Menae in Full: ship's Officers

Captain: Victricia Talorian (female Turian)
Executive Officer: Jorn Dath'hak (male Batarian)
Yeoman: Zhara T'Deryn (Asari)
Quartermaster: Adnan Harismani (male Human)
Chief Medical Officer: Valia Elendris (Asari)
Navigator/Gunner*: Marice Kevari (female Drell)
Shuttle Pilot: Charles Redwolf (male human)

*Positions merged due to smaller ship's complement and non-military function.

Talorian, Victricia (female Turian) - Captain 
Colonial background led to a long career of distinguished service. Short, solid, no-nonsense but with a deeply-hidden maternal side (too driven to settle down). Looking for some excitement before retirement. Shows most loyalty to her long-term crew - these will mostly be Turians, although the GM should decide who said crew are (and will almost certainly include Turian, Volus, or Asari PCs).

She will certainly go to bat for the PCs once they have proven themselves to not require babysitting from orbit. On the other hand, not following proper first-contact procedures or consistently violating regulations will see a lot of gear requests get denied.

Dath'hak, Jorn (male Batarian) - Executive Officer

• Older man, career military.
• Boastful of his past exploits.
• Doesn't interact much with other Batarians aboard.

Male Batarian, older. Secret ties to anti-Hegemony dissident groups operating outside Batarian space. Background in space-station insertions to take out pirates. Plays at being a model Batarian officer - tough, harsh, berating.

If the PCs are an Away Team, Dath'hak will be like an R. Lee Ermey character. Any Batarian PCs will be heavily scrutinized for government ties, as Jorn is on this expedition to let any heat of suspicion from Hegemony authorities wash off him. If the Batarians leave the Citadel during the campaign (likely) this will pose some interesting legal questions that the crew will have to resolve on their own, given the long communication lag-time. This could break the crew into camps based around whether Batarian crew members should retain their commissions or be confined to a low-security deck. PCs might have to protect individual(s) they profoundly dislike based on principle or Captain's orders.

T'Daryn, Zhara (Asari) - Yeoman

• Devoted to Captain Talorian (business relationship)
• Proudly half-Turian
• Efficient and enthusiastic

Zhara's father was a turian, and when he died Zhara was the right age to go out and explore the galaxy. She decided to visit her father's family on Palaven. After a period of mourning, Zhara's cousins helped her find a job as a receptionist at a military base. After spending several years dealing with Turian soldiers, she decided to join the military herself and aim for a posting on a Turian ship. Her attempts to serve on a Turian ship were fruitful, and after a few years she knew the Turian fleet better than most Turians. Captain Talorian noticed her skills and enthusiasm and had Zhara promoted to be her yeoman. When the Menae in Full was retrofitted for a multi-year mission, Captain Talorian accepted the offer to remain as captain. Zhara's devotion to her captain prompted her to stay on as well.

Harismani, Adnan (male human) - Quartermaster

• Spindly, pale
• From Luna
• Precise, possibly OCD

Skinny, pale, precise. Worried about getting the job due to family connections. Afraid of Jorn - suspicious of the Batarians. Will try to oppose them passively. Human or Salarian PCs in particular might be recruited for this. 

Being quartermaster in the Mass Effect universe entails responsibility for operation of fabrication, hydroponics, and similar equipment. Getting on his good side could lead to free OmniTool upgrades, or extra rations of fresh food!
Born a big fish in a small pond - a Lunar settlement originally established by a joint Indian-South African corporation. His family is one of the founding clans of this venture. Being the eldest child of a prominent family but middling drive, he found himself somewhat in over his head at being appointed the highest-ranking human on the first Citadel Council expedition with human crew. 

Elendris, Valia (Asari) - Chief Medical Officer

• Approaching matron stage
• Dislikes formality
• Takes notes after some conversations
• (Easy-going, kindly, might try to look for a mate during near the end of the voyage. Is evaluating patients for "suitability.") This won't be of significance unless tensions late in the voyage get really bad - in such a case, Dr. Elendris will begin emotionally "investing" in her pick, showing signs of separation anxiety. 

Kevari, Marice (female Drell) - Gunner/Navigator

• Headstrong
• Fiercely loyal
• Unsubtle
• Combative

Marice grew up on Kahje with her parents and her older brother, Roen. Roen was two years older than his sister, and he usually acquiesced to her demands to be included in whatever he was doing. Marice never let anyone tell her that she was too young to join in. At first, Roen's friends teased him for always letting his kid sister tag along, but Marice quickly learned to keep up with the older children. She always ran fists-first to defend her classmates from bullies. When ten-year-old Roen began combat training to serve as a police officer for the hanar, Marice demanded to be taken along. The hanar admired her determination, and they allowed her to train with her brother. Five years later, they joined the police force. Marice's straight-forward determination made her a perfect beat cop. Roen was more subtle, so he spent a lot of time in detective units. His investigations frequently took him outside the dome, and when he was 32, he was diagnosed with Kepral's syndrome. Roen was willing to stay and serve until he grew too ill to do so, but Marice convinced him to go with her to Nos Astra. She would find a job, and they might be able to get Roen into a drug test. Marice got a bounty hunter's license, and did some consultant work for Serrice Technology. Although she made enough to get Roen excellent medical care, there were no cutting-edge breakthroughs or experimental therapies that might save his life. When Roen died three years later, Marice jumped at the first opportunity to get as far away from her life as possible. She applied to join the crew of the Menae in Full and convinced her best friend, Chatterbox, to join her.

Charles Redwolf (Male Human) - Shuttle Pilot

• Canadian Ojibwe, former RCMP
• Spent some time as security at Prothean research site on Mars. Basic familiarity with the data-systems there. 
• Enjoys telling stories from his law-enforcement career 

Common house rules/common decency for game night

I know that there are many emotionally-powerful, educational, even cathartic role-playing games out there, but that scene is not for me. Daily life is often too stressful, too draining, too mundane for me to play or run anything but crazy adventures or bizarre investigations.  Therefore, most of the house rules I like to play with are of a decidedly relaxed bent.

Steal, borrow, modify, or comment below:

Menae in Full: Away team 2

As mentioned in an earlier entry, Away Team 2 acts as a followup for the 1st Away Tea, handling cargo (un)loading and on-site scientific survey.

Credit for writing the NPC backstories goes to a former co-GM and conspirator in writing who wishes to remain anonymous.

Mass Effect: 2166 political summary by species

Humans: Recently granted an embassy at the Citadel at the objection of the Batarian Hegemony, among other governments. The Earth Systems Alliance has heavily invested in the survey mission as a sign of their desire to participate in the Citadel government, alongside curiosity about the wider galaxy. 

Batarians: Deep-seated, often-violent opposition to recent Human expansion into the Attican Traverse has led to intermittent conflict featuring slaver raids, terrorist attacks, etc. against some human colonies. The Batarian Hegemony denies support of these attacks but is suspected to be bankrolling at least some of them. Illegal squatter colonies have been determined to exist on the fringes of this sector, in defiance of Council decisions to hold off granting colonization permits pending resolution of intersperses disputes. 

Council Species (Asari, Salarians, Turians): Having established large, stable governments for centuries, these species seek to know more about less-known star clusters for long-term planning of mining or colonization efforts. Records of ship disappearances in this part of space exist in the histories of all three council species - particularly for the Asari, whose home star-cluster is relatively close by. 

Krogan: Demilitarized after a war 1500 years ago, the Krogan were infected with the Genophage, a Salarian-designed, Turian-deployed virus that causes 99.9% of all births to be stillborn. In the intervening time, Krogan society has effectively broken down. Young males do their best to get off-world and find work as mercenaries. Krogan encountered this far out of Citadel space have likely regressed to barbarism due to centuries of isolation, although there might be populations not infected with the Genophage. If such populations exist, they could be a major threat to galactic stability. 

Hanar: Client relationship with Drell firmly established for decades. Drell are called up to serve the Hanar Illuminate under "the Compact," as recompense for their rescue from ecological catastrophe on the Drell homeworld of Rakhana. Hanar and Drell alike have a small stake in the survey mission to find more ocean and desert worlds for colonization, respectively. In particular the Drell are interested in "elbow room" to re-grow their population, as it currently measures less than 200,000. 

Quarians: An entirely space-faring species. Efforts are split between spacebourne survival, finding new planets to colonize, or organizing to take back their homeworld of Rannoch. Exploratory elements of their Migrant Fleet might be encountered during the mission. They should be treated with courtesy, as they might have valuable information to share. Elements of the Quarian Migrant Fleet have also been rumored to perform unorthodox, if not illegal, research in deep space. 

Naganubhratra (Space Marine Chapter)

I'm not super-duper into 40k. I've played some of the PC games and own a few of the Fantasy Flight Games RPGs (haven't tried them yet though). But the universe is an interesting exercise in over-the-top dystopian ridiculousness. So sometimes I get a cute idea for it.

Please, do not be offended by any of the following butchery of Sanskrit or the totally awesome history and culture of the Indian subcontinent.

Menae in Full crew, part 1: Away Team 1

These characters were actually the PCs in the game I briefly ran in this setting, with some notes/changes to protect the innocent.

Onion Headlines

Since college, I have applied for hundreds job postings. Being of a liberal arts bent, I've been rejected for the vast majority of those. Sometimes, the applications are surprisingly fun, like when I had written auditions for The Onion:

These were meant to be headlines for the screen crawl at the Onion News Network's screen.

Menae In Full - a Mass Effect RPG subsetting

The Mass Effect trilogy is probably the only PC RPG series I've actually managed to complete. Probably because I prefer sci-fi (even space opera) over fantasy. Regardless, it's an interesting universe with some room for tabletop play in an extended universe.

What I came up with for a tabletop ME game was the Menae In Full, a deep-survey vessel decommissioned from the Turian Navy for seeking out deactivated Mass Relays.

My Crazy Eberron Ideas

I love Keith Baker's Eberron Campaign Setting, originally created for D&D3.5. I love the pulp, the noir, the weird new character options and the attendant roleplaying opportunities, the integration of psionics, the weird countries, the moral gray areas. Ugh. I just love it. With that, this blog entry will chronicle my demented brainstorm ideas for future Eberron games, whether in D20, D&D 5e, or some other system.

Advance, Bulwark, Charge, Disperse

Combat systems in games are an interesting, and usually complicated, thing. There seems to be a spectrum between tactical vs. narrative combat, with some systems lying in-between. Typically, tactical systems utilize miniatures/counters/tokens/pawns* ("meeples") of some sort, either on a grid (square or hex, usually) or grid-less.

An intermediate system would be something linear, based on range charts and the lines of battle that have characterized much of the history of warfare. Even horticultural or pastoral tribes often have a kind of ritual "war" based on lining up the men of the disputing tribes and throwing blunt weapons until one side flees.

Inspiration credit goes to the podcast Hardcore History, reading A Song of Ice and Fire, watching Master & Commander, etc.

*Note: I like to use snack foods to indicate fodder enemies, letting the player who lands a blow eat the snack item. Very satisfying.

Post-apocalyptic character appearance generator

I love random tables. I don't always use them in gaming, but they sure make me laugh. They're also helpful for when the creative juices aren't flowing. 

Inspired by watching Mad Max: Fury Road in theaters, this set of tables let's you generate appearances for those left alive after it all goes to hell...

Feel free to weight the results, depending on the particular crippling mutations the local scavenger tribes have...

Massachusetts Intercollegiate Mecha League (MIML)

This is an idea I had that I think would make a very amusing tabletop RPG campaign, perhaps a good way to teach players rules for a Superhero or Mecha system. 

RPG setting in which Universities in MA compete for contracts to become the State of Massachusetts' official superhero.

Why Massachusetts? Because there's a lot of universities there in a relatively small area, particularly in metropolitan Boston.

Disney Pantheon and associated Domains (for 3.PF)

...Annnd let's start this blog with something really stupid. 

This was originally written up by a friend, and edited by me. 

Obviously all of them get the Good domain, 'cause . . . Disney. One could also argue giving the Animal Domain to pretty much any of them too, given the consistent Princess ability to talk to them. 

Disney Princess Pantheon (as a whole): Animal, Good, Nobility.

Because they're all nice princesses that are always being swarmed by friendly furry/feathery creatures. Duh. 

Snow White: Charm, Animal, Luck

1. Bashful: Protection
2. Doc: Knowledge  
3. Dopey: Earth
4. Grumpy: Darkness
5. Happy: Feast
6. Sleepy: Repose
7. Sneezy: Restoration

(I'm not so sure about the associated dwarf domains, but left it up anyway)

Cinderella: Animal, Illusion, Luck, Magic

Ariel: Passion, Transformation, Water

• Flounder: Travel
• Sebastian: Law
• Scuttle: Chaos

Jasmine: Animal, Nobility (ACTUAL PRINCESS), Trickery

Aurora (Sleeping Beauty): Repose, Illusion, Animal

Belle:  Knowledge ('Cause she's the smart one), Healing, Charm

• Chip: Trickery
• Mrs. Potts: Feast
• Lumiere: Fire
• Cogsworth: Law

Alice (demiprincess): Magic, Illusion, Chaos, Trickery

Tinkerbell (demiprincess*): Magic, Trickery, Travel

*She may be a pixie princess. I don't know, I haven't seen her solo outings, given the fact that I don't have a 3-year old daughter. 

Mulan (demiprincess): War, Liberation, Community (A Family or Ancestors domain would be good here)

• Mushu: Fire, Scalykind

Esmerelda (demiprincess): Chaos, Charm, Travel
Pocahontas: Animal, Plant, Weather
Tiger Lilly (does she actually do anything besides get kidnapped???): Charm, Nobility, Liberation ('cause she always gets rescued) (ed: nobody cares about Tiger Lily)

Merida - Animal, Earth, War?