Tawnos

Tawnos is an online adventure written here at the wiki by the amazingly creative Ronald B. Kline, Jr..

• Non-canon: Adventure outline.

Description (Specifications)

Tawnos Colony H443514-7 (4) is a corporate mining colony among the Noble Holdings of the SGG Manubalista. There is a spaceport where ships can land and take on life support. The Duchy is currently held by a Duke from the Kingdom. There is a thin tainted atmosphere and 30% hydrosphere, with polar ice caps. The atmosphere is mostly nitrogen and methane. The atmospheric oxygen concentration is low at 10%.

History & Background (Dossier)

In recent developments within the Unofficial (world) system, the local overlord is dead. Local rebel heroes have killed him in his throne room. Now there is a power vacuum. Heroes are installed in royal apartments in the palace and placed under heavy guard for their own protection. They have three days until the next orbit of the gas giant is complete, which is when the coronation must take place to avoid civil war. Each hero must enlist the assistance of a covert agent to act on their behalf. These are members of the court and represent the surviving royal houses and the clans. They are cultured and all can paint, a highly prized skill, locally. They each have 3 vellum parchments, bushes, inks, paints, pens, inking stone, in a bone scroll case. The royal court consists of four agents.

• 1. Kinko a samurai of the jade serpent clan, who receives discounts for food at the inn, he occasionally gets comps.
• 2. Hiroshige a starving actor, who paints for at inn in the evening, and is from the pink flamingo clan
• 3. Hirotata a priest with prayer sticks and a totem, who lives off of donations, raises money by collecting alms, in exchange for prayer service, celebrating mass and holding ceremonies. He is from the white crane clan.
• 4. Yoshiyasu is armed with a spear. This Kensai/Bushi gets discounts for shopping or free designs to use. He is from the golden lion clan.

They busy themselves with crafts and painting. Subjects like the country side, orchards, parks and farmlands of terraced rice patties, or cliffs overlooking the icy oceans. These are popular gifts for the coming coronation. The village has several small shops for tapestries, and hand crafted gifts. These are used to impress wealthy clients. Tailors are willing to make ornate costumes for the impending coronation ball. Embroidered silk robes, regal fans, silk dancing slippers and elaborate hats and masks are popular with local merchants, nobles, bankers and other aristocrats.

In the outer wards of the town, there is a small mercenary outpost with warriors and a tavern. The sisters of mercy run a bath house. The waste reclamation and garbage pits swarm with beggars and homeless. Common citizens live in the squatter and miner's shacks not too far from the smuggler's camp where rogues and unscrupulous merchants frequent. The inner ward, closer to the port and the palace has the necropolis of colonial tombs, the port defense citadel, a cathedral, casino and race track, a squalid flop house, a fancy hostel, and an training academy and data archive library. The royal garrison is adjacent to the palace, to secure the apartments used by the members of the royal court. The royal court has access to members of the four major banking corporations, who underwrite the mining operations.

Due to the success of the colonies agricultural domes, the inn and the local restaurant's look to host parties and serve meals. The typical menu includes:

• 1. rice, cheese and nuts, tofu, beans with cold water
• 2. porridge, grits, biscuit, salad with beer
• 3. quail eggs and bacon, lamb w/mint and greens, mussels and soup, rabbit and apples with good wine
• 4. snails with garlic and butter, fish eggs, truffles, goose liver w/ saltine crackers and fine wine

Other Data

Episode 1 9.21.19 Three Confederate Special Forces Operatives have been cashiered. The would-be Baron and his team have been granted the use of a 20 dton skiff on loan from a Mr. Johnson. They were paid and supplied by a supply clerk and quarter master. They made their way to the main concourse of the Uruki Down port on Home, and Joel Bentley hacked a public terminal and gained access to files on the local situation. They noticed a fight breaking out in the starport bar between a pair of drunken Razor Angel gang members armed with empty beer bottles, and some terrified locals. They showed great restraint and beat them senseless without the use of their new arsenal. They were indelicately taken into custody by the local starport security and processed. They remained calm and eventually a representative from the agency informed them that he would be getting them out of there and to the ship. After he left to do paperwork, the starport on home, was suddenly attacked by terrorists of unknown origin and intent. A young female police officer came to get them, amid chaos and confusion to lead them out of the detention block. They insisted on returning to the evidence lockers to recover their new gear and weapons. They found a wounded policeman shot at the evidence check-in, and rendered first aid. Corporal Ernest Hemingway was grateful and left with them, carrying his own IV bag.

Along the strangely deserted concourses, with flickering emergency lighting, a bombed out rocket ship was observed on an adjacent launch pad. Sporadic gunfight from the vicinity of the emergency response vehicles warned of trouble. Two dead bodies in their refueling truck, showed signs of an active sniper. Motivated, they freed the fuel umbilicals, sealed the empty cargo bay and prepared to blast off. Rocketing skyard from the gravity well, their installed counter measures panel on the bridge immediately began to alarm. Once they figured out what that meant, they realized that multiple surface to air, target acquisition RADARs were locking onto them in search of firing solutions. They deployed their single canister of chaff/window and thwarted most of the RADARs. The scout station, with its massive rail gun still held them on approach as well as a one ground based set. A single IR homing missile rose to destroy them. They were able to decoy it using their solitary IR flare. Only an ice canister and an ECM pod remain in inventory. The journey to the orbital scout space station consumed their single ton of reaction mass. They docked, refueled and admitted Ernest to the medical bay. Bob Herm the engineer, repaired the fuel cells to restore full power. They interviewed a young female pilot, and ended up selecting a wealthy military officer named Jesse Lipson as a patron/passenger. He needs someone to transport him to his land grant ranch and he needs help finding his missing family and setting up the farm. A single ton of farming equipment was stowed. An additional ton of life support and a paid pallet of cargo headed for Tawnos were loaded.

On the way to Tawnos the crew detected a weak distress signal from a dispersed structure, 100dton junk with a silver nymph figurehead icon, originally out of Port Mill Field in the Shoals. It had been struck by a chuck of ice while attempting to transit the Black Sand Ring of the SGG Manubalista within the Middle System. The hull had been breached and they were losing life support. The crew of two and their single passenger were waiting for the end in their space suits. Bob Herm and Galorian Dale survived a close call during EVA and the space walk. Once the magnetic boots were attached they could weld and patch the hull. They transferred life support over to the Big Ranger, under the command of Captain Sharon "Fat Empress" Price, a limp, one-legged,cyborg, carrying a grateful Sir Dori Bronzequarry who promises to repay his life debt, and the elderly first mate, James "Happy Dog" Price. The rescued merchants hope to be of service to the incipient Baron in the future. By the end of the 1st episode the ship finally achieved orbit over Tawnos with a spectacular view of the mining facility below.

Ship and Crew

Baron Galorian Dale, GRU A9C7AC HP 31(24 currently wounded) Age 32 E3 rank Skills/Benefits: +2 Soc, +3 Int, Leader-2, Boarding Axe-3, Vac Suit-1, Revolver-2, Medical-1

Equipment: +1 GRU Max 13mm 5 shot Magnum Revolver with 35 AP rounds, ammo belt with 7 speed loaders, tie down hip holster, boarding axe, mesh armor, uniform, boots, wallet with an ID, Pan Galactic Trust bank card w/current credit balance unknown, LBE web gear and a back pack with a medical kit which has 9 uses remaining of drugs and bandages, vacuum suit with 8 Hour life support capacity and magnetic boots. He has a Royal Colonial Charter with a mandate to establish a Barony of 100 square km with a minimum of 100 colonists.

Bob Herm, GRU Cyborg BAB897 HP 32(29 currently wounded) Age 35 E4 rank Skills/Benefits: +6 Str, +3 Int, Bayonet-1, LMG-4, Vac Suit-1, Medical-1, Engineering-1

Equipment: GRU triple barreled, hyper velocity, electric action 8mm LMG, belt fed from ammo back pack with 20 shots/reload, with a stainless steel bayonet attached, vac suit with 8 Hour life support capacity and magnetic boots, fully loaded medical kit, uniform, boots, a wallet with an ID card, Pan Galactic Trust Bank Card with unknown credit balance. He was rebuild from mortal wounds and fitted with +6 STR cybernetic arms, lungs with 2 hours of reserve life support capacity, liver with toxin binders and healing factors and a heightened sensitivity left ear with radio ease dropping. All of the implants are of unknown advanced alien manufacture, which he has no memory of receiving. They are all discreetly sleeved under pseudo biological skin.

Joel Bentley, Kingdom 747B59 HP 18 Age 34 E4 rank Skills/Benefits: +1 End, Revolver-1, Computer-3, Robotics-3, Sword-1, Pilot-4, Rifle-2, Gunnery-1

Equipment: sword, revolver, ammo belt and holster with 36 rounds in 6 speed loaders, rifle with five 20 round magazines, LBE web gear and back pack, uniform, boots, wallet with an ID card, Mega Union Bank Card with unknown credit balance, flak jacket. He has memory issues and PSR 2 psionic assault abilities of unknown origin.

Buck Jolly Rodger's class Skiff

Episode 2 5.3.20 The team is contacted by Tawnos Traffic Control and Joel expertly lands on the 6th moon of Manubalista. They discover that only the Mega Union card works here and their balance is only 10,000 credits between the three of them. They pay 100 credits for a week of berthing. Parked in bay 2 and their cargo transferred to underground warehouse #5, they are stunned to discover that the port provides no repair facilities and no refueling. The fuel tanks are bone dry and they will need to go prospecting to get enough polar ice to refine into reaction mass and rocket fuel to escape this moon. One Myron Peabody doesn't want them to enter the main port building, he is tempted to send them to quarantine. They eventually meet the grieving Widow at the Tri-Star Saloon. The Duchess was an Omegazon Barbarian/Belter/Noble 3 terms/2 terms/2 terms Rank 4 Barbarian Sub-Chief, Rank 5 Noble

8C6AAF HP 26 Age 42

Sword-4, Vac Suit-1, Instruction-1, Tactics-1, Leader-1, Interrogation-1, Survival-1, Recon-1, Streetwise-1, Carousing-1, Prospecting-1, Forward observer-1, Pilot-1, Navigation-1, ATV-1, Liaison-1, Bribery-1, Admin-1, Gun Cmbt-2

Benefits

1 Sword+1

2 Sword-1

3 Sword-2

4 High Psg-sold

5 Low Psg-sold

6 Travellers’

7 Weapon (Bit) Helmet HUD avatar

8 Yacht Urca De Lima

9 Gun +1

10 100,000

11 100,000

MU Bank Card 211,000 credit balance, TAS Card, +1 Sword, +1 Gun, Command Smart Helm with HUD and Avatar Bit, 0.1kg radio, IR/LI, filter/compressor, Expensive Wardrobe

HER BACKGROUND: You are trying to console three small grieving children. Your oldest son is 8, and your two daughters are 6 and 3. There are a swarm of nannies, maids, butlers on estate. You met your dashing and handsome late husband when he was in the royal/confederate navy. His ship rescued her seeker mining ship from pirates eight years ago. Eventually, you got pregnant, you got married, and he retired from the navy was promoted and granted a better title. As a noble over the past eight years he worked his way up from baron to duke on Tawnos. You have been married for eight years raising a family. The son is a baron, and the daughters are knights at the moment.

She wants the boys to help find out who killed her husband the Duke. They search his ducal office in the capital where the murderous mob supposedly killed him. The crime scene yields some clues, and the wall safe and computer are informative because of what is missing and what has been removed. They rent a green ATV and begin their search and investigation. They end up running afoul of some military contractors called the Black Dragons. This security platoon has a Royal Crawler which they use to call in an artillery strike against the Duchess. The team discovers that someone close to her has rigged her ducal signet ring with a discrete transmitter, which they had been using to kept tabs on her activities. The team was saved by her quick thinking, when she threw the ring from the speeding ATV causing the rocket strike to fall short. Baron Dale realizes that the Duchess, if she survives, could help him establish his barony on Tawnos.

References & Contributors (Sources)

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• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis), Captain, and Lead Naval Architect Ronald B. Kline, Jr. of the Imperial Navy
• Author & Contributor: Lord (Marquis) and Master of Sophontology Maksim-Smelchak of the Ministry of Science