A haphazardly drawn Martian city

Eclipse Phase: The Viking Funeral Undertaking

Static. A disjoint in time, and perhaps space. Venus is a thread in another wisp of memory. I see red and grey skies over the maglev as it speeds toward the city of Ashoka through the dry, rocky Martian desert. I used to be Hokusai the neo-octopus artist, on the run from Nine Lives the soul stealing crime cartel. Now I walk on two legs in a ghost morph, in a physical body optimised for stealth operations. With me is the female async Quill, her telepathic mind percolating with a thousand paper cranes. Back in Valles-New Shanghai, we are the only two members of Fastball Express hypercorp who answer the VR call from one Mr. Miyazaki. He gives us the time and invitation for an upcoming Zanzibar marketplace that would occur in 30 hours in Ashoka. There a neo-gorilla named Winston will be attempting to sell something valuable and rare: […]

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Someone's gonna get lucky

Eclipse Phase: The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star… Location: Sacajawea Patera caldera in Ishtar Terra, the surface of Venus. Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: The infomorph DANAI in a q-morph, the other infomorph Wandering Ina in a Venusian flyer morph, Billy Cable Jr. paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut – neo-octopus artist in another q-morph. Then The Venusian chapter of Fastball Express, under the cover name of Gamera Security, had been commissioned by Morningstar Constellation security executive Kage Musha to investigate possible terrorist activity among the aerostats of Venus. They began operating on the orbital habitat Gerlach, then established a branch in a dirigible docked in the aerostat Aphrodite Prime. Their investigations brought to light that the orbital habitat Timothea Bush-Kennedy, also known as Timbuk3, had been attacked by TITANs during the Fall more than a decade ago, broke up and crashed into the […]

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A polar bear meatsuit

Eclipse Phase: At the Bottom of the Gravity Well

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star… Location: Lucifer, Venus. Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina the infomorphs, William Cable Jr. – paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut – neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph. In Transit to Altitude 40km The mining aerostat Lucifer was a bustle of activity. Miners. Support staff. Security. Tethered over Ishtar Terra close to the north polar region it was being assailed by gale force winds generated by a Venusian polar vortex. The aerostat appeared from a distance to be listing although tethers allowed it to maintain station keeping. But Lucifer was their destination, tracking a terrorist signal from the city aerostat of Aphrodite Prime that was bounced off a mirror assembly on the superstructure of the orbital habitat Gerlach. GamSec descended upon Lucifer via an elevator from the floating high altitude docks. Their patron […]

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It's the little boy that's the psycho

Eclipse Phase: Thanks for the Memories

I missed two roleplaying sessions of Eclipse Phase since the last game. Location: Aphrodite Prime, Venus. Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina the infomorphs, William Cable Jr. – paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut – neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph. Hokusai-free Session 01: Don’t Play Koi With Me, Cable A more detailed write up of this session can be found on Obsidian Portal. After the Cumulus Hotel caper, Hokusai stayed on their dirigible while Cable, Ina and DANAI went out into the field. As Cable was viewing the flying gasbags that they’d saved from destruction at the Aviary, the animals began falling and crashing onto the deck dead. Kage Musha their patron in Morningstar Constellation called for GamSec to chew them out. How could have the Aviary animals be poisoned? There was a danger of Kage punishing GamSec by resleeving their egos […]

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Don't worry. She'll be resleeved in a new morph

Eclipse Phase: The Standoff at the Cumulus Hotel

Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star continued from the previous session. Location: Aphrodite Prime, about 50 km above Venus’ surface. Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina (and Wandering Ina-α) the infomorphs, William Cable Jr. – paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut – neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph Inactive Personnel: Badal Jones – Lunar Lagrange Alliance (LLA) envoy and Boris Ivanov Rasputin the Second – a neo-hominid lawyer in the shaper morph. Mission: To provide security and investigative services to Badal’s superior the LLA’s ambassador during an art show at the Cumulus Hotel, where reclusive posthuman artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos from the asteroid 163693 Atira would be showcasing alien sculptures he collected from the extraterrestrial Factors. LLA had intercepted a vague communique about a terrorist attack during the event and would like the attack thwarted. Their secondary mission was to help Gretchen Ambelina of […]

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What's under the kimono?

Eclipse Phase: Web of the Jorōgumo

Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star continued from the previous session at Wira Games and Hobbies. Location: Aphrodite Prime, about 50 km above Venus’ surface. Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina (and Wandering Ina-α) the infomorphs, Boris Ivanov Rasputin the Second – a neo-hominid lawyer in the shaper morph, William Cable Jr. – paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut – neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph. Inactive Personnel: Badal Jones – Lunar Lagrange Alliance (LLA) envoy. Mission: To provide security and investigative services to Badal’s superior the LLA’s ambassador during an art show at the Cumulus Hotel, where reclusive posthuman artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos would be showcasing alien sculptures he collected from the extraterrestrial Factors. LLA had intercepted a vague communique about a terrorist attack during the event and would like the attack thwarted. Their secondary mission was to help Gretchen Ambelina of Pax […]

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Guest starring Willem Dafoe

Eclipse Phase: The Great White Hunter Job

Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star continued from the previous session at Wira Games and Hobbies. Location: Aphrodite Prime, about 50 km above Venus’ surface. Active Gamera Security (GamSec) Personnel: Badal Jones – Lunar Lagrange Alliance (LLA) envoy in the splicer morph, Boris Ivanov Rasputin the Second – a neo-hominid lawyer in the shaper morph, William Cable Jr. – paranoid terrorist in a neotenic pod morph and Hokusai Tarnungshaut – neo-octopus artist in a slitheroid morph. Inactive Personnel: DANAI and Wandering Ina. Mission: To provide security and investigative services to Badal’s superior the LLA’s ambassador during an art show at the Cumulus Hotel, where reclusive posthuman artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos would be showcasing alien sculptures he collected from the extraterrestrial Factors. LLA had intercepted vague communique about a terrorist attack during the event and would like the attack thwarted. Their secondary mission was help Gretchen Ambelina of Pax Familae by […]

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This neotenic does not see dead people

Eclipse Phase: Machinations of a Lumpy Space Princess

The entry title for this Eclipse Phase session report is play on the title of Machinations of the Space Princess. Gamera Security‘s Venusian investigations continued: Kai took on the role of neotenic-morphed Billy Cable Jr. (a.k.a. Brandon Leigh), Darren played infomorph DANAI (a.k.a. Vadislav Sender) and I was again the slitheroid-morphed Hokusai Tarnungshaut (a.k.a. Heinrich Ausfahrt Plissken). Andrew’s Venusian glider-morphed Wandering Ina (a.k.a. Kana) and Matthew’s Badal Jones the Lunar Lagrange Alliance Envoy were absent and was used as NPCs at crucial times of the session. Ivan GMed, as this photo shows: The mission, which continued from the previous session, was to help Badal Jones with the security for his LLA ambassador’s contingent as they attended the art show that would display the Factors’ alien sculpture pieces collected by the reclusive posthuman artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos at the Cumulus Hotel on Aphrodite Prime. There was a second, a more secretive mission […]

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From Garfield and Friends

Eclipse Phase: Electromatic For The People

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star the team was joined by Matthew’s player character Christoph de Beers from the Jovian Republic. However, there was a quantum temporal flux and the character metamorphosed into the Lunar Lagrange Alliance envoy Badal Jones, a Welshman. The out-of-character retcon avoided difficulties of roleplaying a character from a racist, pure humans-only society mixed with a group of posthuman player characters. Also, Kai played neotenic-morphed Billy Cable Jr. (a.k.a. Brandon Leigh), Andrew played Venusian glider-morphed Wandering Ina (a.k.a. Kana), Darren played infomorph DANAI (a.k.a. Vadislav Sender) and I was back as the slitheroid-morphed Hokusai Tarnungshaut (a.k.a. Heinrich Ausfahrt Plissken). Jones had commissioned Gamera Security‘s services for the upcoming art gallery event at the Cumulus Hotel at Aphrodite Prime. The event would display Factors’ alien sculpture pieces collected by the reclusive posthuman artist Marquis d’Homem-Christos who lived on the asteroid 163693 Atira and […]

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God forgive me for what I am about to do

Eclipse Phase: A Jovian Jovially Joins

Last time on Eclipse Phase: Clouds of a Morning Star… the Gamera Security hypercorp gang was involved in several events, namely Cable played by Kai having a freefall date with Gretchen Ambelina of Pax Familae down through the lethal atmosphere of Venus, and Darren’s AGI DANAI having to perform an impromptu psychosurgery on the other AGI Wandering Ina, played by Andrew. But I was absent because of Eid vacation and stuff. In-character, Hokusai was busy setting up a new online ID and creating an art community site called the Digital Easel to boost his F-Rep and attempt intelligence gathering there. (Or is he?) This week! We were met by Captain Christoph de Beers an envoy from the Jovian Republic with military background, played by Matthew. Christoph’s superior Ambassador Marie MacDonnoll will be attending the invitation-only Marquis d’Homem-Christos‘ art show, which will showcase the sculpture he acquired from the mysterious aliens […]

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He'll never get a leg up on things

Eclipse Phase: Moose Kipper

Last Sunday, the Eclipse Phase group, playing the members of the Gamera Security hypercorp finished off our investigation of Cloud Nine aerostat on Venus. After their “patron” Kage Musha ordered all GamSec operatives off Cloud Nine so his personal force can take over what seems to be the hypercorp Yamaha-Pacifica‘s illegal weapon manufacturing facility there, Billy Cable Jr. and Hokusai Tarnungshaut pilot their airship back there to pick up DANAI and Wandering Ina, both in the Venusian glider body. DANAI-δ, DANAI’s delta fork in Cloud Nine’s mesh network, masked an airlock from the security systems so DANAI/Ina could jump off the aerostat and onto their airship. (Cable had rolled critical success for airship piloting and was expertly flying the ship, cloaked in Venusian clouds.) Suddenly, DANAI/Ina was/were interrupted by the inner airlock door opening. It hid by jumping off the airlock’s external platform and hanging on to its edge. It […]

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DANAI/Ina and Hokusai posing for a selfie while sneaking into Yamaha-Pacifica

Eclipse Phase: A Hidden Industry

GOKL‘s Eclipse Phase “Clouds of the Morning Star” story arc (gamemastered by Ivan) continues from the previous session. Wandering Ina (played by Andrew) and DANAI (played by Darren) – both in a single Venusian glider morph – continued their investigation of a massive ego theft ring that may have passed through the Cloud Nine aerostat – a floating city in the skies of Venus. Meanwhile, Cable and Hokusai (played by me) manned their newly purchased airship, hidden in the clouds out of sight from Cloud Nine. Since Kai was unable to make it, this session had three player characters, but with two of them inhabiting one body, which was a great concept in roleplaying. The Setup It was time Hokusai delivered more weapons and gear by sneaking onto Cloud Nine. DANAI/Ina had managed to hack into Cloud Nine’s aerostat administration network and gave themselves Security-level permissions in the system. Employing […]

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Eclipse Phase: Blimps and Back Seat Driving

The adventure continued on and around Venus… even as the atmosphere outside where we played appeared to resemble Venus in texture and colour. But we’re not talking about the Great Smothering Haze of 2013; we’re talking about last Sunday’s Eclipse Phase session. As Kage’s people began investigating the unregistered airlock from which the Spulturatorah Arcology ego bank thieves of had escaped from Gerlach station, Gamera Security returned to their office, leaving Wandering Kid in his battered arachnoid morph to help guard the airlock. Aggregators via Mesh links alerted them to a relevant news story that developed in the in Jupiter space: Diz, the infomorph inhabiting their old spacecraft the Fastball Special had hacked into Jovian traffic control to allow itself a clear path upwards from the ecliptic plane… toward interstellar space. The ship was unoccupied at the time, other than a hundred kilos of paper cranes. Cable informed this to […]

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Ivan prepares to shank his players

Eclipse Phase: Venereal Problems

The GOKL Eclipse Phase RPG campaign “Fastball Express” has started up again, and the uplift neo-octopus Hokusai Tarnungshaut is back in action, except he no longer has eight tentacles. Three game sessions were held so far and I managed to participate in two. So the story goes: some of the intrepid posthumans of the Fastball Express hypercorp was darkcasted to Parvati, an aerostat high above the surface of Venus. Hokusai had died some time earlier his octomorph blown up by a bomb, and the team retrieved his cortical stack and resleeved his ego in a worker pod morph. However, Hokusai remembered nothing else before waking up in an arachnoid sleeve at Parvati with Billy Cable Junior the neotenic, Danai and Dexter, their memories edited “for security reasons”. (That doesn’t sound suspicious at all, right? RIGHT?) Their Morningstar Corporation contact gave them a mission to discreetly investigate diseased biomorphs which had […]

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