Memories: A Dragonstar Adventure

This adventure was designed for Savage Worlds as a short adventure series to introduce a potential ongoing campaign involving the Dark Zone phenomenon. Far from canon, this adventure was my vision for explaining the lore around this unexplored region of the space on the outer fringes of Imperial space.

Opening Scene

You become aware of the cold floor grate pressing against your face as the fog of unconsciousness begins to lift. Your head aches for reasons you can’t recall and the screeching alarm emitted by the ship’s intercom is doing nothing for it. Forcing your eyes open, you find yourself lying on the floor of the bridge of a small vessel. There are a few others are here, in various stages of wakefulness, stumbling about and fumbling with controls. On a view screen, you see a second ship from which six smaller vessels exit a bay before your eyes.

The fumbling with controls pays off suddenly as a voice in accented Common comes over the bridge speakers.

“... to be boarded. Repeat. You have entered restricted space and are in violation of Norosian law. Surrender and prepare to be boarded…” The message repeats on a loop.

Where are you? What happened? Your mind is fuzzy and your head aches more as you try to recall how you came to be in this place. Even still, the ships launched stay on trajectory and you have mere moments to decide: fight or flight?

The player characters wake up on a ship without any memory of their past lives. They must discover who they once were even as they become someone new.

The Story

The player characters were all operatives for House Sarava and got too close to the source of the communication-relay transmission problems in systems at the edge of the Dark Zone. The truth is that a rival empire of star dragons, banished long ago by both the chromatic and metallic dragons, is conducting secret operations to establish a foothold from which to launch an invasion of the Dragon Empire.

The Opening of the Void Gates

Throughout the galaxy, strange portals leading to a mysterious and dangerous dimension known as the Void have been opening up, loosing creatures never before seen. Led by a previously unknown species of dragon, they are attacking settlements and infrastructure and causing chaos wherever they go. The chromatic and metallic Dragon Houses are all pointing fingers and the fragile peace that has held for over 5,000 years is being tested.

The Void Dragons employ beyonders as agents of their vanguard. These horrifying, tentacle-faced creatures use their formidable mental powers to conceal their operations and keep the houses bickering and fighting amongst themselves.

The team, sent by House Sarava to identify the source of these portals, was captured by a Beyonder vanguard who wiped their minds and deposited them and their ship at the edge of House Noros’ space with a House Aranath transponder.

The Void Dragons

A rival empire is forming within the Dark Zone, a strange nebula formed from the ether dust leaking from the Void realm. Under the cover of this strange phenomenon, the void dragons established themselves as gods among the beyonders inhabiting this region of space. With the patience of eternity, for even the beyonders do not know the lifespan of a Void Dragon, these sinister creatures have gained a foothold on this plane of existence and, with the beyonders as their vanguard, are positioning themselves to invade.

GM Notes

Opening Scene: Carina Nebula

A Noros warship has just arrived and is searching for why a vessel known as Morngond’s Shadow has gone missing. It has been hailing the Wild Cards’ ship for the past several minutes with no response. The Nightfall is in the process of deploying a strike team to board the vessel.

Each Wildcard has time for one action before the strike team’s vessels are in a position where they can prevent the Horizon’s escape.

Important Details

• The ship the Wildcards are on is called the Horizon.
• Scans of the vicinity reveal the presence of another vessel’s wreckage but there is not enough time for a deep scan.
• There are a total of six ships. Two are assault ships that will dock, five are fighter escorts that will fire on the ship if provoked.
• If an assault ship docks with the Horizon, it will not be able to maneuver and will be a sitting duck for the escorts. While the transport is docked, the fighters will only shoot to disable the Horizon.

The Wildcards may attempt to contact the ship but the most they will get out of Captain I’Chalni (Thydri I'Chalni) of the Noros warship (Nightfall) is that they had their chance and that they should surrender. Successful attempts at Persuasion will only convince I’Chalni to delay docking for one minute. However, the fighters will continue moving into a formation that blocks the Horizon’s route out of the system (opposed Piloting rolls).

The Wildcards may attempt to fight back against the strike team but they are outnumbered and likely to be captured.

The final option is to run before the Noros fighters get into position. The Nightfall will attempt to give chase but won’t leave the sector to do so.