Five Parsecs from Home - the crew of the Indomitable Spirit
Posted: Wed Aug 09, 2023 3:40 pmCompletely inspired by Tom’s Borderlands thread, I decided to give Five Parsecs a go. I bought five klicks from the zone (in PDF), but was slightly disappointed that the games were all “kill all of the enemy”, whereas Five Parsecs has also given the full hardback book treatment that Borderlands has and there is a lot more variety.
Deciding to completely go for the random generated crew and campaign, my starting crew of six looked like this:
Joylon Kirkwood - human from a military outpost, who got +1 reaction (how quickly they’ll act in a turn), is motivated by technology for +1 savvy and a gadget to be rolled up. Joly on was working class and got another savvy point and a point of luck.
Ka’Shar Gorinth - a Primary Alien species (an engineer) who gets bonuses to fix things but isn’t very tough. He was a bureaucrat (1d6 credits, for which I rolled a 2) and is a bit of a scoundrel (+1 speed) and has a Patron (who can organise interesting missions) and a Story point (to be spent to help the characters do heroic and daring things).
Forssh - a primary alien who turned out to be a “Soulless” who is a cybernetic organism. He’s from a giant, dystopian city (+1 speed), has some form of hidden wealth (1d6 credits….. once again a “2” was rolled. Sigh) and was a nomad (an extra item of gear)
The Unshriven - an unusual alien, who turns out to be a human who has had their emotions suppressed for some reason. He spent his time on a long term space mission (+1 savvy) and has to have survival as his motivation (+1 toughness) and is escaping his past as a ganger (+1 reaction and an extra low-tech weapon).
Next up was PR-0F, a Bot. You don’t roll background or anything for Bots, they just get a better statline than humans. And don’t get XP, they have to be upgraded using credits to buy upgrades.
Completing the crew is Hunnan. Hailing from a primitive world (+1 toughness and an extra low tech weapon), he’s fascinated by technology (+1 savvy and a gadget) and has eschewed his roots to work as a scientist (another pip of savvy and another gadget)
Looking at the crew, they’re pretty tough with three toughness upgrades and very savvy, but no increases to combat skills outside the robot.
I swapped my three available rolls on the military weapons chart for three rolls on the Hi-tech weapons chart as you can do a swap for each character who got a savvy upgrade. No idea if it’s a good idea but I went for it anyway
I ended up with a blast pistol, a glare sword, a hand laser, 2 colony rifles, two shotguns, a handgun, a nano doc, a bipod, a jump belt, a scanner bot, a snooper bot and a sonic emitter. My ship turned out to be a retired scout ship, which was fuel efficient but had relatively few structure points.
The crew ended up as having banded together for mutual protection and only being in it for the credits!
The narrative that emerged was that The Unshriven was victim of an unsavoury practice where the powers that be on the world of Smithson’s Citadel would take convicted criminals (often gangers) and subject them to emotional suppression surgery (banned in many other quadrants) and use them for the long term space missions. The powers felt this was necessary as these oft-isolating missions had an alarming percentage of spacers who went mad partway through their mission. PR-0F was assigned on the mission with him and they’ve managed to pick up a number of different crew members as they’ve gone along. Whilst the crew consider the scout ship to have been “retired”, the reality is that they’ve gone off mission and have no intention to return to Smithson’s Citadel. The crew start 25 credits in debt (20+1d6), most likely to the local gangs who are taking bribes to not turn them in.
Next up, finding the figures and going through the first campaign turn.
Deciding to completely go for the random generated crew and campaign, my starting crew of six looked like this:
Joylon Kirkwood - human from a military outpost, who got +1 reaction (how quickly they’ll act in a turn), is motivated by technology for +1 savvy and a gadget to be rolled up. Joly on was working class and got another savvy point and a point of luck.
Ka’Shar Gorinth - a Primary Alien species (an engineer) who gets bonuses to fix things but isn’t very tough. He was a bureaucrat (1d6 credits, for which I rolled a 2) and is a bit of a scoundrel (+1 speed) and has a Patron (who can organise interesting missions) and a Story point (to be spent to help the characters do heroic and daring things).
Forssh - a primary alien who turned out to be a “Soulless” who is a cybernetic organism. He’s from a giant, dystopian city (+1 speed), has some form of hidden wealth (1d6 credits….. once again a “2” was rolled. Sigh) and was a nomad (an extra item of gear)
The Unshriven - an unusual alien, who turns out to be a human who has had their emotions suppressed for some reason. He spent his time on a long term space mission (+1 savvy) and has to have survival as his motivation (+1 toughness) and is escaping his past as a ganger (+1 reaction and an extra low-tech weapon).
Next up was PR-0F, a Bot. You don’t roll background or anything for Bots, they just get a better statline than humans. And don’t get XP, they have to be upgraded using credits to buy upgrades.
Completing the crew is Hunnan. Hailing from a primitive world (+1 toughness and an extra low tech weapon), he’s fascinated by technology (+1 savvy and a gadget) and has eschewed his roots to work as a scientist (another pip of savvy and another gadget)
Looking at the crew, they’re pretty tough with three toughness upgrades and very savvy, but no increases to combat skills outside the robot.
I swapped my three available rolls on the military weapons chart for three rolls on the Hi-tech weapons chart as you can do a swap for each character who got a savvy upgrade. No idea if it’s a good idea but I went for it anyway
I ended up with a blast pistol, a glare sword, a hand laser, 2 colony rifles, two shotguns, a handgun, a nano doc, a bipod, a jump belt, a scanner bot, a snooper bot and a sonic emitter. My ship turned out to be a retired scout ship, which was fuel efficient but had relatively few structure points.
The crew ended up as having banded together for mutual protection and only being in it for the credits!
The narrative that emerged was that The Unshriven was victim of an unsavoury practice where the powers that be on the world of Smithson’s Citadel would take convicted criminals (often gangers) and subject them to emotional suppression surgery (banned in many other quadrants) and use them for the long term space missions. The powers felt this was necessary as these oft-isolating missions had an alarming percentage of spacers who went mad partway through their mission. PR-0F was assigned on the mission with him and they’ve managed to pick up a number of different crew members as they’ve gone along. Whilst the crew consider the scout ship to have been “retired”, the reality is that they’ve gone off mission and have no intention to return to Smithson’s Citadel. The crew start 25 credits in debt (20+1d6), most likely to the local gangs who are taking bribes to not turn them in.
Next up, finding the figures and going through the first campaign turn.