Morgantha's Lament.

 What do you do when you find a pile of old scenery? Well, first of all you wonder what game you could use it for. Currently, I have two 28mm sci-fi game systems that I'm interested in. Stargrave and Five Parsecs From Home. So then you start repainting it all! Of course, if you're like me, you'll start writing the back story in your head! So I did. And then I thought.... rather than lose it amongst the hundreds and thousands of other posts on Facebook why not blog about it? So, here goes! Oh, but first, we'll need a name for the planet where all the action takes place........

..... So, we have some toxic pools, some odd looking space critters, some jade coloured crystals (Why? I liked the colour of the paint and I hadn't used it before!) and a crashed space craft (an old vacuum formed piece that must be 20 years old!)

Put them all together and what do we have? One: we have a crashed spaceship! Who's is it and how did it get here? This becomes the start of the back story. Two: those crystals - are they worth money? Yes! A lot of money! OK, that'll give us scavengers, prospectors, somewhere for them to live and spend their money. A mining town! And we know what happens in frontier mining towns! Scum! Villainy! Lawmen! Three: we have the basis of a planetary ecology. Not very well evolved (or so it appears at first sight!) and a dry, desert-like planet.

Morgantha’s Lament

What a name for a planet! Well, planetoid really. And let’s face it, any place with “Lament” in its name is to be avoided. It’s an almost dead place. Well, dead really but it doesn’t know it yet. It’s been dying since God made it, I reckon. If He did, that is, and not the other guy. Barren, sandy, dry, windy, toxic. And the local life! If the critters don’t eat you then the plants will. Did I say toxic? Yeah, well, don’t say I didn’t warn you. There are pools of toxic sludge bubbling up from deep underground.

And Morganthracite. The only reason people come here. Damned stuff. If you find a lode you best keep damned quiet about it! They say you can pick up chunks of it off the ground! And a ton of it will make you rich for life. Heck, an ounce will make you rich for life. But only because someone will kill you for it! Still, at least you’ll die rich.

Yep, you guessed it. Morgantha Shepherd was the first person to discover the place. By crashing into it at high speed! It was a salvage team that found her wrecked spacecraft. What there was left of it. That’s not all they found, though. Her craft had ploughed into a seam of this jade coloured glass-like stone. Made the salvage crew very rich. For a while. A very short while! And now, every bushwhacker, every two-bit petty criminal wants in on the act.

Morgantha’s Landing is a boomtown. Not a very pleasant one though. Still, you’re not here for the scenery, are you? Nah. You want to get rich quick. More likely you’ll get dead quick. Still, it’s a big Galaxy and there are plenty more where you came from. You won’t be missed.