The Debts of Jack Quincy 4: A Genesys Solo Game

(If you’re new to our Genesys setting demo and solo game here, you can check out the earlier posts: session 0, scene 1, scene 2, scene 3. If you want to check out the setting demo for yourself, I have it in this Google Doc.)

Where we left off…

Wind whips through the cockpit, tugging at Jack’s utility suit and whipping his hair in the wind, despite the helmet clasped tight beneath his chin. The air whistles as it screams through the broken pieces of the hull from where the last salvo had torn it open. He blinks away the smoke-tinged sweat that burns his eyes, watching the altimeter needle spin wildly as the gray sky and purple clouds outside are replaced by green-gray moorland that stretches for miles across this part of Alathni Major. Even that begins to disappear as the heat shimmers from the air being compressed against the nose of the shuttle at far higher speeds than safety protocols allowed.

He sets his boots against the cockpit console and shoves with his legs, throwing his weight against the yoke. Creaking and grinding, the shuttle’s controls grind in response, bringing the nose upward from a straight dive into something that more closely resembles a controlled crash landing. Pressure grows on his eardrums as the atmospheric pressure increases rapidly and he clenches his teeth and arcs his back to get every last inch of course correction.

Technically, I should probably roll dice here to calculate the damage both Jack and the shuttle receive. Rereading the crashing rules in the alternate vehicle rules, however, don’t seem to indicate a roll for a ship crashing from high atmosphere into the surface of a planet. I would say that’s generally going to be considered catastrophic— the equivalent of several Critical Hits. We’ve only had one of those so far, and it was the fighter pilots in the previous scene.

In Genesys, critical hits work by rolling a D100 and looking to see the result on a chart. Different Talents, rules, and qualities can add or subtract to that roll. I didn’t bring it up last time because the result on the chart was that the shuttle’s hull was compromised, reducing the armor to zero, but the shuttle has no armor, so it didn’t have much of an effect.

Introducing Story Points

I’ll also introduce a mechanic that we haven’t really touched on yet— the Story Point. For those who played the Edge of the Empire/Force and Destiny/Age of Rebellion games, this would be the equivalent of the Light Side/Dark Side points. Rather than rolling a Force die like in the SWRPG, Genesys gives one positive Story Point to each player and one negative Story Point to the GM. These form a pool that get flipped back and forth as players and game masters use them to create various effects.

Since I am both the player and the GM in this case, I’ve included two Story Points, one for each. As the player, I will now flip my Story Point (giving me as the GM two Story Points to play with). With that, I will say that Jack has a parachute under the command chair, even though it’s not been mentioned or alluded to anywhere else yet. Technically, it’s a ret-con, but in Genesys terms, it’s a necessary narrative development.

Jack flings himself away from the console, stuffing the briefing papers into a large jumpsuit pocket, as the control panel begins to smoke, carrying the tang of burning hydraulic lines, turning the smoke into a thick, choking fumes. He gags and grabs a breath mask from the emergency kit and slips it over his face as he tears open the panel beneath, revealing a carefully packaged parachute that he flings onto his back, pulling the straps tight as they latch into place. Jack staggers momentarily under the weight, and one hand clings to the side of the cockpit as the plane’s dive grows steeper, sending him into weightlessness before he slams against the side and bounces off.

One hand grabs an emergency exit latch, and he pulls on it. The lever creaks, shifts, and then breaks free as the bolts blow the hatch from the hull. The air pressure in the cabin immediately drops in a howling rush and Jack hauls himself to the hatch before flinging himself out the door. The air this high up is cold, but the jumpsuit overalls are well insulated and have heat packs that keep it from being too cold and the oxygen mask protects his face. The parachute flares open and Jack bounces as it slows his fall. Below him, he watches the shuttle continue its dive before exploding far, far below against the surface.

The wind whistles past him, but beneath he it, he can hear the hum of the fighter engines as they circle around and he feels himself very exposed, hanging in the sky from a parachute, when the wind from the storm curls back around and carries him into the dark clouds. The already cold air gets even colder as he falls, falls, falls…

Heading to Ground

As you can see, Jack isn’t doing very well. He’s a fourth of the way to his Wound Threshold and almost halfway to his Strain Threshold. I can use Momentum to temporarily cure all of the wounds.That’s not quite necessary yet however, so I’ll keep that in my back pocket.

Jack lands hard on the surface of the ground, feeling piercing pain shoot through his body as he impacts. He tumbles and rolls roughly across the ground and coughs as the air is knocked from his lungs. He lays still for a while, partially conscious, as the storm screamed overhead. Heavy raindrops hammered against him and he can feel his body begin to chill. Fortunately, the utility jumpsuit keeps him warm enough to not worry about dying.

Why had the legionnaires shot him down? How had they known where he would be? He fumbles at the jumpsuit before pulling out the documents. There’s just enough light left for him to read.

He studies the weather charts and patterns carefully, scrutinizing them. The forecast, allegedly regarding a past storm, had been identical to the one he heard on the radio. His head spins at the implications. They had pulled a future forecast, forged it to be from before, and then sent him that way.

There was no shuttle crash. He was supposed to be the crash. The entire thing was a set up. But why? And how hadn’t he anticipated that? His face burns at the thought that he’d been had and he forces himself up, staring at the sky, looking for the glow against the horizon that indicated Athena Proxima. He sees it and starts walking….

That is our Call to Adventure as well as our Motivation, using the Structured Mode from the Unmastered Play Guide. Since it’s the Call to Action, we can go ahead and reduce Entropy by two. That drops it down so that Momentum and Entropy are equal. If this was 5e, I might go through the entire journey and check for random encounters.

This is Genesys, however, which is not designed around having between six and eight encounters per long rest, so we can skip right ahead. Plus, Iron Horizons isn’t set up right now for wilderness survival or exploration. Also, I’m going to swap to past tense, because writing in present tense is not something I enjoy, even though it makes more sense for TTRPGs when played in person.

Athena Proxima

After a long slog through the soaked, but otherwise pleasant, landscape, the glow of Athena Proxima finally turned from light on the clouds into a sight of the massive city itself. Jack paused to rest his hands on his knees. Air traffic traced contrails across the sky and a few heavy trucks rumbled across the landscape
The glass dome barely protruded over the lip of the canyon, but he still made out the intricate iron structure that girded the dome.

The lights of the city below lit up the framework and turned it into a light show that rivaled any theater marquee. With a deep sigh, he pushed himself up and forward until he trudged into the edge of the shantytown that spilled over the top of the canyon. The landscape here was flat and wind-scrubbed by the storms, so this part of town was cheap and often rebuilt from scrap.

Hard eyed men and women watched him as he paused next to the lift. The Scar dropped hundreds of feet to the bottom of the rift valley. As far as the eye could see, from below him to sprawl across the vast width of the canyon, and glittering on the far side, the city of Athena Proxima revealed itself.

Sleek towers, curved and graceful, emerged from the dome’s iron frame, interlaced with it and each other by countless walkways. Warm yellow lights glowed in hundreds of windows and, even from here, the faint strands of music reverberated beneath the yards-thick glass of the dome.

The official capital of Alathni Major and the center of Aldottorai control over the system, Athena Proxima had more money flow through it in one night that he’d seen in his entire life. And somewhere in there, there would be answers as to why a powerful Aldottorai merchant princess and a high ranking officer in the foreign legion double crossed him…