Romulans, Iconians, and Breen, Oh My!

[Dan Stack]

Thanks to all who have contributed to brainstorming assistance. As I hoped, it took me in some rather odd directions.
(see the thread http://www.trekrpg.net/Board/ubb/For...L/001239.html)

Next week we'll be doing our Dominion War finale, trying to save an enemy planet from a Genesis Device detonoation. We'll then be taking a month long hiatus from gaming - my wife and I are traveling and will be gone for two Fridays (our normal gaming night) and life at the startup I work at has been pretty crazy.

When we resume, we will indeed be switching our focus to exploration. I'll be developing a bit of the campaign during the hiatus, but certain elements have come forward. I've decided to throttle back on the falling Imperium - the politics seemed to be getting a bit more complicated than I wished. Also, my spare time has nose-dived, making it difficult to develop it as much as I'd like. The advantage to this is that I'm finding I am using the species and governments seen in Star Trek more (mainly DS9), to better fit in with the universe and preserve that Trek feel.

Though I still will be including Iconian ruins, I'll be moving the campaign further coreward. If you have the Romulans Boxed Set, the game will be set in the Black Cluster, a large group of sectors on the fringes of the Federation and Romulan Star Empire, where they border on Breen space. The game will still be set a few months after the Dominion War. (Which will also explain our brief hiatus.)

I am still going to be sprinkling the sectors with Iconian ruins, with both the Romulans and Federation looking for these ruins. But Icarus will be the only Federation starship in the area, which is mostly unexplored, consisting of just the occasional Neutral Zone Border Outpost, with perhaps a few Federation colonies here or there, as needed. The Federation would love to send more ships, but this truly is the fringes of known space - nothing is known about the space beyond and little is known about the Black Cluster. With Starfleet still dealing with losses from the Dominion War, most Starfleet strength is cenetered on the Cardassian borders and helping with the rebuilding of Federation occupied worlds.

The game will consist of lots of exploration, with Romulans as frequent adversaries. With some Federation colonies and Starfleet outposts, there is opportunity to have "rescue the colony" adventures. Iconian ruins and artifacts give reason for the characters to explore worlds which are so primitive that they'd be largely off-limits otherwise. And Breen pirates will prey on the tiny Federation outposts. The Breen make a good enemy - being a Confederacy (according to the Dominion War Sourcebook), they are far less united than the Romulan Empire and can much easily claim they have no control over the pirates. And the Breen are obviously a powerful threat to the Federation, given the damage they did in the Dominion War.

I'm hoping to combine what I like best about the various shows. From TOS, I'll be getting that frontier feel. As a continuation of our current Dominion War game, it will hopefully have some of that gritty feel of Deep Space Nine. (This will also help explain why Icarus is so alone - for the first time in decades, Starfleet is very short on resources.) Yet it will take place on Icarus, a Galaxy-class vessel which we once had a bright and sunny TNG game set upon. (I don't know what I'll borrow from Voyager though... )

As always, comments are welcome and encouraged. They often take me in unexpected directions.


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U.S.S. Icarus

[Steve Long]

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">The Breen make a good enemy - being a Confederacy (according to the Dominion War Sourcebook), they are far less united than the Romulan Empire and can much easily claim they have no control over the pirates. </font>

Actually, I think the nature of the Breen government, or at least the use of the term "confederacy," is canonical. However, if it did crop up in the shows, it was in a later episode of DS9, and thus not properly recorded as yet in the reference material.

OTOH, I may just be going senile and losing my ability to distinguish between the canonical, and the made-up.

Steve Long

[Aedh Rua]

Sounds way cool. There is a lot of potential in the Black Cluster region I haven't thought about before.

A recurring Romulan adversary, say a noble but hostile captain, might be a good recurring NPC. There was a similar guy in the LUG Neutral Zone book.

Also, the Breen might force the Romulans and Feds to get along from time to time. This could make for interesting roleplay, as the two enemies try to work together against a more dangerous enemy, and then divvy up the Iconian treasures afterward.

Have fun!

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Slan agat!

[This message has been edited by Aedh Rua (edited 09-20-2001).]

[Aedh Rua]

Ya know, I just had an idea for an episode featuring that Romulan NPC. This couldn't be the first episode where he shows up, maybe the third or fourth.

So, we start with this Breen captain. He is your basic pirate, but more talented than most. He has been particularly good at raiding the Romulans, and has done something to really piss off the Romulan NPC captain, maybe he killed his brother in a raid or something.

Anyway, the Romulans want him very, very badly.

He has also raided the Federation enough to make him a wanted man there, too, though not on the same level as in the Empire. In addition, this poor fool has managed somehow to alienate his own government. Maybe he was on the losing side of some kind of power struggle, or something.

However it goes, the Breen government will not protect him from the Romulans, and may even hand him over if he turns up on one of their planets.

Looking at his options, our Breen hero decides that Federation justice is the least painful of the lot. So, he turns up at your PCs' starship in a shuttle offering to surrender. A true-blue Starfleet captain can hardly say no.

But then, who should arrive but the Romulan in hot pursuit. Now, he wants this guy badly enough that he might just risk a war to get him.

Then there is the Iconian ruin the PCs were looking at when the Breen arrived. It has lots of neat technology. Some of that technology might just come to life, and make life miserable for Feds and Roms alike. On the other hand, maybe the PCs can figure out a way to trade Iconian tech for a Breen captain, though they have to make the Romulan captain's sense of duty to the Empire outweigh his desire for revenge.

Fun! Fun! Fun!

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Slan agat!

[SIR SIG]

Yeah its a Confederacy of Warlords and Pirates. And yes canon from the end of DS9.

From a mapmakers view, I always thought the Black Cluster was just a open or closed star cluster and thus 1 sector maybe 2-3 at most.

Does the Romulan box actually say lots of sectors?

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Thats Cpt SIR SIG to you!

More then meets the eye,
His a MapMaker in disguise.

[Dan Stack]

From the Romulans boxed set, it looked pretty big. But a recent search of the web reveals it to have been featured in a TNG episode and not just made up. I'll try to scan the episode this weekend and see whether the cluster should be big or small. If small, I'll simply make the game in its vicinity. If big, it'll be however big I, the narrator, with my godlike powers, want it to be,

[SIR SIG]

TNG 'Hero Worship'

Not that you have any decent scaling on the Romulan maps anyway

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Thats Cpt SIR SIG to you!

More then meets the eye,
His a MapMaker in disguise.

[Capt.Hunter]

Hand Iconian tech over to the Romulans?!!! Even if a life is at stake, Starfleet ain't gonna let that slide. The two occasions we've seen Iconian tech on the shows, Starfleet officers chose to destroy it rather than let it fall into enemy hands. It literally is that much of a threat - witness the discussion between Weyoun and Sisko in "To the Death" about what the renegade Jem'Hadar could accomplish with just one functional gateway.

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"Spatial anomalies, energy beings, telepathic echoes. You know, sometimes I really miss the Dominion War. At least then all we had to worry about was where the next polaron beam was coming from...": Capt.Hunter, USS Tempest

[ghosty]

I agree that you should have a recurring Romulan protagonist as a major NPC. Perhaps the Commander of a ship the PCs had met during the Dominion War?

An alternative for the major NPC would be a hardline rogue element opposed to improved relations with the Federation. Exiled to the Dark Cluster, they've been building up a force to stage a coup against the moderates in the senate. An interesting NPC to use may be Major Sela. Its not established what happened to her after "Reunion" but it would be shame that such an interesting character should be killed off-screen.

It'll actually be quite an interesting situation. Officially the Romulans and Federation are allies but obviously both are now pursuing their own interest after the common enemy, the Dominion, has been eliminated.

The Iconian artifacts would obviously be a major point of contention between the two galactic powers. I doubt even a new common enemy the Breen would prompt the Federation to share with the other children (so to speak). It'll take a major threat like the Borg to get them to work together again.

While it seems Dan has his background worked out, may I suggest that he send his PCs off into the great unknown of the Gamma Quadrant through the Bajoran wormhole.

[Dan Stack]

Thanks for the feedback.

Some random pearls of wisdom...

I just watched "Hero Worship". The Black Cluster did give the impression of being of rather limited size - Enterprise went into it at impulse speed and could not go to warp speed within it. Perhaps most importantly, it inidicated that while the Black Cluster was near Breen space, it was far from Romulan space - though LUG's Romulans Boxed Set plopped the Neutral Zone in the middle of it. Rather than throw out the idea, if I do go with this area, I will use this to my advantage - it actually fits with my premise of being out on the frontier. I will still have it on the border of Romulan and Federation space, but far from the cores of both governments. If you've ever read Turtledove's "Great War" series, it'd be like the western frontier between the USA and CSA during WWI.

As to why I decided on that area over someplace like the Gamma Quadrant or my original Imperium idea... I am trying to simplify my games a lot. I want to go back to more of a spirit of adventure as opposed to my tendency for Babylon 5-like plots. The area of my campaign should encourage this. Indeed, I'm actually giving some though to throwing this back in time a century and resuming our brief TOS game - our group is currently fairly small, me and 2-3 players depending on the week. It's fun, but I think it may work best having that TOS-feel - whether in that era or in the TNG one. (Hell, I've actually thought of converting the adventure ideas I have to a Doctor Who campaign... )

Like Cap'n Zymmer, I'll be taking the month of October off from gaming - private lives (especially mine) have reached a pretty busy point. I'll probably be doing some strategic planning during that period.