Siberspace: Game Time and Session Zero (Patreon)

The votes are in! Our Wayfinder will be the Moonwalker shifter from the Eldeen Reaches, and our Apothecary is a living orrery built at Starpeaks Observatory. Since I want to get to the first session before the end of the month, there's a few more important things to do to wrap up our session zero. 

First, I want to make sure you all know what you're in for. This campaign is using the core principles of Spelljammer, but as discussed in this article it's not a standard Spelljammer campaign. This is a story of the evolution of Spelljamming in Eberron. Our Spelljammers are experimental prototypes, and the first session will be Aundair's first manned expedition to the Ring of Siberys. At this point in time we don't know what's out there. We don't know if there's life on the moons, if they're dead rocks, or if they're planar portals. When you run into new life forms, it will be first contact—and your decisions could have tremendous impacts on the political situation back home. Time will pass between each adventure. Characters will most likely level each session, and there could be significant developments: if you make first contact with a species in episode 3, then by the start of episode 4 we could have been trading with them for a year—or be fighting a bitter war! This will be a key point where all of you will be able to shape what happens in those downtimes through polls and story hours. You are pioneers in space, and no one knows what you'll find. 

Having said that, I want to get a general sense of what sort of things you enjoy in a session. Overall, are you more interested in negotiation or combat? Intrigue or action? These things aren't mutually exclusive and we'll have a little of everything; the poll is just to help me get a broad sense of what you all enjoy. Would you like to see puzzles, or do you have absolutely no interest in puzzles? 

The next question is character death. This is a fairly short term campaign—probably no more than six sessions, at least for this initial arc—and time will pass between each session. From a story perspective, if a character dies, someone new will be appointed to fill that role—and as we make contact with extraterrestrial cultures, we may bring strange allies onto the ship. It's also the case that this is supposed to be a dangerous mission. As such, I'm more inclined to place character death on the table than I would be in other scenarios; I feel that if this was a movie, there would be the risk that main characters could die. But the main question is what movie YOU want to see. Here's the choices. 

• Safety Protocols Are Disengaged. Use the rules as written and let the dice fall where they may. If characters die, they die. It's possible if you recover bodies people could be raised from the dead (especially our princess) but resurrection is never a sure thing. 
• Scars, Not Death. Characters may be downed, but as long as you win the fight and don't leave them behind they will recover. A character that "dies" by the rules will suffer a lasting injury—they could end up with a prosthetic limb or an ongoing quirk—but they won't die. 
• Unlikely Survival. We're not here for tragedy. SOMEHOW people will survive. If you abandon someone dying on an asteroid, a session later they'll show up having been found by wandering mercane. 

Our final question is When we will play! I am traveling and will be in EASTERN Time (UTC -4:00) for the times I'm proposing. There is also a risk that my destination won't have sufficient bandwidth to support the stream, in which case we'll have to push things. But it's supposed to have internet, so let's hope for the best. For new patrons: I don't stream live; we record the session and share it after editing.  For this reason, don't vote for a time unless you can actually play in it—we've have problems in the past with a session getting set and then not actually having enough applicants to run the session. Every future session will be run at a different time, so I will try to create opportunities for different time zones. 

That's all! And thanks to Matthew Johnson for his portrait of Magister Wrey!