Scarlet Sunrise, Session 0: Wherein We Lay Our Scene

Session 0 of Scarlet Sunset has come and gone, and I'd say it went pretty well. There were some hiccups (I feel like my writer's room style of running games might be a bit alien to a few of the players), but I'm hella excited! With all that in mind, I'm gonna go through what we did and the conclusions we came to.

Me in my Dagger Master chair as the players make the gayest women alive
(Side note: God the art in 7th Sea 2E is amazing)

CATS

Our CATS (Concept, Aim, Tone, and Subject) went great! I explained the rough idea of "Pirates of the Carribean meets Firefly" and then had to show my ass by admitting I hadn't really watched either of those. Serket nearly recruited two players into a game of Lancer, so I feel like the group chemistry is definitely there. In terms of Tone, we came up with the following:

• The campaign is usually Adventurous, Dramatic, Funny, and Swashbuckling
• The campaign is never Cozy or Goofy
• The campaign is sometimes Gritty, Intimate, Lighthearted, Political, Romantic, Scary, and Whimsical

We had group discussions about what I meant by not liking Goofy (I'd rather the humor come from the characters interacting rather than making up something silly, and I like the world being taken somewhat seriously) and Gritty (where three people had three separate definitions of the word.): 

• People don't catch gangrene.
• There are occasional episodes of darkness, with the threat of death, and we confront those when we get there. 
• Heroes can solve societal problems.

We used Jay Dragon's excellent Palette Grid to figure out the kind of content we did and didn't want to see. Since cannibalism and cancer went off the table, I adjusted Ekyur to move from a plutonium mining planet to a heavily polluted one, and the Drakonis went from being willing to eat sophonts to being a super-hierarchical police state. 

We also had a brief discussion on sex and romance in the game. Since I know I'm in the bottom rung of the group's horniness (yes, really), I put a bit of a kibosh on more explicit sexual stuff, though I'm cool with it happening offscreen. Something something, you don't want to break the GM.

Flirting with the governor's daughter is mandatory, however.

Worldbuilding

After I explained the basics of the world, we collectively created five Factions that we wanted to be important to the setting. Each one has a name, NPC, goal, and problem, and I'll be making these players relevant to the campaign as we go forward using some procedures from best game ever Blades in the Dark. They are:

• The Unbroken, a large rebel group on the occupied planet of September. Led by Amanita Strongfist (charismatic, unconventional), they're currently attempting to assassinate USK higher-ups, but are struggling due to being largely trapped on-planet. 
• The Prophets of the Scarlet Lady, worshipping an alternate version of the local nature/destruction goddess The Red Queen. Represented by the Enigmatic Morrowshade (cryptic, caring), they're currently expanding the bounds of immortality by attempting to put a machine into a soul. Unfortunately vital materials for their research are held in rebel-occupied lands on September.
• The Ravenguard, an A-Team like mercenary group (and maybe rival of the party?). Represented by Milya Kajaria (scarred, muscular), they do the jobs they want instead of just going for the highest bidder. Their attempts to build an orphanage might be hampered due to a spy in their ranks. 
• Hotel Monologue, a drug-trafficking org using a hospitality chain as a front, is represented by manager Charlie Mourningdove (crass, creepy). Efforts to get government approval to sell drugs to the community are struggling because they can't find staff for the actual legitimate hotels they run. I guess no one wants to work anymore. 
• The Maelstrom, a loose confederation of pirates represented by Axel Barlow (slimy, shrewd) wants to find an Archducal treasure planet, but the recent incursion of Hotel Monologue into their traditional shipping lanes is proving to be a thorn in their side. 

The PCs

Finally, we built our PCs. In true Liz campaign fashion, half the players built their characters before the session even started, so the pacing on this one was a tad rough. However, we have our heroes! Their names, ancestries, and Experiences (think like Fate Aspects) are as follows:

• Miranda as Amara, Katari (catgirl) Orderborne Ranger, she/her
  
• A former sniper in USK special ops, Amara has formed a special hatred for the Archduchy's machine army since an attack killed her father. During her service, she was augmented by a special eye capable of unleashing her killer instinct, making her even deadlier with her signature sniper rifle.
• Experiences: 
• Ex-Military
• Bear Grandma
• Vexx as Mercy Mistborn, half-elf half-tiefling Slyborne Rogue, she/her 
  
• Growing up in the underworld of Tok, Mercy left home after stealing one of the planet's prized ships. She fell in with the Maelstrom, but had to leave them too. While she loves being her own boss and sticking it to the rich, she does miss her mom, and uses Amara as a surrogate.
• Experiences:
• Let me tell you a story...
• So stupid it just might work
• Sako as Shaggy, Fungril (mushroom person) Wildborne Seraph, she/her
  
• Raised on the Fungril homeworld of September, Shaggy first saw the power of the Red Queen when a solar storm destroyed an invading Northern September Company fleet. Since then, she has championed her goddess, and been blessed with an unending stream of ichor flowing off her cap. She took to the stars to earn money to send back home, but she will slay those who attack her homeland at any cost.
• Experiences:
• Natural Disaster Survivor
• Cut their heads off!
• Serket as stingray17, Pixie (half fairy, half-halfling) Orderborne Sorceror, she/it
• For as long as she could remember, stingray grew up in the Academy. Part of the USK's attempts to create the perfect magic user, stingray's limbs were replaced with porcelain prosthetics to focus her power. Now that she has escaped with Amara's help, stingray is terrified of recapture, and continues to have a dependence on the stamina potions that kept her in peak performance
• Experiences:
• Good Dolls Follow Orders
• Magic is my only value to others

In terms of inter-character relationships, we had twelve of them, so I'm just gonna give you what I consider the highlights:

• stingray reminds Amara of a time when she was a worse person.
• Shaggy and Amara have a friendly ongoing fashion competition.
• Mercy knows the port that stingray was processed at, but believes it would be too dangerous for them to pursue it. 
• Shaggy ended up hitting on one of Mercy's exes. It was...complicated?

Afterwards, we came to the difficult discussion of what exactly this crew does. I'm not really a ship combat person, so piracy was out the window, but what? The conclusion we came to was being hired for odd jobs by traditional outsiders (or insiders looking for deniable assets) that required finesse and probably the application of violence, plus the ability to independently travel in space. So, ya know, adventurers.

As for me, I've got a couple interesting throughlines I wanna pursue, namely:

• How do Shaggy's parents (and community) feel about her abandoning their traditional ways?
• What is the true nature of the Red Queen, and what plans does she have for her greatest disciple?
• Can Mercy ever go back home, or settle down? Who else has she pissed off that is hunting her down?
• How does Amara feel about Clanks now, with her history of killing them? 
• How will she react to just some robots being dudes?
• Where is stingray's family?
• What's happened to the other combat dolls?

When next we see our heroes, they'll be engaged in breaking free from imprisonment on the hostile ice colony of Straya. Stay tuned!