Universe Building Part 4: Alien Races At War

Here's a table I scribbled down this morning (1D6) to generate the various alliances and enemies each race might have:
6= Symbiotes - these races operate as if one (raise tech level to be the same, this does not raise the tech level of the surrounding races)
5= Allies - these races work well together, fight alongside in wars.
4= Peaceful - while not allies they aren't at war either. Trade between them exists and they are generally friendly towards each other.
3= Peaceful Animosity - the two races aren't at war but generally stay out of each others business, some harbour racist ideas and views against the other.
2= Enemies - while not at war, should the cause arise these two races will be on opposite sides. Racist ideas are more prevelant.
1= At War - these races couldn't be further apart, they are actively fighting each other.

The level of animosity should drop as you move outwards depending upon the reach of the given races. For example two space mastering races at war will be at war everywhere. On the other hand races that only travel within their own system and other nearby systems (within their own sub-sector) will move up the chart by 1 level as you move outwards. If two races were at war within their own sub-sector they would be enemies in neighbouring sub-sectors and have peaceful animosity in neighbouring sectors. It is assumed that any race with a lower tech level than another will automatically treat that race peacefully (4-6), or with peaceful animosity (1-3) because otherwise they would undoubtedly face defeat and near annihilation. You only really need to roll for those races that are on the same tech level and within reach of each other, but you might like to roll to determine if they are peaceful or have animosity toward each other for extra flavour. For example should those two races be in a party together, that could generate friction and drive a plot. Should galactic war break out the roll could determine which races are likely to join which sides and which planets will be on which sides.

In the Aty system, the Iwaperons are treated peacefully by the Nanolin (I rolled a 4), however the Giliseni (1) and the Pir treat them with some suspicion (3). They may fear reprisal as their technology grows.
The Giliseni are treated with suspicion by the Nanolin (1), this is probably due to their apparent dislike for the Iwaperons. (Now for the important roll for the system on the full 1-6 table) The Pir are the same (3), however this is no doubt due to their rivalry with the Giliseni. Finally the Nanolin and the Pir are peaceful (4).

As the universe grows it will no doubt become extremely complicated to track the races and their allies/enemies. I'm going to need a huge sheet of paper and a huge table. Maybe it would be helpful to purchase 3 journals, one to cover the planets, systems, sub-sectors and sectors and the races on those planets. Next one to cover the races in detail, including their various alliances and enemies. Finally one to cover characters which I'll randomly be rolling next. This will lead on to the beginning of a simple story as a band of mercenaries and merchants come together to form my own space faring crew.

Universe Building Part 3: Fleshing Out A Planet And Its Races

I couldn't stop thinking while at work today about how to go about fleshing out the alien races that would inhabit the various planets I have already and am going to generate. Whether to let the planet dictate the alien races that inhabit it, or to let the alien races dictate what the planet is like. There have to be certain parameters here, as not all planets are equal. I would assume that those planets generated that have home races are similar to earth in many respects, and those without can be a variety of other kinds of planet, those that can be colonised like Mars and those it would be near impossible to like Jupiter. I was thinking that I would have a table that you rolled on that determined how advanced the technology of each race on the planet was and that could then dictate how advanced the planet would appear, a city planet like Coruscant would come from a highly advanced race. Then again I would like room for a city planet without any home races, because that would be a mystery worth investigating in an RPG. Here's what I scribbled down while on my break:
Alien Race Type (D10) -
1= Mammalian, 2= Avian, 3= Amphibian, 4= Reptilian, 5= Insectoid, 6= Mollusc, 7= Fish, 8= Crustacean, 9= Mechanoid, 10= Intelligent Energy/ Elemental

 Alien Race Technological Advancement (2D6) -
2= Pre-Technology, no different than animals.
3= Pre-Civilisation, savage tribes, basic technology, stone weapons.
4= Early Civilisation, nations, use of metals in armour and weaponry.
5= Developed Civilisation, use of firearms, use of machines, steam power and coal.
6= Advanced Civilisation, use of aircraft, communication with other planets, satellites.
7= Super Advanced Civilisation, first colony on own moon or nearby planet.
8= Early Space Farers, travelling between planets within own system and multiple colonies.
9= Developed Space Farers, inter-planetary system travel, trade within own system and first colonies in other systems.
10= Advanced Space Farers, inter-sub-sector travel, trade within nearby systems and first colonies in other sub-sectors.
11= Super Advanced Space Farers, inter-sector travel, trade within own sector and first colonies in other sectors.
12= Space Masters, near instantaneous space travel, trade and colonies in all parts of the universe.
A few extra rules, if a race exists in the same system as a race from Early Space Farers and upwards and is a lower level, then their level should be raised by 1. If a race exists on a planet with another race that is a developed civilisation and upwards and is a lower level, then their level should be raised by 1. These pluses are cumulative, the idea here is that other races would share technology (or have it stolen). It's unlikely a planet would be inhabited by one super advanced race and one still hitting mud with sticks.

This system really does need a lot of tweaking, but lets roll some dice for the two systems I've been developing and see where we end up:
Star - Aty
Planet 1 - Ivu - None
Planet 2 - Vaq - None
Planet 3 - Okon - None
Planet 4 - Opo - None
Planet 5 - Gamoju - The Iwaperons
Planet 6 - Nanofinu - The Giliseni, The Nanolin, The Pir.
First on Gamoju, the Iwaperons are advanced space faring race of elementals.
Secondly on Nanofinu, the Giliseni are a race of developed space faring insects. The Nanolin are early space faring mammals and the Pir are a race of developed space faring molluscs.

Over in the Yru System:

Star - Yru

Planet 1 - Ejymo - None

Planet 2 - Iguryfo - None

Planet 3 - Rexovimu - The Apurans are developed space faring mammals, The Eraqutons are also developed but are molluscs.

Planet 4 - Ypa - The Ypanoids are space mastering mammals.

Planet 5 - Regu - The Ehunepolin are developed space faring reptiles, The Regumon are space mastering birds.

Planet 6 - Juli - The Julirans are developed space faring insects.

Planet 7 - Doqoco - None

Planet 8 - Cuwalivi - The Cuwal are space mastering elementals and  the Odotolin are amphibian developed space farers.

So now my two systems are jam packed with space faring races, we'll have to see how well they all get along, and whether there are alliances or wars!

Thanks for stopping by!

WGP

Universe Building Part 2: Alien Race Name Generator

So you've got your system (here's one from the last post):
Star - Aty
Planet 1 - Ivu
Planet 2 - Vaq
Planet 3 - Okon
Planet 4 - Opo
Planet 5 - Gamoju
Planet 6 - Nanofinu

And now you want to determine if the planets have home races and if so how many and what their names are...
STEP 1 Roll 1D6 for each planet, 1-3 is the number of home races, 4-6 is 0 home races, with 4-6 is doesn't mean the planet is uninhabited, it just means the races there didn't originate from that planet, they could be colonists from other planets within the system.
Planet 1 - Ivu - 0 Home Races
Planet 2 - Vaq - 0 Home Races
Planet 3 - Okon - 0 Home Races
Planet 4 - Opo - 0 Home Races
Planet 5 - Gamoju - 1 Home Race
Planet 6 - Nanofinu - 3 Home Races
STEP 2 Now to name each race in the Aty System. Our first planet with a home race is Gamoju. Roll 1D6, on a 1-3 the race is named after the planet, and a 4-6 they have a new name. If the race has a name based on the planet roll 1D6 (ignoring 1s and 2s) to determine how many letters of the planets name that the race takes. If the planet has less letters than the roll just take the full planet name. If a race already exists on the planet based on the planet name ignore the roll and generate a new name.
I scored a 5 meaning the race has an entirely new name. Before we generate that name however we need to roll 1D10 and consult the following table:
DIE SCORE/ IF NAME ENDS IN VOWEL/ IF NAME ENDS IN CONSONANT
1 - The ...... (no suffix)
2 - ...nians, ...sians/ ...ians, ...eans
3 - ...nans, ...sans, ...rans, ...mans/ ...ans
4 - ...ls/ ...els
5 - ...lin/ ...olin
6 - ...lites, ...mites/ ...ites
7 - ...tons, ...mons/ ...ons
8 - ...ryls/ ...yls
9 - ...nids, ...noids/ ...ids, ...oids
10 - ...meni/ ...eni
There are a few extra rules to add, when generating a completely new name (one not based on a planet) roll 1D6 for the number of letters ignoring 1s and 2s. The reason you have a few options for some numbers is so you can pick the one that sounds the best rather than being stuck with something that sounds unnatural or hard to say.
So back to Gamoju, the home race their has a new name not one based on their home planet's name (consult the table on the previous post for generating names). I rolled a 6 for the number of letters and generated the following: Iwaper (ee-wap-er) then I rolled a 7 on the table above, and since Iwaper ends in a consonant I picked the option beginning with a vowel and generated the Iwaperons.
Now on to Nanofinu with its 3 home races.
Race 1 - The Giliseni (ji-li-sen-ee)
Race 2 - The Nanolin (na-no-lin)
Race 3 - The Pir (peer)
So here's our system with its races:
Planet 1 - Ivu - None
Planet 2 - Vaq - None
Planet 3 - Okon - None
Planet 4 - Opo - None
Planet 5 - Gamoju - The Iwaperons
Planet 6 - Nanofinu - The Giliseni, The Nanolin, The Pir.
Now for fun lets roll our second system from last time:
Star - Yru
Planet 1 - Ejymo - None
Planet 2 - Iguryfo - None
Planet 3 - Rexovimu - The Apurans (ay-pur-ans), The Eraqutons (er-ak-oo-tons)
Planet 4 - Ypa - The Ypanoids (ee-pa-noids)
Planet 5 - Regu - The Ehunepolin (ee-hoo-nep-olin), The Regumon (ray-goo-mon)
Planet 6 - Juli - The Julirans (yoo-lee-rans)
Planet 7 - Doqoco - None
Planet 8 - Cuwalivi - The Cuwal (que-wal), The Odotolin (oe-doe-to-lin)
I may tweak the system a little, but it does seem to be giving good and suitably odd results. The problem would be finding miniatures for all this... but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it.
Next up has to be either planet conditions or alien race characteristics. I would think conditions first, because that no doubt would affect the races that life there!

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Universe Building Part 1: Randomly Generating Names For Planets

My interest has recently peaked in the area of solo roleplaying. Especially in a science fiction universe of my own creation with rules of my own creation. The first struggle was finding a way of building an essentially infinite universe from scratch, and names are a huge pain in the behind, because I only know so many words and surprisingly I only know so many made up words before they all start sounding the same - Krel, Kral, Krol and Kril were all on the list of imaginary planets. So I wondered if there was a way of randomly generating planet names. Immediately you think, well aren't you going to end up with some pretty ridiculous sounding planet names... and the answer is yes, but forcing an alien language through the filter of English to generate an English equivalent would give you some pretty insane words. The name generator so far needs lots of work but I'll randomly generate a solar system right here on the blog so you get the idea.
STEP 1 Roll 1D10 to determine the number of planets in your generated solar system (re-rolling 1s, 2s and maybe 3s).
I just rolled 6. So that means a star and 6 planets.
STEP 2 Generate the names. We'll begin with the star but the system for generating names is the same across the board. Roll 1D10 to determine the length of the name (re-rolling 1s and 2s). I rolled a 3, so we'll have a nice short name for our star. Then rolling your D10 again, determine whether the name will begin with a vowel or a consonant. Odd = Vowel, Even = Consonant. I rolled a 3 so my 3 letter star will begin with a vowel. From there you alternate vowels and consonants until the name is completed (like I said simple and needs lots of work). To determine which vowels and consonants you get:
Vowels and Y (D6): 1=A, 2=E, 3=1, 4=0, 5=U, 6=Y.
Consonants (D20): 1=B, 2=C, 3=D, 4=F, 5=G, 6=H, 7=J, 8=K, 9=L, 10=M, 11=N, 12=P, 13=Q, 14=R, 15=S, 16=T, 17=V, 18=W, 19=X, 20=Z.
So here's my randomly generated system and me playing around with pronounciation:
Star - Aty (ay-tee)
Planet 1 - Ivu (eye-voo)
Planet 2 - Vaq (vak)
Planet 3 - Okon (oh-kon)
Planet 4 - Opoj (oh-poj or oh-po the J could be silent)
Planet 5 - Gamojub (gam-oh-jub)
Planet 6 - Nanofinu (na-noe-fee-noo)
It can be a little hit and miss, but I can't deny I'm having fun rolling these dice. In the system above I love the names of the first four and last planets, I might tweak Opoj and Gamojub though, and just lose the last letters of each, Opo and Gamoju sound better. I'm in fact having so much fun I'm going to roll up another system while we're here and then begin to think about a way of determining what each planet is like, do they just have simple colonies or fully fledged nations, what races live there, how advanced their technology, religions, climates etc.
Star - Yru (yee-roo or ee-roo)
Planet 1 - Ejymo (ee-jee-moe tweaked from Ejymop)
Planet 2 - Iguryfo (eye-gur-ee-foe tweaked from Iguryfoc)
Planet 3 - Rexovimu (Rex-o-vee-moo)
Planet 4 - Ypa (yee-pa or ee-pa)
Planet 5 - Regu (rey-goo)
Planet 6 - Juli (yoo-lee)
Planet 7 - Doqoco (do-kwo-ko)
Planet 8 - Cuwalivi (que-wa-lee-vee)
Another idea I had would involve slowly expanding your universe. Say you started a roleplaying campaign in the Aty system, and depending on how big you wanted your universe you designated each planet a code, based on your characters knowledge of the universe, say the Aty system was his/her home system and if their home planet was the second planet Vaq (2), of the Aty system (1), of the first sub-sector (1), of the first sector of space (1). The planetary code for Vaq would be 2111. So when you're randomly rolling for something to happen on a random planet you could roll a D10 four times - first designating the planet, second the system etc... If you then had a list of all the planets you had visited with their codes, and when you roll a number not yet coded you generate a new solar system, unless of course you roll a planet that cannot exist within a system for example the seventh planet in the Aty system, in this case just re-roll for the planet. You could generate much larger systems depending on which dice you use. D10 seems good for a number of planets, but for systems you could roll a D100 (maybe a D1000?), sub-sectors and sectors could be D100s (D1000s?) as well generating a huge universe of - 10 million planets. To keep things a tad more story driven however, you could make a roll prior to rolling for a new system, say on a 5+ what happens takes place in a system yet unexplored by your character, otherwise just roll within the parameters of the systems you have already generated. There's also nothing stopping you from using the planet name generator to generate names of characters, npcs, alien races (with some appropriate suffixes), towns, cities and countries.
Next up I'll either work on an alien race name generator or a what a planet is like generator.

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

Tamiya 1:35 WW2 Madness!

Here's a few pics of some 1:35 Tamiya figures I've been putting together after I felt the urge to do some WW2 skirmish gaming. They've all got very basic paint jobs and actually look really good in the flesh. I'm working on my own rules to use them with which are currently being scribbled down, I wanted a ruleset that really focused on the differences in weaponry, used realistic rates of fire and effective ranges.

German Paratroop

So I've been considering making a little money on the side selling hand painted toy soldiers on ebay. Here was my first attempt at painting an 1/32 Airfix German Paratrooper. He came out really well, although he did highlight a problem before I put this mini business into full swing, I seriously need some new paints, especially browns and flesh tones. While they might look relatively nice on this guy, it took me ages to get there! Definitely not worth the time spent there! However, I suppose I did get my technique down pretty well!
Thanks for stopping by!
WGP

The Korban Grenadiers (making the most of cheap toy soldiers)

Sometimes among the Korban ranks a soldier is both physically larger and stronger but also intellectually and tactically. These Korban are quickly drafted into elite units known as Grenadiers.

 The Sergeant of the unit carries a large variety of tactical grenades from smoke, to flash, to stun, and in extreme circumstances the much feared 'Molsh Grenade'.

 While it might not be obvious here, these Korban are superior in height when compared to their brethren. The Grenadier is also distinguished by a black helmet.

 Grenadiers are also experts in hand to hand combat and assault tactics.

 But also marksmanship, in fact Crucible are often hard pressed to find a better marksman (that they will acknowledge exists) than the Korban Grenadier.

 The Korban Grenadiers are also equipped with the best in infantry heavy weapons. The M1 Laser Cannon or Lazooka to the men, is highly effective at taking down almost anything that can be thrown at it. The downside is that it has no explosive radius, so while it may easily cut through a tank, infantry are much more difficult to deal with.

 Finally the Erosion Gun, based on the idea of  weaponising a water cutter, one canister is filled with water, the other a highly top secret ebrasive. The Erosion gun often takes it's time, but is always effective where laser weaponry may be deflected or absorbed. While it is officially illegal under crucible law to turn an erosion gun on an infantry unit, tests have shown it to be highly effective and it has been used that way in dire and therefore justifiable circumstances.

Thanks for stopping by!
WGP