Nephon Sector
The Nephon sector, as far as its inhabitants know, is a relatively isolated section of space, describing a crescent that descends obliquely into the galactic plane. Through the sector there runs a major space-lane, converging from two separate outlets of the Hoked Nebula to the Toko system, and from there branching minus-X and plus X towards the Nago system at the extreme minus-X of the coordinate system, and a short terminus to the Newton system on the plus-X.
The Toko system is the only way in or out of the sector, as it is the only place with the sort of long-distance jump docks that inter-sector travel requires.
Life in the Nephon sector is difficult for most. The Toko government claims dominion over the entire sector, but has not the military might nor the unity to enforce it. In the inner systems, close to Toko, life is strictly regulated. On the outer systems, such as in Nago, or close to the Hoked Nebula, or in the remote tributary Rukku system, residents scrape together what life they can. Residents of the more remote systems are dependent upon the Ronin (literally: "wave person" thank you wikipedia), a class of person liberated by their owning/crewing a ship, for neccesities such as food, trade goods, and news.
Contents
Space Travel
The following is technobabble, and relates in no real way to enjoyment of the game:
Long-distance travel is done over the course of several weeks along "space lanes": corridors of active gases that act as conduits for charged particles. By deploying a "Noble Sail", a ship can harness these particles to enable tremedous acceleration. Travel between systems is a matter of days through a space lane, but could take weeks or months with conventional drives.
Though few in the Nephon Sector make use of them, Jump Docks enable much longer-distance travel, by creating a stabilized wormhole between two points.
Astronavigation is essentially a very difficult and complex physics problem; as such, navigators are well-versed, formally or otherwise, in both classical and quantum mechanics, mathematics, etc.
Ships
There's a large range of ships in common use throughout the Nephon Sector. Many of them are quite old, and while ship technology hasn't advanced radically in some time, human ingenuity cannot be contained, and as such modifications ranging from silly (hong pipe, rear wing) to life-saving (irradiated gas engine boost) are common. Those who own ships or regularly travel on them are often posessed of a certain enthusiasm to talk shop, which almost always bores the snot out of others in the immediate vicinity.
Example Ships:
Law Enforcement
The Toko government makes an attempt to spread its culture and the "rule of law" to the outer systems, which, through greed and distance, see little of the prosperity that Toko's jump gates bring to the central systems. As such, 'lawmen' are dispatched to patrol the reaches, to see that those upholding the law and Toko culture are rewarded, and that those who flaunt them are punished. Their role is analagous to the Ronin, but from more of a state-sponsored angle. They are not always welcome, however.
Ronin
The counterpart to the Lawman, the Ronin is a "private" (though many are funded by regional governments) citizen who has a ship capable of inter-system travel. Distinct from professional cargo crews or militias, the Ronin is ostensibly a privateer, beholden to no particular system, government, or corporate interest.
Ronin are often relied upon to assist outlying systems in critical tasks, such as obtaining food or medicine, too critical to trust to the Toko central authority. They are also often called upon to complete illegal or dangerous acts. Since the life of a Ronin is one of constant struggle to upkeep their ship and maintain their tenuous freedom, many Ronin will take whatever job comes across their bow.
Topography
poorly-drawn map to come.
Systems
These are the major systems in the Nephon Sector
The Core
Toko Cluster
- Perrisport - said to be the major port for the Core before the Jump Gates were moved to Toko
- Newton
- Spectrum - a new, crowded, settlement that many describe as 'prefab'
- Darkriver - a part of the Core
- Toko - the seat of the central authority
Koto Cluster
- Mamba
- Koto
- Nago
- Kansei
The Frontier
- Kite
- Bath
- Sephore - Famous for its alcoholic beverages, this system lies next to the Hoked Nebula
- Hero
- Hermit
- Toro - an old settlement with respected agriculture
- Edge - munitions and armament factories
The Unknown
- Hoked Nebula - a mysterious and largely unexplored place
History
One-shot
Look here: Nephon Sector One-Shot
System
White Wolf
I'm leaning towards using White Wolf, maybe the Adventure system minus all the special powers. You'd get Inspiration, which you can use for crazy stuff (I'm thinking up a system for using this, where you state what you want and then negotiate with the group as a whole) like altering actions that have already happened, or superhuman efforts, or plot twists, those kinds of things.
I'd like to incorporate some kind of "traits"; I'm not sure how I'd do it yet.
Traits
Instead of having advantages or disadvantages, I think I'm going to take another page from DitV, but messed up to better suit our group. You may choose a number of Traits ( you get one for free; taking more costs freebies ) to describe your character's unique strengths and personality. These Traits can be rated from 1 to 5 dice. In circumstances where the Trait plays in your favor, you may add those dice to your pool. In situations where the Trait plays against your favor, though, I take the dice and they either roll to subtract successes or add to the enemy's dice pool. The Trait's definition must account for this; there's no "I'm a good shot every time it's in my favor 5 dice" traits. As such, your Traits must meet with GM approval.
"Ferocious fighter" would, for instance, be an appropriate trait; it would come into play against you when you're trying to fight without harming someone, for instance, or trying to snipe the one guy but not hit his prisoner.
A Trait may also be brought into play by spending an Inspiration point, or you may spend an Inspiration point to negate the negative effects of a Trait for one scene.
--Dieter the Bold 18:52, 28 February 2007 (MST) I'm tentatively behind this method. I think some explicit negotiation and thought would need to be put into these when they are chosen, as I can see possibility for huge disagreements between player and GM over how something is working for or against the character. I think this would also work well for Relationships. For hierarchical relationsips, you could give the extra dice to the person in the higher position when they're initiating requests (ordering or actually asking), and put it against (i.e., with the character with it on their sheet) if the higher-up is doing something against their position/chain of command/regulations, or if the character is making a request within the just aforementioned list. For example, I have 2 dice relationship with Captain Ben. If Captain Ben wants me to do a necessary and legal thing that's annoying (for whatever reason), he gets those 2 dice to help motivate me to do said thing. Flipwise, as we have a good working relationship, if I want some support from Captain Ben to make a risky play or special treatment, I can use those 2 dice against him so long as the request respects our relationship both directly between me and him, and in the general sense of where we fit in the whole scheme of things. If Captain Ben asks me to do something illegal or way outside the nature of the relationship (e.g., shoot this innocent, do my laundry), I get those 2 dice against him, and vice versa.
