Bridging Solstice Rain and Dustgrave

[ornate gazelle]

So my players are working stolidly through Operation Solstice Rain, and there's some scuttlebutt in the group that some of them might be interested in playing through Dustgrave next. I'd be down for that, but I just need to figure out how to connect the storylines from one to the other, and I'm drawing a blank. Anyone got any ideas?

[vital wolf]

What kind of crew are your PCs? Like, who do they work for?

[ornate gazelle]

Union Auxiliaries, as per Solstice Rain.

One of them is a Karrakin noblewoman, one is the celebrity son of a deceased UN war hero, one is a HORUS-aligned hacker, and the last is a very traumatized ex-cop who's SUPER GUNG-HO for ThirdComm's mission and messaging.

[vital wolf]

Maybe after the PCs' success on Cressidium, a UIB agent/administrator takes notice of the team and tasks them with investigating a report of a missing NHP on Havelburg

Or if the aim is to maintain the status quo a bit more, maybe at the end of SR, more Union troops show up to take control of the situation and they send the Rio Grande to Havelburg to resupply or repair or something, and that's where Lyran petitions the crew for help

Which leaves things open for you to return to Cressidium later if you want to give the situation some time to marinate and evolve

[woven crow]

I haven't read it so I could be well off, but what if it's Rio that gets kidnapped

[vital wolf]

That's another fun option

[mint vine]

I don't off teh top of my head know if Kai specified where Cressidium is but I was very deliberate to not state where Havelburg is so you can put it anywhere

[vital wolf]

Would take more customizing of the module but stealing Rio would be fun

[mint vine]

it can just be a couple systems over

[vital wolf]

It may seem, uh, improbable that a random crew could steal an NHP from a Union ship

But hey, maybe they do!

[woven crow]

Rio went on shore leave

and yeah, you can always make anything up to plug the gaps of narrative i wouldn't be shy about it

[vital wolf]

Assuming they had a mobile casket, sure

[woven crow]

hell yeah. NHPs are people, they can take time off to see the sights or go visit friends

Cressidium was stressful

[vital wolf]

Havelburg is rad and I am very happy I added it to my setting

Had a great mission there doing a mech gladiator combat and raiding a pirate compound built into a dustgrave

[woeful cradle]

Just combine SR, DG, and Legionaire.

[vital wolf]

I mean, I resisted suggesting NHPRO tasked them with investigating the missing NHP instead of UIB :P

But yes

Legionnaire fucks

[ornate gazelle]

I was planning on having (spoilers for the end of Solstice Rain) ||TARTARUS being a sort of metavault or Eidolon thingy, a secret weapons program based on, ah...forcing NHPs into becoming a sorta-kinda Think Tank. In the notes I've jotted down, the Leandrics and Vestans both promised to dismantle their TARTARUS programs as part of an old peace treaty, and then the Leandric States Alliance completely broke that treaty almost immediately; the main goal of the Vestan spec-ops guys in my Solstice Rain is searching Nov Elysia for evidence of this and, of course, any workable information gleaned from the mad ramblings of a near-metavaulted choir of traumatized NHPs.|| So that might fit in with the ending of Dustgrave.

I might just make a mission or two detailing that plotline, then figure out how to adapt Dustgrave for higher levels, or T2.

I like the idea of Havelburg being a nearby system, and the PCs being sent there by Union to investigate missing NHPs

then getting roped into all the...stuff

[thorn sapphire]

My strategy was going to be combining SR, DG and SSMR though we never got around to SSMR

The way the linkage works:
end of SR, Rio or someone similar says "hey this cloaking and jamming tech they use is suspiciously similar to SSC tech... there's an SSC lab not too far away"
the party are sent to investigate said SSC lab, having distinguished themselves in Solstice Rain

a Union shuttle can only take them so far before it's needed back at Cressidium, so they have a stopover and change in Port Conroy

Dustgrave happens - ||hey look, it's SSC again?||

then off to SSMR, which is an SSC lab!

[ornate gazelle]

That could also work! I think I might need to tweak Dustgrave to T2 after all so I can include the ideas I have for ||TARTARUS||, since I can't resist using the eidolon rules, then having that lead into SSMR to do the whole T2...T3 being maybe Boundary Garden with the PCs arriving for the Metavault plot hook presented in Legion...

[wooden laurel]

What's SSMR?

[vital wolf]

A Siren's Song, A Mountain's Remorse

The next module that's coming out in a few months

[wooden laurel]

Thanks

[versed fulcrum]

I think I've gotten my group interested in continuing after finishing solstice rain.... So thinking about maybe using some of this threads ideas.

[versed fulcrum]

This is an interesting idea if it can be worked to tie it all together.

I need to read thru Dustgrave to get a feel for how to connect everything

[random panther]

some really fun ideas in this thread. Dustgrave is a fantastic module but I've been struggling a bit figuringo ut how to set it up for a new group, might borrow some ideas here

[versed fulcrum]

Since it covers 2-4 it pairs nicely with Solstince Rain which ends at gaining LL2

[hollow quartz]

I have finished SR and am running DG now. The story was how Lyran is doing taxing for the Union, lands on Port Conroy, the players are already acquinted with Emily, so it is a personal loss for them as well

I did a timejump post SR, and they were in another Union base, now have to get back to the Rio, but are interrupted halfway.

When the story says "The Union might get involved if this leaks out" I shifted it to "The UIB"

[hollow quartz]

I do have the issue where I have to deal with the narrative consequences of someone using Solstice Rain's LinAc weapon in an enclosed tight space in Bloodsports

[thorn sapphire]

the arena has really good shielding

[versed fulcrum]

So now that Sirens Song is out, looking at options. I had originally intended to run Dustgrave from Solstice Rain. with Siren Song being a single mission designed for LL2, I wonder if it is better to run Siren Song and then go into Dustgrave? Or are the 2 modules too disparate to really be able to tie together?

[random panther]

There's some interesting thematic overlap that could be fun to play with, but you might have to do some work with the premises, since Dustgrave is kind of built around the idea that you stumble into its events (and don't even know that there are events to stumble into at first).

[thorn sapphire]

Yeah none of the modules were written with knowledge of each other, it's up to you to make up a linkage

I don't think anything about ssmr breaks if you run it at ll4 instead of ll2

[versed fulcrum]

Yea, I havnt gotten around to reading either module yet, so not sure what I'll be doing. Which is where this thread comes in handy 😂

[random panther]

after spending a little more time with both, I think if you want to run them both Dustgrave > SSMR with the latter adjusted slightly to LL4 makes way way wyay more sense. To the point I actually think they flow together really well that way. 'Union wants players to investigate NHP fuckery' works well when the players have already established themselves by dealing with other NHP fuckery. The reverse IMO feels more awkward since Dustgrave is built around being stumbled into.

[versed fulcrum]

Hmmmmm that makes some sense. I'd probably.need help figuring out how to adjust the combats.

I'm. Planning to read both during my flights and airport waiting this weekend

[versed fulcrum]

Yes having read thru dust grave today, I think I'll likely agree with your assessment.