Squawk Campaign: Chapter 1

I am running a campaign of the Squawk RPG with my D&D group. Each player started out with one of the example characters:

• Gao Choy - a titan swordsman from Peleg
• Orgraff - a behemoth butcher from Peleg
• Foi Shin - an aeolyte alchemist from Peleg
• 992 - a skand clone mercenary from the Lower Worlds
• Hammerdrum - a myrmidon mutualist from Trydeen

After a nasty gunfight with space pirates that left their mobile space habitat badly damaged, Gao Choy and Orgraff rescued Foi Shin, 992, Hammerdrum and the myrmidon's students, then commandeered a captured pirate stealth fighter.

Gao Choy maneuvered the stealth fighter into a transfer orbit that brought the stealth fighter to Midgard's L5 lagrange point, where the binary dwarf planets Radix and Monopolis orbit each other. There they met the helpful but cagey stygian Captain Gabriel, who pilots a huge vessel crewed by insectoid golem servants. After dropping dark hints about the Monopolis Trading Company, Gabriel left our heroes with the suggestion that they visit his homeworld (asteroid CMX-5 near L4.)

At Ariel University

After descending to the surface of Radix via beanstalk (space elevator) the crew found themselves stranded at a train platform in the middle of a stampede of Triceratops and Edmontosaurus. One particularly nasty male Triceratops managed to knock the platform off it's foundation, crushing 992 who was using the platform for cover. Fortunately everyone managed to recover from their injuries with the help of Foi Shin's alchemy and Orgraff's unusual tribal healing techniques.

The passengers who were rescued by the team's brave defense of the train platform included the mysterious strix scholar Skreel and his myrmidon protege Chainstorm. Chainstorm recruited the party to help them provide security during Skreel's debate with the silver tongued gremian Commander Spriley at the university amphitheater. Commander Spriley presented a popular theory that each living species was created by intelligent machines, while Skreel defended the "tree of life" tradition which claims that all living things descended from a common ancestor.

At the end of the debate things got nasty as Commander Spriley's gun thugs converged on Skreel, but our heroes helped chainstorm fight off the commander and his minions. Skreel suggested that it would be expeditious to leave Radix and Monopolis before the commander's fellow Trouble Shooters decided to investigate the incident. Using his Symbiotic Order and Tomb Keeper connections, Skreel arranged for the entire crew to travel with him to Peleg and drop to the surface of that world in a disposable vehicle.

On the way to Peleg

In transit, 992 discussed the disturbing implications of Commander Spriley's theory with Skreel. As a clone, 992 is a product of technology, but if Spriley's theory is right, then all living things are just machines created by other machines. Complicating things, in spite of archeological evidence for technology that dates back thousands of years, there is no evidence for the common descent of species in the Abaddon system.

Skreel then explained that his study of the ancient scriptures and archeology of the Middle Worlds suggest that life in the Abaddon system came from distant stars, and millions of years of fossil evidence may be scattered around the universe. Skreel also quoted an ancient cosmological text which claims that all carbon and other heavy elements that make up both machines and living things was produced by the stars themselves going through cycles of life, death and birth that last for millions of years.