Coriolis Campaign III

The Third Horizon is a place of mystery and mysticism. The location of the thirty-six star systems that comprise the third wave of colonisation from Earth via a series of portals built and abandoned long ago by an alien species now known as the Portal Builders, it stands isolated once again following an interstellar war between the First Horizon and the Second Horizon that closed the Portals. The identity of the Portal Builders remains a mystery, as does the identity of the recently arrived faceless aliens known as the Emissaries who rose from the gas giant Xene. Compounding that is the fact that one of the Emissaries claims to be an Icon and ordinary men and women have been seen to use abilities said to be the province of the Icons themselves. Are they heretics, evolving, or the result of Emissary meddling? Then what secrets are hidden in the dark between the stars and the portals? This is the situation in the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction roleplaying game, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, originally published in Swedish by Free League Publishing, but since published in English. It is also the situation at the start of Mercy of the Icons, a campaign trilogy for Coriolis: The Third Horizon, that will explore them in detail and reveal some of the secrets to the setting.

By the end of the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, the first part of the campaign, the Player Characters discovered starting revelations in the wake of the disappearance of the Emissary. These were the identity of the organisation behind the death and disappearances of mystics from aboard the Coriolis station, the so called ‘The Mysticides’, and more information about who the Emissaries are and that they in danger after receiving a vision of the Second Horizon. It seems that despite the Third Horizon having been long isolated from both the First Horizon and the Second Horizon, the former is attempting to make long lost contact and manipulate events in its favour, whilst the latter is trying to prevent it. The action having shifted from Coriolis station to tracking across the world of Kua below, the first part of the campaign ends with the Player Characters wanting to get off planet knowing that some of the most important figures in the Third Horizon are in danger.

By the end of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade, the second part of the campaign, the Player Characters will have made a startling and almost alien discovery as to the nature of threat which has been operating in the dark between the stars and the portals, in a thoroughly unnerving dive on a submerged starship and returned to Coriolis Station to be feted as heroes. This brings them to the attention of numerous factions and notables, all ready to extend offers of employment as useful and capable agents in the turbulence following ‘The Mysticides’ and the reactions against the mystics. No matter which faction the Player Characters sided with, they find themselves investigating the activities of the Nazareem’s Sacrifice cult, originally a Firstcome faction, but long since reviled for its nihilistic and brutal practices, including alleged human sacrifice, performing dark rituals, and making unholy pacts with evil spirits and djinn. In the process the Player Characters make further horrifying discoveries about the origins of the Third Horizon. Meanwhile, the other factions continued to plan and plot and those plots and plans come to fruition against the backdrop of a hastily called election to the Council of Factions aboard Coriolis Station. As the results of the election are called, rioting breaks out, martial law is declared, and the Emissaries move in the open, attacking Coriolis Station, causing its shattered pieces to fall to the planet Kua below.

To continue playing the campaign, it is recommended that at least one Player Character be combat capable. In addition, a Player Character with the Data Djinn skill is definitely going to be useful and whilst a Mystic character is not mandatory, the presence of one will add an extra dimension to the campaign. The Player Characters do not necessarily need to have their own starship, but should have access to one. That said, they may able to recover their own spaceship, which they lost access to in Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, and carry one from there. One way in which the Player Characters can acquire a ship from the start of the campaign is in playing The Last Voyage of the Ghazali, a prequel scenario to the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost. It is worth running Last Voyage of the Ghazali before Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, but it should be noted that the connection between The Last Voyage of the Ghazali and Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is never really explored from the perspective of the Player Characters. However, it becomes much more important in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade and then Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons. As with Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost and Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade before it, the Atlas Compendium is likely to be useful in running the ongoing campaign.

The third and final part of the campaign, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons, is like the first two parts, divided in three acts. The first act begins not long after where Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade left off. As the Player Characters begin to recover from the shock of the destruction of Coriolis Station, they experience a number of visions—waking and otherwise—that draw them back to Kua, the planet above which Coriolis Station long hung in orbit before falling to the planet. There is only a little time for them to pursue their own interests and perhaps for the Game Master to run other adventures, before they have to answer the call in ‘A Song For Kua’. The Player Characters find the world much changed, both the old order with its indentured servitude and the spire from which it ruled, shattered and waters that were once held back now flooding what is left. Chased by weirdly jerking, but precise attackers who are accompanied by the sound of shrill piercing and a chorus of whispers, the Player Characters work their way out into the jungle surrounding the spire and then underground. There they make yet another startling discovery: miraculously, one of the icons has survived, the Machine Icon. She called out to the Player Characters and has an amazing offer to make. This is for them to join with her. The Player Characters do not have to do so, but doing so not only grants them access to some amazing mystical gifts, it gives them protection against the threat posed by the Second Horizon’s control of the Mystics in the Third Horizon.

After ‘A Song For Kua’, the Game Master has one last period when it is possible to run content that is not part of the campaign before the action ramps up in the penultimate chapter, ‘The Tenth Icon’. Against a backdrop of mystics mutinying and stealing warships and taking them to Xene, the gas giant where the Emissaries first appeared, the Player Characters are contacted by a patron informing them that their presence has been requested. The Sadaal system has been closed to outside traffic, but is known to control a large flotilla of warships that would be very useful in the fight against the threats that the Third Horizon faces. Previous negotiations with the Sadaalian leadership have failed, but now it is prepared to accept a new delegation on the proviso that the Player Characters are part of it. ‘The Tenth Icon’ is as straightforward as ‘A Song For Kua’, but the stakes are much higher. What begins as a potentially hopeful situation is undone when Sadaalian security turns on the delegation and arrests its members, including attempting to arrest the Player Characters. On Sadaal below, the Player Characters learn the true nature of the system’s leader, Aremerat the Eternal, and what a monster he truly is as they race to ascend Crying Ziggurat atop which the members of the imprisoned delegation are to be executed. The scenario climaxes atop the building, facing both security and Aremerat the Eternal, all in front of the city’s faithful below. This is a challenging encounter and it helps if the Player Characters joined to the Machine Icon in the previous chapter.

What ‘A Song For Kua’ and ‘The Tenth Icon’ are doing is really setting up ‘The Horizon Wars’, the final part of both Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons and the Mercy of the Icons campaign itself. They are both linear in nature and deviating away from their storylines weakens the Player Characters in the long run and makes a lot of extra work for the Game master. The campaign more or less notes this when discussing briefly, the possibility of the Player Characters siding with the forces arrayed against the Third Horizon. It is also those forces that the players and their characters are being warned about in ‘The Tenth Icon’. These include the Second Horizon’s manipulations by their Emissaries of Mystics of the Third Horizon to make them run to Xene that are undermining the Third Horizon’s capacity to defend itself and the more insidious efforts of the First Horizon, led by the Eternal Emperor. Of the two, the First Horizon is a bigger threat than the Second Horizon, but ultimately both want to conquer the Third Horizon. Armed with this knowledge, the Player Characters are set-up for the finale of the campaign.

Where ‘A Song For Kua’ and ‘The Tenth Icon’ were both linear and location focused, ‘The Horizon Wars’ takes an entirely different structure and opens the campaign to the whole of the Third Horizon—and just a little beyond. ‘The Horizon Wars’ consists of series of metagame ‘War Turns’, each divided into two phases. The first consists of a standard mission, whilst the second is a conflict action. In the metagame action, the players direct the naval forces of the Third Horizon against those of First Horizon and Second Horizon, ordering the movement of fleets and rolling for the outcome of battles, assigning damage and assigning reinforcements as necessary—and it really will be necessary! A map is provided of the Third Horizon and where the starting positions are for the various fleets on all sides plus stats and details for them. This can be run as theatre of the mind, but there is scope to turn it into a strategic wargame with pieces moved from system to system. To that end, the Game Master will want to prepare some pieces to represent fleets as well as a good map that the players can access. It helps that a lengthy example of 

At the start of ‘The Horizon Wars’, the Third Horizon finds itself on the backfoot with limited resources and capabilities, for example, constantly in danger of being overrun because of the possible influence that the Second Horizon has over the Mystics serving in the Third Horizon Fleets. Where ‘A Song For Kua’ and ‘The Tenth Icon’ were both linear and location focused, ‘The Horizon Wars’ takes an entirely different structure and opens the campaign to the whole of the Third Horizon—and just a little beyond. ‘The Horizon Wars’ consists of series of metagame ‘War Turns’, each divided into two phases. The first consists of a standard mission, whilst the second is a conflict action. In the metagame action, the players direct the naval forces of the Third Horizon against those of First Horizon and Second Horizon, ordering the movement of fleets and rolling for the outcome of battles, assigning damage and assigning reinforcements as necessary—and it really will be necessary! A map is provided of the Third Horizon and where the starting positions are for the various fleets on all sides plus stats and details for them. This can be run as theatre of the mind, but there is scope to turn it into a strategic wargame with pieces moved from system to system. To that end, the Game Master will want to prepare some pieces to represent fleets as well as a good map that the players can access.

At the start of ‘The Horizon Wars’, the Third Horizon finds itself on the backfoot with limited resources and capabilities, for example, constantly in danger of being overrun because of the possible influence that the Second Horizon has over the Mystics serving in the Third Horizon Fleets. The missions in ‘The Horizon Wars’ directly influence the outcome of the subsequent conflict phases in the metagame, but there are also several mini-missions that the Game Master can develop that can help influence the outcome of the main missions. Although it is stated that they are optional, their inclusion helps move the campaign along and it means that the players and their characters are always focusing on the metagame aspect of ‘The Horizon Wars’. The main missions in this chapter are shorter than in the previous chapters allowing for a wider and more interesting variety of tasks. ‘The Fifth System’ sends the Player Characters off in search of new allies that will test their negotiating and diplomatic skills as they find their way through a secret portal and into a hidden star system, whilst in ‘The Ghosts of Xene’, the Player Characters have to sneak and/or fight their way into getting an audience with the Emissaries to negotiate a way to end their directly interfering with Third Horizon’s militaries. The First Horizon finally makes its move in ‘The Legacy of the Founders’ as it triggers a Third Horizon-wide trap and launches strikes against key systems, and the Player Characters have to stop its forces gaining access to another fleet. In each multiple options are discussed in terms of possible outcomes and their consequences. Lastly, the Player Characters are given the means to strike hard at the forces of the First Horizon, so hard that it will change the Third Horizon forever. Again, there are multiple outcomes discussed, all in no little detail and all of which will change the Third Horizon to some extent, good or bad.

Lastly, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons includes details of numerous spaceships that can be used in the latter part of the campaign, and beyond. More useful for the former than the latter and sadly the ships are not illustrated.

Physically, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons is well presented. The artwork is excellent and the campaign is decently written, although it does need a slight edit in places.

 

Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons brings the Mercy of the Icons campaign to an epic conclusion. As much as it is an end to the Mercy of the Icons campaign, it may well be an end to the Game Master’s Coriolis: The Third Horizon campaign too, although there are notes on how a campaign might continue. The first two chapters of Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons are tight affairs, funnelling the story onto a grand stage in the third and final part where both players and characters have a big role to play. Players in the conflict phases, characters in the mission phases. This does add complexity to the campaign, one of mechanical complexity in addition to the campaign’s complexity in terms of setting and background. Especially political background. There is a lot for the Game Master to grasp in terms of that background and be able to impart that background to her players. As with the campaign as a whole, Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons warrants a high degree of commitment by both player and Game Master and in an exciting finale, it repays that commitment.

Coriolis Campaign II

The Third Horizon is a place of mystery and mysticism. The location of the thirty-six star systems that comprise the third wave of colonisation from Earth via a series of portals built and abandoned long ago by an alien species now known as the Portal Builders, it stands isolated once again following an interstellar war between the First Horizon and the Second Horizon that closed the Portals. The identity of the Portal Builders remains a mystery, as does the identity of the recently arrived faceless aliens known as the Emissaries who rose from the gas giant Xene. Compounding that is the fact that one of the Emissaries claims to be an Icon and ordinary men and women have been seen to use abilities said to be the province of the Icons themselves. Are they heretics, evolving, or the result of Emissary meddling? Then what secrets are hidden in the dark between the stars and the portals? This is the situation in the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction roleplaying game, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, originally published in Swedish by Free League Publishing, but since published in English. It is also the situation at the start of Mercy of the Icons, a campaign trilogy for Coriolis: The Third Horizon, that will explore them in detail and reveal some of the secrets to the setting.

By the end of the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, the first part of the campaign, the Player Characters discovered starting revelations in the wake of the disappearance of the Emissary. These were the identity of the organisation behind the death and disappearances of mystics from aboard the Coriolis station, the so called ‘The Mysticides’, and more information about who the Emissaries are and that they in danger after receiving a vision of the Second Horizon. It seems that despite the Third Horizon having been long isolated from both the First Horizon and the Second Horizon, the former is attempting to make long lost contact and manipulate events in its favour, whilst the latter is trying to prevent it. The action having shifted from Coriolis station to tracking across the world of Kua below, the first part of the campaign ends with the Player Characters wanting to get off planet knowing that some of the most important figures in the Third Horizon are in danger.

To continue playing the campaign, it is recommended that at least one Player Character be combat capable. In addition, a Player Character with the Data Djinn skill is definitely going to be useful and whilst a Mystic character is not mandatory, the presence of one will add an extra dimension to the campaign. The Player Characters do not necessarily need to have their own starship, but should have access to one. That said, they may able to recover their own spaceship, which they lost access to in Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, and carry one from there. One way in which the Player Characters can acquire a ship from the start of the campaign is in playing The Last Voyage of the Ghazali, a prequel scenario to the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost. It is worth running Last Voyage of the Ghazali before Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, but it should be noted that the connection between The Last Voyage of the Ghazali and Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is never really explored from the perspective of the Player Characters. However, it becomes much more important in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade and then Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons. As with Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost before it, the Atlas Compendium is likely to be useful in running the ongoing campaign

The second part of the campaign, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade, published following a Kickstarter campaign, is divided into three very different parts. The first part, ‘The Uharan Echo’, is really divided into two highly contrasting halves. It opens with the Player Characters having been hired to investigate the possible reappearance of the Zafirah, the destroyer lost during the rescue operation conducted during The Last Voyage of the Ghazali. This requires that they run a blockade from the long way round into Uharu system via the Taoan-Uharu portal, before the Player Characters literally dive on the wreck submerged in the chemical waters of a moon, perhaps prefiguring the tone of Coriolis: The Great Dark. This gives it a claustrophobic, unworldly feel that escalates as they reach the wreck where it lies on a cliff, ready to tip over and fall into the depths below, and begin to search the ship. Inside they make a startling discovery, a second wreck, that of one of the strange Butterfly Ships that the Player Characters encountered at the end of the first part of the campaign. The inside of the Butterfly Ship is nothing like the Player Characters will have seen before and is almost ‘alien’ in its creepiness. The scenario ends in a rush as the Butterfly Ship begins to collapse and force the wreck off the cliff, and then attacking the portal itself, which disrupts the whole of the Uharu system. The unexpected discovery of the Butterfly Ship is a fantastic payoff to the Player Characters’ encounter at the end of Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost.

The second half is a radical shift to the first, taking place back on the Coriolis station where the Player Characters find themselves the centre of attention, feted as heroes after the events in the Uharu system. After recovering in hospital, the Player Characters are approached by multiple factions wanting to employ them whilst also being the guests of honour at a grand banquet to celebrate the end of the year or Cyclade. They are dressed to the nines and effectively paraded through the scenario, but there are plenty of opportunities for the Player Characters to interact with the great and the good along the way, with plenty of opportunities to roleplay and with some good Manipulation rolls potentially learn what each faction wants. What each faction wants and knows is nicely detailed, as is the support they will provide the Player Characters, what they will do if the Player Characters do not enter their employ, and what they will do if the Player Characters betray them. There are also plenty of other scenes too that the Game Master can add to contrast and display the varied reactions to the Player Characters’ being treated as the heroes of the hour.

By the end of the banquet (or not long after), the Player Characters will themselves having taken up one faction or another as a patron. It is possible to maintain links with some of the other lesser factions, but in the main, they will be working for and supported by a single patron throughout the next part of the campaign. What the different factions want is explored in further detail as the campaign shifts again in tone and structure. ‘The Cyclade Dance’, the second part of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is more open in structure, being built around a mission generator and a series of events that the Game Master can weave the Player Characters’ progress around. The Player Characters will not be present for every event nor do they have to play through all of the suggested adventures. Some of the events will take place off screen and the Player Characters will only learn about them afterwards, but they do serve to keep them updated as to ongoing events across the Third Horizon. Sixteen missions are detailed to varying degrees with the final four being more detailed and necessary to continue the campaign. The missions focus on the investigation of the Nazareem’s Sacrifice cult, originally a Firstcome faction, but long since reviled for its nihilistic and brutal practices, including alleged human sacrifice, performing dark rituals, and making unholy pacts with evil spirits and djinn. The Nazareem’s Sacrifice has long been driven underground in the Third Horizon, operating in secret, but has become more active in recent years. For the majority of the factions in the Third Horizon it is seen as the primary threat. The types of missions begin with the Player Characters hunting lone agents and cultists to Tier I and infiltrating Nazareem’s Sacrifice cells, through Tier II and exploring ruins associated with the cult, to Tier III and actually conducting a strike mission against active cells. Throughout, the Player Characters will have been gathering information that will ultimately set up the Tier III mission. However, not every mission involves Nazareem’s Sacrifice directly and one of the creepier missions is ‘Curse of Rusah’ in which the Player Characters explore the Ash Belt in the desolate Odacon in search of a rumoured lost weapon. The encounter verges on cosmic horror and has a creepy, weird feel that echoes the earlier exploration of the Butterfly Ship. The last mission, ‘The Fire of the Icons’, is the assault upon a Nazareem’s Sacrifice temple and it holds some weird encounters of its own, that again verge on being horrifying.

The last part of Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is ‘In the Shadow of the Zenith’ returns the Player Characters to the Coriolis station, and Kua, it hangs over, for a more direct finale. Against a backdrop of a hastily called election to the Council of Factions in the face of continued political polarisation and growing distrust by the electorate, the Player Characters’ patron asks them to locate a defector who has valuable information. Coriolis station is packed with pilgrims and refugees and this only adds to the tension as the Player Characters locate and search safehouse after safehouse and then, as they locate the defector and learn the truth behind the election, its results are called, the previous administration is denounced, martial law is declared, and rioting breaks out in response. It is against this backdrop that the Player Characters race to get off the station and the Emissaries make an open move that brings Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade to a shattering conclusion.

Physically, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade is a good-looking book. The artwork is excellent, but the writing does need an edit in more than a few places, and it does feel as if the English translation of the campaign has been rushed. The campaign is light on handouts and there are very few physical clues. This is not an issue, but the campaign does feel as if a few more maps would have been useful, certainly ones suitable for use by the players and their characters.

The Mercy of the Icons campaign is a demanding campaign to play and run. There is a lot of information for the Game Master to take in and impart that to her players, and in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade that comes to the fore as politics plays a big role in the story and there is a lot going on in the background as the events of the foreground where the Player Characters play out. Even if the players have characters who do not have as much interest in the politics of the Third Horizon as others, for example, agents and journalists versus merchants and ship’s crew, they are still going to need the same background since they are going to be dealing with the same factions. And whilst the Nazareem’s Sacrifice are definitely evil, the other factions are definitely shaded in a lot of grey. Nevertheless, Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade very effectively pushes the plot on, gets the Player Characters’ involved, and reveals more of the secrets and the horrors of the Third Horizon.

Coriolis Campaign I

The Third Horizon is a place of mystery and mysticism. The location of the thirty-six star systems that comprise the third wave of colonisation from Earth via a series of portals built and abandoned long ago by an alien species now known as the Portal Builders, it stands isolated once again following an interstellar war between the First Horizon and the Second Horizon that closed the Portals. The identity of the Portal Builders remains a mystery, as does the identity of the recently arrived faceless aliens known as the Emissaries who rose from the gas giant Xene. Compounding that is the fact that one of the Emissaries claims to be an Icon and ordinary men and women have been seen to use abilities said to be the province of the Icons themselves. Are they heretics, evolving, or the result of Emissary meddling? Then what secrets are hidden in the dark between the stars and the portals? This is the situation in the Middle East-influenced Science Fiction roleplaying game, Coriolis: The Third Horizon, originally published in Swedish by Free League Publishing, but since published in English. It is also the situation at the start of Mercy of the Icons, a campaign trilogy for Coriolis: The Third Horizon, that will explore them in detail and reveal some of the secrets to the setting.

Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is the first part of the campaign, published following a Kickstarter campaign. No specific character types are required and the Player Characters do not necessarily need to have their own starship. That said, a Player Character with the Data Djinn skill is definitely going to be useful and whilst a Mystic character is not mandatory, the presence of one will add an extra dimension to the campaign. One way in which the Player Characters can acquire a ship is in playing Last Voyage of the Ghazali, a prequel scenario to the Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost. It is worth running Last Voyage of the Ghazali before Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost, but it should be noted that the connection between the Last Voyage of the Ghazali and Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is never really explored from the perspective of the Player Characters. Hopefully, it will become apparent in Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade and Mercy of the Icons – Part 3: Wake of the Icons. Another possible scenario to run prior to Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is ‘The Tailor from Mira’ from Coriolis Scenario Compendium 1 as they share some of the same antagonists. The Atlas Compendium may also be useful. One possible issue with Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is that it does involve the abduction and shipping of slaves, but this is integral to the plot and thus unavoidable.

Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is divided into two scenarios—‘The Wake of the Martyr’ and ‘The Kuan Connection’. Together they involve a central mystery and take the Player Characters from the Coriolis, the space station constructed from the colony ship Zenith which arrived following the second isolation of the Third Horizon, which forms its cultural, economic, and political heart, down to the jungles of the plant Kua below. Both scenarios are divided into three acts and follow the same format. This includes the background, an overview of the three acts, the factions and groups involved, advice for the Game Master, and a list of the important NPCs. This is followed by the three acts, each of which describes the situation, key facts, locations, and then developments. Where appropriate it also includes events and complications which can be added to play by the Game Master through the expenditure of Dark Points. In Coriolis: The Third Horizon these reflect the influence of the Dark Between the Stars and in some cases in the campaign, they have a zero cost because they are mandatory. However, the format does not always make the scenarios and their acts easy to prepare or assimilate. The overview and the actual details that follow do not always quite align as easily as they should. More care and attention upon the part of the Game Master should alleviate the preparation process and ensure that she is ready to deal with any issues. The scenes often end with a list of several facts and clues that the Player Characters need to be aware of as a result of playing through the scene. This is useful, but it often feels more like directions than advice, and in some places, it could have done with more advice on helping to ensure that the Player Characters get the clues.

‘The Wake of the Martyr’ opens with the Player Characters back on the Coriolis. As rumours fly round the station about the death and disappearances of mystics, something journalists have dubbed ‘The Mysticides’, the Player Characters are there to meet a friend of theirs who is also a mystic. They are quickly thrown into the action as a young woman approaches them, explains she is a friend of their friend, and asks for their help. Behind her are several well-armed guards. Ideally, the savvy Player Characters will realise that the guards are not who they purport to be and when the young lady they are attempting to apprehend reveals herself to also be a mystic, they can make the potential connection between these ‘guards’ and ‘The Mysticides’. As they begin to investigate there is a big announcement across the station—the Emissary itself has gone missing. This ends the first act.

In the second act, with the news and rumour flying around Coriolis, the Player Characters are invited to dine with a judge. She wants their help, either because of their involvement in investigating the attacks on mystics or because they were involved with the Ghazali and successful rescue of the refugees it required, with the investigation into the disappearance of the emissary, which means examining the crime scene. There are clues here that the Player Characters will learn anyway, so it seems superfluous to make the players roll for it. Another issue is that the actual scene of what happened is explained thoroughly for the benefit of the Game Master, but the players and their characters will never get to see it. Which is a pity because it is a fantastically cinematic scene. Clues from the investigation into their friend’s disappearance and now this abduction, now point to a sanatorium run by the Samaritan healer cult. How can they be connected?

The clues set up some entertaining and challenging and hazardous excursions through the maintenance tunnels and passageways, not once, but twice. The second time, they lead deep down into the bowels—or ‘Cellar’—of Coriolis and to the court of the Slummer Queen. One of the intended purposes of ‘The Wake of the Martyr’ is to showcase the highs and lows of the station, which it does, literally. First with the invitation to a very high-class restaurant with the judge, the home of the emissary, and elsewhere, then down into the supposedly unused and unoccupied slums of the Cellar, virtually at the bottom of the station. Here the high and low parallels continue with the Slummer Queen herself, being a fallen noble. With negotiation, the Player Characters can find their way down to where the antagonists are based. It brings the scenario to a close with a bloody fight and hopefully gives a chance for the Player Characters to learn just a bit more. The primary fact they will learn is that those abducted are being shipped down to the planet below.

‘The Kuan Connection’, the second scenario in Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost takes place on Kua, the world below the Coriolis station. It is a radical change of tone and atmosphere as the action and mystery shifts to the sweltering world below with its steamy jungles and fetid swamps. The result is a less constrained and more straightforward investigation, as the Player Characters are no longer hemmed in by the walls of the station and factional politics, instead dealing with local politics. By now, the Player Characters will have learned that someone is abducting Mystics and others on the station and then keeping them in stasis pods to drop onto the planet below via drop ships. Progress is achieved through following the chain of possession of the stasis pods, from one gang affiliated to the criminal Syndicate to the next, leading out of the jungle, into the major settlement around the Monolith, and back out, this time into the marshes. A Player Character with Factional Standing with the Syndicate will have some advantage here, whilst the Survival skill will be useful. There are some effective scenes and encounters along the way, including the horrific discovery of those trapped in a stasis pod amidst a fire and a set piece at a pre-wedding ceremony that the Player Characters are going to have to infiltrate before it goes very wrong. As they progress, the Player Characters should begin to feel that someone is cleaning up after whomever they are tracking—and that means them too!

In the last act of the scenario, the trail leads into the Sultra valley, the location of a city drowned and turned into a deep marsh after the cataract protecting it from the sea was destroyed. It gives it an eerie, strange atmosphere, made all the worse by the darkness of the waters and their corrupting influence. In one of the few standing buildings the Player Characters have a chance to confront those who have been abducting the mystics and others, and learn more about the Emissaries, and perhaps the wider threat to the Third Horizon.

In addition to the first part of the campaign, Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost also contains a mission generator for creating extra scenarios, especially ones involving the Emissaries, which is supported with details of various Emissary powers and base NPC stats. This is followed by several detailed scenario outlines. It is followed by ‘A Song for Jarouma’, a standalone affair designed to be run as a flashback between Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost and Mercy of the Icons – Part 2: The Last Cyclade. It is designed for five players and uses pre-generated characters, so it does represent a sudden switch from the events of Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost and the Player Characters’ involvement in them. However, there is a very good reason for this, playing out, as it does, the first encounter between humanity and the Emissaries over Xene.

Physically, Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is a good-looking book. The artwork is excellent, but the writing does need an edit in more than a few places, and it does feel as if the English translation of the campaign has been rushed. The campaign is light on handouts and there are very few physical clues. This is not an issue, but the campaign does feel as if a few more maps would have been useful, certainly ones suitable for use by the players and their characters.

Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost does begin to explore some of the secrets and mysteries to Coriolis: The Third Horizon and that is more than welcome. However, the structure of the campaign does not make the discovery of those secrets and the secrets within this first part of the campaign all that easy. The campaign is linear, yet progression is not always obvious because of the difficulty in obtaining some clues. Fundamentally, Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost requires careful study—perhaps more than most—by the Game Master to understand the plot, its antagonists, and other factions, and be able to impart them to her players and their characters. Thus, Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lost is best run by an experienced Game Master and also played by more experienced players, including having played Coriolis: The Third Horizon before. That will give them the background to the campaign as well as their characters.

Mercy of the Icons – Part 1: Emissary Lostis a solid start to the campaign for Coriolis: The Third Horizon. It will need effort on the part of the Game Master to really flow, but once it does, it will bring the players and their characters closer to some of the secrets and the threats endangering Coriolis: The Third Horizon.