-------- Original Message --------

On January 27, 2018 11:28 AM, Timothy Collinson <xxxxxx@port.ac.uk> wrote:

On 27 January 2018 at 18:31, Caleuche <xxxxxx@sudnadja.com> wrote:
I haven't finished reading through the adventure yet,

ok, won't spoil the plot then... ;-) (although it has been round for a bit so I kind of talk about it freely in general assuming those who care have seen it)

Finished. It was good reading and looked like fun. A few questions [spoilers]:

The Spinward Charters was apparently only Jump-1, and the reason that they didn't attempt to return home after the misjump is that none of the systems within Jump-1 range looked like a place they could refuel from, yet at the end of the game the players ship as well as Spinward Charters are likely to be returning home. What changed that allows them to return to civilization? Did the scout base appear Jump-1 away between the original mishap and now?

but I liked that part.

Well, it's my favourite bit too. I was convinced Blue Sky was as likely to get mown down by paranoid PCs as not, but it hasn't happened yet in some four or five run throughs.

To me it immediately implied a formerly high tech, small population cut off from their civilization that haven't regained many of their TL0 survival and manufacturing skills yet. Given the reported mild changes from summer to winter covered well during the survey portion of the mission, I thought it was a clue toward the origin of the natives and that the population hadn't been there all that long and their needs simply didn't extend to manufacture of clothing.

That's on the mark.

That and the hint that one of the players recognize a species of bird their from their homeworld, indicating prior contact between this world and the Imperium at large.

Now I think you might have just won the "first person to have spotted that" award.

You do indicate that the birds are migrating, and (so far as I know anyway) migration happens during a change in the seasons, which this world really doesn't have. Was the migration hinting at something, or was even the mild change of seasons enough to trigger the migration instinct?

Also, what's going to happen to all of the other life on the planet when the brown dwarf starts flaring? Is it all going to die or were the flares particularly dangerous for human being specifically?

Further, the original population were all deaf, but were subsequent generations deaf?

A population that did have to deal with periodic winters would have had to learn to manufacture clothes and therefore would be less likely to be naked even during the mild seasons, so the nudity did imply that the population never had to deal with dramatic changes in climate.

Funnily enough, pretty much like the savannah region of Nigeria I inhabited for a year. Temperatures pretty even throughout the year. Shorts and shirt sleeve hot (naked would have been comfortable too although it wasn't culturally appropriate at the school I was teaching at.) Rainy season and dry season. All the former meant was that for a few months it would rain (heavily) for some two hours in the afternoon every third day. Dry season, no rain at all. I have several photos of the same spots 6 months apart. Green as you like in the rainy season, brown earth in the dry (well, save for the tree we 'watered' instead of using the hole in the ground in a low tin lean to for a latrine - it wasn't very pleasant).

I do wonder how quickly a population like that - stranded Vilani or Solomani - would change from clothing being absolutely necessary for social reasons to doing without it completely.

I often say that I learned more than I ever taught during that year. Shame it's now Boko Haram country as I'd love to go back sometime. The girls that were abducted some years back reminded me exactly of the 11, 12 13 year olds that were in my classes. [1] Facial features, clothing, clothing styles... it was them... :-(

tc

[1] There were older 'kids' too. Like 20. They'd missed a lot of school and were catching up. As an 18 year old I immediately realized I shouldn't reveal my age - they thought I was much older. I used to quote my grandma if I was asked, "as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth". By the time they'd worked it out, the moment had passed.

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