo that the workers were allowed a two-day leave to participate in the Dance of the Fairies festival. Sixty-percent of the work force were able to leave and get onto shuttles that the Stardancers had set up before the rest of the facility went into lockdown and bounty hunters were sent to bring back the workers.
      Having another brilliant idea, Quinton had himself and Demarcus disguise themselves as AirJack and Ice Heart as they broke into the facility. TI'kæl randomly threw a disguise together and lucked into looking exactly like a flower shop owner from down the street. The trio made their way into the factory, hacked the system to make their way through the levels until they could get to where the drugs were actually being made (most of the building was living space for the slave laborers and guards, an on-site hospital, a brig, and packing facility). When they got to the brig, they found three people locked up. One was a big, burly guy foaming at the mouth trying to get at the guard on duty. Another was a frail fifteen-year-old who looked like he was pushing 90. And a third that looked like a string-bean of a man with a shark head. That was when I passed the floor to our newest player who introduced his shark-headed character as Fin and swore he had no clue why he was locked up. The crew let the trio out, assuming they were all falsely imprisoned by Lirak, and the burly guy instantly started beating the already unconscious guard to death. Having Fin scoop up the frail guy (named Chuck), the crew continued on through the facility. They got to the factory floor, and Quinton hacked into the system to steal the drug recipe, force a self-destruct flushing of the drugs already made, and destroyed all of the materials needed to make more. Sabotage complete, the group broke back out of the facility. Quinton made sure to escape via crashing through a window. He then left behind the shard AirJack had shanked Demarcus with to further frame the rival duo.
      After being rescued by the Stardancers, Fin revealed that his real name is Jet Ryle. He's a human, but he's also a gambling addict who isn't particularly good at the gambling bit. He has massive debt all throughout the Procyon Sector, and that was probably why Lirak had him locked up; to cash in on the hefty bounties on Jet. The shark head was also a result of the massive gambling debt he had accrued. One of his bookies offered to forgive his debt if he agreed to some medical experimentation. He happily accepted, got knocked out for surgery, and awoke in a back alley with a shark head instead of his own. Jet's player was inspired by this Sharkman character on the cover of the Gravity RIP rulebook.
  

  

  Illustration by Colin Craker

      Meanwhile, here's Chuck... he's just the old prisoner from Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
  
  
      Since sabotaging the factory (and unintentionally rescuing Jet) only took about 90min, they had time to still see to the Grinch-themed job. They split the crew; half would meet up with the researcher Hirg Chent and the other half would go to Hovayle to try to convince the town to not host the festival (or at least keep it down to not disrupt Chent's research). The Dance of the Faeries festival celebrates the annual solar eclipse on Amerath, which initiates the pollination season in that valley. The bioluminescent flowers and mushrooms release glowing spores that are collected by glowing insects; the whole cycle resembles what The Ancients (aka Earthlings) would describe as faeries or Will o' the Wisps. Hence the name of the festival. Since this is a nature-based event, it cannot be rescheduled, and it is the biggest influx of funds to the small hamlet, so the mayor refused to alter the festival at all. Meanwhile, tI'kæl had a great time talking about The Way with Chent, but couldn't convince him to do research somewhere else on Amerath while the festival was going on. Not finding a peaceful solution, and really wanting to take part in the festival themselves, the crew decided they're just murder hobos. They'll trick the researcher into thinking they stopped the festival, get paid for it, and then kill the researcher and transfer the rest of Chent's money to Ice Heart and AirJack to further frame them. The murdering-the-researcher bit went wrong as Chent's pet attacked to defend him. The pet is a domesticated wakeena: a wolf-like creature the size of a pony, has six legs, hyena-like spots, a prehensile tail, and 4 eyes. Chent named it Limainamilx, but called him Milx for short. In the scuffle, Chent's research and tablet/computer that would have been Quinton's access to Chent's bank account were all destroyed. In the end, the hobble Chent was living in was still standing and now vacant, so the crew left a mostly-recovered Chuck there before heading down to Hovayle.

Generated by Bitmoji (cropped)

H'okay... even "abridged" these session recaps are LONG! I mean, the game sessions themselves average about 4hrs so... I think I'm doing pretty good at recapping. Either way, I think I should probably tag out with the introduction of Jet. Maybe I'll find time this month to do another post recapping more of the sessions in my attempt to catch you up with our game. At the very least, you are now caught up on nearly the full first year we've played. Jet was introduced in May, 2022. Also, with that being session #10, you know about half of the Stardancer saga, seeing as how we're going into session #23 this upcoming Monday.

So, to finish up, I'd like to address the elephant in the room (in the blog???). You have probably noticed that I'm still using the Coming Soon font this post. That's because I haven't really had much feedback with regards to the font options I gave everyone last post. Actually, I was offered a few other options to try out, which kind of hinders my ability to narrow things down to just one winning font. So I'm going to try this again.

The first font voted 'yes' on was Indie Flower. So here is a refresher on what Indie Flower looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern with Indie Flower is that it feels like a smaller font. More condensed. Might be harder to read. I'm not sure though, so how does everyone feel about Indie Flower? Is this the keeper?

The second 'yes' vote was for Josefin Sans. Here's a refresher for Josefin Sans. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. My concern about Josefin Sans is that it feels like a more generic font? It is definitely more print-friendly. Which might be a bonus and might be exactly why I should stick with it perminantly. On the flipside, I think I'd miss that "handwritten" feel of my blog's font. What are all of your thoughts on the matter? Do I go more professional, print-friendly and stick with Josefin Sans? Or do I keep the more unique (but definitely less-professional) hand-written look of some of these other options?

The first alternative option given was for Kalam. This is what Kalam looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold. I do like the handwritten look to it. My concern is that it's SUUUUUPER spaced out. I feel like my already long posts will look unbearably epic in length if I go with this one. Plus, the italics are hard to notice since the font defaults at slightly-slanted. I'm not sure. What's everyone else's thoughts on Kalam? Should this be my new font for this blog?

Another suggested font was Mali. So this is what Mali looks like. THIS IS THE FONT IN ALL CAPS. This is the font italicized. This is it in bold.I don't mind this one. It's not too small or spaced out too much. Has the curviness of Indie Flower. The letters all seem distinct enough from each other, but I could do a quick double check on that: the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Seems good. My only concerns are that, compared to my current font of Coming Soon, this font doesn't have as much of a hand-written look as I'd like, and it feels larger. I'll have to drop the default font size down for sure, and I don't know if I can lock in a default font point because I've never set one before. Will this font end up with the same pitfall of Kalam? Namely, make my blog look even longer than it already is? I dunno. How does everyone else feel about this possibly being my blog's official font?

Along with Kalam and Mali, I was also suggested Patrick Hand (which looks like this) and Comic Neue (which looks like this). To be frank, I wasn't the biggest fan of either option. Comic Neue just didn't seem unique enough of a font and might as well be Comic Sans. In fact, it's supposed to be a "mature and professional" version of Comic Sans. Comic Neue also isn't much different from Coming Soon. Which begs the question: why bother switching?

As for Patrick Hand, the font felt TEENY, and I just wasn't the biggest fan of its over-all look. I do appreciate the research done to suggest these fonts though.

So, again, what does everyone think of the font choices? Stick with Coming Soon? Switch to Indie Flower? Go with Josefin Sans instead? Try out Kalam? Use Mali? Let me know in the comments section.

And, with that, I will leave you all, my wonderful valentines, to enjoy the rest of your Valentine's Day. Know that you are loved and cherished. Best to all of you! Until next time.

Generated by Bitmoji

The Mandatory Borniko Syndicate Job

Hello, beautiful peeps! I know, it's been a beat, and posting an update on a Sunday is a bit random. I had decided that I wanted to just be on vacation last week, hence the skipped post on the 5th. My priority was spending the time with Hubby instead of squirrelling away to write this update. Hope you guys didn't miss me too terribly.

As for this week? Well, Hubby's manager had her baby this past Wednesday, which means hubby's schedule this week - and straight through the manager's maternity leave - is a bit wonky to help cover her leave. I again took the opportunity to just spend Tuesday morning with Hubby before he did a long closing shift. This blog got neglected in the process, but, ya know... priorities. Then it was just a matter of not having any consistent free time since. I mean, I've been chipping away at this update all week, but I haven't had a solid couple of hours to just sit and write. Which is why there's been such a long delay.

There might be an ongoing shift of when I post these updates as I try to figure out my own new routine to coincide with Hubby's. I'll have to get back to you on what that new updating schedule might look like. Possibly late in the day Tuesdays, perhaps Sundays since that's my shortest work day, perhaps some other day that I'm not busy with much else. Who knows? Hubby has been getting back into Magic: The Gathering, so maybe Friday nights while he's playing at the local game shop? Maybe Saturday mornings after I've had an evening to work alone on the post?

Like I said, I'll keep you updated once I've figured it out.

Along those lines, since I wanted to spend as much time with Hubby as we possibly could while on our joint vacation (and again this past Tuesday morning), I also didn't sequester myself to try to get any further work done on my writing projects. So no writing updates this go. Not that you guys are surprised about that by now, I'm sure.

We do have more Scum and Villainy to talk about, though. For instance, I finally remembered to ask Quarthix to spell out Demarcus' last name for me, and I also remembered to ask everyone for character ages. Which means I now have an almost-completed official roster for the Stardancer:

• Captain: Demarcus Recocu
• Alias: "Captain"
• Playbook: Muscle
• Species: Human
• Age: 25
• Background: Former on-call doctor for the Borniko Syndicate
• Pilot of the Slambulance
• Racing Name: "Doc"
• First Mate/Helmsman: Quinton Shrike
• Alias: "Lord"
• Playbook: Speaker
• Species: Human
• Age: 22
• Background: Member of minor noble house; family owns the Raven's Nest nightclub
• Pilot of the Dark Soliloquy
• Racing Name: "Poet"
• Crewmate (? - The players haven't figured out an official role for her yet...): tI'kæl 
• Alias: "Space Princess" (? - she hasn't confirmed this is her criminal alias yet)
• Playbook: Mystic
• Species: Memish
• Age: Age of maturity for Memish; equivalent to human age of 20
  (probably physically 200-some years old, since Memish can live to be about 1000 much like humans can live to be about 100?)
• Background: Princess and high priestess of Mem; pretending to be on a pilgrimage
• Pilot of Da Wey
• Racing Name: "Sanic"

During our last session, we also discovered Demarcus' life's goal. So I can fill this list out for you as well:

• Quinton's Life Goal: Become a famous RIP racer (at least, have "Poet" become the GOAT of the sport).
• TI'kæl's Life Goal: To observe and experience as much of the galaxy as she can manage, all while spreading the glory of The Way.
• Demarcus' Life Goal: To become an infamous criminal, but also untouchable by authorities.

The characters are all coming together as the players are slowly getting to know more about them; get more of a feel for them. Still don't really know what Quinton or Demarcus look like, other than "They fancy." So we still have that hurdle, but the age thing does help a touch with picturing them.

For anyone who is into the anime/manga One Piece, we've joked that Demarcus is "Zorro, dressed as Sanji, and trying to become Doflamingo." For those who don't know the series, Quarthix also described Demarcus simply as, “I look like a thug that dresses really nice.” So... there's that.

Now, we may only be up to the 3rd gaming session here in my recaps, but, due to scheduling conflicts and players fighting migraines and the like, we haven't had a session since Aug 30 anyway. Which means session 4 has yet to actually happen (we're hoping to finally play again tomorrow...). That also means we're not too far behind here in my blog recaps compared to where the group is in the actual game. So, without further ado, let's get into Session 3 of SaV:

Credit to the Scum and Villainy art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha, Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin

When last we saw the crew, poor minor noble Mevakor Nagan was arrested for drug possession, possible drug trafficking/dealing, and suspicion of Vos crystal smuggling. All things the Stardancer crew actually does/did, but they were happy to let poor Mev take the fall. (Is it weird that Mev was only used in 2 sessions, but since they were over the course of 2 months, it feels like we've been with him forever? And so it's weird to not have him with the crew for Session 3?)

Thankfully, the 51st Legion didn't catch the crew smuggling the wanted former-Hegemony-weapons-specialist Ishi. Mainly because Ishi was disguised to be Demarcus' "nephew" Timmy, and "Timmy" was isolated in an interrogation room, waiting for his "uncle's" interrogation to conclude. The crew then tidied the Stardancer back up (after the 51st Legion's ransacking of the ship) as they headed off to the Jumpgate to travel from the Holt star system to the Rin star system. Their main tasks in Rin: (1) find a way to broadcast an announcement the Echo Wave Riders (EWR) gave to the Borniko Syndicate, and (2) get Ishi safely to the Maelstrom Pirates and their hideout The Cove.

The EWR, and therefore the Bornikos, gave the Stardancer crew only two weeks to figure out how to hack either the Hegemony News Network or the galaxy-wide communications device the ansible in order to broadcast their announcement. If the crew didn't hit their deadline, the EWR and Borniko would go from allies to enemies, and the Borniko Syndicate would be out for blood against the crew for screwing up the relationship between the factions in the first place.

To recap further: The Echo Wave Riders were good allies with the Borniko Syndicate. They also build a large portion of their faction's identity off of the desire and ability to be the first to try the newest travel technology. The Echo Wave Riders had been hearing about a new land transport coming out, and were lined up to be the first to try them. However, through his channels at the Starsmiths Guild, Quinton negotiated for the Stardancer crew to get the land transports under the guise of testing them out for the Guild. Therefore, Quinton ended up sniping these transports from the EWR. We still haven't figured out if this was intentional sniping. Either way, this royally pissed off the EWR (for in-game mechanics, this gaves the crew a -2 rep with the Echo Wave Riders). Unfortunately, none of the Stardancer crew knew that the EWR were allies of the Borniko, who are their main criminal ally.

Figuring out that the crew that sniped the transports from them were affiliated with the Syndicate, the EWR started breathing down their ally's necks and threatening to end the partnership. In an attempt to placate the EWR, the Borniko offered to broadcast their race announcement that they were struggling to promote. That's when the EWR gave the Syndicate a hard deadline to get it broadcast. Then the Borniko turned around and ordered the Stardancer crew to get the announcement out by that deadline in order to smooth over the issues they caused, "Or else." The crew is just lucky that the EWR never figured out that the RIP racing team that has been harassing their drivers were also the Stardancer crew.

So anyway, the crew has this hard deadline for this job, and they were less than a fortnight away from hitting it. Alternatively, Ishi seemed contented to be on the Stardancer (as long as his escorts/smugglers stopped doing stupid things that might get him found out), so it was easy to decide to work on the broadcast job first. To make things easier, both the HNN and ansible HQs are housed on Quinton's "homeworld" of Warren.

Their first problem, however, came when they simply tried to travel from one star system to the next. The Holt-Rin Jumpgate is notoriously unstable. Well, it's MOSTLY stable, but it also is known to glitch. After talking to Hubby on how to handle this issue that's canon to the game lore, we came up with a chart for me to roll on to see if traveling through the Gate is successful. Sad to say for the Stardancer crew, but the gate wasn't stable that day.

The canon lore of the game comments about "naturally occurring" hyperspace lanes that shorten in-system travel between planets. These lanes are created by paths of Way energy flowing in the blackness of space. I think of these hyperspace lanes kind of like how ocean currents were shown in the movie Finding Nemo.

Much like how Finding Nemo shows the main ocean currents, I figured hyperspace lanes are set up like highways that you can merge onto at any point, travel quickly on, and then exit out of. Also, like a water current in the ocean, the in-system hyperspace lanes are sections of space where The Way quickly travels. Therefore, similar to animals using currents to move faster between points in the ocean(s), ships (and anything else traveling through the vacuum of space) can use these Way paths (the hyperspace lanes) to move faster between points of space. This is how interplanetary travel only takes about a day (or two, or three, depending on where each planet is in their orbit).

The Jumpgates, on the other hand, I viewed as a bit more complicated since they create artifical paths. While traveling through a hyperspace lane may be similar to a boat finding a current, or a car hitting the nitrous-oxide boost, going through an inter-star-system Jumpgate is more like being catapulted into near-lightspeed travel. Basically, this means you HAVE to use the Jumpgates to get into these artifical hyperspace lanes. First of all, the amount of Way force in these "lanes" between gates makes an almost tube-like "tunnel" for the ships to travel through. So it's near-impossible to even muscle into these lanes. Secondly, with ships traveling through the gates at near-lightspeed, and no way to clearly see the ships from outside the lane, even if a ship could muscle their way onto the Jumpgate path, there's no telling how much space they truly have. There's a high probability that they may inadvertently re-enact the Holdo Maneuver from Star Wars: The Last Jedi (yes, I know it's a controversial bit of the movie, but just go with me here).

Probably best to avoid getting rammed by a ship going near-lightspeed....

Anyway, I said something about the Holt-Rin Jumpgate not being stable and glitching? Well, we also figured the Jumpgates would work similar to how Astral Gates work in Cowboy Bebop.

Namely, that the Gates can be opened and closed. As of right now, I don't have the Jumpgates charging tolls, but I have been thinking about adding that to the on-going story. The Hegemony could start charging tolls, at least on the three Gates in the Rin system: the Rin-Holt Gate, the Rin-Iota Gate, and the Rin-Ecliptis Gate (which leads to the Core, where the Hegemon lives). Eventually, this could also bleed to the Iota-Brekk Gate and the currently unopened Holt-Hantu Gate. So, that's a simple (and possibly temporary) difference between the SaV Jumpgates and the Cowboy Bebop Astral Gates: no tolls. The other difference is that turning off the Gate doesn't permalock a ship into hyperdrive like it does in Cowboy Bebop (basically trapping the ship and its passengers in a separate hyperspeed dimension). Instead, the way I imagined the Jumpgates working in Scum and Villainy is a bit more complicated (less complicated???).

I saw turning on a Gate as a way of completing an electrical circuit, literally turning the pathway on. Once the gates are turned on, there's this "current" that flows between them, and that "creates" this Jumpgate tunnel, similar to how hyperspace lanes look between Astral Gates in Cowboy Bebop. While The Way makes these natural paths between planets within a star system, these Gates artificially manipulate The Way to create paths between star systems. That being said, though, I do imagine that there ARE natural Way hyperspace lanes even between star systems, they're just few and far between.

Point being, if a Gate is turned off while ships are passing through them, the Gate's manipulation of The Way vanishes, and the ships instantly drop out of near-lightspeed. They're also kind of "tossed" or "dropped" out of the tunnel created between the Gates, which is lucky, because it also clears the way for the next ship once the Gates are turned back on. I kind of pictured it as if an astronaut is drifting from one door to another, but before they can reach the other door, the artificial gravity is turned on, and the astronaut instead drops to the floor.

I also pictured one Gate in each star system for both directions of traffic. So, to avoid those Holdo Maneuver collisions, the Gates function like a one-lane bridge. Each Gate will either glow green for clear passage, or red for "occupied", or won't glow at all if they're turned off. Ships generally approach Gates from the side, to make sure there's clear passage for any ship that might be exiting. Hegemonic workers then direct traffic, waving ships in and radioing between the Gates via ansible. They tend to alternate between their Gate being the entrance and then the exit.

For instance, the Holt-Rin/Rin-Holt Gate could be used to send a ship from the Holt star system to Rin, and then a ship from the Rin star system to Holt, and then back to a ship from Holt to Rin, etc. If there are no ships waiting, the worker could radio to the other star system, so that the other worker knows they can keep flagging ships into the gate without first waiting for a ship to exit it. If a worker is given the go-ahead to not wait for an exiting ship before sending the next one in through their gate, they tend to push ships through every ten minutes or so (enough time for the previous ship to exit and get out of the way of the one following them. Also enough time for the other worker to radio that they finally have someone waiting).

Given how long a one-way Jump can be, and that a ship has to wait for both the ship in front of them to make the trip, and a ship from the other side to also make the trip, most crews hope to stumble upon one of these "One-Way Chutes".

Generated by Bitmoji
Cropped by LycoRogue

Whew! That was a LOT, just so I could explain one little blip in the adventures of the Stardancer Crew. Oh well. Welcome to me and world building.

So, as I'm sure you've all guessed by now, the Stardancer's trip through the Holt Gate towards the Rin star system didn't go according to plan. They were expecting the trip to last about 30min (Which, given they're going at NEAR lightspeed, is absurdly too short. I mean, it takes sunlight about 45 minutes to reach Jupiter. But just go with it...). Instead, the Holt-Rin Jump lasted only 15min. Then the Stardancer was abruptly thrown out of near-lightspeed. Everything on their newly tidied up ship lurched forward with momentum, and was also thrown against the ceiling as the ship literally dropped out of the Jumpgate tunnel.

I had previously decided that the trip from Holt to Rin, using normal hyperspeed and hopping between the naturally occurring hyperspace lanes, typically takes 14 to 20 days to travel (again, ridiculously too short, but ignore that). Based on how far into the Jump they got before getting rudely thrown out of it, they were still about 7 or 8 days from the Rin star system. Longer, if they couldn't find the hyperspace lanes. The Maelstrom Pirates, along with independent pirate ships, also patrolled the space between Rin and Holt, specifically looking for ships kicked out of the Jumps. This wasn't a situation the Stardancer crew wanted to be in, especially with the tight deadline they had. (Although, depending on how they rolled to get out of it, I did have a contingency that it would be a Maelstrom Pirate ship that would find them, and they could at least get the Ishi hand-off out of the way.)

The crew debated drifting back to where the Jumpgate tunnel should be, and ride the current once the Gate is fixed. However, there were a few complications there: (1) if they weren't accurate as to where the lane was, and the forcefield-like "walls" of the tunnel ended up cutting through part of their ship, the Stardancer would easily be torn apart. (2) Since they'd be jumping into the lane mid-way, the Gates may not recognize that the tunnel is occupied, and another ship could be flagged to go through. If that ship was sent from the Rin side, we're back to that Holdo Maneuver scenario. (3) If they weren't fast enough at getting back into the lane, they could collide with that "wall" around the tunnel, or again fall into that first scenario of the "wall" cutting through their ship.

They quickly caved and decided to just travel with normal hyperspace, and hope they can make the journey safely. Good thing for them that Hubby was playing with loaded dice or something, because nearly every time he rolled he got a 6: critical success. Narratively, Quinton, being from the Rin system, knew where most of the naturally occurring hyperspace lanes were, and hit each of them near-perfectly.

The Stardancer hit the outer orbit of the Rin system with six days to spare before reaching their deadline to broadcast the Echo Wave Riders' message.

During the trip to Rin, since he wasn't the one driving, Demarcus tried to use the time to bond with Ishi a bit more. Now that he knew the impish Deilku was the main weapons designer, maker, and seller for the Hegemony, Demarcus wanted Ishi to join the crew. While the bonding worked so far as Ishi tolerates Demarcus the most out of the crew, and he minded less that he has had a much longer stay with his smugglers than anticipated, there was still no way Ishi was going to join the crew. He did offer the crew a discount on his weapons, however. So there's that.

Now in the Rin system, the crew spent another 2 days travelling across the system to Warren. So, the reason I had 'homeplanet' in quotes before is because Warren is actually a moon. The planet it orbits, Aleph, isn't inhabitable, but it does have a lot of valuable minerals that the Hegemony mines to the point of nearly hollowing out the planet. Because of this profitable mining venture, the moon of Warren became a major hub within the Rin system. As the rulebook describes it:

Warren is one of the moons of Aleph and the home to an ecumenopolis—a city spanning the entire surface of the moon. It’s the capitol for the system, and the system Governor Ritam al’Malklaith makes his residence here. On Warren, you can find anything you need—for a price. Its high-rises are full of legitimate business dealings, and its streets far less so.

Warren is a wretched hive of villainy, yet also the Hegemonic seat of power in the system.

(Pg 301 in SaV Rulebook)

I see it kind of like Night City in Cyberpunk 2077.

Anyway, with only four days left to try to figure out how to broadcast the EWR announcement, the crew decided their best plan of attack would be with Vorex: "The most successful information broker to ever live. She can access any terminal in the sector—though no one can explain how." (rulebook pg 336) It was fairly well known around Warren that Vorex managed to hijack one of the HNN satellites orbiting the ecumenopolis. Relying on his charisma, Quinton suggested going to the hijacked satellite and try to get Vorex to broadcast the announcement for them. If that didn't work, Quinton could try hacking into the satellite himself to broadcast the announcement. If THAT didn't work, the crew could just threaten to blow up the satellite, and hope Vorex valued her stolen property enough to cave instead of allowing the satellite to be destroyed. Both tI'kæl and Demarcus were shocked with this sudden bit of aggression from Quinton, but Demarcus was 100% behind it.

Cloaking the ship, Quinton maneuvered the Stardancer far enough away from the 51st Legion ship patrolling around the commandeered HNN satellite to remain unseen. Undetected (at least, at the time), the Stardancer docked by the satellite, which also served as a mini space station. There was an access hatch along the side, and the interior of the satellite was JUUUUUUUUUST barely large enough for all three crewmates to fit inside without elbowing each other too much.

Unsure how to actually get Vorex's attention, Quinton hacked into the individual satellite's system. He wasn't able to access the full Hegemony News Network, but he could at least play around with that specific satellite a little bit. Quinton started messing around some more to try to get to the HNN feed, but was interrupted by Vorex's assistant AI. I described the AI as a computer screen that descended via thick cable from the ceiling. It had the basic "neon-green simple pixel face on a black screen" used in a lot of sci-fi AIs. Failing to create Vorex's assistant AI before the session, I relied on the rulebook entry (pg 336):

TURF: An automated HNN satellite orbiting Warren (HQ).
NPCS: Vorex (wizard-class hacker, stressed, careful, self-modified). A-0M (maintenance Urbot, cheerful, non-verbal). Tock (security Urbot, protective, staticky, well armed).

Okay, so maybe I took some liberties there. If this satellite was supposed to be Vorex's HQ, shouldn't it be a large enough space station/satellite for her to live there? But, then it should be fairly easy for the Legion to either kill her by blowing up the satellite, or bust in to arrest her and take back control. Didn't seem to make sense that she'd actually STAY at the satellite. Hense just the small access area, no Vorex the hacker, and no Tock the security Urbot. This left me with the cheerful maintenance Urbot A-0M. I decided this was clearly the AI the crew just encountered. Did not notice the "non-verbal" part, though, so I gave A-0M a chipper little voice as he greeted the three invaders of the satellite. (I also misread the zero in the NPC's name as a capital O. So his name is now pronounced "Ay-Ohm". LOOOOTS of liberties taken with the Vorex entry....)

The confused A-0M greeted Quinton - since he was the one accessing the terminal - and complemented "Vorex" on her great disguise (the AI couldn't fathom anyone but his boss managing to use the satellite). Quinton ran with the misconception and asked A-0M to broadcast the Echo Wave Riders' message. A-0M agreed, once "Vorex" gave the security verification code. Quinton started guessing what the code is. He wasn't even close, but that did send a security alert to Vorex.

A-0M's green-pixeled face disappeared, and instead a grainy and purposefully poorly-lit video call from Vorex herself filled the screen. She, much like Quinton, had a voice modulator active as she demanded to know who the three people in her satellite were, and what they wanted. Quinton quickly explained the situation and assured Vorex that they didn't want to be there any more than she wanted them there. She threatened to boot them out of the system, but Quinton managed to smooth-talk her to the point where she was willing to at least see the video they were supposed to broadcast.

A heavy sigh and a deep groan later, Vorex commented about how frivolous the announcement was, and how it wasn't worth her utilizing her satellite to hack into the HNN broadcast. Quinton and Demarcus both agreed, but also argued back that she was spending more time arguing with them than it would take to just air the video. That wasn't really the point, but when Quinton jumped to threatening Vorex and her satellite, she relented (Hubby had again rolled a 6, otherwise I would have had her majorly push back).

She confirmed with A-0M that he had been recording the three intruders the whole time. She then heaved another sigh before airing the asinine video from the Echo Wave Riders. The crew now contented, they agreed to leave. Vorex yelled after them that she better not catch them messing with any of her work ever again.

Back on the ship, the crew turned on the broadcast to see what the EWR even wanted to announce (Vorex saw it before any of them even bothered to watch it). It was a cheesy video - filled with fireworks, air horns, and a gang of the EWR with their favorite land transports - announcing a system-wide race through Brekk as a way to determine who truly is the greatest pilot within the Procyon Sector. The EWR warned that the buy-in for the race won't be cheap, and only those the EWR deemed "worthy" would even get an invitation to the race. However, the payout and the clout of winning the race will be well worth it. The video then concluded by letting pilots know they had a month to prove their worth. If they managed it, the Echo Wave Riders would extend an invite to the Brekk system race. The video closed out with the crowd of EWR in the video barking out their faction's mantra like they were soldiers responding to their drill sergeant: "speed and skill are the only truths."

Accurately pegging the Echo Wave Riders as "a gang of douches", and confirming that Vorex held up her end of broadcasting the video for them, the crew dislodged the Stardancer from the satellite and descended to Warren. (Quinton was in a particularly bad mood that day, and so he still wanted to blow up the satellite, but the other two managed to talk him down from it.)

The Stardancer was still cloaked, but the patrolling 51st Legion ship did zip back to the satellite upon seeing the broken-into broadcast, and they caught the Stardancer leaving the satellite. Thankfully, the Legionnaires got there too late to get a good enough look at the ship. Also, the Stardancer doesn't have any exterior add-ons that the Legion could use to really distinguish them anyway. The best description the 51st Legion has is "Scarab-class Freighter with factory-paint job (basically a base coat)."

Docked on Warren, the crew scrambled to find out how much the 51st Legion knew. Seeing the pathetic BOLO for them, they decided now was the best time to get a paint job. Won't throw the Legion off completely since they'll still be on the lookout for a Scarab, and they'll know that the one they saw could have gotten a paint job. However, now the Legion would have to file the Stardancer with all of the other Scarabs in the sector since they couldn't be singled out as having "factory paint" still on their Scarab-class freighter. Also, now the crew had more plausible deniability.

Aaaaaaand since the players haven't been able to see my mock-up of the Stardancer with its new paint job, and I want them to be the first ones to see it, I'm going to stop here. This blog is already late, and it's already long, thanks to me trying to describe how the hyperspace lanes and Jumpgate paths work.

I'll save the casual roleplaying the group did, as well as their RIP race for next recap.

I will state though, that I did warn the players out-of-character that Vorex has already created in-depth dossiers on both tI'kæl and Demarcus. Due to Quinton being careful with his disguises and voice mods, and always making sure that everyone uses the codenames, Vorex is still working on his dossier. She is fairly certain that the Stardancer crew is the RIP Racing team Chaos Theory, and therefore "Lord" and "Poet" could possibly be the same person, but she doesn't have enough proof to be certain. Quinton's basically Vorex's Yard Board for right now.

Image from Paddington 2 (2017)

Excuse the pun, but this is going to be a fun thread to pull on for future storylines.

Until next time...

Scum and Villainy rule book cover designed by art team:
Brett Barkley, Tomasso Renieri, Juan Ocha,
Michaela DeSacco, and Tazio Bettin
(Cheesy Batman-series-joke edits by LycoRogue)