Act I-II Planning

Post-christmas ideas

So, what to do next.

Current state of the PCs: Left off being chased down by five shardships into Alliance space, where they don’t have a permit or registration or anything. On the off chance they beat the five ships, they can go back to the parking swarm and get a hold of a permit or something. The main enforcement of these permits is astral lighthouses, of which there are two in close proximity to the parking swarm, though none in range of where the PCs are.

Current hanging story hooks (I may have missed some):

• Darius is still on the loose, definitely involved with the remnants and almost certainly involved with the expanding blacksphere.
  • He’s now moved into the Alliance, stirring up a ‘return to the greatness of peraxia from whence ye came’ type movement. He’s very dismissive of the Alliance’s own customs and such. Very much coloniser type sentiment; though be careful with this one. One key question which is right now unanswered: Was the alliance’s territory previously empty of life, intelligent or not? Maybe make that an in-universe unknown? Lots of ways to handle this, some better than others; avoid papering over it with easy cop-outs.
  • He’s also definitely doing more concrete organisation-building that we’ve seen him do at this point, and is working with the Syndicate in a not-insignificant ‘partnership’
• The last words of Captain Jack asked to go to his old friends, one of whom is Reggie and one of whom is Carter, and tell them about his untimely death. Reggie will be fighting against Darius’s new movement somehow and Carter will be locating the elven fleet as a means of countering the expanding sphere (since they’ll have some ancient macguffin or something).
• Unexplored backstories:
  • An elderly oortling (name escapes me) is offering eeta a spirit golem (a juiced-up oortling-only spirit warrior with a psicrystal) in exchange for proving herself and becoming his apprentice. He’s set up running the tree-type spirit warrior half of a spirit warrior arena in the parking swarm.
    • The PCs need to head back there to get fitted out for blacksphere traversal
  • We haven’t met up with Az’s old travelling circus. A cool way of doing this could be that they go somewhere with a huuge travelling festival in town, only to stumble on some of Az’s crew playing in the back of some small bar somewhere. Turns out that they need a favour - due to budget cuts one of the performers in the big show (an old friend in need of cash) is going to do something really stupidly dangerous. The PCs need to step in somehow and stop this from happening; they could sneak in the back, disrupt the performance live, or some other means.
  • Grave’s backstory is still also absent. There are a whooole bunch of ways this could go; recognised by an old member of the rouge’s crew he used to run with, finds some sort of paper or document or record leading to his old life. Would be fun to try and subvert the tropes a little here, though it does need to come with an explanation of why he’s a badass(ish) rouge now.
  • CB and Olem both have backstories that I don’t remember well enough to plan properly now. They can come later.

Plans: The PCs will probably want to run on after Reggie or Carter or one of the captain’s other friends i’ve forgotten about. I can shove whatever I want in their way, really - though that’s kind of boring. I’d more want to give them another place to be, and force them to make a choice. I also need to make sure that the threats are present-feeling. Remnants don’t normally show themselves outside fairly close proximity to the blacksphere.

Could make it a plot point that the Syndicate is working with ol Darius to smuggle remnants across the Alliance to sow fear

Could even make it that that’s what’s in the boxes they’ve nabbed, perhaps. If they try and open one, grappler jumpscare

General philosophy changes:

• Focus on interesting NPCs much more than interesting places. Exploration and visual storytelling both are much trickier in D&D than in videogames, so stick to its strengths - combat and NPC interactions, and interesting puzzle/heist type situations with explicit and telegraphed parameters and goals. Just going to an interesting place isn’t enough, you need something interesting to do there, and normally someone interesting to talk to.
  • So, I need a whole bunch more NPCs!
• More interesting enemies! see Mid tier for the new batch. Also need some interesting ships to fight.

Session XV and forward ideas (written on 15/03/2026)

Current state, after the upcoming big ship battle vs Darius:

• The PCs have beaten off Darius, with some help from Reggie (a high level wizard) and Alice (a high level barbarian). Hopefully he’ll have boarded their ship and they’ll have had a proper face off.
• The PCs know where to find the elves, but it’s a long way away in the outer circles. They need some ship upgrades to get there.
  • As for what happens when they find the elves - who knows, right now.
• Darius is up to some Act III-ass shenanigans after his defeat - they need to be obvious and urgent, get the PCs moving.