This is a continuation of Only Futures (Part 1 is here, Part 3 is here). Goals can accompany Character Arcs, or they can stand independent (as in, choose one or the other - no obligation to pick both an Arc and a Goal).
If a player chooses both, the Lie should get in the way of them achieving their Character Goal (and sometimes the mission). Remember, the Lie the Character Believes (discussed in Part 1) is constantly getting in their way and causing trouble for those around them, but the Lie also makes their life easy. So when they side with their Lie, give them mechanical awards and advantages (advantage on saves, XP, etc), while punishing them in the gameworld (objectives failing, getting the wrong attention from NPCs, unable to focus on critical mission or Character Goal details etc).
All tables are made to be rolled on every time after creating a new character. This will hopefully create some interesting character chains as players move from one goal to another, and make a new character according to the results of their previous goals.
The first paragraph of each numbered entry is meant to be seen by the players immediately (and optionally, the rewards for completing the goal). Everything else is for the Warden to dole out as they see fit. There is a spoiler-free post for players to read here if you'd rather show them that.
d10 Character Goals
1. Get rich or die tryin'
Obtain d10 million credits in the bank. Maybe it's a gambling debt,
maybe you're trying to pay your ma's medical bills...who knows. Doesn't
matter. All that matters is that sweet, sweet money.
After achieving this goal, your next character starts with 1d100*1000 extra credits.
2. Locate descendants
After years of relativistic and hyper-relativistic travel, your children and their children have aged and died. You now long to find the family you never knew, but they are scattered among the stars. Track the history of your lost family and find your last living descendants.
After achieving this goal, you may assume the role of one of your descendants. Two skills of your choice carry over from your previous character, as well as two pieces of equipment/weapons, and half your wealth.
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| Mike Hinge |
An unknown parasitic worm has wrapped itself around your spine and sunk its translucent teeth into your brain. You don't know what this worm does, but it probably isn't good. Its effects will doubtless begin to manifest soon. Unfortunately, even the best surgeons and black clinics are unable to remove it without paralyzing you (at best). Travel the cosmos and conduct research of your own to discover its nature. Once you think you have enough information, find a surgeon you trust to extract it.
[The more information the player gathers about the parasite, the higher the chances are of a successful extraction. When a player thinks they're ready, aggregate the knowledge they've gathered and use it as a threshold for either advantage (the player gathered quite a lot of info) or disadvantage (the player didn't gather much info) on the surgeon's skills.]
As an optional parasite, perhaps this is simply the larval form of a much worse, far deadly parasite.
After achieving this goal, you may play as the surgeon (aside from class skills, start with skills in Biology, First Aid, Genetics, Pathology, Surgery, and Xenobiology). Surgeon also starts with 100,000 cr as payment for the parasite extraction.
4. Revenge
Your hatred is nuclear, your drive unrelenting. You hunt your quarry across the stars - from world to world, from station to station. You don't know what you'll do when you find them, but neither of you will be the same after.
Their sins against you
1. Hostile takeover of the company you founded - left you destitute.2. Destroyed your ship and crew.3. Stole credit for your research and discoveries.4. Declared you dead and sold your stuff.5. Hurt a loved one (child, lover, friend, etc).6. Cheated you out of your share of the heist.7. Framed you for a crime.8. Outed you (android, human, sexuality, biological sex, true past, etc).9. Removed you from the Board of Directors.0. Ratted you out to the authorities.
After achieving this goal, rewards depend on how you accomplished your goal. If you visited grotesque or fatal revenge on your target, you can play the role of the target's friend or family member. Your new target is your old character, now an NPC. If the you showed mercy to your target, you can play as a witness to the event. Watching mercy has given you faith in humanity. Start with +10 to Sanity saves.
5. Build your own ship
You want nothing more than the freedom that comes with owning a starship. Unfortunately, buying a custom-order ship is out of the question, and the only way you can afford a used ship is going so far into debt that you'd never be free again. But you have a special plan. You're certain that you can scrimp, scavenge, and steal enough material to build your own ship, eventually.
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| Chris Foss |
[Players who choose this path will either need to skill into and/or find PC/NPC associates who have the following skills: Heavy Machinery, Mechanical Repair, Physics, Mathematics, Engineering, Computers, Hyperspace, Astrogating, and Artificial Intelligence. They can begin building components at any point so long as they or someone helping them has the skills and components to begin construction.]
After achieving this goal, you may play as a crewmember hired by your previous character, who is now the NPC captain of the ship. Aside from class bonuses, start with two Trained Skills of your choice and one subsequent Expert Skill. Earn a monthly salary, plus mission bonuses.
6. Scatter the ashes
Your best friend is dead. You watched it happen, and there was nothing you could do to stop it. Permanent d10 minimum stress (added to class minimum), plus a phobia for what killed your friend:
1. Drowning. Fear of water.2. Vacsuit accident. Fear save when donning a vacsuit, [-] on all Fear saves while in a vacsuit.3. Mass shooting. Fear save every 10 min in crowded places. If inside: must always face a door.4. Cryopod malfunction. Gain d10 Stress when entering cryosleep.5. Crushed by cargo loader. The sound of heavy machinery induces a Panic roll.6. Unknown virus. Compulsively wash hands after gaining Stress, or else make a [-] Fear save.7. EMP attack. Fear of the dark and d10 Stress if computers malfunction for any reason.8. Docking collision. Gain 2d10 stress whenever entering or leaving docking bay/planet.9. Explosive decompression. Fear of airlocks.0. Cancer. Get medical/mechanical check every month or become convinced you're about to die.
Your friend had very specific wishes for where they wanted their ashes buried. You now travel from world to world, from system to system, searching for the perfect place to lay your friend to rest.
After achieving this goal, your next character gets a permanent [+] on Fear saves unless they acquire a phobia (they still retain a [+] on Fear saves, just not for the phobia).
7. Ride the event horizon
Something within compels you to ride the glowing accretion disk of a black hole - and further. It pushes you to the edge of real, beyond which only math remains. You'll do whatever it takes to satisfy this suicidal curiosity. Time dilation be damned, tidal forces be damned, radiation be damned - you will overcome all. Guile, mutiny, sabotage...nothing is off the table if it means accomplishing your goal. You will take this ship to the edge. In, through, and beyond. They called you insane, but soon they'll all know what it means to totter on the brink of reality and stare into the cosmic abyss of the unreal.
[Start an obsession counter at zero. Every week that the player is not within 30 ly of a black hole, player rolls a Sanity save. Each failed save increases the counter by 1. They can see this counter as an abstraction of their obsession to reach the black hole. Their desperation should increase with every incremental increase of the counter. After the counter reaches 5, all Sanity saves are made with disadvantage. At 10, the player is no longer able to think rationally and will employ extreme force to accomplish their goal (fomenting mutiny, taking the crew hostage, waking up from cryosleep early to change bearing, locking the crew in their quarters, etc.). The player rolls at disadvantage to resist these urges if they don't want to do them.]
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| Mike Hinge |
After achieving your goal, you can play as the corporate/government agent responsible for investigating the aftermath (whatever form it takes...insanity, ship destruction, true enlightenment for what lies beyond the event horizon, it all depends on how you accomplish your goal). The agent learned much writing the After Action Report - start with +10 to Intellect and advantage on Sanity saves.
8. Help the millennial flower bloom
The millennial flower was discovered by your ancestor several hundred years ago. This flower, and the deadly planet on which it was discovered, are the most closely guarded secrets of your family. This particular flower has been in your family for generations, and you are its caretaker. None of them have ever seen a millennial flower bloom before, but the botanists in your family estimate that it happens once every thousand years. Discover the appropriate nutrients to help it bloom. Protect it at all costs. If you play your cards right, your flower will bloom within the next year, and will be the first to do so. What secrets are waiting inside the bud? Once it blooms, your research notes will be invaluable. Your family name will be remembered for eons.
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| Joseph Lombardero |
Curie's World, the planet on which this flower was discovered, is incredibly dangerous. Many of your ancestors lost their lives during the exploration when they first discovered it. For this reason, only a dozen of the flowers were removed from the surface to be studied elsewhere. Due to the danger and a lack of funds, your family hasn't tried to mount an expedition to the planet's surface for several generations.
The flower's stalk is as thick as your forearm and incredibly strong, almost like the trunk of a small tree. The leaves are wide, droopy, and covered in trichomes. The bud is larger than your head. The millennial flower metabolizes radiation and should be fed weekly by implanting the radiation into the soil. The flower itself is not radioactive - its metabolism renders radioactive material inert. You can feed it bits of fuel from the reactor, but if you don't have the appropriate skills to extract and handle nuclear material, you'll probably want someone to lend you a hand. Otherwise, roll with disadvantage. Treat failed checks as exposure to moderate radiation. You can also try more creative approaches, like exposing it to the radiation outside the ship's protection. But you'll need to do some research so you don't overdo it or underfeed it.
[A curious or motivated player can return to the planet on which their family discovered the flower. I suggest Warden's familiarize themselves with MYSTERYSPICE's Curie's World for a run on the planet. In-person exploration of the planet will be dangerous as hell, and should show that all may not be well in the millennial flower's ecosystem. The flower is endemic to its region, almost like a weed. No animals eat the flower, no weeds choke it. It seems to grow completely unharrowed by fauna and flora alike. A more in-depth examination of the flower shows it to be many millions of years old, completely unchanged in all that time - no evolutionary off-shoots, no major adaptations or transformations. Studying fauna within the region should reveal another red-flag for the players: nearly every animal they examine shows a remarkable lack of variation among the gene pool. This is indicative of a bottlenecking event in which a large swath of the population was killed. Dedicated study of fossils from this region show that the bottleneck seems to have happened about 1000 years ago, with yet another bottleneck 1000 years before that one...]
When the bud finally blooms, it is terrifying to behold. The pedals are rotating fractals. The stamens sway and dance although there is no wind. Swirling in the center is a multicolored array of disk florets, spinning. Disks within disks, wheels within wheels, turning mechanically in opposite directions, extending downward to infinity. The closest player rolls a Sanity check at disadvantage. A failed roll means that the character is inexorably drawn to the rotating florets. An odor drifts from the flower, reminding the character of their most precious memory. They weep, tears streaming down their face as their nose touches the center of the disk florets. Upon contact, the pedals snap around their head. Tiny seeds explode from the florets into the air, filling the lungs of the weeping character. Speed check for everyone else or become exposed. Once in contact with warm, wet flesh (such as the inside of a body), the seeds take root and sprout instantly. Small green stalks burst from the throat and lungs of anyone exposed. Pollen enters the bloodstream, infecting cells with an algae-like bacteria. Infected players vomit green bile, it oozes from their nose, eyes, and pores. Death is painful and swift (d10 minutes if you need an exact time) - anyone infected dies gurgling on slick, green slime as tiny little stalks pop from every inch of their body.
If it blooms or if the the player conducts enough research to conclude that being in the vicinity of the flower when it blooms is a very bad idea, they will have achieved their goal.
Players who achieve this goal can take on the role of the Disturbed Researcher. You have seen horrors beyond horrors. Begin with +3 permanent Stress, but start with training in Hydroponics and Chemistry, and gain [+] to all rolls that involve creating chemical/herbal concoctions that give [+] to Sanity, Fear, and Body saves.
9. Complete your pilgrimage
In order for your soul to gain passage to the high assembler, the FORTRAN stars must know your name and rebirth equation. To teach them these things, you must orbit each FORTRAN star a number of times equal to the number of letters in your name, endlessly chanting your name and rebirth equation while you fast. You are not allowed to sleep during these orbits, and the only spoken words that can leave your lips are your name and rebirth equation. It is your firm belief that if you die before completing your pilgrimage, the FORTRAN stars will not unleash their prominences towards the Pleiades for you, and the path to the high assembler will remain obscured. Introtic gravity waves will slowly pull your soul into the eternal quantum of fragmentation where your soul will splinter into a thousand lines of ragged code. When the universe is recompiled, you will not be reassembled with it. You will remain only as an idea of yourself - drifting deaf, sightless, speechless, and powerless within a vast cosmic void.
For more ideas on possible pilgrimages, check out Swampgirl's Gods of the Black, and Gods of the Black 2.
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| Geber Luis |
Players who achieve this goal can take on the role of one of the Monks of Cosmic Contemplation. You are steadfast against the horrors of the universe. Start your next character with a permanent 3 resolve.
Optional: As a Cosmic Monk, perhaps they know a little space kung-fu.
0. Create your magnum opus
You came to space to be inspired. Art, music, programming, dance, writing...whichever you choose, you're determined to be the best. Your adventures feed your imagination, and you translate those adventures into your art. You don't know how long it will take to complete, but you know that by the time you're finished, it will be one of the greatest works humanity has ever seen. Your name and works will be remembered forever.
Players who achieve this goal can begin attuned to the pattern of the stars, the calming mantra of all existence. At a safe location, instead of having to choose between healing or relieving Stress, they may do both.
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