Demons of Air and Darkness ...

Wow!
We had one of our oh-so-sparse 2 days session over the week-end, and I must say I'm quite happy with the way it went :). Some of you may remember all the loose ends that I had in my "Prophecy" ideas ... looks like everything is going to tie up nicely in the end ...
Anyhow, first things first, I'll try to narrate the 2-parter on the board, so as to get your opinion on the scenario. Who knows, some of you might even find it useful for an adventure (I know I'm too lazy to format it into an adventure myself).

Warning: This is probably going to be a longish post.

Part 1: "Demons of Air and Darkness" (N.B.: Part of this adventure is strongly inspired by http://www.lcarscom.net/rightstuff.htm)
The PCs are on Empok Nor, after the Dominion War. The station is used to coordinate the humanitary action of Starfleet, and is manned by joint Starfleet-Cardassian teams (ouch). Most PCs are department heads, and respond either to admiral Picard (who commands the humanitary fleet) or to Garak (head of the Cardassian Intelligence, appointed by the council).
One of them was actually enjoying some small talk with the pretty Cardassian ensign (wo)manning the Communication console, when a messages came in for him. Not encrypted, normal priority. From one of the PCs (a Bajoran female Vedek, player unable to attend). Vedek Elira had been sent down as part of a humanitary mission to Hebia, a small cardassian city north of the capital city. Hebia had suffered very heavy pounding from the Jem'Hadars when the Cardassians rebelled. The message told that she might be needed down there longer than expected, that she missed him dearly, that she loved him, and that she would be glad to see him again soon. That ruined a bit the PC's efforts to court the ensign ;). It also made the PC rather confused, the vedek being extremely attractive, but the two of them had not exactly been getting along extremely well (him being Cardassian and all).
After some discussion with other members of the liaison team, they came to the conclusion that Vedek Elira needed them in Hebia, but for some reason could not speak freely (they had had reasons to believe that there was a Romulan spy on the station). They soon found an excuse to embark on a transport heading toward Hebia.
They were right. The bombing of Hebia had unearthed some ruins, dating back probably to the first Hebitian civilisation. A rather huge conduit filled with highly unstable subspace tears, what looked like a control room filled with eerie crystalline (and irremediably shattered) technology much more advanced than would be expected from a pre-warp civilization, and a big spheric room that could have been a library. The only thing left in this last room was a rather big stone tablet, that the few experts that could be found in the vicinity had been attempting to decipher for a week or so. They had come to the conclusion that it indeniably mentioned the presence of an Iconian Gateway within Cardassian space. Hence the need for secrecy.
After much research, attempts to simulate systems drift, and crosschecking, the PCs eventually came to the conclusion that the deciphered coordinates indicated a system belonging to the Romulan "protectorate": a third of the late Cardassian Hegemony (think Eastern Germany at the end of ww2). The tablet actually indicated other coordinates, but at that point only this one had been decrypted and the PCs were not aware that it was not that of a gateway. Anyhow, their commanding authorities soon decided that they could not allow Iconian tech to fall to the hands of the Romulans, even if in the current context they were (still) called allies. The PCs were to go, disguised as freelancers, and either bring back or destroy the Gateway supposed to be there.

(to be continued)

After a few days at medium warp (not wanting to be too obviously in a hurry), the PC's ship arrived in range of the system. Long range sensors indicating a Romulan ship that happened to patroll a few systems away, the PCs had to (uncomfortably) hide within a field of gravitic instability caused by subspace weakness of the space around. A very good subspace theory roll enabled the science officer to determine that the field could have been generated by an extremely powerful subspace energy burst, and that approximately ten millenia of space drift could very well place the origins of the burst on the third planet of the system. Of course, this planet also displayed a strong concentration of Iconic particles, as a quick sensor scan indicated.
Unbeknownst to them, their stay in the gravimetric distubance field had also charged them all with chroniton particles of a very specific signature ... (I can just hear some of you going "Oh no!" :P ).
After a while, the Romulan ship went out of range, and the PCs could near the planet and beam down. A cold, vegetal and foggy world. Barely breathable atmosphere. In the middle of a clearing, an Iconian building. Tall. A pyramid of huge cubes 30 meters high.

1st floor.._
........._|_|_
......._|_|_|_|_
..->..|_|_|_|_|_|..<- entrances
........|_|_|_|
..........|_|

2nd floor (or 1st underground)
..........._
........._|_|_
........|_|_|_|
..........|_|

3rd floor (or 2nd underground)
..........._
..........|_|

Small description of the building: Shimmering green walls, indicating slightly out of phase components. Each cube, except the central cube, was completely empty, and displayed one door for each of its neighbouring cube, apparently placed at random (noone said iconian logic had to follow ours :) ) alongside an edge of the side where both cubes met. The most striking peculiarity of these cubes was certainly that each wall was in fact extending its own gravitic field to the things standing on it, with a complex transition when one walked from one wall to the other. Tricoders showed no generating device nor power source (same for the light, which seemed to originate from the air itself and casted absolutely no shadow at all). The end effect was that the PCs ended up walking on the ceiling or the walls, and had a heck of a time trying to keep their sense of direction intact (not to speak about the GM ... good thing the pyramid could easily be modelled with a sufficient amount of dices :) ). Add an eerie silence to all this and I really had my PCs standing on their toes :D (empathy rolls, if they succeeded they had -1 on their results as long as they stayed in that peculiar cube).
On a side note, each cube had its own phase, and the doors actually acted as a phase regulator. Problem was that charged with chronitons as they were, the doors reacted strangely to the PC's passage, sending them through different times. This was extremely difficult to notice, the PCs had to be looking exactly at their tricorders when going through the door to notice a faint flicker in the time vector gradients (ah, technobabble). Hence, when they encountered NPCs from different timelines, each time the PCs went through a threshold, they lost the NPCs in a mindaching display of corruscating light (better not look at them at that time), and they thought the NPCs were disappearing from their time whereas the reverse was in fact happening. However, PCs could see each other even if they were in different cubes (provided of course the door was open), because they were still on the same phase, and thanks to the phase regulating effect of the building. Everyone still with me? Before someone asks, the entrance door had the special role of synchronizing the out-of-phase building with the outside, so that PCs coming out were automatically sent back to their own time frame.
The first sign the PCs got that not everything was right was when a Romulan woman ran into (the ceiling of) the cube, obviously in a hurry, and was about to run out when she noticed the PCs. Surprise showed on her face as she uncredulously called out "Capitain Darzin?" (lieutnant Darzin is the science officer PC) before her momentum took her out of the room. They of course hurried after her, changed cube, and phased out. After searching her around and coming to the conclusion that she had somehow disappeared, the PCs went on.
They eventually arrived at the central cube. It contained a 3 or 4 meters wide sphere at its center. 6 ladders connected it to each of the 6 walls of the room. The sphere was covered with what looked like control symbols, and sprawled on it were three light skinned Cardassians. They looked about as surprised as the PCs. The first one wore what looked like ceremonial clothes: white robes with brown and yellow geometric ornaments around the collar. The second one wore a simpler long dark blue tunic and had what for lack of a better word looked a bit like a tricorder, made of multicolored crystals. Both came down one of the ladder to meet the PCs, and the last one, who wore a short white tunic, continued to busy himself on the sphere. Having lost contact with their ship since entering the building, the PCs had no access to their translators, and had to rely on what little the only Cardassian PC could understand from First Hebitian "Cardassian" (i.e. about ten millenia old). The conversation went something like this:
Priest: "{bowing with fist on his chest} Good day to you ... pardon me for asking, but you are not supposed to be here, are you?"
PC: "Aren't we?"
P: "Oh sorry, surprise made forget politeness ... I am Charaban of Daenor, first priest of (argh sorry can't recall the god's name). This is Doctor Martan, and we are here with our servant Merek. May I ask you who you are or ... {looking with curiosity at the Klingon} what you are?"
PC: "Glinn Garkan of the Card.. err ... this is Lt Wurf, security officer, and Lt Darzin, science officer ... are you Cardassian?"
P: "Sorry?"
PC "You come from Cardassia, right?"
P: "{looking amused} Well, this is a very peculiar way to describe our home planet but ..."
PC: "{to himself} 4 days at warp 5, not bad for a prewarp civilisation {to Charaban} but you came here by yourself?"
P: "Why, yes. A ferryman brought us here ..."
PC: "A ferryman ?!?"
P: "Well yes ... isn't this Lt Darzin one? He looks very similar to a Baj'rann."
PC: "A what ?!?"
At that point, the scientist hurriedly muttered a few words to the priest, showing him readings on his alien tricorder.
P: "Ah ... errr ... it appears that you do not exactly belong here, so I fear maybe I have already said too much ... anyway, we still have work to complete, and my collegue has to go back to the sphere ..."
PC: "What were you doing exactly?"
P: "I'm afraid I can't tell, although of course you are free to wander around and have a look ..."
PC: "{to the other players} Dang it, he is applying a kind of prime directive to US! I guess we'll have to be more direct ... {to Charaban} The sphere is the door, right?"
P: "Door? Oh, you mean Gateway, oh my god no! Thanks god there is no Gateway so near to ... what was the name again? Ah Cardassia!"
Up on the sphere, both Hebitians seemed to be done, and were packing their things hastily.
P: "Now if you will excuse me, I have to check a few things."
He climbed the ladder rapidly, then examined quickly a few places, then climbed down with the two others.
P: "Well, were done here ... errm ... suffice to say that we shouldn't be there, and that they will probably send something to check out what's happening. We probably have about 5 minutes ..."
PC: "They?"
P: "Demons of air an darkness ... you probably do not want to meet them ..."
As they walked out of the central cube, the PCs decided to follow them, went through a door and changed phase again. They saw the Hebitians disappear, which sent extremely painful visual signals to their brains.

(to be continued)

A few secons later, when they managed to see again, they were surrounded by 10 Romulans. Only the Klingon PC was fast enough to jump back through the door, which made the Romulans disappear from his reality (actually it was him who disappeared from theirs), but not from the other PCs' one. Reasoning that going back into the room would make the Romulans appear again (which was wrong since the changes were mostly random), he then decided to walk around and come back through another door. Meanwhile, the other PCs were coming to the conclusion that those Romulans were only a few days away from their time, hence knew exactly what the PCs had come here for. The Romulan commander (who could not believe his luck) began to interrogate (verging on torture) them and managed to get a few partial informations before they escaped him again. Indeed, the Klingon hurriedly reached the door through which he could enter the cube from its ceiling. Seeing his friends but no Romulan, he was wondering what to do, when the romulan woman burst into his cube. "Wurf! Get the hell out of here!". She ran toward him, turned back, and fired her disruptor rifle at maximum setting at a huge dark shape that was entering the room after her. The shape stopped and glowed sickly, then resumed its lumbering. Running, the romulan woman hit the Klingon at top speed, which threw both of them into the Romulans' cube. The Klingon heard her shout "Get away..." before she disappeared to his sight. Summary: PCs saw each other, Romulans saw 2 PCs out of 3, 2 PCs saw the Romulans, noone saw the Romulan woman (who conversely saw noone) ... 2 or 3 awkward seconds went by, then the thing entered the room. Strangely, everyone saw the thing (due to its metaphasic nature), and the thing saw everyone. The Romulans, distracted, tried to shoot at the thing, which didn't seem to bother. The PCs managed to run for it, and the thing went after the Romulan woman, in the opposite direction.
The PCs decided to go back to the cube from which they entered the building, wondering if they should check the top and bottom cubes, but not very keen on meeting the dark fuliginous shape on their own. Just then, the Romulan woman entered the room from another door.
RW: "By the Dera, I could reach you before you left! I don't have much time. The demon is after me ... well, more after me than after most, at least. You have to stop them! My kind will accidentally unleash these things unto the galaxy, and this shall not happen!"
On cue, the thing entered the room.
RW: "The gateway. Further into Romulan space, you'll find the coordinates on the stone. Now leave! I'll delay it here!"
Strangely enough, the PCs obeyed her orders. Well, I guess Major Alita is better at commanding men than I, as a GM, am at commanding my players ;).

(to be continued)

Part 2: "Enter Chimera"
Actually, I think this one will be much faster to relate: It's almost directly taken from Dave's adventure in the Tactical section.
Replace the Changeling by a smaller (younger?) version of the demon seen in part one. It cannot mimic things like a Changeling does, but being slightly immaterial it can enter and animate dead Romulans bodies for instance.
Make Nico's Star a system where none of both groups is supposed to be (no more DMZ as such in my games, but Klingons share a border with Cardassia, which has not yet been fully defined as negociations are still under way). The Romulan group met in part 1 brought back enough information, enabling the Romulans to locate the Gateway faster than the Federation did. They quickly sent a scientific mission in the hope that they would be able to outrun the Federation. Somehow, this mission awaked the demon...
Last but not least, legate Alita is of course the Romulan woman who saved the PC's hide in part 1. Needless to say, a younger self of her, completely unaware of what was possibly going to happen, but just as attractive with her "I follow the way of the Dera" naive attitude ;).
End result (I twisted things a bit): The demon escapes through the gateway before the PCs can destroy it ... and the PCs know Major Sela probably won't forgive them for the destruction of the Gateway. Still the PCs managed to save Alita's life once or twice, and seem to have earned her consideration if not (yet) her gratitude or loyalty. They also managed to grab one Romulan tricorder from the Romulan science mission before the Romulans claimed it all Romulan property that had to be brought back to Romulus as evidence of the activities of those renegades (yeah, right).

What will the Romulan tricorder reveal; how was the demon awakened; what were those Hebitians doing in the Iconian building; how comes they seemed so much more advanced than Cardassian propaganda (and lack of proper data) had them; are Baj'rann Bajorans when first contact between Bajorans and Cardassians is supposed to be only 1000 years ago and not ten millenia; what is exactly written on the tablet; what are these ruins found in Hebia ... it is anyone's guess :). It'll clear up in the next episodes, but still, I'd be interested in hearing everyone's take on these. As well as comments on the adventure itself of course :).

P.S.: Isn't the post size limit a bit low? I had to divide my post into 4 parts so that it could go through.

Is the 'Demon' an Iconian? Or an Iconian construct?

The pale Cardassain's 'god' is most likely a renegade Iconian, possibly in league with pah-wraiths, who could have helped him/her/it construct the phase-temple, which may inhibit the use of the Iconian Gateways.

$0.02

Actually, I'm still not sure whether the Demon is supposed to be an Iconian or not. According to Data, Iconians have been known in the past as Demons of Air and Darkness, and greatly feared. However, some archeologists tend to think that they actually were a peacefull race. So maybe they awakened something with their science. Maybe constant use of this science turned them into something else? Still not sure, specially since I still have to include the Prophets and Pah-Wraiths into that ;).

About Charaban's god, problem is: I can't remember where I read that part about Cardassians having multiple gods, the gods then being restructured into four major gods by a famous theologist ... nor can I remember the exact timeframe of these beliefs. You might be right, those gods might be Iconians ... I was thinking maybe rather some prophets, who were overseeing both Cardassia and Bajor, and then for some reason turned their backs to Cardassia ...

Eh, that reminds me of another topic about the movie Forbidden Planet. Maybe that's what happened to the Iconians after all?

As for Iconians gods, Prophets and Pah-Wraith :
To my knowledge, the origin of the Prophets is unknown (I haven't seen the end of DS9 yet), so it could be possible to relate the Iconians and the Prophets.
I could see something like this : Iconians creating some sort of subspace portal who could send anything going through it to another plane of existence, effectively turning sentients beings into ethereal, powerful creatures. Once there, they could either choose to interact with their former reality someway, or immerse themselves further in this new dimension.
Some early experiments could have sent some nasty creatures there, or altered the first Iconian who went trough. Eventually, the technique may have become stable, and maybe all of the Iconians left this plane of existence through this portal, for destination unknown. However, some ot them would have remained near this dimension and started toying with its inhabitants (us), posing as gods or demons.
The Prophets and Pah-Wraith could be some of these Iconians, or some non-Iconians (early Bajorans or Cardassians?) who discovered the subspace portal and went into this reality (the Orbs could then be a minor extension of the original portal). Now some troubles could come from the reactivation of this portal, the return of some creatures from the other reality into ours, etc

Well I got a bit carried away, but I found this idea interesting. Maybe I breached a lot of cannon facts. Anyway, take what you want from it. :)

You have no idea what it means to be the insperation of a persons RPG. Having taken stories from other authors in many of my own games I feel as if I have now done something intatley cool.
I am so stoked.
Thanks for letting me see that. It really made me a happy little thundergod.
And for those of you who havent read the story Get ye there. And let the Webmaster know you liked it. So he doesnt Axe me!

Well, thank you for having written and having shared it Thundergod! Unfortunately I couldn't use it as is, but there were too many good ideas to just leave it. I hope you don't mind the tweaking I did ;).


/me 's also hoping that those who participated in the "Prophecy" thread will care to comment ... but well, I can't write, so my episode's summary was probably boring to start with ... and those who managed to read all of it may be feeling :confused: or even :eek: ... but still, if they feel like saying "Argh, that was like one of the worst VOY episode!", I'd like to know ;).

I've just finished reading Avatar (pretty good book ... I just can't help but wonder why the heck everyone seems to have to have issues).
So I was browsing the net to find out about sequels. Which led me to:
Demons of Air and Darkness
Well, now that looks interesting! ;)
Anyone knows if it is out yet? Anyone read it? More generally, apart from Avatar and A Stitch In Time, has anyone read any DS9 novel set after the series finale that they would recommend?

Not sure if the DS9 novel is out yet,

TOS
TNG
VOY and New Frontiers

are out now.

Quote:

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Originally posted by Calcoran

Anyone knows if it is out yet? Anyone read it? More generally, apart from Avatar and A Stitch In Time, has anyone read any DS9 novel set after the series finale that they would recommend?

---

DS9 Relaunch information can be found here: http://www.psiphi.org/cgi/upc-db/feature/new-ds9/



The post-DS9 DS9-related books and comics include:
Star Trek: The Next Generation #61: Dipolmatic Implausibility
Star Trek: The Next Generation #62: Maximum Warp Book One of Two: Dead Zone
Star Trek: The Next Generation #63: Maximum Warp Book Two of Two: Forever Dark
Star Trek: The Lives of Dax
The upcoming Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: The Left Hand of Destiny duology
The four issue comics limited series Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: n-Vector
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine #27: A Stitch in Time
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Avatar Book One of Two
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Avatar Book Two of Two
The e-book Star Trek: S.C.E. #6: Cold Fusion
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Section 31: Abyss

Five parts of the Gatway crossover (there is one scene in the four paperbacks that occurs in each book, but each from a different character's perspective as the books occur simultaneously)
Star Trek: The Next Generation: Gateways Book Three of Seven: Doors Into Chaos
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Gateways Book Four of Seven: Demons of Air and Darkness
Star Trek: Voyager: Gateways Book Five of Seven: No Man's Land
Star Trek: New Frontier: Gateways Book Six of Seven: Cold Wars
Star Trek: Gateways: What Lay Beyond (hardcover novel concluding all six parts of the crossover)

The four issue comic limited series Star Trek: Divided We Fall
The upcoming Star Trek: Deep Space Nine: Mission: Gamma four part book series


and some others that are sworn to secrecy at this point.



In fact, Empok Nor plays a pretty important part in the relaunch novels (remember they ejected DS9's core in the Avatar duology? Nog comes up with a way to use Empok Nor in the S.C.E. e-book Cold Fusion).

I think if I mix this astory (which I love) with the K'mrisit(sp) Riddle from the Prime Directive rule book, I now have my season 2 opener :)

Especially with the Romulans on the scene.

Season two for the most part is my Romulan/UFP story arc :)