Black Harbor - Star Master Log: Torch the Flowers!

This Star Master’s Log was originally a Patreon exclusive! To get these logs two weeks early, bonus world-building posts, and behind-the-scenes secrets, join the inner circle at: patreon.com/DarkStarAdventurecast

Jeff pontificates on Episode Seven, “Black Harbor”, chit-chatting about chaos, character moments, and improvisation that shaped the story.

He covers:

• The opening of the episode, what was planned, and how it played out

• Haleyy's brilliant "burn all the flowers" plan

• What factions are doing behind the scenes, and how they may impact the story moving forward

New Star Master's Logs drop every other Tuesday, bridging the gap between our main adventure episodes.

• Show Transcript

  [00:00:00] Hey everyone, star Master Jeff here. Back with my special bonus series where I talk about how I plan the Adventure Cast campaign available exclusively for our Patreon listeners. In today's debrief, I'm giving you a little bit of a look at episode seven, black Harbor. I'll be talking about what was planned, what surprised me, and how much I'm actually improvising behind the screen.

  If you're into GM ing world building, we're just a little curious about how the story takes shape. You're in the right place. So this episode is a milestone in a couple of different ways. One, we get a huge plot twist. We learned that Omnitech Industries, who is the subsidiary of Raddy, has been seeking out the characters.

  Saying that they've stolen the scapegoat and that they were never put on a mission at all, and in fact, they're all in violation of their individual contracts with the company. [00:01:00] This obviously comes as quite a big surprise for the crew because they thought they were part of an elite secretive force to go investigate a signal on the outskirts of the galaxy.

  There was a lot of subterfuge, a lot of cloak and dagger, and they just accepted it. They knew they were gonna get paid. They had a ship. They made their way to Afia to get Dr. Larvas. It was all just a given for them. Everything was gonna work out just fine. Fast forward seven episodes and the characters are flash banged, tied up on the ground.

  And this part right here. At the very beginning, I didn't exactly envision it to go down like that. I knew that Omni Tech was gonna catch up with the crew, and I knew that I needed soldiers to go and attempt to arrest them, but they. Ended up being in the radio tower when that happened, and they also weren't posting a guard at all because overall, AFIA is pretty safe.

  Although there's the guardians of the work, no one's really trying [00:02:00] to find them, and there's far more square mileage in the city of Whaa than there are guardians of the work to actually patrol it. So I could see why they may have been lulled into a false sense of security, but in the beginning of this episode.

  That sort of became their undoing. So the soldiers crept up, threw a flash, bang in, they all filled, their saving throw all ended up on the ground. And I think a mix of being helpless and also maybe thinking these are allies who are just confused about who they are. Like when they learned that they were on detector, like, wait, we're on the same side.

  Their confusion was so, so tasty to me. I loved it. Man. Yeah. I've been waiting to reveal that they're not actually working for Omnitech and that they were part of sort of a heist to steal Omnitech property, the scapegoat out from the secured lockup. It was on on Kamir. For [00:03:00] as to the purpose of why all of that happened and how Dr.

  Voss is involved in all of this, you'll have to wait until episode eight where much of that is revealed. They're all tied up on the ground and I didn't really know how this was gonna go. I was prepared to have them be tied up and arguing the whole way back to the base where they would meet up with Victor Drake, and perhaps at that point, even dragged to PolyPhen, which is the planet where Omnitech calls home.

  You'll actually see a glimpse of PolyPhen in episode nine, so stay tuned for that. Of course Hailey took matters into her own hands. Once Froggy got shot, she just could not let that lie, and she very easily dispatched of both of the guards. She is incredibly lethal. I'm always so surprised when she just rolls and she's like, okay, guy with the gun is dead and I'm gonna punch this guy now.

  Oh, broke his leg. Oopsy doozy. I love that so much. She's just such an iconic, like [00:04:00] bruiser in that way. Everyone always underestimates her, but. Eventually she's gonna get a reputation and people will stop underestimating her. And then I guess we'll see what happens. So once the soldiers are dispatched of, they patch up, froggy the best they can, they throw him in the back of the aurora.

  Even though they said at the beginning of the episode that they were leaving him behind, they just could not leave him behind. So they throw him in the back of the aurora and it begins speeding off towards Black Harbor, knowing they need to get their ship back, but not exactly having a plan. So this ride over.

  I found actually pretty surprising. Haley has the brilliant idea of lighting the purple flower fields on fire, which is something that literally never occurred to me. I built Black Harbor, having some industry. They're growing the flower and they're shipping that off world for narcotics, for medication, and then they also have a thriving seaside community where they can fish and so forth.

  So I built all this and I built. The wall and how thick the wall [00:05:00] is and how the guards operate in that area and what the inside looks like because I didn't know what they were gonna do. I built all that before they even arrived on Wolffia, and it was set up as a sandbox for them to maybe break into and have a heist or start a resistance, which you can kind of hear Robert wanting to do here and there like starter resistance and get Frocky to be like the voice of the resistance.

  All of that came crumbling down when Omnitech caught up to them. Of course. So I thought it was very surprising and I'm very proud of Stephanie because that purple flower idea was so good and so critical. You don't hear anyone come up with any other idea once they hear that. And I really enjoyed editing that part of the pod as well.

  'cause I get to put in like the Aurora driving sound effects and like stopping on gravel and the doors opening and closing and lighting the flower fields on fire. I'd have to say. That I was not surprised that Felix took a big old whiff of the flowers, but I, I was taken aback. I did not know that was gonna happen.

  [00:06:00] And I think it's starting to show a pattern for Felix that when drugs are available, no matter how crazy the situation is, he is going to use those drugs and I think it's something that's gonna come back to bite him eventually. He's a little bit of a Dr. House character. Because he's dealing with an extremely active brain, and he has a lot of pain in his legs because of his surgery where his legs were replaced with robotic legs.

  But for now, it's mostly the party just kind of getting annoyed at him. Like, oh man, you're getting high right now. Okay, I guess we'll figure this out then. So knowing that time is short, they then make their way over to Black Harbor. Like I said, I designed this whole area for them to be able to like figure out how to break into or start a resistance.

  I even had some NPCs set up. There's actually already kind of a resistance going on within the walls of Black Harbor. They call themselves the Salt Born, and they're led by Joran Vein, who's a former guardian of the [00:07:00] work who turned the rebel leader. He's very charismatic, he's very resourceful, and his innate leadership qualities allowed him to gather other extremely skillful people around him.

  The charisma and adeptness of this group then allowed them to gain more and more people and followers, and hope is starting to spring in Black Harbor that they could come out from under the boot of the guardians. So maybe they'll come back to Wolffia someday and the rebels will have won or lost, and the landscape of Wolffia may have changed The factions.

  The salt born, the guardians, omnitech, dyne, the drift rats, the neon fangs, all of these groups that you're hearing about are still operating behind the scenes. So if they ever go back to Kamari four, for example, I'm gonna do a bunch of random rolling using the stars without number tables to figure out what these factions have been doing in the meantime.

  And hey, maybe the neon fangs don't even exist anymore. Or maybe the drift rats have been stamped out of existence, or maybe they've taken over the entire station. So it'll [00:08:00] always be really interesting to see what happens when the characters go back, because a lot of that is me rolling randomly. So I'm also excited for that.

  So time to talk about the elephant in the room, which is Victor Drake, the characters that finally make their way into Black Harbor to the location of the scapegoat. And they have kind of a thrilling scene where they fire out of a moving vehicle and the Aurora gets shot up a little bit. And they killed a lone guard wearing a gas mask.

  And they drive right into the aurora and there's a big cheer and everyone's like, yes, we're good to go. But then the slow clap of Victor Drake starts up the sarcastic congratulatory clap, which I thought it was hilarious that Felix thought the ship was applauding. 'cause they got it back. But no, alas, it was actually Victor strike.

  And so they make their way down the spine of the scapegoat to the cockpit. There they find Victor Drake sitting in the captain's chair and they have a tense face off where he [00:09:00] says he'll be arresting them and hints at their crimes and what they've done and that Dr. Ola Vos is definitely involved.

  Somehow. They shoot him, they dump his body out the side, and as they take off, they see Victor Drake or someone who looks an awfully lot like him. Step out of the other ship that was right next to theirs, the stealth fighter looking ship. So what's going on there? Who is Victor Strike? We got a couple conspiracy theories right away at the end.

  Is it a twin brother, just a close family member, A clone with they really robots or something? Who's to know except for me. So stay tuned and you'll learn more about Victor Drake as the game progresses. So episode eight has a little bit of a hint at the end. Where they're going back to get Dr. Larvas and she's in dire straits.

  They need to pick her up and leave immediately because although Victor Drake has been shot dead and a couple omnitech guards are dead, it's obvious [00:10:00] they need to escape as quickly as they can and then try to get the full story so they can figure out what exactly they're going to do next. Well, that's it for me.

  Thanks so much for listening to another star master log. I appreciate you for subscribing to our Patreon. It's so much fun to go on Patreon and see people engaging with us and really enjoying the content that we're putting out there. So thank you so, so much. Love you all. Bye for now.