Tempest: The Game

Basic Elements

Politics
Trade
Adventures that don't involve shooting
PCs who are at most a bit more skilled than normal
This won't start for a while so don't freak out

Tempest

Cobalt Oceans, cloudy skies. Tempest is a hot world, there is no snow here, no ice, even at the poles. Water dominates, with less than eight percent of the surface being land. Its equator is lethal to anyone without fully sealed cool suits. Even then a constant hurricane blows, spinning off smaller storms which give the planet it's name.

Tempest is poisonously rich in heavy metals. They pervade the water, the earth, even the bodies of native plants and animals. To humans this makes Tempest a place of long term as well as short term dangers, capable of causing all manner of cancers unless genetic modification or medicine intervenes.

Despite the harsh conditions Tempest is not without merits as a colonization prospect. It's biology is a fascinating and tradable thing. It's atmosphere allows a human to operate without a suit, though the heat takes more than a little getting used to.

Settled by a long shot group of female separatists in the dawning days of the era of space colonization, Tempest became home to a culture which seemed exotic to outside eyes. Governed on directly democratic principles and linked together by a globe spanning network of augmented reality systems Tempest's primary society is split into colours, each possessing a genetic specialization. The economy is a mixture of careful planning and continual preference setting by the population.

Biology and atmospheric conditions were enough that at Tempest suffered invasion. Various powers who had missed out on the initial surge of colonization found the mostly empty planet and its natural resources a tempting prospect. For the last several decades Tempest has been at war. First with those who sought to conquer it, and then, using the military machine that came from successfully fending off their enemies, with those nearby powers they saw as a threat.

Events in the wider universe bought an end to local wars for now, if only to preserve forces for a worse contingencies in the future. However the past always leaves a mark. Tempest now has a large population of unmodified humans for the first time.

The second colonization and the civil war that resulted are long over now, though some scars remain.

Menelik

On Tempest only islands have names. it's three small continents are Alpha, Beta and Gamma. Settlers from Ethiopia, Nigeria and other areas of Africa settled on Beta Continent as it was largely undeveloped and safely distant from the already hostile Island dwelling Tempsti.

Menelik is Beta Continent's biggest city. Nowhere near as large as Landing or New Reykjavik it never the less has a certain grandeur of its own. The city is a maze of close packed buildings, domed and sheeted against the storms and heavy metals, genetically engineered flowers sequestering carcinogens away from the air.

Since the war the city has seen an influx of first colony Tempsti, eager to use the work that was done before the war. Menelik is an increasing cosmopolitan place, hosting people of all kinds. However what form this development should take is an open question.

In general Menelik remains a somewhat sleepy town. It's up to its inhabitants if it stays that way.

The Universe

Beyond Tempest are numerous other planets, most of them fairly unknown to the Tempesti. Information travels slowly between the stars, only at the speed of a dispatch boat. It is known that aliens and humans coexist. It is said that earth is conquered by alien forces.

More to come on this

The Characters

The characters are normal inhabitants of Menelik, both first and second colonization Tempesti. They all know one another before the game begins, and are interested in local politics.

At the beginning of the game they have inherited control of a free trade vessel (either jointly or one has and has asked the others for help). They must be the kind of people who wouldn't just sell this.