Wyvern Squadron
"Wyvern Squadron" is a Robotech campaign, run in 1994-1995 with the Austin-area RPG group.
The campaign follows the adventures of the player characters on the Earth's moon, then later on Mars, working to reinforce Earth's shattered defenses following the wars with the Zentraedi. The campaign story is plot-based, and the characters reflect the spirit of change where enemies are now allies, and the threat of the Robotech Masters and the Invid is paramount to everyone.
The player group was small since the campaign did not have other regulars who had moved out of the Austin-Lakeway area due to graduation or job opportunities. The list of players includes Carl, Eric, John, Keri, and Lisa. The position of Games Master is performed by Joel. Game sessions are played at Concordia University. The first episode was played on October 6, 1994, and continued during a weekly basis until January 26, 1995, with the game sessions happening on Thursday evenings. The campaign entailed a 10-episode story arc, which ended as a looming graduation busied us all.
Campaign Setting
After the Zentraedi assault on the planet Earth, the long, arduous task of rebuilding lives and civilization began. Much of the world was totally and completely decimated. In the North American Sector, Alaska and the western states were obliterated. With the exceptions of Iceland, Scotland, Ireland and parts of Germany, Poland, Scandinavia and Russia, the European Sector was wiped out. Even today, several years later, the once proud nations of England, France, Italy, Turkey and the entire Mediterranean, Middle East and Northern Africa, are little more than barren wastelands and deserts. Most of China and the rest of Asia shares a similar fate. Only the occasional, shattered wall of a building, or half buried basement stand as mute testaments of the civilization which once thrived. Only Japan, Indonesia, Australia, and parts of Canada were spared the annihilation which plunged the rest of the world into a second dark age. Although war torn, they would be among the first to recover and rebuild. However, it is a very different world than the one previously known.
However, Earth's first line of defense has been outer space. It was interplanetary military bases which first alerted humans to the presence of the Zentraedi fleet, which gave time for the crew of the SDF-1 to marshal lure the enemy away using the space-fold technology aboard. Now, Earth must look to the star again to piece together a solution to protect itself from the Robotech Masters. While the Earth prepared to send Rick Hunter and the SDF-3 to Tirol, the remnant of the RDF looks to re-establish their first line of defense on the planet of Mars.
The campaign follows a storyline after the destruction of the SDF-1, and before the SDF-3 journeys into deep space to confront the Robotech Masters. In order to have a campaign that ensures a story that is independent of any official canon, the player characters will do most of their adventuring on Mars, after the atmosphere has been radically altered by a comet fall. Since there are limited opportunities for the characters to interact with their environment, the story concept is plot-based forcing the characters to deal with conflicts involving the military, rogue Zentraedi, and the aspects of isolation.
Player Characters
The main function of this campaign is a plot-driven story line with character just trying to survive the Invid-occupied Earth. No matter what forces arrive later, the Invid will always outnumber the humans after their invasion has wiped out most of humanity. At the outset of the campaign, each player will start with one character. All players will roll randomly for stats and skill benefits but can choose their own background. Humans are the only race allowed, to mitigate the issue with clones and hybrids.
Important NPCs
As the campaign is based along the Texas Gulf Coast and other areas, the players have ample opportunity to meet and establish a variety of NPC contacts, allies, and enemies. Each NPC had a different significance to the campaign. Minor NPCs tended to add enrichment to the main plot points, while major NPCs offered a perspective which either complements the players or adds an adversarial aspect to the campaign.
At the outset of the campaign, any 2nd Reclamation Fleet PCs are part of various emergency crash landings back on Earth as the Invid for overwhelms the REF forces as they attack en masse when the REF armada arrives in Earth's orbit. Any non-REF characters happen to be trying to survive in where most of the space-faring PCs will land.
Episode Guide
Each weekend, the players assembled to play what has been designated as an episode. Each week, a recap of the most recent episode’s happenings was posted to allow those who have been missing for many or few episodes to get a feel for what they have missed. Any postings on this website have the same information given out each week via write-ups, although much of the personal commentary was left out.
Places of Note
The fourth planet from the Sun, Mars is a dusty, cold, desert world with a very thin atmosphere. This red planet has seasons, polar ice caps and weather and canyons and extinct volcanoes, evidence it was once an even more active past. Mars is one of the most explored bodies in the solar system, and it's the only planet where established a permanent base before the arrival of the Zentraedi. With the Earth decimated and the REF soon to travel to Tirol, the RDF looks to restore their military occupancy with building Mars Base Two (AKA Mars Base Iona), to further protect the Earth from interstellar threats.
Rules and Redundancy
The main goal of the campaign is to have fun. Unfortunately, there are times when rules can come into conflict when players are attempting to achieve their goals. House Rules allow for situations like these to be mitigated when there is insufficient information to deal with specific encounters. The Redundancy aspect reflects on additional content which adds depth and complexity to the campaign and clears up any gray areas.
Weapons Locker
Core rule books contain a plethora of melee and ranged weapons for the players to choose from. However, there are times when the characters encounter weapons and items of power that go beyond the scope of what is readily available for purchase. Herein lies an inventory of non-standard items encountered throughout the campaign, from the mundane to the spectacular.
Wyvern Squadron by Bryan Valenza, Important NPCs by Bryan Valenza, Places of Note by Pat Rawlings
All artwork on this page falls under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.