Reliquary Space (Sorcerer)

[gaptooth]

After our last session of Reliquary Space, we had a foreseeable but unexpected schedule shuffle due to end-of-term academic intensity and the holidays. So people didn't have to miss out, we decided to put our MSPE game on hold and play a Sorcerer scenario one of the players cooked up.

It's no secret that I love Sorcerer! I ran a 15-session game with Sorcerer earlier this year, and it was a sheer delight the way it all came together. And now, I'm playing Sorcerer for the first time with someone else in the GM seat—which is a rare occasion for me in any game.

Anyway, this Sorcerer break got me thinking about some of the Reliquary Space themes from another angle, and I'm keen to take a crack at it as a Sorcerer scenario!

(That's not to say I plan to ditch the MSPE adventure—far from it! A Sorcerer game in Reliquary Space would be a new situation, likely dealing with a whole different cast of characters.)

Why Sorcerer? Sorcerer is an intense role-playing game that asks the question, "How far will you go to get what you want?" It features the drama of human relationships in conflict as the central focus of play. Character creation produces a "Kicker" for each character: A volatile inciting incident that thrusts them into desperate action. And the GM uses these contents to expose Bangs that drive play forward: Bangs are revelations and twists that push the characters into hard choices, and apply pressure to their Humanity.

The fiction we already developed in Reliquary Space about androids and Dune-inspired identity drama are ripe for this kind of play focused on the drama of a person struggling for their Humanity.

So here is the game pitch I wrote for my players, for some time after our current slate of games taking us into the new year:

Reliquary Space (Sorcerer)
Psychic Space Opera in the Wreckage of a Dead Alien Galaxy

It’s the setting described here, told through the intense lens of Sorcerer.

Demons manifest as psionic powers and advanced AI. Psionics and robotics are two distinct types of Lore. Underneath, they represent the human heart's highest, most noble passions and moral goals: the ultimate Ends for which any Means may be justified.

“Humanity” exists in the free fellowship and harmony between humans, nature, and technology.

Humanity loss is triggered when you subordinate any creature to a higher moral purpose, like when you use them as a mere tool, or when you show indifference to their personal concerns.

Humanity gain is triggered when you celebrate and honor the personal character of some other-than-human creature, place, or thing, or when you suffer to preserve it.

I just wanted to share this here, since the conversations here helped shape my ideas about the setting. Thank you!

[gaptooth]

This might be moving forward. We made some characters today, and I threw out this as fuel for the Kickers:

Two noble houses race into a black hole at the center of the Sorol system to lay claim to a mysterious planet concealed within its event horizon. Could the priceless mineral there be worth sending those crews to their doom? Out from a black hole, surely no one can return?

House Asheide (a SHY day) sent a ship bearing the Viceroy's own son Bÿhruz, an inexperienced but powerful esper. House Kyrath sent their secret weapon, an epic dreadnought C-Class Boomer known only as "the Mark IV".

This isn't an adventure hook. In Sorcerer, players compose their own Kickers—explosive events or revelations that launch their characters into volatile motion regarding the central conflict. That conflict is determined by the Kickers, which the GM mixes together with his or her own creativity to create a context for surprises.

In Sorcerer & Sword (the pulp fantasy supplement we are using—because certain AIs would certainly be liches!) the GM provides a juicy locale and human context before the players write their Kickers. This is my stab at that. Unlike an adventure hook, the players will place their own characters in relationship with these elements by definition, so that every part of the scenario is intimately related to their own character dramas.