Summary for Garry[]
The set up is this: about 10,000 years ago (about 7,947 BCE) The Mellor launched a surprise attack on the Terhmelern.
The results were horrifying, and the Terhmelern were instantly on the defensive.
The Mellor used agents, pawns, cannon fodder and cats paws, for the most part.
The fringepath system as we know it is actually the service tunnels for "The Large System". The large system was destroyed by the mellor, leaving only the Fringepath system we see.
Before the Large System was destroyed, the Mellor used it to bomb various outposts and settled worlds with weapons. these ranged from anti-matter bombs to bio-weapons.
In our Campaign section, there were two Terhmelern of note -
Guy A, Kalaph Zitto, was in the dark about who the Terhmelern were fighting and why, so he unleashed a destructive bio-weapon, a PC replicator, and let it run while he fled.
Buy B, Name unknown, was a little smarter. He locked down this section of the Fringepaths, like water tight bulkheads in a ship.
A more general lock down of the Fringepath system occurred, so only Terhmelern could use it, and the fringepath system attacked Mellor on sight.
About one in a million people has certain key parts of their brains that are close enough to Terhmelern in configuration so that the gates are open for them as well.
Modern sources refer to these people as Fringeworthy.
The PC Replicator makes all PCs fringeworthy, it's built in.
Guy B also sent a general lock-down command, meaning most doors in our campaign setting are locked until manually unlocked.
This area was approximately 30 nodes to either side of the zero system.
Control Centers:[]
The Fringepath systems have control centers that fringeworthy can access, and change the settings.
Inside our bulkhead section, there are five control centers. if one can control all five, then one could unlock the bulkhead doors, unlock any door and even tell the Fringepaths to let specific people on, so they can bestow the quality of "Fringeworthy".
They can even set the security level to let Mellor through the gates.
There are five Mellor trapped in the current bulkhead section.
They desire to get their agents in control of the control centers. The Mellor know the control centers are there, but don't know where, precisely they are,
Ther Mellor will want to know the locations of the control centers, so they can send agents to unlock the fringepaths, That way they can escape exile and wreak more horrifying waves of death, destruction and misery.
The Mellor tend to be distrustful control freaks, so unless they have a good reason, they won't send agents onto the fringe paths. Such agents would be well out of the Mellor's control.
Terhmelern Bio Tech
The Terhmelern were to bio-technology what Rishans are to super-technology. They make crazy things with insufficient consideration for the side effects of what they've made.
The Keegak (Goblins)[]
The Goblins(Keegak) started life as 50 to 80 lb raptor dinosaurs. about 100,000 years ago a Terhmelern took these raptors and altered them into humanoid shape. He made them scavenging omnivores, and gave them human level intelligence.
And then he left, never to return.
For 90,000 years the Keegak struggled on their home world, fighting to build a civilization and a place for themselves.
About 12,000 years ago, the Terhmelern stumbled into the Keegak, and brought them into the commonwealth while telling them the truth. They were an abandoned experiment. No loving creator made the Keegak and set them on a path to glory. They were an abandoned school science fair project.
The Keegak didn't like hearing this.
The Keegak tried to play along, learning the ways of Terhmelern bio-tech and the ways of the Commonwealth.
Then the Terhmelern started talking about their next project. They were going to make their favorite bio-tech child, the Mellor.
The Keegak seethed.
So the Keegak infiltrated the project, they back doored the Fringepaths and sabotaged the Mellor project.
The Keegak inverted the Mellors moral code. The Mellor went from helpful advisors who brought words of wisdom to backstabbing schemers who lived for misery and destruction.
The Altered Mellor were fully aware of this and found it hilarious.
Besides a visceral hate for all things Terhmelern, the Altered Mellor enjoyed hearing the screaming of tortured and dying Keegak.
The Keegak homeworld was one of the first wiped out.
Surviving Keegak fled to the far corners of the fringepath system and hid from the Mellor terror.
All the Goblins (Keegak) in our section of the Fringepaths are refugees from the destruction of the war. They have declined to primitivism and barbarism. no surviving Keegak knows of the Mellor war or the Keegak role in it.
One clue is that the Keegak are universally fringeworthy. The system isn't locked for them.
They can't carry technology, though, that lock is firmly in place.
Techno-lock[]
The fingepath system drains almost any stored energy. batteries, krellide cells, lightsaber crystals, anything. The intent was to keep people from roaming the fringepaths with heavy phasers, blasters and lightsabers.
This is a security lock down, but it's at the main system level. One would have to find the ultimate Fringepath control center to unlock this and turn the effect off.
The Weapon:[]
The Terhmelern created a bio-weapon effective against Mellor. A Pangolisk looks like an armadillo/monkey with six legs. The Pangolisk is friendly, daft, innocent and playful. They're all over the Fringepaths and many folks like them as pets.
No one knows that Pangolisk spit can paralyze a Mellor in it's tracks. No one knows that a Pangolisk bite carries a virus which undoes the Keegak sabotage, returning any Mellor to factory spec good guy.
Some people know that Pangolisks can detect Mellor by smell.
Because when the Pangolisks detect a Mellor, they flee in cowardly terror. They have truly pants wetting panic attacks and flee at all costs.
The only time a Pangolisk will spit at or bite a Mellor is when there is literally no other option.
Pangolisks, like Keegak and Terhmelern are universally Fringeworthy. All they want to do is eat good food, play, enjoy themselves, palm their young off onto unsuspsecting others, collect shiny things and have a good time.
Goals of the game:[]
Locate and establish control over the 5 control centers.
Locate, identify and defeat the 5 Mellor currently trapped in our section.