Monday 19 November 2018

The Nereid Trilogy Supplement

The Nereid Trilogy is an 84 page supplement for the WOIN N.E.W. role-playing game by EN Publishing and was written by Jacob Rodgers. It is written for intrepid adventurers of grades 5-8.
It starts with a brief outline of the various factions found in the Nereid starsector followed by detailed stats for the 23 planetary systems found within the Nereid starsector. Adventure seeds are provided for each planetary system for GM's and players who want to expand on the scenarios provided.
The Last Survivor is the first scenario in the trilogy and involves the PCs exploring a space ship, the merchant vessel S.S. Selkirk, that is on a crash course with Orchid Station, where the PCs are initially based. The ship does not respond to communications attempts. Once the PCs board the ship, they discover it has been taken over by an alien lifeform. The heroes might mistake the single alien for group of aliens. Eventually, they should learn enough to understand that the alien means no harm, but that the crew of the ship had to evacuate. Then the heroes will need to save the crew and battle a ruthless Ogryn slaver called Bauk in a dangerous asteroid field before he captures the stranded crew members.
The Harvester Moon is a direct sequel and sees the PCs tasked with discovering what Bauk's plot is for needing so many slaves. The Harvester Moon is the base of his operations, a moon with an unusual orbit that passes in and out of the Vortex, a cloud of energy that plays havoc with communications and sensor systems. The PCs could go undercover to discover the warlord's plans or sneak in stealthily. Once they've freed themselves from the Harvester Moon, the heroes need to stay alive long enough to signal the UFP or escape their captors.
The Virosa Accord is the final part of the trilogy. The heroes will be invited to be part of the UFP First Contact team to meet the Virosa aliens officially. They'll have the chance to interact with the leads of the mission, as each tries to convince the heroes to their often divergent viewpoints. There are divided factions on both sides. This is a more cerebral adventure to the ones that have preceded it.
I have mentioned the UFP in my descriptions, purely because they are the primary star-force of my own campaign. In the supplement, they are called the Union but in your setting they could be the Alliance, the Confederation, the Empire or whatever name you have for them. It would be useful but isn't strictly necessary if your party of heroes contains at least one psionicist, preferably a telepath.
I very much want to run this trilogy as part of my The Ace of Spades Campaign. In the introduction, it states, "Once you've placed the Nereid Sector into space then all we need do in order to introduce the adventures is to have the crew of a small ship be in the sector and willing to pick up odd jobs. The plots of the Nereid Trilogy assume that the characters are the sorts who will take up honest work and report more or less accurate information back to the authorities, who might assist them."
That perfectly describes Kimberley and her crew. Plus, with having the Venetian telepath, Danica, as part of their crew, that will make the scenario go a lot more smoothly in their interactions with the alien Virosa.
Amazon UK have The Nereid Trilogy on sale for £10.99 or you can download a PDF version of it from DriveThruRPG for £6.22. Clearly, I am a big fan of this scenario set but whether you think so too is a matter of personal preference. I am delighted that the WOIN games are getting so much support in terms of new supplements and scenarios.

6 comments:

  1. Sounds like very interesting scenarios Bryan, look forward to seeing what you do with them

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    1. Thank you, Dave. I'm hoping to run it sometime next year, once the crew of The Ace of Spades complete their next mission.

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  2. A thoroughly enticing write-up, Bryan, which certainly makes this book sound very intriguing indeed... tempting even. It sounds like you’ve got plenty of plans for its scenarios, so I wondered whether you felt its storyline could easily be converted into another rule-set; even if just using the background as fluff?

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    1. Many thanks, Simon. There is no reason not to fit this into another rules set - Starfinder or Traveller both spring to mind. There is enough background fluff included to work into most sci-fi settings.

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  3. Lots to go at by the sound of it. It certainly takes the heat off coming up with your own scenarios and so sounds well worth the money, especially as it sounds like it's going to integrate quite well with what your doing already.

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    1. Hi John. I can certainly get a lot of mileage out of this scenario pack in my ongoing campaign. As for coming up with my own scenarios, that is something I am well practised in and something I very much enjoy doing.

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