I was thinking of a scenario for traveller that involved the idea of a creature or entity from jump space, which would be totally alien to this universe. I was thinking more of making it a horror scenario, with the players never encountering the creature in any way, because doing so meant instant death, but rather trying to avoid it.

One idea I had was to have the player's ship attacked as it was getting ready to jump, and a hole being blown in the hull just before it goes into jump. So the ship goes into jump with an open hole in, say, a cargo hold or empty fueltank that was drained to go into jump.

After a while in the week long jump, the players begin hearing scratching sounds on the wall, coming from the area open to jumpspace. The scrathings increase in force and speed whenever anyone makes any kind of noise, as if whatever's scratching at the wall is wanting to get thru to the other side every time it detects activity there.

OK, nervous PC time now....

So when the material starts to bow outward, as if it's been scratched away enough that it's thinning severely, we now have near terrified characters.

I was thinking of having it scratch thru, allowing jumpspace into another compartment, then the cycle repeating itself. The players have to find some way to stop or divert the scratcher until the jump is completed and they exit jumpspace.

The idea of an enemy so alien the players can't even exist in the same space with it sounds too scary to pass up, but very hard to pull off. Anyone, preferably with a spine, have any ideas on this?

Well if you've got a psionic pc, you could also have them have bad dreams, however rather than having this be the Jump critter, I'd have it be an NPC passenger with a high untrained psi rating watching old horror movies and accidentally projecting their nightmares.  This would be a really fun way to feed them false information.

I'd also have the jump go overtime.  That's right as the wall softens, the jump gets longer.  The creature is slowly dragging them further into jumpspace.

I'd probably not have it come in through a physical hole though.  I'd make it a malfunction in the ship's jump grid that leaves a hole in the grid.  Just tell them there's an indicator of a jumpgrid malfunction when they go in.  Then a little later note that the hull integrity sensors are reading some surface damage.  Then they hear the scaping and the hull integrity sensors stop being able to find that section.  The critter is clawing through the outer hull.

As for the nature of the critter I'd imagine it as a hydra of the real biology type not the mythological type.  It's a very simple organism that's trying to digest the ship's power output and drag it's prey to a safer place, rather than actually hunting PCs.  They're just collateral damage.

The ways they could fight it off would include a selective power shut down to make it lose interest, a deliberate catastrophic jump precipitation, setting up power surges and drops to annoy it, or even building a jumpfield containment compartment in the hold and trying to trap it for study.  But if it ever does manage to break through into the power plant, the ship will be cast off and drop back into normal space when it's had it's fill, much like the deliberate misjump but with a badly disabled ship.

Quote from: David JohansenWell if you've got a psionic pc, you could also have them have bad dreams, however rather than having this be the Jump critter, I'd have it be an NPC passenger with a high untrained psi rating watching old horror movies and accidentally projecting their nightmares.  This would be a really fun way to feed them false information.

I'd also have the jump go overtime.  That's right as the wall softens, the jump gets longer.  The creature is slowly dragging them further into jumpspace.

I'd probably not have it come in through a physical hole though.  I'd make it a malfunction in the ship's jump grid that leaves a hole in the grid.  Just tell them there's an indicator of a jumpgrid malfunction when they go in.  Then a little later note that the hull integrity sensors are reading some surface damage.  Then they hear the scaping and the hull integrity sensors stop being able to find that section.  The critter is clawing through the outer hull.

As for the nature of the critter I'd imagine it as a hydra of the real biology type not the mythological type.  It's a very simple organism that's trying to digest the ship's power output and drag it's prey to a safer place, rather than actually hunting PCs.  They're just collateral damage.

The ways they could fight it off would include a selective power shut down to make it lose interest, a deliberate catastrophic jump precipitation, setting up power surges and drops to annoy it, or even building a jumpfield containment compartment in the hold and trying to trap it for study.  But if it ever does manage to break through into the power plant, the ship will be cast off and drop back into normal space when it's had it's fill, much like the deliberate misjump but with a badly disabled ship.

OK, I understand that in some editions of the big T jumps could take up to 6 weeks, but I'm basing my data on GT (Love the game, hate the company) that says all jumps take 1 week regardless and can't be pulled out early.

As to what the creature looks like, I'd probably just say "You see the creature."

Then I'd tell the rest of the party "You hear a scream of primal terror."

What David suggests paralells something that I started in my campaign close to a year ago.

 My players do something a little unusual on some of their jumps. It involves and Ancients artifacts that has been fashioned into necklaces that the crewmembers wear.  The players don't know the "ancients" angle part of it ...they just know these things seem to increase or augment whatever psionic abilities they have .

 Recently it also seems to have awakened an alien race that they can find no records of .  What scant infdormation the player characters have found indicates that the Imperium Navy has encountered these strange aliens and their ships - but they keep covering it up from the public for some reason....and they are spooked big time by these unidentifed group of aliens.

Can't see the original post - hope this was on topic.

- Ed C.

Jeezus, it takes a real MORON to reply to a topic without even fucking reading it....

Quote from: David JohansenWell if you've got a psionic pc, you could also have them have bad dreams, however rather than having this be the Jump critter, I'd have it be an NPC passenger with a high untrained psi rating watching old horror movies and accidentally projecting their nightmares.  This would be a really fun way to feed them false information.

I'd also have the jump go overtime.  That's right as the wall softens, the jump gets longer.  The creature is slowly dragging them further into jumpspace.

I'd probably not have it come in through a physical hole though.  I'd make it a malfunction in the ship's jump grid that leaves a hole in the grid.  Just tell them there's an indicator of a jumpgrid malfunction when they go in.  Then a little later note that the hull integrity sensors are reading some surface damage.  Then they hear the scaping and the hull integrity sensors stop being able to find that section.  The critter is clawing through the outer hull.

As for the nature of the critter I'd imagine it as a hydra of the real biology type not the mythological type.  It's a very simple organism that's trying to digest the ship's power output and drag it's prey to a safer place, rather than actually hunting PCs.  They're just collateral damage.

The ways they could fight it off would include a selective power shut down to make it lose interest, a deliberate catastrophic jump precipitation, setting up power surges and drops to annoy it, or even building a jumpfield containment compartment in the hold and trying to trap it for study.  But if it ever does manage to break through into the power plant, the ship will be cast off and drop back into normal space when it's had it's fill, much like the deliberate misjump but with a badly disabled ship.

Oh, part of this idea is based on a cheesy but scary horror movie from the early 70's, something like "Horror at 30,000 feet" about some evil entities in a ceremonial stone that got loaded on a place.

it starred william shatner and had buddy ebson playing a bad guy. I liked it except for a dog getting killed.

You could have part of the problem come from "Experimental Jump Drives" or even dubious replacement parts. Hold them there for as long or as short as you'd like.

Make the PCs run around keeping the thing from breaching the ship in vital places while trying to fix the drives.(If they fix the drives early, it could be only half the problem.)

I'd go for vague descriptions of what the thing looks like, it should be 'more' there in one place and at the 'wrong angle' in another. Nothing scares people like the unknown.

In Glen Cooks 'The Dragon Never Sleeps' the way to travel was the 'web'. An ancient galaxy (maybe universe) crossing construct that they could hoist onto and get into jump space and go faster than light. The thing was there were 'Ghost' ships that couldn't get off... and there was 'SOMETHING' that hunted the lines of the web. Everyone knew it was there, even though no one ever survived an encounter with it...

Quote from: Dominus NoxOh, part of this idea is based on a cheesy but scary horror movie from the early 70's, something like "Horror at 30,000 feet" about some evil entities in a ceremonial stone that got loaded on a place.

it starred william shatner and had buddy ebson playing a bad guy. I liked it except for a dog getting killed.

I liked the Simpson's version with the gremlin tearing apart the school bus and only Bart being able to see it.

You know?  Suppose only the PC with psionics or if everyone has them, only the PC with special psionic powers could hear the scratching.  Nothing like isolation and a question of jump madness.

Just throw in a library data bit about psionic individuals occasionally suffering psychosis and you're good to go.

Also, normal jumps take between 5 and 8 days, but misjumps can take all sorts of odd lengths.  Also, it's not really nothing can disrupt a jump as much as its disrupting a jump is as safe as drinking nitroglycerine and slam dancing.  Even if it doesn't tear the ship to pieces, if you come out of jump between systems the time involved in getting back will probably be longer than the fuel for the power plant can get you.

Quote from: David JohansenI'd probably not have it come in through a physical hole though.  I'd make it a malfunction in the ship's jump grid that leaves a hole in the grid.  Just tell them there's an indicator of a jumpgrid malfunction when they go in.  Then a little later note that the hull integrity sensors are reading some surface damage.  Then they hear the scaping and the hull integrity sensors stop being able to find that section.  The critter is clawing through the outer hull.

I'd agree with this bit, it better uses the fact that it is a jumpspace entity and not a physical thing of the type we are used to.

Though if you wanted an image for it I'd describe it as a collection of mottled blue tendrils of mist wreathed in saint elmo's fire and shards of razor sharp hull metal.

I did a "things go wrong in Jumpspace" game once involving a misjump that tore a big chunk off the ship too. One of the PCs spent some time sitting in the section that was open to space, then came back in and started killing the crew, one by one, always when alone with them and always in ways that seemed to implicate someone else. It was - wierd - how my player went totally along with it. I didn't have to take his character over and NPC it, he got into the idea himself and off we went! It was interesting, because it was TOTALLY unplanned, and ended up being a one-shot without intending to be. Ended up with a gunfight on the bridge. You might consider that as an alternative to, or in addition to, the monsters angle, or maybe even have it be an alternative explaination.

Quote from: Dominus NoxOh, part of this idea is based on a cheesy but scary horror movie from the early 70's, something like "Horror at 30,000 feet" about some evil entities in a ceremonial stone that got loaded on a place.

it starred william shatner and had buddy ebson playing a bad guy. I liked it except for a dog getting killed.

"The Horror at 37,000 Feet" (not the classic Twilight Zone episode!)

link:http://imdb.com/title/tt0068715/plotsummary

I saw it as a kid.

Quote from: Leo Knight"The Horror at 37,000 Feet" (not the classic Twilight Zone episode!)

link:http://imdb.com/title/tt0068715/plotsummary

I saw it as a kid.

Thanks, it's only been like decades since I saw that movie, but it scared te hell out of me as a kid.

Maybe you could try something along the lines of Event Horizon where the entity posses crew members to do its nasty work, then leaves an empty floating hulk full of dead bodies in or near the Jump lanes.