This game is on a hiatus until the New Year. 
November was a cursed month for illness and weather disrupting games then to top it off I’ve picked up Covid (double vaxxed so not going to be a problem) which with isolation rules 
knocks off another 2 weeks right before X-mass…
We shall return in 2022 with the saga of House Sindri!
Random Q but where’d you dig up the tokens for characters from? They look like Torg blips but I doubt they are.
Got it in one.
I have backed the various Torg Eternity kickstarters and got the blips from them.
I don’t use maps too much in Torg so they have found a place in Dune where the maps are more abstract and they seem to work better for me.
Love it. I knew you were good people when I saw Torg happening. 
That’s a great use for them, I’ve backed several of the KS as well. I don’t have the Cyberpapacy ones and they seem like they might be the closest to Dune. /off to dig through my collection.
I was honestly thinking what I’d use for our games when we wanted to track positions, this is perfect.
House Sindri has returned!
Now that Chaos, Covid & Christmas are over we have been able to meet up again to continue the chronicles of House Sindri.
Again a fairly short session as we had a lot of catching up and handing over of presents (Oh for my university days of 6 hour sessions)
Time had advanced to a few days before a grand ball celebrating the engagement of the Heir, Pelias, to a member of House Solis, a House Minor from Ecaz which has ties to the Lady Olivia Sindris former House.
The palace was full of minor nobles and their entourages from House Minors on both Cheruf and Ecaz. As well as a sizable theatre troupe from House Jarmund (The House that the Families cousin, Lady Caroline Jarmund, had married into - There is a reason I furnished my players with a family tree). Being the suspicious lot the players went spy hunting and found at least one who had inserted herself into the servants of a small House and infiltrated the palace. Having set a tail on her the party were prepared to play the long game in the hope of finding out more about her mission.
Having reported this to the spymaster Bastion was called in for a quiet discussion about what he had found out about Lady Aria. How the player phrased some of his answers about her loyalties (The House), methods (occasionally dubious) and relationship with her brothers (leaning towards Gallen over Lucas) may have implications down the line.
At a Family gathering Lady Caroline and Lord Lucas’ wife got into a frosty discussion, before Gallen swept in and diffused matters by moving Lady Caroline away. Aria later saw them discussing matters quietly away from the gathering.
Gallen later caught up with Aria, again in a quiet corner of the gathering. This time he was more forceful about his fears for the future of House Sindri if both Lucas and Pelias had wives from Ecaz. While Lucas could be influenced away from any detrimental decisions by Gallen and Aria, who would stop Pelias being controlled in future?
Gallen was not prepared to see House Sindri turned into a puppet and he hoped that Aria felt the same.
Aria was in general agreement and let slip to Gallen that she knew there was a missing army somewhere…
(I absolutely loved this conversation between Aria & Gallen, the above does not do it justice. Especially since immediately afterwards my players kicked me out of the room so they could go and scheme… 
)
The player who designed the House Sindri symbol (see further up the thread) has created one for House Hallas. (A modified version of House Pallas by @MutantFromMars)
I think she has plans to work through the other 3 House Minors on Cheruf as well. Eventually I will create a pack with everything created for Cheruf and put it up for anyone to mine for ideas. 
is House Sindri a dwarf (Bene Tleilax?) or a dwelling place for thé soûl of thé virtuous after the Ragnarok (choose your Dune’s War)
Yes. My group like referencing random mythologies.
The key element in here that attracted them was the spark terminology. Though the focus of the House as being miners in areas that others cannot touches on the Dwarven aspects.
This also fed into the Brazier symbology on the House crest.
The world they are from is Cheruf, a tectonically active planet with plenty of volcanoes.
And the House was promoted suddenly a few centuries ago after the previous House Minor was destroyed in a Volcanic accident…
After tailing the spy for a while Bastion spotted a subtle handoff between her and a House maid before she attempted to slip away and out of the palace. Kaeo attempted to cut them off, but was no match for the stealth of the spy so Bastion stepped in to try and slow them down.
((This was probably the closest I’ve had to a duel, but it was still more of a 2 person skirmish when it came down to it.))
After several rounds of jockeying for position Bastion rolled 3 successes and a complication in his attack. After a brief discussion we decided that he had wounded and planted a short range tracker on the spy while being wounded in return. This did allow Kaeo to position the House Guard to capture her, though she is currently unconscious in custody.
Recovered from her person was a list of names from the House, including Lethe’s. Ominously Kaeo & Carolyns names had been added hurriedly to the bottom.
While all this had been going on Lethe had headed back out into the city to keep an eye on what the local population was feeling about the engagement.
Back in the same bar she had got into trouble in before she ran into someone who seemed to recognise her and who was upset at having lost some cargo recently. After a fun back and forth conversation she agreed to go with them as she suspected them of being connected to the weapons smuggling they found previously.
She had to do some pretty fast talking to persuade them that she was on a deep cover mission from the late Warmaster and the weapons swipe was part of buying trust with Aria, luckily she made some good assumptions about them and was able to get away with it.
She has been provided with a concealed communicator so she can co-ordinate with them. Not that she trusts it and is keeping it isolated in her ornithopter for now.
Not much for Aria, who had a conversation with Armand (the Seneshal who set them on this whole plot) and let him know some of what they have found out. The revelation that this is, at least in part, an internal Family matter did not sit well with him. Aria warned him to be careful as she left (which is a red flag in any setting!)
The ball continued with various intrigues being shifted back and forth. (This was a very light intrigue conflict with various rumours being manipulated to help determine how the various factions thought of each other) As a result of the manoeuvrings a duel broke out between a minor noble of House Solis and a Guard Captain of House Sindri. (This had been down as something for them to counter but they decided to play into it instead)
I didn’t do this as a proper duel but rather a contested skill roll with various traits being added on either side. After a tense initial roll where the noble was in the lead a point of both threat and momentum were thrown in resulting in a draw on the numbers but the noble rolling a complication.
Honour was satisfied and House Sindri’s martial prowess was acknowledged by the guests.
Down in the cells Kaeo interrogated the maid to try and get her to confess. Though she was having some success she was ultimately interrupted by Lady Olivia Sindri who swept in and demanded to know why her servants were continuingly being harassed by Gallen & his people. While Kaeo was able to keep the maid in custody Lady Olivia did leave a personal guardsman behind to monitor the interrogation, which suddenly went nowhere with the maid going completely silent.
That night Lethe was attacked in her rooms by a House kitchen servant. She successfully fought him off and killed him but not before being wounded herself. She is currently unconscious in the infirmary tended to by Carolyn. (The player will be unavailable for a couple of weeks so convenient way to sideline her character)
Kaeo & Bastion identified how the assailant had gained access to Lethe’s chambers and instituted a sweeping update of all the key cards in the palace. Within a few days all key cards are to have been replaced so they can track exactly what is out there.
As a parting scene Armand has called for a full Family Council to be held as Aria has revealed to him that something is definitely rotten at the heart of House Sindri…
Well this was an action packed session. My players decided to title the episode “A Cluster of Stars” (Mainly to keep the PG rating for the show). We fitted a lot of stuff in, the below misses out a good chunk of what the players got up.
It started fine with Kaeo bringing in a few suspected spies based on her interrogations previously, one of whom killed themselves before they could be captured. She was also dealing with escalating complaints about the security changes and shutting them all down by means of declaring it was to protect the House.
That night the House lockdown alarms went into effect. House Guards were deployed across the palace and Lady Aria found that she had a pair stationed right outside her door.
Carolyn was restricted to the Infirmary while Kaeo made her way to the command centre to find out what was going on. Poor Bastion botched his roll and found himself trapped in the lockdown for a bit.
At the command centre Kaeo found out that the seneschal Armand Sindri had been attacked and was being rushed to the infirmary where Carolyn was able to stabilise him, but due to an unknown reason he did not regain consciousness.
Further investigations revealed that Gallen and his family were missing. Aria used the family secret passages to bypass the guards and reach Gallen’s chambers. Which were currently in the process of being ransacked by unknown persons. Once they had left she was able to find hat he had cleared his hidden compartments in a hurry and a message from Gallen about betrayal. though precisely what he meant was not entirely clear.
At the infirmary Carolyn was dealing with House guards who had been attacked and badly wounded, apparently there was someone still in the palace. Kaeo quartermaster contact was able to let her know that the House guard were ones that were not usually stationed in the palace.
Between Kaeo & Carolyn they pieced together that Armand had been drugged unconscious the prior evening before being pulled out of bed and attacked in a staged manner before being found.
The Guard captain in charge declared that Gallen was the prime suspect in attacking his uncle and issued a capture on sight to all Sindri forces.
A party discussion ensued in the privacy of Aria’s chambers as to if they should also flee the palace as it was clearly not safe. Eventually it was decided to stay put and try and manage affairs from within the palace.
Kaeo identified that several high ranking member of the House staff had also gone missing. Including amongst them Captain Gaerry Kinnard, the officer who had won the duel the day before.
Bastion infiltrated the Lords quarters, through he could not access where Lucas, Olivia and the Warmaster were as Lady Olivia’s personal armsmen were preventing anyone from going in. He was able to make contact with the younger son, Carlos, and pass him a communicator from Aria so he could let her know if anything happened there.
In the city outside explosions went off. Kaeo believed they were distractions and so advised the Guard captain to not waste resources on them. Keeping the troops attention focussed on trying to find Gallen who they believed had escaped the palace.
A cut off message from the Armory had Kaeo racing to find out what had happened. The quartermaster was able to tell her that Captain Gaerry Kinnard and his men had attacked the armoury, killed the House guard, wounded the armoury guards and made off with explosives from the stores,
Aria argued for the Guard captain to evacuate Lucas and his family to the Sindri estate, leaving her behind to run the House operations in the meantime.
A sudden drop in comms from the cells and a series of small explosions from there send Kaeo, once more, racing across the palace. On arrival she found the House guard all dead and several of the prison cells blown open. Cells that according to the records were empty.
We left it with Lucas and his family being airlifted out and Kaeo staring at broken into cells that should have had no-one in them…
Title for this session: Relationships are Complicated
It began with Bastion noticing that some of Gallen’s staff were quietly disappearing. Stalking one he discovered a hidden passage leading out of the palace, following it he managed to slip in amongst the staff and was whisked off to a safe house in the city.
Meanwhile Lady Aria and Kaeo were carefully arranging for the last of Lady Olivia’s armsmen (the few who had remained behind when the Lord and his family were evacuated) to be reassigned and moved to duties that kept them away from the palace where possible.
Carolyn was ordered to prep Armand Sindri for evacuation by the guards, but claimed that he was too injured to be safely moved. A lie, but the party was highly suspicious of any orders to take Armand away.
Lethe recovered from her injuries and after some remonstration with both guards and the Suk doctor was allowed to leave the infirmary.
She left to go to her mothers room to acquire some of her armour she found the place had also been ransacked. Someone had obviously been looking for something in here, though unsuccessfully from the appearance of it.
Using the comms gear she was given she made contact with the group she had met in the city and was told that the situation had changed. They needed the weapons urgently as the timetable had been accelerated. There was a lot of confusion about what was happening, but it seems that their target was the Lord Sindri, or at least that ***** with him.
Orders came through from the Warmaster for the House regiments to prepare to move out. Kaeo noticed that some of the regiments seemed to be sending back false reports. Lady Aria noticed, and then covered up, that several House Sindri facilities had stopped responding to communications from the new command centre at the Sindri estate.
Back in the Palace a heavy transport ornithopter arrived just as Lethe took off for a ‘survey of the city’. Putting her outside the palace just in case.
Carolyn noticed that the guards outside Armands room were acting strangely so locked her self in the room with him and refused to allow them in when they said they had orders to evacuate him regardless. Unfortunately it being a hospital door they broke it down in short order and began to drag the doctor off along with moving Armand, bed & all.
Outside Lady Arias room new arrivals told the guards that they had been sent to evacuate the Lady Aria. After receiving confirmation from the palace command room that no such order had been received a fight broke out.
Out in the city away from all this Bastion was taken on to a warehouse facility with numerous other members of Gallen’s staff, where he identified some of Gallen’s personal armsmen and close aides (He rolled double critical).
After a brief discussion he broke cover to slip next to some of Gallen’s Aides and present them a direct comms channel to Lady Aria for Gallen to use.
An action that stunned them briefly before he was escorted to meet Gallen personally.
The session ended with Gallen calling Aria, just as she escaped out a secret passage in her room.
The party had a lot of discussions during this session on where they thought all the factions lay. Often correct, sometimes wrong, frequently hilariously so.
They have the current factions as being:
After a break of a week for everyone to attend my wife’s birthday party (We booked a cinema to show The Princess Bride, very good time) we were able to get back to the game and the cliff hanger we left it on.
Kaeo arrived at the Infirmary just as the guards were attempting to take Armand and Carolyn away, apparently at the command of the Warmaster. This was something halfway between a skirmish & a warfare conflict. We had Kaeo on the field along with a squad of House Troopers (An asset controlled by Bastions player) going up against a couple of squads of enemies and a Personal Armsman of Lady Olivia.
Kaeo was wounded in the fighting, but managed to release Carolyn who teamed up with Lady Aria to assist from the background in taking down all the enemies. (Amazing what players can justify finding in an Infirmary).
Gallen arranged to assist the party in leaving in the Palace and joining him in his temporary headquarters.
Pooling their knowledge and contacting Carlos at the Sindri Estate the players realised that no-one had seen the Warmaster or Lord Lucas since they arrived at the Estate and it was Lady Olivia who was present in the war room that had been set up there.
A discussion between Gallen and Aria led to the agreement that Lucas needed to be replaced as ruler of the House and that Pelias should not succeed him. This meant that they would need to be persuaded to step aside and Carlos was to be made Lord, albeit under a Regency of Aria & Gallen for the next few years…
Aria secretly plans for Pelias to have an ornithopter accident either during the current situation or shortly afterwards. While she cares for her brother, she seems to have less qualms about her eldest nephew.
Gallen also revealed that he had taken over the force that the Warmaster had been building in secret and he had been funding.
They were available to use along with those battalions that had agreed to support him. However that was only balancing out what was still Loyal to Lucas, which included most of the air force.
The party agreed to use the troops as a distraction to draw out the Loyalist forces so a small team could go in to the Sindri Estate and extract Lucas, Pelias & Carlos. Lady Olvia was pointedly excluded from the list of people who were to be brought out. The party having already decided that she was too dangerous to be allowed to live.
As part of this I created plans for the Sindri Estate in both wide and detail.
They are still WIPs so any suggestions please let me have them.
My sessions have been a bit disjointed of late. Various real life reasons, but hey that’s life these days.
The party arrived at the Sindri family estate where they were greeted by an ‘Honor Guard’ and promptly whisked off to guest chambers on the top floor. Bastion took the opportunity to slip away and blend into the House servants from where he had a lot more mobility than the others.
Carolyn managed to get to see both the House Mentat & Lord Lucas and confirm that they were well, if rather stressed and in Lucas’ case mildly drunk. She was unable to see either the spymaster or the Warmaster.
Aria made a general nuisance of herself to Lady Olivia Sindri, but managed to arrange a family dinner for later that evening where all the present Family would be. She also spent a bit of time in prepping Carlos for what to look out for in regards what would be discussed. ((The party are moving further towards shifting the succession to put poor Carlos as the Lord)).
Whilst all this was going on Bastion had identified which members of the House were present using their food orders and noticed that the Spymasters had been sent back from the command bunker untouched. Infiltrating the bunker in his guise as a servant he made contact with some of the Spymasters agents who had been maneuvered into position to control all the communications from the Estate, but then the Spymaster, Warmaster and several guards had gone into the lower secure briefing rooms and only the guards had returned.
The agent was able to pass Bastion an intercepted communication from a Heighliner that had just arrived that was in a non-Sindri code.
Kaeo was able to crack the code, aided by having broken some of these House Solis codes earlier, and found a message about House Solis having been attacked by a force from a Major House and to “Resolve Matters”. The players were able to piece a few things together and realised that a rumour they had set going several sessions prior to frame House Solis for helping House Sors to escape House McDaniels had finally triggered. (I’d been having Kaeo’s player roll me 2d20 at the start of each session and they finally hit the target number)
The session ended with Aria finally managing to get through to Lucas that something is wrong within the House and that enemies are trying to break the siblings up. His understanding rolls were amusing as he couldn’t believe that his wife, Lady Olivia, had anything to do with it. But he was able to understand that maybe the people from her original House may have been corrupted.
A meeting was arranged with the Spymaster & Warmaster for the following morning. How the night goes may prove interesting…
So it has taken a while but we have reached the end of Season 1 and it was worth the wait for my group. We managed to get the epic wrap up for the arc I was hoping for.
Quote of the session “That does complicate things…”
We began with Lethe infiltrating the House estate with a small team of commandos. Unsure of the best plan at this point they decided to sabotage the ornithopters. The players words were “So experienced pilots would find it harder, but less experienced wouldn’t notice”. I took that to mean that the better the piloting roll the bigger the problem.
Kaeo decided to slip out early and head for the command centre, determined to find the Warmaster. Taking the route that would be used by Lady Aria and party later she noticed a new camera and sound recorder pointed at the route, shortly before she was ambushed by a pair of assailants who very loudly shouted “For Lord Gallen, die Traitor”. Before she could finish them one of them released some form of poison, killing himself and almost killing his fellow before Kaeo could drag him to safety.
When she subsequently turned up with a half dead body at the command centre it caused quite some consternation. She was able to use this chaos to secure her position as the highest ranking officer.
With Carolyn tending to the injured assassin, Kaeo investigated the secure bunker beneath the command centre finding the Warmaster dead and the Spymaster badly wounded, having seemingly taken a drug to feign her own death.
While this was going on Lady Aria had been woken and taken to a secure location (The theatre on the ground floor) for her ‘safety’ due to their being infiltrators in the Estate. She then proceeded to casually wind up the guard stationed there by subtly insulting Lady Sindri and her original House.
In order to ramp up the chaos Lethe detonated some of her explosives outside the command centre in a very loud and flashy manner. Staging a follow up ‘attack’ where she loudly declared that House McDaniels would have it’s revenge.
Inside the command centre Kaeo was getting reports of explosions, House McDaniels attacks, Ornithopters crashing as they attempted emergency take-offs
At the main House Bastion infiltrated the library disguised as an aide and was was collared by Lady Sindri to assist her in moving Lord Lucas to the 'Thopters for evacuation. Carlos was being summoned and no-one knew where Pelias was.
At the theatre an agent that they had earlier identified as having been behind some of the earlier schemes was allowed in by the guard and they both attacked Lady Aria. Who, while sustaining some wounds was able to out manoeuvre them and escape the theatre. Running into Carlos who was being evacuated towards Lord Lucas and party at the time.
It was at this point that they discovered where Pelias had gotten to as he attempted to take off in his racing 'thopter. Pelias is an expert pilot, Pelias rolled 4 successes, Pelias was in a 'thopter that was rigged so the better you were the worse your result… There was a brief pause as the players realised they had just killed the Heir to the House.
Lethe deciding that they didn’t have much to lose at this point (having been the one that did the sabotage) charged the group containing Lord Lucas, Lady Sindri, Bastion and a bodyguard. Ignoring all but Lady Sindri who she desperately attacked.
Bastion took the opportunity to get Lucas away from the situation while Lady Aria covered Carlos.
Successfully preventing Lady Sindri from fleeing but being wounded by her bodyguard Lethe detonated the last of her explosives. Which with the use of Determination and Threat made for a big bang.
Lady Sindri was killed outright as was her bodyguard. Bastion was badly wounded protecting Lord Lucas and Lady Aria it turned out was able to avoid the worst of the damage.
I gave Carolyn a chance to save Lethe with a D4 roll, but having already used her Determination on the Spymaster even a little extra help from Momentum was not enough.
With the events dying down the wrap up was a lot simpler. All the events were officially blamed on House Sindri being caught up in a conflict between Solis & McDaniels. There will be bad blood between the Houses for some time, but nothing that can be formally laid out in Kanly.
Carlos was named Heir and Lord Lucas, while officially still Lord has largely retired from public life.
Lethe was declared to have been a sleeper agent and struck from the House records in disgrace.
As a final after credits scene though we did have a dimly lit room with a manila file on which was written Lethe Driscol. The file was closed by a heavily bandaged hand and then a new file pulled across over it and opened “Now, what shall I be next?..” Fade to black
There will be a break for a while as I refresh and consider how to continue, if we move to another game for a while and then come back or if I start afresh with a new House… We shall see.
I will consolidate and update all my note and post up a thread with all the details of House Sindri if anyone else wants to use them.
I hope you enjoyed the game. My group certainly did. 
Presenting the Lady Aria Sindri from my game.
I have placed commissions for all the characters so eventually there will be a complete pack with all of them and their character sheets.
That is nice, who did that one?
I’d be happy to pass them on to our art director if its someone you know.
@Forevermedhok (twitter & deviantart, checking on artstation)
I’ve commissioned a few things from them, but this is the best so far.
If Modiphius want to add them to their stable I think they would be up to the required level. 
For those interested in more of the artists portfolio the below link is their Artstation account.
