Gaming Chronicles

Born Poppy Susan Fields in 1986, in Gravesend England, she had her name changed to Susan Fields before attending Oxford University where she studied languages and psychology. She immigrated to the US in 2013 and joined the FBI National Security Branch (NSB) as a field agent, her fluency in Arabic, Russian and Chinese being seen as a considerable benefit at that time. Though English, she generally uses an American accent, only returning to her original when annoyed or drunk. In 2015 she was involved in a field operation on-board the Russian freighter, the Ivan Makarin that directly exposed her to events of an extremely unusual nature. Delta Green got involved at the clean up stage of the operation (which was later classified as RED KATANA). Given her successful handling of the situation, and her willingness to cooperate  with Delta Green operatives, she was co-opted into the organisation later that year. In 2017 she was involved in operation SHALE OIL in Montana. In 2019 s...

Diary of Costian Raduva, Part 17 - The Isle of Arenway The day passed uneventfully on the Sellen Starling as we sailed down to the Isle of Arenway , a refuge of the Green Faith. Our captain noted that there were fewer trading ships here than usual, but the docks were heaving with people in either tattered well worn robes, or travel stained and battle hardened leathers and hides. It seemed that we had visited in the middle of a convocation of druids and rangers. The Isle of Arenway Disembarking, we were presented with two important options - either the Heron and Eel , or the Woodsman's Friend . Hoping for a meal of meat rather than fish, we headed to the latter where an ever-cooking stew of meat was on offer. Neither the inn keeper nor clientele knew much about the gathering of druids though. Druids were common here, but there were a lot more here than would normally be the case. As far as they knew, there was some important meeting going on, but the nature of tha...

The next stage of Worldgen is to flesh out the framework for generating settlements in a Traveller-like game setting. I'm starting with some simple options - low population settlements with relatively simple economic structures. Broadly, these are classed as Hermits - colonists who have sought out a quiet place where they can be alone, or at least left alone by the rest of civilisation. They generally have small space ports, and are relatively self sufficient. Commonly, they tend to be space hippies, libertarian anarchists or religious zealots. Sometimes their societies work out, sometimes they can fail spectacularly. Rock Hermits A Rock Hermit station, from Oolite Rock Hermits are small groups of people who want to cut themselves off from the rest of the galaxy. To do this, they find a small asteroid in an uninhabited star system, and build their homes into it. Populations tend to run from dozens to hundreds or at most thousands. Such large Rock Hermit settlements...

//AZURE PENNANT// Authored By: Special Agent Susan Fields Our next place of call is Willi's Meeting House, a two story road house bar which the various biker gangs use as a watering hole and a place to let off steam. Apart from a beautifully painted Harley mounted on the wall above the bar, the place is a dive, with broken furniture piled up against one wall, and a distinctive chemical smell that probably comes from the drug paraphernalia which the owners have not bothered to hide. The man behind the counter is mostly useless, but the two women (named after either programming languages or gemstones - the former doesn't seem in keeping with the nature of the town) are more forward with information. Mr Oberman did get into a big fight with the Warlocks after the Mad Dogz were ambushed by them when they pulled into the parking lot. The fight moved indoors, and during it Oberman's head was smashed against the pool table. Prior to the fight, he appeared to be acti...

The Expanse Season 3: Fight or Flight We were halfway through watching season 2 of the X-Files when season 3 of  The Expanse  was finally released, so it's taken us a few weeks to get to the point where we can finally start watching this. This is not a review, and there's not really much in the way of spoilers, I just wanted to say something after so long (over on G+) of complaining that it hadn't reached UK digital shores yet. I must admit though that the delay meant that I'd forgotten most of what had happened (and have definitely forgotten the ordering and exact events of the books), especially aboard the Rocinante , so I wasn't ready to start caring about that crew again until the very end of the episode, when things started to pick up. What I did what to see more of though were Bobbie and Avasarala, and everything else was pretty much a distraction from that. The thing that disappointed the most though was the Razorback - compared to how I imagined i...

Diary of Costian Raduva, Part 16 - The Tricorn Hat As we sailed down the Sellen River aboard the Sellen Starling , we pass by the town of Bellis on the border of Andoran, the birthplace of freedom. Captain Skywin Frelling Our next acquisition is the Tricorn Hat of a captain, specifically Captain Vadrak of the Bloodwind , an unholy pirate vessel with red sails which we had the misfortune to have seen once before shortly after we left Thrushmoor. Since we had concerns about this acquisition, we thought it prudent to try and contact our ally in the Dreamlands named Ash, by activating the clockwork eye which he had provided to us after we first met. Doing this allowed us to summon him, for just long enough for him to be able to provide us with some information on what we were up against. The captain's ship, the Bloodwind  is said to be alive, with a mind and purpose of its own. The captain himself is said to have a reputation of leading many crews to their deaths, tho...

Fighting Serpents within the Serpent Tabansi's Journal, Part 54 After being driven out (on the holy wings of a  Word of Recall ) of the serpent folk citadel (built to look like a huge 100ft tall coiled serpent) at the centre of the subterranean city of Ilmurea, we planned a return in order to continue our search for the Pathfinder Eando Kline. Ek'Tura scouted ahead using his spells and declared that the entrance we used previously was still safe. By making use of Wind Walk provided by Derek the rest of us followed on and alighted as misty clouds of fog amongst the rubble around the hole in the side of the serpent. At this point I spotted movement amongst the rubble, and Ek'Tura was able to pinpoint an invisible serpent creature with a human head hiding there (which we were later to identify as a Naga). As the rest of us tried to revert back to physical form more serpentine creatures appeared from up and down the passage, and began casting offensive spells a...