things to do in Bastard Galaxy (part two)

In the Glade

It's raiding season on Inejoi. The harvest is over and it's time for war against Mothercorp. Every year the Glade hires hundreds of off world mercenaries for the Green War. The pay isn't great but it's offset by free supplies and all the plunder you can carry. Make your way through the tall brown grass and try to find a weak point in Mothercorp's defenses. Be wary however, as the local predators also recognize raiding season.

The Glade needs someone to make an emergency delivery. The cargo is a hundred tons of premium farm grade dirt from the depths of the heap and the recipient is a struggling human agri colony. The Glade uses charity to expand their influence network to polities that might otherwise fall under the shadow of Mother Corp. The problem is that the dirt is hot and needs to be smuggled out from under the Mother Corp customs officers. Also it turns out to be more bioactive than you were lead to believe. Something has hatched and is now loose in your ship.

A small detachment of Glade elders needs an honor guard. They are making a pilgrimage to a unity shrine deep within the marsh lands of Feast, where they will merge, body and mind, with the planetary overmind. This is the price the Glade pays for it's alliance with Feast. In addition to the deadly flora of Feast, a Mothercorp assassin is hunting the party, hoping to stop the ritual with carnivorous caterpillars. 

In Mother Corp

Your gang is being paid to be part of a focus group for a new desert fresh from the Vault. It's white  and creamy and smells delicious but before you can eat it, it eats the test proctor. Now the facility is in lockdown and you need to find a way out before the failsafe worms are released.

Mothercorp has issued a recall on Kinder Garden brand neogenic companions. The're even offering a bounty on them, dead or alive. The issue is that the pets are much more intelligent than advertised and dangerously communalist. A small pack has taken over a local creche and has recruited the children. The pack's leader, Fussy Bottom Little Britches has a counter offer for you. It knows where the local Mothercorp outpost keeps its cash box.

The Scion of a wealthy mega corp has been lost deep in the depths of Forward Garden. This normally wouldn't be a problem; scions come and go while the corp remains. The issue is they had a crucial encryption pad on them at the time. The corp is paying big money to have someone go and fish the pad out of whatever insect nest it's resting in.

In the AgredeemEmpire

State sponsored pre-cogs and clairvoyants have been dropping dead all across the local galactic region. The disturbance has been traced to the storm covered Agredeem colony of Gotlong. The Seeder Initiative has hired you to investigate. Gotlong is home to an ancient tribe of Maskforms that worship the Agredeem Emperor as a God. One of their priests must be behind the phenomenon. The priest hood spend their time in the local dreamscape, which is inside a giant eye. The trick to finding them is shrinking yourself down to the scale of the temples carved out of motes of dust.

The upper class of the Empire demands entertainment. Your team has been scouted as the main event in a death battle/orgy (don't worry, you're a participant, not  a participant). You'll be facing down other teams and assorted monsters in a custom half-submerged stadium reef painstakingly grown in the belly of That Most Elusive and Sacred Glory, the capital ship of the Emperor's Huntmaster, the Great Star Orthano. At the climax of the event the Agredeem nobles will climax, releasing their gametes into the water. You'll probably want to be on dry land for that bit.   

Emphrina is a constant temptation for the Orphan's Guild. An Agredeem Emperor once mysteriously died after visiting the planet and the guild has been tantalized ever since. You have been hired by one of their operatives to go on an oneironautic expedition. The dream world of Emphrina is a massive flooded office block. It's clear that the oppressive tedium of the place is a defensive measure. There is a hidden layer beneath the endless paper work and sodden carpets.   

things to do in bastard Galaxy (part one)

In the Republic of Sea Serpents

After their hosts dies in a tavern brawl, a whispering worm scholar is looking for a temporary host and a ride back to the planet Sargos. Sargos is home to vast trackless kelp forests and hidden deep within them is the Academy of Eels. In return for carring the Whispering Worm all the way to the Academy, they will use the orrey of Eels to give you coordinates to catch up to one of the Cosmic Eels in their vast circuit of the Galaxy. Harvesting the lesser Eels that swarm around them can be quite profitable. Just be aware of the memetic eels.

The editor of the Pan Galactic poetry journal has a problem; they keep sending correspondents to cover a poetry festival on the backwater planet of Jorgu but they keep winding up dead. The Fesitival is held during the peak of planetary summer in a fishing community right on the edge of polar zone. Generally unguessed by the inhabitants or the editor, the contest is for the benefit of the Sea Serpent Jurgumurgo. She has been collecting poems this way for thousands of years. The villagers paddle out of the harbor in small canoes and kayaks and recite their poems over the open water. Everyone is expected to give a poem, even outsiders. After all poems are given, there is moment of stillness where everyone closes their eyes and Jurgumurgo eats the worst poet. She is heavily biased towards the traditional ballads favored by the locals, which is what lead to the editor's problem. A transcript of all the poems said at the festival is worth quite a lot of credits to them.

The leaders of Osgren wish to learn new techniques of cooking from across the Galaxy. However, they need to make sure any new innovations are practical for the unforgiving wilds of Osgren. To these ends, they have created the kitchen trials, where chefs from off world compete with locals to see who's cuisine reigns supreme. Before the main event contestants are expected to acquire their own native ingredients. Off planet ingredients can be used but the whole dish must be at least half native. This can be challenging as the locals are generally unhelpful. The economy is barter based and shopkeepers will demand outrageous trades (like a whole plasma rifle for a basket of half dead wrigglers). The best way to get anything is to volunteer on hunting missions, but even then expect to get stuck with the worst roles, such as sword ape bait. After the preparation is complete 2-4 chefs go head to head in a burned out caldera. Contestants may not interfere with each other beyond throwing 3 projectiles chosen before hand. The judges are a rotating board of native experts and foreign dignitaries.  The winner earns the favor of the Chairman, which opens a lot of doors in Osgren.

In the AGA

The Counter Gnomic researcher and drug dealer Degravo needs a courier to take an E-drug software program from his base in the Sphere Swarm to a Mu-Boll "business man" in an orbital station above Dirt. The catch is that this program, fire.god has a safety protocol that means it can only run on a single piece of hardware at time, deleting itself as it transfers from system to system. What's more is that it will not restart if the hardware it's running on is reset. If it is left running on a non-sapient machine it will catalyze the birth of sapient software agents. If it runs on a Sapient machine it causes widespread sensory glitches and the delsuion of divine contact. Long term users report nootropic effects.

A remote island lab in the nano machine sea of the Proving Grounds has gone dark. This lab was a breeding facility for Gnomic prosthetics. The last transmission suggests that the prosthetics have gone feral somehow. It is believed that the limbs, eyes and prosthetic organs now have the run of the facility. A high ranking doctor needs you to retrieve a secret project; a rare Gnomic cyberbrain. They are unaware that the cyberbrain is the source of the disturbance.

A rare cyber fairy has been spotted in Gnome Mart. The fairy of sudden ends has the power to trigger massive shutdowns of Gnomic ecology. This followed by a feeding frenzy as the dead sections are eaten and rebuilt. The fairy is quite valuable, both as a research subject and as a collector's item. Some of the AGA personnel also searching for the fairy can no longer be described as sane. They will react badly to anyone they think is trying to steal "their" fairy.

In Candy Country

Mistress Deep Night has been teasing a new product launch for her mystery cult/subscription service. Molsheen the Deviant planetoid is feeling excluded so it has furnished you with fake aristo identities. Your mission is to infiltrate Dark Drop and surreptitiously record your sensoriums as you experience the new product. This is directly contradicted by the terms of service, so you're going to need to dodge the Mistresses' counter intel forces.

The Candyman Lord Whimsy is distraught. Human privateers have hijacked a shipment, that along with candy weapons and food, also happened to contain his latest project. He will pay dearly for the return of "the egg". He won't say what it is, only that it will bring smiles to the whole galaxy. The privateers have been eating the shipment and they already show the first signs of candy psychosis. Also, you aren't the only team Lord Whimsy has hired and they won't see the Egg as recovered until its in their possession.

The Crusty Crucible is a time acceleration device  used by the Intergalactic Candy Company to evolve new products. The advanced candy biome is harvested by workers called scrapers. Lately they have been disappearing, which is troubling as the crucible is sealed. The higher ups are looking to hire a trouble shooting team to investigate.

Things to do in the Reclaimer Alliance

The leader of a warband In Erst-Va lost their child to a pack of ganglemen and now they're offering a bounty on every pair of gangleman thumbs that is brought to them. Ganglemen are dangerous and disturbing near-sapient  primates found on many ruin worlds. At night pairs and trios set up ambushes in abandoned buildings, using bits of shiny scavenge as bait. During the day they whole 30+ pack of them sleep in a hidden lair, protected by noise traps. The walls of the lair are marked in crude charcoal art. The spoils of their victims are kept in piles in separate rooms. There are rooms with weapons, dolls and widgets. In the widget room is the heirloom data slab that used to belong to the chief's child.

On the petrified wood planet of Ugon-Zal a clan of herdsmen has put out a call for help. They need extra security for their herds of Wool Worms, cow sized invertebrate hebrivores covered in long wool . A nearby bandit clan has begun acting erratically and stealing dozens of worms. They have begun fighting in the nude while screaming about "the lord under the skin". There's also the fact that they couldn't have possibly eaten all the Worms they stole. The village elders suspect One Who is Not Orn. Someone needs to track down the bandits and learn the truth of their strange behavior.

The planet Erst Va has a persistent creep problem. The Church of Holy Vermin is looking for a crew to take a shipment of creep eater worms from the Orn Market on Shran Ga and deliver it to a front line outpost deep in the concrete labyrinth. The Reborn Corsairs behind the creep infestation have learned about the shipment and are eager to derail the churches plans.

Main Reclaimer Alliance article here