This blog will tell the story of one of my d&d groups, based on the Starshatter universe. Check my book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B079K62S78
Talking about humble beginnings, this group started on a remote Terran colony deep in the Fringe space territories. A new colony, Idyll has but a population of fifty souls - most of whom were women. The group's G-net (galactic network) profile is called "The Deplorables" and they view themselves as space hobos. All of the gear they have on their persons is looted from pirates and other scum. Even their starship was originally a pirate ship, which they managed to capture, nearly all of them kicking the bucket in the process.
Last week while visiting the asteroid colony Cav, the group uncovered information detailing one very strange death - some G-net surfer died his brains fried and splattered all over. Things like that are possible and happen when deep web entities or hackers assassins kill people connected via nerve-gear implants. But there was a problem - this man had NO nerve-gear and other implants, yet he had died in the very same manner. After a short investigation the group's human telepath Victor Juntz found the psychic trace left from the dead man's soul and dived in. He experienced the victim's last seconds and uncovered something really alarming - he was killed by a telepath who projected his power through the web! Impossible to even conceive such a power, Victor shared his findings with the rest of his group. While Victor was resting his mind, the group's I-sec agent Backstrom searched for more clues and together with X172, their resident machine AI riding inside of a cyborg body - they uncovered a small patch of strange bacterial growth. As they inspected the sample, their sysop, the hamster hacker Many scoured the local Intranet for more clues. What he uncovered deepened the mystery surrounding that death. Seems that man was part of a cult called "The Golden Dawn" which was operating deep in G-net and related to something that they called "Shining paradise". I-sec had no more data concerning that group and using his I-sec connections Backstrom arranged a visit with the station's current administrator - an ex-telepath commandos Amanda Savage. The now old woman is a respected elder and was elected by the citizenry for the second time to lead their colony.
After a short talk with Amanda, the group was acknowledged as independent investigators in the employ of the local colonial administration. Having access to more information, the administrator gave the group a set of coordinates. Those led them to a tiny asteroid outpost some fifty light years away from their current location. It was the home of a group of Golden Dawn cultists, who according to the data Amanda gave them were trying to achieve oneness with the Net and enter their Shining paradise. Alas, after reaching their compound, our group of intrepid space adventurers found the "faithful" moaning and brain-dead, drooling over the floorplating of their base. As they inspected their surroundings after leaving the shuttle they used to board the asteroid, Manny effortlessly hacked the cultist's database. Their compound an had overly large g-net access hyperlink and their servers were generating traffic more common for a colony populated by millions of people than just a hundred souls. On their way towards the server room, the group failed to detect the now surrounding them on all sides taz'aran scouts. Cloaked, using thermo-optic camouflage the gals climbed the decorative trees and roofs of the houses built inside of the terraformed cavern of the asteroid compound. Not even X172 cyborg thermal vision managed to catch a glimpse, and it was only thanks to the telepathic powers of Victor that the group escaped being completely surrounded and ambushed. On top of those taz'aran scouts, there was an enemy telepath who, using his own powers, was hiding a cyborg trooper and one full of taz'aran soldiers dropship.
Quickly X172 called for her Power Amor and it left their shuttle running towards their position. During the initial combat phase, Manny using his already complete control over local surveillance and defense systems aimed the few security turrets at the taz'aran telepath and cyborg. The concealed scouts attacked and while Victor managed to quickly dispose of the enemy telepath with his telekinesis crushing his spine. The enemy cyborg crushed the door he was positioned behind and shot at the group with his integrated shoulder missile launcher. They, barely escaping death lept away from the explosion and exchanged fire with both scouts and cyborg, while the now very visible taz'aran dropship deployed two full sections of infantry and their commander on the ground. Again the cyborg showered them with fire, this time from his arm, replaced by a heavy particle beam auto-gun. Backstrom used an emp grenade and luckily it overloaded the cyborgs' internal power core, disabling his motor functions. A problem arose since the blast radius of the said core would've fried most of the group. Thankfully Victor again used his telekinesis - picked up the disabled cyborg and threw his body in the middle of the closest taz'aran infantry section. Since they had just rappelled down from their dropship a second ago were unable to react quickly and the resulting explosion wiped them out. Sadly it flattened the compound's server room and half of the building their group was using for cover. X172's Power armor choose this time to enter the fray and she jumped inside of it aiming its large laser rifle at the nearest group of enemy scouts. They were melted together with the trees both took cover behind. Reloading the Krup laser assault rifle with a fresh power pack, X172 turned her attention towards the second taz'aran section, ignoring the last two remaining scouts - their tiny rifles only managed to damage her mech's paint job. Manny, in full control of the compound's sensors, sent a link over all comm channels and expertly bluffed the now disheartened taz'arans - he told them that a ship full of Terran Star marines was closing quickly. The taz'arans were shot from all sides, faced a 16ft tall power armor armed only with pop guns, and knew that there was also a telepath standing against them. Their dropship was caught in the blast wave of that cyborg's power core a few seconds before, and the pilots lost control. Their machine crashed into the nearby building, leaving their only route of escape through the asteroid's hangar bay. First, their commander ran away, boosting his armored suit's engines, he flew towards the hangar. What was left of his troopers soon followed him on foot. Since the group's starship was conveniently parked outside the asteroid, they gave the onboard computer orders to shred the escaping soldiers using the ship's point defense battery.
What was left for them to do was gathering whatever loot they could from the corpses of their enemies and investigate for more clues. What was that cult doing here? Why would they need such a powerful and large hyperlink and their G-net traffic so heavy? Perhaps they would find the answers to those and other questions later this week.
Alas, it seems that the taz'aran ship who most probably had left those soldiers to loot the Golden Dawn compound wasn't idly lurking about. The group received an SOS via their hyperlink. A small passenger starship was under attack by taz'arans in a system nearby.
Their ship was the closest one able to respond...