Hi guys,
Shipping to distributors right now, and just a week behind the main rulebook, is the first supplement for the Babylon 5 RPG - The Fiery Trial, a complete story arc written by Bruce Graw.
Now, a story arc is a little bit different to a scenario or campaign. The Babylon 5 TV show tended to work on multiple levels with several themes and plotline running simultaneously. What we are doing with The Fiery Trial is providing GMs with the chance to create a campaign along the same lines, with multiple story arcs all running at the same time, building into a game with a multitude of goals, characters, enemies and disasters. Put three or four story arcs together, and you have a complete campaign, ready to go with innumerable sideplots. The main rulebook effectively gives you one story arc with its coverage of the first season, and The Fiery Trial gives you another - add a dose of your own scenarios and you already have a campaign worthy of Babylon 5 (I guarantee your players will never forget it).
Being a set of linked scenarios that your players may actually go through, I won't give too much away about the actual nature of the story arc in The Fiery Trial, but I will give something of a sense of it, and the various bits and pieces it adds to the main rulebook.
The Fiery Trial kicks off with a look at how story arcs should be run and melded together, as well as guidelines on how to bring disparate characters together. After all, if you have a serving EarthForce Officer, a Narn Agent and a Centauri Diplomat all in the same party, how _do_ you sensibly get them all working together?
The first part of the story arc (And So It Begins) starts quietly enough on Babylon 5, with the players compelled (either by money, orders, circumstances or their government) to sign up with a likeable chap called Roland Anderson to locate some missing scientists. Naturally, Mr Anderson is not who he appears (this is Babylon 5, after all), but the players will find that out in their own good time. The Nova Nine, a new location on Babylon 5, is the meeting place for the players, and serves as a backdrop throughout the entire story arc. The search for the scientists brings the players into some conflict with the Drazi (verbal only, unless the players do something stupid) and a new race among the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Llort. The latter are fully detailed in The Fiery Trial, giving GMs, and perhaps players who fancy a change, a new race to use.
This part of the story, actually, is immortalised in the Halls of Mongoose article in our magazine, Signs & Portents - you can see precisely how we stuffed things up in the office campaign, well and truly!
The second part of the story, Raid on Ranasha finds Mr Anderson approaching the players a month and a half later with a new job. During this intervening time, the players will have been engaged in other activities, and possibly whole new story arcs. The Fiery Trial, set during the Earth Year 2258, provides GMs with directions on how to integrate events on the Babylon 5 station with those of this story arc - so don't be surprised if your players get caught up in Infection or Parliament of Dreams before Mr Anderson appears once more. It is another trip off station for the players, as they try to hunt down an important researcher who is being held in a Drazi detention centre. Players should be warned that it is rarely a good idea to go in with all guns blazing in any Babylon 5 game, and this one is no exception!
The Hermes Transport and Raider Brigantine are new ships introduced in this part of the story, which may give you an idea of where things are headed
The players will find themselves travelling with a Captain Torgrimson, whose true mission will become all too apparent to the players, especially those who are serving with EarthForce. . . A quick stop is made at Freedom Base, a neutral station that is _very_ different to Babylon 5, and yet is detailed enough to make for an alternative base of operations if things ever get too hot on board the pride of the Earth Alliance.
To Kill a Thief is the third part of The Fiery Trial, which has the players hunting for a lost alien artefact some four months later. During this time the players may have become involved in bomb plots in Survivors, the Mutai in TKO and, reason enough for playing a Dock Worker in this game, they might well be taking an active part in By Any Means Necessary. . . I won't say too much more about this part of the story arc other than the floorplans of a Bulk Freighter are detailed, and there is a rather strange showdown towards the end.
The last part, Spy in Our Midst is my favourite. In true B5 style, we wrote this one first. In fact, we wrote the ending of this one first, and let the rest of the story arc build up to that. We are talking massive climax
This part occurs right at the end of 2258 and, in fact, forms a bridge between the years 2258 and 2259, leading your players right into the events of Coming of Shadows (due out next month, funnily enough. . .). Again, not going to give too much away, but for those of you who know your Chrysalis episode, the players will be going to a certain Narn colony after a certain power has devastated it, in order to locate something that the certain power missed when it attacked. As the players will soon discover, that certain power realises it has missed something so it has sent, well, a ship to recover it. Can you guess what the players are going to come face to face with?
The story arc wraps up with a wide selection of handouts modelled on the Universe Today newspaper, which can be downloaded from http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/babylon5/ (we guessed no one would want to tear up or bend back their copy of Fiery Trial. . .).
The Fiery Trial is a 128 page full colour story arc priced at $24.95, and should start popping up in your stores pretty much a week after the main rulebook does.
Shipping to distributors right now, and just a week behind the main rulebook, is the first supplement for the Babylon 5 RPG - The Fiery Trial, a complete story arc written by Bruce Graw.
Now, a story arc is a little bit different to a scenario or campaign. The Babylon 5 TV show tended to work on multiple levels with several themes and plotline running simultaneously. What we are doing with The Fiery Trial is providing GMs with the chance to create a campaign along the same lines, with multiple story arcs all running at the same time, building into a game with a multitude of goals, characters, enemies and disasters. Put three or four story arcs together, and you have a complete campaign, ready to go with innumerable sideplots. The main rulebook effectively gives you one story arc with its coverage of the first season, and The Fiery Trial gives you another - add a dose of your own scenarios and you already have a campaign worthy of Babylon 5 (I guarantee your players will never forget it).
Being a set of linked scenarios that your players may actually go through, I won't give too much away about the actual nature of the story arc in The Fiery Trial, but I will give something of a sense of it, and the various bits and pieces it adds to the main rulebook.
The Fiery Trial kicks off with a look at how story arcs should be run and melded together, as well as guidelines on how to bring disparate characters together. After all, if you have a serving EarthForce Officer, a Narn Agent and a Centauri Diplomat all in the same party, how _do_ you sensibly get them all working together?
The first part of the story arc (And So It Begins) starts quietly enough on Babylon 5, with the players compelled (either by money, orders, circumstances or their government) to sign up with a likeable chap called Roland Anderson to locate some missing scientists. Naturally, Mr Anderson is not who he appears (this is Babylon 5, after all), but the players will find that out in their own good time. The Nova Nine, a new location on Babylon 5, is the meeting place for the players, and serves as a backdrop throughout the entire story arc. The search for the scientists brings the players into some conflict with the Drazi (verbal only, unless the players do something stupid) and a new race among the League of Non-Aligned Worlds, the Llort. The latter are fully detailed in The Fiery Trial, giving GMs, and perhaps players who fancy a change, a new race to use.
This part of the story, actually, is immortalised in the Halls of Mongoose article in our magazine, Signs & Portents - you can see precisely how we stuffed things up in the office campaign, well and truly!
The second part of the story, Raid on Ranasha finds Mr Anderson approaching the players a month and a half later with a new job. During this intervening time, the players will have been engaged in other activities, and possibly whole new story arcs. The Fiery Trial, set during the Earth Year 2258, provides GMs with directions on how to integrate events on the Babylon 5 station with those of this story arc - so don't be surprised if your players get caught up in Infection or Parliament of Dreams before Mr Anderson appears once more. It is another trip off station for the players, as they try to hunt down an important researcher who is being held in a Drazi detention centre. Players should be warned that it is rarely a good idea to go in with all guns blazing in any Babylon 5 game, and this one is no exception!
The Hermes Transport and Raider Brigantine are new ships introduced in this part of the story, which may give you an idea of where things are headed
The players will find themselves travelling with a Captain Torgrimson, whose true mission will become all too apparent to the players, especially those who are serving with EarthForce. . . A quick stop is made at Freedom Base, a neutral station that is _very_ different to Babylon 5, and yet is detailed enough to make for an alternative base of operations if things ever get too hot on board the pride of the Earth Alliance.To Kill a Thief is the third part of The Fiery Trial, which has the players hunting for a lost alien artefact some four months later. During this time the players may have become involved in bomb plots in Survivors, the Mutai in TKO and, reason enough for playing a Dock Worker in this game, they might well be taking an active part in By Any Means Necessary. . . I won't say too much more about this part of the story arc other than the floorplans of a Bulk Freighter are detailed, and there is a rather strange showdown towards the end.
The last part, Spy in Our Midst is my favourite. In true B5 style, we wrote this one first. In fact, we wrote the ending of this one first, and let the rest of the story arc build up to that. We are talking massive climax
This part occurs right at the end of 2258 and, in fact, forms a bridge between the years 2258 and 2259, leading your players right into the events of Coming of Shadows (due out next month, funnily enough. . .). Again, not going to give too much away, but for those of you who know your Chrysalis episode, the players will be going to a certain Narn colony after a certain power has devastated it, in order to locate something that the certain power missed when it attacked. As the players will soon discover, that certain power realises it has missed something so it has sent, well, a ship to recover it. Can you guess what the players are going to come face to face with?
The story arc wraps up with a wide selection of handouts modelled on the Universe Today newspaper, which can be downloaded from http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/babylon5/ (we guessed no one would want to tear up or bend back their copy of Fiery Trial. . .).
The Fiery Trial is a 128 page full colour story arc priced at $24.95, and should start popping up in your stores pretty much a week after the main rulebook does.
