Skulls Without Number - Session 7

02 Jul, 2025

Another thundering session of Skulls Without Number!

Seventh Session

Dramatis Personae

• Sebastion Echerole: Missionary and healer
• Gallius Vax: Techpriest of the heretekial persuasion
• Lady-Captain Matilda Ysolde of House Montague-Kurtz: Fearless Rogue Trader
• Os du Randt: Mighty Astropath
• Rassolvov van Law: Cool-headed gunner
• Alis Zephyr-Emil of House Rey’a’Nor: Spidery, cunning Navigator

Summary

When we last left our heroes, they had just finished a furious battle with the robotic guardians of the dungeon. They stood in the abandoned barracks, Sebastian ministered to the little flock, tending their wounds. After getting all patched up, they decided it was time to try another route. They backtracked through the reactor room and the office/rec/mess hall area, taking the western exit.

They found an emergency airlock that had been deployed; stepping through, they found a chunk of the base that had been blasted open by the Rak'Gol assault. They looked out towards the desolate moonscape, where the turrets and missile silos that had brought down the Malédiction. They wondered at what this room might have been - it was rubble, and hard to tell. After a bit of digging, it seemed to have been some sort of ammunition storage, now with nothing of value. They didn't linger; the radiation-sniffing machine spirits in their voidsuits were chattering, whispering that this had the been the site of a direct Rak'Gol strike.

They exited through an airlock at other end, the southern wall of this great destroyed room. They found themselves once again in the security hallway, facing the panopticon, though now from the north. With no way to go but through, they were forced to assault the panopticon itself. It was a strong defensive position - the robots fired from tiny fireports, down an empty hallway towards the explorers. The only disadvantage for the robots was their defensive orders, which required them to main all four directions of the panopticon at all times.

The explorers did their best. Sebastian smartly deployed his flamer to clear the fireports, Matilda wove forwards through a series of holding cells along the western wall, and Gallius chucked a grenade. Rassolvov found cover in the airlock and protected them from flanking. It was a grinding advance until Alis and Os got close enough to use their terrible mutant powers, which ended the fight quick enough.

Once the defending robots were destroyed, the explorers forced their way into the panopticon. It was actually made of one-way glassteel, allowing those within to see everywhere around them. The room controlled some of the security apparatuses in the base, but at the moment all the consoles were locked, and the images on the screens directed them to deal with it in the next room. They also nabbed a first aid manual - another item that would help them understand the civilization's language.

The next room, to the south, turned out to be a massive control center. The explorers quickly deduced that this was where the defenses were controlled, and that this would be where they could free themselves and the Malédiction. Cogitators were arranged in neat rows, in an amphitheater structure, all facing west where giant reinforced windows allowed a view of the defense weapon vista beyond.

Before they could take in the view, they also noticed that there were almost twenty turrets above them. Some were sparking, some were spinning lazily, and a few were tracking the explorers as they entered. The turrets hadn't activated this time, but it was clear that they could - and it would create an inescapable crossfire.

They breathed a sigh of relief, which I rudely interrupted with the arrival of robots from the south. A hawk-sized flying drone zipped into the room, followed by ten soldier bots. That would have been bad enough, but following behind was a true warbot. It was as tall as two men, stood wider than three soldier bots, and had a plasma gun attached to each arm. It was plates of thick steel armor covered its body. It scanned the room with its set of targeters and auspexes, immediately zeroing in on the explorers. They drew back, and Gallius activated his panspectral optics. No doubt this was a fearsome foe, made all the more terrifying by its ten soldier bots that flanked it.

Then the second warbot came through the door.

It was past time to retreat. The explorers bolted, shouting plans and ideas at each other. They had a good fifty-meter head start, but that wouldn't last forever.¹ Alis presented the first challenge. Ze and zir chair moved at half the speed of the others, and half the speed of the sprinting machines - how could she escape? Os didn't hesitate, but summoned all of his psychic strength and raised Alis's chair off the ground - ze could be transported in a psychically powered spidery palanquin!

Initially, the explorers wanted to head directly to the hanger, and fall in with the Pillard's prepared defenses. However, they suddenly struck upon an idea - what if they performed a flexible defense, skirmishing and then retreating to safety? To that plan was added the strategy to split the group, and thereby draw the bots in different directions, dividing their strength. Matilda was sent on ahead to the hanger to warn their allies.

The explorers sprinted into the reactor room, where they decided to make their play. No doubt the robots would be more cautious around their only reactor, they reasoned.² They got into cover - Alis and Os on the west side; Gallius, Sebastian, Rassolvov in the east. When the robots came through, they let loose with everything they had. Grenades, telekinesis, and a well-positioned Gaze of the Third Eye eliminated 5 soldiers; the warbots and remaining soldier bots split up to chase.

Gallius, Sebastian, and Rassolvov lead the soldier bots back through the desolate warehouse and into the hanger, where (thanks to Matilda's warning) the Pillards were waiting, and gunned the soldier bots down in a hail of heavy stubber fire.

Alis and Os had a bit more of a challenge in traversing their path. To get back to the hanger, they needed to go through the offices and rec rooms. The trapped offices and rec rooms. Beckoning with a spidery finger, Alis coaxed Os atop zir lap, in zir chair. Alis raised zir chair's spider legs and stuck them into the walls of the narrow passages, raising the pair above the ankle- and leg-level tripwires. As ze pressed forward, ze used zir precious pistachios to find other traps. Ze narrowly made it through, slowly finding zir way through the danger and protecting zir charge, as befit a true Navigator. Despite this it was an altogether uncomfortable experience for Os.³

They burst into the long corridor to the hanger with the heavy warbots hot on their heels. In the hanger they leapt the barricades and sheltered among the waiting defenders.

The resulting battle was fierce but brief. The warbots unleashed bolts of plasma on the huddled defenders. The smell of seared flesh mingled with howls of pain as Amos and Matilda screamed for a counter-attack. The Pillards and explorers brought down the heavy warbots in hail of stubber bullets, shotgun shells, and las-blasts, but only after the pirates and the Montague-Kurtz household troops took significant casualties.

Sebastian triaged as best he could. Yet without medical supplies, almost a dozen still-breathing wounded begin to slip through his fingers. He turned from the healing arts and into the prayerful arts. Calling upon the Medicine Immortal, Duke of the Sword Star, high lord of Terra who governs healing and regrowth, he prayed fervently. His entreated the favor of the Terran Lord as he examined the Imperial Trigrams and performed healing rites over each of the wounded.⁴ Through the night, the wounded would gradually improve. They still required bed rest, but no longer were on death's door.

Rassolvov moved among the wounded, gazing upon the cost of the fight. He stumbled upon his old friends Kanexath and Ignatio. Kanexath had been wounded in the assault. They talked for a moment, and Kanexath reassured Rassolvov he would be fine, and that he trusted the void-master would soon get them all out alive.

Rassolvov's player wanted to try something to help their circumstances. He stated he wanted to use his Gamble skill, betting that the old rascals had found something that might be helpful to their language acquisition. I though that was reasonable enough, especially since it was leaning on his old criminal contacts, and if he failed, he'd be out for the evening. One successful roll later, Kanexath sheepishly admitted he had taken a page from a scholarly anatomy book for... private purposes, and told Rassolvov where he could find the rest.⁵

The second expedition into the ruins proceeded with far more vigor. The explorers donned the uniforms they found, and marched out with a squad of Montague-Kurtz household troops at their back. A patrol of soldier bots was barely a speedbump - their firing line swept it away. They proceeded to the panopticon, which their household troops would secure and use as a strongpoint. Their rear secured, they marched into the command center once more.

Their strategy paid off. The turrets ignored the people wearing uniforms. Os, who drew the short straw, stood behind. Now free of danger, the party proceeded to explore the room. They found a few things, including a printout with some sort of communique, but they couldn't interact with the controls safely. They debated making a second, more thorough search, but decided it was better to press onwards.

To get him safely through the command center, Os was uncomfortably squeezed in the middle of the other four (Matilda had stayed behind to organize the recovery from yesterday's battle.) The turrets tracked him, but were unwilling to fire when he was behind the other four. With some careful maneuvering, they managed to get to the southern exit without incident.

The next room turned out to be the armory, much to the explorer's glee. It had been picked over and emptied, but there was still a handful of useful equipment. The players looted a suit of armor, archeotech weapons, and found an archeotech cache their lackeys could haul away later. The arms and armor heartened the explorers - perhaps this was to be a profitable endeavor after all!

They headed for the west exit of the armory. Through the blast door was the goal they had sought so long - a manufactory. Assembly lines and automated arms routed parts and materials through an assembly process. Drones monitored the room, and soldier bots operated the machines and collected the outputs. It appeared that the machines were making parts to repair themselves. Watching over all of this were two heavy warbots.

The manufactory ground to a halt as the explorers entered. The soldier bots and one of the warbots raised their weapons, but did not fire. The other warbot began acting a bit strangely. It broadcast... something, some human voice over a vox-speaker embedded in its chassis. The explorers had no idea what it meant. Gallius tried to repeat some of the techna-linguis he had heard from the robots earlier, but it only caused the warbot to repeat its statement.

The explorers did understand when the warbot gestured for them to leave. They did not argue and took off back to the guncutter.

When they returned, they reviewed all of the information they had found. They decided they had enough bits and pieces of the language to analyze it, and create a rough Rosetta Stone device. They hitched their vox-caster to the Malédiction's etheric arrays, the only broadcaster capable of penetrating the jamming covering the fortress. Piece by piece, Gallius scanned the documents with the Draconian language, sending them up to his tech-adepts. Through the night, he remotely instructed them in the rites of language extraction, the geometric tricks and numerical encoding that could be used to extract meaning from a meaningless, heathen tongue. Cogitators aboard the Cavalier ticked away, tech-adepts counting and disassembling the bits of language they acquired.

By the morning, Gallius and his tech-priests were exhausted, and uncertain of their success. The rites had been followed as best they could, but this was an exacting thing, and Gallius did not have the optimal amount of informational input to begin with. Nevertheless, he ordered his tech-adepts to chant the prayer of completion and transformation to end the ritual. Their holy work complete, they sent their machinae-engram over the etheric waves, through the spirit world wafting as pure and holy Information, finally channeling into the Malédiction's etherics, into its cogitators, and then into Gallius's servo-skull.

Gallius was eager to test his work, a perspective that might have been frowned upon back home. His servo-skull printed out a rough codex he could carry and decode the language. His first target was the data-slate he had found in the barracks, eager to see the last message its own had been reading.

The Rosetta Stone device had been a success, but Gallius did not have time to celebrate. As he read the message on the dataslate, unease crept up his vitruvian frame. It was a military order, intended for those Draconians living on this very station - the "final" order, in fact. It stated that the recipient had been permanently relieved from duty, that there would be no investigations nor punishments for "decisions made during the siege", and casually noted the issuance of suicide capsules in the next week's ration packs.

Design Notes and Takeaways

• Battles. This session contained both the low point and high point of combat in my campaign.
  • Low point: the panopticon fight. Did exactly what I intended it to do, found out too late that what I wanted to do was frustrating and worse, boring. It was hard for a lightly-armed party, lacking large numbers or heavy weapons, to assault a fortified position. Not surprising, was glad to have confirmation, but didn't think about how engaging this would be in play. The players were forced to slowly grind their way forward, only able to make progress with certain scarce weapons (flamer, grenades, and telekinesis), and with some players just having to sit out. The cherry on top, what convinced me I had done this poorly, was the fact that by the time the players had effectively won and would pay no more cost, the combat still wasn't over.⁶ All of this flows from a key flaw - it was a fixed point, that the players needed to get through, where the primary approach was a tedious series of rolls, and which they lacked the tools for alternate approaches. If the players had been able to acquire different equipment (high explosives, a tank), it would have gone very differently, and probably presented no less of a challenge. Alas, I did not place those in the dungeon and they players had not picked those up. Lesson learned - make sure there are alternate options (even if the players might struggle to get them), and make sure the main method costs something other than real time.
  • High point: the running battle and flexible defense. I was so proud of my players, and happy with how I handled it. The players suggested this strategy quickly, and there was almost no jerking back-and-forth - everyone got on board quickly, contributed ideas, and "yes, and"-ed their way to a plan. I was so worried that managing a running battle over an abstracted space would fall apart.It didn't! Some of this was just trusting myself to make reasonable calls on the where, how, and when players were attacking and being attacked. However, I think this also where the relatively few-decision-point combat procedure for *WN system worked out. The players could move or attack, with really only one type of attack process. In the way I ran it, the individual decisions to attack, move, or do something else could be consequential (unlike the panopticon fight), while still allowing players to do quite a few of them. The system allowed me to easily translate the player's goals into abstracted rolls or outcomes that could be resolved quickly and get the players to the next decision point. Also, unlike the panopticon fight, my players wer made good use of their available tools and terrain.
  • Lesson learned from both? Give players (access to) lots of items, create challenges which naturally evolve, and use enemies and opposition which the players must deal with or face severe consequences.
• Learning languages. Languages, languages, languages, that perennial fascination of the RPG scene. I created SkWN with a pretty bare-bones language system. SWN abstracts languages away,⁷ and RT treats them as full skills. I opted for something in between, where player-characters got certain languages from their homeworld and (if it came up) could spend skill points to get additional languages.⁸ However, in this adventure, I needed the characters to have a way to understand the language outside of level advancement. They were not going to receive XP until the end of the adventure, but they would find it more difficult to operate the machinery if they didn't have the language. I also didn't want to them to just spontaneously understand the language, either - in a game about finding alien civilizations, language acquisition should matter, and should require some investment or cost. The solution I eventually settled on was the concept of the Rosetta Stone device, as discussed above. If the players found enough unique written material, they'd be able to feed it to their cogitators and data-scribes, and possibly produce a device that could translate written language (slowly and approximately, of course.) It would be a skill test, starting at difficulty 16; there were ten unique works scattered around they could use (number 1-10), and the difficulty would be reduced by the largest sequence they had found.⁹ One player would then test their skill; if they failed, they'd get a bad Rosetta Stone device, one that might give them not-so-obvious errors, and would have to gather another language piece to try again. This did a couple of neat things. First, it turned the language into treasure, something valuable to be gathered up by exploring. The players were more insistent about thoroughly searching rooms, scrounging for material to use. Second, it created an in-between category for understanding a language. This was something I hadn't intended when I started but I've come to appreciate. The players could now understand the Draconian language, but only text, and only slowly, with some risk for more complex texts. I can take this system and apply to any dead language they happen to come across, something which I hope they do. Third, it let the players plan and strategize. I didn't hide the "bar of progress" indicating how many and which pieces they had found. They watched it grow, used it to decide when to explore, and carefully weighed their progress when deciding to make the creation roll. All in all, I like what I've done.

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