Welcome to another exciting installment of Spacemon, the tale of a Pokemon TRPG campaign! It is a sci-fi space epic played using the Pokemon Tabletop United (PTU) system and GMed by fellow TAY author DragonStorm247. You can get caught up on the entire Spacemon saga here!
The GCS Dunsparce floated along as it orbited the planet Silicron. After defeating Masou McKay, the ship’s crew had been enjoying some down time, glad to be out of the blistering heat of the volcanic world. As he made his way toward the cockpit, Arlon heard strange sounds emanating from the med bay, which H had commandeered as a makeshift research lab.
“Hello?” he asked as he knocked on the door.
No response.
“H, you in there, mate?”
Still no response.
Arlon tried the door console, but it didn’t appear to be working. “That’s odd …” he mumbled to himself as he walked away. He had better things to do.
Arriving at the cockpit, Arlon plopped himself down in the pilot’s seat and kicked his feet up on the console. He spent the next few hours relaxing as he browsed through the ship’s nav charts, looking for planets that might have anything useful for the trip into unexplored space.
Once he formed a rough idea of where he thought the crew should travel, Arlon called the others to the cockpit to get their input. After a few minutes, Dmitri and Morgan were the only ones who showed up.
“Where are H and Shane?” Arlon asked them.
“In the lab, I think,” Morgan replied.
“There are strange sounds coming from in there,” Dmitri elaborated.
“I noticed,” Arlon said. “I couldn’t open the door either. But that was bloody hours ago. What the hell are they doing in there?” He brought up all the ships systems on the viewscreen, but none of the sensors could get a read on what was happening in the lab.
“I guess we just have to wait for them to come out,” Morgan said.
“I suppose we will,” Arlon agreed. “Now on to business; where should we head next? We should probably start preparing for our little venture to those mystery coordinates.”
“Right,” Morgan said. “We could probably use some supplies.”
“We should also get some weapons on this ship,” Arlon added. “We don’t know what we might find out there.”
“Weapons sound like a good idea,” Dmitri agreed.
“We’ll need a weapons system first,” Arlon continued. “Our best bet is to head to Federation space. We have a good shot at finding a good technician on one of the urban planets, and while we wait we can pick up supplies.” He quickly glanced at the nav chart again. “Let’s see here …” He pointed to a planet. “How about Otho in Sector 3?”
“That works,” Morgan told him.
“Alright, I’ll plot a course.”
When the Dunsparce dropped out of warp space into Federation Sector 3, the ship was immediately hailed by one of the three Federation battleships that guarded the gate. Arlon answered the call and a Federation officer appeared on the viewscreen.
“GSC Dunsparce, state your business,” the officer instructed Arlon, who was currently the only one in the cockpit.
“We’re on our way to Otho for ship repairs,” Arlon told him. “And to pick up some supplies.”
“Very well. Prepare to be boarded for inspection.”
Arlon docked with the battleship and then activated the comms to inform the rest of the crew. “Heads up, we’re being boarded for inspection.”
Arlon then departed from the cockpit to meet up with the rest of the crew at the airlock. H and Shane were, once again, conspicuously absent.
The officer Arlon spoke with and a squad of crewmen stepped through onto the Dunsparce once the crew opened the airlock. “Show us to your cargo hold,” the officer instructed them.
Arlon, Morgan, and Dmitri led the troops to the cargo hold, where they fanned out and thoroughly searched the empty crates, finding nothing of interest. They then proceeded to the engine room to check the warp drive registry to see where the ship had been.
“You seem to have gone quite a few places in the Outer Rim,” the officer commented as he looked through the ship’s jump logs.
“Yeah, we sort of travel all over,” Arlon said.
“For business or for pleasure?” the officer asked.
“Pleasure,” Dmitri chimes in.
“I would say both.” Arlon corrected him. “We’ve been traveling around challenging gyms and taking odd jobs here and there.”
“What sort of jobs?”
“Well, uh, mostly transportation.”
“Shipping or … smuggling?”
“Shipping,” Arlon answered confidently, having bluffed to Federation officers many times before. This one seemed to have a stick up his ass, but he was sure that it still wouldn’t be too hard to get him out of their hair
“Really?” the officer asked incredulously. “Search the cargo hold again,” he then ordered his men.
The men returned to the cargo hold and began another search. However, they still didn’t discover anything. They didn’t even find the smuggling compartment. They really couldn’t nail them for anything since the compartment was now empty, but it would be easier to get rid of them if they didn’t find it.
The Federation men continued to search the ship, but they didn’t find anything amiss until they arrived at the lab.
“This door is locked,” said the officer.
“It is,” Arlon replied.
“We’re going to need you to open this door,” the officer told him, clearly fed up with his dodgy answers.
“I’m afraid we can’t do that,” Arlon explained. “We’ve been trying to open the door but nothing seems to work.”
“Well, try harder.”
Arlon sighed. “Look mate, this is one of the reasons we needed to come all the way here,” he lied. “We need a skilled ship technician to take a look at this. The ones out in the Outer Rim just don’t have the chops to handle some weird thing like this.”
“Very well,” the officer told him. “But make sure to get this fixed right away so we don’t have this problem again.”
“Of course.”
Finally determining that everything was in order, the officer cleared the Dunsparce to enter Federation space.
Arlon breathed a sigh of relief once the Federation inspection team departed. “What a bloody wanker,” he muttered as he made his way back to the cockpit.
Before making the jump to Otho, the Dunsparce stopped at a nearby station to refuel. While their ship was being refueled, Dmitri and Morgan visited the station’s Wonder Trade center since both of them had Pokemon they wanted to trade away. With nothing better to do, Arlon tagged along as well.
First, Dmitri traded his Caterpie away and received a Shellos. Then, Morgan traded away her Lotad and received a Pikachu.
Morgan was quite happy with her trade results. As she looked her new Pikachu over and tried giving it a few commands, it became clear that it was a rather well-trained Pokemon. It also seemed to be quite friendly. She couldn’t help but let a slight smile appear on her face as the Mouse Pokemon snuggled against her leg.
Dmitri seemed less thrilled with his results. “Wow, you had better luck than I did,” he said as he looked on.
“You could always try again,” Morgan told him.
“They only let you do one a day,” Arlon pointed out.
“That’s true,” Dmitri said. “But you’re not using your trade for the day, are you? Would you mind trading something for me?”
Arlon shrugged. “Sure, I guess.”
Dmitri gave Arlon the ball containing his Lotad and he proceeded to trade it away, receiving a Gulpin in return. “All yours, mate,” Arlon said as he handed the Pokemon’s ball to a less than ecstatic Dmitri.
“Better luck next time, I guess,” Morgan said. “This little guy will be a good addition to my team, though,” she added as her new Pikachu hopped up onto her shoulder.
After leaving the Wonder Trade center, Arlon and Dmitri headed back to the ship to check on the refueling progress while Morgan accessed one of the station’s public Spacenet terminals to do a bit of research. She could have done it on the ship, of course, but she needed a little break from her new crewmates and even this busy space station was preferable at the moment.
Clicking through several pages of information on warp travel, Morgan tried to find anything that might be useful to their upcoming trip into unexplored space. She did find some information on current research in the field of warp technology that was quite interesting, but nothing that was particularly useful for getting the Dunsparce into the uncharted regions of space.
As she continued searching, Morgan was soon distracted by a great article about the history of warp travel. It gave a good background on the beginnings of warp technology, detailing how the Sinai first unlocked the mysteries of warp space through the ancient ruins they discovered when they first landed on their homeworld of Mechorah.
From there, the article went over how the Geneva Confederacy and Sinai Ascendancy developed the first long-distance warp communication system and, later, the first warp drive. These early warp drives, the article explained, were crude by modern standards, but they did bring the nations together for the first time and allowed for the development of the first warp gate.
Morgan did find some potentially useful information later in the article, where it discussed how the Federation developed new, much more powerful warp drives to send ships deep into the Outer Rim to construct new warp gates on site. Unfortunately, after doing some further searching, Morgan determined that such drives really weren’t publicly available.
Doing a bit more browsing, Morgan also discovered many “troll” articles explaining warp phenomena with crude and inaccurate science. As more and more started turning up in her searches, she sighed. This outcome was not entirely unsurprising to her as the Spacenet was full of trolls these days, but it was no less frustrating. Deciding there wasn’t much else she could learn, Morgan got up from the terminal and headed back to the Dunsparce.
The jungle world of Otho loomed in the distance as the Dunsparce dropped out of warp space in the Jei System in Federation Sector 3. The ship soon closed the distance to the planet and Arlon flew the ship down into its atmosphere. Despite its desne, overgrown jungles, Otho was home to many large, urban cities that integrated their urban sprawl with the planet’s plantlife.
Flying the Dunsparce to one such city, Arlon brought the ship in for a landing at a spaceport with the facilities to install a weapons system and set it down on one of the landing pads, kilometers above the planet’s surface. As H and Shane still seemed to be locked away in the lab, Arlon, Morgan, and Dmitri departed from the Dunsparce without them and sought out the spaceport manager.
“Hey mate,” Arlon said to the manager as they approached him. “I don’t suppose we could get a weapons system installed on our ship?”
“Sure, that will be five-thousand credits,” the man replied. Arlon picked up on the faint hint of some sort of Genevan accent, possibly German.
“That’s a very steep price,” Arlon said rather harshly. “You should consider giving us a better deal.”
“What are you trying to pull here?” the manager asked, a cross expression forming on his face.
“Look, mate,” Arlon said, realizing he needed to alter his approach. “We’re going on a dangerous mission into unexplored space. We need weapons, but we don’t have a lot of money to spare and the more we have left over for other supplies, the better. Surely you understand the importance of this, uh … scientific expedition.”
“Very well. If this mission is for the advancement of scientific knowledge, I suppose I can knock five-hundred credits off the price.”
“Thanks, mate,” Arlon told him as he made the transaction.
“It will take my men six hours to install the weapons system on your ship,” the manager explained. “Feel free to head off to visit some of the city’s sights. We’ll have your ship ready by the time you return.”
Arlon nodded, then turned to his two crewmates. “Why don’t we go find someplace to eat?” he asked them. “I’m sure you lot are as sick of space slop as I am.”
“That’s a good idea,” Morgan agreed.
The trio took a shuttle down to Otho’s surface and began wandering the walkways, browsing the bustling storefronts for a nice place to eat. Feeling homesick, Dmitri led the crew into a Romanov restaurant.
Arlon didn’t seem too satisfied as they sat down and dug into their food. “Of all the places you could have picked, you had to pick a bloody Romanov joint,” he grumbled. “There’s nothing to Romanov cuisine other than potatoes and shitty vodka.”
“Don’t forget about rice,” Dmitri responded. “And besides … this shitty vodka reminds me of home.”
“Feeling a little homesick, mate?” Arlon asked.
“Something like that,” Dmitri said as he poked at his food with his fork.
“At least this grub is better than what we have on the ship …” Arlon sighed, then took another bite of his food.
The next few minutes passed in silence before Arlon decided to make some conversation. “So, uh, where in the Union are you from anyway?” he asked Dmitri.
“Orzhova,” Dmitri answered.
“Oh, I see …” Arlon said. “You don’t still have family there, do you?” he cautiously asked, knowing Orzhova had seen some of the worst riots of the ongoing civil unrest in the Romanov Union.
“I don’t really want to talk about it,” Dmitri said.
“Right, okay,” Arlon said. “So, uh, anyway, what’s the plan after this? We still have a few hours to kill.”
“I say we go to one of the jungle areas and look for Pokemon,” Dmitri suggested, seeming glad for the change in subject.
“Works for me,” Arlon replied.
“Sure,” Morgan agreed.
After finishing their meal, the trio caught a ride to one of the natural jungle regions near the edge of the city. From there they headed out into the thick jungle to explore and look for Pokemon.
It didn’t take long before they came across a group of Pokemon near a large tree. There was a Treecko climbing the side of it and a Nuzleaf sitting on a low branch watching it. Meanwhile, an Abra sat sleeping up against the base of the tree. Dmitri immediately threw a Pokeball at the Abra, capturing it instantly.
The sudden human presence alarmed the remaining two Pokemon and they prepared to attack. The crew responded by sending out their own Pokemon. Arlon sent out his Houndour while Dmitri sent out his Scyther. Morgan, meanwhile, went with her Beautifly, which had evolved from the Wurmple she caught back on Erebus. As the Pokemon emerged from their Pokeballs, the Nuzleaf jumped down from its perch and swiped at Dmitri’s Scyther, catching her by surprise.
“Cerberus, Bite that Treecko,” Arlon commanded his Houndour. The canine Pokemon rushed at the small green Pokemon, then bit it, sinking his teeth in and inflicting a nasty wound. In response, the Treecko drained some energy out of its attacker to replenish its own.
“Flora, use Tackle!” Morgan commanded her Beautifly. The bug Pokemon flew over to the Treecko and bashed her body into it, whittling it down a bit more. Morgan then pulled out a Pokeball and threw it. The ball pulled the Treecko in, then dropped to the ground and fell still.
With the other two Pokemon caught, the three trainers focused in on the Nuzleaf. Dmitri cast out a blast of energy at the Wily Pokemon, sending it into a state of confusion.
“Cerberus, use Bite again!”
“Flora, use Poison Sting!”
“Gigan, False Swipe!”
The trio commanded their Pokemon to attack simultaneously, and the Nuzleaf was overwhelmed by the combined might of their three Pokemon. Dmitri then cast out another blast of energy, putting the Pokemon to sleep. With the Nuzleaf unable to resist, Morgan pulled out another Pokeball and threw it, capturing yet another Pokemon.
“Well that was easy,” Arlon said as he watched his two crewmates collect their Pokeballs.
After spending a bit more time exploring the jungle without really finding any other Pokemon, the trio decided to turn back. As they made their way back into the city, the crew came across a group of tourists on the outskirts. One was a tall, brown-haired young man with a bit of scruff on his face. The other man appeared to be around the same age, except he was a bit shorter and had blonde hair and glasses. The third was a dark-haired young woman of similar age. Arlon noted that they appeared to be Pokemon trainers.
The tourists seemed to get the same idea about them. “You all look like Pokemon trainers,” the brown-haired man said, approaching with his friends.
“Indeed we are, mate,” Arlon told him.
“How about a battle?”
“Sure,” Arlon replies with a smirk, expecting an easy win.
“Let’s make this interesting,” the trainer said. “We each put in five-hundred credits, winners take all.”
“Sounds good,” Arlon agreed.
“Shall we begin then?” the man asked.
The six trainers stepped away from each other and reached for their Pokeballs. Arlon, Dmitri, and Morgan sent out Aron, Shellos, and Pikachu, respectively. The brown haired-man sent out a Nidoking, the other man sent out a Cryogonal, and the woman sent out an Ivysaur.
“Cryogonal, use Ice Shard!” the blonde-haired man commanded his Pokemon to commence the battle. It fired a chunk of ice at Morgan’s Pikachu, but the nimble little electric mouse dodged out of the way.
“Jean, use Slam on that Ivysaur!” Morgan commanded her new Pikachu. The Mouse Pokemon charged at the Ivysaur, but he was unable to land a hit.
“Nidoking, use Earth Power!” the brown-haired man instructed his Pokemon. The Nidoking stomped down on the ground and kicked up a blast of rocks at Morgan’s Pikachu, knocking the Pokemon out instantly.
“Ivysaur, use Vine Whip!” the dark-haired woman then commanded her Pokemon. The Ivysaur extended its two vines and struck Dmitri’s Shellos with them, dealing a nasty blow.
“Use Water Pulse!” Dmitri commanded his Shellos, pointing at the Nidoking. The Sea Slug Pokemon shot a blast of water at the Nidoking and dealt a solid blow.
“Nidoking, use Thunderbolt!” the Drill Pokemon’s trainer commanded in response. The Nidoking fired off a blast of electricity from its horn, which struck Dmitri’s Shellos and knocked it out of the fight.
“Ironhide, use Metal Claw!” Arlon commanded his Aron as Dmitri recalled his fainted Pokemon and switched to his Slugma. The Aron charged at the Cryogonal and swiped at it with his claws. The attack landed and chipped off a few chunks of ice as it dealt major damage to the ice Pokemon.
“Ivysaur, use Sleep Powder!” the young woman then commanded her Pokemon. “Put that Aron to sleep!” The Seed Pokemon unleashed a fine dusting of powder at Arlon’s Pokemon and put him to sleep.
“Yvonne, use Covet on that Cryogonal!” Morgan shouted as she released her Eevee. The Evolution Pokemon emerged from her ball and ran at her icy opponent. She struck the Crystallizing Pokemon, further whittling it down.
“Strike back with Ice Beam!” the Cryogonal’s trainer commanded in response. The icy Pokemon fired a beam of freezing energy at its attacker, dealing a significant blow to the Eevee.
“Now, use Quick Attack!” Morgan commanded. Yvonne ran at the Cryogonal once again and threw herself at the icy Pokemon, knocking it out of the fight.
“Use Earth Power!” the Nidoking’s trainer then commanded. The Drill Pokemon unleashed another blast of earth, this time taking out Dmitri’s Slugma before he got the chance to attack. Dmitri recalled the fainted Pokemon and sent out his Houndour.
“Ivysaur, use Vine Whip!” the Seed Pokemon’s trainer commanded. The Ivysaur extended its vines toward Yvonne, but they got tangled up and Morgan’s Eevee was able to get out of the way in time. The Ivysaur’s trainer just sighed at her Pokemon’s mistake.
“Yvonne, use Covet on that Nidoking!” Morgan instructed her Eevee. The Evolution Pokemon rushed the dangerous Drill Pokemon and got off a hit.
“Use Sludge Bomb!” the Nidoking’s trainer shouted in response. The Drill Pokemon fired off a massive blob of sludge at Yvonne, knocking the Eevee out. Morgan recalled her fainted Pokemon and sent out her Solrock.
“Use Poison Powder!” The Ivysaur’s trainer commanded, this time pointing at Dmitri’s Houndour. However, her Pokemon’s attack missed once again.
“Use Ember,” Dmitri commanded his Pokemon in response. The Houndour spit out a lick of flame at the Ivysaur, dealing some nasty damage to the Pokemon.
Finally, Ironhide woke from his slumber and rejoined the fight. “Ironhide, use Rock Slide!” Arlon commanded the freshly awoken Aron. The Iron Armor Pokemon unleashed a tide of rocks at the Nidoking, pummeling it over and over until it went down.
“Camille, use Confusion!” Morgan then commanded her Solrock. It fired a blast of psychic energy at the Ivysaur.
“Dodge it!” the Pokemon’s trainer commanded in response. The Ivysaur dove out of the way of the attack and then turned to face its opponent. “Now, use Vine Whip!”
“Dodge it, Camille!” Morgan commanded her Pokemon. The Solrock floated out of the way of the incoming vines, causing the Ivysaur to miss yet again.
“Now, take it down with Metal Claw!” Arlon commanded his Aron. Ironhide charged at the Ivysaur and swiped at it with his claws, finally knocking it out of the fight.
“Well fought!” exclaimed the Nidoking’s trainer. “That was quite the battle!” The other two looked a bit more dejected at the outcome, especially the Ivysaur’s trainer.
“And you as well,” Arlon replied. “That’s quite a badass Nidoking you’ve got there, mate.”
“Thank you.”
“It reminds me of the one I used to have,” Arlon continued.
“Oh? What happened to it?”
“It’s … it’s a long story, mate, and we really need to get back to our ship.”
“Very well. Perhaps we shall meet again one day.”
The crew collected their winnings, then caught another shuttle back to their ship.
Once the crew was back aboard the newly outfitted Dunsparce, Arlon activated the engines and prepared to take off.
“Don’t we need lasers or rockets or something?” Dmitri asked.
“Don’t worry about it,” Arlon assured him. “I know a guy who can outfit this ship with weapons for a lot cheaper than anything we can find here.”
“I don’t even want to know,” Morgan responded.
“Look, he’s an old acquaintance I used to run jobs for,” Arlon said. “Not only can he supply us with weapons, but he might have some information about how the bloody hell we’re going to get to that uncharted sector. He’s set up on a mining colony on the fifth moon of Manitou out in the Outer Rim.”
“Alright,” Morgan agreed.
Arlon set a course for the Sector 3 warp gate, then flew the ship out of the port. He eased back into his seat as the Dunsparce jumped into warp space. It had been a while since he had seen his old employer Maxx Aler, but he knew he was the right person to go to for help for a multitude of reasons.
He could supply Arlon and his crewmates with weapons for their ship at a reasonable price, yes, and he did have some contacts in the space exploration sector, but he would also have information on the Red Suns. Arlon had tried to find some info on their activities on the Spacenet, even after returning from Romanov Space, but that hadn’t turned up much, unsurprisingly. If he wanted to find out what Garth was up to, if he wanted to eventually clear his name, he would need to get his hands dirty and do some real digging. That was something Maxx could help with.
Before leaving the sector, the Dunsparce made a brief detour back to the Wonder Trade station at Dmitri’s insistence. While there, Dmitri traded away the Gulpin he got before and received a Solosis. Still not particularly happy with this result, Dmitri returned to the ship so that the crew could be on their way.
Notes: This session was rather interesting. Both H and Shane’s players couldn’t make it for various reasons so it was just three of us. According to DragonStorm, this was a completely unplanned session for him. He sort of just let us pick some things we wanted to do as individual players beforehand and then had us decide as a group which ones to do. I came up with three contacts for Arlon and the worlds they were located on and figured we would maybe go to one or two of them. The one turned out to be the old acquaintance Arlon mentions at the end of this chapter.
We also got the first taste of DragonStorm’s random planet generation system. He rolls a d12 to determine its biome and a d4 to determine the level of civilization. That’s where Otho came from. We had an interesting battle on Otho. That Nidoking was lethal, but I rolled a nat 20 on my accuracy check for Rock Slide and destroyed it. I actually based the build for the Nidoking Arlon had in his origin chapter on it (and I actually hinted at that in this rewrite). And of course Ivysaur had a bunch of bad rolls.
In rewriting this session, it got several pages longer than the original, so I ended up splitting it up into two chapters like I did for Session 4. So tune in next week for the conclusion of this session.
Update 9/10/21: Funny I talk about the planet generator in these notes. The one we use now for Spacemon is quite different. It has more features, but we mostly ignore them. Kinda funny. Also funny how I mentioned that revising this chapter made it get longer, because revising it again made it get even longer! I said in my update for the previous chapter that it was the most in-depth touch-up yet, but now that honor belongs to this chapter. There were a lot of random things that needed rewriting, updating, added detail, or changing.
Looking back, it’s kinda weird that the federation officer was so hard on us, considering that these sorts of inspections were never really a thing after early Volume 1. It just seemed like he was gunning for us for nothing. I added a little mention of Arlon thinking he had a stick up his ass along with some other extra descriptive details.
The following scene, though, was almost entirely re-written. The Wonder Trade bit didn’t have a good flow to it so I just added some dialogue and new details in there to fix that. The part with Morgan looking up warp travel info needed a lot more work. For one thing, it’s since been established that Pokedexes are like smartphones in Spacemon so the need for Morgan to use a public terminal seemed a bit odd without a reason, so I just put in a mention that she wanted some time off the ship. The article about warp travel, however, was woefully inaccurate to what’s been since established for Spacemon so I needed to change it. Aside from adjusting the details to make sense, I changed it from just being an excerpt of an in-universe article to just explaining the relevant bits. It just flowed better that way.
After that, I rewrote the arrival on Otho to have a better description of the planet, then I expanded the conversation at the restaurant to give Dmitri a bit more fleshing out with details that have since been established about him, and also put a little detail in there about the current situation in the Union. Then it was onto the battle scenes. The wild battle just needed some touching up on the wording, while the trainer battle needed some slight restructuring. For reasons, I did not give these trainers Pokemon nicknames, but I think it makes sense that not everyone names their Pokemon. The only other change I made was the explanation of Arlon wanting to also visit some contacts to find out about the Red Suns to the end of the chapter because it flowed better that way.
That does it for this chapter. As always the Spacemon gang and I will be monitoring the comments to foster discussion and answer any questions. Feel free to give feedback and critiques of the writing so I can improve it for the future, or just leave a comment with what you think about what went down in this chapter or what you think might happen next! You can also revisit past chapters, check out the rest of the Spacemon saga, join the Spacemon Discord server, or like our Facebook page to stay updated on all things Spacemon! Click here for the next exciting installment of Spacemon!
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