GAME MASTER’S

GUIDE

B L U E P L A N E T R E V I S E D E D I T I O N C O R E R U L E B O O K

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CREDITS

Blue Planet Game master’s Guide™r e v i s e d e d i t i o n c o r e r u l e b o o k

revised editionLine Developer: Mark Stout

Development: Mark Stout

Product Director: James Sutton

Administration: Dawn Sutton

Layout: Dawn Sutton, James Sutton

Cover Artwork: Simon Powell, Dawn Sutton

Interior Artwork: Christopher Benedict, Adam Black, Paul Daly, Nik Fiorini, Chris Keefe, Scott Schomburg, Brian Schomburg, Mitch Cotie, Ben Prenevost, Kieran Yanner

Original Creation: Jeffrey Barber

Synergy Game System: Greg Benage

Blue Planet Second Edition Material: Jeffrey Barber, Greg Benage, Brian Breedlove, Sam Johnson, Jason Werner, Allan Grohe, John Snead, Allen Varney, Tun Kai Poh, Dustin Wright, Gareth Hanrahan, Gobion Rowlands, William Timmins

Internet: http://blueplanet.fasagames.com

Contact: blueplanet@fasagames.com

Edition: January 2013

Blue Planet, Blue Planet Revised, and Blue Planet Game Master’s Guide are trademarks of Biohazard Games. Blue Planet Second Edition material copyright © 2000–2013 Biohazard Games. FASA and the FASA logo are trademarks of FASA Corporation and are used under license. Published by FASA Games, Inc. under license from Biohazard Games. Copyright © 2013 Biohazard Games. All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the express written permission of the publisher.

In Tribute: As the first edition of Blue Planet went to press in June of 1997, the world mourned the death of Captain Jacques-Yves Cousteau. In his passing, the Earth’s oceans lost one of their greatest champions and humanity lost one of its more noble men. Please honor his memory by honoring the oceans.

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CONTENTSChaPter 1: Game master 6The Game Master’s Role 7Designing Campaigns 7

Campaign Concept 7Non-Player Characters 11Scenario Ideas 11

The Game Master’s Objective 12

ChaPter 2: new Frontier 13The Serpentis System 14The Pacifica Archipelago 17Haven Cluster 19Haven 22Second Try 32Lebensraum 41Nomad 45Circumstance 48The Wall 51

Shady Seas 52Kraken 52Thor Station 53

New Hawaii 54Simushir 56Atlantis 62Coronado Station 66Northwest Territories 71The Sierra Nueva Cluster 74The Baffin Island Settlement 77Santa Elena 86Crusoe Island Military Base 90Prime Meridian 98Al-Mamlakah 100Undersea Habitat–2 108Alderberg 112Kansas 116The Meridian Frontier 119

Byron’s Spur 119The Maglev Express 120The Stockyards 121

Westcape 122Dyfedd 124The Legacy of Recontact 134

Perdition 134Böse Strand 140

Zion Islands 142Kingston 146New Fremantle 154Fort Pacifica 157Nothing Ventured 161

The Hazards Casino 161

Dragon Boy Parlor 161Kingston Saloons 161

Bright Savanna 162A View from Orbit 163Prosperity Station 164Poseidon’s Moons 167

Proteus 167Nereus 167

The Serpentis Belt 168

ChaPter 3: savaGe Planet 170Rainforest 171Poseidon Creeper Forest 173Tropical Elevated Regions 174Poseidon Deciduous Forest 174Tropical Savanna 175Deserts 176Canyonlands 177Volcanic Islands 177Poseidon Tundra 178Thermal Oases 179Tidal Pools 180Estuaries 180Marsh 180Poseidon Mangrove 181Shallows and Shelves 182Reefs 183Seamounts 186Open Ocean 186Oceanography for Gamers 188Oceanographic Glossary 193Oceanic Phenomena 195Poseidon Meteorology 197Seasons by Region 202Atmospheric Phenomena 203Cyclonic Storms 204

ChaPter 4: survival Guide 208Preparation 209Improvised Tools 209Firebuilding 210Finding Water 211Finding Food 211Shelter 212Water Crossings 213Marine Survival 213Tropical Survival 216Desert Survival 217Arctic Survival 218Wildlife Encounters 220

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ChaPter 5: Field Guide 230Poseidon Taxonomy 231Poseidon Macro-Taxonomy 232Animal Behavior 237Game Encounters 238Poseidon Field Guide 240

Am-bush 240Angel Wings 241Aurora Borialgae 242Bad Mojo 243Basilisk 244Big Round Thing 245Blimp 247Blood Hunter 247Bubble Array 248Carniflora 249Chain Beetle 250Chub 251Cup Sucker 251Digger Crab 253Dune Creeper 253Echo/Fish 254Eel Dragon 255Fast Fungus 256Fish 257Fisherman 258Ghoster 258Gladiator Crab 259Glass Coral 261Greater White 262Grendel 263Hangin’ Joe 264Harvester Worm 265Hatchlings 265Hellbender 266Hexa Boar 267Howell’s Leech 268Jellyroll 268Jump Jump 269Keel Vine 270Land Lizard 271Lesser White 272Leviathan 273Loggerhead 274Marsh Devil 275Needle Bush 275Needle Shell 276Night Crawler 276Niño Muerto 277

Nooniebird 278Pharium 279Polypod 280Poseidon Kelp 281Poseidon Mangrove 282Poseidon Potato 283Poseidon Sargassum 284Poseidon Scorpion 285Poseidon Trilobyte 285Pump Weed 286Reefer Colony 287Reefworm 288Rubber Shrimp 289Rumble Bee 289Saltwater Pseudo-eel 290Sand Archer 291Schooler 292Sea Ghoul 293Seaweaver 293Singer-In-The-Dark 294Snow Weasel 295Spurts 296Squalers (Stick Monkeys) 297Stone Snake 297String Worm 298Sunburst 299Sweet Noodles 300Thornrow 301Trident Fish 302Walkabout 302Water Dart 303Water Hemp 304Water Rat 304Weedeater 305Wraparound 306Xenosilicabenthoid 307Zipper 308

ChaPter 6: alien leGaCy 310The Aborigines 311Aborigine Castes 315Aborigines and the Human Invasion 317Creator Caches 318Power Sources 320Creator Facilities 320Creator Technology 321Aborigines of the Pacifica Archipelago 324Creatures of Myth and Legend 338

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ChaPter 7: world oF hurt 341The GEO 342The Incorporated City-States 351

Anasi Systems 351Atlas Materials 352Biogene 352Dundalk Shipbuilding 353GenDiver 354Hanover Industries 355Hydrospan 355Lavender Organics 356MacLeod Enforcement 357Nippon Industrial State 358

Free Zones 359Earth in 2199 360Luna 360The Skyhook 363Mars Colony 365The Asteroid Belt and Beyond 369Hole City 371

ChaPter 8: danGerous Game 372Non-Player Creation System 373

Everyone Skills 373Core Skills 373Suggested Skills by Archetype 373

Non-Player Character Profiles 374Administrators, Executives, Officials 375Artists, Performers 375

Bush Pilots 376Criminals 376Doctors and Medical Techs 377Guides 378Incorporate Security 378Intelligence Agents 379Journalist 379Law Enforcement 380Mercenaries and Militaries 380Pioneers and Colonists 383Scientists 383Spacers 384Technicians 384Terrorists 385Traders 386

ChaPter 9: distant deePs 387Introduction 388What Dread Hand? 391The Wilderness 392In the Midst of Chaos 393The Cargo Blimp 394The Lava Tunnels 394Forests of the Night 396Burning Bright 398On What Wings? 399Wrapping Up 399NPC Stats 400

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7CHAPTER 1: GAME MASTER

THE GAME MASTER’S ROLE

Welcome to the Revised Edition of the critically acclaimed Blue Planet™ science fiction roleplaying game. blue Planet revised™ builds on and revises the prior blue Planet second edition™ (bPv2) game and integrates the content from the BPv2 Nat-ural Selection sourcebook. The Player’s Guide (avail-able separately) covers the mechanics of the game: character creation, skills, backgrounds, combat, and technology.

The Game Master’s Guide is the second core book for the blue Planet revised science fiction roleplay-ing game. In the Game Master’s Guide, the planet itself is the main character. This book brings to life the colony world Poseidon, providing details on the people, colonial settlements, ecosystems, flora and fauna, climate and weather, and enigmatic aborig-ines of this exotic ocean planet. With the help of this book, Game Masters will be able to create vivid scenes and develop exciting adventures awash in the sights, sounds, smells, and feel of this richly detailed science fiction setting.

Game Masters are faced with a challenging but rewarding task. While the players are each expected to create and roleplay a unique character, the Game Master (GM) is largely responsible for presenting the rest of the game world. At various times during the game, the Game Master will play the part of guide, referee, narrator, special-effects artist, set designer, producer, director, screenwriter, and actor.

The Game Master’s Guide is packed with infor-mation about the game setting and background. The Game Master must add further details to existing people and places, invent new ones, and describe those elements to the players. The GM must also role-play the interactions of the non-player characters with the player characters, and referee the actions of both player characters and non-player characters.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the Game Master must create the core plot lines and story ele-ments on which the decisions of the players and the actions of their characters will build the adventure. These plot lines can be detailed, complete and rich, or loose, suggestive, and open-ended—this deci-sion is completely at the discretion of the GM and his gaming group.

Presented during play, plot elements make up a scenario. Scenarios are the individual adventures that make up the episodic lives of the player charac-ters. Scenarios can be isolated, periodic and unre-lated to each other, or they can be strung together in relevant order to make a continuous descriptive story of the player characters’ lives. A group of sce-narios that creates such a story is called a campaign.

Campaigns may last for years of “game time” and are a common way for gaming groups to involve the same characters in a number of adventures. Cam-paigns serve to build imaginary lives for individual characters, giving them histories and allowing them to grow while working to achieve long-term goals.

DESIGNING CAMPAIGNS

Because campaigns are created through the interac-tions of a number of players, they can never be fully scripted in advance and as a result are “works in progress.” Nevertheless there are a number of plan-ning choices that will make for a more enjoyable blue Planet game.

CamPaiGn ConCePtThough the blue Planet game mechanics encour-age the creation of unique and diverse characters, it is important that characters created for a partic-ular campaign share some unifying feature, even if it is only their current circumstance. A scenario is more plausible, and therefore usually more enjoy-able, when there is a logical, motivating reason for

the player characters to be and work together. Many roleplaying games provide a very focused and spe-cific setting in which it is assumed the player charac-ters will all be doing one thing, such as adventuring for fame and fortune, investigating supernatural phe-nomena, or crewing an exploratory starship.

blue Planet takes a very different approach, pre-senting a richly-detailed setting in which a broad range of characters, adventures, and ongoing cam-paigns are possible. While this approach gives the gaming group a great deal of flexibility, it also requires some added consideration and prepara-tion before the game begins. The choice of a general concept for the campaign is a very important one, and the Game Master should encourage the play-

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ers to participate in and contribute to this decision. A Game Master may be tempted to run the kind of game he wants regardless of what the players say, but it is usually a thankless task to run a game that is not interesting and engaging to the players.

PremiseA campaign concept defines who the characters are, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. It identifies what they can attain or achieve, and what is at stake in the course of their adventures. It provides the Game Master with information that empowers him to create relevant scenarios that are both moti-vating and appropriate for the characters. The con-cept might suggest background developments and plot twists and help in the creation of meaningful non-player characters. The campaign concept allows the GM to focus his creative energies on those ele-ments of the setting and story that are likely to be most central to the campaign.

The following are just a few of the archetypal cam-paign premises in the blue Planet setting.

• The characters are GEO Peacekeepers stationed at an isolated outpost or garrison.

• The characters are GEO Patrol officers in one of the water world’s major colonial settlements.

• The characters are an ecoterrorist cell fighting a covert war against the Incorporate’s exploitation of Poseidon.

• The characters are covert operatives in the secu-rity forces of an Incorporate state waging industrial and political espionage against its rivals.

• The characters are gangsters and enforcers in one of the syndicates that dominate the criminal underworld of Poseidon.

• The characters are native insurgents waging a desperate war against the encroachment of newcom-ers who threaten their traditional way of life.

• The characters are rugged pioneers battling a dangerous planet—and sometimes themselves—in an effort to carve a new civilization from the wilderness.

• The characters are research scientists struggling to uncover the secrets of Poseidon and its ancient legacy.

• The characters are guides and frontiersmen who brave Poseidon’s savage wilderness to explore the planet’s darkest corners.

On the one hundred and eighty-third day, he rose from the dead. No Mary Magdalene there to see him, no Julia, only a medtech to administer post-hibernation drugs.

Textbooks called the miracle Induced Hypothermic Metabolic Suppression. His skin itched and he wanted to puke up the gray odorless soup they gave him.

Where was Julia? There had been an accident, the medtechs told him. Then they shrugged. Ramon Ortega had come to Poseidon in his sleep, across six months and a gulf of stars, but somewhere along the way his wife had slipped away. A problem with Julia’s hibernation canister. Something about a lapse in automatic drug injections, lack of circulation to the brain, and million-to-one chances, they said.

He found to his surprise that he could not weep. Maybe it was a side effect of the hibernation. But neither did he weep in the weeks that followed. As he underwent physical therapy aboard Prosper-ity Station, there were no memories of her, no dreams, only the path ahead and the planet below.

The National Geographic Society (they sent their condolences) had paid too much for the expe-dition to have a Pulitzer-winning photographer return empty-handed. They still wanted a Poseidon aborigine on their magazine cover. When he was released from Customs and Immigration, Ramon Ortega numbly boarded the shuttle, carrying his wife’s cameras as well as his own, and descended to Poseidon. He had risen from the dead, but he was no longer one of the living.

In the colonial capital of Haven, beneath a cloudy sky, he sought out scientists and officials. Where, he asked, could he find the aborigines? There were a few old records of sightings, a detailed nec-ropsy report, but little else. After nearly thirty years of prying and looking, scientists still knew noth-ing about them.

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XThemeA campaign theme is a recurrent story thread or idea that is of central importance throughout the course of the campaign. A solid theme that engages the player characters will lend a campaign context, continu-ity, meaning, and drama. Campaign themes might include the escalating conflict between the natives and the newcomers, the ongoing struggle to tame a new frontier, the fight to protect a pristine world, or the aborigines and their secrets.

Note that a campaign theme does not have to include an ethical or moral component, such as “crime doesn’t pay” or “charity is good and greed is bad.” In reality, the character’s personalities and individual moral codes will drive such judgments, though they may often come into conflict with those of society. In blue Planet, the characters are respon-sible for their own choices and actions and moral themes should never be used to constrain their deci-sions or dictate predetermined outcomes.

The other side of the coin, of course, is that all of a character’s actions have consequences, ones that

aren’t always desirable. Rather than implementing deterministic moral themes, the Game Master may choose to craft situations in which the characters’ values conflict. For example, the GM may set up a scenario in which a character has an opportunity for a promotion, financial gain, or some other achieve-ment, but only at the expense of his friends’ trust. Such a scenario places the character’s ambition and loyalty in direct conflict, but doesn’t constrain his decisions or actions. This serves to reinforce the sense that the characters’ choices have consequences and that they alone are responsible for them.

Though the players can have input in many aspects of the campaign concept, the Game Master is largely responsible for the determination of a campaign’s theme. It is possible for a campaign to include more than one theme, or for the main theme to evolve or change during the course of the campaign. It is even possible that the players may prefer a theme that develops entirely from the decisions and actions of their characters.

The ray-like creatures lived in the vast reaches of the oceans, while Man had only settled the islands and shallow seas around the archipelagos. The few encounters between them had often ended in mysterious violence and death. That was fine with him. Just fine.

In the Sea of Cousteau, beneath the yellow glare of Lambda Serpentis, he rode with field research-ers, followed the caneopoise herds, and dove in the kelp fields where aborigines had once been sighted. Fierce storms threatened to capsize them. A four-jawed eel ripped his thigh with poisoned fangs. Ramon Ortega survived; he’d lived through worse. He did not think back to the year he had spent in the war-torn New Balkans. He did not remember his brushes with death—minefields, snip-ers, and fellow journalists bleeding in his arms. He did not recall that he’d first met Julia there, in the ruins of a firebombed town. Two photographers preserving the moment, trying to awaken the world’s weary conscience.

Julia. When he and Julia had been courting for two months, she asked him about the scars on his back. He told her what his parents had done, long ago: the worst demon of a past he’d traveled the globe to escape. The story told it was lifted from his shoulders, gone from his mind. Julia became his memory.

She had memory enough for the both of them. She was Memory incarnate. She remembered Espe-ranto, an artificial language nobody spoke anymore. Her aunt had taught it to her as a child. She remembered the antique techniques of black-and-white photography, a lost art in an age of holo-graphic imaging. For ten years, she carried both their pasts—laughter, nightmares, anniversaries, sunny days in the park. Now, Memory was dead.

In the shantytown of Nomad, beneath a chaotic web of walkways and teetering wood and plas-tic structures built on houseboats and stilts, he questioned poachers and smugglers and prospectors. There were rumors of a place where aborigines frequented; for an exorbitant price, a dolphin guide would show him where. He sensed that after all these months, his search was near an end. Poseidon had not killed him. If he came out of this alive, what then?

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MoodWhat should the campaign feel like? Should it be dark, gritty, and threatening, or light and hopeful? Should the campaign’s scenarios evoke a sense of wonder and discovery, or one of paranoia and fear? Are the characters ordinary people caught up in events bigger than themselves, or larger-than-life heroes who drive momentous events that affect everyone around them?

The campaign’s dominant mood goes hand-in-hand with its theme and serves to engage the play-ers’ emotions and imaginations.

The Game Master has two primary tools with which to craft the mood of his campaign. The first is the setting. If the chosen mood is dark and gritty, most scenarios should take place in a setting that is dark and gritty as well—the shadowy corridors and confined quarters of an undersea mining station, or an insurgent camp deep in the jungle. The second tool is the non-player characters who surround the player characters and share their lives.

If the GM is trying to evoke promise and hope, these characters will often be friendly, helpful, and honest. In a campaign with a mood of paranoia and fear, however, such people will often be threaten-ing, secretive, and disloyal. The Game Master should

use non-player characters to “mirror” the setting and evoke a sense of mood that will give the campaign a tangible aura.

ConflictConflict is the key ingredient in most roleplaying adventures, providing motivation, objectives, plot ideas, and background story. In addition to a running theme, a good campaign should contain a central conflict to charge the action and excite the players. The numerous polarized interests in the world of blue Planet have been specifically created to foster a setting rife with conflict. Well-crafted background conflict colors in the characters’ collective reality, just as events in the real world fill in the background of our lives. Conflicts should be integrated into the campaign’s theme, while others should rage in the background, creating the sense that the characters are involved in something real, something larger than themselves.

MysteryAn air of mystery can be the single most compelling aspect of a roleplaying campaign. Nothing engages players and provides plot ideas like the promise and threat of the unknown. There are intriguing myster-

In the sprawling roots of a Poseidon mangrove, beneath the surface of the Dolphin Sea, he reached the end of his quest. The alien trees grew up from the shallow seafloor, twenty meters up to the sur-face, to form organic islands with their palm-like fronds. Millions of tiny phosphorescent creatures flit-ted in the dark beneath the mangrove. Organic debris—remains of leaves and dead lizards and other, unrecognizable things—floated in the darkness, getting stuck in between the roots, forming the walls of a labyrinth of decaying matter. Ramon negotiated the root chambers alone, gill mask hissing, his camera light barely illuminating the way ahead.

They were waiting for him in the heart of the trees, ten meters below the surface. Unspeakably majes-tic, built like three-meter stingrays, but poised like lions. Emanating both history and timelessness at once. They circled him with ease and agility, despite their size. And then, he simply knew: the aborig-ines were the memory of this world. They kept a secret history, one too beautiful and unimaginable for humans to comprehend. Yet he finally realized that there existed a more beautiful memory. Just as Poseidon’s past was the foundation of what the aborigines were, Julia had been a living part of him.

The aborigines seemed to say: You have forgotten yourself. You chose not to grieve, and so you are missing part of who you are. Go back. Find what you have lost. You cannot live on and grow without it. Or perhaps they said nothing. It didn’t matter.

The camera slipped from his fingers, and Ramon Ortega swam up out of the darkness. Breaking the surface, with alien sunlight stippled all around him through the treetops, he heard the cries of eel dragons and the howling of the warm wind through the leaves. He took off the gill mask, breathed deeply, and wept.

On the two hundred and sixty-third day, he ascended to the living.

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ies lying below the surface of Poseidon’s oceans, and these should be exploited in any blue Planet cam-paign. The best campaigns are those in which mys-teries are layered upon deeper mysteries, and the uncovering of one leads to another more intriguing than the last. A compelling mystery will keep the players coming back to the gaming table for more, and give them a genuine sense of accomplishment when it is finally solved.

PlotThe plot of a scenario or a campaign consists of the actual events that tie characters, themes, mysteries, conflicts, and non-player characters together into a coherent whole. It is important that a plot be plau-sible within the context of the campaign, and that it be carefully crafted to interest, surprise, and moti-vate the players.

Roleplaying game plots can be tightly scripted and contrived to force characters into responding to specific circumstances. They can also be loosely put together, to give the characters the opportunity to take action on their own. A good adventure is usu-

ally a combination of both—tight scripting to pres-ent key story elements, encounters, or clues, and looser sequences to give the players choices and a sense of free will. The Game Master alone is typically responsible for crafting plot, and should be sensitive to this balance, taking advantage of the strengths of both styles.

non-Player CharaCtersIn real life, everyone is surrounded by people who play an important part in their lives—friends, fam-ily, coworkers, employers, rivals, even enemies. In a blue Planet campaign, the people who play a recur-ring role in the lives of the player characters can do much to lend the campaign realism, context, and continuity. The players may have the opportunity to detail some of these non-player characters (NPCs), but it will invariably be the job of the Game Master to create most of them.

To create an average non-player character, a GM need only come up with a name, a brief physical description, and the character’s role in the cam-paign. For more important non-player characters, the Game Master will need to detail their attributes, aptitudes, and skills, how they talk and act, where they live and work, and so forth. Elements from the character profile can serve as “snapshots” of non-player characters’ personalities and can be handy guidelines for roleplaying their interactions with the player characters.

sCenario ideasComing up with ideas for an exciting scenario can be difficult for even the most imaginative Game Master. While books, movies, television shows, newspapers, and magazines can all be used for inspiration, the best sources of relevant scenario ideas are the char-acters and the campaign itself.

When blue Planet revised characters are cre-ated, the GM immediately knows a great deal about them—where they’re from, what experiences most shaped their lives, what their goals and motivations are. Players often provide even more details by elab-orating on their selections for the character profile. The Game Master can use this information as inspi-ration for scenarios and to make adventures uniquely compelling for the individual characters.

The design elements of the campaign concept can also provide the GM with inspiration, suggesting a number of questions that can spark the creative pro-

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cess. How can this scenario emphasize our cam-paign’s theme? How could the players continue to explore the mystery in our campaign, and how might I introduce a new one? How might the player charac-ters get caught up in the conflicts raging in the back-ground? I wonder what their old nemesis has been up to? Maybe it’s time for him to show up again.

The campaign itself—what has gone before and what might yet happen—is often a Game Master’s best source of new scenario ideas. When the GM builds scenarios from the campaign’s interconnected plots and storylines, the campaign continues to gain greater depth and continuity.

THE GAME MASTER’S OBJECTIVE

Game Masters should always remember that their first and most important goal is to have fun and make sure the players do, too. Running a blue Planet game can be a challenging hobby, but with a little thought and preparation, just about anyone can do it. Most players do not expect their GM to be a mas-ter storyteller or brilliant actor, or to know every rule of the game inside and out.

Running blue Planet revised games gets easier with experience, but a lack of experience should never stop a would-be Game Master from starting a new campaign. Dive in, make mistakes, and enjoy

yourself. Listen to your players, and watch what they like and dislike as the game progresses. Give them what they want, only more than they expected and with an edge.

This book, together with the Player’s Guide, offers you a whole world, a new frontier, to experience with your friends. Stretch the boundaries and explore the dark corners. blue Planet is a new world of hope and threat, liberty and oppression, human and machine, the familiar and the alien.

Let your imagination be your guide and follow it with abandon.

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CHAPTER 2: NEW FRONTIER

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THE SERPENTIS SYSTEM

In January 2078, the fusion-powered Prometheus II space probe passed through the newly discovered Lorentzian wormhole orbiting Earth s sun. An instant later the probe emerged on the far side, on the outer edge of the Lambda Serpentis star system, more than 30 light years away. The discovery of this star system and its planets will forever stand as a transcendent moment in human history.

Lambda Serpentis is a G0 main sequence yellow star, very similar to the Sun. Serpentis, known also as Serpens, has six major satellites. The innermost is a planet of primordial heat and radiation, orbit-ing only 105 million kilometers from the primary. A fair-size world, Hephestus is a natural planetologi-cal experiment, but offers little else to the sciences. Because of its extremely high surface temperatures, naming the planet for the ancient deity of the forge seemed obvious.

The third orbit contains evidence of some catas-trophe in Serpentis’ past. Chunks of planetary debris are all that remain, some as much as 300 kilometers across. Thousands of spacers and belters immigrate to the Serpentis Belt every year, drawn by the resources locked in these shattered remains. Questions about the rarity of ring systems like those around Saturn were answered by the three outermost planets of the Serpentis System. Each is a gas giant with a complex ring system and several satellites of substantial size.

The largest of the gas giants, Lambda Serpentis V, produces far more heat than can be accounted for by contemporary planetological theories. It is not massive enough to undergo hydrogen fusion but still glows brightly in the infrared. Somewhat smaller than Jupiter, Serpentis V bears a strong resemblance to Earth’s giant neighbor. It too is enveloped in bands of orange and red with monstrous eddies in its cloud patterns, suggesting strong storm systems.

For obvious reasons, the name Cronus, the father of Jupiter, was quickly accepted by the International Astronomers Union. Serpentis IV, or Aeolus, is named for the ancient keeper of the winds. Serpentis VI is named for the consort of Hades, Persephone, and marks the distant periphery of the Serpens System.

Humanity was utterly unprepared for the Pro-metheus data describing the second planet of the sys-tem, Lambda Serpentis II. The planet has an uncanny resemblance to Earth with a diameter, mass, density, and gravity all within 12% of Earth normal. The plan-

et’s orbit is slightly wider, so its year is 13.5% longer, and its rotation is slightly slower so that each day on Lambda Serpentis II is a full 30.012 hours. Initially, the planet’s most striking feature was not its similar-ity to Earth, but the vast oceans dominating its sur-face. Covered with azure saltwater seas, Poseidon’s name was inevitable.

The initial climatological data for Poseidon were highly suspect. The planet seemed far warmer than it should be given its extensive ice caps and wide-spread cloud cover. At the time, climatological the-ories indicated that based on its albedo, the planet should be frozen solid. With the amount of solar energy the ice, snow, and clouds were reflecting back into space, few scientists believed the planet could be as warm as the Prometheus data indi-cated. The answers were found in the spectrographic analysis of Poseidon’s atmosphere. The planet was extremely active tectonically.

Poseidon’s crust is composed of 13 major tectonic plates, most of which appear to be in motion. During the Argos 12 mission to the planet, 275 active vol-canoes were catalogued. Each volcano spouts sulfur compounds and other gasses into the planet’s atmo-sphere, increasing both its atmospheric pressure and its natural greenhouse effect. The resultant warming has kept Poseidon in a precarious and temperate bal-ance. The high level of volcanic activity also accounts for the majority of the planet’s significant landmasses. With just a few large islands, most of the planet’s land surface consists of tiny archipelagos and isolated chains of volcanic islands hundreds, even thousands, of kilometers from their nearest neighbors.

Poseidon has two moons, Proteus and Nereus. The nearest moon, Proteus, orbits almost 600,000 km from Poseidon and is so massive that many sci-entists feel the two bodies constitute a binary planet system. Measuring more than 7,000 km in diameter, the planetoid produces a surface gravity of more than half a g. The planet also has a relatively dense atmo-sphere, with an average surface pressure of around 0.4 atmospheres.

Proteus supports a moderate biome, consisting mainly of a diverse radiation of plant-like analogs. With only a thin atmosphere to protect the surface from the radiation streaming from Serpentis and Poseidon’s strong Van Allen belts, mutation rates are high. Life on Proteus ranges from the poles to the

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Chapter 1: Game MasterThe Game Master’s RoleDesigning CampaignsCampaign Concept

Scenario IdeasNon-Player CharactersThe Game Master’s Objective

Chapter 2: New FrontierThe Serpentis SystemThe Pacifica ArchipelagoHaven ClusterHavenSecond TryLebensraumNomadCircumstanceThe WallShady SeasKrakenThor Station

New HawaiiSimushirAtlantisCoronado StationNorthwest TerritoriesThe Sierra Nueva ClusterThe Baffin Island SettlementSanta ElenaCrusoe Island Military BasePrime MeridianAl-MamlakahUndersea Habitat–2AlderbergKansasThe Meridian FrontierByron’s SpurThe Maglev ExpressThe Stockyards

WestcapeDyfeddThe Legacy of RecontactPerdition

Böse StrandZion IslandsKingstonNew FremantleFort PacificaNothing VenturedThe Hazards CasinoDragon Boy ParlorKingston Saloons

Bright SavannaA View from OrbitProsperity StationPoseidon’s MoonsProteusNereus

The Serpentis Belt

Chapter 3: Savage PlanetRainforestPoseidon Creeper ForestTropical Elevated RegionsPoseidon Deciduous ForestTropical SavannaDesertsCanyonlandsVolcanic IslandsPoseidon TundraThermal OasesTidal PoolsEstuariesMarshPoseidon MangroveShallows and ShelvesReefsSeamountsOpen OceanOceanography for GamersOceanographic GlossaryOceanic PhenomenaPoseidon MeteorologySeasons by RegionAtmospheric PhenomenaCyclonic Storms

Chapter 4: Survival GuidePreparationImprovised ToolsFireBuildingFinding WaterFinding FoodShelterWater CrossingsMarine SurvivalTropical SurvivalDesert SurvivalArctic SurvivalWildlife Encounters

Chapter 5: Field GuidePoseidon TaxonomyPoseidon Macro-TaxonomyAnimal BehaviorGame EncountersPoseidon Field GuideAm-bushAngel WingsAurora BorialgaeBad MojoBasiliskBig Round ThingBlimpBlood HunterBubble ArrayCarnifloraChain BeetleChubCup SuckerDigger CrabDune CreeperEcho/FishEel DragonFast FungusFishFishermanGhosterGladiator CrabGlass CoralGreater WhiteGrendelHangin’ JoeHarvester WormHatchlingsHellbenderHexa BoarHowell’s LeechJellyrollJump JumpKeel VineLand LizardLesser WhiteLeviathanLoggerheadMarsh DevilNeedle BushNeedle ShellNight CrawlerNiño MuertoNooniebirdPharium

ZipperXenosilicabenthoidWraparoundWeedeaterWater RatWater HempWater DartWalkaboutTrident FishThornrowSweet NoodlesSunburstString WormStone SnakeSqualers (Stick Monkeys)SpurtsSnow WeaselSinger-In-The-DarkSeaweaverSea GhoulSchoolerSand ArcherSaltwater Pseudo-eelRumble BeeRubber ShrimpReefwormReefer ColonyPump WeedPoseidon TrilobytePoseidon ScorpionPoseidon SargassumPoseidon PotatoPoseidon MangrovePoseidon KelpPolypod

Chapter 6: Alien LegacyThe AboriginesAborigine CastesAborigines and the Human InvasionCreator CachesPower SourcesCreator FacilitiesCreator TechnologyAborigines of the Pacifica ArchpelagoCreatures of Myth and Legend

Chapter 7: World of HurtThe GEOThe Incorporated City-StatesAnasi SystemsAtlas MaterialsBiogeneDundalk ShipbuildingGenDiverHanover IndustriesHydrospanLavender OrganicsMacLeod EnforcementNippon Industrial State

Free ZonesEarth in 2199LunaThe SkyhookMars ColonyThe Asteroid Belt and BeyondHole City

Chapter 8: Dangerous GameNon-Player Creation SystemEveryone SkillsCore SkillsSuggested Skills by Archetype

Non-Player Character ProfilesAdministrators, Executives, OfficialsArtists, PerformersBush PilotsCriminalsDoctors and Medical TechsGuidesIncorporate SecurityIntelligence AgentsJournalistLaw EnforcementMercenaries and MilitariesPioneers and ColonistsScientistsSpacersTechniciansTerroristsTraders

Chapter 9: Distant DeepsIntroductionWhat Dread Hand?The WildernessIn the Midst of ChaosThe Cargo BlimpThe Lava TunnelsForests of the NightBurning BrightOn What Wings?Wrapping UpNPC StatsIndex

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