THE INFINITE BROOD (Starcraft/Supreme Commander Crossover Quest!)

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THE SWARM SHEET
  • Informational
    • The Brood of Blades
    ​
    Cerebrate Prime: Samantha Clarke
    LEVEL: 5
    XP: 205/210
    TRAITS
    Strategic Genius: Once per structured encounter, Sam can create a piece of the environment that is in her favor as a sticky spark. Roll a d3 for its value.
    Empathetic: upon meeting an NPC, learn their motivation!
    Legendary Commander: Gain 4 Command sparks at the beginning of each mission/combat. Command sparks may be spent to give NPCs orders, which they may either obey or refuse to obey (doing nothing instead.) Command sparks may not be regained via skills or powers.
    Hunted: Something wants her - but for what? +1 Danger to all scenes​
    SKILLS
    CLOSE COMBAT (2): Brawling, Edged Weapons
    PERSONAL (2): Awareness, Resilience
    SOCIAL (4): Charm, Empathy, Leadership, Taunt​
    MASTERY
    ACU Pilot (2): Nanofabrication [Mass], ObSat Operations [Range]
    The Hilt (4): Biomorphic Spawning (People), Regeneration (Durability), Physical Perfection (Speed), Telepathic Dominion (Range)​

    POWERS
    The Living Swarm
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Gain 1 Living Swarm spark, +1 per vent reduction.​
    The Living Swarm: While this swarm exists, move in three dimensions and through anything smaller than a keyhole, reforming at will. You may expend these sparks to cause 3 Hit Sparks in a Area 2 radius.​
    Area Upgrade: +1 to Area Characteristic​

    Biomorphic Reinforcement
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create 1 Biomorphic Reinforcement spark, +1 per vent reduction, which can be given out to anyone within Range 2, or to yourself
    Biomorphic Reinforcement: +1 to Damage or Mass characteristic for the purpose of raw physical strength/feats.

    Back to Back
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Choose 1 ally (+1 per vent reduction), within Range 1. Each can take one action using one of your skills, any of them that you wish. Once they have done so, you may make a free attack with your melee weapon, getting +1 to your skill per ally that acted.​

    Adaptation
    Vent: 4-0
    Effect: Create a number of sparks equal to the enemy's difficulty, narratively based on turning their abilities against them. Works on enemies of Diff 2>, +2 per vent reduction.​

    Just as Planned…
    Vent: 6-0
    Effect: Vent 6 heat and create 1 Planning Spark for her or an ally, +1 Spark per vent reduction.​
    Planning: The person holding this Spark can expend this to get +1 to a skill check as a free action. Using this Stack counts as you are helping for the purpose of relationships.​

    GEAR
    Zeratul's Psi-Blades
    Adds: +0 (Edged Weapons) | Characteristics: Damage [Speed] (4)[1]​
    Shadowstep (3): Can expend as a free action to move without crossing intervening space.
    Guarded Space (3): Can expend to use Damage as a secondary characteristic for Durability, reducing incoming Damage characteristics.​

    GALACTIC WAR
    Victory Points: 5    ​
    RESOURCES​
    TERRAN DOMINION [Background] (1)​
    The men and material of the Dominion - limited, but they're mustering as we speak. ​
    ALLIANCE EXPEDITIONARY FORCES [Mastery] (1)​
    While you have access to several ACUs of every faction, they lack economic and technological support to be fully effective. ​
    ZERG HIVE [Mastery] (1)​
    The scant few Zerg you control that are free of Amon's influence. Mostly Zerglings. ​
    AEON FLEET [Background] (1)​
    While half a dozen CZARs seem impressive, they're not actually well made for ship to ship combat. ​
    ALLIED COHESION [Motivation] (1)​
    The alliance is fragile and weak.​

    FRONTS​
    Trade Sector-34-51 [Pirate Activity]
    Pirates Raiding 6 (Supply Lines in Disarray 1)
    COMMAND: Jim Raynor | ARMY: Raynor's Raiders
    RESULTS: Pending

    Braxis [Zerg Invasion]
    Borealis Siege 6 (Zerg Rampage1)
    COMMAND: General Samantha Clarke | ARMY: Brood Clarke
    RESULTS: Pending

    Typhan II [Active Xel'Naga ACU]
    Typhan II Occupied 6 (Xel'Naga ACU Spotted 1)
    COMMAND: Lt. Colonel Mathew Horner | ARMY: UEF Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending

    Deep Space Sector 981 [Hive Fleet Identified]
    Zerg Hive Fleet Spotted 6 (Kerrigan? 1)
    COMMAND: Citizen-Commander Dostya | ARMY: CN Armored Command Unit
    RESULTS: Pending
    ​
    ENEMY ASSETS (Currently Known)
    ​
    THE GOLDEN ARMADA
    ACTIVITY: Unknown | Threat Level: 6​
     
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  • Informational
    • [X] Operation Groundwork: Tap your Initial Economy Sticky Sparks to get +3 to building. Then build Economic structures for 4 heat, and then use your nanofabricate skill at a diff 1+1 to create "Acquiring More Resources" (3) and then take another action at diff 1+2 to nest "Building Outposts" (3) in there for 1 heat. Vent heat and let the sparks decay into Sticky Sparks "Economic Outposts" (3), then see what the zerg do.
     
    Adhoc vote count started by DragonCobolt on Oct 21, 2023 at 10:42 PM, finished with 16 posts and 5 votes.
    • [X] Operation Groundwork: Tap your Initial Economy Sticky Sparks to get +3 to building. Then build Economic structures for 4 heat, and then use your nanofabricate skill at a diff 1+1 to create "Acquiring More Resources" (3) and then take another action at diff 1+2 to nest "Building Outposts" (3) in there for 1 heat. Vent heat and let the sparks decay into Sticky Sparks "Economic Outposts" (3), then see what the zerg do.
      [X] Operation Blitz the Secondaries: Tap your Initial Economy Sticky Sparks to get +3 to building, giving you an effective purcahsing skill of 5. Construct a Land Factory for 2 Heat! Then attempt to rescue the humans (triggers a Danger 5 battle.)
    Click to expand...


    Groundwork, groundwork!

    So, sticky sparks are created via decaying normal sparks, as you know! And, like, in narrative play, there's no reason you can't just let them decay all at once - it just means that the world trawls forward without you acting! What's fun is, since sticky sparks are how you get cheaper "buying" gear, this covers crafting times (the time taken getting sticky sparks representing you doing crafting on gear) and building times and doing odd jobs and side gigs.

    Since, like, you can ALSO get sparks by just finding them. At any time, I, the GM, can just go, "You found "Mineral Cache" (4)!" if I wanted too.

    Which means there's actually a reason to go adventuring, even if you could get the sparks with just skills: The time pressure!

    In a more D&D style game you can include pressures like needing food and water, thus, making it untenable to wait for sparks to decay into sticky sparks.

    ...it's neat!

    HEAT is neat!

    It works! It all just works!

    (Oh, also, fun fact: Since characteristics produce sticky sparks really easily, this means that masteries and gear purchasing flow together very nicely!)
     
    ACT ONE, MISSION THREE: The Great Grave Robbery (0.3)
  • Threadmarks
    • You decided to take a bit of a risk - one you'd only have made against a newbie Commander or...in this case...a feral alien species. You weren't sure how right your guess was, but since they had the numbers on their side, you were hoping to fix that. You started to march your ACU through the area, working on building not just additional mass extractors, but something else that this sector hadn't seen. It was hideously inefficient from an energy perspective, but you could create mass fabricators. The low, boxy structures were highly volatile and sucked down more juice than you wanted to think about - but they would, in masses, produce the same amount of materials as another few mineral fields.

    You worked in silence, your eyes flicking to the display repeatedly to make sure none of the hives made any major forays. Their units were mostly clustering around their hives. The term 'sitting still' wasn't nearly accurate - there was a constant flurry of motion around each of the hives. Still. No major pushes. You kept building.

    The mass fabricator/power plant grid you constructed in your main base fed up enough for you to throw down a connective trail of quickly fabricated maglev trains leading to a series of salvage areas. Mass extractors went up, and power stations to feed them. The gleaming wirework of connective power transfer stations threaded afterwards. It was almost relaxing - like building an intricate puzzle. This kind of construction was done on worlds across the UEF - and presumably in Cybran and Aeon space as well. The only problem was how often it ended up smoldering craters as the Infinite War writhed back and forth across interstellar borders. You'd have enjoyed doing it far more if you hadn't been performing it under the shadow of the Zerg.

    You finished your last stream of fabrication and stepped back. You now had a pretty damn hefty array of-

    "Movement, general."

    "Dominion or Zerg?"

    "Both," Stukov said.

    Your orbital view snapped into a telescopic view from orbit. There was the station that you had thought about boarding. The battlecruisers were coming towards it, their engines barely visible flares behind their hammerhead frames. Their tac-fighters were out, the triwinged vehicles swooping towards the Zerg...and you could see why: A large contingent of the zerg were flying away from the station and shooting towards the Terran Dominion fleet. Laser blasts started to hammer into the onrushing Zerg - and you could see almost immediately there was no tactical guidance here, no real...thought. They came in a disorganized mass, more often than not getting in eachother's way rather. The Terran fighters were cleaning them up.

    But the cruisers weren't rushing forward to take advantage of this cleared out airspace...

    "We're picking up energy build up on each of the cruisers," Stukov said, quietly. "It's getting bigger."

    Pinpricks of white light glittered on the center of the hammerheads. it grew brighter and more orange, flaring out into a series of beams, one per cruiser. They slammed into the orbital with the force of a particularly pissed off god. Molten metal and charred biomatter splattered into space, gore-like, and the entire structure rocked in space. You hissed as the cruisers all turned their afts around, their engines flaring. They were decelerating, that was sure.

    "Uh, doing some calculations..." Stukov said.

    "It's going to hit the planet," Dr. Hanson cut in. "I think they...they aimed it at your energy signature."

    "Do you think they think we're Zerg?" you muttered.

    "Possibly," Dr. Hanson said.

    Everyone was silent. You could practically see Stukov looking at her.

    "The Zerg utilize quantum teleportation technology - their bioforms known as levithans are capable of it," Dr. Hanson said, sounding urgent. "An unrecognized quantum teleportation on a planet covered with Zerg, when they're not aware we're even here? They might think that the Zerg are trying to breed a levithan and are going to put an end to it." She paused. "I-It's just a theory."

    "We could always contact them and disabuse them of the notion," Matt added, his voice slightly sarcastic.

    "How long do we got?" you asked.

    "Approximately four hour and a half hours," Stukov said. "Things start slow in space. Then they get faster and faster."

    "Understood," you said as a red painted dot on the minimap popped up.

    It'd land...not on your base. But...alarmingly close.

    You pursed your lips slightly.

    At least the zerg didn't seem to be aware of anything. They were going about their days, happy as little...ugly...biomorphic horrors in their fucking beds. Dinosaur like.

    ---
    STICKY SPARKS
    Economic Outposts (3)

    BASE
    Economic Structures (Work[Waste]: None | Sparks: None | Adds: +3 (Nanofabrication)

    SPARKS
    See Below

    Ruh oh! So, a Battlecruiser has a Damage characteristic of 5 for their Yamato Cannon - not quuuuuuite as strong as a nuke. But close! So, everyone without durability stats has Damage 6 (Damage 6 (Damage 6 (Damage 6 (Damage 6 (Yamato Cannon 1)))))) Hit Sparks sitting on their heads now. Well, they would if you tracked that kind of thing for NPCs (you don't.)

    You, fortunately, are in an ACU, which has Durability 3! This means you are merely facing a Damage 6 (Damage 6 (Damage 6 (Yamato Cannon 1))) hit spark.

    The way this works is your minimum heat is now 4/6 (youch!) and if you let the damage sparks fully decay, you'll take 17 heat all at once, putting you at 21/6 heat. Which is what happens when an orbital structure drops on your head and you get atomized. Fortunately, the spark will only decay by one, eh, 15 minutes of in game time. Which, wouldn't you know it! Is about 4 and a half hours, give or take!

    So, what do you do?

    [ ] Operation: The Big Boys (Time to show the Dominion who they're messing with. Take a Nanofabricate action to create force field projectors to negate their incoming hit. Your TV is 5 (2+3 from econ) and your mass characteristic provides you with 6(6) heroic effort, allowing you to obliterate their sparks down to 1 Damage (Yamato Cannon 1) for 0 heat, then dust off the last of it with 2 heat.) Then vent 6 heat with Just as Planned, giving yourself a total of 3 Just as Planned sparks.
    [ ] Operation: Let Them Be Misled (You want to keep the Dominion in the dark. Contact teh human secondary objectives without dealing with the Hit Spark using your OrbSat miracle. Normally, you can't just talk to someone so far away, but the 2 Range characteristic on your OrbSat means you can contact them. This is a free action - no heat.)
    [ ] Write In
     
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  • Threadmarks
    • [X] Operation: The Big Boys (Time to show the Dominion who they're messing with. Take a Nanofabricate action to create force field projectors to negate their incoming hit. Your TV is 5 (2+3 from econ) and your mass characteristic provides you with 6(6) heroic effort, allowing you to obliterate their sparks down to 1 Damage (Yamato Cannon 1) for 0 heat, then dust off the last of it with 2 heat.) Then vent 6 heat with Just as Planned, giving yourself a total of 3 Just as Planned sparks.
     
    So--I have no idea how to work this system. What would it take to make--say--two T1 air transports, plus accommodations for human passengers, and twelve Mech Marines to go with it?
     
    [X] Operation: The Big Boys (Time to show the Dominion who they're messing with. Take a Nanofabricate action to create force field projectors to negate their incoming hit. Your TV is 5 (2+3 from econ) and your mass characteristic provides you with 6(6) heroic effort, allowing you to obliterate their sparks down to 1 Damage (Yamato Cannon 1) for 0 heat, then dust off the last of it with 2 heat.) Then vent 6 heat with Just as Planned, giving yourself a total of 3 Just as Planned sparks.
     
    [X] Operation: The Big Boys (Time to show the Dominion who they're messing with. Take a Nanofabricate action to create force field projectors to negate their incoming hit. Your TV is 5 (2+3 from econ) and your mass characteristic provides you with 6(6) heroic effort, allowing you to obliterate their sparks down to 1 Damage (Yamato Cannon 1) for 0 heat, then dust off the last of it with 2 heat.) Then vent 6 heat with Just as Planned, giving yourself a total of 3 Just as Planned sparks.
     
    DecaffeinatedOwl said:
    So--I have no idea how to work this system. What would it take to make--say--two T1 air transports, plus accommodations for human passengers, and twelve Mech Marines to go with it?
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    That would be using your nanofabricate skill - representing you fabricating up the units and sending them off! The difficulty would be based on how many people there were and how far off they were, as well as general environmental penalties. It'd be made easier if you had gear representing a base set up to manufacture the units required!
     
    DragonCobolt said:
    That would be using your nanofabricate skill - representing you fabricating up the units and sending them off! The difficulty would be based on how many people there were and how far off they were, as well as general environmental penalties. It'd be made easier if you had gear representing a base set up to manufacture the units required!
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...
    So, in the last mission where we had the gear, it was 1 level 2 check to make 1 squad to t1 units, then it'd be another 2 checks for the transports? With some mods based on resources?
     
    Mailstrome said:
    So, in the last mission where we had the gear, it was 1 level 2 check to make 1 squad to t1 units, then it'd be another 2 checks for the transports? With some mods based on resources?
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    Something like that! The system is still being finetuned and I am very stupid, so the last mission, I simplified things into just straight skill checks based on what seemed right, but me and my editor have really nailed down exactly how characteristics work, so it'll be a lot more consistent now!

    Basically, characteristics start at 0 (human scale), and for each step above or below, they all work the same: They add 6 sparks!

    Is it good? They're 6 useful sparks. Is it bad? 6 nasty, unhelpful sparks.

    When they're compared, the sparks negate one another!

    So, for example, take a Gun!

    Gun is damage 1! A human is durability 0. So, you attacking someone normally makes the "Attack 1" Spark. But since you have damage 1 from the gun, it's now Damage 6 (Attack 1). But if they had a bulletproof vest (Durability 1), then they're automatically creating Durability 6, which eats up the Damage 6, leaving just Attack 1.

    (Which, by the way, would still take the bad guy out if he was Difficulty 1.)

    But since the spark's no longer nested, that "taking out" is no longer permanent. It's "he got shot in the chest and the bulletproof vest turned that from a sucking chest wound and into a 'laying on the floor groaning in pain.'

    So, to use @DecaffeinatedOwl's question as an example! Say you wanted to evacuate a small town's worth of people who are a few kilometers away. That's People (3) and Range (2.) The difficulty would probably be...5 or 6 due to the amount of Zerg in the area, which would be an insanely hard skill check since you'd need 18 and 12 heat JUST to cover the People and Range...but that would represent you just going and walking the people home outside of your ACU!

    If you had a factory that produced a platoon's worth of air transport (People (2), that'd help...if you had a way to direct the evacuation at range (say, with your orbsat miracle's range of 2), that'd help!

    If you make sparks representing having air cover to bump the difficulty down?

    It all gets possible!
     
    [X] Operation: Let Them Be Misled (You want to keep the Dominion in the dark. Contact teh human secondary objectives without dealing with the Hit Spark using your OrbSat miracle. Normally, you can't just talk to someone so far away, but the 2 Range characteristic on your OrbSat means you can contact them. This is a free action - no heat.)
     
    Mechasaurian said:
    Uh, at the risk of sounding judgemental, how much did you know about the Starcraft setting going in?
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    Well, I beat Starcraft 1, Brood War, then Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty, then Heart of the Swarm, then Legacy of the Void, then I did the epilogue content, then i started the quest

    also, in high school, I read the Michael Liberty book and the weird mid-quel The Shadows of the Xel'Naga

    EDIT: The wiki gave me a momentary brain aneurism because it referred to him as "Danny" Liberty, and I was like, I was SURE he was Michael, then I searched further, and his name is Michael Danny Liberty, what a dumb name...
     
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    So, in a Supcom game version of this scenario I'd recommend setting up shields and also low-level turrets to deal with the immediately rampaging zerg that will come about in the wake of the crash. As it's gonna set off the ferals something fierce. If we were Cybran I'd be advising T2 PD because the name of the game is mass hitting for the swarm. Rapidfire. Unfortunately, the UEF T2 PD is more of a cannon lobber so mass T1 towers is better. Don't think we'd have the Ravager T3 PD.

    Then I'd see about getting convoys going for getting defense groups out to the human occupied areas around to keep them safe against stirred Zerg. If this was a mission I'd send engineers to make some defense towers, (shields when econ generous enough) T1 mechmarines and T2 anti-air land forces as initial defense forces to prevent loss to Zerg swarming.

    Afterwards it's about securing goals, sending out engineers to capture cleared technology holding buildings and locate potential Adjutant sites, pushing to clear out areas with mechmarine swarms and prepping T2 heavy assault groups to go take out hives.

    With some air forces on the backburner being made in prep for the Terrans to invade, some stuff to fend off their ships.
     
    Neither of these plans use the two Just as Planned sparks we generated last turn and that can be basically used instead of heat (if the rules remain the same as last time). If we don't use them then they are lost.

    Using them would mean we might be able to set up e.g. forcefield and ground defences instead of only the forcefield.

    I don't have the energy to make an alternative plan right now. At a minimum, we should use the sparks if we can just so we can vent less and carry more just-as-planneds into the next turn.
     
    How large of a splash is that crashing orbital going to cause? Will the damage lead out all the way to where the Expedition crew suspect they might be human survivors? If so, I'm in favor of the option that involves reaching out to them.
     
    [X] Operation: Let Them Be Misled (You want to keep the Dominion in the dark. Contact teh human secondary objectives without dealing with the Hit Spark using your OrbSat miracle. Normally, you can't just talk to someone so far away, but the 2 Range characteristic on your OrbSat means you can contact them. This is a free action - no heat.)

    Going with this for now, until something else pops up.
     
    [X] Operation: Let Them Be Misled (You want to keep the Dominion in the dark. Contact teh human secondary objectives without dealing with the Hit Spark using your OrbSat miracle. Normally, you can't just talk to someone so far away, but the 2 Range characteristic on your OrbSat means you can contact them. This is a free action - no heat.)
     
    Draz said:
    Neither of these plans use the two Just as Planned sparks we generated last turn and that can be basically used instead of heat (if the rules remain the same as last time). If we don't use them then they are lost.
    Click to expand...
    Click to shrink...

    No, remember, sparks like that only decay if they are used or if the situation changes so much due to time passing (or NPC action) that they're removed.

    Spart117MC said:
    How large of a splash is that crashing orbital going to cause? Will the damage lead out all the way to where the Expedition crew suspect they might be human survivors? If so, I'm in favor of the option that involves reaching out to them.
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    it's hitting the whole Operational Area.
     
    DragonCobolt said:
    Yes, they're in the AO!
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    Then with that in mind, with them all being hit in part.. it depends on if there's a 'safe' area in the AO we can move ourself and any we evac to. My first instinct is to do the get in contact free option, then when we have a better understanding of who's at risk and who can tough it out in bunkers, begin making a transport fleet with some interceptors and gunships for taking out mutalisks and hydralisks respectively. And move civvies to the safe zone, getting some defenses up once we've got enough assured transport for identified human groups we can't just let sit tight.

    Losing the built up industry will hurt, but we can always make more industry.

    If there is no easy safe zone we gotta make our base one with the shields anyway, but contacting the locals first would be best.
     
    I think the best option for keeping civs alive would be to fabricate a massive weapon and blast the station apart before it hits. No way we can evacuate everyone in 4h when they don't know us and weren't expecting rescue, unless we spend a bunch of just-as-planned to invent them a dedicated leadership that have conveniently been prepping and drilling for a rescue for months.

    If they are ready for evac, then we could just set up a gate or fab them whatever craft they were expecting and off they go. Then we can just about possibly get out before the sky falls.
     
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