Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 31st through November 6th.
October 31 “Captain, I’m reading bio-signs on the planet. To quote Dr. Frankenstein, ‘It’s alive.'” T’Pol- Horizon, Date: January 10, 2153 #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 1 “I made an error in my computations.” Spock “Oh? This could be an historic occasion.” Dr. McCoy- Tomorrow is Yesterday, Stardate: 3113.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 2 “Perhaps if you indulged in a brief rest period you would be able to approach this problem with a fresh point of view.” Data- Identity Crisis, Stardate: 44664.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 3 “I will never cease to be amazed by the human capacity for hyperbole.” Tuvok- Parallax, Stardate: 48439.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 4 “We cannot allow any race as greedy and corruptible as yours to have free run of the galaxy.” Norman- I Mudd, Stardate: 4513.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“The riskier the road, the greater the profit.” (62nd Rule of Acquisition) Quark- Little Green Men, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
November 6 “Life is like loading twice your cargo weight on to your spacecraft. If it’s canaries and you can keep half of them flying all the time, you’re all right.” Okona- The Outrageous Okona, Stardate: 42402.7 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
I believe this was the third-edition of the GURPS rules. I don’t recall much about the rules other than all of the adding and subtracting I had to do in order to create a character. I was playing with a group of friends that I had in my early 20’s that enjoyed geeky things. I bump into one of those friends every once in a while. Another friend is a person who, I believe, ended up trading a lot of my early Dungeons and Dragons stuff with. Looking back, I wonder what would have happened if I had kept more of that stuff?
The character is David O’Shey. The campaign was set in the 1990’s and we were all characters from different backgrounds. Mine was a gun-smuggler for the Irish Republican Army. Why? I don’t recall exactly. I think I just needed something and I didn’t want to make someone from the UK or US who had a reputation with guns and a shady background. Looking at the date I noted down, this was the second GURPS character I had created. The first was used/planned for a sci-fi campaign. The adventures that David went on involved running into cultists who were trying to use blood sacrifices to bring some other-world entity to this planet/realm. We were not aware of this at the start of the campaign, I so I think we all prepped for some sort of paramilitary style campaign. We ended up putting aside our differences to counter this evil threat. The GURPS character sheets at the time had a basic outline for a character image that you could fill in to represent your character. The gun I tried to draw was the MAC-10. I’m sure that I had been inspired by it’s use in various shows.
“Ru’afo, we’re getting too old for this.” Picard “After today, that won’t be a problem… for either of us.” Ru’afo- Star Trek: Insurrection, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 25 “Diplomats! The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank!” Scotty- A Taste of Armageddon, Stardate: 3192.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“That feeling you get from healing someone – infectious, isn’t it?” The Doctor- Critical Care, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Have you ever flown a ship before?!” Jankom “No! Does it show?” Zero- Lost and Found, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekProdigy #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 29 “Something about us compels us to learn, explore.” Riker- Hide and Q, Stardate: 41590.5 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“How did you get in here?” Odo “I am Koloth.” Koloth “That doesn’t answer my question.” Odo “Yes, it does.” Koloth- Blood Oath, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October appears to be Spocktober for Pocket Books. There are a large number of Spock-centric ebooks that are for sale 99 cents each. This is a good way to build up a reading library without taking up a ton of shelf space. I’ve been using these sales to do that exactly. Links to the sales are listed below.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 17th through October 23rd.
October 17 “You’re in command now. The crew’s looking to you for guidance.” Troi- Gambit, Part I, Stardate: 47135.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 18 “We can admit that we’re killers, but we’re not going to kill today. That’s all it takes.” Kirk- A Taste of Armageddon, Stardate 3192.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 19 “The point is it’s not up to me or you to decide. It’s her life and her decision.” Sisko- Equilibrium, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 20 “You’re re-examining your core beliefs. Something most people never do.” Dr. Phlox- Daedalus, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 21 “I’m a civilized abductor, Captain Picard. Civilized… but still dangerous.” Moriarty- Elementary, Dear Data, Stardate: 42286.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Qapla'” (the first use of the Klingon word for success) Kruge- Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Stardate: 8210.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 23 “There’s an ancient Chinese curse, Captain—“May you live in interesting times.” Mealtime is always interesting now that Neelix is in the kitchen.” Kim- The Cloud, Stardate: 48546.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
So 99% of the time, the online ads shown to me are worthless. I’ve grown accustom to placing them on a mental auto-ignore. But every once in a blue moon, an advertisement actually shows something that might interest me. One advertisement popped up for North to South Gaming, a family run business out of Texas, that was advertising free dice. Well, free for the product. They asked for help covering the cost of shipping which was reasonable. In return, they would be sending a random sample of two dice sets. A regular size and a mini-sized set both made with acrylic. They arrived in a package that looked like this.
This is the logo of North to South Gaming. The box itself was very well packed. The interior contents were protected and did not arrive with any damage. The glass tube the that the mini-dice came in had some bubble wrap around it as well. It also didn’t take very long to arrive. However with the holiday season quickly approaching, If you are thinking of ordering any, I’d recommend doing it sooner rather than later to avoid any delays.
This is a close up of the very nice glass tube with the North to South Designs logo. There is a cork that is used to keep the dice inside. The photo may not due the color justice to how the mini-dice look. The color of this set was an off-pink. Some of the numbers didn’t really stand out very well against the dull background. It may have been the light in my office, causing the numbers to blend in with the die. I don’t see myself using this set very often. However, in all fairness, I’m not a big fan of mini-dice. The last set of mini-dice that I picked up, I ended up losing a die or two fairly quickly. As I was handling this set, I was worried that I’d accidentally drop one and never find it again. Especially since I have two cats that like to knock the shinny clicky-clack sounding things around to the dark corners where they hide all of their “toys”.
The mystery dice arrived in a wrapped package covered with gaming sayings. My daughter liked reading the different phrases. She believes that they may have come from one of the online RPG group videos.
Inside was a plastic box (again with the logo) with a very nice set of blue-green sparkly gaming dice. I did not see any defects on this set. On the photo above, it looks like there is something just below the “18”, however that may have been from the plastic box. On the D20 itself, there is no mark. I was really impressed with this mystery set. I could see myself using this at an upcoming gaming convention that I plan to attend in early 2023. I am a little worried that the box itself may get crushed in my massive dice bag, so I may keep this set separate until the con.
Here are the two sets in a side-by-side comparison. This photo was taken in a different room than my office and without a flash. The photos that I had taken with the flash seemed to blur out the numbers on the smaller set. So again it might be a lighting issue there. When I compared the mini-dice with my surviving members of the last set, the older set had no problems with the numbers being read. I also compared the larger set with my Chessex set and my Dollar Tree set. The NTSD set was the same size and weight as my previously purchased sets. When I did my few test rolls, the randomness was present.
If you are looking to support a small business, I could highly recommend the mystery set. If you are good with mini-dice, you probably won’t go wrong with this company as well. There are several other sets of dice available from different materials and colors that looked interesting as well. Let me know if you picked up a set and what you thought.
Why no new posts last week? I was in training having this done.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 10th through October 16th.
October 10 “Remember the course in ancient history at Starfleet Academy? About the time when men still believed the Earth was flat?” Riker “Mm, and that the sun revolved around it.” Picard- Where Silence has Lease, Stardate: 42193.6 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 11 “I hope I’m not disturbing you, Doctor.” Spock “Interrupting another autopsy report is no disturbance, Mister Spock. It’s a relief.” Dr. McCoy- Obession, Stardate: 3619.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 12 “Where are you running to?! This is Bajor. We are Bajorans. We fought a war to regain our homeland. How can you abandon it like frightened Cardassian vole?” Li Nalas- The Siege, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 13 “Let me guess… no ghost stories on Vulcan?” Tucker- Strange New World, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 14 “There may be a correlation between humor and sex. The need for more research is clearly indicated.” Data- Data’s Day, Stardate: 44390.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“You and I are of a kind. In a different reality, I could have called you friend.” Romulan Commander- Balance of Terror, Stardate: 1709.1 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 16 “No, Captain. When I say tomorrow, I mean tomorrow. I don’t exaggerate. Tomorrow is the best I can do.” Torres- State of Flux, Stardate: 48658.2 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
When I realize what time my alarm will go off in the morning.
Here are the Daily Star Trek Quotes that will appear on the @STrekQuotes twitter account for the week of October 3rd through October 9th.
October 3 “What ever argument you have between yourselves is your business. My business is running this ship. And as long as I command, there will be order.” Kirk- Journey to Babel, Stardate: 3842.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 4 “I wouldn’t be very much of a friend if I let you give up on a lifelong dream.” LaForge- Descent, Part II, Stardate: 47025.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 5 (re: Kirk and company) “I have to admit– I wold have loved to ride shotgun at least once with a group of officers like that.” Janeway- Flashback, Stardate: 50126.4 #StarTrek #StarTrekVOY #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 6 “I make order where I can. For one thing I have a daily routine which I follow unwaveringly. The shopkeepers on the Promenade joke that they can set their clocks by me.” Odo, Stardate: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekDS9 #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 7 “Sam Cogley asked me to give you something special. It’s not a first edition or anything, just a book. Sam says that makes it special, though.” Areel Shaw- Court Martial, Stardate: 2947.3 #StarTrek #StarTrekTOS #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
October 8 “Even after a tragedy like this there are still duties to perform and life continues.” Brand- The First Duty, Stardate: 45703.9 #StarTrek #StarTrekTNG #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
“Maybe we’re out here to prove that humanity is ready to join a much larger community” Archer- Cease Fire, Date: Unknown #StarTrek #StarTrekENT #IDIC #WeAreStarfleet
Art by Rebecca Wu and shamelessly lifted from https://twitter.com/wuzidan. It was just too kewl not to use to represent the Tarn race.
So one of the things that I’ve been wanting to do with this blog is produce fan-made roleplaying game material for various systems. While the publisher of a game based off an intellectual property may be locked into the confines of the contract, fans can homebrew from any source. Sometimes even pulling elements from different sources to create a final product.
Today’s entry was a join effort between myself and longtime friend, Roger Taylor. We’ve both been fans of Star Trek and various roleplaying games. We have played campaigns using the Decipher Star Trek RPG rules. Several months ago Roger was sending me some of his hombrewed material for Star Trek Adventures by Modiphius for review. I mentioned that I was really interested in an enemy race that GMs could throw at their players called The Tarn. This reptilian race came from William R Forstchen’s 1999 Star Trek: The Next Generation novel, The Forgotten War. While the plot to the novel was simple, it did introduce the Tarn Empire. The way they were described in the book really enthralled me with their concepts of honor and social interaction. So Roger found his copy of the novel and dived back into it to see what interested me. He did most of the heavy lifting with the RPG numbers. I sent him all of the Memory-Beta (the fan Wiki for licensed Star Trek products) entries I had put together on the Tarn, which Roger then polished up for the PDF file listed below. I pulled various quotes from the book that was used for the suggested Tarn values.
Prior to all of this, I had spent quite some time looking for images of a science-fiction reptilian warriors that was not the Gorn. There were a ton of fantasy reptilian warrior images, but very little from the sci-fi side of the coin that spoke to me. Finally, the Starfinder RPG was released by Paizo that introduced the Vesk. Eventually several fan produced images were produced and the one above by Rebecca Wu fitted my mental image of the Tarn race. If gamemasters pulled any Vesk image from the internet, it could be used to visually represent the race to players.
Besides Star Trek Adventures, I’d like to generate RPG stats for the other systems that are out there (FASA, LUG, Decipher and more). Also while talking with fellow Treknologists on the Star Trek Starship Tactical Combat System Online Database and Archive forums, an artist took the descriptions of a Tarn starship from the novel and generated an artistic representation of the vessel. I plan to generate game statistics for this vessel as well. Watch for future blog posts.
Many thanks to Roger for pushing through the novel (it could have used another pass by an editor) and had a few continuity holes that could have been caught) and for dealing with my excitement for this project. And thank you to Rebecca Wu for the wonderful image I pilfered off of the interwebs. I’m amazed by artists who bring these visions to life.
Gamemasters, let me know if you end up springing the Tarn on your players. How did the sessions go?
