There are some spoilers below on the general direction that the campaign will be taking but nothing specific enough to ruin things for the casual reader (or my players).
So the campaign has now reached an interesting point, because it's starting to move from a quite linear structure to an open sandbox. The opening part of the storyline comprised the introductory scenario that I added into the Flowers of Algorab called The Sky Machine, and the campaign opener The First and Last Man. The conclusion of the second scenario revealed the truth that the ark ship Nadir may still exist and the characters are subsequently tasked with paying a key part in finding its location. Effectively, they are faced with four systems to visit as part of their expedition, but only need to be successful at two of those to achieve triangulation. Four star systems have returned signals in response to the Singularity Sphere being triggered, each of which poses a different threat.
The preparation for the next stage of the campaign is multilayered and a bit intimidating. Like all sandboxes, there is every chance that the players may choose to go to a destination that you're not prepared for, so you have to manage it with them, otherwise you could end up with some very short sessions. I know that I certainly couldn't hold four different scenarios in my head at one time and deliver them at a level I'd like to achieve. In my younger days I've run four scenarios, often with different systems, at gaming conventions and I know the level of stress and challenge that that gives. You can mitigate that by using the same game system – and I guess in this case I would be using a single game system – but holding the storylines, the game mechanics and the multiple levels that the campaign operates at in my head would be a real challenge
This is also the part of the campaign where the factions really start coming to play. You have all the traditional rivalries between the Guilds, the Black Toad and the Coriolites, but often there are internal conflicts within those groups that need to be accounted for. I spent a good hour or two working through the objectives and motivations of the different factions and which of the characters they are likely to approach to try and garner support from. This maps itself into a set of scenes that I can introduce, giving spotlight to one or more of the players, and in some cases the whole group. As it stands, the crew have managed to improve their relationship with the Black Toad, but develop an antagonistic relationship with the Coriolites. It remains to be seen how that will develop in play.
I'm taking advantage of the recently released beta of a scenario compilation for Coriolis: The Great Dark called The Fractured Library and Other Tales of the Lost Horizon to inject an additional scenario into the campaign. I'm not doing this lightly, but I think it adds something to the story and also gives me a chance to let the players deal with the huge dump of information and choices that they will need to make. Our next session will see the characters, now recovered from their travails, dealing with the authorities of Ship City and the Lost Horizon. They will meet the council that runs their civilisation, have to face questions about their behaviour and findings, and will be assigned to support the search for the Nadir.
Being assigned to the expedition to find the Nadir will open up sections the game we haven't touched before such as travel through the slipstream and land-based travel on planets that they are exploring. This introduces more procedural systems, and the need to plan for the expedition proper. The characters will have the final say on which star systems are visited first. The boxed set of the Flowers of Algorab deals with this by having a second book that the players may reference, the Expedition Book. However, as presented it reveals more about how the campaign will progress than it needs to. Part of my preparation has been to break the Expedition Book into sections which can be handed out separately. I now have a gazetteer of the places that they're likely to visit and the common knowledge that they can gain about them, along with a separate document that summarises the slipstream cruiser that they have been assigned to.
Injecting the extra scenario gives me a chance to pass all this material to the players and allow them to start to plan what they want to do on the expedition thanks to the breathing space the diversion provides. I anticipate that a chunk of this will happen on our discord channel in parallel to the scenario that's playing out. I hope to get an early decision about the first location they plan to explore once they return, giving me time to prepare that in the background.
The detour presented by the extra scenario also gives me a chance to loop through contact with the factions at least twice early on, whereas if I used the campaign has written, there's really only one opportunity to do that before they're off searching for more signals in the Great Dark.
So to summarise, I'm quite excited where this is going right now. We have a politics and planning stage, a short mission and then we'll head off into the great dark in search of the unknown. The extra short mission lets me manage my time better, and hopefully – much like The Sky Machine – it will let me teach the players the new procedurals in an effective way.
17 May 2026
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