Across the Sea of Stars

The Tales

Across the Sea of Stars is set at a conference called by the Klorn, a vastly powerful race that exists outside the Coterie. As part of this conference, your home character will be called upon to act out a series of Tales: self-contained micro-LARPs which occur within the larger game. Each Tale will be a small bit of the history of the Coterie staged for the edification of the Klorn. While you're performing it, your home character may also learn something in the process.

The game will be divided into several periods, with three Tale-telling periods. Each of these Tale-telling periods represents one of the Ages of History that all of the Coterie member races have gone through. You will be called upon to interpret Tales associated with each of these ages:

• The Age of Expansion: The period when each race makes its way out of its home solar system and to the stars.
• The Age of Contact: The period when each race discovers that it is not alone in the Universe.
• The Age of Federation: The period when each race learns about the Coterie and makes the decision to join or go it alone.

There are many Tales for each period; a player will not be able to play them all.

Selecting a Tale

The Vim are an ancient servitor race for the Klorn. In the Tale-telling periods, the GMs will be the Vim, available to hand out the available packets, each containing a Tale from the period being explored. To start, walk up to one of the Vim and request a Tale that explores some aspect of Technology, Economy or Diplomacy. Tales need between three and six players.

Once you've gathered the required players, the Vim will hand you the packet for the Tale. There is general information providing the background and setting for the Tale. There is also an envelope for each player describing the Tale character that they will play. Have each player pick a part at random. The Tale character you choose to play may be another race or gender than your home character.

If the Vim hand you a Tale you've already played, request another Tale.

Each of the corners of the room will contain a background and collection of props which may enhance the telling of your Tale. Once your players have read the Tale character sheets, select an unoccupied region of the function space, and start re-enacting your Tale.

Telling a Tale

Everything about the telling of the Tale is left to the players. This is crucial.

There are no GMs to help you in this process. This is the telling of the Tale as you and the other players understand it. It is a cooperative effort.

Your character may know something special about the environment or the situation. You should feel free to step into the third person to provide narration if it's appropriate. For example:

The same mechanism can be used to explain some special effect or special ability.

These actions might trigger something unexpected from another character; the only way that they can know this is if you tell them, because there are no GMs. Consider this as if you were reading a Tale out of a book, or telling it late at night on the bridge of your starship. This is a cooperative effort, not a competitive one. Sure, this may be bad for your Tale Character, but many of the Tale Characters are already in very tough and bad situations.

Each of the Tale Character envelopes will contain a new character name, a descriptive badge, and the Tale character statistics. There may also be contingency envelopes. These are yours for the duration of the Tale.

Any challenges that you participate in during the telling of the Tale use the Tale character statistics to determine the outcome. Nothing that happens during the telling of the Tale is affected by your Home Character statistics, or can affect your Home Character. For example, getting killed during the telling of a Tale does not affect your Home Character. Therefore, you should die dramatically, and then simply step back and wait for the end of the Tale, so you can participate in summarizing the Tale.

Some character envelopes may contain more than one part to play. For example, you may play "Red Shirt #1", who gets eaten by the "Bug Eyed Monster" early in the Tale. That player may have an explanation for how to come back as "Red Shirt #2." There will be instructions for these situations. Play it up.

Other Home Characters may watch your interpretation of the Tale. Pay no attention to them.

Other Tales will be running in parallel in the game space. There may be four or more Tales going at the same time.

The Tale is complete when the players agree that "That's the way it was told to me."

Tale Wrap

Once your group has completed telling a Tale, you need to summarize it to the Vim, who will relay the information to the Klorn. The Vim you summarize to does not have to be the same one who assigned you the Tale.

Explain what happened in your Tale telling, as your Home Character would do so. Thus, your Home Character might shade the events one way or another. The Vim may ask questions to tease out lessons hidden in the Tale. Once you're done, the Vim may even reward you with items to help in telling future Tales.

Your goal during the telling of the Tales is to advance your Home Character's understanding of Diplomacy, Economics, and Technology. Different players in the Tale may have learned different lessons.

Once you've finished the Tale, give the Tale packet, along with all of the contents, back to the Vim to whom you summarized the Tale. Tales may be told more than once, by different groups, who may learn different lessons from the same Tale. Please re-store any props your group took out and make the area available to other groups who are waiting to re-enact Tales.

Then feel free to ask for a different Tale. Find a different group of people and see what other Tales there are to tell.