We lost contact with the stars for nine thousand years. Now we are finally ready to return.
Our earliest myths tell of the dragonflights, and their dominion over the galaxy. They claim that these dragons powered their fleets through magic, and that these magitech vessels were every bit as powerful as a lascannon or droneswarm.
Sounds like fantasy wrapped in mysticism, if you ask me. But how did our ancestors reach our world if not with magic? Proponents of magical theory argue that the Razor Belt would have torn their fleet apart, as it has every vessel or probe we've ever launched, no matter how nimble or well-armored. The electromagnetic distortion means we don't even know why they don't make it back.
Skeptics point out that if magic existed, and our ancestors have it, then we should have it too. Why don't we? Why hasn't the Ekara system produced so much as a single mage? Why don't we have leftover magic swords, or whatever the legends say our ancestors wielded? Where are the ships that dropped us off? The only part we still have are dragons, and there's nothing magical about them. Where are their legendary breath weapons? There are so many inconsistencies.
We are left with the most troubling of questions, the one that drove the very founding of the Corps. Where do we come from?
What if I told you we finally found answers?
I can share them, but you must swear to secrecy. If you speak of this operation we will discredit you, your work, your family, and your squad. If you persist you will disappear. Harsh, but necessary, I assure you.
The average citizen cannot know the truth.
I know, I know. I'm the very last person to advocate censorship. Once you see what we're dealing with you'll understand the problem. They have discovered the tech that brought us to this world, and the horrors it would unleash cannot be allowed to proliferate. They will learn from it, and we will all pay the price.
So we're sending a team to stop them. We're sending you. Enclosed you'll find the mission briefing. Luck be with you, explorer.
The Soul Engine
Six weeks ago a hiker being stupid tumbled down a steam vent that turned out to be an exhaust port. Mount Nekoss isn't a mountain. It's a tomb for a ship. A vessel that someone intentionally buried, and radiocarbon dating places it roughly nine millennia ago. They tried to get rid of this thing, and wanted to do so badly enough to erect a mountain above it. Consider the ramifications.
Once you see the interior you understand why they buried it. Inside is your worst nightmare given form. The hull and bulkheads are forged from a pale metallic alloy, but everything else is bone, or a sinew-like substance.
The creators built tools, systems, armor, and the ship itself from the bodies of their dead.
Reading these words you still have the benefit of your clinical detachment. Wait until the heat is being aggressively siphoned from you as the vessel itself reaches for your soul. And that's where the real trouble begins.
We found a...generator of sorts near the heart of the vessel. The glyphs on the controls are recognizable as ancient draconic, though a dialect we don't recognize. They call this place the Soul Engine, and as we learned to our horror, that name is in no way symbolic.
The first team in to study it was found two days later. Their lifeless corpses were gathered around the Soul Engine, but when we examined the footage they'd recorded the cause was clear. The ship sucked them dry. Forty-seven more people died over the next three weeks, but these scientists were nowhere near the reactor. Being anywhere in the ship is enough to get drained.
That was a year ago. In the interim the Planetary Governor has secretly signed an edict sending all terminal prisoners to the ship. They fed it thousands of souls until the thing stopped devouring everyone who set foot inside. They're feeding it still.
The Mission
The Governor cannot be allowed to unearth this vessel. If he does he will study and replicate the technology, and our people will pay the price. That's where you come in.
Now that the vessel is "safe", if you can call it that, we're sending a team to infiltrate the ship, seize control, and crash the ship into the Razor Belt. You will be outfitted with the best cyberware money can buy, and given whatever weaponry and armor you require.
Get into the ship, find the bridge, and link back up with us. We'll dump their data core, and then you can turn your efforts to flying the ship. We need to understand why it works, which is why we're sending an engineer with the team. You need a way off the ship before it blows, which is why we're sending a captain with their own vessel.
Take this vile ship up into the Razor Belt. If that's what it takes to leave our system, then we are better off locked on our world. Yes, I understand the irony that the Corps' official stance is isolation over exploration. You will grasp the urgent need the moment you set foot on that ship.
Good luck, Explorer.
Notes for the Player
The First Contact Saga encourages you to play a non-magically-active character from the Mercenary archetype, as you are coming from a world with no magic. A Captain and an Engineer will both be particularly useful, as will combat paths like Puppetmaster and Mage Killer. If you want to play a True Mage, Scoundrel, Dedicate, or Warrior, the story accommodates that.
As one of the other archetypes you will probably miss part of the first session, because you are in one of the stasis pods inside the necrotech vessel. How you got there is a mystery. Because of the extreme duration of your hibernation your short term memory is gone, and your long term memory is heavily eroded. You can remember flashes, and were either a prisoner, or a captor (if you want to play a necromancer, binder, or anyone who uses necrotech). How much you remember is up to you.
The prisoner role opens up any type of magic. You were a soul kept on ice until they needed to consume you with the Soul Engine, but you suffer from the same memory loss as the captors. What details remain in your fragmented memory are up to you, but whatever you recall comes from 9,000 years ago, a millennia after the events of the short story Planetfall.
If you are from the Explorer Corps, then you should select the Mercenary archetype and choose from the Captain, Engineer, Mage Killer, or Puppet Master paths. Alternately, you may create your own path, pending GM approval.
Explorer's Corps.
The Explorer's Corp is also known as the adventurer's guild, or vultures, or tomb robbers. Our entire organization exists to share tips and lore about ancient crash sites, and possible paths through the Razor Belt. The EC doesn't ask many questions, and their unofficial motto is "We don't want to know how you got it."
The EC then connects to universities and museums across the planet and gets the best possible price for whatever artifacts you "legally salvaged". If your character is part of the EC they are a member, and received an invitation to meet their contact at the Mongol Horde Gambling Parlor.
They are being offered a job for 25,000 credits for a single night's work. It's too rich a payout, but it doesn't hurt to hear the offer. Maybe it isn't a trap. Maybe they're on the up and up. What could go wrong?
Captors & Prisoners
If you are playing a captor congratulations...you just woke up and are stumbling out of a rejuvenator. You can remember language, and your skills, and the souls you have forged into your weaponry. But yesterday? How you came to be here? That is unclear.
What you do know are that intruders have boarded the vessel. They have somehow recharged the Soul Engine. Now you must take the ship from them, and return to your home to see what has become of it. There is no point in being here, and no point in fighting.
If you are playing a prisoner congratulations...you just woke up and are stumbling out of a rejuvenator...into a cell with flickering blue bars that appear on the verge of failing. You have no idea how or why you are in a cell, though you can deduce that you've been captured by souleaters. The Unspoken Fleets have been a myth on your world since you were a child, and as an adult you've learned the terrible truth.
The bars fail. Your cell is open, and you can walk out and explore the ship.
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