Tag: Orthesian Herald

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• Next: Session 9 – Claws in the Dark
• First: Session 1 – The Unbroken Resolve and All Those Who Sail Therein

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The Explorers are in Telasco’s. It is early evening, and the din of the day shift has died down and the burble of the night-goers has begun.

You are in a red velvet booth sharing a bottle of Blood Sands wine from Imperial space. Through the iron lattice-work floor you can see the bustle of the Pit several storeys below you, the heat and odours of a day’s hard commerce wafting up beneath your feet, but drowned out by the perfumed finery of the rich and powerful who swan about the central dancefloor of Telasco’s

Telasco’s is unusually busy for this time of the evening, and the usual coiffured, amasec-swilling regulars who prop up the bar have been ushered away to their own booths.

It is the last day of repairs on the Unbroken Resolve, and your tech-crews report ready to cast off at first shift – they are good to go whenever you give the order.

• Previous: Session 3 –  Into the Throat
• Next: Session 5 – The Flickering Eye
• First: Session 1 – The Unbroken Resolve and All Those Who Sail Therein

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The star of the Telos system is a huge and primal stellar mass, far brighter and more energetic than any star should be. Its fires rage so fiercely that the cataclysmic energies unleashed within cause vast bulges of burning plasma to distend Telos’ form, writhing as though immense beasts fight within.

At a (relatively) safe distance away is a network of hundreds of stone structures floating in Telos’ voids, tethered into a clutch of asteroids by huge chains and protected from Telos’ fury by layers of void shields. This is the first and last port of call for anyone venturing into the Nomad Stars – Mercy – where the mighty rule by force of arms and the weak scrabble to survive.

• Previous: Session 2 – The Last Bastion of Mankind
• Next: Session 4 – Welcome to the Nomads
• First: Session 1 – The Unbroken Resolve and All Those Who Sail Therein

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You near the warp translation point and notice a distinct change in attitude among the crew. They become hushed and pensive, going about their business without a word. Lit candles appear on the shrines at every corridor junction, and fresh wax appears dribbled across the Aquilas on all the airlocks. Red-robed Technomats scrutinise bulkheads and paneling with scanner-skulls for faults invisible to the un-augmented eye and morose war-hymns drift through the air-recyc vents across the ship.

Moments before translation, the ship comes to life.

Petty Officers on the bridge begin issuing orders to Deck Chiefs across the vessel, their consoles filling with green runes as deck crews report ready. The vessel shudders as massive adamantium shutters unfurl across all viewing ports across the ship, sealing up the guns and gracefully sliding down over the great observation windows of the bridge.

As the last light of Haimm’s baleful suns is shut out, emergency floor lights wash the bridge in a deep crimson. Tech adepts intoning in binary light candles and incense around the captain’s pulpit, flocked by clusters of illumination servo-skulls. Ministorum priests chanting hymns of salvation move up and down the rows of crews at their stations, their heads bowed in prayer.

The timbre of the plasma engine shifts up several octaves as power is sucked from the rest of the vessel and channeled into the arcane and impossibly powerful warp drive. You feel the collective psyche of every void-hardened crewman, rating, armsman and officer take a physical breath in. They hang on your word, Lord-Captain.