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Welcome to Event Horizon

05:48, 29th March 2024 (GMT+0)

Event Horizon

Welcome to the future, and the next stage of human history, spreading out into the solar system towards the distant stars. In the 23rd Century, humanity has long since left the cradle of Earth to colonize the solar system. Now an independent Mars vies with old Earth for political power and influence while the settled asteroid belt and the moon systems of Jupiter and Saturn supply the inner planets with the resources they so desperately need. The people of the Belt and the Outer Planets—the Belters—labor and chafe under the rule of the Inners.

Your character is a Rock Hopper -- someone who makes a living prospecting for high value asteroids -- nickel, iron, rare earths. The kind of thing that's pretty much been tapped out on Earth by five hundred years of technology and greed. You live in the asteroid belt and you fly a small ship in search of your bounty. The Mayflower is a very small ship, but it is foolishly dangerous to fly for weeks at a time all alone. You have a partner -- Rafe Maddox he's ex-Martian military, a hunk, if you're into that sort of thing. You and he are playing a hunch.

Ninety five percent of all objects orbiting the sun move in the plane of the ecliptic -- all of the planets and most all of the asteroids -- a kind of flat disc the scientists call an accretion ring. It's shaped that way because it's made up of stuff that got caught in the early days of the sun's evolution, not quite close enough to get dragged in and consumed when the central mass got dense enough to ignite, not quite far enough away to break free.

Most of the accretion ring condensed into its own little balls of stuff -- the planets -- some of it still coalescing -- the asteroid belt. But that's just the stuff that was there from the beginning. The universe is full of stuff that didn't get caught in the gravitational well of a star system right at the start. Some of it came drifting by and got caught, some is just passing through. These odds and sods are very rare, but the current asteroid belt is pretty well explored by now and while small discoveries will go for decades, all the big stuff has been found.

But up there, above the plane of the ecliptic, or below it, depending on your point of view, it's still mostly uncharted territory. It's pretty empty, so mostly folks don't bother. But . . . every now and then, someone decides to go out and have a look see. If you find something out here, it could set you up for life.

But it's a big IF -- pretty much a desperation move -- what they used to call a Hail Mary play back in the day.

Your character is a prospector down on their luck. You have decided to risk a whole cycle of prospecting -- six weeks in your metal bucket -- to go looking for a big strike instead of finding  tiny chunks here and there.

Let's get everything set up with you and Rafe about five weeks into your six week limit (air and power are the hard limits, food will last maybe two more weeks, but the water is getting kind of smelly.)

There's an easy to use D20 Modern character generator here: http://pathguy.com/d20modern.html

I'll post Rafe Maddox's sheet to give you and idea of what I did.

Roll dice here at RPOL for stats: 4d6 drop lowest, reroll stats below 8.

Total levels: 5 + 1d4

My hope is get into this slowly, get it comfy for us both, and then start telling the story. I will try to post 2 or 3 times a week. This is not a sandbox game -- I have a real plot in mind.