Post by Catsmate on Oct 8, 2014 12:53:41 GMT
The Time Travelling Bus.
You can blame this on the travelling, fatigue, airports and buses...
So I've been travelling and I got to musing on Planet of the Dead, flying buses, and cat burglars as Who companions.
In addition to Lady Christina de Souza in PotD there was the sample character 'Tabby' Fellowes in the old FASA RPG; of course rogues have been a major class of character since the earliest days of RPGs, and they fit well into the violence-light world of the Whoniverse.
As for...unusually mobile...buses, well in addition to the flying number 200 in PotD, there was Iris Wildthyme's TARDIS (which manifested as a traditional London double-decker bus of the Routemaster type), the Magic School Bus, and the infamous Cross Town Express in Teenagers From Outer Space.
The bus as time machine appeals to me; it constrains the players considerably and forces them to engage more the their destination. It's small, difficult to conceal compared to a TARDIS, fragile and limited in capabilities. So the PCs have no invulnerable hideaway to retreat to, no infinite storage, limited living space for the PCs to get on each other's nerves.
Musing on this a bit and a backstory and crew popped into my head, so here there are. No detailed stats or floorplan as yet, I might add them depending on how thing go over the next while.
The bus.
It started as a large, three axle hybrid (diesel-electric), 3m wide, 4.5m high and 13.5m long. Heavily modified from it's original layout.
The upper deck has been converted to mainly sleeping quarters and some storage. There's a double suite at the rear (with shower) and (currently) three single pods forward, plus a toilet/shower. Access is via a spiral staircase from below, plus a couple of emergency exits.
The lower deck has the tiny kitchen and pantry, a lounge area at the back (used as everything from a dining area to laboratory, impromptu interrogations to emergency surgery). A couple of additional passengers can sleep here in only mild discomfort.
The door (front left side) has been converted with a fold out lightweight airlock (holds two). Next to it is the modified driver's area, including the Vortex manipulator and flight controls.
Some other systems have been added, including life support (air, gravity, water/waste recycling) mostly scavenged from the scout ship.
There's a single person auto-doc, capable of healing most injuries, and a one-person transmat booth.
In addition to road mobility the bus can also fly, either limited using the contra-grav modules (VTOL, max speed ~100km/hr) or via the warp drive. The latter is far more capable, the bus is surprisingly nippy under warp, in fact it can outrun and outmaneuver most C21 jets...
It can also, with care and preparation, generate a wormhole allowing other craft to accompany it.
The crew are well aware of the vulnerability of their transport so they've done their best to protect it. It's been fitted with a Perception Filter as well as a more conventional non-psi camouflage field. It can also be rotated out of phase with normal space-time, rendering it invulnerable to non-temporal attack. The hull has been coated with a layer of appliqué armour (Armour 5) and a powerful force shield has also been fitted. The latter is limited in duration due to it's power requirement.
Armament. In additional to personal weapons the bus crew have 'acquired' a couple of modern GPMGs with enhanced ammunition and three light energy cannon (damage 10/20/30 with AP-5); one each in folding mounts on the top ad bottom of the bus and the third kept inside on the lower deck as a doorgun. The exterior is fitted with high intensity lights and speakers, able to produce stun-grenade levels of light and noise.
Sensors. Some of the sensors from Genny's scout-ship have been fitted as has a detector for temporal disturbances.
Stowed in space under the seats is an odd storage trunk and a holo-base a piece of advanced camping equipment that the crew use in preference to remaining in the bus for long periods.
All of the crew keep grab bags ready.
The Crew.
The Honourable Alicia deVere.
A gentlewoman cat burglar and adventuress.
Small, blonde and nowhere near as air-headed as she can appear. Also quite athletic and surprisingly good at hand-to-hand combat. Expert driver, capable pilot, excellent at getting into places she shouldn't be. Also good at talking her way out of trouble.
Prefers to avoid violence, especially during her robberies, but willing to use force if she feels it necessary.
Genny Dirk
A scout-pilot from the Second Expansion Era of the Terran Empire, circa 2644.
Tall, dark redheaded woman, muscular build and somewhat masculine appearance. Excellent pilot, good general science education and survival/technical skills. Doesn't like crowds (preferred single-ship duty).
Xavier Trelgor
The third of the original crew. A former academic physicist who'd burned out and taken up a new career as a historian.
Looks mid-thirties, dark hair and beard, grounded personality and common-sensical.
Excellent technical skills and grasp of human history (though this varies depending on period); reasonable pilot and good at calculating courses through the Vortex.
Nicholas Talbott
An unabashed techno-geek rescued from captivity by a renegade Time Lord.
Mid-twenties, tall, pale and somewhat uncoordinated; light brown hair. Eager and curious.
Excellent technical skills, especially computers and electronics. Unhappy with weapons. Know something of Block Transfer Computation. Stereotypically poor social skills.
Franklin Kalik
The fifth person to join the crew, she's a survivor of an attack by a Cybermen time-ship on a Federation exploration cruiser in 3238. Medium height and build, long dark brown hair.
Military trained, excellent medical and related skills (including 'frontier' medicine at lower TLs), reasonable spacer skills.
Origin story.
While escaping after 'liberating' a collection of Fabergé eggs, belonging to a corrupt Russia oligarch, and on display in a London hotel, the Honourable Alicia deVere takes a number 200 bus to evade her pursuers. She finds herself engaged in an adventure like none she'd ever imagined. Transported to an distant planet, by a group of aliens experimenting with a Vortex Manipulator to generate wormholes, she meets a stranded scout-pilot from centuries in her future and falls in love...
Rebuffed by the Time Lord she and Genny, aided by Xavier, steal the bus and the remains of the singleship using the collapse of the wormhole as cover for the Vortex Manipulator's operation
Relocating the remains one of her family's country properties, in the wilds of Scotland, they build themselves a time-ship and go a-wandering.
Campaign notes.
The bus and it's crew can be encountered pretty much anywhere in Earth's history, though they tend to avoid much of the future, given the awkwardness of their transport. Alicia still engages in her hobby of art theft, though usually limited to pieces that are lost to official history. This of course can bring them into conflict with The Alexandrian Society (Diary of DWRPG 21/246) who are also interested in artworks. Xavier engages in historical research (and retrieving lost books). Genny, Nicholas and Franklin are curious about human history.
They're generally responsible regarding altering the past, but their grasp of temporal theory is rather rudimentary. Plenty of room for mistakes and accidents...
Typically they park the bus in some out of the way location in eras where it's anachronistic (for example a rented warehouse or a secluded spot in woodland) and camouflage it before travelling by more local transport.
You can blame this on the travelling, fatigue, airports and buses...
So I've been travelling and I got to musing on Planet of the Dead, flying buses, and cat burglars as Who companions.
In addition to Lady Christina de Souza in PotD there was the sample character 'Tabby' Fellowes in the old FASA RPG; of course rogues have been a major class of character since the earliest days of RPGs, and they fit well into the violence-light world of the Whoniverse.
As for...unusually mobile...buses, well in addition to the flying number 200 in PotD, there was Iris Wildthyme's TARDIS (which manifested as a traditional London double-decker bus of the Routemaster type), the Magic School Bus, and the infamous Cross Town Express in Teenagers From Outer Space.
The bus as time machine appeals to me; it constrains the players considerably and forces them to engage more the their destination. It's small, difficult to conceal compared to a TARDIS, fragile and limited in capabilities. So the PCs have no invulnerable hideaway to retreat to, no infinite storage, limited living space for the PCs to get on each other's nerves.
- My first major time-travel game was the old BTRC Time Lords, where our players had mounted the Matrix (the gadget that enables time travel) in a 4x4 and later in a light APC. We never used a bus, though it'd be too big for the standard Matrix capability anyway.
Musing on this a bit and a backstory and crew popped into my head, so here there are. No detailed stats or floorplan as yet, I might add them depending on how thing go over the next while.
The bus.
It started as a large, three axle hybrid (diesel-electric), 3m wide, 4.5m high and 13.5m long. Heavily modified from it's original layout.
The upper deck has been converted to mainly sleeping quarters and some storage. There's a double suite at the rear (with shower) and (currently) three single pods forward, plus a toilet/shower. Access is via a spiral staircase from below, plus a couple of emergency exits.
The lower deck has the tiny kitchen and pantry, a lounge area at the back (used as everything from a dining area to laboratory, impromptu interrogations to emergency surgery). A couple of additional passengers can sleep here in only mild discomfort.
The door (front left side) has been converted with a fold out lightweight airlock (holds two). Next to it is the modified driver's area, including the Vortex manipulator and flight controls.
- The Vortex Manipulator is attuned to the bus's structure and cannot be removed. It has a substantial power requirement a recharge cycle of several hours is generally needed.
- This depends on the length of the jump, other power drains and of course GM fiat.
Some other systems have been added, including life support (air, gravity, water/waste recycling) mostly scavenged from the scout ship.
There's a single person auto-doc, capable of healing most injuries, and a one-person transmat booth.
In addition to road mobility the bus can also fly, either limited using the contra-grav modules (VTOL, max speed ~100km/hr) or via the warp drive. The latter is far more capable, the bus is surprisingly nippy under warp, in fact it can outrun and outmaneuver most C21 jets...
- However the warp drive uses most of the bus's power capacity, limiting recharge of the storage bank for jumps.
It can also, with care and preparation, generate a wormhole allowing other craft to accompany it.
The crew are well aware of the vulnerability of their transport so they've done their best to protect it. It's been fitted with a Perception Filter as well as a more conventional non-psi camouflage field. It can also be rotated out of phase with normal space-time, rendering it invulnerable to non-temporal attack. The hull has been coated with a layer of appliqué armour (Armour 5) and a powerful force shield has also been fitted. The latter is limited in duration due to it's power requirement.
- Just how limited it up to the individual GM and dramatic requirements. I suggest 10-15 minutes if the bus if flying, rather longer if static.
Armament. In additional to personal weapons the bus crew have 'acquired' a couple of modern GPMGs with enhanced ammunition and three light energy cannon (damage 10/20/30 with AP-5); one each in folding mounts on the top ad bottom of the bus and the third kept inside on the lower deck as a doorgun. The exterior is fitted with high intensity lights and speakers, able to produce stun-grenade levels of light and noise.
Sensors. Some of the sensors from Genny's scout-ship have been fitted as has a detector for temporal disturbances.
Stowed in space under the seats is an odd storage trunk and a holo-base a piece of advanced camping equipment that the crew use in preference to remaining in the bus for long periods.
- The holo-base is a bulky trunk sized device from the Star Trek RPG that can generate a seemingly solid base (of up to 8m x 8m x 4m) of pseudo-real matter. Very useful for camping.
All of the crew keep grab bags ready.
The Crew.
The Honourable Alicia deVere.
A gentlewoman cat burglar and adventuress.
Small, blonde and nowhere near as air-headed as she can appear. Also quite athletic and surprisingly good at hand-to-hand combat. Expert driver, capable pilot, excellent at getting into places she shouldn't be. Also good at talking her way out of trouble.
Prefers to avoid violence, especially during her robberies, but willing to use force if she feels it necessary.
Genny Dirk
A scout-pilot from the Second Expansion Era of the Terran Empire, circa 2644.
Tall, dark redheaded woman, muscular build and somewhat masculine appearance. Excellent pilot, good general science education and survival/technical skills. Doesn't like crowds (preferred single-ship duty).
Xavier Trelgor
The third of the original crew. A former academic physicist who'd burned out and taken up a new career as a historian.
Looks mid-thirties, dark hair and beard, grounded personality and common-sensical.
Excellent technical skills and grasp of human history (though this varies depending on period); reasonable pilot and good at calculating courses through the Vortex.
Nicholas Talbott
An unabashed techno-geek rescued from captivity by a renegade Time Lord.
Mid-twenties, tall, pale and somewhat uncoordinated; light brown hair. Eager and curious.
Excellent technical skills, especially computers and electronics. Unhappy with weapons. Know something of Block Transfer Computation. Stereotypically poor social skills.
Franklin Kalik
The fifth person to join the crew, she's a survivor of an attack by a Cybermen time-ship on a Federation exploration cruiser in 3238. Medium height and build, long dark brown hair.
Military trained, excellent medical and related skills (including 'frontier' medicine at lower TLs), reasonable spacer skills.
Origin story.
While escaping after 'liberating' a collection of Fabergé eggs, belonging to a corrupt Russia oligarch, and on display in a London hotel, the Honourable Alicia deVere takes a number 200 bus to evade her pursuers. She finds herself engaged in an adventure like none she'd ever imagined. Transported to an distant planet, by a group of aliens experimenting with a Vortex Manipulator to generate wormholes, she meets a stranded scout-pilot from centuries in her future and falls in love...
- She's vaguely familiar with UNIT, her brother is in the Army and he has worked with them
Rebuffed by the Time Lord she and Genny, aided by Xavier, steal the bus and the remains of the singleship using the collapse of the wormhole as cover for the Vortex Manipulator's operation
Relocating the remains one of her family's country properties, in the wilds of Scotland, they build themselves a time-ship and go a-wandering.
- Unfortunately the Vortex Manipulator is fused into the bus's structure and, despite their best efforts, cannot be removed to a more suitable vehicle.
Campaign notes.
The bus and it's crew can be encountered pretty much anywhere in Earth's history, though they tend to avoid much of the future, given the awkwardness of their transport. Alicia still engages in her hobby of art theft, though usually limited to pieces that are lost to official history. This of course can bring them into conflict with The Alexandrian Society (Diary of DWRPG 21/246) who are also interested in artworks. Xavier engages in historical research (and retrieving lost books). Genny, Nicholas and Franklin are curious about human history.
They're generally responsible regarding altering the past, but their grasp of temporal theory is rather rudimentary. Plenty of room for mistakes and accidents...
Typically they park the bus in some out of the way location in eras where it's anachronistic (for example a rented warehouse or a secluded spot in woodland) and camouflage it before travelling by more local transport.