This is a high-level summary of the scenario as played by our group. We ran smaller 1 hour sessions weekly, so each heading was a different session.
Prologue to Mercy of the Icons
A desperate and fragmentary distress call reaches Coriolis, coming from a colony on the gas giant Taoan. The Tsurabi gas mine, partly submerged in the planet’s thick atmosphere, is in desperate need of assistance, but for unknown reasons. The Colonial Agency is the primary owner of the colony and quickly scrambles a rescue fleet to try and evacuate the colonists and salvage the precious mining equipment. The fleet is focused on a decommissioned luxury liner called the Ghazali, which is rapidly upgraded to hold five hundred stasis units – enough for both the two hundred rescue workers and the staff of the Tsurabi, should they need extraction. Many smaller ships accompany the Ghazali, as the Agency has promised handsome rewards to all skippers who sign up for the mission. The smaller vessels dock with the mothership and their crews are put on ice aboard the Ghazali. The Legion supplies an escort in the form of a destroyer, the Zafirah. The rescue mission’s first jump is successful, but the second ends in disaster.
The Cast for Last Voyage of the Ghazali includes:
- Sophie as Tala Shiva, Mystic Fugitive
- Jason as Emer Segi, Trailblazer Scout
- Mack as Havakhir Qasim, Humanite Mercenary
- Marshall as Waseem Naderi, Scientist Medicurg
3 Novena of Light, Segment of the Gambler, Coriolis Cycle 61.
(3rd week of the third month in the 61st year of the Arrival of the Zenith)
Dawn
Emer, Havoc, and Tala awaken from Stasis. They were on their way to Taoan as rescue workers with 200 other souls aboard the retro-fitted retired star cruiser, Ghazali, to find that they will need rescuing themselves.
Through Darkness
Emer, Havoc, and Tala explore the lower decks looking for help. They find Lahor Iades and some other survivors who are suffering from radiation, and with everyone’s help they put out a fire that if left unchecked might have caused further serious damage.
Survivors
The PCs find a working terminal and connect to Suleiman, the Ghazali’s Ship AI, after finding a small group of unfortunate survivors who had various symptoms of radiation sickness. They are informed that there are 40 or so other souls that remain aboard the retro-fitted Ghazali, and they need to find a way to safety in less than 18 hours as the Ghazali has lost propulsion and is drifting toward the Hamura star. Directed to the Medlab, the group are greeted by other survivors, including a medicurg, Waseem Naderi.
Arms Race
The PCs set off with Komoro Vai and others to the Bridge to get their weapons. They are challenged once more with another debris-filled and irradiated hallway before arriving outside the Bridge where the weapons locker is kept.
Emer space walks with one of Komoro’s lackeys, and they set onto the bridge from the outside, via the explosive damage. Opens the Bridge door from the inside and searches the remaining body of the Captain for their access card which opens the Arms locker.
Komoro and this lackeys gather up some arms and leave quickly, parting ways with the PCs who remain on the Bridge.
A Sensitive Proposal
The group travelled from the Bridge down to the main Dock to seek out a ship; found one called Fatima’s Bounty that was repairable. In the hours that Emer spent working on fixing the ship, Havoc was approached by Sabetha, a smuggler who was piggybacking some cargo on the Ghazali and enlisted their help getting the cargo safely back to Hamurabi Station.
To the Rescue
With their escape vehicle sorted, the group tracked their way towards the chapel where survivors were stuck, and after making several daunting trips back and forth across the hull with spare exoshells and a close encounter with a few Muzhadjar (ship-eating, vacuum-dwelling predators) they got to safety with the survivors.
Evacuating The Ghazali
Returning to Fatima’s Bounty, the group are nearly ready to depart. They’ve loaded as many survivors as they could find, and will move the ship to the hanger that houses Sabetha’s cargo in order to load it before leaving this Icons-forsaken derelict to its demise at the Hamura star’s disintegration zone. After this is done, they spot a few escape pods and even a larger jettisoned cargo container that they return to collect before they are lost to Hamura’s gravity. Finally, with more survivors huddled on board, they make the journey towards the safety of the portal station Hamurabi.
You can find out more about Mercy of the Icons campaign here. The campaign is semi-closed (and currently on hiatus), in that each scenario within the campaign will have a designated PC party and while the characters rotate the players will largely remain, but that does not exclude anyone from asking to join the occasional scenario.