Yenneiros Whitetalon

The war on SR1 finally came to a close when Song Clan and the mercs took enough of the orbitals to allow the Dragon’s reach to open fire on the other fleet. Though instead of a naval slugfest the other house retreated back into space before engaging with Song Clan’s fleet as that was suicidal. Gheir has recruited Cerys Anahi to Madhammer before setting off back to HQ and then off to SV3 to train with the Raiders of Abbathor.

As predicted by the suits, profits dropped like a rock soon as it had to pay out all the mercs for completing the job (expect a rougher then normal financial report). Though on the upside it was still an overall profit from the contract with SR1 colonists that netted the gain of an awful lot of raw material. Technically it hasn’t turned a profit yet as the suits are just sitting on the materials waiting for an order on what to do with it all. Sell it or find some other purpose for the stuff.

Mordekai Aberhoff

Ragas Durz was hired remotely through an agent so she doesn’t have an idea who you are or what company she really works for and is now attending college on your dime. The Cosmic Force of All Things recommends you ensure her contact for orders is a psionic of some power so she doesn’t figure out whats going on by reading their mind. That or enlisting the Nah division to keep her wary of her true employers.

In minor news, there was a brief police investigation at one of the Alnae factories for the pharmaceuticals company when a break in attempt resulted in a few people being killed by Nib Okzunas’ latest security invention being a little bit more powerful then intended. While no serious recourse has been taken against Nib or Expansive Psionics, it was funny. Also expansive psionics sales have increased for +6 profits.

The cult manages to increase its profits by +2 now that its selling knick knacks and doo dads which help its various cult leaders keep up their operations with a little less money from you to keep maintaining itself.

Despite the selling of gimmick items Vajor still seems to be keeping an eye on the ongoing activities of the cult on Luna. Most notably Alnae psionics have been seen keeping an eye on things around the city.

Edric Vandross

The Raiders are off near SV3 doing training stuff with Madhammer. Despite Setani’s appointment to Admiral her ideas of what to do next keep conflicting with Halaestra and Ikesha winds up as mediator.

Investing in shipyards isn’t too hard but finding one for peculiar use of refitting stolen ships is the tricky part as most tend to operate alongside major governments due to those being the main buyers for big ships, with the exception of those who specialize in frigates that civilians often buy. Since the suits don’t necessarily know your actual plans involving them the ones they recommend don’t really fit the purposes you might be particularly interested in. The most notable of shipyards in the system belong to Alnae or Sharen but they aren’t exactly looking for investors at this point. Among the startups however, SV3 stands out as it has small facilities the independent colonists like to use primarily for repair and maintenance as opposed to construction due to their smaller budget. But given this planet’s history they are keen to try and make more stuff to sell on the trade based world.

In regards to erasing ship ID’s: Solvang can do it pretty cheap. However, doing it without their help proves insanely difficult and even shipyards have a hard time doing it as the enchantments that make up an ID are similar to the APT tattoos (and the arcanist world made defense easier then offense, which extends to hacking). So it’ll take awhile and maybe an expert (like Nib or something) to get your own shipyards doing that, but Solvang can do it cheap until then.

I’m assuming you meant SZ4 everytime you said SV3. SZ4 is the ice world Siwa is colonizing, SV3 is the barren rock that has become a trade based economy. Some of the potential major players there are obviously the project manager for Siwa who is fairly elusive and spends most of their time within the Siwa facility, likely because its cold and barren outside. The Alnae officer overseeing construction of the port and maintaining the colonies also stands out as a potential VIP especially as Fred pushes for Alnae’s Sovereignty over the area. Details on these characters are slim though as the bankers aren’t exactly private investigators and can only detail financial information which has been covered before.

Banking investigation so it doesn’t make a wall of text

Sethis Tyne

Vanjin gets indoctrinated into the agency and particularly bases out of V-Thenica at the agent hideout near Sophia since that was who she saved in her last mission, so the agency has deemed that a new agent such as herself should just be kept in the area she already knows as not to expand her knowledge of the operation too quickly.

Vaeri reports in that basically your predecessors killed off a bunch of people who obstructed their general plan. These enemies originated from Alnae though its unclear exactly who was killed to get these people pissed off enough to go rogue from their own empire. The reason it became such a shadowy group is that no one believed them about the conspiracy theory since the corporation that makes up the Gauntlet isn’t exactly the shadiest in appearance so they were just called nutjobs. Toxyn is one of them and definitely one of the more dangerous members.

Julius and Vanjin are struggling on the Toxyn front. Though Vanjin is pretty sure Toxyn knows who the nah division is because they keep knowing where to strike and how to avoid them. Toxyn operates similarly to the division itself and is almost non-existent until they choose to strike. The Nah division is looking through security at what civilians might actually be this masked attacker in secret under Vanjin’s advice, though its not helping to narrow things down too much at the moment.

Luci Serrano

In regards to your mining startup. The first part to get through is pinning down where to mine. You can put all your startup funds into a survey ship (Or consider getting the pirate raiders to steal you some on the cheap if they can)  or contact existing companies to look into some stuff for you.

Mineral surveying companies come in three flavors. Alnae, Shetou, and Neutral businesses. Technically none are associated with the governments directly but the company is based in those nationalities. Alnae has access to the cheapest active options allowing you to hire survey teams to comb a planet or area of space at 250k per expedition. Shetou’s are more expensive at 400k per expedition, but their familiarity with the underdark and tendency to tunnel makes them much more thorough if you can trust them to actually hand over the data of the best finds to only you. Neutral colonies also offer their services and come in somewhere in the middle despite having less advanced tech then either one, so while the worst buy for active surveying they are at least neutral. However, they also offer a different service entirely, they’ve already surveyed more then they can use as a small neutral colony and sell the data of places they’ve already scanned. For example, they have a survey claim offered at 1.5 million, but its not a sweep of an area its an already found mineral deposit of value. You’d be buying the coordinates instead of the service of seeing if an area has anything. Due to this business model you can buy finds in asteroid belts, or on a planet. Though you pick by plane not planet given they don’t necessarily have anything on every possible planet. In Summary: Alnae is cheap and efficient, Shetou is expensive but extremely effective, Neutral options are already found claims or just companies who will survey the things you want without really being involved with the empires.

The slave market is most notable in Shetou (where it isn’t illegal) and labor force slaves are fairly cheap but require careful maintenance. The most cost effective laborers from Shetou are demons who have been enslaved through arcane magic, this may require you to keep an Arcanist on staff to do so (and make sure they’re not big on ethics). As another option the faceless suits note you can buy golem robotics from Alnae factories. Demons come in at roughly 150,000 per demon while robotics run up to 400,000 but there is the consideration of the expense of the demon slavekeepers. So the larger the operation gets the more cost effective robotics start to look even with maintenance costs.

In other news Lush’s tour seems to have concluded around Alnae and some other areas which has done well for her profitability. She’s back in the studio lately with some of the producers working on their next bright idea. Lush’ profits increased +12.

Sol Media Records has also expanded by +4 from its other projects though they aren’t marketing any of them as hard as Lush just yet.

Another financial cycle has passed, the hiring roster has cycled as well as those previously on it have found other work. Ask Kala for new hiring options if desired. Also everyone’s companies had profits increased, but I did all the spreadsheet work and forgot to write it down on here so there’s no little +4 indicator like usual cuz I forgot what the old numbers were.

Also extra money laying around has gone up 1,230,000 after all expenses were accounted for.

Stories of Lore 3

Yenneiros Whitetalon

For the time being Song has your forces on SR1 Alpha guarding positions her clan takes over so she can focus on offense.

Mordekai Aberhoff

The cult on Luna has been able to schmooze in with the house wives to continually expand their presence on the moon as well as available blank idiots. Not many of the ones prone to weird cult stuff are the kind of wives with serious involvement with their husbands business however. The information gained from their membership isn’t of immediate value to the corporate world but the in-house details of various businessmen could prove useful in the future if specific information as that should prove necessary. Though there is a businessman involved in some colonial affairs you might be able to sell some filters. Drug sales are also up on Luna due to easily suggested housewives.

On the downside, the more open operations of the cult have drawn the attention of some of their relatives. While in most cases this isn’t an issue, one of the housewives had a daughter with a friend who took a sudden interest in the cult. Judging by her constant skepticism and military background, the Luna cult of yoga might be being watched a little closer then you would like.

In the quest for infiltration of forensic labs, Kala has determined this is going to require finding a new recruit to do it. Specifically one who goes through the proper educational path to get the job, which could take years if you send someone else to do it. Though the types of people to be pursuing that degree on their own are less likely to be interested in selling out the information. There is also the option of approaching a veteran of the field who is a bit more easily swayed by cash incentives.

Edric Vandross

For all of Fred’s business savvy, the SV3 colonizers are not particularly open to the utilization of outside influences. They are veteran colonizers and have learned not to share power with bigger forces unless necessary, it is likely they intend to maintain independence as long as possible. Fred did convince them to use Divinity Vaults for their banking needs though, primarily because its the only bank that set up shop in the colonies already so transactions between colonies are easiest with DV. With them joining in, most of the other colonizers also opted for divinity vaults with a bit of salesmanship. As a consequence of this, deep in the backroom of paperwork someone caught something of interest. The Jelwe Labs colony is receiving an awful lot of money from Desoir, and one of the smaller independents is actually sending money to Selona. Siwa Technologies itself is pulling a lot of money from Solvang’s banks.

The raiders successfully picked up another ship and expanded the crew appropriately. Ikeshia buddied up with the pandem pirate Halaestra, which is a cruiser. While perhaps not Ikeshia’s first choice of comrade, Halaestra is the ship’s original captain and was rescued by the raiders. Soon after the operation, Halaestra murdered all of her own crew for having witnessed what the drow did to her on the ship. Whether she was embarassed or didn’t want to work with people who had seen her beaten is unknown, but Ikeshia notes she is quite vicious. The Raiders of Abbathor are crewing her ship for now until she can pick up her own crew.

This puts the new captain in a peculiar position. Halaestra is not terribly subtle and Ikeshia isn’t sure she can trust the pandem pirate for long, let alone with the secret of her employer. However, since Halaestra murdered all of her own crew she is reliant on Ikeshia’s crew to fly her ship since as a pandem user she can’t do it herself which gives Ikeshia leverage for now. The issue with that is Halaestra is only aware of Ikeshia as the ring-leader, and Halaestra is a more powerful pirate then the quiet elf pilot. As long as Halaestra is unaware of the conspiracy the temptation to mutiny Ikeshia might be particularly high, but making her aware of it could have other problems.

Sethis Tyne

Sophia has a few insider tips regarding the Selona territory. First off, Selona isn’t a traditional gang and operates mainly by selling stuff to crime gangs to resell to others in other locations with the exception of some of its higher end stuff that smaller gangs won’t be able to sell. She can actually sell their stuff in her own territories and operate small time within Selona’s own territory as long as she keeps those smaller operations in check from pissing them off. Secondly, her old boss had a connection to Selona and by proxy she knows how to approach him as well. Meaning if her mysterious new boss should want access to serious weapons, she can arrange for them to be sent back to the Nah division (that she doesn’t know exists, she just assumes whoever you guys are you might want Selona’s brand of firepower). Y’know, in case you ever want to buy a tank or advanced super illegal shuttles. Though she does seem timid at the suggestion, the idea of dealing with Selona obviously makes her nervous but dealing with you seems to make her nervous as well.

Meanwhile, Nah division points out that no one seems to know where Selona is getting all this stuff it sells. Its not a garage operation, somewhere in the system has to exist a network of factories for Selona to operate the way it does. Sol Media might be able to do something interesting in investigating that.

Vaeri and Julius are still unheard from.

Luci Serrano

People are still on tour and movies are still being made. Exme continues to report on the SR-1 conflict.

The suits who have on idea what the budget really looks like keep pitching more ideas for shows and movies with the startup of the production studio that is producing some movie. The same guy who suggested the easy cash in on the comedy movie to get a foot in the door of the industry wants Exme’s footage to produce a documentary on the SR-1 conflict with leftover footage. Purely because it would be cheap to just use the news footage and probably make at least something that at least breaks even, but also it would boost the studio’s reputation since you seem to like doing that. Though Kala warns that at this rate that faceless suit guy might get a face.

Not much else going on since you just stare at developments and ignore all the plot hook potential, lazy Tess.

More sandbox stuff was added if you care to go find it, I forget what is actually new in it and just bulk uploaded.

SR2 investigation yields information you already knew. You’ll have to be more specific. Though as a training ground the risk is annoying the Sivataur who went through a lot of effort to put stuff there for themselves and they aren’t in the habit of renting out cabins to rich sport hunters. On the other hand that is a pretty good training exercise as long as you don’t fail.

The Alnae council does have its fair share of people who are only in power cuz the previous seat they occupy retired and handed it off to their dumb kid they liked. Since incompetence is not grounds for murder in Alnae its higher council is significantly weaker and more prone to outside influence then the Shetou counterpart. Though the opponent in such an endeavor would be Alnae’s AIC and Patriot Agency.

Yenneiros Whitetalon

With the arrival of the Song Clan, SR1 Alpha has escalated its conflict. Due to the fact that the mercs are still under contract they’ve opted to help out where they can and continue the fight. Bloodtongue has led some efforts to push forward and capture the anti orbital weapons, allowing the Song fleet in orbit to slowly get closer to the other fleet. The presence of the Song fleet is helping to maintain any ground captured since as it advances forward it threatens the land beneath it from where it orbits. The conflict is still primarily ground based, despite losing ground House Nahal has not surrendered or left the planet. Gheir reports back with the suspicion they’re holding out for reinforcements of some sort.

Mordekai Aberhoff

In new developments of the cult, one of the sects hanging out on Luna has started getting general mainstream attention. Preying on the rich housewives like a yoga practice, though the roundabout effect is that more people are noticing it exists there. They have the nicest office of all the cult sects though.

Edric Vandross

Construction on the SZ4 colonies with Siwa is off to a good start. Though notably three other organizations are helping back it and the smaller colony startups. Jelwe Labs, who are most known for owning the main research facility on SZ1, has been starting up there as well with colony teams running their funding from unknown backers but the paper trail indicates they’re using the Solvang banks. The other notable colonizers come from Sv3’s normally independent group, though they have some veterancy in the matter. Though they do not have an official company name as it appears to be just a bunch of guys, however as Sv3 is known for a lot of colonization equipment they haven’t been reliant on any external funding help and seem to have the best start on colonies with their expertise. Finally there is a showing from the Alnae military who have come to help out the effort and are the major shipper for Siwa’s materials utilizing the Alnae fleet implying Siwa itself has ties to the Alnae for this project.

In regards to SV2, not particularly feasible simply because no one wants to rebuild something that still works fine enough, it was rebuilt early on during the collapses of the earth anyways.

Fred doesn’t have much else going on. He’s led a fairly civilian life, went to school, graduated, put on a suit and started working in an office. His psionic abilities are mostly innate and though he was trained in the art during his higher education his talent as an illithid is responsible for most of his abilities. He has only worked for minor houses across Shetou and was technically just working for a company office within that house’s territory so he doesn’t have any interesting connections there. All things considered he’s fairly normal all around except for his experience in the business field and track record of profitability.

Sethis Tyne

As a freebie, Julius and Vaeri figure out to pick up the lead Tess found an update or two ago that no one reacted to. Though given the nature of this, they’re essentially missing to avoid detection and now both of the division’s major spooks are not going to be around for awhile.

On the black market front, Sophia has won her little territory war on V-Thenica giving her room to breath and continue to set up operations further. Aggressive expansion has her sending gangsters to other planets with a particularly known criminal scene to get a bit more presence over a large distance and keep an ear to the ground.

Luci Serrano

Ratings are up on the SR1 reports since it just turned into a real warzone. However, related to other rival broadcasters it hasn’t gone up quite as much. The suits have determined the audience you’ve built so far are a minority of people who care for fair reporting. Networks appealing to idiots and just showing military action and slapping a narrative on it they make up seem to be yielding more traffic.

Movie stuff still undergoing but so far all is going according to plan, filming is on SV3

Reporters attended some press releases recently. Including the announcement of Lusheria’s tour which they may have promoted in Sol Media’s outlets more then necessary. Also some astronomers report that within the year they expect to make contract with aliens, this has stirred up a lot of people as the countdown nears. People have a mix of general fear the governments will mess it up thanks to movies, and perhaps a few nerds are a little too excited overall.

Fuck it sandbox world building week, go find something to mess with. More factions coming next week, ran out of time. Also regular update style will be back then too, Should be enough reading for now though.

New stuff:

Planets (also accessible from player homepage)
House Vloz
Selona

Stories of lore 2

Yenneiros Whitetalon

In efforts to barter merc work for mining coords the neutral surveying company offers you a quest to wipe out two small colonies on SV4 and SV5. The small colonies independently discovered some places they had co-ordinates they intended to sell to Shetou, so a lot of lost value there. However, to prevent them from taking the location to other people or anything of the sort they would want them wiped out to the last person.

The board’s intel shows it’d be doable with a bit of effort even with our strongest forces busy at SR-1 Alpha since these are smaller colonies. Kalan also notes your board members/contractors don’t know about the Nah division who are quite suited to assisting in this kind of task.

Some Independent colony in the Abyss suggests utilizing your merc services to protect the colony and just giving you a % of mining income they already have going on instead of giving you coordinates to somewhere else. Mostly because coordinates are really iffy out here in the Abyss. The faceless suits say its an easy profit on paper but the Abyss is one of the most dangerous planes to operate in (that can be consistently operated in) purely because of the high incident frequency with monsters that survived the Era of Purge in the Abyss as it wasn’t one of the highly focused on middle planes. On the upside, monsters are pretty easy to kill with guns compared to other people with guns.

Mordekai Aberhoff

Due to lack of overt action the cult continues to grow though not much interesting is happening over there. Since they meet in their own little hole and stay out of people’s way for the most part. Research into the understanding of Psionic Forensics is ongoing though significant results aren’t expected for at least a few years since its a complicated field and some people are having to go to college for better education on the topic. Kala recommends looking into setting up some covert agents within police forces and such to get a better look at the practices and habits, as well as just having a position to manipulate investigations.

Pharmaceutical profits are up +5 due to schmoozing at the resort.

Edric Vandross

Jezraema starts the effort of blending in to the pirate crew. She’s a bit more hardcore then most of the pirates though, a lifetime of abuse and a job of murdering people makes her a little bit intense. Though on her first outing to raid some other ship she performed pretty well. Oddly enough of all people she seems to get along with Ikeshia, the ship’s figure of authority, the best, likely because Ikeshia isn’t too talkative.

In regards to the request you made of Kala he just points at your faceless suits since thats literally their job. Though to keep up with his own job he headhunted a peculiar businessman for the hiring roster.

In regards to SZ4: The tech company in question happens to be Siwa Technologies, and they intend to colonize the frozen wasteland of SZ4 for the development of military tech. A wasteland like this is pretty good for testing things that blow up as well as managing the exhaust heat they can produce with some of their other work. A meeting with them proves favorable and the faceless suits are negotiating contract type stuff. Meanwhile the smaller colonies would be easy to get power over as they are already trying to piggyback off of Siwa Tech and aren’t the most well funded or organized colonists. Some well placed loans and contracting on Hightowers end to bring in construction crews from other worlds to get the startup infrastructure built would go a long way. The suits have calculated it to be a lot less expensive then this kind of startup would normally require since the environment is technically livable even if cold, dramatically reducing the cost of contracting construction teams and making remote construction a lot more plausible instead of assembling prefabs. The unique opportunity is wasted on the smaller colonists as they aren’t terribly financially capable compared to some of the smarter ones who go to much tougher places to get ahold of.

Sethis Tyne

With the removal of some key elements Sophia’s profit margins have gone up and progress is going well. Though there weren’t really any gangs to help turn it into a 2v1 purely cuz the gang she’s up against is very territorial and hasn’t let many others rise up in their territory, as evidenced by how quickly they got into a fight with Sophia and they fact they’re still continuing it despite current losses.

Julius Ayit, who killed some of Sophia’s main rivals in the other gang by outright assassinating both their leader and second in command, has been added to the roster by Kala taking notice of their capability (they’re on your player page and the character roster).

The divinity vaults info doesn’t appear to have been seriously leaked. Vaeri combed through the Solvang report and while thorough enough to hand out for pirates to do a job it doesn’t really have things you couldn’t have figured out by just doing a lot of stakeouts.  Its all stuff you could find out through pure observation if you spent a lot of time observing. The mooks in the division combed through security footage and Vaeri is convinced they had multiple people stake out the locations to be less suspicious. This indicates to her that whoever you’re up against has a lot of raw manpower at their disposal as the information covers several locations across the system, but none of it has info like security codes

Upon checking in on it, Vaeri is a little overworked but her elven nature makes her rather capable of handling it. Though part of her being overworked has to do with her doing things of her own initiative interacting with the other companies, mostly cuz the DM wanted to give her more prevelance in the overall story.

Research into the incoming Dragon’s Reach reveals that the Dragon’s Reach isn’t just a dreadnought, its a flagship for one of the council houses. Report is here.

Nah profits increased to accomodate existing employee’s promotion to the roster.
Black Market profits +4

Luci Serrano

Exme is pulled off of whatever she was investigating to look into the SR-1 Conflict. This pulls her off of whatever strange leads she was looking into regarding the bombings, at least also off the tail that the bigger conspiracy exists. She’s actually pretty useful in the SR-1 reporting since she’s much harder to shoot on accident since she is incorporeal. Her camera guy is not so lucky though.

Though the last she was working on she was investigating within an independent colony on that housed some of the bombers whose identities she confirmed.  Curiously the colony is in Necrosi.

Lusheria is off on tour now, profits of the record label have increased. Meanwhile faceless suit man #4 who suggested expanding into the movie business has hired a more experienced director and is looking into the production of a comedy as he feels in the future of using this new avenue to promote stars as we desire having a studio known for something not super serious is probably the way to go.

Profits are up a little from Lush’s tour getting started but the cost of the movie attempt is definitely draining on that. In the long haul the suits assure that profits will go up in the future more dramatically.

-Keith actually reads these

Cuz people filled stuff in so late I just scrambled it together.

Financial Report Update:

Total profit: -410,000, total balance: 9,760,000

Yenneiros Whitetalon

The SR-1 Alpha conflict has progressing more favorably, with Gheir maintaining most strategical command he’s ended up using some of the munitions they were sent to deal with the orbital cannons closest to their own hideouts and especially their side of the hemisphere. While we don’t have ships, he’s suspicious of them having set those up and thinks the drow are a move ahead of him if he doesn’t deal with those now.

Mineral surveying companies come in three flavors. Alnae, Shetou, and Neutral businesses. Technically none are associated with the governments directly but the company is based in those nationalities. Alnae has access to the cheapest active options allowing you to hire survey teams to comb a planet or area of space at 250k per expedition. Shetou’s are more expensive at 400k per expedition, but their familiarity with the underdark and tendency to tunnel makes them much more thorough if you can trust them to actually hand over the data of the best finds to only you. Neutral colonies also offer their services and come in somewhere in the middle despite having less advanced tech then either one, so while the worst buy for active surveying they are at least neutral. However, they also offer a different service entirely, they’ve already surveyed more then they can use as a small neutral colony and sell the data of places they’ve already scanned. For example, they have a survey claim offered at 1.5 million, but its not a sweep of an area its an already found mineral deposit of value. You’d be buying the coordinates instead of the service of seeing if an area has anything. Due to this business model you can buy finds in asteroid belts, or on a planet. Though you pick by plane not planet given they don’t necessarily have anything on every possible planet. In Summary: Alnae is cheap and efficient, Shetou is expensive but extremely effective, Neutral options are already found claims or just companies who will survey the things you want without really being involved with the empires.

MADHAMMER profits +4

Mordekai Aberhoff

On the cult front Kala found a potentially interesting recruit. While not a psionic himself, his abilities give him a lot of potential if you want to tangle with some really really shady stuff.

Your vacation leads you to a resort where other CEO’s seem to be lurking about. It doesn’t take long before you figure out you should get some extra bodyguards because this a meeting of Shetou business people, you are currently at risk of being assassinated if you don’t play your cards well. It appears shetou business people like to gather at gambling establishments, a game akin to poker is basically the shetou intellectual’s game of choice. They take it way too seriously at this resort, you’re down a few thousand so far. But solid schmoozing going on.

Cult recruitment is trickling but slow so far as they try to find people that can be suckered into it. Though its population has gone up a tick.

Edric Vandross

You’re a bank, you already have real estate. Granted the method you acquired it is sometimes by ruining the lives of poor people. Though your suits have started putting a bit more effort into the housing market, particularly where its cheapest: colonies. This sort of puts your hightower industries plan for colonies and bankrolling by divinity in the business of basically co-founding colonies.

As Ikeshia’s findings warned, several bank branches suddenly got hit by pirates, very violent ones almost all associated with Solvang. While several of the major branches were protected thanks to the Nah division, they weren’t everywhere and some pirates went for smaller prey.

You manage to acquire Jezhraema, while she’s technically a slave and you can detonate her at will she still costs 20k per update due to basic “staying alive” functions. She’s in a state of confusion as to why anyone would buy her and is currently just sitting at an undisclosed location awaiting briefing. Kala advises that if you don’t want her to know you personally you could request Vaeri to come by, as she seems to be doing well with being the gauntlet’s spooky agent.

Every update you mention expanding the business, that is literally all your faceless suits are focused on so you know.

Divinity Vaults profits -6
Hightower profits +2

Sethis Tyne

Vaeri disappears for awhile to figure out more about the SR1 Alpha conflict. She figured out what the orbital cannons are about literally three days before this update. Another house is headed towards SR1 Alpha, and they don’t appear to be backup for the current one. Turns out a notorious shetou dreadnought “Dragon’s Reach” is headed there with its supporting fleet. Its owned by a nomadic house ruled over by a violent icaarnum warlord known for crushing other Shetou houses and being one of Alnae’s greatest enemies as its one of the few Shetou armada’s that rely on brute force over subtle tactics. SR1 Alpha is about to see the appearance of a very hardcore military. She’s working on getting a better profiling of who is coming.

She’s still working on finding out how they found out anything about us int he first place.

The killteams have a large impact on the hits on Divinity Vaults and are largely successful where deployed. Though, one killteam was wiped out when it came up against the Nomads and so a major office was still lost.

Sophia’s operations already prove to be getting violent. Her gang and another are engaged in a turf war filled with drivebys and random attacks. Things are currently not in her favor on the macro scale of the territory despite her personal expertise. However, the deployment of Vaeri as given her time to gain an edge as Vaeri just outright assassinated the rival gang’s top three leaders with a bombing. Though black market profits are still up thanks to plundering her rival’s stuff on her wins she’s collected.

Vaeri is starting to become the gauntlet’s signature spook as she shows up in other peoples lines of work to dramatically alter situations. Kala recommends we might need another one or two at the rate we keep using her all the time. If requested he can start looking for other spooky type people.

Black market profit +3

Luci Serrano

The record label starts finally making progress and releases Lusheria’s first album, as well as some of its more minor new contract acquisitions. Profits aren’t currently that high as they sunk an unreasonable amount of money into bribing radios to play her stuff a little too much and get it stuck into people’s heads by brute force, though history shows this is a good way to forcing popularity.

One of the faceless suits submitted his project for approval to you. Planning to expand further into entertainment using its growing collection of talent and the media company’s already large holdings in the field. Figuring if they could make a halfway decent movie or two they could start controlling who gets famous. Though the issue is it can be difficult to impress moviegoers. But in the long haul, he wants more routes to force Sol Media’s talent down people’s throats.

Meanwhile back at the news media outlet, they find themselves reporting on bombings once again. Exme has sent people to look into these cases trying to find some sort of story, unknowingly perhaps helping the gauntlet’s other motives as she seems to be pursuing a series of leads none of the other people have found. We don’t know if she’s way off or just somehow brilliant.

The record label intends to send Lusheria on tour opening for someone else soon which will keep her largely in Alnae since she is an elf.

Lusheria now brings in a profit of +5

Stories of Lore 1

Yenneiros Whitetalon

In the hunt for cheap mineral rights, Thenica has few opportunities as the planet is well settled. Though asteroid belts and less colonized worlds are up for grabs for anyone with the general manpower to make a claim. Zonaricht in general is hotly contested for new mining colonies since it is the most native plane. Rixa has been known to have the largest deposits of various resources due to the way the plane works with the stable axis rotations of its planets causing large deposits to generally form along areas of specific climate usually along specific latitudes. Vermasih can also have similar effects due to its tendency to produce mono-climate planets but results will usually be less tightly compacted and require more, or mobile, machinery to properly excavate. Either way finding resources in uncolonized areas will require surveying, which may need to be outsourced to a company specialized in it if the equipment isn’t purchased for in-house surveying.

SR1 Alpha’s campaign actually begins to see shots fired by the mercenaries now. As a progress update, they’ve largely stuck to hit-and-run attacks on convoys and smaller encampments. Heavier firepower is going to be needed eventually to deal with the small fleet in orbit as well as shetou’s access to more vehicles suited to the terrain. The campaign is not looking good due to the vehicular advantage the shetou have and anti-vehicle solutions will need to be expanded upon the moon to hope for a clear victory in the long run. However, it is suspicious that shetou’s efforts seem to have slowed in their retaliation to bolster defenses. Particularly they have been setting up surface to orbit weapons, considering the native colonies lack warships and we certainly don’t have any, the mercs think something fishy is afoot.

Meanwhile over-fortifying the temp office base seems to be going well.

Profits increased by 2 for expanded work
Profits increased by 4 to account for sudden appearance of hero card on roster that was already in the company budget prior to their relevance(covers their paycheck they were already getting).

Mordekai Aberhoff

You are now invested in Mhaldaru Foods startup company. It specializes in non-perishable foods most often used by military and colonizing agents, advertising an emphasis on it not tasting terrible. Meaning they use a lot of sugar. They have things reminiscent of pop-tarts though, so that’s fun.

While the speeches do some good to ease the worries of some investors, the heavier investors that bring in the most money are still iffy on the prospect. Some more money is brought in though overall though nothing staggeringly huge.

Research trials into training techniques come into two basic comments from the advisors. Sublety has to contend with one major problem, modern forensics. Most uses of magic leave traces that can sometimes be found by investigators, psionic magic in particular leaves lasting impressions on its victims that can be found by medical examiners. Training agents in sublety requires them to come to an understanding of what the red flags are for someone to get a medical exam for such traces, such as not making extremely overt uses of psionics to make people do things clearly abnormal for them to do. Resistance to outside influence comes from pure practice, since psionics utilize the same basic principles for defensive and offensive uses the more powerful the psion the better their resistance will be. Making psionic agents with these factors in mind hits a bit of a snag. Generally the most knowledgeable and stronger psionics are those with higher education from accredited institutions and usually look to work in technology related fields. They would make useful agents, but are difficult to  recruit into a cult type of thing as they have a lot of job prospects and given how mentally focused trained psionics are they tend to be fairly sharp individuals. Easier to recruit are those who are just slightly unstable and they are powerful enough to resist psionic manipulations, but are more vulnerable to straight up verbal manipulation. So you have to weigh the risks of bringing in someone clever enough to notice maybe they should tip off the police but is better at the job, with people who are a little peculiar and would have a harder time alerting authority but are also just a little bit crazy. Any perfect candidates will probably show up as hero units from Kala though due to the rarity.

The particular benefits of meeting with colonial minded investors for filters is more so getting an idea of where ships and colonies might actually be going. While there is a lot of obvious involvement going on around the colonies on SR1 Alpha, SR2 Alpha is also seeing a lot of Shetou traffic right now. Less noticed by the public though, SV2 is seeing a huge push in colonization efforts by multiple Shetou houses. While a smaller series of neutral colonies can be found there, shetou is basically muscling them out of the way.

Profits increased by 2 for investments in pharmaceuticals
Profits increased by 2 for filter contracts to colonial efforts

Edric Vandross

The DM comments on you banking money…as a bank.

The Raiders’ association with Divinity Vaults is not known even to the raiders, though Ikeshia had the foresight to send home the entire job board Solvang had to the directors as something in it might be useful. Since she was in the neighborhood picking up her Solvang membership as it were. The Nah division found it to be indeed quite useful while combing through it. There is a posting with information for sale that details information on Divinity Vaults locations, security systems, and general company protocols. We don’t know how in depth it is without buying it, but we may have found who our bombers are targeting next.

In regards to the Raven rundown: See Serri’s section for Exme’s report.

Despite how much of a pain in the ass most things are to get done around here, inquiry into Jezraema proves pretty easy as they just name a price and call it a day. At 2 million she’s actually pretty cheap for someone who is combat trained, her half-breed status definitely didn’t help her estimated value.

Hightower turns up some interesting trends in colonization efforts. Shetou is pushing into SV2 hard, meanwhile independent colonies have shown an interest in SZ4. While SZ4 is generally a bit too cold of a wasteland for colonization efforts up till now, a tech company has found an interest in it because it already has an existing atmosphere that doesn’t require massive arcane rituals to make liveable. Though the oxygen content could be a little better, its much more manageable then other planets. The cold wasteland could be ideal for the production of anything that produces a lot of excess heat as the planet is basically covered in a layer of ice. In the wake of the tech companies interest, independent colonizers also see an easy opportunity to get started due to the existing breathable atmosphere and the ability to piggyback off the tech company’s interest. Due to the stability of Rixa’s planets, rich folk are taking interest in that plane though holding off on investing in any projects because of Shetou and Alnae’s conflict in the plane. However, rich folk colonizing things is always a prime opportunity for unionizing laborers and left unchecked the entire plane could become Shetou and Alnae colonies. The most ambitious colonization project in the works is by the Desoir clan, who have been building a colossal colonizer fleet that intends to leave the system entirely and travel to another nearby star astronomers have predicted has a liveable world. They’re taking full terraforming equipment just in case though, and for the other planets and moons they might want to get a foothold on.

-500k Subscription cost for the raiders of Abbathor Solvang memberships added.
+1 Profits for Hightower Industries

Sethis Tyne

Hiring Vaeri turns out to be pretty smooth overall. The division’s other managers test her effectiveness by just sending her around on some side gigs early on to see how she does. Starting with making her bribe the officials as your indirect representative. For which she invented a new identity and dressed up like a business woman with a gangster vibe to her in order to meet with politicians and begin building a relationship with those that were a bit shady in case future bribes or influence might be necessary. In the end it was successful, and Sophia is free with a clear record.

Vaeri’s time with the AIC branches proves useful again as she’s good at cross co-ordinating things across the corporation from the shadows of the Nah division and was responsible for assisting Exme with her investigations. Though no one except the Nah division and the directors know her as Vaeri and she uses advanced illusion projectors to create new identities when she meets with anyone outside of the division.

Sophia doesn’t need much urging to get to work within the black market area, though she doesn’t actually know who she works for. She thinks Vaeri’s business gangster identity is a crime boss of some sort. Though she had been side tracked a little building her own team of people she likes. Some company funding disappeared when Sophia bought a bar on Thenica to operate her gang out of, as is the stereotype. Though all things considered that purchase cost the corporation barely anything as its a shady dive bar in downtown and the gauntlet owns franchises. But it is noted she’s run a little wild without much supervision, granted she was hired to be a manager. Though already it looks like she’s stepping into the territory another gang would rather maintain a monopoly within. There has already been two shootings involved, she predicts this is going to escalate quickly.

In processing the systems and security, Vaeri also was responsible for finding out Divinity Vaults has its security details posted in the Solvang world. Something might happen to that place soon, likely thanks to pirates.

Profits increased by 1 for black market operations

Luci Serrano

Exme’s investigations into the Raven as an unwitting journalist turns up a lot when some “assistance” got her actually into the facility to see what they do. As it would turn out their profit comes from selling inmates that have been modified for loyalty and stability using incarnum manipulation. Which is basically some really shady shit. It is also owned by the Desoir clan and used for research on various magical and cybernetic augmentation using the humanoid subjects. Attempting to buy the place from Desoir would prove insanely expensive as individual inmates are worth between five and twenty million, with some going as high as a few hundred million. Its likely purchasing the facility itself would go into the billions.

The record label finds a few other musical prospects as requested though time will tell if any are emerging stars or fringe bands. It still banks a lot of its efforts on Aelynn currently.

Careful observation into the effects of the reporting on SR1 Alpha’s conflict has been noted by marketing. In general the public seems to sympathize with the colonies but the majority of people have little say in economical affairs of that scale, the wealthier show an interest in Shetou gaining control of it. Also after an interview with one of the colonists in the resistance, there were a lot of comments on the attractiveness of a “Cerys Anahi” – one of the guerilla fighters. Editors put more footage of her in future coverage due to viewers interest in her.

Not terribly much new going on since last report, largely due to the sheer amount of startup paperwork to be done and the DM noticing the faction page was entirely missing from the player homepage area. Fair enough though as Kala is busy finding the right people to finish start up plans, so be sure to check the hiring roster for his new finds, he wasn’t able to meet all requests as it hasn’t been long and his isn’t the easiest job.

You’ll also find the overall financials of Gauntlet available from the player homepage or click here.

Yenneiros Whitetalon

Due to lack of input, the faceless suits have opted to accept the deals on SR1 Alpha and deployed a lot of the available employees to the conflict on the side of the natives against Shetou. This puts them against the heavier hitting offense though as Shetou has tanks. Until the job is completed, financial projections indicate an upcoming increase in profit followed by a sharp spike downward. Since mercenaries are expected to get their own gear they will be needing to buy a lot of appropriate weapons for the job along with ammunition. Upon completion though, we’ll have to hand them all rather heavy paychecks since contracts indicate that even the dead members still have to be paid.

Future finances definitely depend on whether or not the conflict is won given that a loss is not indicative of a reliable company and a victory would be a good trophy given this is against a Shetou house with a full military presence. Staff is working overtime to try and co-ordinate this particular conflict as a result.

The smaller bodyguard gigs are easily covered by small teams and don’t impact the grand scale financial report much.

MADHAMMER profit +4 from hires and current business.

Mordekai Aberhoff

The reduce in visibility ordered out to the cult leaders for the most part results in those cells going very quiet. While its a good way to keep things low profile it does mean the cult members won’t grow any time soon until the quiet phase passes over.

For the most part research for resistance and sublety of cult agents is covered as “make the cult agents actually practice”. That is mostly a matter of the psion’s skill. Can make all the fancy tech you want but if they go do something really overt the sublety doesn’t help. However, results vary as the decentralized structure means there isn’t a standing training program and the agents are mostly operating on their own out there and their motivations to upkeep their skills vary.

Churning up investors is difficult due to the recent bombings, particularly of one of the manufacturing plants. They tend to keep asking a lot of questions as to why it was bombed. Bombings are indicative of very deep conflict, as regular old criminal drug trafficking would be more likely to just steal assets instead of destroying them. Along with hiring MADHAMMER, whose association with you is not public knowledge. While it does assure some that the company is taking necessary precautions it is worrying that it hired a full blown military company to act as security and points back to the earlier questions of the bombing. These worries will have to be smoothed over before we can expect too much more investment, though a few put their foot in a little bit at least.

Expansive Psionics profit -2 from hiring MADHAMMER

Edric Vandross

Recon suggests acquiring Richard Black is either really easy or difficult depending how you look at it. It should quite doable through financial influence though it is heavily recommended not to try and break him out by force. Given the location he is held at and his mental state (as well as other’s held there) a breakout attempt could be disastrous. The Raven is a shady facility for advanced research and humanoid experimentation, its unclear exactly what they research but they hold people with a lot of different magical capabilities. However, due to its lack of association with a larger government its financial situation cannot be perfectly secure. In depth research also finds that a lot of its people have gone missing over time.

Hightower kind of struggles with the shipyard front, unionizing them is difficult given that shipyards are already well established and a highly paid position to work given ships have to be flawless, buyers are often not concerned over an extra few hundred thousand, and a lot of construction is done in space. Though some efforts are making progress at a particular Shetou shipyard in orbit around SV-2, updates as they progress.

Sethis Tyne

Consulting with the agents who look into the prison holding Sophia Lennas, there are a few options. Getting her transported would take some political sway and favors with Alnae in order to make the transport crash and leave her presumed dead. This would involve somewhat convincing a corrupt government official or three that she needed to be moved. Alternatively outright bribing the same officials to make her disappear from records might be easier but it will leave those officials aware that she isn’t really gone and that something is going on. However, it could go towards building a relationship with the corrupt of Alnae for future deals in the future. Another way to just make her disappear could involve overtly breaking out someone else and just happening to get her presumed dead during an aggressive strike on the prison with a well crafted body double. She isn’t particularly big time and they would likely check her cybernetics to verify her identity instead of a really in depth confirmation.

Some of the stealth ship stock options in the cruiser class are now visible on the player portal page.

Investigations into the attacks is proving difficult as these tracks were covered well. A lot of the individual attacks were carried out by different groups entirely who all had a mysterious tip or payoff to do the job. Some have been “detained” for questioning, but they don’t seem to even have full knowledge of their employer. Kala suspects that if they’re this committed, and given that the attack happened before you got the job, it definitely has to do with some offense your predecessors committed. Unfortunately, there are a huge number of possibilities there given they were kind of bad people. Investigators suspect that there will be future attacks but it is unknown where or how, but the key to finding more information might be into being pre-emptively prepared to pursue leads from those. A few people have been paid off to keep an ear out for any strange offers getting made to criminals to carry out corporate warfare to see if they give any leads.

Luci Serrano

Sol Recording is off to a slow start since it only has one star to bank on for now. Aelynn is at least of moderate temperament and easy to work with. She accepted the job a bit quickly given that the advance signing bonus paid off her student debt. As Kala suspected she is a talented artist especially when put in a professional environment instead of a coffee shop though she is taking some time to adjust to the work that is a lot different then studying. Either way producing an album will take a little bit of time.

On the news team front, the already established business, Sarah Kanu proves a useful but stressed hire since they’re being sent to cover the conflict on SR1-Alpha. A conflict that notably involves a Shetou house, a factor that does not help her paranoia. Though her paranoia proves a bit useful, especially considering this is a warzone. As coverage goes on you may wish to choose which side to give more favorable air time or to maintain a neutral split.

The suits covered the attacks on corporate holdings rather blandly for lack of concept of the grand conspiracy and stuck to just reporting some bombings for easy views, people like to tune in to stuff about explosives after all. Most of the coverage was dedicated to the attacks on MADHAMMER offices which were located in a major city on Thenica. It has been painted as if to be something of a larger scale gang war. These events have led to a lot of employees of random companies throughout the system doing some fact checking on their own employers history for fear of also being bombed.

Profits are down -1 from setting up the recording label’s earlier stages, consider it an investment.

The Story so Far

After an unfortunate series of events, the board of directors died within a one week span of each other. Some looked accidental, some unrelated, and one was an obvious assassination. The corporation’s true intents had been discovered by someone quiet, someone dangerous. A critical laboratory was destroyed by a bombing shortly before these killings costing valuable research on projects that no one knows about.

At least the corporation’s trusty “assistant” survived, and found a new group to take over the positions on the board of directors to continue its work. Kalanhrae is the board’s trusty Kalanhrae Imfeinsidekick armed with in depth knowledge about the corporation. He is currently most obssessed with finding out whoever orchestrated the recent attack on the previous board, as that means they know the shadow corporation exists.

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the system, the year is 1583 A.R. Shetou and Alnae are locked in heated conflict while trying to aggressively colonize other planets within the system to hopefully overshadow the other with sheer resources to win the ongoing war that has lasted since 1279.

The war itself is a slow process, field battles aren’t ocurring on a daily basis anymore though lots of dirty glances are exchanged. Most attacks occur as smaller skirmishes across the system, usually over newly colonized areas.

The only planets to be fully colonized are SR3 by Alnae and SV4 by Shetou. The other planets and moons have colonies ranging from an outpost to a continent but full planetary control has yet to be achieved just yet.

Many neutral colonies can be found across the system, founded by ambitious individuals or people who just got plain tired of the other two options. The most powerful of these neutral bodies is the vampire family Desoir and pirate faction Solvang. Desoir has some small colonies on various planets for resource collection, though in general the two neutral super factions are not interested in colonial expansion and have most of their assets in space.

There is quite a lot of hubbub about a report from both Shetou and Alnae astronomers, they think they have found very strong evidence for alien life but until closer observation can be made they aren’t entirely sure. The evidence is a large organic mass they discovered in deep space on the Rixa plane a few light years away, the other reason for such excitement and worry is that this mass is moving towards our star. This has ignited a more active conflict on the Rixa plane between Alnae and Shetou. Rixa’s outermost planet is SR3, controlled by the Alnae and both want to be involved in first contact if it is an alien, and don’t want the other there.

With the increase in trade and interplanetary business, piracy is also on the rise. The Solvang are very active and substantial bounties are offered for any information leading to the capture of their members or locations of their bases by the Desoir.

Yenneiros Whitetalon

In taking over the corporation as lead director, the current state of affairs are relatively solid. Whoever attacked the corporation didn’t touch MADHAMMER very much, this may be related to it being a lot of dudes with guns. However, the main offices on Thenica were the target of a major bombing and a new headquarters for office work needs to be selected. Someone’s gotta do the paperwork.

There has been a rise in jobs on the Rixa plane due to the ongoing conflict between Shetou and Alnae there, both jobs from Shetou itself and rogue colonies who find themselves in the path of Shetou. The drow empire has been seizing up colonies lately to act as military bases. The most notable conflict is on SR1 Alpha, a moon that is really more of a giant sandball then anything else. Powerful magic was used to give the wasteland an atmosphere to make it inhabitable because of the large amount of raw metals present beneath the sand. Colonists had been exporting the metal for a few decades now but one of the Shetou houses seems to want it now. SR1 Alpha has the largest ongoing armed resistance between colonists and the Shetou forces and this is where the most notable demand for mercenaries come from. Though they’re attempting to barter with their raw resources instead of standard currency. But given the resources are metals, Kalan is fairly certain it can be easily turned into money…or guns.

Mordekai Aberhoff

While the factory for the filter business wasn’t particularly effected, both the pharmaceutical companies main manufacturing plants and the cult have experienced some setbacks. The cult saw several small cells seemed to have been involved in armed robbery followed by a series of news pieces spread across the web involving some in depth interviews and documenting of the cult, this did not do well to endear them to people. A week or so later the same cells turned up dead and while police have cases across the system for these deaths their results don’t point to any singular source. Which given the nature of all these strikes definitely means they aren’t even close. Advisors note it is evident that the fact that only the lead psion is ever really functional leaves them easily targeted and manipulated if whoever is behind it can just get to the lead one.

Related to the heightened awareness of the cult along with the bad PR recruitment numbers are also certainly on the decline.

Edric Vandross

The raiders had a major problem through a series of events that seem a little too natural to be orchestrated. They were on a regular raiding gig after a high value shipment from SR1-Alpha and found themselves a little outmatched by the security forces and several members were either killed or arrested shortly afterwards. While the bank hasn’t experienced any critical problems, one of the offices on SZ3-Beta was the victim of a robbery. It remains unclear if either of these events are connected with the recent hit on the corporation as they seem fairly minor compared to the damage others have suffered and a little too run-of-the-mill to be shady. Though some of the company bosses do recommend looking into it, there’s always a chance we just weren’t hit very hard in the first wave.

Luci Serrano

The media company didn’t suffer much in the way of direct attack like the others, but there has been a sudden rise in the popularity of articles on the internet discrediting the brand. They’re a little cherry-picked as to find every possible fact that was even slightly wrong and call them out with long rambles as well as one of the anchor-ladies reporting suspicion of a stalker though police didn’t turn anything up.

Important Links:

Player Handbook – Basic mechanics outline

Main players page – Sort of the repository of info. The hiring rosters are over there.

Weekly action sheet